Into the Black, a Review

I am still going through all of the materials that I picked up while at Gen Con. Recently I found a stack of books that I bought, skimmed through and set aside when I returned home. One of these books, " Into the Black: A Guide to Below" from Bastion Press, appears to be money well-spent.

This game add-on was being sold at a drastically reduced price because it was meant to be used with D&D 3.5. However, much of the information is useful to any game with underground exploration (including 4th edition). While specific stats, saves, etc. may have to be changed, most of the information is easily transposed to other rule sets or even completely different systems.

One section provides uses for various metals that can be mined. It even provides information for using mercury in your games; which, is something that I had never considered. Some of the uses are similar to how we use it (barometers for instance) while others are alchemical in nature.

Another section lists new adventuring equipment. Such devices as flashlights made out of phosphorescent moss can be found here complete with rules on how long it lasts, general design, recharging information, etc.

And what role-playing add-on would be complete without a bestiary? This is the part of the manual that will require the most tweaking to fit within other games, but should not be too difficult to adapt to most other systems.

Also, this guide is broken into different sections to cover a variety of underground settings. Sewers, Caverns, Catacombs, and Mines are all discussed so no matter where underground your PC’s decide to go, you will always be prepared to throw something new at them.

This is one of the most useful 3rd-party rule add-on products that I have encountered for D&D. In fact, it beats some official WotC products from 3rd edition in terms of usefulness. I would highly recommend checking it out if you can still find it at a discount.