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Into The Black

"Into the Black" is a fairly unusual d20 sourcebook from Bastion Press. Rather than being a splatbook or a monster book or something fairly typical, it focuses on a specific environment type. Not really a dungeoneer's, spelunker's, or miner's manual, it details the ecological environments of under the earth (or rather, Earth-like fantasy planet). It's a sequel of sorts to a similar book of theirs, "Into the Green" which focused on 4 above ground green environments.

This also focuses on 4 environments. In this, though, the differences between the 4 main areas are much more obvious than the difference between a "woods" or a "forest". "Mines", "Cavern", "Sewer" and "Catacombs". With the exception of the last one, most people should know what they are. (In this book, "Catacombs" is used in its burial place meaning, like in Rome)

Each chapter devoted to a terrain type follows the same basic pattern - an explanation of the terrain, some plants and small animals/bugs, notable hazards (diseases, gases, cave-ins, etc), then some monsters. It starts with a very detailed explanation of the environment, and goes into the basic ecology of them. A bit dry, but fascinating, somewhat like reading an encyclopedia.

Much like "Into the Green", I think the best part of the book are the ordinary plants/animals and the substances. All sorts of molds, mushrooms, mosses, truffles, lichens, etc, are described, ranging from the useful, like Snake Eye, which can give dark vision, to the mostly useless, like Grave Yeast, which makes really good beer. A variety of minerals and metals are covered, Boron, Chromium, Sulfur, Halite, Limestone, Marble, Mercury, etc, plus a few fantasy ones. Each of these things gets a long paragraph (sometimes very long), describing them and its properties and uses and includes a Difficulty Class for spotting them.

The monsters are probably the weakest part of the book. The only thing that really springs out at me as great is the Pallemon, which is something of a Mind-Flayer clone (or replacement). Basically, they sort of look like evil versions of Joe Camel. But with long tongues.

One seems a bit overpowered, especially for the challenge rating. The Xastrial, basically a big evil, smart stone golem from outer space (which is almost a song, actually). The background didn't make much sense to me, but more importantly, looking over it's powers, I'm not sure how anyone could beat it. Basically, it can teleport 120' as a move action every round, and so still attack. It has a very nasty range weapon - basically a cosmic ray gun, that does 2d6 to 4d6 damage, depending on the range. It's semi-immune to magic, anything cast at it has a 50% of failing, even things like magic missile. It's also immune to sneak attacks and such. It also weighs 10,000 lbs, larger than Rosie O'Donnell, Roseanne Barr, Oprah, Dom Deluise and Marlon Brando combined - this is notable because their great weight and their teleportation ability would make a great attack (squish!). Having been body slammed by a 250 lb person, I would have to think that a 10,000 lb-er would be devastating.

Most of the other monsters are a bit uninspired. There's a race of snail men, a race of cricket men, a race of hermit crab men. Still, given the number of d20 products out there, including probably a dozen or so critter books, it's probably hard to come up with original things. But this does manage a few.

One made me laugh, a race of evil felines. The author must not be a cat owner, as the description of it says "Unfortunately for the average member of the feline family, its infamous affiliation with malevolence results largely from the barathelar's activities rather than its own actions.". Hah! Spoken like someone who doesn't have a cat. (For the record, I have a legion of them, and even the nice ones have an evil streak in them...). Actually, it's specifically referring to the legend that cat's steal people's breath while they sleep. But I've noticed that cats actually do creep up to your mouth when you're in bed and think you're asleep. Why? My guess is to make sure you're asleep, so they can steal money out of your wallet. Or to make sure you're still alive. But it's cool to see a monster based on that legend.

There are actually some other monsters based on legends. One for the mines, the "Nokker", aka "Knocker", aka "Kobold". This is much more like the real ones, than the D&D Kobolds. At first glance, I thought the Deviant Mimic might be based on Michael Jackson impersonators, but it's actually just a form of the regular D&D Mimic.

Also, while I might be nitpicky on this, as I wrote a computer program to roughly calculate the mass/weight of human shaped creatures, some of the weights of monsters are off. For instance, the Cave Giant is 9' tall, but only weights 300 lbs. He would have to be literally skin & bones to weigh that much - a skinny 9' person will still weigh around 450 lbs, an average physique closer to 600. Of course, this is fairly common in RPG books. But it drives me crazy.

So the monsters are something of a mixed bag. Out of the 22 in the book, I'll probably only end up using about 4 or 5 of them. Which is not bad, but not great, either. On the plus side, in the cases where it's relevant, they included a level adjustment (so they could be used as PCs, possibly).

A number of diseases and ailments are also covered. Mostly in the Sewers section. I had heard of schistosomiasis, but had no idea what it was. Now I know (and have rules for it in d20) and it's not nearly as funny as the name. Downright icky, actually. Cholera, Dysentery, Hemorrhagic Fever, Tuberculosis, and Typhoid Fever are covered, plus fantasy diseases (I think) such as Cracked Foot, Blotch Worm, and Nerve Twister. Oh my! It's nice having rules for these, but it can be annoying to players, you might want to use them sparingly. (Unless they happen to be Harn fans)

After the chapters on each environment, there's a section on the new materials introduced in the previous chapters and magic items based on them. This is probably the most obviously useful section for most players. You can get shields made out of lead, diamond tipped arrows, helmet visors made out of Alutromun, and more generally, there are rules for making things out of Beryllium. Actually, all the substances have hardness given, so they are useful for a lot of applications. The most notable magic item is the Rocket Broom, which is basically a broom of flying enhanced by boron.

There are a handful of new spells. And by handful, I mean 5 pages worth. I like "Floral Bouquet", which is designed to help counteract bad smells. I think most gaming groups could use that spell in real life. Most of the rest are what you'd expect, spells to detect gas (insert your own joke), assist in mining, or have to do with minerals.

Lastly, there are a number of tables. Encounter tables for both monsters and minerals. I'm not sure I'd use the monster encounter table, there is a huge variation in the Encounter Level (EL) of the monsters, and it goes as high as 18.

It's an okay looking book, if somewhat bland. The layout is nice, with the exception that chapters all run together. While on the one hand, it is a waste of space to start a new chapter on the next page, it is easier to read that way. Still, it's packed with text, there is almost no white space in the book at all. There's an index and table of contents, both very usable which makes finding things pretty easy (which is very helpful when writing reviews, especially when you have to spell "schistosomiasis"). And like all Bastion Press books since they switched to Black & White, it's very sturdy.

Most of the art is well, not bad, exactly, but somewhat cartoonish looking, a bit more abstract than is my taste. One piece in particular has what must be halfling, only it's proportions are more drawn like a puppet. Very creepy looking. One of the artists is also apparently a fan of Evil Dead/Army of Darkness. Still, by sticking to pieces of one style, it gives the book a more coherent feel.

Also, oddly, my copy of the book (and this appears to be a widespread problem) seems to be almost entirely missing the "-" sign, which can be a bit disconcerting - I had something of a twilight zone moment, where the universe suddenly changes from how you remember it ("My God! The universe suddenly has no minus signs!". That's happened to me twice, and I really hate it when that happens). There actually are a few minus signs in the book, but only in one small section of the books.

Much like "Into the Green", the value of this book really depends on what sort of game you are running. If you are running a game where you have a Witch or an Alchemist of sort sort, and they need materials for brews or potions or plants, the stuff in this will be very helpful. If you want to create a realistic down below environment for your dungeons, then this is great. If you run and underdark game, then again, this should be useful. If you want a replacement for the Mind Flayers who have been excised from the SRD, then this has one that could do the trick. I would say it's good, but some of the things in it didn't do much for me, like the snail people (in fact, they just make me hungry. Mmmmm...escargot), or the cricket men, or the hermit crab merchant men.

I also think it is missing an underground type - just a normal building, not a catacomb. Like say a dungeon or subway or something. In my home brew setting, there are ancient subway tunnels that have been converted into underground roadways (largely inspired by the Great Underground Highway of Zork). None of the underground environments in this book quite fit those sort of tunnels.

So, the plants and substances get an A+, the monsters a C-, the rest about a C, so I would call the whole thing about a B.

Basically, if you liked "Into the Green", you should like this. It's not quite as good, and the author's writing style isn't so spritely in this, but is perhaps more useful for the standard D&D game.

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