This is an expansion of the Monster Manual with some added prestige classes. I'm not a fan of the MM's interpretation of were nature so this book didn't do it for me. For those that do like that version then this would probably be an excellent book to get as it covers a lot of background culture to round out a character. I marked this book down for personal preference - not for actual content.

Broadly speaking, adventures can be divided into two categories - those that are generic, and those that are written for a specific campaign. Granted the former can easily be adapted for a specific campaign setting, but that's not necessarily the goal at the outset. Both types of adventures have their own inherent constraints, but if you have a good campaign setting as the basis to write on, then it's the adventure specific to the campaign setting that's likely to outshine the more generic one. I mention this because this pdf, Blood Reign of Nishanpur, written for the Arcanis campaign setting, will likely hands down beat any similar adventure out there, because it's based on one of the best campaign settings ever created, and uses that beautifully in the adventure to create a rich adventure to play through.

Blood Reign of Nishanpur is a 35 page adventure for the Arcanis Campaign Setting, and follows on after the events in the adventure The Spear of the Loghin, also from Paradigm Concepts, as the second adventure in the Carceri Chronicles. While it's probably best that you run that adventure before Blood Reign of Nishanpur, this pdf adventure provides plenty of background and advice on running this adventure on its own. It should also be noted that despite being recently released in pdf format, this adventure is actually much older, and utilizes the 3e (not 3.5e) d20 ruleset. This adventure in Arcanis is suitable for characters of levels 5 through 7.

The product comes as a single pdf file. The presentation and look of the product is very good, although parts of the product look like they've been scanned in, in particular the front and back covers and the credits page. Writing throughout is excellent, and this is complemented by some good artwork from several artists. Organisation and layout is very good, with the product broken down into 'hard points' and 'soft points', the former being encounters that are required to be run, and the latter being those that are optional. There's a good number of optional encounters, and you can mix and match to add the flavor that you desire. Bookmarks are based on these hard and soft points, allowing you to easily find the encounter you're after, as long as you know it by name. Expanding the bookmarks to identify the hard and soft points in order of appearance would've been helpful. Overall, a well constructed and presented product.

In the previous adventure in the Carceri Chronicles series, the PCs set out to destroy a powerful demon and retrieve the fragments of a holy spear. In doing this, they become embroidered in the affairs of a demon prince, and soon find themselves on a quest that takes them to the city of Nishanpur, where the Council of the Nihang is in turmoil following the destruction of the Dark Apostate. In an attempt to complete their pact with the demon prince and close a powerful gate to the lands of Sarish, the PCs must uncover the truth behind the Council's trouble, keep their pact with the demon prince, and in doing so deal with the lesser of two evils in the dark lands of Carceri.

Blood Reign of Nishanpur is a fantastic, if somewhat complex adventure, that will take the PCs through the darkest parts of Arcanis. The complexity of the adventure derives from its brilliant use of the Arcanis campaign setting, which is a rich and detailed setting. Despite the complexity, the adventure does a grand job of explaining things very well, giving thorough adventure backgrounds and summaries, and providing a detailed glossary to explain the background behind various aspects of the adventure. In this way the complexity gives way to a brilliant adventure that is probably unlike anything your PCs have ever seen before.

The adventure combines all the classic elements of an RPG into one - combat, diplomacy, mystery, intrigue, hard choices and plenty of roleplaying opportunity. Combine this with the rich detail of the campaign setting, and you get an adventure that's breathing with life, and full of riveting scenes and exciting encounters. I have to admit that despite a few presentation flaws, I love everything about this adventure and the campaign setting that binds it together. It might not be an adventure for the younger audience with its dark overtones, but for more mature gamers this adventure is a blast. I've said it before about the Arcanis campaign setting in general - it's one of the best out there.

I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure, despite it being for the 3e d20 rules. It combines rich detail, fantastic story telling, exciting scenes and encounters, excellent roleplaying opportunity, and challenging encounters with a great campaign background to form a fantastic adventure. Some might argue that the various hard points can be too constraining on the PCs, and perhaps there is some element of truth in there that you really need to know Arcanis to make the most of this adventure. It is very much an Arcanis adventure, and while you could move it to another setting, it would be a fairly difficult conversion. Nevertheless, for those that love attention to detail, rich stories and backgrounds, and adventures that are varied and different, this is a fantastic choice.

In two words: Wow! Cool!

I was very pleased with this preview. Such a rich setting, so many old stories to work from.

Arcanis has always been special to me. I remember how one of the first d20 products to come out alongside Third Edition was an Arcanis adventure, one my group had a lot of fun with. From there, it did more and more, until it became one of the first full-fledged campaign settings for the d20 system. The book that really delivered in that department, fleshing out a bold new world of adventuring for a reinvigorated D&D game, was this book, the Codex Arcanis. Of course, this isn’t the exact same book that came out in 2001, per se. The original Codex was updated (including making it 3.5) in 2007, and it’s this book that now is released in PDF format.

A hefty book, Codex Arcanis weighs in at over two hundred fifty pages in length. It has full bookmarks, which is a must for easy navigation since the book has no table of contents. The covers are the only instances of color artwork, with the rest being black and white. Borders are present along the top and alternating sides of every page. There is no printer-friendly version, which is a touch disappointing.

The major purpose of the Codex Arcanis is to provide a background and setting for the Arcanis campaign. After an introduction that sets up the religions of the world, and touches upon related topics such as what happens after you die, the book’s chapters focus on various portions of the world. These chapters cover the history, major institutions, notable NPCs, and much more of the various areas throughout Arcanis. Altogether, fully 80% of the book is dedicated to this, making the Codex Arcanis a very system-neutral supplement.

If you’re looking purely to cherry-pick new mechanics, though, then you’ve only got the book’s appendices to look forward to. The book has sections detailing the game stats for the major races of the world, along with new feats and prestige classes. While I may be mistaken, I’m pretty sure that this game material is mostly new, compared to other crunch-heavy Arcanis supplements.

The Codex Arcanis is a book that lays out the campaign world in all its glory (updated to include events from various supplements), and it does so very well. It’s 80/20 approach to fluff and crunch guarantees that while it’s mostly usable regardless of what game you play, it has enough to immediately start an Arcanis-centric 3.5 game if you feel so inclined. After so long, it’s great to see Arcanis get (what I’d call) a re-release at the close of Third Edition. Things have come full circle for one of d20’s first campaigns, and Paradigm Concepts sends d20 Arcanis out in style!

An interesting and useful product for those looking to get a mission started. It was created for Spycraft but I used mine for D20 Modern with little conversion. A solid product.

I enjoyed the supplement alot and am looking forward to unning campiagns based on it. I especiially enjoyed the new gunpowder additions and the political strata included.

Fantastic source material on giants, including material on the celestial giants. Great for any campaign, includes several prestige classes and statistics for giants and giant-kin.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Tons of good story and crunch.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: it's written for 3.0<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is an excellent overview to the City of Nishampur in the nation of Canceri. Included is an adventure that is fun to play, but can take some strange turns. Also included are several new creatures suitable for any setting.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: New creatures, plenty of source material.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Having to cut up my book to distribute certs.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Fantastic adventure, full of story and twists. A must play for any person who plays arcanis.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Everything, the only downside was the length of play.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It was long, 20+ hours in a hard wooden chair was rough.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Shadows of a Forsaken Past is a large adventure from Paradigm Concepts, made for the Living Arcanis setting, played as part of the Role-Playing Game Association. The zipped file is just under twelve megabytes in size, and contains fourteen PDFs. One of these is the adventure itself, one is player handouts, four are certificates of items acquired or events completed (these are used for authentication with the RPGA), and eight are files detailing stat blocks for encounters in the adventure. Each stat-block PDF (save for one with creatures whose Encounter Levels are set) is set at a different level, ranging from presenting EL 5 challenges, to EL 17 challenges.

None of the PDFs here have any artwork, which essentially makes them all printer-friendly by default. It is worth noting that, as stated on the product page, there are no maps given here. These can instead be downloaded freely on the Living Arcanis website.

Shadows of a Forsaken Past presents an important event in the world of Arcanis. The mountain range known as the Wall of the Gods has crumbled, opening the Sealed Lands and freeing the Infernals trapped there. The PCs must journey to a tomb that was unearthed by the quake, and find out the secrets of the weapons there that can combat the Infernals, bringing them back so that they can be used by the people of Arcanis for protection. Canny readers will note that this adventure is tied quite closely to the Arcanis setting; having this adventure be set in another campaign world will require some tailoring on the part of the GM.

The adventure itself is very well done, giving the PCs a mixture of battles to fight and intrigues to role-play through. It lets the PCs quite possibly shape the future of the campaign world, and presents itself masterfully. However, this is not an adventure that should be attempted by novice GMs. Everything from the text-heavy adventure (with no art and stat blocks removed) to the adjustable ELs to the intense ties to the Living Arcanis setting make this an adventure that should only be used by someone willing to go the distance on running this. Shadows of a Forsaken Past is truly epic in its scope, and requires commitment from both its GM and its players, offering incredible rewards for those who are up to the task. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This adventure is massive in scope, and makes a huge difference in the world it's set in. The adjusted stat blocks make this an adventure you can run for any group ranging from levels 5 to 17.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The intense use of materials tied to the Living Arcanis setting, as well as the myriad options and lack of artwork, is somewhat intimidating. This isn't an adventure that can be run on a whim - you'll need to be extremely familiar with everything it offers to run it successfully.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Shadows of a Forsaken Past is a lengthy 297 page pdf product for the Arcanis, World of Shattered Empires, campaign setting. This product is intended to be played as part of the Living Arcanis campaign, although it can be played as a standalone adventure in Onara or if need be in another campaign world. Shadows of the Forsaken Past is a d20 adventure for characters of any level from 4th to 16th, and provides APL figures for Living Arcanis between 5 and 15, including a Glory Tier (APL 17) for those parties looking for a challenge. The adventure sees the Wall of the Gods, a mountain range used to seal the infernals from the rest of Onara, fallen and this has opened up the Sealed Lands to the rest of Onara once again. The PCs get a chance to journey into the bowels of the Sealed Lands and discover the hidden secrets of an ancient tomb.

This product comes as a zip file containing 14 files for the product. These files include the adventure, certifications for Living Arcanis, stat block files for each APL, and player handouts. Maps are not included in the product, although these are available for download from the Living Arcanis website. Given that the map files aren't that large, I'm not sure why they weren't included in the product. The large number of files is another slight annoyance with this product, but, like the maps, I suspect this has to do with the fact that this product was intended for Living Arcanis. For other non-Living Arcanis players, a single file would've been much more useful without all the superfluous details.

As a Living Arcanis product, the overall presentation is not great. There is no artwork, for example, the maps are decent but not great or particularly detailed or complete, and the organisation of the adventure and the general adventure flow leaves much to be desired, particularly if you're not playing this adventure through Living Arcanis. While this adventure can be played in Arcanis or another setting outside of Living Arcanis, it will require some work as there is a lot of Living Arcanis specific material in the product. I generally found the layout and organisation of the product disappointing and at times difficult to use, particularly because of the length of the adventure. Editing and writing is excellent as usual for Paradigm Concepts' products, but it's difficult to appreciate it within the disjointed organisation and layout of the adventure. It is in its essence a very large text file with a lacklustre layout. Overall, the presentation was not great.

The adventure itself is generally very good, although with the organisation and disjointed flow it has its ups and downs. The details of the ancient tomb, a demiplane, are fantastic, and that part of the adventure stands out as very good and highly enjoyable. PCs will have to play both the thinking game and be prepared for the unexpected. The adventure sees the PCs travel towards the Sealed Lands to find the ancient tomb and discover its secrets. This travelling takes them through several regions, each with their appropriate encounters. At times it looks like this travelling time has just been added to extend the length of the adventure, as one would imagine that for the most part, barring perhaps Living Arcanis, this travelling is really not required as all the wandering encounters serve little purpose within the overall plot (although they mostly do within the overall scope of Living Arcanis).

Within the pages of the adventure the PCs will find themselves facing border patrols, the servants of Ymandrake, the infernals of the Sealed Lands, the maze-like lands of the broken Wall of the Gods, the ancient tomb of Hilur, and finally a climatic battle as the PCs escape the sealed lands and the infernals tracking them. There is a lot of action and excitement within this adventure, and a lot of novel and interesting encounters that will make for thoroughly enjoyable gameplay. Arcanis is a very detailed and intriguing setting, and this adventure exploits a lot of the finer aspects of the setting. Towards this end the product uses a lot of material from other Arcanis products, although most of the material used is included in this product where required in the numerous appendices.

By far the longest and most enjoyable part of the adventure is the tomb of Hilur itself. There the PCs will face many tasks and challenges to uncover its secrets, and will probably find there a lot more than they would've expected. The balance of roleplaying and combat is excellent throughout the adventure, and there's a great deal of creativity in a lot of the encounters. This is certainly a must-play product for those fans of Arcanis and particularly for Living Arcanis players hoping for a lengthy home game. The tomb of Hilur is one of the more enjoyable locations I've seen, and while it may sound like a dungeon crawl, it's certainly not anything like one. PCs and players should have a splendid time with this part of the adventure, although I can imagine that other parts of the adventure can quickly become tedious or drawn out.

Shadows of a Forsaken Past is both a great adventure and also a poor one. Aspects of it are tantalizing, intriguing and very creative, while other parts looked like they've been stuck on with tape. The adventure is not as streamlined as it could be, particularly because single encounters have been used to 'fill' the weeks long of travelling for the PCs. Parts of the adventure will run like travel, encounter, travel, encounter, etc. While the logistics of this make sense in-game, it's something I can't imagine working very well at the table as it seems so disjointed. Encounters in the adventure also don't seem to flow very well from one to the other.

However, despite all this I was really pleased with the adventure. A DM can create a really exciting adventure for his players with this material, and sculpt it into something that can be thoroughly enjoyable. The tome of Hilur is great, and the detail of the Arcanis setting is utilized well and comes to life in the product. Presentation and organisation was disappointing, but if you can look past that, then there's a great adventure underneath.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Shadows of a Forsaken Past is a excellent adventure with an eclectic mix of encounters and great balance. It's innovative and creative in places, and combines the various elements of Arcanis well into one grand adventure that breathes the setting.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Disappointing presentation and organisation, including the lack of artwork, detail and number of maps, the layout and general look of the product. While a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that it was designed for Living Arcanis, I'd have expected a smoother product.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Quick comment really- the Unholy Champion prestige classes (which are Living Arcanis-legal) are significantly more powerful or at least front-loaded than the Holy Champion equivalent in the Players Guide to Arcanis.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This is an excellent sourcebook for people who don't have a weak stomach. The Theocracy of Canceri provides excellent source material for the Living Arcanis setting, or any home campaign that needs a little extra evil. I do not regret buying it, and I would recommend it to anyone (other than small children).

More great work from Paradigm Concepts<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is an excellent product that I'd recommend to just about anyone. Arcanis is an extremely rich campaign setting using D&D rules and in my opinion is worthy of anything that Wizards of the Coast has produced.

My only beef with this product is that it isn't an atlas and doesn't explain as much as I would like about the setting itself.

However, it does go into great depth on character options, new feats, prestige classes and even provides guidelines on how to play certain characters.

I'm glad that they finally decided to release this in PDF since I live in an isolated area and its pretty difficult for me to get to my local games store.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Rich world with so much to recommend it.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: While detail is supplied about the character options, not enough is provided of the campaign setting itself.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Forged in Magic: Revised and Expanded is a 176 page d20 pdf product for any fantasy campaign setting, although focused around Arcanis, World of Shattered Empires. This product, as the name suggests, is the revised (to 3.5e) and expanded version of the original Forged in Magic product released several years ago. It includes a lot of new material, now detailing more than 500 magical and psionic items. Forged in Magic is a product about magical items, allowing players and DMs alike to wield weapons of wonder and legend in their campaign setting.

This product comes as a zip file containing both a screen and printer-friendly version of Forged in Magic, the latter having the borders removed, but maintaining all the covers and interior art. Artwork is very good, and while there are average items in place, there are a number of exceptional ones as well, and the artists have done a good job of enhancing the product. Writing and editing is generally good as well, although the layout and organisation leaves a little to be desired.

The product isn't very well organised, and some chapter and section designations and a table of contents would've made the pdf a lot easier to use. Bookmarks have been included for navigation, but better section headings or separations would've made the pdf look more polished. Some items appear out of place as well, such as epic items under the weapons of war section, rather than perhaps under the armor or weapons sections. Consistent use of font size for headings is also lacking. As a product about magical items, mechanics generally seems good and pricing for the items fair and appropriate.

The product starts with a brief overview of the expanded edition, which includes many new items and additional material. It then proceeds to provide some brief advice on making legendary weapons, by using, for example, proper histories or descriptions for important items, or having their powers grow with character level. No mechanics is given, but the advice is still useful, albeit somewhat obvious, nonetheless. Following the brief introduction, the product dives into the magical items, essentially one huge chapter detailing all the magical items types of the core rules and more.

The following magical items are listed: armors, shields, armor attachments (tabards, pins, etc.), melee weapons, ranged weapons, fetishes, psicrowns, potions, rings, rods, staffs, universal psionic items, wondrous items, weapons of war (tools of warcraft, creatures of warcraft, epic weapons and armor), epic rings, rods, staffs, potions, and garments; cursed items, special materials, and lastly items for animals (barding and the like). It's a vast and extensive list of items, containing a lot that is interesting and new and an equal amount of average stuff.

In general I was very pleased with this product. There's a lot of material and a lot of interesting magical items. Some were a little mundane, particular in the weapon and armor departments, where weapons, for example, just granted a feat, or armor just gave the use of a spell a certain number of times per day. Hardly exceptional material, but nevertheless still useful. The additional types of magical items, such as armor attachments and barding items go a long way to increase the usefulness of this product and expand the game in different directions. The epic material is also a very welcome addition to the product, including a number of minor and major artifacts.

One cannot really go wrong with the product. It offers excellent value for money in providing a huge number of new gaming material for a very good price. One had to expect a few more mundane items in there, and can't hope that everything will be innovative or creative. An enjoyable product, with plenty of usefulness in any gaming setting, and perhaps for some the opportunity to adopt some of the finer aspects of Arcanis through the use of the magical items. A very good product.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Forged in Magic provides a huge amount of magical items and treasure for any d20 setting. The material is extremely useful, has some creative and innovative parts, and provides heaps of additional material and new types of magical items. Good value for money, and very useful.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The organisation could've been done a lot better with clearer chapter designations and perhaps by moving some of the material around. One minute your finishing one section and another just starts out of the blue at the bottom of the page.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>