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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trancejeremy" data-source="post: 2008890" data-attributes="member: 924">Twilight of Atlantis is a sourcebook from Avalanche press about the fabled lost continent of Atlantis. It's fairly small at 48 pages, and priced at $12.95, which is a bit high, but unfortunately not unusual. Like most d20 products from Avalanche, this features a cover by some semi-famous artist that I've never heard of outside of his work for Avalanche Press. And like all his covers, it features a pneumatic, scantily clad woman. Though personally she seems a bit on the skanky side. (Ironically, the back cover has a much nicer looking picture, sort of a seascape with horses that has an ancient greek feel to it, and it looks like it was done in oil).  Inside, the text is a bit large, but the margins are very small indeed, so the text per page is pretty decent.  There's also more interior artwork than I've seen in previous Avalanche Press products - looks like colored pencils (then made B&W), so it's not realistic, but well done and fits the setting well. Anyway, unlike other Avalanche products I own, this one is strictly a soucebook. The first 18 pages or so are a history of Atlantis, and Atlantean customs and life.  This is largely based on the real Atlantis story from Plato, as told in parts of Timeas and Criteas. Some is borrowed from later sources, most notably the inclusion of the civlizations of Lemuria and Mu. Both of those are relatively recently inventions (a few hundred years old). Lemuria comes from theosophy, and again, is fairly true to what it was purportly like, at least superficially (Lemurians being smart lizards). The Mu in this book on the other hand, seems to be from a source I'm not familiar with.At any rate, the book gives an overview of Atlantean history, from it's founding, to it's rise, and finally it's destruction. The latter is not from Plato, but apparently later source. But it is very plausible, and ties in with what Plato did say. After this, various aspects of Atlantean life and culture are given a paragraph or three each. Topics covered are Law, Religion, Clothing, Art, Food, etc. The 2nd part of this book is on making Atlantean characters. (This section is also apparently open content). This is also a big chapter, about 20 pages.  There are new races, new pestige classes, new equipment, and new magic spells.The new races are Atlantean (who are descended from Poseiden, albeit distantly),  Noble Atlantean (closer to Poseiden), Half-Atlantean (really distant) and the Bastai, who are a race of feline humanoids created to help subjugate the Egyptians.  All of the races seem fairly well designed and defined, and the author understood the d20 rules. For instance, because the Noble Atlanteans are a bit powerful, it has an effective class level of +1 (but it writes it in different terms, because the actual ECL rules apparently aren't open content).The new prestige classes are:Artificer - arcane spellcaster who specializes in creating magic items.Orphean - fighter who has come back from the dead, by the use of magical energy. They're not quite alive, but not quite dead, either. Kinda like Kai from Lexx ("The dead do not sho-bop-ba-lu-la")Resonant - arcane spellcaster who specializes in using the Resonance, which is sort of a magic art using crystals to power spells. Spellbane - this is a monk prestige class. It mostly has special powers that allow the character to disrupt a spellcaster in combat, or dispel spells. There's also a new skill (Charioteering, and includes sample DCs) and 6 new feats: Close Quarters Fighting, Imbue Tatoo (like making a magic item only on a person), Elemental Independence (hard to describe), Phalanx Formation, and Resonant Spellcasting (basically gives a bonus spell with some risk).Then there's some equipment, and 10 new Atlantean spells, mostly arcane. One of the spells is depicted by the artwork on the back cover (another reason it should have been the cover, not the sleazy picture of the skanky woman). The spells fit the theme pretty well, though one seems a bit too powerful. Also introduced is the magical metal of Orachulum, which can be substituted in magic items in the place of xp points. This might be a bit unbalancing, but does fit the legends pretty well.Lastly, there is 3 pages devoted to campaign ideas and adventure seeds. Since it's so short, there's not much to say about this part. Except that it covers a couple different styles, which is nice.All in all, I thought this was a surprisingly good product. The only downside is the short length, though it does cover the basics of running an Atlantean campaign pretty well. I would also have liked an actual map of Atlantis, and the capital city. It's got a somewhat artsy map of the Mediterreanean region, but doesn't include the whole isle of Atlantis (and Iberia looks odd). It also uses modern labels on the regional map.That's the downside of trying to run an Atlantean campaign with this - the DM will have to do a fair amount of work both fleshing out Atlantis and mapping Atlantis. Though there are a number of decent books on it, it probably wouldn't have taken much effort for Avlanche to include a decent map or schematic of the isle of Atlantis itself.  Still, it's a very good product. I'd give it a 4 1/2, but since it's not really worth a 5, I'm rounding down.</blockquote>

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