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The Content
The book starts with the weakest section: the first chapter, entitled Undead Lore. This section can be divided into two parts: how the undead behave, and how they affect society or take on realms of their own. The first part seems to be fairly common nerd knowledge, but still nice to have in one place. It covers things like how a creature might become undead, how these beings are (de)composed, and their mentality (or lack thereof). If you've dealt with the undead before in any capacity, this is old news.
The second part provides some background for use in the implied setting of 4th Edition. As seems to be the trend for their new products, the folks at Wizards of the Coast seem to have so many ideas and so much to write about but with extremely stringent page restrictions. This manifests as a half-dozen locations and personalities, each occupying roughly 1/3 of the space they could have used. I would have loved maps of Hantumah and Nocturnus, for instance. I think they made the right decision in spending the majority of the book on Lairs and Monsters, which a DM can immediately insert into his or her game, but just like with Sigil in Manual of the Planes it's a little frustrating to only get a small taste of a much larger concept or entity. Luckily, this is the only major complaint I have with the book, which immediately picks up the pace with:
DM's Guide To Undead. Chapter 2 reads like a toolbox for writer's block. So you know you want to work with some undead in your campaign but can't quite figure out how? This section provides a number of small quest hooks as well as several full campaign arcs--taking your players from Heroic to Paragon to Epic tiers in the course of a consistent campaign. You also get such neat tidbits as how to use a haunting as a skill challenge, a bunch of new undead-themed sentient artifacts, a short list of rituals, and--my favorite--undead grafts: powerful undead appendages that can be attached to the body of an otherwise living individual with potentially disastrous results.
The artifacts, while tilted heavily toward the "Evil" end of the alignment see-saw, seem like fun and exciting tools to spice up a campaign that deals with the heavy hitters of undeath lore (Von Zarovich, Kas, and Vecna to name a few). The rituals are few, but could potentially see a lot of use in play, especially if you're dealing with everything else in this book on a regular basis. And the undead grafts, as already stated, are just awesome.
The Undead Lairs section, Chapter 3, provides exactly what you'd think it would. With three example lairs for each tier--complete with maps, backgrounds, quests, and hooks--you can toss an exciting undead dungeon or nine into your game with minimal effort. These range from your standard graveyard and mausoleum to a temple of Doresain and the corpse of the Blood Lord floating in the Astral Sea--you fight in his heart; how metal is that? These are cool and unique lairs that not only scope out interesting locales, but actually look fun. I think almost any of these would make for an entertaining one-shot or a memorable scene in a longer campaign.
Chapter 4, New Monsters takes up almost 100 pages and is where I will personally derive the most use. Much like in the Draconomicon, this section not only provides stats for nameless monsters, it gives some information and usable NPC stats for some big names in the world of undeath. The first part expounds on the popular types of undead presented in the Monster Manual--skeletons, ghosts, zombies, and so on--and supports them with a multitude of new and delightful horrors. If the old standbys aren't quite unnerving your players, maybe a large, unified mass of living and dead moths or the reanimated flesh of a flayed giant will do the trick.
The second part of this chapter, aptly titled the "Hall of Infamy," includes such names as Kas the Betrayer, Strahd von Zarovich, and Vecna, himself. Keeping in the fine tradition of such 4e badasses as Orcus and Tiamat, Vecna is no slouch, surely providing a fight quite befitting of his "immortal" tag. Rounding out the chapter are a dozen or so of both Templates for monsters and Alternative Powers. More stuff for the DM's toolkit!
Loose Observations
- The artwork in this book is astounding. The chapter introduction pages will take your breath away and the gruesome depictions of some of the monsters will stick in your memory for days. The only problem is you'll wish there was an illustration for each and every monster described.
- I have said that this supplement caters to all tiers, but it does tend to put the most stuff (monsters, artifacts, templates, and one of the best-looking lairs) in the lower Paragon range. You'll have a good time in Heroic and Epic tiers, but those Paragon levels will really shine.
- There's admittedly little here for players. One page of Rituals is about the extent of it unless you're a little risky and eyeing the undead grafts, in which case you'd be a good friend of mine.
- At 223 pages, Open Grave is only 32 pages shorter than Draconomicon, and yet the latter is still $10 more? Score one for Open Grave.
Ratings
Style: 5/5. Easily. See above.
Substance: 4/5. This is my favorite 4e supplement yet; I just wish that first section had been beefed up a little! One little map of Hantumah would have probably pushed me into 5/5 territory.
