An Endzeitgeist.com review of the revised edition

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was hired to develop this pdf, iron out the rough patches and provide some new and exciting options herein. I was paid for my work. That being said, I was assured that I should not, in any way, compromise my final verdict for any product of Kobold Press and continue to provide my often harsh criticism. So yeah, I obviously consider the new iteration superior. I post this review mainly to update my review of the first Ravenfolk pdf and to draw attention to its improved version - not many publishers would aim to improve a given book by this extent. Kudos!

This installment of Kobold Press' Advanced Races-series is 20 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC,1 page advertisement, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 16 pages of content, so let's take a look, shall we?

All right, let's get one thing out of the way - I LOVE Tengu and I adore the Midgard Huginn - blending one of my favorite races with a distinct Germanic/Scandinavian tone, the fluff of this race is simply glorious. Idea-wise...but can the content stand up to the concept? Racial trait-wise, Huginn (or Heru/Heruti, as they are known in the South...) are now streamlined with Tengus as presented in the ARG. Fluff-wise, the insights into Ravenfolk culture, psychology, nesting as well as the unique concepts as conveyed per their intricate Feather Speech, which contains otherwise untranslatable concepts - this chapter is just awesome. Did you for example know about the Huginn rookeries and ghettos, about the tsar of Vidim using the Huginn as elite-soldiers and spies? We also get to know about the Huginn of Zobeck as well as those of Nuria-Natal before being introduced to the Ravenfolk's take on various adventuring classes.

A total of 13 alternate racial traits are provided, allowing you to flavor your Huginn as servants of Horus, Wotan etc. Huginn blessed by Wotan may for example learn to speak with the dead etc. beyond that, I have revised the claw attack these guys may get and added a feat-tree to render the claw attack granted a valid option for ravenfolk monks. Beyond these new feats, the old feats have, in my opinion, been vastly improved and made simply more exciting.

We also get new archetypes: Wotan's Doomcroaker-oracle has been revised to make use of the powerful and thematically fitting rune magic introduced in Northlands and Deep Magic for a more unique playing experience. Marc Radle's excellent spontaneous caster, the Shaman-class, gets new fodder with the Black feather, which nets the shaman not only relatively fast flight and the ability to assume avian shape, but also feather fall at will and the new corvid spirit guide. Sea Ravens are essentially huginn vikings that can forego basic weapon dice (i.e. dealing only str-mod damage plus similar modifiers) for free intimidates as and have been smoothed as well. Tomb Raven Wizards still make for superb foes of the undead, but a whack with the nerfbat has made them more balanced. The final archetype would be the Thief of Secrets is an acolyte of the teaching of Thoth-Hermes, whose bland flavor has been revised to grant them a type f pool that represents the whispers of Thoth-Hermes and allows them to succeed where other thieves may fail. Additionally, the archetype now has quite a bunch of unique benefits that set it apart - no more bland SPs. We also get 6 new spells -all of which have been brought up to par with Deep Magic.

We also get new pieces of mundane/alchemical equipment herein - from putty that allows Huginn to disguise themselves as other featherless, beakless humanoids, feather dyes and bleaches (with their meanings!), lozenges to alter voices, a guide of feather speech, a quill that may contain elaborate messages and a particularly effective cloak make for culturally distinct, cool pieces of equipment. On the weapon-side, we get beak razors, fighting spurs and wing razors - making bleeding more painful, working better with called shots (and having an alternate bonus if you don't use called shots) - all in all, cool secondary benefits to these weapons.

Finally, we receive 4 new magic items - Wotan's Whisperers are stone ravens that unerringly find their targets via the ways of the world tree (no tracking these!) and deliver their messages exclusively to them - which oozes the stuff of myths. The Sword of the Sea Raven allows Huginn to determine whether a vessel carries valuable cargo, whereas the Spear of the Sun Hawk is particularly effective versus evil, undead, can be whirled to generate true sunlight. Good huginn may does something that requires careful thought - they may throw the spear at a target and ignore any range penalties - the spear has essentially unlimited range, with only visibility limiting its range. Upon being used this way, the spear turns into a regular masterwork spear for 3 days, though. This is awesome! Finally, a minor artifact, the Thief of Many Things, a carved wooden raven. Whisper to the raven and it will steal something for you - something which will potentially endanger you, be not applicable to your situation or be just the thing you needed. Great storytelling potential here!

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are now top-notch. Layout adheres to Kobold Press' beautiful 2-column full-color standard for Midgard and the artworks in full-color and b/w are universally awesome. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Author Wade Rockett has delivered a compelling supplement here and I'd be a huge hypocrite if I complained about the new material. That being said, of course, I love the new material and I hope you will enjoy it as well. In my opinion, this pdf is vastly superior to its first iteration, with scaling advice for the race. Where before, the fluff was glorious, but the crunch couldn't live up to it, I'm confident you'll agree that all new options and revised archetypes now are much more unique, versatile and interesting. To me, this is now a 5 star + seal of approval file and one I have begun using in my own campaign. So yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I consider this by now one of the best installments in the series and if you already have the pdf, be sure to download the revised version - my changelog was pretty long. :) Otherwise, consider this one glorious ecology/racial supplement dripping in awesome fluff that now has much more going for it!

Endzeitgeist out.

I picked this book up because I'm currently running a Midgard campaign using the 13th Age system, rather than Pathfinder. Therefore, my review is based primarily on the "fluff" in the book, as opposed to the "crunch."

Starting at the beginning, the cover art immediately captured my attention. The huginn's (as "European" ravenfolk are referred to) clothing is a bit reminiscent of Central or Eastern Europe, as opposed to Western Europe. Right away, this sets the tone for the ravenfolk, and fits well with the Midgard setting.

The book goes on to describe how ravenfolk have integrated into several different parts of Midgard, from the frozen north to the Egypt-themed lands in the south. It is clear that ravenfolk are a diverse race, and that the superstitions and gossip surrounding them only applies to a subset of their kind.

Next, the ravenfolk life-cycle, culture, and language are explained in enough detail that a player or GM are provided with a framework to flesh out, but not so detailed that there's no room to make a version of the ravenfolk that is all their own. Justification is offered for ravenfolk becoming adventurers of each of Pathfinder's core classes -- again, the player isn't required to adhere to these suggestions, but it can be helpful in fleshing out a ravenfolk character.

After this, there are sections for alternate racial traits, feats, and archetypes. My preference, as a player, is to focus a bit more on race than is common in 13th Age, and I love how these options really helped get the creative juices flowing in terms of how ravenfolk could be unique in ways beyond class, background, personality, etc. While I'd have to adapt the "crunch" to fit 13th Age, it wouldn't be hard to do (13th Age is super flexible like that), and this book's author, Wade Rockett, was kind enough to already provide some of this conversion for us on the Kobold Press forums: http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page17060.php.

In a similar way, the next sections, which cover ravenfolk spells, weapons, equipment, and magic items, provide me with fodder for 13th Age equivalents or attributes that I could incorporate into my game. It's impossible for me to comment on balance or playability of the Pathfinder-specific elements of the book, but they've provided a wealth of flavor -- how can I not incorporate ravenfolk with beak razors and fighting spurs into my game, after reading this?

I have a couple of minor items that I feel could use improvement. First, there are two ink drawings of ravenfolk in the book, which portray them as muscular humans with raven heads, wearing a loincloth. If you were to replace Conan the Barbarian's head with that of a raven, you'd be visualizing it pretty well. No talons, no feathers on their bodies, no vestigial tails -- I found this artwork jarring, and kept expecting some explanation for these ravenfolk variants in the text, but none was ever provided. As a book that is trying to detail a race that players or GM's may be encountering for the first time, it's important that their portrayal is consistent.

Second, there was almost no mention of the tengu in the book, which is too bad, as the tengu is probably the most common reference point that readers have, if they're not already familiar with Midgard. I realize this is a book about the Occidental ravenfolk, not the Oriental tengu, but as the tengu will most likely be familiar due to their inclusion in the Pathfinder Advanced Race Guide and other game systems, a paragraph or two about how they're alike and how they're different would have been a valuable addition to the book. Also, a brief discussion of how a GM might handle requests for tengu feats, racial traits, and other options from (perhaps min-max-minded) ravenfolk players could be a help in some groups. Or even better, a gudie to how ravenfolk options included in the book might be applied to tengu players, would thereby expand the usefulness of this book. Even if the tengu were simply mentioned explicitly in the introduction as the Eastern cousins to the ravenfolk, with no additional information provided, it would have been helpful.

In conclusion, Advanced Races 5: Ravenfolk is an entertaining read, which broadened my understanding of the engimatic ravenfolk, their place in the Midgard setting, and how very different they are, both in terms of one another, and to other races. If you're curious about how anthropomorphic corvids might populate your fantasy setting, then you won't be disappointed by this book.

I'm not very good at reviews.. and I am useless when it comes to crunch. But flavor-wise I very much enjoy this book. The flavor of the Ravenfolk in this resonates with me more than the typical Tengu feel.