Legacy of Fire

I spent the majority of this weekend reading Pathfinder 20 & 21. The mail to China is a bit dodgy, and one can never tell how long it is going to take to get something in the mail. I have had my Pathfinder shipments take a week to get to me, and I have had them take over 3 weeks. Pathfinder 20 took well over 3 weeks, and Pathfinder 21 took about a week so they arrived a day apart, even though they shipped 3 weeks apart. UPS ground is something I miss being here in China. In the US, I know that my UPS shipment will arrive on my doorstep in 5 working days, and I can check on the progress on the UPS website. I am not suggesting that UPS is the best, but it is only slightly more expensive than priority mail, and I can track my packages. For my China packages I have no idea and when I am going to get them. I will say that so far, I have received every Paizo and Amazon package that has been sent to me. Now when it comes to magazines, I have no idea where they are going, as I have yet to receive one of my subscriptions. Brutal.

Once Paizo has finished with their Legacy of Fire series I will post my more in depth product review. However, I will say that they are very attractive looking books, and their art director Sarah Robinson has done an amazing job. By far, this series is one of the best looking RPG products on the market.

Review: Dragon's Revisited

So it beings…

“A whirring noise was heard. A red light touched the points of standing rocks. The dragon came.” The Hobbit

Introduction

I read Beowulf today, so it seems only appropriate that I review a product with dragons in it. It has been written somewhere, that products that center around dragons sell better than any other products. Folks love dragons. It’s in the name, and I can safely say that I fall into this category.

The mythology of dragons has been with us a long time. Earlier today, I was thinking that there are two basic types of dragon mythology, the western dragon and the eastern dragon. Being in China, this is how I am thinking about them. I just flipped through to Wikipedia and here is what they said:

The dragon is a legendary creature with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits that features in the myths of many cultures. The two most familiar interpretations of dragons are European dragons, derived from various European folk traditions, and the unrelated Oriental dragons, derived from the Chinese dragon.

I remember when I first saw the 1st edition MM, I flipped right to the section on dragons. Since that time, whenever I see a new MM, the dragon section is always one of the first sections I go to. Now I will be the first to admit that we probably do not really need any books that are focused solely on dragons. The 3rd ed Draconomicon was an excellent resource for all things draconic. It had fluff, it had crunch, it had new classes, it had art work by Todd Lockwood, and it was probably a bit too much.

So what does Paizo’s Dragons Revisited have to offer that has not been already covered? Well, let’s get into it.

Layout

The layout is exactly like Paizo’s earlier Classic Monsters Revisited. The book covers the classic ten dragons, giving each dragon a six page spread with a sample dragon at the end of each section. The first page of each section has a half page art work of the dragon followed by an inspirational quote to build up the theme of the dragon.

Artwork

Let me first say that the artwork is very good. Paizo has given each dragon a different look than the 3.5 edition imaging. If one is a big fan of the 3.5 look, then one may not like the new dragon looks of Paizo's dragons. I will be the first to say that when it comes to dragons, the art work is even more important. The dragon is such an iconic figure in fantasy lore, they need to measure up to these lofty standards. The dragons by Todd Lockwood clearly do, and the other artist that Wizards employed try to measure up to his high standards, which is no easy task. Paizo makes liberal use of Hou, Wooten and Concept Art House, and these artists are also very good, but the dragons look different than what one sees in the books by WotC.

With this said, there are a number of great pieces in the book and I will list out a couple that stick out in my mind:

1. The black dragons on page 3 and page 6 are excellent, and I think I like these better than the 3.5 edition black dragon.
2. The blue dragon on page 10. Paizo blue dragon is a sleek beast compared to WotC's chunky blue rhinoceros dragon (not that there is anything wrong with rhinos).
3. The bronze dragon on page 22 attacking the shark is a very evocative piece.
4. The art piece on page 46 captures the fury of the red dragon unleashed.
5. I really like piece on page 58, with a frost giant attacking a white dragon, while another one gets ready to join the combat.

Final notes

It is important to note that this is a fluff book. Outside the sample dragons at the end of each section, the rest is fluff, which is done by design. The intent of the “Revisited’ series is to provide a new spin on classic creatures, which the emphasis on fluff rather than crunch. Upon reading through the write ups, I would say that Paizo has aligned most of the commonly held dragon themes together, and there are very few surprises contained inside. That is not to say that the write ups were predictable or unimaginative, but they captured commonly held canon, and expanded on these ideas a bit, with a Golarion theme woven throughout. Even if one is not using the Pathfinder’s universe, the book is still quite usable. By removing the crunch, Paizo has made the book usable for all editions of play, which I applaud them for. The content was very enjoyable to read through, and although most of the ideas were familiar to me, I still found them interesting and engaging. Perhaps my favorite write up was the crafty and manipulative blue dragon, which happens to be one of my favorite of the evil dragons.

To conclude, do we need another fluff book on dragons? No, probably not. However, Paizo has done a nice job in packaging this one, that I think will appeal to all the folks out there that just like dragons, which still seems to be a considerable number of folks. Do I think this one will sell well? Yes I do. It’s a nice book just to flip through, if you are just looking for some ideas on how to make a dragon interesting. While the Draconomicon maybe a more exhaustive tome, Paizo’s version is more of a reader’s digest version, and sometimes that is all one really needs anyway.

Rating: 4 Dragons (on a scale of 5)

News from Paizo

A couple of updates from Paizo that I am finding news worthy. They have released the official covers of their Pathfinder Role Playing Game, and the Pathfinder Bestiary, which I have included below. Both covers were created Wayne Reynolds.

Paizo earlier today released this announcement on their PDF sale. I also received an email from Lisa Stevens, Paizo’s CEO, promoting this sale, which is a not so subtle jab at WotC. While I am specifically mentioning Paizo, there are a number of other companies that are running similar sales, and I think the message is fairly clear from the gaming community on this subject. Lisa gets it, and she was very quick to react to the public relations mess that WotC created. There is no mystery on why Paizo in five years since its founding has become a leader in gaming industry. As a final note, check out the PDF love that Paizo and a number of other publishers are offering!

News release as follows.

Paizo Gives PDFs Some Love: 35% Off!

We at Paizo Publishing understand how important PDFs have become to most roleplaying gamers. We know that PDFs allow you to easily carry around a large library of books on your laptop, PDA, or cell phone. We know that PDFs are great for searching for that piece of obscure information. We know that PDFs are a great way to keep out-of-print products available. And we know that PDFs provide a great way to check out new products.

At paizo.com, most of the roleplaying books we publish are available in both print and PDF editions. We take pride in the high quality of our PDFs and think that they are some of the best in the industry. And we would love to show you how cool they are by allowing you to buy our Pathfinder PDFs for 35% off the regular retail price through the end of April. This offer includes Pathfinder Adventure Path PDFs, Pathfinder Modules PDFs, Pathfinder Chronicles PDFs, Pathfinder Companion PDFs, and Pathfinder Society Scenario PDFs.

Just add the Pathfinder PDFs you would like to buy into your cart, and when you are checking out, type the promotional code "PDFLove" in the appropriate box. The 35% discount will be applied to your Pathfinder PDFs at that point. You can use this code as many times as you like until the end of April, and feel free to share this code with your friends.

We also invite you to check out the FREE PDF products available at http://paizo.com/store/downloads/free. These include several of our own products, such as the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta, our adventures Hollow's Last Hope and Revenge of the Kobold King, and our Player's Guides for Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne, as well as dozens of PDFs from other publishers.

We would also like to remind you that subscribers to our Pathfinder Adventure Path, Pathfinder Modules, Pathfinder Companion, and Pathfinder Chronicles lines get FREE PDFs when the corresponding print editions of their subscription products ship just another way in which we thank our customers for their support!

So drop by paizo.com and check out all of the downloads we offer at http://paizo.com/store/downloads. The digital age is here, and we are proud to be your provider of amazing digital products for years to come.