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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krug" data-source="post: 2009352" data-attributes="member: 2141">Everybody loves Necromancers. Controlling the undead has always been one of the most attractive options for spellcasters, wheareas hardly anyone even knows what an Abjurer can do.Thee Compleat Librum (Ambient seems to be in love with the term) follows on the success of their Prestige Class books. Done with the help of many talented folk at Realms of Evil, the work has a multitude of Necromantic information. The Gar Udok mentioned in the book title is a necromantic overlord that author Jason "Hellhound" Parent used in a campaign.Inside you'll find Necromantic-focused Spells, Creatures, Classes, Feats, Magic Items and even Gods to work into your campaign. There's a lot of interesting ideas in here, and most of it has flavour text to get a better feel of the concept. The Spells section is fairly interesting, with flaa multitude of undead-focused spells. Boost them; make them have weapons instead of arms, heal them. It's a swiss army knife of spells for an undead army. Some spells stand out such as Necropolis, a 9th level spell which can allow your own city of the dead, and Skinwalking, where you can assume the form of one you killed using their skin.The monsters section is probably one of the weaker sections in the book, with few relevant illustrations. It includes such creations as the Cairn Wyrms, a sort of hyena to dragons, and a few golem-like beings. Some, such as the Restless Ghoul, appear to be variations of monsters found in the MM. There's also four template creatures: The Ghoul, the True Mummy, Exoskeleton and the Lekassi (child with an undead father), with stats for Gar Udok himself, a true Mummy. (I won't ask what are 'fake' Mummies.) There's also one character race, the Blackhand Kobold, which I don't see many PCs taking. There are seven Prestige Classes. It's hit and miss as usual, with the Anam'Glac - an order of spellcasters who consume souls for power being the standout. The rest are fairly interesting, and for those who have ever wanted liked the comic series or movie The Crow, there's the Lotahm,  a Psion based PrC. Next up are some necromantic feats, granting the ability to create even more undead and even have an undead familiar. The Magic Items section list some new weapon abilities, necromantic-focused magic items and others. The final section lists a cabal of dark gods, as well as several new domains. The art in the book is nothing to shout about. The background gets annoying, and the page numbering should have been left as Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. Not everyone can figure out which page is XLVII off the top of their head. It's a book of ideas centered around Necromancy thrown together, and might be more suitable for DM use to boost their villains rather than PCs. The background for Gar Udok is interesting, and could be a standout villain in a campaign. It's $6.95 for 55 pages of really good information, devised with the help of the creative minds at RealmsofEvil.net. There are some noticeable errors, such as references to certain classes or creatures not featured in this book. (Eg: Reference to Nomads in the Lotham PrC writeup, the Skindancer in the Skinwalker writeup) Otherwise, it's a great, well-priced accessory designed to make Necromancers even stronger and flexible. The print version of this book is coming out soon, and hopefully it'll address some of the shortcomings of the PDF product, particularly the monster artwork.</blockquote>

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