This is a module for people who just want to beat crap up. Really. The bulk of the module takes place at a gladitorial-style event called The Festival of Blades. Like some lethal version of Survivor, you'll need teamwork to get through parts of the module, while other parts may pit you against your own party members. And woven throughout is this backstory about a murderer killing off contestants, and you get roped in to investigating it. Some nice twists throughout to keep the more serious roleplayers happy, but plenty of opportunities to just wipe the floor with enemies to make the ROLL players happy. And a few little side quests to boot. The mod would take a lot of work to run as a non-Neiyar game, because much of the backstory is dependent on the interaction between the various races and the politics of the setting. But if you don't want to use the backstory and just want to let the players beat the heck out of each other and NPCs, this would definately do it. And when they find out what the prize, The Blade of Kalla, actually does, they will be happy to beat each other up for it...because there can be only one Champion!

I really like this setting. There is plenty of fluff here for those who really want to immerse themselves in the world, while also plenty of new crunchy bits that can be used in other games. If anything the setting has a very "organic" feel. Like if one took a regular jungle island, opened the gates to magic, and just let it develop on its own. The new races have a purpose other than just giving players a laundry list of cool powers (though my favorite, the Krakadons, is very cool). Some of the spells and feats may be a bit overpowered for a typical game, but the setting seems designed for a slightly more powerful type of play. The jungles are lethal, with not only demons, cultists, and mutated monsters running around, but oversized bugs, diseases, quicksand, dangerous plants, and tons of other things ready to kill you. Some of the artwork is just OK, but the meat of the book is solid. There are a few instances where the book appears to reference 3.0 instead of 3.5, but otherwise the rules are solid.

The interesting twist is, like Oathbound or Ravenloft, it's a setting you can throw on your party without telling them. It's a stand-alone world, but it's possible to plant the island in the middle of an ocean on any setting and just have the party stumble on it. One minute your party is setting sail on a mission from the king, the next a insanely powerful sea monster (The Green Death...the divine pet of one of the goddesses) smashes the ship and the party gets stranded on the island. Oh, teleporting off the island doesn't work. But that's not just a contrived bit of trivia, there is a reason for it that makes the setting that much more interesting. Now there are portals that go to different places...but these things aren't really known about, are difficult to get to, and are guarded by nasty demonic guardians.

Definately something that is going to get used in an upcoming game, this is one of those things you didn't know you needed until you had it. The magical keys are balanced and well thought out.

This is a hefty collection of all sorts of kobold silliness. Equal parts fluff and crunch, this book gives plenty of options for a kobold as a player character. The sub-races have a much better survivability than the base kobold, and the Dragonmarked is just way too cool not to play at least once. The Vermin Kin class will make the squeaming in your group cringe, but it's a great class that plays to the dank, underground world of the kobold. The poetry was funny and the stories were cool, but there were too many of them and maybe they should have been web adds instead of in the book.

This product is almost all crunch, no fluff. The feats presented really focus on the arcane aspect of kobolds. And the mutant options give a lot of flexibility to DMs. Still not really a lot to make a kobold a practical player character, but plenty to make the kobold NPCs more interesting.

This seems to be the only one out of the series that focuses exclusively on one god. This weird god of assassins is also responsible for hospitality, which grants his followers a certain amount of flexibility in a fantasy world. If you have a player that's been wanting to play a true assassin but were worried about how to allow it, this product solves the problem. Mostly a fluff product with not a lot of crunch. But if you need ideas on how to run an assassins' guild in plain sight of the law, this is really the perfect product. Lots of well thought out background information to help you mesh this god into your game.

Much like Gods of the Dead, this does a good job of offering some varied new gods with well thought out followings. These three would easily fit into any game setting, and would be really useful for paladin players looking for a little more flexibility in that whole Lawful Good thing. While each goddess is lawful, they all have slightly different ideas of what that should mean. This puts them at odds with each other sometimes, which could make for interesting roleplaying situations.

Nice, original take on gods of death. Each god is a unique entity unto himself, and their churches are well thought out and would mesh well in most games. The few new magic items presented make sense and fill in a few blanks. (So how does a vampire travel cross country with his coffin anyway? No worries, when it's a folding coffin!). The Dhampir prestige class may be a bit unbalancing to allow as a player, but makes for a nice NPC option. But if you are running a powerful game, it won't be an issue.

What I like about this series is that it does offer a bit of variety to magical treasure and gives some good ideas for new items. Also, at a $1 each, you really can't complain too much. Still, there is a lot of repetition as item types are just repeated.

Like Magic Items III, not really 50 items, but variants. Pricing of items seems too low in a lot of cases. Still a good blend of ideas to add some spice to magical loot. Seems the series is still under 3.0 rules, not 3.5, though not enough of an issue to be a problem.

It's not really 50 different magic items. Many of the items are variants on the theme. Also, items seem really underpriced, which could cause game balance issues. And some items just seem to fall flat when you do the math. Universal Treasure Map is only 2,000 gp, but can be used once a day to locate the nearest treasure horde of at least 1,000 gp value! The problem is that it only has a 300 ft range. That's only a football field. Generally, by the time you are that close, you probably already now where the treasure is! Still, a lot of good ideas here that with minor tweeking can add some variety to treasure. And the price is right.

How do you squeeze a MILLION magic items into 15 pages? That seems to be a bit of a magic trick itself. This collection of random roll charts is pretty clearcut and easy to use. Really captures the feel of the epic magic weapon quest. But GMs be forwarded, DON'T use this for random treasure. Some of the combinations can quickly destroy any game balance in your game. On the first roll, I ended up with an Awesome Greataxe of Slaughter, which grants both a +5 bonus to AC AND a +5 bonus to damage. Not something you want falling into the hands of a 4th level player!

Another problem is that there is no pricing. Which I guess is fine since you don't expect your players to be making these things. But a bit of a problem if trying to figure out their resale value. For many of the abilities, you could figure it out if you try to match the abilities to the DMG, but that is an aweful lot of work.

A nice touch--you can make cursed items with this as well. You could end up with a protective amulet of tears. Which functions as BOTH a magic circle against evil and a minor globe of invulnerability. Which is a good thing...since you take double damage from all attacks!