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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SurgicalSteel" data-source="post: 2010305" data-attributes="member: 5611">Blacksway Note: This review was added by SurgicalSteel with no scrore (actually he added it as a new product!)NOTE: This product was recieved as a complimentary copy from WotC. The Unapproachable East is the new Forgotten Realms world expansion from WotC. The hardcover clocks in at a solid 192 pages, with a $30 price tag. The expansion covers the domains of Algarond, Thay, Rashemen, Thesk, the Great Dale, and border regions, including prestige classes, monsters, and more. Dreams of the Red Wizards (FR6) provided the first detail of this area. Its focus was chiefly on Thay. Thesk, Rashemen, and the rest were all described, but only in passing, in an expanded encyclopedic format like that found in the original Forgotten Realms boxed set. Spellbound, the 2nd Ed. boxed set again detailed Thay, and added Aglarond and Rashemen. This campaign guide was detailed chiefly as background and accompaniment to the two included adventures: The Runes of Chaos, and the Throne of Deceit. These adventures focused on the plot of the Lich-Zulkir Szass Tam to establish his absolute power in Thay. While the description of Thay was shortened in this expansion, Aglarond and Rashemen recieved a geometric increase in level of detail. With Unapproachable East, the enhanced treatment that was given to Aglarond and Rashemen in Spellbound is further extended to Thesk, the region known as the Great Dale, and the border regions. Here is a breakdown of the chapters: Credits and TOC...................3 pages Introduction......................4 pages Races of the East.................10 pages Prestige Classes..................22 pages Character Regions and Feats.......6 pages Magic and Spells..................8 pages Magic Items.......................5 pages Monsters..........................23 pages Adventuring in the East...........13 pages Aglarond..........................18 pages Great Dale........................15 pages Rashemen..........................20 pages Thay..............................23 pages Thesk.............................16 pages Border Areas......................5 pages      Races of the East details as playable races Star Elves, Gnolls, Hagspawn, Spiritfolk, Taer and Volodni.      Star Elves are basically moon elves (with preferred class bard), from another world. Hagspawn are the most interesting of new playable races, though the distinctly "good drow"-like feel is awfully familiar. The hagspawn are the male offspring of hags (the female offspring becomes hags themselves), and are born with abilities perfect for war (spell resistance, heightened strength and constitution, natural armor).      The spirit folk are fairly mundane, with either exceptional climbing ability, or swimming ability, essentially. The taer are gorillas as a playable race. The volodni are the other interesting new race. They are a kind of forest-people created by transforming human refugees with woodland sorcery. Their preferred class is druid, and the prime advantage they offer is a host of immunities.      The section is rounded off with an orc variant: Orcs of the East (or grey orcs).      The Prestige Classes are quite interesting and good. Several are localized variations of versions we have seen before. For example, the Talontar Blightlord is derived from the Blighter from Masters of the Wild, the Raumathari battlemage is loosely based on the Spellsword from Tome and Blood, and the Black Flame Zealot is derived from the Assassin. Though these examples are somewhat unoriginal, this presentation answers a complaint I have had against the typical prestige class: total absence of context, which is supposed to be crucial. There is now location and/or knowledge: location requirements. And seeing this for the Raumathari Battlemage truly warmed my heart: "The character must find a mentor who already has levels in Raumathari battlemage and spend at least 10 days studying in the mentor's company. During this time of study, both the mentor and the student must spend at least 8 hours a day in training." (page 29)      These are prestige classes as they were meant to be.      The new prestige classes I liked include the Nar Demonbinder, a class which has the ability forge Iron, Bronze and Silver Signs of potent use against demons and devils. The abilities of the class can as easily be used to battle demons as force them into service. These acolytes are derived from the now-dead Empire of Narfell, which frequently trafficked with demons. Another one I like is the Runescarred Berserker, a barbarian whose scars confer natural armor and damage reduction. They also store and activate spells in their scars.      The Feats section follow the pattern established in FRCS; new character regions are: Altumbel, Gnoll, Shou Expatriate, Star Elf, Taer, Volodni, and Wizard's Reach. New feats are included for prestige classes from the FRCS, such as the Ethran. Other new feats are for Berserker Lodges described in the chapter about Rashemen (chapter 10). Most feats found here are useful for customizing Rashemi characters. New metamagic includes Explosive Spell and Fortify spell (which increases the odds of punching through spell resistance).      The spell list contains a couple revisions from FRCS, but is to a large extent a 3E update of a few key spells from the preceding 2E AD&D Spellbound (a Beltyn's spell, a couple Nybor's spells, etc). There are some new spells as well, the catchiest being Improved Blink, and Sphere of Ultimate Destruction, which is essentially a temporary Sphere of Annihilation. The writers also continue the 3E practice of making spells widely available which were once extremely rare and were to be found in only a single tome. Case in point: Decastave. This force-stave creating spell was once restricted to Detho's Libram; it is now on the standard spell list.      Truth be told, I was caught off-gaurd by the shortness of this section, the two predecessors to this volume had a far wider variety of spells, with an emphasis on the Red Wizards' schools, and fire. The distinctly different spells of the Red Wizards were a critical part of their mystique and danger. In this tome at least, this has been all but forgotten. I hope Lords of Darkness adds a great deal of depth to the Red Wizards, otherwise this important group has been neglected.      The magic items are cheifly for the witches and the wizards, with masks for witches, and bombards and a few weapons for the wizards. There are also a couple items for Aglarond and Yuirwood (a lance for the griffonrider prestige class, a circlet for rangers, and a sword for elves of use against extraplanar invaders).      The monsters section is tied with the area description of Thay for heftiest of the book. The emphasis on undead minions for the Red wizards is made through Blooded one template, Dread Warrior template, and Juju zombie template. Shadow-walker template applied to disciples of Mask who have undergone a ritual, these are to be found chiefly in Thesk. The blighter theme from MotW is given form in the Blightspawn template, the example given being a blight-spawned treant.      A lot of space is expended on the mythological/spiritual nature of Rashemen, with the Orglash, which is an icy template attached to air elemental creatures, the Thomil template which (attached to earth elemental creatures), and the Telthor template (a fey-type). Hags and Trolls both recieve customization here, with the Bheur and Shrieking hags, and Ice, Fell, and Mur Zhagal trolls. Bheur hags are basically frost hags capabale of increasing their size, and the fell troll is a giant 2-headed troll. The Mur-Zhagal are demon-trolls sporting spell-like abilities.      Rounding out the lot is the Taer, the spirit folk (another Rashemi group), the volodni, and the Nilshai, a tentacled Aberrant race that now threatens the elves of Yuirwood. Finally there is the Uthraki, an apelike shapechanger afflicting the Rashemites.      Adventuring in the East is a critical chapter for DMs, covering the major organizations of the area (the Blightlords, the Church of Kossuth, etc), detailing the major dungeons of the region, and pages of encounter tables. This would be a prime source of major seeds. The Region Descriptions      Despite my tagline the manual is evenly divided between "fluff" and "crunch", with a slight edge to the fluff. The description of each region is excellent, beginning with a geographical overview, then moving to specific geographic features. It moves then to the people and society of the area, then powers and enemies, and finally to cities. As a rule, the Heroes and Monsters section is very short for each nation, and is chiefly a quick overview with references to other sections or FR manuals.      The area discriptions are quite good as such. Hooks, ruins, and mysterious goings on abound. The discriptions of geography are detailed and useful, as are the cities and the general power structure and inhabitants.           Thay is a land of slavery and tyranny ruled by the infamous Red Wizards, an agressive and evil organization that has pursued a relentlessly aggressive policy to little real effect since its formation. Rashemen and Aglarond are both lands ruled by magic using females, both frequently in hostile contact with Thay, though this has shifted to some trading of late. Thesk is a mercantile land which hosts a Shou refugee group (a quasi-Chinese group from the far east/Kara-tur), with assassins guilds operating as a tool of the merchants, a power bloc to themsleves. The Great Dale is basically an unorganized collection of towns, its main feature is a great road that connects the coast to the inland.      The excellent cover features Szass Tam under attack by a group of Rashemi berserkers and a coven of witches, but there is little to be learned about ol' Szass in this book. In fact you will find little about the doings of any major personalities, stat blocks, descriptions, or ambitions for them.      There is some cursory coverage of "standard activities" for the most significant of figures, and many references to figures of regional importance of a few lines in length. On the whole, detail of important personalities is completely neglected. This includes the witches of Rashemen, merchant-lords of Thesk, not to mention the Red Wizards. This is rather an odd decision. It is not a mortal flaw by any means, but it is a significant exclusion. How this will be rectified is unclear, the natural place to put this information was here. Perhaps the setting will be expanded, but I see no indication of that. WotC seems entirely focused on core books, not modules, not country by country Gazeteers, or any other work that this information would be expected to appear in.      It looks as though the DM is expected to custom-generate this information for the home campaign. This isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't make the GM's job any easier, and the lack of an index makes it difficult to tie together all pertinent info on a particular figure.      This sort of approach is emblematic of the whole. The first half of the book provides many bits. The regions provide a useful and effective backgroud. The rest up to you. Whether thats good or bad is a different question. The truth is I haven't formed an opinion on this. This is not a playtest review, so I am not sure how well it would actually work out. The lack of an index become more ominous the more I think about it though.       CONCLUSION      I continue to enjoy the excellent presentation of Forgotten Realms manuals, this one being no exception. The font use and full color pages are seamlessly pleasant, and the art found here is at least decent when not at its evocative and beautifully stylized norm.      A sorta-complaint is the lack of an overall pull-out map. The description of each area begins with the high quality full page map we have come to expect. And given the present availability of the all-Realms overview map, this simply doesn't strike me as a very valid criticism.      More problematic is a lack of an Index. For a book like this, an index is very important, especially since an additional burden of development is laid upon the DM.      Not having access to Lords of Darkness hampered my ability to do a complete review; a great deal of previous material was omitted, and I am unsure if this was included in the section on the Red Wizards in 3E LoD, or omitted entirely.      Of the things in the book, I liked best the distinctive styles of Rashemi Berserker lodges, and the Blightlords and their domains. When I first saw the Blighter in MotW, its potential was immediately obvious. In UE, the Blightlords are a growing force in the Rawlinswood of Thesk, and they are beginning to grow near Aglarond as well. I do have to say that the blightspawn remind me of the Toxics from Shadowrun, though.      There isn't a whole lot on the Red Wizards, thats probably intentionally located in LoD instead.      All told, this tome focuses more on Rashemen than anywhere else. I am sure Minsc would approve of the treament, but Edwin (and DMs) might feel otherwise. This is not to say short shrift is given to any other region, the expansion of Thesk and the Great Dale remains the best to date, and material on Thay and Aglarond is plentiful.      As a resource on the East FR in general, it is the best ever. It contains plenty of cruchy bits to make the fluff come alive. For a FR DM, it is indispensable. FR 6 remains the best resource on Thay specifically, though it would require updating. The new cruch is good stuff and can be modified and transferred to any custom setting.      But no matter what world you run, in play use of this book will require some work.</blockquote>

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