The artwork is good (not great) B/W pencil sketched artwork. If you hoping to colorize it, that is not really going to be possible (or easily doable) with this. The License is quality. You get ALOT of artwork for the price. It is worth it.

The collection included in this set ended up more cartoony than I would have liked, although it is hard to argue with the price, as the first image is a fairly good one of a pair of skeletal warriors.

This free GM's Guide for Headless Hydra Games' upcoming Viridian Legacy AP is 23 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 1 page advertisement, leaving a total of 19 pages of content for this guide, so let's check this out!

The pdf kicks off with a short discussion on how the AP will work - the AP will span 12 adventures, each covering one level - chapter 1 for level 1 and so on. Additionally, the AP uses story-leveling, i.e. at the end of one of the modules, the PCs gain a level - interesting decision and I look forward to seeing how that works out. Also, the individual adventures could be shorter than usual in an AP, but I'm speculating on that one. What somewhat jarred me was that, if I'm not mistaken, the final battle and hooks to continue the AP will be separate release - that better be one hell of an epic final conclusion!

The three central themes of the AP are discussed: Legacies have power, Past actions have repercussions and allies abound - interesting selection of leitmotivs, especially the latter - I wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment, so let's hope the allies don't hog the spotlight in the campaign like in some of the early short fictions by HHG.

After that, GMs are introduced to the legendary adventuring group "Exalted Champions", their history and ultimate downfall as well as a key-element of the AP - 6 intelligent magical items are their legacy, all containing fragments of their personalities - cooler even, the respective write-ups come with a background for each of the champions, a typical story of adventuring exploits and each of the items gets its own, beautiful artwork. Nice! have I mentioned that they become more powerful with the levels, akin to legendary items?

After that, prospective GMs get 4 sample statblocks for goons of the primary antagonists and 4 sample encounters that reflect the tactics of these foes. Finally, fey influence, dominant and enchanting and one of the reasons Mor Aldenn has such a distinct feeling, is also covered and will resurface throughout the AP and the first fey-influence in the person of a corrigan (with full statblock, a new type of elixir and a full-color artwork) is also included in this GM-guide.

The pdf closes with a beautiful map of Mor Aldenn, split between two pages.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a beautiful 2-column standard and the full-color artworks are awesome. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is slightly inconvenient, seeing that DM will have to check back regarding the intelligent items. It should be noted that both this pdf and the player's guide are rather big files (~40 Mb), so both are not exactly tablet-friendly.

I am looking forward to the Viridian Legacy-AP due to a variety of factors: First, I really enjoyed the campaign setting book, a fine piece of city-sculpting indeed. Secondly because the format and its story-driven leveling and its leitmotivs are simply interesting and thirdly, because e.g. Ron Lundeen is involved with the AP and I enjoy his work. However, there is also potential for stumbling stones: I hope the individual adventures don't end up being too short, that the climax in its separate pdf will be sufficiently epic, that NPC-allies don't hog the spotlight... We'll see how the authors of the AP manage to portray all of that. What I was missing apart from the bookmarks in this pdf was a comprehensive outline of the AP for the DM, an adventure to adventure break-down, which would be immensely helpful if the concept of "Actions have repercussions" is to be maintained - I hope the modules will include notices for the GMs so we only have to track the significant interactions. That being said, this GM-guide is still a very cool, free offering and provides a neat sampling of what to expect. Were this a commercial file, I'd perhaps go lower, but since this guide is free and professionally presented as well as well-written, I'll settle for a final verdict of 5 stars nevertheless.

Endzeitgeist out.

New monster books are always fun, as they add more critters that you can throw at your PCs without worrying that they’ll have its abilities memorized. Weighed against that, however, is the question of whether these monsters – even when CR appropriate – will fall into that careful middle ground between “cakewalk” and “TPK-maker.”

The Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium seems to manage that balancing act, though it wobbles slightly along the way.

Thirty-five pages long and presenting twenty new monsters, the Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium presents itself fairly well. It allows for copy-and-paste, but has no bookmarks, something which was frown-worthy. The book comes as a single PDF, having no files for Mac-compatibility or e-readers.

The book’s artistic presentation eschews ostentation, having no page borders or fancy backgrounds, instead focusing solely on the artwork. In this, it does quite well, having a single black-and-white image for each creature it presents. This was very wisely done, as monster books virtually require each new creature to receive a visual depiction. It helps that the illustrators uniformly did a good job, presenting each monster with a grim seriousness that undergirds their presentation.

Like monster monster books, the majority of the monsters fall into the single-digit Challenge Ratings. While there are a fairly diverse range of creature types presented, from plants to fey to humanoids, there is an underlying theme to most of these monsters – a large number of them are based around a swamp/marsh environment. This isn’t coincidental; as the title suggests, the book’s writing is specific to the Mor Aldenn campaign setting, and the flavor text for the monsters often discusses them in the context of where they are found in the game world. As the Night Hag who dwells in a certain swamp appears to be a major antagonist, a large number of the monsters are based around that environment.

In regards to the monsters themselves, most seemed to be at least somewhat creative in their powers and abilities. The marsh dragon, for example, has several powers based around creating and controlling shambling mounds. The portune is a “classical” fairy that can be rebuked if you say its name (and can be an improved familiar). The most interesting monster in this regard is the manifest child of the ether, which has a number of powers based around its strange connections to magic and being from beyond known reality.

There were a few issues that came up with some monsters, however. A few had an armor class that was far too low for a creature of its CR. The arachnus, for example is a CR 11 creature with an AC of…16. No damage reduction, either. It’s the sort of monster that, due to that quite literally fatal flaw, won’t last long in melee combat. The hag spider has the same CR, and has AC 18. It’s little things like this that can undermine otherwise-great monsters. I’d recommend looking these creatures over with a critical eye before using them.

Having said that, these are creatures that should be used in your game. The level of innovation here is a cut above the norm, and this is reflected in the monsters descriptions and abilities. Even if you don’t play in Mor Aldenn, there are a lot of interesting creatures here that can help to liven up your game.

This player's guide for Headless Hydra Games' Viridian Legacy AP is 28 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, leaving 24 pages of content, so let's check this one out, shall?

There has scarcely in my opinion been a 3pp that has undergone such a radical change as Headless Hydra Games - from beginnings that could be considered to be fluctuating in quality at best, the company has grown to produce a stellar city campaign setting with their Mor Aldenn supplement - one that actually made my personal Top-10 of 2011.

The City of Mages came to life and identity in a rather glorious pdf that is not only cheap for the amount of quality, but brims with imagination and its very own identity. Now, the Viridian Legacy AP finally looms and Ron Lundeen, mastermind of Run Amok Games and author of two stellar adventures published by HHG as well as his own superb Run Amok adventures presents us, along with K. Axel Carlsson and David Nicholas Ross with the free player's guide to said AP - but is it enticing? Let's see!

The pdf kicks off with an introduction and brief overview of the city's history before we delve into the topic at hand - characters and how to fit them in the upcoming AP. The discussion kicks off with an overview of the races available - all the basic races get an additional racial trait astute players may use to further customize their characters. It should be noted that the races peculiar to Mor Aldenn, centaurs, Gaiants and Sprites also are covered, though they get no new racial trait. A bit of a pity, but okay, I guess.

Next up is the discussion of classes, including a list of domains and subdomains for divine casters, sorted neatly by belief as well as a new oracle mystery, the legends mystery. This new option allows an oracle to channel the stuff of legends and aspire to become one herself by gaining lucky rerolls and similar destiny-themed abilities. The mystery seems well-balanced, if not too exciting and again, classes peculiar to Mor Aldenn like the troubled Clockworker and the excellent Spellwarden-class are covered as well. It should be noted, though, that while gearworks play a role in Aldenian economy and life, no black powder-or eastern-related love can be found herein, i.e. the gunslinger and samurai/ninja-classes can be found herein. While some may mourn this decision and I particularly am a huge fan of the gunslinger, I think a slightly restrictive decision like this keeps the focus of a setting tighter.

A total of 17 traits are included in the player's guide as well and can be considered welcome additions, doing what a trait does well indeed - anchor a character in the respective campaign setting, providing minor angles and associated bonuses to explore in the character's development while providing minor bonuses. A total of 16 feats are also part of the deal: From the ability to temporarily making your melee weapons or projectiles deal fire or cold damage to reserve-feats: Essentially, these let you choose a physical or mental ability score and add bonuses/rerolls to checks a limited amount of times per day to the ability to ask rivers or trees for answers and even some feats that will help agile swashbuckling bards and similar characters. All of the feats are interesting enough to be taken and none of them felt unbalanced or off to me.

A total of 8 new magic items and a peculiar table is given - since Mor Aldenn is the City of Mages, it is suggested that player characters start play with a minor magic item and thus, the table is provided, should you wish to randomize the process.

The final section provides us with 20 different spells taken from the neat spell compendium "Eldritch Secrets".

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a two-column, full-color standard with a beautiful border and awesome illustrations. The pdf has no bookmarks, which is a minor bummer. When all's said and done, I'm glad to report that this player's guide succeeds at what it sets out to do - provide the tools for a player to create a character invested in protecting the city of mages (that's about the only requirement) and a whole neat slew of customization options. The new crunch is solid and thankfully, SPOILERS are absent from the pdf - One thing I'd urge prospective GMs to do, though, Is print out the sections on the Spellwarden and some of the legends/festivities of the city to enhance the immersion of the players in the setting. That being said, since this pdf is free, achieves what it sets out to do and is professionally presented and makes me look forward to the AP, my final verdict will be 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Out of the six pieces included in this bundle, the three black and white individual orcs far outshine the color piece and the two filler pieces of art. Not to say that the filler art was not extremely useful, and a good usage of a bundle to include thematic pieces for a PDF project, as the filler items being cohesive to the main theme is always nice to see in a bundle, and the artwork was very good for the necklace and sword. And whereas the color piece is not bad, it feels very out of place with the style of art the B&W pieces are done in, which is itself very very good.

All in all, you can't argue with the price if you are needing some orcs that are a step away from just the ordinary greenskin.

A fairly well done greyscale illustration for a rust monster with a pretty straight forward license regarding commercial usage. A deal at the price for a publisher needing to add art for this particular creature within a PDF publication, or on a website. Perfect for home GM's as well.

Can think of only two things that would have made me happier. The background being on a separate layer to give the option to not use it, and a copy of the image in color, but color would have raised the price, so that one I can understand.

An excellent collection of B&W artwork, bought it for the Formians included within, might have been happier without the main focus of this book being dragons, as I truly didn't need a few of the dragon varieties included, but the art is of exceptional quality.

These maps were apparently designed by Jonathan Roberts to accompany an adventure called “A Trail of Poison.” I don’t know anything about that adventure, but it doesn’t matter. Any fantasy setting can use a generic, three-level tower. The artwork is well done in Roberts’s signature style (distinct black outlines with a hand-drawn feel). The layout is well-conceived and leaves everything but the walls and stairs to the DM’s imagination, giving it very high replay value. There must be dozens of towers dotting your fantasy landscape that could be represented with this layout. The download includes both gridded and non-gridded versions, in JPG format, and this brings us to the products big downside. Each map is 15" square, so unless you’re printing direct to poster-sized paper, you’ll need to slice up and tile the maps yourself. A pre-tiled PDF or even JPGs would make the product much easier to use. I would give the product 5 stars for quality, but only 3 for ease of use.

This extremely attractive book is full of all sorts of new spells, feats and magic items for all the spell-casting classes in Pathfinder (or the 3.x product of your choice). The vast majority of this book is devoted to spells and there a spells here for every need and situation. There a few new feats and some magic items, but the spells here are the main course. There are several useful Appendices including Spells by Descriptor, School and use.

At 12 bucks this product is not exactly a steal, but really, really close. The art and layout is fantastic and you get a printer friendly version as well.

This free web-enhancement to the city of mages is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD and 1/2 page editorial, leaving 7 1/2 pages of content, so let's check this one out!

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS. Potential players, please jump to the conclusion.

Still here? This latest little supplement from Headless Hydra Games features essentially a mini-dungeon, the ominous ruins. Legends of a breed of elven giants and a legendary centaur-civilization in the primal woods of Ossindrillion abound and these little ruins actually represent the true ruins that may prove or disprove the validity of the thesis. The part of the ruins that is detailed herein is above ground, 3 levels long, provides 15 rooms/locations and turns out to be challenging - rust monsters, invisible stalkers, army ant swarms and worse have made the place their home. The best part about the ruin-exploration, though, at least in my opinion, is how languages and deciphering ancient scripts is made a rather intriguing, complex task that can actually bring excitement to the game. While here, it is via skill checks, I look forward to seeing Headless Hydra Games come up with more complex rules, as announced on their blog. The potential to actually decipher the ancient script in the ruins (potentially even IRL would be a great idea for a longer adventure, perhaps even with glyphs or a full cipher...) enhances the excitement of finding ancient scripts can add a sense of wonder to an exploration, that, while certainly not bad, would otherwise not be half as intriguing. Once the PCs have found their prize, perhaps a map of ancient magical gates, the short sojourn ends, leaving us wanting more and opening some neat options and hooks for the DM to develop.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a full color, beautiful version of the HHG-layout and the two pieces of b/w-artworks and 2 pages of b/w-maps are of a higher quality than one would expect from any free pdf. The pdf does not come with bookmarks, but at this length, that's ok. The content and writing of this mini-adventure/location are very good and concise, though not as enticing as in Gallery of Dreams. Nevertheless, The Ruins is well worth the space on your HD and giving this away for free makes getting this pdf essentially a no-brainer: A neat little location, some fun with linguistics and coherent enemies make this a 5 star-pdf.

Endzeitgeist out.

This pdf is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial and 1 page SRD, leaving 7 pages of content, so let's check out this 3-room dungeon!

This being an adventure-review, the following contains SPOILERS, so potential players might wish to jump to the conclusion.

Still here? Ok! Alantes was a weird fellow, even for a wizard - supposedly mad and eccentric, the mage dabbled in biomancy and other strange pursuits and is rumored to have constructed several hidden storage vaults. This takes the PCs to one of them, in which a fabled golden apple, supposedly being able to restore one's youth, lies.

Konwledge DCs to get additional information on the fabled apple and some myths are included in the deal and, with a bit of foreshadowing, a DM can easily insert these prior to the adventure, making it more rewarding, as there are two "Press 3 buttons in the correct sequence"-puzzles/traps guarding the vault and separating 2 of its rooms. While a rogue could still disarm them the traditional way, solving the puzzle in the case of the second one is much more rewarding. Why the first of the 3-button-puzzle features no way for the PCs to find out the solution, I don't know. The inside of the vault is covered in elaborately-crafted high-reliefs and provides the first combat challenge, a gray ooze cleverly hidden in the scenery. The true climax of this short delve, though, is the new creature - The Golden Apple Guardian (CR 4). An utterly disturbing magical plant emitting hallucination-inducing pollen and featuring deadly spores comes with not only cool signature abilities (one is optional for evil DMs like yours truly!), but also with a beautiful b/w-artwork by Richard Chaplin, a weakness to exploit and an option to get the apple without killing the deadly plant. However, making the plant immobile is a downer - PCs will snipe it till it's dead. Several trapped boxes and full stats for the apple are also included for your convenience.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, though something is a bit awkward with the read-aloud text in the module and I'm not sure whether that was intentional or not: The read-aloud text features sentences like "According to the information the party received...", which feels a bit odd and is not something I'd encourage, as it detracts from the otherwise very good writing of Ian C. Hagan. Layout adheres to HHG's 2-column standard and features a beautiful b/w-illustration as well as a nice piece of isometric, full-color cartography by Justin Hernandez. The pdf is fully bookmarked. I did like this little, very affordable adventure, which provides you with an awesome sidetrek for less than a buck. However, as mentioned, there are some minor blemishes that keep me from going all out on this one: First being the lack of options to pass the first puzzle and secondly, the inconsistent quality in the fluff-text. As written, this is still a very interesting sidetrek for a very fair price and thus I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars. Endzeitgeist out.

Mor Aldenn setting guide opens with a piece of fiction, a short story set within the city of mages, that serves as an excellent introduction to the feel of this city. Operating as a perfect vessel to immerse the reader in the culture of the setting as far as how the lower class folk live, view their situation living in the shadow of spell crafters, and the drastic differences in how the different social castes view each other. It is within this story that perhaps one of the better “sound bytes” (if you will forgive its usage in this form) can be found. Here's the scene, apprentice mage, barmaid and mercenary are thrown together by circumstances, and investigating a prophetic dream that the barmaid has had that seems to be unfolding around them. They are on their way to the ruins of an ancient battle that now serves as a magical prison for a demon when they come upon four bad guys (the attire gives it away, trust me, when you actually read it yourself, you'll understand) surrounding a small girl who the mercenary had rescued from a fire earlier in the evening. Now, here's where this excellent quote comes in, the type of quote you wish, as a player, you had said.......”They hurt that girl the day after I can't swing a sword, “ Zeldan growled, and charged forward. OK, Zeldan is our grumpy mercenary, for clarification, and is that not a great line? I mean come on, who hasn't wished they had a great line like that to utter before combat with a character?? By the time it's all over....oh, you'll have to read for yourself, there's a bit of a twist, lol. My point being, as has been proven time and time again, give us a story, with characters to connect to, and we're going to read it, we're going to invest, and that helps make a setting all that much more real. It was just a handful of pages, but it was enough, enough that I want more stories, and that's when you know a setting is going to work..

Mor Aldenn, being a city of mages, and ruled by mages, enjoys a certain level of luxury that could be construed as reskin...but it works. By this I mean the streets are lined with streetlights (globes with a continual flame spell sitting on poles) or water founts comprised of decanters of endless water to guarantee fresh water for all. As most cities are, this one is segregated by class and industry as well,with sections bearing names such as the Grand Market, Tower Hill, and the Northern Docks, the atmosphere of the city changes as you traverse from economic neighborhood to economic neighborhood. Southside of the town one finds the Horse Downs, wherein live the centaurs..wait, centaur? Yes, there is a large enough population of centaur as to necessitate an area of town for them. By far the largest concentration of anything architecturally within Mor Aldenn would be the mage towers, they tend to dominate the skyline of this city. The majority of the town resides upon an island resting in the fork of a river, which is depicted very well on the two page map included within the book (albeit in B&W, its still of pretty good quality).

Where this product excels, and I mean really excels, is in the details. It is one thing to state “Its a city run by mages.”, and quite another to actually detail that out. We are given laws pertaining to registry for the usage of magic, licensing for the rights to sell or traffic in bat guano (it is the primary component for fireball after all), a perfectly viable explanation of how a school of necromancers would appropriate the amount of bodies they would need to be able to continue their craft within a society, legally. We are introduced to bar games for the magically inclined (including a variation on darts that amazes me no one ever thought to design before, it's so obvious its brilliant), as well as more magical variation to cock fighting. There are breakdowns of punishment and fine levels for violating any of the laws pertaining to magical usage, as well as a rather amusing take on the very laws themselves, in that many of them were formed to handle case by case situations, and are only still on the books because, lets face it, every society has a collection of odd laws that are on the books simply because no one has ever removed them. In short, where this city guide really impressed me beyond anything else, and there is a great deal of impressive material here, was in the small things. The things that could have easily been overlooked, and by a lot of companies and guides, would have been overlooked. Little details like the necromancers school using their undead to aid during fires and floods to search for and rescue survivors, the fact that the mayors family have let his power and position go to their heads, or that centaurs who embrace the gods of their humanoid neighbors are looked at as sell outs by their more traditional kin. Local holidays, and how the townsfolk celebrate them, including Spirit Eve (Halloween) with an excellent illustration of children with candy bags in costume. These types of things all build, and add up to a thriving, breathing setting that draws you in, and makes it easier to believe, and want to visit a setting.

As with any true setting guide, you will discover new playable races (centaur, Giaint, Sprite), Classes (Spellwarden), feats and spells, alternate racial traits, and new archetypes. I could go into these, I could. But as I stated, you will find these in practically every setting, so to me, as long as the design is consistent and good when it comes to these things, when presented in a setting guide, this is one of those times when crunch takes a backseat to fluff. For in the end, setting guides are all about the fluff, and this product delivers in truckloads in that regard.

There is a great deal of material to discover within this book, and whether you are looking for a full setting to base your adventures, or merely a city for your players to experience upon their journeys, you can do a lot worse than Mor Aldenn. I personally have added the city of mages to my own campaign world, and have begun spinning the tales that will draw my group to this city, as I know they will be just as impressed with it as I was.

Artwork wise, you're looking at B&W, with most of the illustrations being very good, some only OK, and a few that are not so much. Formatting follows the dual column approach with artwork embedded. There are several locales fully mapped for interior layout and detailed as to be usable for running encounters within many of the locations within the city. I did find the occasional stumble in editing, the usage of “with when the sentence calls for within, or a missing space between words. They were minor mistakes, and I truly only counted three.

The setting book does borrow heavily upon material already released in other products, or perhaps it is the other way around, as I am not positive on release schedules. The Giaint race for example, have their own book, but are presented here as well. Many, if not all of the creatures presented within this guide are in the Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium, and several of the magical items I recognized from other PDF offerings from this company. Where as that is a disappointment, it does have it's positive side, as for those who have not purchased a great deal of books from this company will find enough within this book to be able to tun a full setting from this material alone. On the other hand, for those who have picked up a handful of Mor Aldenn books, there is a great deal of repetition going on, and that would tend to make one question the value, and leave a customer wanting new, fresh material.

Loving the setting, and the ideas behind its design, that becomes my one true complaint and dislike of this product, the sheer amount of material presented here that is also presented within other books. If the material was first presented here, and then recycled to other books, it invalidates this material as being unique. If, on the other hand, this book is indeed the borrower of said material, it mars the design originality of the work presented here. Either way, it ends up costing this book a full star from me, as this setting has room for more growth, and I feel there should have been nothing within the pages of this PDF that had already been covered extensively in another book.

My final rating will be a 4 star for this excellent setting, and I recommend you take a look through this city setting, and consider introducing it to your players, as it is a unique and interesting locale.

The latest installment of Headless Hydra Games' "15 specific weapons"-line is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving 9 pages of content, so let's check this one out!

In contrast to most introductions to the topic of weapons, this pdf actually starts with an interesting introduction - advice is provided to DMs who seek to insert weapons into their games and the cultural perspective that led to the development of these martial instruments of mayhem is taken into the focus. While not providing earth-shattering insights, the thoughts that are conveyed are something to keep in mind when inserting a new weapon into your game.

That being said, we get, apart from the new specific weapons, a new weapon quality (that adds sonic damage, a reprinted table of the basic weapon stats and a table to roll for them, if you're so inclined.

Headless Hydra Games are great at making magic feel...well, magical. uncommon. Strange. Distinct. And the same can be applied to the weapons herein. You won't find a single weapon in these pages that only has some weapon qualities stapled to a name and instead are provided several interesting items that may open up whole new tactics. Take the large adamantine warhammer "Earthwrack" - by pounding it on the ground, the wielder may create difficult terrain. Or the backwatching boar-spear, which is a twist on the dancing weapon - instead of attacking, the spear literally watches your back and can brace itself against attacks and defend you. There's also a modular repeating crossbow with a bayonet and on the iconic side: "Impact Storm". This lucerne hammer can be held to the sky and, after a battle-cry by the wielder, he is struck be lightning for damage, but also damage surrounding foes with a sonic blast that doubles as a bull-rush. If you don't consider that metal and awesome, I don't know what would be.

However, there is one particular weapon I have a true gripe with: Assassin's Mercy. A keen kama+2, this weapon may maximize his/her sneak attack damage, but only once per victim. That's the only restriction. Other than that, it can be used unlimited times per day. On a crit, sneak attack is added to the damage, even against targets usually immune to sneak attack. This is broken in two ways: Immunities are not called immunities, because they can be offset by a 24800 GP-weapon. An artifact? Ok, I can get behind that. But a weapon in this price range? Worse, imagine warfare: A camp of low-to mid-level soldiers. A high-level assassin. Guaranteed death, all around. Replace that with a squad of assassins with blades like these and we have a death-squad par excellence. Don't fear the next orc-invasion. Two flanking rogues can break the whole mob. Not gonna happen in my game.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a book-style 2-column standard and is nice to look at. the artworks for some of the weapons provided herein is of high-quality and the pdf comes fully bookmarked. All in all, I really enjoyed this installment of the "15 specific weapons"-line. Apart from the one item I consider broken, I had a lot of fun with the iconic weaponry herein and look forward to inflicting them on my players. The price-point practically can't be beat and, while I'd usually go 4 stars for this pdf due to aforementioned gripe, the low price makes me settle on 4.5, rounded up to 5 instead. Endzeitgeist out.

The Storage Vault of Alantes from Headless Hydra Games, is a perfect one nighter, a way to handle your party turning left, when you spent all week planning for them to turn right. In short, it's a perfect fill in for those nights when your plans have fallen apart. But, to leave it there would be a disservice, as this small unassuming mini dungeon is in all reality quite capable of sparking a much larger, and more developed adventure.

Alantes, the dottering old wizard who's vault your players will be raiding was not known for his memory, and had a tendency to create forget where he put things, and by things, I mean everything. It is hinted that he has built a multitude of these micro dungeons and vaults, they simply have been forgotten to time. This particular one houses a golden apple rumored to have the power to heal, and return youth to those who eat it. A handful of options are given to entice your players, one being rather amusing and involving a stolen goat (OK, I thought is was funny).

I guess, I really should point out at this stage....THIS IS AN ADVENTURE!!! If you are a player looking for spoilers, I will be telling your GM on you...go on, I see you trying to hide behind the closet door....OUT.............ok, just us GM's here? Good, now continuing............

With 10 pages (3 given up to Cover, OGL and credits), this mini dungeon actually comes through with a solid little design. The 3 rooms is questionable though, as the first room is a well entrance and then the climb down. The cartography is fantastic, a full color iso map being a nice change of pace from the typical bird's eye view mapping. Filled with puzzle traps, this adventure lends itself more towards a thinking group in my opinion, and that's a good thing. Not everything should be solved by breaking down the door, although if your players are dead set on doing just that, the stats are given to allow them to.

With two monster encounters, one with a grey ooze, and the other with a new creature of a plantlike nature, a playgroup of 3rd - 4th level characters should be able to handle this adventure with little danger of death, unless of course they insist on not working through the puzzle traps with intelligence, lol.

As an extremely affordable mini-adventure this product excels, between the excellent cartography (yes, I am a sucker for maps), and the new creature (horrible name, cool critter) complete with illustration, I can see this entertaining a playgroup for a one off evening as it is written. I can also see a GM using this as a jumping point to further expand upon the storyline introduced here, and as such, this takes on the life of more than just an adventure, but possibly a hook as well. Giving this one a 5 star stamp of approval, as it more than succeeded in what it set out to accomplish.