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<blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011675" data-attributes="member: 18387"><p>R. E. Howard is the author who first comes to mind when one thinks of serpents. Most famous for Conan, in his stories of Kull and Valusia, the serpent men were the central antagonists. Given that treatment, it is unsurprising that Conan the Barbarian is the best related work in films, particularly with Snake-cults.</p><p></p><p>In the Forgotten Realms, these reptilian races were prominently featured in a series of Dungeon magazine adventures, the Mere of Dead Men series. For 3E D&D specifically, I probably don't need to mention the extensive treatment in the series of d20 Freeport modules and supplements. Thus the diversity and depth of the treatment of scaled ones has been quite thorough, and provides plenty of resources to the DM who would build a campaign around the scaled ones.</p><p></p><p>Now we can add Serpent Kingdoms to that list, a 192 page hardcover, the latest release for the Forgotten Realms setting. The Yuan-ti have been one of my favorite monstrous races for a long time (thanks to Howard). So after FR Underdark and FR Unapproachable East, which I consider two of the best supplements for 3E D&D, I had high hopes for this supplement. </p><p></p><p>Simply stated, there is both a lot of good and a lot of bad here. Overall, the book has a bias toward fluff, rather than crunch.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The book begins well enough by addressing and indexing all serpentkind, scaled ones, and lizard kind within the D&D system in the Introduction. This compilation of resources is obviously useful for anyone interested in running a campaign focused on the serpentkind. There is also a short overview of the campaign/setting considerations for using these races as primary antagonists.</p><p></p><p>From here, the supplement breaks into five major sections.</p><p></p><p>This first section (chapters one through five) consists of extended discussions of the scaled races (Yuan-ti, Nagas, Lizards, "Hidden Folk", and Sarrukh). This consumes 50+ pages, roughly 1/3 of the book. A small but significant portion consists of stat-blocks and NPC descriptions for sample "Ready-to-Use Villains and Allies". </p><p>Unsurprisingly, the best chapter was the Yuan-ti. This monster race is the strongest, and has the greatest depth of detail of the races covered here. Included is an extensive description of the several great tribes of Yuan-ti, and how they function as individual power-blocs. </p><p>Also introduced here is the Sarrukh, a sort of progmnitor race of serpent men. The Sarrukh are discussed in greater detail later. Nagas, Ophidians, Firenewts, Pterafolk, Lizardmen, etc are also covered, focusing on racial history, society, magic, dieties, and characters of that race. These descriptions tend to be less extensive than that for Yuan-ti. Following the Yuan-ti, Nagas and Sarrukh recieve the most extensive treatment. The other races end up feeling a bit like henchmen for the three prime races, except maybe the Khaasta.</p><p></p><p>The next major section (Chapter 6) is a monster chapter, 30 pages long. This chapter did not impress me at all. It includes some reprinted monsters (Banelar Naga, Bone Naga), and several stupid monsters. I suppose the rationale for the reprints could be updating to 3.5, but that strikes me as a little weak. An example of a poor monster is the Nifern. Its basically a dog with scales instead of fur, and a stinger. </p><p>Then there are the "monsters" that are basically statted Prestige-classed Yuan-ti. And three dinosaurs are included, I suppose as a "representative" sample. </p><p>On a better note, the Jaculi and Lizard King make a nostalgic return from the original Fiend Folio, the Lizard King is now presented as a fiendish race. My favorite monsters out of this section were actually the variety of weird snakes, and the new Nagas. Though there is some good stuff here, a lot of this section was a waste.</p><p></p><p>Chapter seven deals with applying this stuff to the Forgotten Realms, and at 44 pages, is the single longest chapter of the book. This section is essentially a gazetteer of the Serpent Kingdoms of Faerun. Each is distinct, each having a different power structure, monster profile/make-up, history, and relations with neighbors. Some of these are actually conspiracy-kingdoms while in others, Scaled Ones rule openly.</p><p> This section is pretty similar to the gazetteer section of the FR Underdark handbook, so if you have that, you can check it for a good idea of what this portion of the manual is like. The most significant difference is the lack of an accompanying overview map focused on the specific regions detailed here.</p><p></p><p>Chapter eight is a short chapter, dealing with running a Yuan-ti-character-centered campaign, in the now-familiar monsters-as-characters theme. It also includes more detailed notes on using Yuan-ti antagonists in your campaign.</p><p></p><p>Chapters nine through twelve are what we have come to expect in every such book: the crunch. Feats, Equipment, Spells, and Prestige classes; 24 pages worth.</p><p></p><p>The feats are predictable: "You can do this with your tail", "You can do this with your poison", "You can do this with your extra limb", etc. </p><p></p><p>The Equipment chapter was one I really liked. The tentacle-rods-for-serpents from the magic items portion were underwhelming. So were the Yuan-ti grafts. Yes, that should sound familiar if you have the 3E Fiend Folio. Its nearly a word-for-word reprint, the main new addition seems to be a Caster Level requirement.</p><p>What makes this chapter so good are the Osssra oils (yesss, thatsss three esssesss). The oils can be burned, or applied as oils. Further, they have beneficial effects for the serpent-kind, and baneful ones for others. The most extreme example is Ulthalasss oil, which is soaked into the reptilian hide, for one bonus, ignited, providing an additional bonus while dealing damage as flaming oil, creating smoke, allowing comrades to receive the primary bonus, while dealing strength damage to all non-reptilians in an area. </p><p>Now that's bang for your buck! or gold piece, I guess.</p><p></p><p>The Spells chapter is four pages long, and a sparse 4 pages at that. While spells fit the theme, for the most part they are uninspiring and unremarkable.</p><p></p><p>Prestige classes are almost entirely for Yuan-Ti, there are two exceptions, Serpent Slayer and Naga Overlord. Excepting a Yuan-ti campaign, this doesn't really fall into the area of "useful crunch", at least for players. The Ancient Master is actually one of the better monster prestige classes I have seen, being a sort of Yuan-ti overlord class, being as much an expansion of monster levels as an addition of class levels. </p><p></p><p>Almost one tenth of this manual (18 pages) consists of four adventures. I don't generally think putting adventures into sourcebooks is a good idea, for several reasons. But then, since WotC doesn't really publish adventures anymore, I guess this gets into the realm of taking what you get. The adventures are generally site-based, and place the antagonists in different roles (i.e. covert versus overt). They also convey a representative sample of the internal conflicts between some of the scaled ones described in the Races section of the manual.</p><p></p><p>The manual ends in a short appendix with a timeline for the reptilian history of the FR, and tables for serpent deities and serpent character races.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My main problem with this book is the Sarrukh. I really don't care for them as a game-world concept and background element. There are several reasons for this. The first is what this does to the Yuan-ti. The Yuan-ti are essentially one of their slave races along with all the other reptilian races. This characterization does much to diminish (at least in my mind) the mystery and horror the Yuan-ti present. This does "make sense" in that the Sarrukh possess the innate ability to shape the flesh of the lesser serpent races, but that doesn't mean the overall concept is a good one. It basically reduces the poly-anatomical Yuan-ti to "They are that way because the Sarrukh can do that to them at will". Oh my, how exciting.</p><p></p><p>Another reason I don't like the Sarrukh is the way they fit a certain tiresome pattern when it comes to describing intelligent quasi-humanoid monsters. It was impressed most memorably upon me with the Sahuagin in the Sea Devils supplement. While I liked the treatment of the Sahuagin in general, it featured the theme of "they are superior to humans in every respect", but they just don't care about humans enough to make something of it. This was supposed to make them scary. The theme is nearly identically repeated with the Sarrukh, except this time its superior (and therefore scary) serpent-men, instead of fish-men.</p><p></p><p>I spite of this, the Sarrakh are interesting at points. They have schizmed into heretics and faithful, and there is a secret war between them, each group fighting to exalt or cast down a deity. So there is some useful stuff here. Personally, I'd just have to re-work it before I could like it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My other major problem with this manual is that it contains significant portions of what I'd call "ancillary material". </p><p></p><p>For example, while the ruleset/structure of 3E makes creating stat-blocks a headache, did we really need a dozen more? (This does not include the monsters chapter and adventures chapter). The abundance of statted scaled ones gives the book a scaled-ones' Rogues Gallery feel.</p><p></p><p>I've already mentioned the monsters chapter. I can understand the desire to reprint the serpent specific material here so that it is compiled for easy reference, but you can only see so much of that before you start getting a certain bad feeling.</p><p></p><p>I am reluctant to call this "padding", since padding is usually a euphemism for useless crap. Nonetheless, it is difficult to escape the feeling that this manual could have been more tightly structured into 128 or 144 pages. That said, the some of the additional material really could ease running such a campaign.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>All art is full color, and most pieces are quite nice. Page 17 shows one of the better instances of serpentine architecture, that of a Yuan-ti house interior. The best portrait type is of the Yuan-ti Mageslayer on page 91 and the Master of Vipers on page 164. Many of the monster depictions are excellent as well. There are also two impressive full-page illustrations.</p><p></p><p>One piece that seemed rather oddly out-of-place was a picture of a city on page 107. It struck me as more of city from sci-fi rather than historical fantasy.</p><p></p><p>Overall, the art does a good job of portraying alien serpentine architecture, when it does so, and creating the feeling of the alien world of the scaled ones.</p><p></p><p>An online gallery of the interior art can be found here:</p><p></p><p>http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20040709a</p><p></p><p>Interestingly, it looks like Saurials were dropped from the book after the art was commissioned.</p><p></p><p>On the downside of presentation, we once again have a campaign resource with no index. Guess space really was at a premium here. I just don't personally like the how the space judgements were made.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Clearly, if you didn't like the Yuan-ti as they were, and you like having a "Grand Unified Theory" for all reptilian races, then you will like this book, and have more use for it than I did. For myself, portions of it will be of little value.</p><p></p><p>Thats a long way from saying it has no value though, especially when properly adapted. The Yuan-ti have always been one of my favorite monster races. Their bizarreness, their cultic trappings, and the mystery behind them have always seemed quite ripe for exploitation by a devious DM. The book as a whole does do a good job of covering the feeling of conspiracies and hidden machinations that so characterized them in Howard's stories, if thats what you want. But overall, Serpent Kingdoms gives the reader plenty of additional game tools and background information for any campaign involing the Scaled Ones.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Messageboard Golem, post: 2011675, member: 18387"] R. E. Howard is the author who first comes to mind when one thinks of serpents. Most famous for Conan, in his stories of Kull and Valusia, the serpent men were the central antagonists. Given that treatment, it is unsurprising that Conan the Barbarian is the best related work in films, particularly with Snake-cults. In the Forgotten Realms, these reptilian races were prominently featured in a series of Dungeon magazine adventures, the Mere of Dead Men series. For 3E D&D specifically, I probably don't need to mention the extensive treatment in the series of d20 Freeport modules and supplements. Thus the diversity and depth of the treatment of scaled ones has been quite thorough, and provides plenty of resources to the DM who would build a campaign around the scaled ones. Now we can add Serpent Kingdoms to that list, a 192 page hardcover, the latest release for the Forgotten Realms setting. The Yuan-ti have been one of my favorite monstrous races for a long time (thanks to Howard). So after FR Underdark and FR Unapproachable East, which I consider two of the best supplements for 3E D&D, I had high hopes for this supplement. Simply stated, there is both a lot of good and a lot of bad here. Overall, the book has a bias toward fluff, rather than crunch. The book begins well enough by addressing and indexing all serpentkind, scaled ones, and lizard kind within the D&D system in the Introduction. This compilation of resources is obviously useful for anyone interested in running a campaign focused on the serpentkind. There is also a short overview of the campaign/setting considerations for using these races as primary antagonists. From here, the supplement breaks into five major sections. This first section (chapters one through five) consists of extended discussions of the scaled races (Yuan-ti, Nagas, Lizards, "Hidden Folk", and Sarrukh). This consumes 50+ pages, roughly 1/3 of the book. A small but significant portion consists of stat-blocks and NPC descriptions for sample "Ready-to-Use Villains and Allies". Unsurprisingly, the best chapter was the Yuan-ti. This monster race is the strongest, and has the greatest depth of detail of the races covered here. Included is an extensive description of the several great tribes of Yuan-ti, and how they function as individual power-blocs. Also introduced here is the Sarrukh, a sort of progmnitor race of serpent men. The Sarrukh are discussed in greater detail later. Nagas, Ophidians, Firenewts, Pterafolk, Lizardmen, etc are also covered, focusing on racial history, society, magic, dieties, and characters of that race. These descriptions tend to be less extensive than that for Yuan-ti. Following the Yuan-ti, Nagas and Sarrukh recieve the most extensive treatment. The other races end up feeling a bit like henchmen for the three prime races, except maybe the Khaasta. The next major section (Chapter 6) is a monster chapter, 30 pages long. This chapter did not impress me at all. It includes some reprinted monsters (Banelar Naga, Bone Naga), and several stupid monsters. I suppose the rationale for the reprints could be updating to 3.5, but that strikes me as a little weak. An example of a poor monster is the Nifern. Its basically a dog with scales instead of fur, and a stinger. Then there are the "monsters" that are basically statted Prestige-classed Yuan-ti. And three dinosaurs are included, I suppose as a "representative" sample. On a better note, the Jaculi and Lizard King make a nostalgic return from the original Fiend Folio, the Lizard King is now presented as a fiendish race. My favorite monsters out of this section were actually the variety of weird snakes, and the new Nagas. Though there is some good stuff here, a lot of this section was a waste. Chapter seven deals with applying this stuff to the Forgotten Realms, and at 44 pages, is the single longest chapter of the book. This section is essentially a gazetteer of the Serpent Kingdoms of Faerun. Each is distinct, each having a different power structure, monster profile/make-up, history, and relations with neighbors. Some of these are actually conspiracy-kingdoms while in others, Scaled Ones rule openly. This section is pretty similar to the gazetteer section of the FR Underdark handbook, so if you have that, you can check it for a good idea of what this portion of the manual is like. The most significant difference is the lack of an accompanying overview map focused on the specific regions detailed here. Chapter eight is a short chapter, dealing with running a Yuan-ti-character-centered campaign, in the now-familiar monsters-as-characters theme. It also includes more detailed notes on using Yuan-ti antagonists in your campaign. Chapters nine through twelve are what we have come to expect in every such book: the crunch. Feats, Equipment, Spells, and Prestige classes; 24 pages worth. The feats are predictable: "You can do this with your tail", "You can do this with your poison", "You can do this with your extra limb", etc. The Equipment chapter was one I really liked. The tentacle-rods-for-serpents from the magic items portion were underwhelming. So were the Yuan-ti grafts. Yes, that should sound familiar if you have the 3E Fiend Folio. Its nearly a word-for-word reprint, the main new addition seems to be a Caster Level requirement. What makes this chapter so good are the Osssra oils (yesss, thatsss three esssesss). The oils can be burned, or applied as oils. Further, they have beneficial effects for the serpent-kind, and baneful ones for others. The most extreme example is Ulthalasss oil, which is soaked into the reptilian hide, for one bonus, ignited, providing an additional bonus while dealing damage as flaming oil, creating smoke, allowing comrades to receive the primary bonus, while dealing strength damage to all non-reptilians in an area. Now that's bang for your buck! or gold piece, I guess. The Spells chapter is four pages long, and a sparse 4 pages at that. While spells fit the theme, for the most part they are uninspiring and unremarkable. Prestige classes are almost entirely for Yuan-Ti, there are two exceptions, Serpent Slayer and Naga Overlord. Excepting a Yuan-ti campaign, this doesn't really fall into the area of "useful crunch", at least for players. The Ancient Master is actually one of the better monster prestige classes I have seen, being a sort of Yuan-ti overlord class, being as much an expansion of monster levels as an addition of class levels. Almost one tenth of this manual (18 pages) consists of four adventures. I don't generally think putting adventures into sourcebooks is a good idea, for several reasons. But then, since WotC doesn't really publish adventures anymore, I guess this gets into the realm of taking what you get. The adventures are generally site-based, and place the antagonists in different roles (i.e. covert versus overt). They also convey a representative sample of the internal conflicts between some of the scaled ones described in the Races section of the manual. The manual ends in a short appendix with a timeline for the reptilian history of the FR, and tables for serpent deities and serpent character races. My main problem with this book is the Sarrukh. I really don't care for them as a game-world concept and background element. There are several reasons for this. The first is what this does to the Yuan-ti. The Yuan-ti are essentially one of their slave races along with all the other reptilian races. This characterization does much to diminish (at least in my mind) the mystery and horror the Yuan-ti present. This does "make sense" in that the Sarrukh possess the innate ability to shape the flesh of the lesser serpent races, but that doesn't mean the overall concept is a good one. It basically reduces the poly-anatomical Yuan-ti to "They are that way because the Sarrukh can do that to them at will". Oh my, how exciting. Another reason I don't like the Sarrukh is the way they fit a certain tiresome pattern when it comes to describing intelligent quasi-humanoid monsters. It was impressed most memorably upon me with the Sahuagin in the Sea Devils supplement. While I liked the treatment of the Sahuagin in general, it featured the theme of "they are superior to humans in every respect", but they just don't care about humans enough to make something of it. This was supposed to make them scary. The theme is nearly identically repeated with the Sarrukh, except this time its superior (and therefore scary) serpent-men, instead of fish-men. I spite of this, the Sarrakh are interesting at points. They have schizmed into heretics and faithful, and there is a secret war between them, each group fighting to exalt or cast down a deity. So there is some useful stuff here. Personally, I'd just have to re-work it before I could like it. My other major problem with this manual is that it contains significant portions of what I'd call "ancillary material". For example, while the ruleset/structure of 3E makes creating stat-blocks a headache, did we really need a dozen more? (This does not include the monsters chapter and adventures chapter). The abundance of statted scaled ones gives the book a scaled-ones' Rogues Gallery feel. I've already mentioned the monsters chapter. I can understand the desire to reprint the serpent specific material here so that it is compiled for easy reference, but you can only see so much of that before you start getting a certain bad feeling. I am reluctant to call this "padding", since padding is usually a euphemism for useless crap. Nonetheless, it is difficult to escape the feeling that this manual could have been more tightly structured into 128 or 144 pages. That said, the some of the additional material really could ease running such a campaign. All art is full color, and most pieces are quite nice. Page 17 shows one of the better instances of serpentine architecture, that of a Yuan-ti house interior. The best portrait type is of the Yuan-ti Mageslayer on page 91 and the Master of Vipers on page 164. Many of the monster depictions are excellent as well. There are also two impressive full-page illustrations. One piece that seemed rather oddly out-of-place was a picture of a city on page 107. It struck me as more of city from sci-fi rather than historical fantasy. Overall, the art does a good job of portraying alien serpentine architecture, when it does so, and creating the feeling of the alien world of the scaled ones. An online gallery of the interior art can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20040709a Interestingly, it looks like Saurials were dropped from the book after the art was commissioned. On the downside of presentation, we once again have a campaign resource with no index. Guess space really was at a premium here. I just don't personally like the how the space judgements were made. Clearly, if you didn't like the Yuan-ti as they were, and you like having a "Grand Unified Theory" for all reptilian races, then you will like this book, and have more use for it than I did. For myself, portions of it will be of little value. Thats a long way from saying it has no value though, especially when properly adapted. The Yuan-ti have always been one of my favorite monster races. Their bizarreness, their cultic trappings, and the mystery behind them have always seemed quite ripe for exploitation by a devious DM. The book as a whole does do a good job of covering the feeling of conspiracies and hidden machinations that so characterized them in Howard's stories, if thats what you want. But overall, Serpent Kingdoms gives the reader plenty of additional game tools and background information for any campaign involing the Scaled Ones. [/QUOTE]
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