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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009878" data-attributes="member: 18387">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 <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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