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I got a free copy of this as part of my editor's work at rpgnews.com, and as I generally highlight only the best for that site, I decided I'd review some of the other stuff I got here. So, is it worth $33? In a word, no -- it is, in fact, incomplete, if you asked me. You see, it sort of assumes you already know about the Underdark. Contrast with the Forgotten Realms book, which gives you all sorts of ideas about the cultures you're dealing with, including the calendar and gods... Not so here. Even though the Underdark is in a sense a completely different world underneath the feet of mainstream Faerun, we don't get a sense of this. In fact, we get a feeling you're supposed to get an idea of the culture from the various Drow novels, not from the sourcebook, hence the sidebar on p. 10: "In R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen novel series, the drow are beset by an awful crisis: Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders, falls utterly silent... At the time of this sourcebook's publication, the War of the Spider Queen is not yet complete." Which leads to another point of mine, about which I admit a certain prejudice about: The Forgotten Realms doesn't need a metaplot. Admittedly, the sidebar goes on to say you can ignore the metaplot and assume Lolth's priestesses are fine again, but there isn't much support for it in the book, and it doesn't change the general... incompleteness... I got from the book. That said, what do you get? Read on... After a brief Introduction, Chapter 1 gives us new races. We've got Chitines (the spiderlike results of drow experiments), Deep Imaskari (a human subrace with a suprisingly interesting plotline connected to them), Drow (to make sure you've got the correct D&D 3.5 stats for them), Duergar (grey dwarves, Texas tease... wait, sorry, make that "old favorites"), Gloamings (Shadow tieflings), Grimlocks (ever read The Time Traveller?), Kuo-Toas (Gygax's original fish people), Slyths (shapeshifting ooze-things), and Svirfneblin (deep gnomes, another old favorite). There's also Level Adjustments for races from other sources, such as Derro or Mind Flayers, and the required height and weight charts. It's about fifteen pages, all told. Chapter 2 is Regions and Feats, expanding the region system to cover individual bits of the Underdark. This chapter is quite thin -- a lot of the regional feats for Underdark regions are already in the Forgotten Realms book and aren't repeated, which is good for saving space but bad if you were expecting Underdark-unique feats. There's still a whole lot of new feats here, most of them general feats, including "Exotic Armor Proficiency" -- think "Exotic Weapon Proficiency", only for strange armors like feeler plate or spidersilk, outlined later in the book. My favorite feat is "Wisdom Breeds Caution", not because of what it does, but because of the name -- D&D needs more flavor like that. (All the feat does is let you use your Wisdom bonus rather than your Constitution bonus when determining hit points at first level.) Chapter Three is Prestige Classes. These are workmanlike, but nothing to write home about. There's the arachnomancer (spider mage), cavelord (think "underground ranger"), the deep diviner (a mage specialized in dealing with nodes, outlined in Chapter Four), drow juducator (a drow dark knight), the illithid body tamer (mind flayers focused as warriors, in case you want a character that bitchslaps people with tentacles rather than a psionic blast), the imaskari vengance taker (a member of a secret society dedicated to righting wrongs), the inquisitor of the drowning goddess (yawn -- kuo-toa religious police), the prime Underdark guide (what it says on the tin -- a guide to the Underdark), sea mother whip (kuo-toa religious fanatic), shadowcrafter (illusion-focused shadow mages), the vermin keeper (lookie -- I get a vermin familiar), and finally yathchol webrider (an odd chitine prestige class focused on teleporting between webs). That's a lot of prestige classes, and I can't find anything wrong with them -- but none of them inspire me, either. Chapter Four, as I mentioned in passing, is on Magic and Spells. Now, it wouldn't be the Forgotten Realms without some sort of twisted take on magic, so there's a bit on "faerzress", Underdark areas which give a bonus to save against divination spells and which frustrate teleportation, and a long section on Node Magic, areas under the earth where magical power "pools", as it were. Also, since the Underdark, it seems, is very dependent on portals, there's more on these constructs, including new qualities for portals and a bit on "portal seepage". Of course, no magic chapter would be complete without new cleric domains and spells, so we have those. The domains are the Balance Domain, an alternative Portal domain, and the Watery Death domain -- pardon me while I yawn again. The spells are what you'd expect -- spider-oriented drow spells, spells for dealing with stone, spells related to node magic, portal spells, and a handful of combat spells. Hmmmm, I'm getting downright sleepy here. Chapter Five is on Equipment and Magic Items. I must admit to being pleased by some serious stats for the kuo-toa pincer staff, but the rest of the items (more weapons, some strange armor, a random handful of magic items) don't exactly impress me, though the minor artifacts list, as well as the artifacts list, and the too-short section on "Illithid Grafts" (mind flayer biotechnology) are interesting, particularly the "Book of Pefect Balace", a sort of "Book of Vile Darkness" for neutral divine spellcasters. Chapter Six is the Monsters chapter, including yet another ravening undead thing (as if D&D needs more of those), the aptly-named "Annihilator", the Illithid Elder Brain, an interesing Underdark fae called the Gloura, and two creatures which were, if I recall correctly, cut from The Book of Vile Darkness: the Giant Cockroach and the Giant Maggot. Most notable are the templates, such as "Arachnoid Creature", "Chameleon Creature", "Faerzress-Infused Creature" and "Half Illithid". I also thought the Maur, aka the "Hunched Giant", was very cute. Chapter Seven, "Exploring the Underdark", focuses almost exclusively on the physical aspects of devling into the Underdark -- if you've been waiting for the official D&D 3.5 word on metamorphic rocks, this section is for you. At the end of the chapter we get a tiny, tiny amount of cultural information, and some encounter tables. Chapter Eight, "Geography", is what you've been waiting for, the meat of the book -- all sorts of details about various Underdark kingdoms, not unlike the main Forgotten Realms rulebook. There's a map, but it's only so useful as it should arguably be in 3D -- though color-coding and the text descriptions mitigate this somewhat. I'd have more enthusiasm for this section if I had more of a context to put it in, but it's okay in its own way. Chapter Nine finishes out the book with a couple of tiny, tiny adventure locations in the Underdark. And that's it. There isn't anything bad here, but I can't help but feeling empty afterward. If you've been reading all the D&D novels set in the Underdark, perhaps your milage will vary.
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