Wrath & Rage

[Messageboard Golem]

The biggest, meanest, dumbest race in d20 is back for another round. The orc has long been a punching bag for fantasy gamers, but not anymore! The orcs (and half-orcs) of Wrath & Rage are stronger, more savage, and more cunning than anything youve faced before. This toolkit for GMs and players is packed with new feats, prestige classes, templates, spells, clerical domains, pantheons, magic items, and weapons. Whether you intend to use orcs against your players, or to play one yourself, Wrath & Rage guarantees that you'll never look at this ancient race the same way again.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Wrath and Rage is a sourcebook designed to augment both players and GMs options when using orcs and half orcs. The book introduces new magic items, prestige classes, monsters, feats, and other goodies to help flesh out the bare bones provided in the Monster Manual.

The book starts off by providing some concepts to the GM as to what orcs are in the campaign setting. Are they a brooding, savage race that doesn’t advance by class, but rather by size? Are they a race that wipes out their foes and then breeds until they can move onto another land? Are they a race whose noble gods were tricked by the elves long ago and now seek revenge against those elfin hosts?

Chapter two brings us Green Ronin’s interpretation of Rage Channeling Feats but these are different than those found in Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs. Most of these provide the character with a bonus on a skill, ability check, or saving throw for the use of a raging feat. One of the stranger abilities is Ghost Rage where you spend one of your rages and can now affect incorporeal creatures. Some of the feats follow the Eye of He-Who-Watches path, a metamagic feat that leads to a chain of feats relating to ‘eye’ magic. For instance, the Eye of the Basilisk allows the caster to cast spells that are ranged touch attacks as a gaze attack instead. One of the things I didn’t like is that several of the feats take the old “Use this stat for this skill” which is fine in and of itself, but it should just be one feat, not several.

Some of the feats are questionable in terms of game balance. With Full of Surprises, you gain two exotic weapon proficiencies, each one normally costing a feat in and of itself. Another example is Rugged. The character gains a bonus to Fortitude saves and Constitution checks. In standard D&D games, the bonus to Fortitude itself is a feat. Now in certain cases, if the requirements are higher, then the feat is more powerful, but the same scaling used in say Masters of the Wild, doesn’t appear to be followed here. Despite these problems numerous feats are appropriate for any barbarian with a savage feral feel to them. Strangely enough, several of the feats revolve around the leadership feat and can be used by any aspiring warlord, orc or human, to augment his fighting forces.

Those more interested in prestige classes have seven new ones to select from here. Not as many as Heroes of High Favor, it’s interesting to note that the classes don’t cross over with Heroes either though. Each prestige class is listed with name, background information, requirements, class skills, features, weapon and armor proficiencies and special abilities. Sample NPCs are provided so GMs can get to using this PrCs right away.

Like the Bad Axe book, several of these classes seem more suited for NPCs. Take the Bride of He-Who-Watches. These female orcs are separated from other females and taught to take arms in the name of He-Who-Watches. In doing so, they lose their own identity but gain strength for their patron god. This includes the ability to smite good, issue challenges for one on one combat and gain bonuses when fighting with other brides. Another strange one, The Honored Host, is a orcblood who has died due to infection of parasites and been brought back to life. These strange creatures can place their vermin in others, speak with vermin, and have other strange abilities that most player’s aren’t going to jump up and down for.

Of more interest to player though, the cutthroat takes the whole assassin half-orc image to another level with specialized abilities that allow him to blend into human society, wielding weapons and poison with great ease. The only PrC here that reminds me of one from HoHF: HO is the Soul Gorger, a hunter who eats his enemies to gain power from their remains. The power gained depends on the level of the Soul Gorger who gains greater abilities to devour his enemies as he rises in levels. He’ll start with skin, work his way through lungs, brain and heart, and finally be able to consume the whole enemy.

Overall the PrCs here didn’t do much for me. Too many of them were of the five level variety and most of them fit into the NPC category. As a GM using the Scarred Lands with a campaign focusing on the Plains of Lede with its orc hordes, that’s great. As a player, there’s not much meat. Where’s something like the Painless, orc berserkers that feel no pain and fight on after they die? Where are the Evolved? Black Orcs who gain size and mass as they increase in levels?

More meat for GMs is included in the small chapter, Creatures. This section covers some of the ‘allies’ and other beings encountered with orcs. The good thing about the templates is that each one has example creatures. In addition to the new monsters, a listing of monsters found with both savage orcs and warlike orcs is provided. For templates, the Anathema, a creature whose being is soiled by the presence of the orcs, joins the likes of the half-orc template, and the rabid creature. Those looking for normal monsters have their choice of two new dire creatures, the axebeak (dire ostrich) and the dire rhinoceros, as well as the two new giant vermin, the giant leech and giant slug.

Of more interest to me is the section on the Gods and Their Servants. Instead of just providing a listing of gods, the author provides a sample pantheon, The Great Warband, and the Patrons, beings whose origins can provide the GM with some room to play with various aspects of the orcs in his campaign. The Warband provides eight gods with a format similar to the one found in the PHB. You get the name, symbol, alignment, favored weapons and domains, as well as some background information. Symbols are illustrated for reference.

As far as the Patrons go, these beings provide the GM with two options. On one hand, these six patrons are weak outsiders gods, roughly equal to demigods. On the other, they don’t grant spells but rather, grant summoning abilities to their worshippers. Even more interesting is unlike the gods, these patrons are statted out. For example the All-Eater is a colossal ooze while Gwullgi is a death slaad of impressive abilities and Shedim is a demon prince.

While the Great Warband has it’s uses in campaigns that aren’t heavily detailed like Karathis setting from Fiery Dragon several published campaigns are working away from this line of thought including the Scarred Lands, Kalamar, and Green Ronin’s own Book of the Righteous. In these settings, there are no ‘racial’ gods. The Patrons however, fit in perfectly with almost any type of campaign, especially if you make then non-divine.

For those who need more options for their orc cleric though, Chapter Six, Spells & Magic provides new spells for adepts, Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards. Those looking for new domains have ten new domains to choose from. These include some that I wouldn’t normally associate with orcs like command, cure and lycanthropy, to those that make great choices like breeding, murder and savagery. The former domains are associated with the patrons for those using them as weak demi-gods. The spells are listed by class and level with a brief description then by class. While there’s not a ton of new spells, the range is good. For example, if you’re a cleric, you can case something as simple as Endure Sunglight, a 1st level spell, to spear of vengeance, a 7th level spell that creates a magical spear to attack your enemies. In addition to the spells, there are tons of new magic items as well. For each, each of the patrons has a magical ring given to the orc race that shows their bond.

Players and GMs will enjoy the new weapons that include new siege weapons as well as some new, less castle intensive style weapons. The Strap Crossbow is a tiny weapon used by cutthroats while the Arbalest is a weapon so huge that it takes two creatures to use it. The Battering Axe is a huge weapon that requires a lot of strength to use while the different Footbows are so massive that it takes a 20 or 22 strength to string it.

The book closes off with an appendix of typical NPCs. Because they’re orcs, it helps a GM set up various power levels in his campaign. Need an encounter with a group of ten 3rd level barbarians? You’re covered. Need a quick table for clerics of he-who-watches? You’re covered up to 20th level. The tables include all basic stats and equipment in addition to feats selected at various levels and ability score increases noted in the stats themselves at the appropriate level.


Art is top notch. The orcs here have a variety of poses all done by Toren Atkinson. Layout is standard two columns of text broken up by illustrations, and important tables that summarize information. Thankfully Green Ronin has ditched the black background on the tables and the soothing gray is much easier on the eyes. The interior covers aren’t used and the D20 license takes up a single page. For those keeping score, the entire text of the book is OGC. Most of the editing is good.

The book has some serious flaws though. For one, how can it be a guide to playing full-blooded orcs without the racial stats? You’ll either have to have AEG’s Monsters book or do the math utilizing the Monster Manual entry and the rules from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. If using the latter method, the bad news is the stats will probably be wrong. Taking a quick look, the Orc gains no Con bonus. In addition, it suffers from being a dual-purpose book in that it’s a GM and player book. The player portions are weak in terms of new prestige classes, and weapons. If I was a player given a choice between the options in this book and Heroes of High Favor: Half Orcs, the latter book would win out as it’s aimed squarely at the player. For GMs, the book is an excellent value but misses some crucial elements. Where are the racial stats? Where are the full statted out racial variants like orclins, black orcs, and mutant orcs like four armed or two headed varieites?

Wrath and Rage is a good book but compared to Hammer & Helm, isn’t in the same category. The latter offered more player oriented prestige classes, spells, domains, and weapons for the dwarven race while many of the goods in Wrath and Rage can be utilized by orcs, but don’t have the same cultural feel. Part of this may be just that the orcs have never received this much detail in the first place and Green Ronin is helping to define it. Part of it may be that the book has solid competition for the player’s dollar with Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs.

While its player use is minimal outside of the feats, Wrath and Rage is perfect for those GMs who wish to augment their NPCs with new feats, prestige classes, weapons and magic.

 

[GameWyrd]

The Races of Renown series from Green Ronin is part of the OGL Interlink program. This means that titles will not clash with others in the OGL Interlink. Wrath & Rage is the Orc and Half-Orc book in the Interlink and it’ll probably be the only one. I can only hope that the other companies in the Interlink are producing material as good as Green Ronin’s because Wrath & Rage is rather good and before that the Dwarf book, Hammer and Helm, is even better.

The introduction here is your typical short RPG supplement introduction. It contains an important point though; the author, Jim Bishop, notes that orcs are often portrayed as filthy, stupid and savage and that’s entirely as it should be. Right from the start then you can’t expect Wrath and Rage to offer you any cliché busting orc character types. However, the book does look at a few different reasons as to why the orc race is so angry and why they’re so… well, why there’s so orcish.

The first chapter, "The Way of the Scar", begins with a brief look at playing the half-orc or even an orc. Before reaching core classes (NPC and PC) it quickly runs down a few of the most obvious stereotypes for the race: the noble savage, the battlerager, back-alley kneecapper, separatist and the exception (the polite orc). It’s doesn’t seem all that often when a race book bothers to include the NPC classes, the adept, expert or warrior and it seems a shame. I’ll show my colours here and admit that I don’t like the player option ideas attached to a view of these quick studies. The player’s option note on the Fighter class suggests that the player shouldn’t mess around and should take Power Attack and Cleave as quickly as possible. No. Stop it. Design your orc fighter so that she’s appropriate to the campaign world you’re playing in and with the background/character idea you’ve discussed with the GM. Don’t let a tiny paragraph of power play advice corrupt you. On the other hand, I rather like the GM’s option notes when they’re attached. The GM’s option on the Paladin reminds us that orc or half-orc paladins are rather rare so perhaps the GM might allow access to unusual mounts like tigers or rhinos. The meat of chapter one for me is the alternative orc racial concepts; they are all tempting. The "Savage Horde" suggests orcs could be portrait as nothing more than screaming hordes of monsters. That’s monsters rather than a ‘race’; they’d advance like monsters by growing in size and power rather than collecting character levels. There’s a Savage Orc stat box to give the GM the amended stats. The "Created" concept has the orcs as an artificial race. You’ll notice the first of the key Tolkien influenced ideas here (and there’s nothing wrong with using Tolkien like this) when one of the best implementations of this concept is to have the orcs originally produced from the elves and perhaps this is why they can crossbreed with other humanoid races but not the elves. Other racial concepts suggest depicting the orc race as being "Betrayed" or even as some "Cancer" on the land. If you want you could even have the orcs as "The Conquerors".

I wish there was more. Chapter two starts as soon as page 12. There’s 80 pages in this softback and it’ll cost you $16.95 if you’re American. Chapter two is the ever-present collection of feats. It’s nicely laid out and early on you’ll get a large table of all the new feats and that’s an easy way to see that there really are quite a few feats here. There are two new styles of feats of note; the rage channelling feats and those known as "Eye" feats and exclusive to clerics of He-Who-Watches the supreme orc god as introduced by the book. This isn’t the first book to use the idea that barbarian rages can be spent in a similar way to cleric’s turning abilities to produce other effects but I think it’s been released close enough to rival orc and half-orc race books for the idea to have been independently thought of. It’s a great idea and I’m glad it’s proving popular; it adds some much needed width to the barbarian class. The Gullet feat is an interesting one; the orc has an internal pouch somewhere (I think gullets are traditionally in the throat) that allows him to swallow something but actually keep it safe and retrieve it later. The rules as presented by the book suggest 1 cubic foot of material can be swallowed per point of Constitution and that it can be coughed up within a minute. Really? So my half-orc with Constitution 10 can swallow and keep safe 10 cubic feet of material? He need not hide a skeleton key in his gullet, he could keep a pair of Halfling rouges tucked in there for those times he needed a lock picked! Most of the feats here are better though out though.

There are seven new prestige classes. The Bride of He-Who-Watches is a prestige class detailed through ten levels for kick-ass but virginal orc warrior women. The gem of an idea here is that over time the Bride starts to loose her own identity as she recognises herself (and other recognise her) only as part of the sisterhood. "Nameless" is a supernatural ability which offers the class resistance against Enchantments. The Cutthroat is the predictable orc rouge-cum-warrior prestige idea but the Honored Host is a far more original idea of an orc who’s parasitic infection has actually killed him but has then been brought back to life by the orc death deity. The Honored Host is a crawling mess of maggots and tape-worms and other icky parasites and GMs should save them for the next player to whine "Gee, yet another orc". Both the Cutthroat and Honored Host are ten level classes. The Mother of Rage is only a five less class though. If you flick quickly through the book and look at the illustrations first you’re sure to notice a small female orc standing in front of a mass of scary Cthulhu style tentacles. That’s a Mother of Rage and that’s her baby. This idea is simply wonderful, its one of those rare times when a new I’m entirely won over by a prestige class and it fits extremely well with the racial concepts suggested earlier in the book where orcs are a created race or some horrid divine cancer sent to kill off a world. There’s the Orc Sapper (10 levels), Rage Smith (5 levels) and Soul Gorger (5 level) classes too but go back and read the Mother of Rage class again instead. Well, actually, the Soul Gorger prestige class is pretty good too – by eating the heart of your opponent you might get some of his courage and by eating his brain you might get some of his knowledge.

Chapter Four, "Creatures", is pretty good too. I think every game should feature a Dire Ostrich at least once! The Dire Ostrich goes by the name Axebeak so you can terrorise your players with the deadly bird before letting them know just how strange the creature is. I expect they’ll start running when you mention the Dire Rhinoceros. This creature chapter actually does best with the templates it offers. The "Anathema" template is another example of the Tolkien touch here and I simply love it. Rather than the dark lord casting his shadow and corrupting the land, Wrath & Rage suggests that the presence of the orcs, a collective whole so angry and bitter, causes the area to corrupt. The plant life twists and gnarls and so do some of the creatures. The example of the anathema creature template being applied looks at the "Anathema Nymph" which has unearthly beauty and blinding beauty but is also undead, can create spawn and can turn elves! There’s a rabid creature template and an half-orc template too so that you no longer have to have every half-orc as half-human. The half-orc template runs with the notion that as some sort of living weed (a strand in one of the racial concepts mentioned at the start of the book) the orcs can mate with anything other than an elf (and you can tinker with that if you, of course) so is thorough enough to look at modifiers to attributes if the non-orc parent was medium-sized (or smaller), large, huge or larger. At the top end of the scale the STR modifier is +8 but INT and CHA are both –6. The example is of a half-orc/half-owlbear.

After chapter four comes chapter four. What? Ooops. A small typo with big font but at least the title of the pages in chapter five get it right and use "Chapter Five: The Gods & Their Servants". There are no god stats here but that’s no bad thing. The pantheon is nicely though out with He-Who-Watches as the leading deity (Chaos, Destruction, Evil, War) and other deities to match the orcs way off life closely, there’s even the half-orc god who’s simply called "The Mule". I also like the idea of "Grandfather White Hands" as a greater god, the father of He-Who-Watches, a god of Death (Chaos, Death, Evil, Magic) but spookily without any sort of concept of him before He-Who-Watches came to rule the pantheon. That’s the traditional pantheon but there’s something else too, there’s "The Patrons". The Patrons are designed to be uber-villains behind the orc rampage, terrifying and deadly but – perhaps – within the reach of powerful characters. The term coined by the author and borrowed from computer game is "level boss". The patrons are demi-gods or could be demi-gods if you want orcs to have access to cleric spells. You might go with the other option for the Patrons have them as a false pantheon of powerful beings who might help the orc race but can’t lend spells in the same way true gods can. If you go with the latter then there’s a whole series of special patron spells you can equip your orcs with instead. You can’t have both since the concepts are mutually exclusive but that’s just what you get when supplements pitch to a higher intelligence level of reader or to a more experienced GM.

You don’t have to use the false pantheon if you want new orc spells though. In chapter six (and we’re safely back into correctly numbered chapters now) you’ll find a large collection of magic. The list of spells is quite so large because there are an amazing nine new domains. To add to your growing list of cleric domains you now have: Blight, Breeding, Command, Curse, Lycanthropy, Murder, Poison, Savagery and Treachery. Many of the spells available to these new domains are straight out of the core rules but on the other hand not all of the new spells belong to one of these domains.

There’s as much new material in the equipment chapter near the end of the book. You’ll get access to new siege weapons, exotic weapons and even special or superior items (like combat drugs). I particularly like the magical effigies since they really do lend themselves well to mental images of orc shamans shaking crudely constructed figurines as they dance around and cast their magic.

The Appendix makes use of small font to list in detail sample orc NPCs. Rather than throwing together a few example NPCs the appendix here picks a few classes (Warrior, Rogue, Barbarian, etc) and squeezes is as many possible stats. If you want stats for level 2 warriors then look to level 2 on the warrior table and then run your finger down a few lines to get the stats for the level 8 warrior in charge of the warband.

There’s lots of extremely useful material in Wrath & Rage. If you’re coming to it with half-orcs exclusively in mind then you’ll not get nearly so much from the book as you would if you’re only interested in full-blooded orcs. If you’re looking to the book for help in running half-orcs in a human society then you’ll get even less and virtually nothing. I found the illustrations to be particularly evocative, they’re just quality black and white pencil drawings but seem to do well in capturing and enhancing what’s been written about at the time. As with the previous book in the series Wrath & Rage makes use of "shaded borders" at the top and bottom of the pages rather than at the side and as before this seems to give the impression of more space per page. The style of the shaded borders hasn’t impressed me though, on close inspection I can see a detailed patterning effect but when you’re just reading the book it looks too much like some child’s taken his black crayon to your book and coloured in bands. Despite a few errors and dodgy rules (like the gullet feat) Wrath & Rage is safely and securely in the "good book" rating.

* This GameWyrd review was first published here

 

[Psion]

Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook to Orcs and Half-Orcs

Wrath & Rage is the second in Green Ronin's alliteratively-titled Races of Reknown series, following their Hammer & Helm sourcebook for Dwarves. Wrath & Rage is written by Jim Bishop, who contributed to some other Green Ronin books as well as Dragon articles.

A First Look

Wrath & Rage is an 80 page perfect bound softcover book priced at $16.95. This is fairly standard for a d20 book of this size.

The cover of Wrath & Rage (by Marc Evans) depicts a number of green skinned orc warriors and a female orc spellcaster preparing to engage in battle against the backdrop of a ruined city. The back cover reveals that this picture is half of a larger picture, the other half of which is the cover to Paradigm Publishing's Eldest Sons: The Essential Guide to Elves.

The interior is black-and-white. The interior art is by frequent Malhavoc and Green Ronin artist Toren "MacBin" Atkinson. The depictions have a rather demented look to them as is common in his illustrations, but in the case of orcs, this seems to work.

The interior body text is small, and the header text is moderate, stylish, and readable. There is a single space between the paragraphs. The interior editing seems pretty good overall, and I noticed no major gaffes. I did notice some small gaffes, such as the infamous internet "teh" spelling of "the."

A Deeper Look

Wrath & Rage is arranged similarly to the prior book in the series, Hammer & Helm. The chapters cover racial concepts, feats, prestige classes, creatures, deities, spells, and equipment, and an appendix with more race specific stock NPCs than those offered in the DMG.

The first chapter covers racial concepts associated with orcs and half-orcs. The first section of the chapter discusses some character archtypes you might want to use for orcs, and how orcs fit into the core PC and NPC classes, including how they fit the concept and the best approaches to using the class with game mechanics to realize a competent character.

As with Hammer & Helm, Wrath & Rage offers alternative racial concepts. Unlike that book, these concepts are less adaptable to individual tribes; they are more a whole campaign take on orcs. Examples include the more brutish and animalistic savage orc and the bizarre created orcs with genetic memory.

The second chapter introduces a number of new feats targeted at orcs. The feats are overall a mixed bag; some seem good, others makes some mistakes that will require GM tweaking before use.

The book includes a number of rage channeling feats. These are similar to the rage feats in Bad Axe Games' Heroes of High Favor: Half Orcs in that they allow a character with the rage ability to spend some of their daily rages to gain additional effects. For example, punishing rage allows the orc to gain the advantages similar to the great cleave feat as well as being able to take a 5' step after each cleave, but only during a rage and only by spending rage uses.

There are two NPC exclusive monster feats: nouveau riche and rich. The flavor of the names seem a little off for orcs to me, but otherwise the concept seems okay: the NPC gives up a feat in exchange for a larger allotment of equipment. Though the DMG already recommends allowing larger equipment expenditures for special NPCs, this might be a way that the GM might balance lesser NPCs.

One flawed feat is the keen scent feat. It requires the character to have the scent feat, but can only be taken at first level. The problem is that typical starting characters (including orcs and half-orcs) only get one starting general feat.

There are a number of "eye" feats that allow a cleric to convert spells to specific spells as a cleric normally converts spells to heal or inflict. The book calls these "metamagic" feats but they really aren't.

The prestige classes chapter introduces a number of new prestige classes for orcs and half-orcs. These are:
- Bride of He Who Watches: This prestige class is for particularly savage female orcs or half-orcs who enter a secretive sisterhood that purports a special relationship with an orcish deity symbolized by an eye. They are good warriors with abilities to smite good and call out enemies.
- Cutthroat: The cutthroat is basically a half-orcish assassin and infiltrator trained to take advantage of their near-human appearance.
- Honored Host: The honored host is an orc that passes away from disease, but is reanimated by the orcish death god by pestilence and vermin. The honored host gains class abilities related to disease and their unnatural state of existence.
- Mother of Rage: The mother of rage is an elderly female orc that gives birth to hideous creatures (basically fiendish animals). These creatures sap the mother of power, but are powerful in their own right.
- Orc Sapper: The orc sapper is a specialist trained in tunneling under the walls erected by more sophisticated races.
- Rage Smith: The rage smith is an orc who creates magic items not through normal item creation feats, but the investment of rage. The rage smith eventually dies in his last creation, but this creation becomes invested with his intelligence.
- Soul Gorger: The soul gorger is a savage orc that temporarily gains abilities and knowledge from consuming enemies.

It seems apparent to me that most of these prestige classes are not suitable for PCs, except perhaps in an evil game (and even then, I doubt many players would take them.) These prestige classes would serve well as bizarre villains in a campaign, though.

The fourth chapter introduces new creatures. Most of these creatures are allies or mounts to orcs.

The anathema creature is a spinoff of the idea that orcs despoil the land wherever they go; anathema creatures are undead that rise from creatures in the land despoiled by orcs. The sample creature is the hideous anathema nymph.

Other creatures include the dire rhinoceros, dire ostrich (axebeak), a half-orc template that can be used with any living creature, a rabid creature template, and two new giant vermin, the giant slug and giant leech.

The fifth chapter covers the deities of the Orcs. In actuality, it has two different pantheons with different approaches. The first is the great warband, which resembles a classic pantheon. It includes the figures He Who Watches, The Cave Mother, Grandfather White Hands, Iron Fist, The Mule, The Nightlord, and The Pale Lady.

The second pantheon, the Partrons, follow a different concept. It proposes that orcs were not created by the divine hands. These orcs came to follow the patrons, powerful supernatural beings, but killable. Each of the patrons has typical deity statistics, but also has powerful combat statistics. The concept is that in a campaign, if the orcs are a scourge, the players may eventually hope to permanently alter the course of the orcs.

The book provides the option that the patrons cannot truly grant a normal complement of spells to clerics, but can only offer summon patron creature spells, which are variants of the summon monster spells. It occurs to me that the concept of patrons would also work well if you use the small gods rules from FFG's Spells & Spellcraft or shamans from Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook.

The spells chapter contains new spells and new domains for orcs. The new domains are blight, breeding, command, curse, lycanthropy, murder, poison, savagery, and treachery. Most of the spells are supporting the new domains, such as the powerful curse bestow malediction and the treachery domain spell miscast spell promises to perturb opposing spellcasters.

The equipment chapter includes siege engines (like the arbalest), special and superior items (like magebane, a smoke-like substance that makes concentration more difficult) and magic items. Some of the more interesting magic items include the grudge special armor quality (which protects better against a particular creature type), and cutthroat charms (small charms that for a short time each day can enlarge and perform as a particular magic item.)

The appendix contains statistics for standard orc NPCs. Ten levels each are provided for orc adepts and warriors, while a full 20 levels are provided for orcish clerics (of he-who-watches), barbarians, and rogues.

Conclusion

Wrath & Rage gets a bit of a weak start, and the character material is not as strong as that of Hammer & Helm. The character material seem much more focused on NPC appropriate concepts than PC appropriate concepts. If you are looking for material for PCs, you might try this book's main competitor, Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs. As a book for PCs, you might read this review as a 3 instead of a 4.

However, the book has some good concepts for villains and orcs as a villainous race, and add some depth to them beyond the stereotypical barbaric orc. Much as with Hammer & Helm, Wrath & Rage adds some new and interesting twists to the topic race. The Patrons in particular really took me by surprise in providing campaign ideas instead of just spewing a new gaggle of stereotypical deities. What's better is that this is all OGC.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[trancejeremy]

Wrath & Rage is an 80 page softcover sourcebook from Green Ronin on Orcs and Half-Orcs. It's written by Jim Bishop and is priced at $16.95 (I traded for my copy). Though apparently somewhat aimed at the player by the blurb on the back cover, it's largely just for DMs (and in fact requires the use of the DMG or MM to figure out the stat adjustments for making an Orc character*).

As a disclaimer, let me point out that I am an existentialist. Which basically means that I believe any intelligent being is free to make his or her own choices or actions, regardless of social status or ingrained genetic behavior. Yes, you might feel an urge to do something, but what separates intelligent people from animals is the ability to not give into urges. Or in D&D terms, I think that a person picks his or her own alignment. Orc, Human, Elf, Drow, all are the same existentially (Dasein).

So, I tend to not take the view that orcs are mindless, bloodthirsty monsters who are largely incapable of being good. Unfortunately, my view largely clashes with the view of this book. While it does give some lip service to orcs not necessarily being evil, it really doesn't do anything other than that - most of the feats, classes, gods, spells and such seem to take the point of view that orcs are mindless killing machines. One of my favorite characters ever, was a goblin paladin. That said, I tried to put aside my philosophical objections, since I know most people tend to take the marxist view of things (that behavior is caused by past events or history.) and this product seems to have been writen from that point of view.

The first chapter of the book goes into some idea and archetypes of orc characters. Some are perhaps non-evil, but not are actually really good. This is probably the weakest chapter in the book, but thankfully it's short.

The second chapter is on new feats. There are lots and lots of them, 50+ apparently. Most are actually pretty good, including several new feats that are chained to the 'Scent' feat. Very interesting, I thought. Also several that are chained to the Leadership feat. Again, very interesting.

The third chapter adds several new prestige classes, all pretty much for orcs, and some are pretty gross. There's the Bride of He-Who-Watches (the main orc god), for female orcs. Kind of dumb, I thought. There's the Cutthroat, which is something of a spy-rogue. Then there is the Honored Host, which is an orc that lets vermin and such live on him. Ick. Then there is the "Mother of Rage", which is also gross - it's a class for orc women who give birth to a Cthulhu/Gore-ish monstrosity. Ick. Then the Orc Sapper, which is an orc who is experienced in siege mining. Then the Rage Smith, which is a Barbarian class in which the character gives up his ability to rage to make magical items. Lastly, there's the Soul Gorger, which basically is a cannibal.

While many are quite novel, none are really suitable for players. And some are more like background classes than classes you'd want to give villains or NPCs your players fight.

Chapter 4 is on new monsters. Some are a bit dubious to me, like how Orcs can (and do) apparently breed with every sort of animal or living creature (except elf). But it's well done, despite this. And it has an old favorite, the Axebeak (or Dire Ostrich). Pretty short though, and mostly templates with an example of each.

Chapter 5 (though it's labeled as Chapter 4 in the heading) is on the Gods of the Orcs. This is done very interestingly - two different, separate pantheons are given. There's a standard Orc Pantheon given, more or less that of the traditional D&D orc family, though with generic names. Then there is a pantheon of mortal critters that the orcs worship as gods and the PCs can oppose directly. These range from Black Oozes to Dark Nagas to Death Slaads. Interesting group.

Chapter 6 introduces several new spells (23 by my count) and some new clerical domains. It's nice in that it starts with a listing of what's introduced. Some of the new spells are also for the Adept class, though most are pretty orcish in nature. It's something of a grab bag - most aren't too useful for players, and some seem quite a bit overpowered. For instance, the ability to permanently sterilize someone is a 1st level spell.

Chapter 7 is on new equipment. While Green Ronin apparently doesn't think Assassins have lots of cool equipment and gear, they do think that Orcs do. There's also several new magical abilities for weapons and armor, all orcish in flavor.

Lastly, there is an appendix (though it's labeled as Chapter 6 on the top graphic of the pages) for typical Orc NPCs for Warrior, Adept, Cleric, Barbarian, and Rogue, like what is found in the DMG. Quite useful, though it only goes up to level 10 for Warrior and Adept.

The artwork is generally also excellent (and appears about every other page), though I tend to prefer the orc babes of Sovereign Stone to the rather hairy, noseless, grotesque orcs in this product. There are some minor editing problems, but nothing major - most are just cosmetic. I'm also glad to see that Green Ronin has gone to grey boxes instead of the black boxes with white text (which I hate).

All in all, this is a pretty good product, if you're looking for info on an evil or savage sort of orc or possibly politicians. It's also mostly useful for DMs, despite what it says on the back. B-



* Green Ronin finally added this info in the web 'enhancement' to this book. It also makes a very very important correction to the "Gullet" feat. I guess they have trouble with Imperial measurements.

 

[Madfox]

Wrath and Rage is a soft coverbook from the Races of Renown Series. It is a book about half-orcs and orcs. At the first page of the book the author immidiately points out that orcs are a violent and evil race and that this book is not going to change that. It promises to add depth to the race though. This was a bit of a downer for me, since I had hoped a product that would be more useful for my players. I don't like evil PCs and as such I feared the book would be less usefull then expacted.

The art within the book are black-and-white simple but evocative drawings. I especially like the drawing about the orc being pestfered by pixies, the kiss of live given by the honored host to a poor and soon to be dead elf and the poor orc flying in the runt glider. The puctures do not dominate the book and that is exactly how I like it.

The book consists out of 7 chapters. Starting in Chapter 1 with some one alinea advises on how to role-play both half-orcs and orcs, suggesting some archetypes to play, the various core classes in combination with the race and finally some suggestions for changing the orc race and culture slightly to make them more unique and to add depth to the race as a whole. It is a short chapter which offers some neat advice, though to be honest it does not contains much new for the experienced D&D gamer. Personally, I would have hoped to see more new twists to the race as has been done in Hammer and Helm. It also falls short on giving information on roleplaying half-orcs other then as orcs.

The 2nd chapter is all about new feats. Two new feats are introduced: rage channeling feats and "Eye"-feats. The first are about using a rage use of that day for a special effect. The eye-feats are for divine spell casters of "He-Who-Watches", a general name of the leader of the Orc pantheon. By sacrificing an eye and a feat the cleric will gain the ability to convert a prepared spell into a specific other spell dependent on the feat taken (and level of the prepared spell). Besides these two special type of feats there are also more general feats. Some of which are IMO a bit too strong, disruptive to the game when placed in the hands of PCs or silly. Why would you for example use a feat to make a character richer then others (and a whole level at that)? Or the feat 'Brain damaged' that reduces the intelligence of the possesor of that feat to 3, the wisdom and charisma to 1 in return for being immune to mind-affecting spells? On the other hand, there are also some pretty cool feats, like 'mighty throw' (power attack for thrown weapons) and 'spoilsport' (a feat that allows somebody to get an AOO of opportunity against tumbling opponents, though their attack roll must defeat both the tumbling check result and the AC of the tumbling opponent).

It is in chapter 3 that you will find some real pearls. It contains several PrC and I really like several of them. For example, the Brides of He-Who-Watches are part of a sisterhood to which they are so dedicated that they lose their individuality. The Honored Host is about a semi-undead orc that has been blessed by the orcish god of death and disease. Finally there is the Soul Gorger who learns to harness the power of creatures by eating parts of their body. The cutthroat on the otherhand is a bit too simular to the assassin though without the magic and combined with the d8 HD and 8 skill points a bit on the powerful side as well. The sapper is specialized in destroying equipment and tunneling, not particular interesting for an adventurer or even as an opponent for the PCs.

Chapter 4 is about monsters, though except for the rabid creature template there is not much I really like. Especially the idea that orcs somehow can procreate with anything alive including beasts like owl-bears goes a bit too far for me. The create spawn of the anathema creature is also a bit weird. I can understand the corruption orc waste can have on fey like creatures (though officially the template would fit any creature it works much better on fey imo), why would only elves killed by these creatures become anathema?

In chapter 5 we get the orcs point of view on the battle between the elves and orcs. I like it, since it puts the blame for the whole fight at the doorsteps of the elves, giving more depth to the hatred between the two races. After this creation story the orc pantheon is described. The book also offers a less traditional pantheon for the orcs to worship for a DM looking for something different. It offers seven demi-gods with statistics which PCs could beat at real high levels to destroy the orc menace once for all. I like some of the ideas behind some of these seven, but to me the idea of fighting gods goes a bit too far. To each his own I guess...

Chapter 6 is about spells and it contains several really cool spells. Especially the new more powerful versions of bestow curse are great and not only for orcs. I am currently running a campaign in an ancient Egypt like setting and having more powerful curses are great in such a setting just as much as in the hands of the hags of orcs. The only spell I have real trouble with is the multiply spell, while the impact on an adventurers level is null, the impact on a campaign level is way too high for a mere second level spell. Can you imagine the impact of an 10x higher growth rate of 20 medium sized or smaller children per casting or an increased fertility by 50% for 100 females? Imagine children being born in 4.5 months and growing up in 1.5 years? This miscast spell is a bit too complicated for my taste. I don't like spells that force me to grab my books each time I cast a spell just to remember the effects.

The final chapter is about orcish equipment and not surprisingly it is about weapons and armor mostly. Of particular interest are the effigies and the magical scares. Effigies are small doll like things that are destroyed in special rituals which gives orcs who take part in that ritual special bonuses for the upcoming battle. Magical scars form part of ritualized scaring, which gives some benefits in addition to hindrances. Drilling holes in your skull for instance is bad for the intellect, but great for the raging ability. The final part of this chapter is about some new siege engines.

All in all, I really like the book for the depth it gives to orcs. By giving several game mechanics they add depth and surprise to the typical orc. The only downside to the book is that it is not really useful for players. It did raise my interest in orcs as villains though and considering I have not used orcs in several years it made up for the lack of use for players. If you as a DM like to use a lot of orcs and want to add some depth and uniqueness to the race this is the book to buy. So that next time your players face orcs and dismiss them as just orcs you can make them realize their mistake when the Honored Host vomits in their face with deadly result, or the barbarian suddenly resists all spells or when the scarred orc actually shows some strange new magical powers it did not had the last time he met the PCs.

This is my first review, so feel free to make comments on the review and how I can improve my skills.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook To Orcs & Half-Orcs is another in the OGL Interlink series from Green Ronin & Paradigm Concepts, currently focusing on racial sourcebooks.

Wrath & Rage is an 80-page softcover mono sourcebook, costing $16.95. Margins are fairly standard, and there is little wasted space. Font size is good in the main text though chapter and subtitle headings are fairly large. Artwork ranges from average to good. Writing style and editing are good (though Chapter Five's chapter heading is wrongly labelled Chapter Four).

Chapter One: The Way Of The Scar
Gives general advice on playing an orc or half-orc character, with some ideas for orc archetypes (e.g. noble savage, battlerager, etc.). There is a discussion of the core classes in relation to orc and half-orc characters, followed by five alternative orc racial concepts, each with some encounter ideas and alternative racial abilities for the optional concept:
* Savage Horde - a monstrous look at orcs, less intelligent and more aggressive than standard concept
* The Created - genetically engineered (through magic or divine intervention) to be survivalists
* The Betrayed - historically betrayed by the elves explains their rage and hatred of elves
* The Cancer - sent as a divine plague to the Material Plane
* The Conquerors - a world where orcs rule

Chapter Two: Feats
This chapter offers over 50 new feats, including two new feat types: rage channeling (spending daily rages to create a specific effect such as the ability to strike incorporeal creatures) and 'Eye' feats, metamagic feats enabled by sacrificing the orc's own eye to improve clerical spellcasting. Some of the feats are usable by non-orcs/half-orcs.

Chapter Three: Prestige Classes
* Bride Of He-Who-Watches - 10-level female warrior/clerics of orc cult god
* Cutthroat - 10-level vicious assassin
* Honored Host - 10-level victim of extreme parasitic infestation with some truly gross abilities such as the ability to spew a parasitic soup into the mouth of a victim to infect them with a deadly disease.
* Mother Of Rage - 5-level female PrC with the ability to birth monstrous mutants.
* Orc Sapper - 10-level expert in undermining fortifications
* Rage Smith - 5-level PrC with the ability to channel rage into creating magical items
* Soul Gorger - 5-level PrC who steals energy from eating the still warm body parts of his victims
Each of the prestige clases includes a sample NPC character.

Chapter Four: Creatures
After a brief discussion of allies and mounts for orcs, seven creatures/templates are offered:
* Anathema Creature - template describing creatures affected by being around the rage of orcs for a long time. An example anathema nymph is given.
* Dire Animals - Axebeak and Dire Rhinoceros
* Half-Orc - not the core race as such, but a template allowing orc crossbreeding with other creatures - a half-orc/half-owlbear example is given
* Rabid Creature - another template, with a rabid dire boar as an example
* Giant Vermin - giant leech and a giant slug

Chapter Five: The Gods & Their Servants
Gives two alternative orc pantheons. The first is a typical pantheon known as The Great Warband and is headed by the great orc god He-Who-Watches, with the very Tolkienesque symbol of an unblinking eye. The second is a pantheon called The Patrons, actually very powerful evil outsiders rather than deities, and as such can be taken on by high-level parties providing a very real symbol of the evil of orcs that can actually be faced by an adventuring party. An option is given where these Patrons cannot actually grant spells as normal, allowing the cleric to only cast summoning spells related to creatures linked with the patron.

Chapter Six: Spells & Magic
The chapter offers nine new domains (blight, breeding, command, curse, lycanthropy, murder, poison, savagery, and treachery) and over 20 new spells (including endure sunlight, mass curse, and stinking bolt).

Chapter Seven: Equipment
Offers five new exotic weapons, some new special items such as painkillers and trance smoke, ten new special abilities for armor and shields (such as fleet, pack mule, and wild shape), eight new special abilities for weapons (including furious, sickening, and rusting), and a selection of specific weapons, totem rings, rods, staffs, wondrous items, effigies (when burnt, the effigy releases a spell-like effect such as rage upon surrounding orcs), scars (much like magical tattoos only less artistic), and artifacts (both minor and major). The chapter ends with some examples of various orcish siege equipment.

An appendix gives stats for typical NPCs.

Conclusion:
Maybe I was spoilt by Bad Axe Games' sourcebook on half-orcs, but I found Wrath & Rage a bit lacking in comparison. Little of the book stimulated me to want to include aspects in my campaign, though I did like the Patrons section with the demonic overlord concept. And it did have some interesting ideas for playing around with the standard archetypes of orcs (which Bad Axe Games' version deliberately avoided).

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Morgan {TempesT} Grover, Exec. Director, d20 Magazine rack

Sizing up the Target
Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook to Orcs and Half-Orcs is an 80-page perfect bound sourcebook published by Green Ronin and written by Jim Bishop. The cover work is done by Marc Evens and interior work is done by the increasingly popular Toren "MacBin" Atkinson.

First Blood
Let me first say I am a huge fan of Green Ronin. With that out of the way, I must say that this is a pretty solid book. It has a lot of nice material, and some really interesting goodies. But it still feels like it lacks somewhere. A lot of material is more oriented towards the orcish side of things. This kind of makes it a bit more DM sided. That does not mean it does not deliver for the player as well however.

The book starts out with an introduction on how to play orc and half-orc characters. Then goes through the different archetypes. These include the noble savage, battlerager, and several others. The chapter then goes into a bit of detail concerning the races with each of the core classes. The third section of this chapter is really helpful to any DM, and helps give you new and original ideas about the orcs racial concepts, and several ways to use them.

Chapter two brings you an abundance of feats. A lot of these feats work better on the DM's side of the table, and can really make orcs, or any other savage race, a true force to be dealt with. Over 50 feats cover the pages, many of them useful. A few seem a bit overpowered, but for the most part they are very balanced. Pretty much all of them fit the whole "orcish" feel.

Chapter three delves into the prestige classes. Every sourcebook has them , and probably always will. On the upside, it gives everybody a chance to find what they are looking for fairly easy! There are a total of seven PrC's in this chapter. However, I can only see 2 of them that really work for a player, and they are the cutthroat, and the rage smith. Most of the others are more oriented towards NPC's, such as the bride of he who watches, who is a specialty priest of the orc god. Or the mother of rage, who bears a deformed aberration like child that grows to gargantuan size, and the soul gorger who consumes different body parts of his slain victims in order to gain advantages.

Chapter four takes into account several new creatures and a few templates. New creatures are always a welcome for any DM, so this is a warm welcome to any of them.

Chapter 5 describes a new and entire Orc Pantheon. This includes a history of the orcs, 8 new gods, and 7 new patron demigods. This entire chapter can really help to flesh out the orcs in a campaign, and give them some good reasons for doing what they do. This section ends by describing how to use the gods as a false pantheon, as well as 9 new spells based around summoning patron god allies.

Chapter 6 is full of magic, containing 9 new domains, and over 20 new spells. Most of them are all oriented towards having that "orcish" feel, but can be used in any campaign fairly easy. I can easily see the lycanthropy domain, murder, and even poison domains seeing common use.

Chapter seven has all sorts of new equipment. This chapter is fairly split. Some of it is intended more towards orcs only, a few only useable by orcs. One section even delves into orc constructed siege weapons, very fun! A fore warning, PC's don't like to be caught of guard by a pesky group of orcs flinging burlap bags filled with rotting corpses and dung with their "corpse load".

This book ends by giving a ton of NPC's. They chose several classes and ranged them from level 1-20 (or 1-10 in some cases) and fleshed each level out with stats, equipment and spells. A total of 80 levels (or individuals) worth of NPC's

Critical Hits
For a DM this book can be invaluable at making orcs more than just "orcs". You have several racial concepts, histories, PrC's, weapons, magic items, and more to really give the orcs in your campaign a solid run. I can definitly consider having an entire campaign built around this simple book, as everything you need is here, and these orcs can do more than just challenge the players, they will eat them alive . . . literally.

Critical Misses
For the player there is not quite as much value. Unless the DM is running things on the opposite side, and having the players play the "monsters" or evil characters ,a player has a limited selection. They can easily find a god to warship, although most are evil or savage. They also have quite a few feats and spells to help define their character. If a player is playing a half-orc, or an orc, the player can really benefit from the history and racial concepts to give their character a just feel. But in the end, this leans more towards a DM's side of things.

Coup de Grace
Overall this book really delivers, like most other Green Ronin products. As I said an entire campaign can be based around this book with few problems. Green Ronin and Paradigm really struck gold with the OGL Interlink, and if they continue to push out quality products together, then we have a great future ahead. I did not mention above, so will do so here. Wrath & Rage is the companion sourcebook to Eldest Sons: The Essential Guide to Elves from Paradigm Concepts. That is not to say you need Eldest Sons however, as I don't have it, but W&R still finds many uses. If you’re a fan of elves, these two books will go together well. As nearly every other book from Green Ronin, everything text is Open Game Content. From the beginning introduction, to the last rogue NPC.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Illuminati]

Wrath and Rage is a guide and tool kit for making orcs and half orcs for the d20 system. Similar to the Sword and Fist, Tome and Blood, etc. prestige class books with a their abundance of advice for making more interesting or effective characters, Wrath and Rage goes beyond this by really bringing to life the often neglected or maligned half-orc species with new and fitting ideas and twists.

Wrath and Rage is 80 pages long, which is a bit short for something that goes for $16.95. However, the price is definitely worth it (assuming you're interested in half-orcs and orcs). The cover art is definitely evocative, with rich red lettering that makes the book stand out. And kudos to the interior artist, Toren Atkinson, for some of the finest b&w illustrations I've seen so far for a d20 product. Atkinson manages to create a wide variety of orcish caricatures that simply blow away some of the cheesy artwork I've seen done of humanoids in the past. Gruesome, savage, or outright disgusting (see the Honored Host PC), these are a fantastic highlight to the well-written text.

The book begins by offering advice on not only how to play an orc or half-orc, but also alternatives for racial concepts. This is a great section because it allows you to portray orcs in a different light than the same old stereotypes. One especially brilliant idea, I thought, was the Cancer, which suggests orcs are brutal race in constant evolution, and their tenacity at breeding and spreading across the earth (like a cancer) makes them far more interesting than just simple fodder for low-level adventuring parties.

The feats section offers quite a variety of feats, many of which are related to or reliant upon the barbarian rage ability. There are some excellent and evocative feats here that play well upon the orcish angle while also being very useful as well; Bite, Defensive Rage, Gullet (odd, but useful for an orcish assassin or thief), Little People, Pass For Human, Scent, and Thick Skin come to mind. A few are a little strange or perhaps a bit overpowered (I'd personally opt to leave Whirlwind Rage out of my games), but nothing so unbalancing as to detract from the overall content of this chapter.

The prestige classes offer a similar diversity, with some uniquely female-oriented PCs like the Bride of He-Who-Watches and the Mother of Rage. This latter PC is pretty stomach churning to read, but by the time you're ready to read the Mother you've probably already read the Honored Host – and lost your appetite anyway. Don't think these are cheesy or obnoxious classes either; they make a great deal of sense and really help to bring out the character of the bestial, bleak, and monstrous orcish race.

The only exception I had to this was the Rage Smith, the abilities of which just seem odd to me. I can't imagine taking a prestige class that, at 5th level, allows the character to kill himself to power a magical artifact. It's an interesting idea, but not one that seems to jive with a prestige class.

The next chapter offers new creatures as well as templates for making virtually any creature "half-orc" (that is, originally bred with an orc), or "anathema" (distorted reflections of normal creatures created by the negative energies and taint of the orcish race's presence in the area).

The next two chapters deal with a new take on orcish deities (a variant pantheon), and new domains and spells. The new domains are extremely fitting for the theme of orcs; the best examples that come to mind include the Command, Curse, Poison, and Savagery domains, all of which give very useful abilities to orcish clerics that choose them.

The section on exotic weapons and magic items continue the theme expertly, though in at least one case I was disappointed (the battering axe is a bit odd, and I don’t think the subdual damage for missing rule was necessary). But this is only one minor drawback in an otherwise excellent section filled with combat drugs, new magical armor and weapon properties, etc.. Of a particularly fitting invention are the magical scars, which just seem perfect to me for orc characters.

Finally, in the last few pages, the developers also chose to include quick tables for NPC orcs with various class levels to them, not unlike the NPC tables in the DMG. Very useful, and a great finale for an extremely flavorful book that successfully brings orcs to life.