Review of The Ancient Tomes

What seems to be the first of probably many expansion books for the newer system "Demon's Lair." This book, for lack of a better term, is a freakin' huge book-o-spells! They must have at least TRIPLED the count of spells in the game.

Usually, when a system will add to the spell lists, it just becomes tons beyond tons of spells that, yeah, are neat, but wouldn't be cast except for a specific instance. But, there are actually many new spells in here that I've added to my character's personal spell cache, like many of the new offensive spells, and one of my personal favorites, Carrier Pidgeon.

They've also added three spellbooks to the magic system. One is the book of Force, which is spells powered by pure force (surprise!!!). One is the book of Dark Power, available only to clerics, and is basically the yang to Divine Power's Yin. And the third is the book of the Tri-Mage, which are spells written by the famous SCs of Terrania and the huge-ass "tri-mage alliance."

All in all, the stuff in this book really adds to the scholar classes. It also includes new professions for the scholar classes, and some new psychic powers for the psychics.

The biggest gripe that I do have with this book is the same gripe that I had with the other books. It's the fact that there's sparingly little artwork and the books are still comb-bound. Oh well, looks don't help the system, and this system doesn't need help.

Now, I've read other reviews of the "Demon's Lair" system, and before I get hashed for not going in-depth, I'd like to mention that this review is for people that have read and played the DL system. If you haven't, and you'd like a better explanation, I suggest you read up on one of the other reviews for the main books, as opposed to trying to piece stuff together from mine. Jeff Schuler's is a good review to go by, and if you have the time, their website is also a great place to read up on the system.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)