Necromancy and the undead are two of my favorite themes for roleplaying games. The undead have a strong presence in gaming and there are many interesting creatures that can be used in adventures. Unfortunately, there have not been many useful options for those that sit on the other side of the screen. As a player, I am always on the hunt for new and effective methods to harness the powers of death, the dead, and the undead.

The Genius Guide to: the Death Mage is a fourteen page supplement from Otherworld Productions & Super Genius Games for the Pathfinder RPG. The Death Mage is a new arcane spellcasting base class that provides players five paths to choose from: Corpse, Ghoul, Tomb, Reaper, and Shadow mages. The Death Mage also introduces some new spells and a new creature subtype, Unbreathing (a not quite undead creature).

At fifteen, Chloe Saunders still hasn’t menstruated. But the day it hits coincides with the ghost of a custodian haunting Chloe at school, until she finally breaks down. Told she has schizophrenia, she’s sent to live in a group home for other teens dealing with mental illness. Or are they?

But Lyle House’s patients are here by no happy accident, judging by the supernatural happenings. As Chloe comes to terms with her necromancy, she learns her powers are much stronger than they should be. Ghosts have been more hindrance than help in the past, but there’s one particular ghost who could provide information the group needs. If only Chloe can figure out how to contact her…

Review by Tez Miller

I’m frankly a sucker for many things — ghost stories and samurai films among them. On discovering the book In the Service of Samurai by Gloria Oliver, I was pleased to discover that two of my passions had been rolled into one package.

In the Service of Samuari tells the story of a young apprentice mapmaker, Chizuson Toshiro or “Toshi,” who is purchased from his master to act as navigator for a strange samurai with an even stranger ship and crew. Cursed and betrayed in life, the undead Samurai and his ghostly men must wander the sea until they have completed their mission. In the end, only Toshi’s wits and determination can help them see it through. The tension of the story grows as Toshi learns to accept his situation.

The war-torn world of Simarra is filled with many horrors. Some are creatures who have plagued the inhabitants of this world for countless centuries, others nightmares unleashed upon this world with the invasion of the Keza-Drak. Tainted beasts – once locked in the threshold realm – have found their way into the world through the stone gates. In addition, the dead lands have opened once more, unleashing hordes of undead into the world. Not all of the strange and horrific creatures that can be found in this world are otherworldly in nature, however.

Written by Mathew Kaiser and David Jarvis, the Book of Bones is 69 pages of new creatures and templates for your True20 Game! While all of these creatures are set in the war-torn world of Simarra, they can easily be used in your own amazing campaign worlds!

The Book of Bones is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

The ancient dead keep their own counsel, and they have learned from bitter experience to hold onto any advantage to avoid Oblivion. The Charms within represent such advantage in the Underworld, a means of bringing powers unknown to most of its denizens to bear when necessary. Once practiced only by the dark realm’s elite, these […]

This PDF is described by its author as a “World Seed,” a small idea that has no home in ay particular world that you can pick up and drop into the fertile soil of your own game world. You can nurture it and watch it grow in to hours of adventures, exploration and heroism. This is an excellent idea, as most market research has shown that the majority of D&D games that are being played right now are not set in Eberron or The Forgotten Realms but rather in Steve’s World, Jimmy’s Land or some other Random Homebrew Campaign Name Here.

Review by Vincent R. Venturella

As with the previous edition the tactic with Exalted in this addition appears to be the release of ‘uber’ splatbooks. Apparently a successful model as it’s one that’s spread across various of the larger companies now in selling their products. While you have some fill-in material to use to play the various high-powered factions in Exalted they only come into their own with these larger splatbooks where they’re properly filled out, given access to all their powers and secrets and become a force in their own right.

This splatbook – or ‘Manual of Exalted Power’ – (a touch unwieldy as a name in my opinion) addresses the Abyssal Exalted, after the Dragon Blooded perhaps the most persistent enemy of the Solar Exalted, their twisted ‘undead’ antithesis.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

A Guide to the Knights of the Underworld

Gifted by the Deathlords with the corrupted Essences of Solar Exalts, the Abyssal Exalted are perhaps the greatest extant threat to Creation and its Exalted defenders. Frozen at the brink of death and offered immense power in exchange for servitude to the Neverborn, these so called knights of death ride forth with one shared mission, to drag the world and all that lives into the Void at their masters’ behest. Will the Abyssals succeed at their abhorrent task, or will the faint echo of their lost lot as heroes drive them to redeem themselves and, just maybe, rejoin the ranks of the Sun’s Chosen?

Let them know obedience. Let them know desolation. But, most of all, let them know pain… – Salena Valanas, instructing the Shapers Guild

Written by Hal Maclean and Mathew Kaiser, the Blighted Bestiary presents a host of new monsters and minions designed to help the blight elves carry out their crusade of visiting misery to every corner of the world. Though designed as a companion volume to Blight Elves: Architects of Despair, a Narrator could easily adapt the creatures, templates and even stat blocks of different creatures found within this book to fit other situations. Every world needs villains, the more dastardly the better, and the blight elves, devoted servants to the goddess of suicide, bring an entirely new dimension to villainy.