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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011020" data-attributes="member: 1129">Time for another quick PDF (overdue) review. Heyoka Studios early work, the Book of Curses, is meant to augment and add details to the mundane use of the Curse in the 3.0 d20 system.The book is roughly broken up into four chapters. Arcane Curses (10), Divine Curses (10), Lycanthropy and Vampirism. The introduction gives the GM a good idea on what the book is about and how best to use it. I agree with the author in that “it is his (DM) job to screw with the characters...” Curses are one interesting way to do that.One problem with the Arcane Curses is that due to their experience point cost, casting time, and material components, I can never see a sorcerer taking such a spell, even an NPC one. It would have to be one really ticked off sorcerer who took something like Pox, a 3rd level spell for Sorcerers and Bards. It costs 350 experience points, takes an hour to cast, and requires a dead or dying person. When cast, it effects a total number of hit dice twice that of the caster's and gives those victims a pox with many nasty visual and game effects. The best part of these spells isn't necessarily the game effects. Rather, it's how the characters have to cure themselves. It's the background information around the spells. For example, the divine spell, Bless You, has history about how a person's soul is air that doesn't leave the lungs and only leaves at the time of final breath. When you sneeze, some of your soul is lost. So here's how the spell actually works. Clerics and Priests preserve remains, someone disturbs it and is cursed. Every time they sneeze, some of their soul, which represents luck to the clerics who cast it, is lost.  It's not something that's generally going to effect someone in combat unless the character's enemies know about it, but it will make life much more interesting with advice on what can cause the spell to be triggered, likely places where lots of dust can be encountered. To cure the curse, the thief must replace all stolen items of a royal tomb from the Filchme house and consecrate it. Not that easy as those tombs were robbed long ago. Another option is to get fifteen nails made by a grandfather and seal a casket filled with all of the character's worldly goods, and other role playing limitations like not speaking his name for a year and a day, in addition to a casting of Remove Curse. It's very detailed and provides a lot of options for those who want more depth to the curses in their games. Now the section on Lycanthropy makes the 3.0 werewolf quite a different beast. The book even suggests keeping the original 3.0 version, natural lycanthropy, and using this version as a primordial version, as this is “darker, more violent, screws the player harder and works well in settings filled with dark mysteries of the world.” Perfect for say d20 Warhammer or a d20 Modern X-Files style game.The lycnathropes have detailed backgrounds and ideas on how to cure it. In many ways, the evocative writing is worth reading just for ideas for your own campaign. Those who enjoy Savage Species or racial levels, will like the fact that the lycanthrope here uses levels to showcase its growing power and savagery and includes details on how to stack these levels with standard d20 classes. The vampire in chapter four, offers some base ideas for how to use vampires but acknowledges that there are so many variants, that this isn't the vital or quintessential version, just another version to add to the game.  The templates start with the Risen Vampire, moving to the Elder, and finally the Ancient One. These are templates that stack with each other, representing the aging of the vampire. Those that need more power can take the Undying Lord Prestige Class to further augment their undead strength. These undead lords remind me of Warhammer's Von Carstein bloodline in that they are the noble or elite of the undead. About the only thing I noted wrong is that the Hit Die is a D8, and since the character must be a Vampire, it'd probably be a D12.Another alternative PrC is the Sybarist, vampires that enjoy physical sensations and their transformation into a vampire, as part of expanding their physical senses.  Others like the Sin Eaters PrC, are rooted in cultural lore. These individuals eat fruit that was used to absorb the sins of the dead and because no one eats their sins, they rise “as much angel as devil”. Art is minimal and not up to some industry standards but does have a few good pieces. My favorite is probably of the werewolf tearing apart a bear in the woods Text is laid out in two column spread. Side column, a marble column shaped like a woman, or a woman in the mists, takes up too much ink but is useful when the author uses it as a third column to provide more information. Writing is easy to read and ideas are original and useful. The Heyoka web page doesn't indicate if a 3.5 version is available but for those 3.0 die hard fans or those fans of the curse of ancient history who want more variety in their game, this book is for you.Reviewer's Note: As of 1/13/2003, the book is on sale for $5.00 at RPG Now.</blockquote>

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