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Dark Mistress · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 5:33 am Post subject:

Midgard Northlands by Open Design

This product is 114 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (3 pages)

Chapter One (16 pages)
This chapter is about the people of the north, culture, religion, lifestyles. Basically what life is like for those to live in the north and how you can bring that to life for your players or for a player to make a character from the north come to life.

Chapter Two (16 pages)
Campaign setting. This talks about the lands, cities and major land marks for the north.

Chapter Three (23 pages)
This is the character creation section of the book. There is four human ethnic groups, mechanically they are the same but from a RPing point of view they are fairly different. There is also two variate humans as well the Dayborn and Nightborn. Typically it is just those born on Hyperborean that show the traits of one of the two. There is also a new type of Dwarf with fey subtype and Trollkin of fey subtype as well.

Next it gets into the classes. They get the following new.
Barbarians – They have three rage paths to follow. Nine new rage powers and two archetypes.
Bard – Skald variant bard.
Cleric – Cold and Fate domains.
Monk – 1 archetype.
Oracle – two new mysteries, Fate and Revelations.
Paladins – have a new code.
Sorcerer – two new bloodlines, Giant and Hyperborean.
Witch – two new patrons, Fate and Grudges.
Wizard – may take Rune mastery as a specialty.

There is some expanded skills on what all you can do with them, which is followed by new feats. There is 15 achievement feats, 9 combat feats, 6 general feats, 1 item creation feat, 10 meta magic feat, 5 monster feats, 2 team work feats and 38 traits. After that it gets into new equipment. There is 3 new armor, 11 new weapons, and 35 new varies equipment.

Chapter Four (27 pages)
This section is about new magic. There is two new types of magic, Grudge magic and Rune Magic. There is also 4 new incantations, 45 new spells, 59 new magic items of varies types from artifact, to cursed items to general magic items and finally 5 new weapon properties.

Chapter Five (12 pages)
New rules for Arctic Chases, Coastal Ship Chases, Snowshoe/Ski Chases, New environmental rules for server cold, altitude, frostbite, food/drink, cold water, and scurvy. There is also a bunch of new hazards. Fate Afflictions, new haunts and pretty much anything you might think of as needing a rule for characters traveling and surviving in arctic like conditions.

Chapter Six (14 pages)
There is twelve new monsters in this section ranging from a CR 4 to a CR20. There is also one new template that adds a +2 to a monsters CR. The monsters are well done with very good artwork. They fit the setting and myths of the north well.

It ends with a OGL, full page map and back cover. (3 pages)

Closing thoughts. The artwork is black and white and very good. Editing and layout was very good. I did notice a couple of spots here and there but that’s to be expected in a book this size. Everything about this book was well written and interesting. If you are looking for a new campaign setting then this book has what you need, if you are looking for information to add to a existing setting to cover the northlands of a campaign world then again all you need is here. Or even if you are just looking for idea's for adventures and characters from such a environment. I really have nothing negative to say about this, other than to say this book does for the northlands what Tales of the Old Margreve did from Grim Tales folklore forests. I highly recommend this book if the subject interest you in the slightest. So what's my rating? Well despite a couple of minor editing/layout errors this book is outstanding. So I am going to give it a 5 star review.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.

Kobold Courier