Chronicles of Eberron is the newest product from Keith Baker Presents, which does mean that while it is written by Keith Baker it is not WoTC canon. I say this not as a detraction but just for informational purposes.

The other thing to be aware of is that the foundation of this book consists of articles previously (and no longer) available for free on Keith Baker's blog. I can't say whether or not Keith Baker would have left them available given the choice, but DMs Guild rules did not give KBP a choice in the matter. This left the choice between leaving the articles and not publishing on DMs Guild or removing the articles to publish.

Given that the content was previously free, here's why I think it is worth purchasing regardless.

• Editing: The articles could be rough. In Chronicles they've been professionally edited. The content reads better, many typos corrected, and innacurracies/contradictions/redundancies are addressed.
• Lore Content: The bulk of the lore will match the articles, but there is additional lore content. I assume some of it came about naturally from KBP re-reading it and additional parts from the Q&As below the articles. I can't quantify how much new lore there is unfortunately.
• Mechanical Content: The articles usually had zero mechanical content, so there was a good amount of work put into these. I'm particularly impressed with the separate table of contents for mechanics, as they are spread throughout the book.
• Art: Consists of original commissions and well chosen stock art. The original commissions are particularly good and have some truly iconic scenes as well as a fantastic map of Riedra. I think the accompanying art alone justifies the price tag.
• Usability: I've personally struggled in the past with cross referencing stuff on Keith's blog. Especially if a cohesive picture on a topic is spread across multiple articles. Chronicles is infinitely more easy to read and reference.
• Layout: The book looks nice. It's organized neatly. The headers and subheaders are fancy. There's little easter eggs. The pages are decorated nicely.
• Physical Copy: This is entirely personal preference, but I like having nice RPG books on my shelf. At no point were the free articles going to scratch that particular itch unless I learned a lot about self-printing.

Now, onto the actual content of the book. The focus of the chapters is frankly a bit arbitrary. This is not a focused dive into one specific aspect of Eberron. Not all of it is going to be useful, or even desirable, to everyone. A key thing that I really enjoy is that it's not all exposition dumping, there is frequent discussion on why the lore would matter to players and how to use it in game. In the below, I've grouped chapters together by thematic similarity. Just assume if it's separate by a comma, it's a different chapter.

Part 1: The Library - This section is more player oriented.

1. Common Knowledge, Arms Armor and Aesthetics, and Nobility of Galifar: These chapters are all generally useful information for players and DMs. Gives you a better insight into Khorvaire/The Five Nations.
2. Adding Ancestries, The Tairnadal Elves, Gnomes of Lorghalan and Pylas Pyrial: These chapters are much more niche, useful for people who want to play very specific characters such as mutated soldier aarakocra, warmongering elves, or hippy gnomes.
3. The Dark Six: The "evil" pantheon of Eberron needed a lot more depth than it previously had, and this provides. There is more nuance in the related faiths, discussion on those who don't consider the Dark Six evil, and subclasses for those who want to explore that. Something that I initially loved about Eberron was its goal of a bit more depth in its characters. Monsters are people. Shades of grey morality. And religions that are good, but can have done wrong. Well, now we get some of that depth for religions that are "evil" but can do good.

Part 2: The Vault - This section is more DM oriented.

1. Session Zero, It's All About the Journey: This is general advice on running in Eberron. I think it's solid info. People may have seen these sorts of suggestions before, but this does tie them directly into Eberron.
2. The Barren Sea, The Astral Plane: These two areas previously had little to no lore and now have a chapter each. The Barren Sea in particular is bananas in its interpretation of kuo-toa.
3. The Overlords Revealed, Ashtakala, The First War: Often the Overlords are considered the end game for an Eberron campaign. They are the threat present from the beginning, always on the verge of spilling back out and bringing the world to ruin. If you want to DM an Overlord centric campaign, these are the right chapters.
4. Ghost Stories, Karrnathi Undead, Mordain, Avassh: This is more scattershot. Ghost Stories was one of my favorite articles on the blog, so I think well worth reading here. Mordain is a crazy villain (with an even crazier statblock) and Avassh is a nice new Daelkyr to horrify players with.
5. Riedra: There's already a whole book on Sarlona right? Why do we need a chapter on Riedra? Well, there's a lot in this chapter. Each province gets its own individuality. There's a discussion on the role of psionics in Riedra vs magic in Khorvaire. There's psionic laser gun stats. And tips for psionics in 5e.
6. High Level Adventure: More advice for running in Eberron, but at the rocket-tag levels. A lot of the previous chapters are usable in direct conjunction with this.

Part 3: There's not actually a part 3, but the last page of the book does have art of a Warforged Collussus throwing down with a Tarrasque, and that's pretty awesome.

I don't think I can give a product more praise than the fact that I use it frequently. Converting a setting to Savage Worlds means custom arcane backgrounds and this is a smart way to go about it. Often, I'll be wondering how to make an AB and find out that something very similar is already in the book as a sample. Primarily this is a GM facing book. Players can and should get use out of it, but that should be done with the GM involved. You can make all sorts of interesting arcane backgrounds, but that isn't helpful if it's not an appropriate fit for the setting the GM is running.

The book breaks down an Arcane Background to its constinuent parts. The arcane skill, the requirements, its trappings, power list, limitations, and unique features. Then you have 7 points to build the AB.

Of special note is that the features are meant to be priced the same as the Making Races rules in the core Savage Worlds book. This is excellent because it a) gives you a baseline to how potent something is, and b) if you want to go beyond the bounds of this book and add new features, maybe an Arcane Background inherently has you grow permanent claws, well that's 2 points according to Making Races, so that's 2 points worth of features!

While this doesn't cover every single situation that I've come up with, it has made the work easier for me 90% of the time. If you're making a custom arcane background, I can't recommend this enough.

This kind of out of the box thinking and application of mechanics towards non-obvious trappings shows a fundamental understanding of Savage Worlds that helps me really trust the design philosophy of this line of products.

As an Eberron fan I think this is a great product. The book is mostly lore, and Eberron lore at that, so that should be kept in mind when purchasing. It is also the author's take, so while it is not majorly contradictory to established canon, there are minor deviances that may not be how you want your Eberron, or my Eberron for that matter, to play out.

All that said I believe this book is meant to fill a gap that is not likely to be explored in canon or Keith Baker's kanon and it does a good job. The nature of Eberron and its interaction with the planes means that tieflings, while not numerous, can be anywhere. So what does that mean for a tiefling player who grew up in Breland? Or Thrane? Or Droaam? Well, take a look inside and find out!

Layout: The book looks nice. The pages have a kind of parchment texture to them. The columns are clear and art fits in them appropriately. Things are ordered in a useful manner, such as tiefling NPCs of a nation showing up in that nation, as opposed to all clumped together at the end. It's a solid layout for a one person project.

Art: This looks to be a mix of stock art, official D&D art available on DMsGuild, and commissioned art. The images that I think are stock art and official art fit in pretty well, thematically. The commissioned art is nice, you get an idea of the attitude of the NPCs. Although the Marek NPC art seems strangely modern for the context.

Lore: I think it's all useful. I may not use minor parts, but I think this is a pretty comprehensive take on tiefling life in Khorvaire. The only gaps are Q'barra (which I'd probably have similar to Cyre's attitude) and Lhazaar, which I think could have a unique take. Less of a gap and more not the focus of this book, I'd also say that Sarlona has a lot of potential for tiefling lore.

I also like the expansion of the culture of the Venemous Demesne, who are your most stereotypical of tieflings in canon.

Sakah tieflings are where I think the lore deviates the most and could have used more attention as a consequence. Originally sakah were just fiend influenced cannibalistic tieflings in the Demon Wastes and this expands them outside the Demon Wastes. I definitely agree with the premise, Overlords are spread over the world, why not have them produce tieflings wherever they are? But the attention to them is brief for the premise. That said, the actual act of laying out details for each every variety of Overlord tiefling would likely take up the majority of the book and the author has to stop somewhere. I'd just say that they stopped a bit short of what I would have liked.

The Dark Six tieflings are a good idea. They echo the take on Aasimar in Exploring Eberron. Essentially, they represent a physical manifestation of a person's devotion to one of the Dark Six. If you want to play the outcast in the Five Nations, this option and sakah are definitely the way to go.

The lore makes brief mention of non-human tieflings, such as gnomes and lizardfolk which I appreciate, but was also kind of a tease because there's nothing mechanicss wise for them.

Mechanics: As I said before, this book is primarily lore. The mechanics aren't broken or deficient, there just isn't a lot of them. There's a lot of rollable tables for NPCs and trinkets, which are interesting and flavorful. Once we get to subraces is where I think it gets clever.

Planetouched tieflings have a table that lays out their Resistance, Cantrip, and spells. It's a bit like choosing your genie patron for the Warlock. This is a nice condensed way of handling several subraces in one go. There are gaps in the plane selection, but that is intentional for lore reasons.

Venemous Demesne tieflings don't have that variety, but that makes sense as they are the most "standard" of tieflings. Dark Six tieflings have a smaller but similar table to the Planetouched. Mechanically Sakah get an abbreviated treatment, but a table for them would have to be tremendous. What I also like is the table for existing 5e tieflings that associates them with matching Eberorn origins, say Hellfire to Fernia.

Summary: I like the book, I like the lore, I like the subrace table set up for the Planetouchd and Dark Six tieflings. I do have a list of things I wish were in the book, but I don't consider wanting something to be in the book to be worth dropping the rating if that was not the focus of the book. I think there's a lot of room for more content like this, niche races that aren't going to be officially covered in the depth that core races will. Because someone out there wants to play a tiefling in Eberron and they should get the most out of it, which this book helps with tremendously.

This product is short, sweet, and I think appropriately priced. It hits a specific niche that I appreciate, that of the Gloomblade, Soulknife, Psychic Warrior, Psylocke from Marvel, etc. And the fact that it is customizable enough to hit all of those examples is of particular merit.

The book is one Arcane Background edge and one Power edge that is a direct upgrade to the Spirit Weapon.

My rating is based entirely on how well I think this product succeeds at it's intent, which I say is 5/5.

As a free little expansion to a ruleset I already appreciated, this does its job perfectly. If you use the main product, there's literally no reason to not get this one.

The breadth of this is fantastic. It has more official WOTC adventures listed than what you can find on the adventurelookup website. And a massive amount of community adventures covered. The hyper linking and categorization is very useful. For instance, I was looking for Lightning Rail murder mysteries. I was able to look at the list of adventures that occur on Lightning Rails, click the name of each one to jump to the description and check if it was a murder mystery, and then click on the link there to go directly to the DMsGuild page.

For pay what you want there's absolutely no reason to not get this, but I can see the results that the effort put into this provided, and it's worth more than the suggested price.

It is disappointing the cover art for the adventures had to be removed, but completely understandable and does not impact my review at all.

How to have: an animal companion, a witch's familiar, or something more exotic like an elemental spirit.

These questions arise in the style and settings of the games I play and run. And I'm not satisfied with how the Core book addresses it for Savage Worlds. Now to be fair, I don't think the Core book could have gone into the level of customization and detail that Companions & Familiars does. I think there would still be a market for a 'Companions & Familiars' book even if the Core book had an acceptable (to me) way of handling animal companions. But in the end the Core book Beast Master Edge is not how I want to address the questions at the beginning of this review.

I am very satisfied with how this book addresses those questions though.

You build a companion that matches your character and the costs and justifications for the various abilities are laid out clearly. I've built elemental companions, griffon mounts, and skeletal horses. I've yet to find a companion archetype that can't be built.

Keep in mind that your Storyteller needs to be aware of what your companion can do and you need to have built your companion ahead of time before you play, to keep things Fast, Furious, and Fun.

Depending on the setting Summoning can be a very personal thing and Core SWADE doesn't (and really shouldn't) provide you with the options to tailor your summons. Trappings of course are always an option, but they still have a certain mechanical threshold they can't go beyond.

Summoner's Circle solves that handily and really breaks down how and why everything is priced the way it is. A lot of thought went into the summons fitting Savage Worlds.

For people who want such a high level of customization this is perfect. Just make sure you build your companion and discuss what it can do with your Storyteller ahead of time.

Overall this is a great roleplay tool for Eberron. Mechanically there's one common magic item and one 1st level spell/ritual, and both are meant to support roleplay over say, combat.

The main points are how specific races would relate to gender identity, particularly ones with baked in themes such as fluid Changeling and blank slate Warforged. This isn't exhaustive but can provide good ideas. For instance I had never considered the implications of Tairnadal elves bonding to ancestors of a different gender. There's also a short little paragraph on dwarves of the Mror Holds which I particularly like and think is neat.

Then there is a short section on the act of transitioning, including the magic item and spell. This factors in some core concepts of the setting, that there are magical professionals who can provide services not typical of standard D&D and other fantasy settings.

Thirdly there are options presented for how the various major religions would approach these themes. This provides interesting notes on how transgender individuals of different faiths use that faith as part of their experience.

And lastly there's a section of sample NPCs. For the most part these have a great differentiation in personalities and life experiences and help to flesh out whatever environment your players are in. By default these NPCs are almost all in Sharn. Most can probably be shifted to new locations without issue, but that's a slight bit of work on the DM.

As far as introductory adventures go, this works very well. A DM could leave off here and continue with their own storyline but I'm sure there will be plenty of reasons to use the followup adventures.

There's a few things that contribite to why this is a good start.

First: Sharn Chicken is a fantastic idea. A basic premise of the setting/city turned into a game that makes perfect sense in context. People with little sense of self preservation (adventurers), ridiculously tall towers, and the abundance of Featherfall tokens. Along with the premise I am pleased with the implementation. The obstacles are fun, how the obstacles are written is fun. The players enjoy being told they just took a pane of glass to the face at terminal velocity.

Second: Bonus scenes. Little side adventures, that for the moment at least, contribute entirely to the players understanding the setting a little bit more.

Third: The vertical slice of the city. Sharn is huge. There's a lot to cover. And I think starting at the top with a game of Sharn Chicken and then going to the depths of the Cogs works very well as an introduction.

Fourth and lastly: Variety of encounters. Fighting is not always the answer and is often counter productive. The adventure will let characters with different strengths have moments.

Small con: I think the handler Lhara could use some more characterization. I suspect she'll be a recurring NPC and a more solid grasp of her voice (in the writing sense) would be helpful for the players to care.