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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 2009180" data-attributes="member: 8951">Summary:  Although this book contains a few intriguing ideas and exemplifies reasonably good production values, poor editing, uninspired exposition, and a mind-boggling rules mistake significantly reduce the value of this product to the point where I cannot recommend buying it.   On the surface:  This is a 256-page hardbound book designed to introduce players to the campaign world of Erde.  Interior pages are exclusively black and white.  Text density throughout most of the book is excellent.  Illustrations rarely take up more than a quarter of a page and the margins are very small.  (Many products these days use elaborate margin designs to help take up space.  This product uses a minimalist linear margin design.  The result is that the edge of the text is exactly 0.5 inches from the edge of the page.)  The general quality of the interior art hovers around average, some better and some worse than others.<Warning: spoilers follow.>   Innovative Ideas:  This world has just emerged from a thousand-year reign by a god of evil (that was banished about a century ago).  One city (Gaxmoor) was pulled out of time when the Dark Lord's reign began and has recently returned.  In this world, the dwarves are the first-born race of mortals, and the main enemy race are the goblins (some of whom are inherently magical).  Each country is provided with an economic rating.   Pros:  I like the production values of the book and the main ideas of a world emerging from darkness and a city that reappears after a 1000 year absence.  (However, I didn't much care for how these ideas were fleshed out.)  I also liked the adventure hooks that were found in some of the later chapters that detailed the different kingdoms and geographical regions.   Cons:  The main world map is hard to make sense out of and contains numbers that do not appear on the legend below it.  The introductory adventure by Gary Gygax is very simplistic and utilizes a font-size that is significantly bigger than the one used in the rest of the book.  The 42-page world history at the beginning of the book is poorly written, making it seem interminably long.  (I count myself as a history buff, so the length of the history itself is not what bothers me.  The problem was that the history is not written well enough to make the reader care about the events it describes.)  The script used for headings was at times difficult to read (especially the capital letters).  The authors inexplicably describe a new character class (yes, CLASS) called "High Elf".  This is a mind-boggling error that seems to indicate that the authors fail to comprehend a distinction as fundamental to the d20 system as race vs. class.   Final Thought:  Perhaps those who have enjoyed Troll Lord's adventure modules (and who therefore have a pre-existing interest in this game world) will find this book more valuable and interesting than I did.  However, as a first introduction to the world of Erde, this book failed to pique my interest.  I bought this product because I found it at a resale shop for half price, and I was really hoping that I got a good deal for my money.  Unfortunately, even at half the cover price, I find myself experiencing buyer's remorse.  I'll be recouping my loss on eBay (if I can find someone to buy it, that is).</blockquote>

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