I was lucky enough to receive a review copy, but I am very likely to spend money on future supplements!

Everything about this book is wonderfully cohesive and ready to be dropped into a campaign for combat encounters, alchemical creations, or even plot hooks involving creepy botanist villains.

The magic and alchemical items were all top notch, and the natural power component rules were an added bonus, given how much I enjoyed them from the old Adventurer's Armory supplement. Everything about this product is excellent, and I highly recommend it, especially for the price.

An Endzeitgeist.com review of the revised edition

The first supplement released by Rusted Iron Games clocks in at 5 pages, 1 page front cover, 1/2 page of SRD, leaving us with 3.5 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The Deadly Gardens-series obviously depicts uncommon plant creatures at an affordable price - the creature herein being the Phoenix Lily - but before we dive into that one, I should mention the two magic items provided in the beginning, the first of which elicited a "D'OH, why didn't I think of it?"-response - the Specimen Jar allows you to collect sample, which then remain fresh - whether it's volatile, fast decaying material of the foes you research, seeds of odd plants or something different. Nice one! The second one, the Fecund Totem, greatly increases plant-growth and even enhances plant-creatures - the presence of such an item may provide an interesting tactical component to a given fight - or act as a quest item to combat a particularly nasty blight.

The creature - well, Phoenix Lilys clock in at CR 4 - and generally, are interesting: The plants can emit devastating scorching rays and have an inherent resistance to fire, one, which, when surpassed, may result in the plant exploding. The creature is nice, fun and comes with a gorgeous b/w-pencil-drawn artwork I did not expect from such an inexpensive, short pdf.

The supplement does not end here, though -instead, we get a short primer on harvesting natural items - including, obviously, the phoenix lily's volatile blossoms as well as fire beetle glands, basilisk blood and shambler wafers. I thoroughly enjoy this take on harvesting monsters etc. - I've been basing my main campaign's whole crafting system around the harvesting of the like - so yeah, awesome, particularly now that the presentation has been further streamlined. Even cooler, the pdf takes Basilisk's Blood and Phoenix Blossoms and codifies them as power components - with different effects for various spells, whether if used as focus or material component - a phoenix blossom used with burning hands, for example, renders the spell's area of effect a 20-ft.-line. This is intriguing and supplements the notion of the magical world well - kudos!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to a nice, printer-friendly two-column full-color-standard and the pdf now is fully bookmarked. The pdf's artwork is gorgeous and deserving of praise, especially considering the low price point.

Russ Brown's first offering is a pretty impressive one - this small pdf provides an interesting adversary, some nice botany-themed option and goes a step beyond what would be required regarding the immersion-enhancing aspects of rooting (haha) a creature within the world by tying it into items, magic, etc. For the low asking price, this is a fun, neat supplement that makes me look forward to the next supplements. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

I got this book simply because there are not enough books that go into plant monsters. This book gave me that and more. I have used this book in my campaign and the players really loved the material.

I got this expecting to focus on a new monster, the Phoenix Lilly. That was what originally piqued my interest, I've always liked plant monsters. They're just so easy to drop into most settings adventurers are in.

What I got with this was 1 monster and a whole lot of things that players can use as well.

First, I want to tackle the monster. It's a pretty nasty little flower; it has some slam attacks and literally shoots fire. Additionally, it can go all nova on its attackers destroying itself in the process. A bonus for intrepid PCs is harvesting the blossoms for later use.

Second, are two magic items. The specimen jar I feel is the best of the two presented. A simple magic item allowing PCs to preserve items harvested from plants or magical beasts to use or process later. I totally get it and it feel like it fits right in since the monster text even says you can do it. A really great tie in. The fecund totem didn't grab me as much. It was more of a setting piece to enhance an area than something PCs might outright buy or find as part of a loot pile.

Finally, we get some crunchy rule bits on Natural Items, from harvesting from their native state to preserving them. Simple straight forward rules here, easy to understand DCs and costs when needed. Also included are a few example items, what they do and how they can be used to enhance spells, similar to using an acid flask with acid spells.

I think the only real issue I had with this was organization. I would have the monster up front, then the natural items/harvesting rules and finally the magic items.

But all in all, a pretty little fire shooting flower monster.