New Stuff, Old stuff

These are my most recent gaming purchases. I picked up the Withcery book after spending a few days pouring over the .pdf. It is currently my favorite DnD. It has all the classic fantasy stuff but also races, classes and rules for horror, weird adventures, and sword and planet. I also love the interior art, most of which is by Dominique Crouzet, the author. The pdf is available for free, HERE. Go. Look. The HC Is currently out of print as Dom is doing a new round of edits.
The important thing, of course, is that I have one.
I bought the WD book because I read a shitty .pdf of the Lichway and it was the first time I have ever looked at published adventure and thought, "Fuck, I'd like to use this, and it fits my setting." The Halls of Tizun Thane, by the same author, had a similar effect. I have already placed both into the Valley of Bones*. I'll alter each, of course, and I am going to redraw some of the maps. WD maps are too clinical for my tastes and look like apartment complex floorplans to me. Aside from that, both are kickass dungeons and I think Albie Fiore was a master of exactly how much detail to provide. The scenario book versions of these are great, too, because they include all the monsters from the WD Fiend Factory, and as I don't own a copy of the Fiend Folio (what?) that's good for me.
* I am going to use some one page dungeons as well, but more on that in a future post.
Anyway, I hardly ever buy anything, so to get two cool things within the same month is pretty badass.

The Whitebox, Savage Swords of Athanor and Equisite Corpse

Some short and honest reviews:

The S&W White Box: The art is nice. The cover image is easily my least favorite of the new images, but still it's pretty neat. I liked the Mullen cover. The lower box is flimsy. I wish the box was about an inch or so thicker, so I could put some of my other digest sized booklets inside of it. The trim job on the covers is less than perfect. All my books have overlap; one of them (Book III Monsters) is kind of sloppy. It took too long to get here. The Old School Primer shouldn't be in the set. The included adventure looks pretty cool, if a bit short. I won't use it anyway. The layout is very good. I like the digest sized books. Over all, I'm glad I bought it, but I have some reservations.

Savage Swords of Athanor is an imaginative planetary romance setting for Swords & Wizardry. The book has lots and lots of typos and a few confusing and awkward sentences. Aside from two maps, there is no interior art. In every other way, though, it is excellent. I am especially fond of the mutation tables and the magical mishap tables. The monster section is nice too, providing, among other things, a groovy selection of strange vat creatures and dinosaurs. The player character races are original, weird and cool. There's also a neat little system for character skills. The author's blog can give a you a more in depth idea of what the setting is all about. If you aren't overly bothered by typos or spider people with German surnames I recommend this without reservation.

Exquisite Corpses is a funky little spiral bound book. The bulk of the book is made up of full frontal body shots of monsters divided in three sections (head, torso, legs) by dotted lines. Cutting the drawings at the dotted lines allows one to mix and match the body parts of different creatures. There are guidelines explaining how to stat up the creatures. The book also includes some sample creatures and a bunch of nifty random tables for making your monster special. I like this book. It is great idea well executed. I'm told it's fun to look at while one is chemically enhanced. Furthermore, there are naked tits. Recommended.


Notes:
1. More actual content next week. Two words: Metal Space.
2. I will not engage in any discussions regarding the Old School Primer here. I wont delete your comments, but I've said what I have to say elsewhere (mostly at The RPG Haven).
3. I'm not sure I'll ever review anything ever again.