With video gaming, other projects besides the Arkadenverse, taking care of my grandmother’s health issues, and my readthrough of Like Lambs to the Slaughter (which will no longer be on a weekly schedule; sorry, I tried to keep myself on a set schedule, but trying to tie myself to one just makes it feel like work), I haven’t exactly made huge leaps and bounds on any Arkadenverse sourcebooks. Still, I wanted to give something, so I thought to those PDFs with a handful of entries, typically 10 to 13, that are put out by various companies. And you know what? I decided to try one myself!

So, for the 12 fey of Christmas, my PDF gives to thee…

*The asrai, a graceful water spirit of the United Kingdom.

*The barbegazi of the Swiss Alps, a strange frosty gnome with massive feet.

*The baobhan sith, a beautiful but deadly vampiric Unseelie fey.

*The changeling, a sickly replacement for people that are “faerie-taken”.

*The rude and crude clurichaun, a relative of the leprechaun that gains power from magical brews.

*The daoine sidhe, haughty remnants of the mighty kingdom of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

*The grindylow, a far-reaching kidnapper found in English waterways.

*The infamous man-eating kelpie of the Scottish lochs.

*The treasure-hungry korred, a brutish and unkempt fey of Celtic lore that guards the wealth and riches of times long past.

*The nain rouge, an impish creature that torments humans during blizzards.

*Unseelie Creature, a template bestowed upon those that are marked with the power of the king of the Unseelie Court himself.

*The urisk, a tiny craftsman fey with a dark side.

So, download Winter Faerieland: 12 Fey of the Northlands to your heart’s content, and if you like the idea of these little “one shot PDFs” to tide between my admittedly very slow release schedule of larger things, feel free to comment on it.

Now that Like Lambs to the Slaughter has dedicated a chapter on “the Humanist Conspiracy” to the supposed evils of education, it’s only fitting that this chapter, “Your Teacher the Occultist?” is less about teaching and more about piling blame on clinical psychology on the rise of the occult.

Before I go into this chapter in earnest, though, I’d like to share a personal story. As some of you reading this know, I suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, bipolar disorder, and several other mental illnesses. As some more of you know, I was raised in a decidedly fundamentalist family. While my parents eventually sort of came around to the fact that I had a medical condition, that doesn’t mean they completely abandoned the archaic outlook that mental diseases are actually the manifestations of demons (now, it’s just conveniently relegated to “those evil people”, because the “good” ones with mental disease wouldn’t have any demons), or the thought that prayer can make your mental conditions all better if you try hard enough.

This is especially relevant in a friend-of-a-friend story my great uncle once told about a woman who starved herself to death after her marriage began to fall apart. Supposedly, her anorexia nervosa was actually being transferred through a dream catcher that she had in her room, which held “Indian demons”. Yes, really. You may take a moment to facepalm, and any Native Americans in the audience can take another moment to calm down after such a mind-searingly stupid comment about you.

Moment(s) taken? Good. Let’s get to the actual start of this chapter.

“Imagine, if you will, a place where you can learn astrology, Yoga, numerology, the basics of color healing, and ESP; a place where you are led into guided-imagery fantasy trips and visualization techniques that help you contact your higher self and your spirit guide”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33

Yeah, that place is called psychotropic substances. Your point?

“No, you have not been reading a sylabbus for a seminar at your local ashram or occult center.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33

Louisiana doesn’t have many local “occult centers”, but it’s not hard to go only a few blocks and bump into yet another Christian church!

“These practices, along with endless variations on the theme, were indeed once relegated to the misty abodes of shamans, Yogis, wizards, witches, magicians, mediums, witch doctors, and other assorted occultists. Today, however, in more ‘enlightened’ times, they have become the raging vogue in public schools in every state and in virtually every community around the country.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33 and 34

I’d have to call bullshit on that. I doubt any red states, or even many blue states, had or have such curriculum in public schools. There are some individuals that are pushing their religious beliefs on the education system, though…they’re called dominionists.

“The news shouldn’t come as any major shock, since those practices have been going on for the last 15 or 20 years now. All the teachers are doing is applying the latest innovations in the field of psychology to their classrooms.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 34

…What.

Okay, let’s examine the things you claimed were once “misty abodes”.

Shamans? An insanely large amount of practices. All religious, not psychological.

Yogis? A yoga practicioner, or a monk in a religion seen by the speakers of Urdu (the language that yogi comes from). Religious (though yoga has become secularized somewhat in the USA), not psychological.

Witches, wizards, and magicians? Granny Weatherwax, Harry Dresden, and Penn and Teller. Supernatural story folk and users of sleight of hand, not psychological (except in the last case, I guess).

Mediums? Spirit speakers. Contacted by King Saul in the Bible and con artists and urban fantasy fodder in the modern day, not psychological.

Witch doctors? Herbalists and faith healers. Includes members of your own religion, Michaelsen, and not psychological.

See a pattern here? Yeah…

“Humanists have worked long and hard for over 150 years to insure their domination of the public school system. They see their philosophies as the salvation of the world – the solution to all our social ills.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 2., pg. 17

150 years? But I thought America has been a Christian nation since the dawn of time! *Faux shock*

Interestingly enough, if we go to to the exact date of “150 years ago” for the time of this book’s publishing, we’re in 1839. What events do we have that year? Hmmm. A fair amount of educational facilities open, including the first west of the Mississippi. Women get to own property by law for the first time in the United States. The Faraday papers on the nature of electricity are published. Cell theory is developed. Charles Darwin put out his narrative of the Beagle voyage.

…Yeah, I’m noticing a pattern. Interesting how a year that is such a watershed for science and equality is the one Michaelsen points at accusingly as the beginnings of the “humanist conspiracy”.

“For decades now the Humanists have used the classrooms of this country as their personal pulpits and seminaries for the propagation of their atheistic, socialistic beliefs. In the 1960′s especially there was an influx of humanistic programs presented as ‘alternatives’ to the ‘oppressive’ educational system of the day (i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic are such a bore!).”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 2., pg. 17

Wow. Atheism, socialism, and scare quotes? We have Religious Jingo BINGO!

Also, yeah, humanists totally hate reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s why they try to spread education so far, to quell it! …Wait, what?

Oh, but the religious jingoism gets worse (all of the following from pg. 18)!

“As a result, many of our children now know all about how corpses are embalmed, and many have written their own obituaries or suicide notes as class assignments.”

What? When?

“They have pooled their collective ignorance on ‘relevant’ subjects ranging from nuclear war to homosexuality, euthanasia to birth control – all in the name of ‘clarifying’ their values and morals.”

‘Conform! Conform! After all, the next generation are just stupid kids. What would they know about marriage equality, birth control, and the dangerous of nuclear disasters?’

And the humanists are supposed to be the ones harming our youth…

“They’ve learned all about sexuality and pornography in their sex ed. classes.”

Gasp! Our children know what reproductive functions are! It’s the apocalypse!

“They know all about the occult and Witches, werewolves, astrology, Ouija boards, the Great Spirit, and the Mother Goddess.”

Because…humanism is occultist? Yeah, I’m sure Richard Dawkins walks around with a few Ouija boards in his backpack, just in case he might get a strange vibe from the ghost of Charles Darwin on how to fulfill the “conspiracy”.

“They know that to mention the Bible, God, and especially Jesus of Nazareth on a public school campus is to risk being sued by the ACLU.”

Because the ACLU totally never supports Christians (hint: they actually do).

And that’s the chapter! Okay, yes, there are a few more pages, but they’re basically repeating the same points, just slotting in different buzzwords such as “Naziism”, “Soviet Union”, and “Red China”. Since this was back when the Soviet Union existed, and we were at odds with Eastasia China, it’s not surprising to see those words used to invoke the boogeyman of a “humanist conspiracy” taking over the schools from Good Traditional Values Teachers™.

Gag.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Next time, we start chapter 3, “Your Teacher the Occultist?”, wherein more anti-education blather is vomited forth.

“Literally millions of people are involved in a desperate search for spiritual reality, and it seems most of them don’t much care what the source of it is or where they find it just so long as it’s ‘real’. They are sick to death of the dry and empty ritual, the unspeakable hypocrisy, and the suffocating legalism that characterizes so many of our churches today. And yet something deep within them yearns to be filled with the presence of God – not the God of the Bible, whom they have learned to despise and ridicule, but a God more to their own liking and understanding, a God who would just as soon be called ‘Goddess’ or ‘The Universal Energy’, and who promises them unlimited knowledge, power, and even the ultimate fulfillment of personal divinity.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 10

Why, the “everyone has a Jesus-shaped hole inside” canard, of course! And on top of that, the canard of “if you aren’t a Real True Christian like our denomination above all others, you must hate God!” Yeah…no, that’s not how it goes. You wanna know how it really goes?

It goes from a childhood of being shovel-fed fundamentalist eschatology to the eventual realization that the boogeymen in the closet and the evil Others are actually just like you. It goes from being treated as a religious affiliation rather than a person but loved for it, to being ostracized once that tribal banner is taken down off its flag pole. It goes from jaw-chattering fright of being left alone without warning due to the thoughts that you might have offended Jesus enough to not be Raptured, to growing up and fighting tooth and nail to attempt to make your mark on the world a more progressive and positive one. It’s not about the deity, Michaelsen, it’s about the people. People like my parents, who I still love in spite of their disdain for my very being. People like my old church of yore, who only recently got around to taking in interracial couples. People like you, who preach hellfire and damnation from children’s fiction as if God is a weak edifice whose ass could be handed to him by Isis and Odin if he doesn’t get enough praise. That is how it goes.

And furthermore, as a fan of researching mythology, including its various deific figures, which goddess are you talking about here? Gaia, the Earth Mother? Pacha Mama, the other Earth Mother? Isis, the bringer of life and magic? Mariaamman, the source of both live-giving rain and death-dealing pestilence? Amaterasu, she who shines from the heavens? Come now, be a bit more specific! Oh, that’s right, they’re all “Others”, so it doesn’t matter much which one you mean, does it?

This becomes especially clear in the next segment of chapter 1. Michaelsen goes on to denigrate “Eastern mysticism” and “the occult” as the Others.

“What was once the squalling infant of the hippie era is growing up fast. The New Age Movement is spreading its roots into every facet of our society. Housewives can’t even get out of their local supermarkets without running the gauntlet of magazines and weekly periodicals heralding the latest information on channelers, psychic healers, gurus, astrologers, etc”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 11

Okay, so, it’s all the fault of Those Damn Dirty Hippies? The Babylonian astrologers of old, Hindu gurus, occultists of the Victorian era, and plenty of others would disagree with you. What makes this section even more amusing is that Michaelsen manages to get so close to realizing that the “New Age movement” is actually an eclectic holding title for various spiritual movements, only to completely drop the ball with this statement:

“Still, as long as you don’t believe in sin or the basic sin-nature of man, Satan, the virgin birth, the exclusive deity of Christ, heaven or hell, or anything that smacks of Fundamentalist, it’s even okay to be ‘Christian’. The New Age is the ultimate eclectic religion of self.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 11

…Okaaaaay. First off, you’re equating Christianity with fundieism. Second, you’re claiming that people that don’t believe in Christ claim to be Christians. Third….no belief in Satan? In “New Age” and occultism? The same occultism that, long ago, drew upon the Ars Goetia and the Dukes and other Rulers of Hell?

Oh, and the whole comments on virgin birth and heaven and hell always being Christian tenets. She must spontaneously combust upon hearing about the Cathars and adoptionist sects.

Leading into the tail part of our first chapter, Michaelsen finally gets into the “seduction of the innocent” portion of the book. And what is the sinister Gay Occult Agenda doing to instill this EBUL FALSITY into our culture (all of the next unlabeled quotes from chapter 1, page 13)?

“Saturday morning cartoons are proving to toddlers that ‘I AM THE POWER!’”

Ahem. That’s “I have the power”.

“They are told that there are ‘good’ sorceresses and Witches and shamans and wizards who have access to untold power”

Yep, they’re taught that now. Just like they were taught by that most evil anti-Christian man of all, J.R.R. Tolkien. Oh wait.

“and that telepathy and telekinesis (and those words are the exact ones used) are normal and useful abilities to cultivate”.

They’re referred to as telepathy and telekinesis because that’s the actual damn terminology. Also, since when have psionic powers been normal in children’s shows? Psions and the like are typically only one member of the Hero Band, villains, or strange Others that exist outside of the main cast.

“In Gifted-and-Talented programs childrens are given projects dealing with Ouijia boards – how to build them and use them, how to read palms, and how to be like ‘amazing Mr. Hughes’, who helps policemen find missing bodies.”

Yes, because my gifted teachers didn’t give us strategy games and science books. They totally gave us novelty pieces of wood with letters on them to fool around with and imagine we could talk to the unquiet dead.

Only they didn’t do that at all.

Furthermore, the hell is with the Amazing Mr. Hughes comment? Is she talking about Howard Hughes? If so, when did seers and ouijia boards get into the picture? Google’s not helping me out on this one. Anyone in the comments who can enlighten me should please do so, as in all of my paranormal studies for my urban fantasy campaign setting you can find up at the top of the page here, I’ve never come across anything about Howard Hughes being a Harry Dresden-esque magical detective. Moving on, though…

“Despite overwhelming documentations of suicides and murders associated with it, Dungeons and Dragons now has a special edition of their ‘game’ especially designs for use in school.”

This section of the chapter had to go there. I’m on this quote like a bulette on a gnome buffet. I know it was the 80s, but really, you brought out the D&D suicide bullshit? That’s not “overwhelmingly documented”, it’s based on flimsy so-so stories equivalent to those blaming video games for school shootings, and has been debunked by far better people than myself.

The chapter ends off with the claim that there is a One World Religion and One World Government coming, and it’s “New Ageism”. Given the stubbornness of Christian nationalists and other fundamentalists of various religions, I somehow doubt we’re getting a One-New-Age-Order from this supposed occult illuminati. This section also has the perfect quote to end on, and one that is a phrase most of you fundy-bloggers have seen before.

“I believe we are living in the end times.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 14

End Times indeed. You fear that He-Man Horseman and the plagues of Smurfollyon. Meanwhile, here on the brink of 2012, we’re still doing pretty good on having a world divided by hatred rather than together by love, much less into a singular world government.

Next time, we’ll be entering Chapter 2: The Humanist Conspiracy. Be afraid, be very very afraid (and befuddled).

If you were not a child of the ’80s, you may not remember the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria; after all, it was pretty much all but killed by the mid-’90s. Sure, it’s still around with such ludicrous statements as ‘Amaterasu was a demon that had hanky-panky with the Emperor of Japan’, but it has mostly been rightly relegated to the darkest corners of fundamentalist ramblings and conspiracy blogs. Still, you’d be surprised just how much steam the SRA paranoia got back in the day. You see, SRA managed to get its start at the most awkwardly apt time possible. In 1980, when the book Michelle Remembers – a hearsay-collection of “gleaned from hypnosis” and “pastor so-and-so says” stories about the purported black magic rituals of a town in British Columbia, Canada – was excreted into the literary world, child abuse laws in the US of A were getting a reform. Unsurprisingly, the southern religious right thought “hey, we can use this new scare as leverage!”. And use it as a leverage they did. Unsurprisingly, this 1989 title was riding the end portions of that very wave. And how did Johanna Michaelsen get her turn on the wave? Thanks to her (then, since he’s apparently taken a page from most fundamentalists and gone farther down the divorce-and-remarry train since) brother-in-law, Hal Lindsey, of course:

“I was sitting in the wings of Trinity Broadcasting Network wondering what on earth I was going to say. Hal Lindsey was hosting the New Year’s television special and had asked me to discuss the most significant developments in the occult the past year.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, Page 9

Of course, she goes on to claim that she prayed to God, and he was the one that instilled it in her heart to write this piece. If that’s true (and I doubt it is), God owes me the quarter I spent on this tripe. We also get our first taste of what ‘dark sorceries’ we’ll encounter in this tome.

“Next, I talked about a Smurfs’ cartoon I had watched a few weeks before in which the evil Gargamel had been given directions to ‘draw a circle in the ground, and in that circle a pentagram…’ – thereby teaching millions of tiny fans the basics of ritual magic.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, Page 9

Well, at least this Crazy Train’s not running of any rails…it starts off on the dirt track. I could note how the pentagram has old time connotations to the five wounds of Jesus, or how Gargamel being evil means he could be expect to, you know, do evil things (not that I believe magic, were it to be real, would be innately evil; after all, it’d be some universal force if it existed), but I’ll just let this post stay on the very first actual page of the book. With the evils of Smurfs. Ruminate on this point as a primer to what we’ll be getting into.

P.S.: Don’t worry, there’s more Smurf-related inanity later on in the book.

Like Lambs to the Slaughter: Born out of the idiocy that was the era of Satanic Ritual Abuse paranoia, Like Lambs to the Slaughter preaches of the evils of such dastardly things as Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, and The Smurfs. Yes, really.

The Authorized Left Behind Handbook: A guide piece on Left Behind. About as thick as the official illustrated Twilight guide…and about as morally sound, for that matter.

Turn: Wherein Max Lucado teaches us the virtues of hating people with AIDS, praying so that the USA-loving God doesn’t have a wild hair and destroy the America he supposedly loves, and how you too can kowtow to the fundamentalists’ petty, jealous deity.

Outdoors With God: Wherein God is everywhere. And he won’t let you forget it. Ever. “You see that stream? Don’t forget who designed it for you at the beginning of time, you ungrateful whelp! …Unless you’re an environmentalist, then just remember that I take care of it, so you can sit back and enjoy the pollution. I’ll fix it.”

Clay, Crafting, and Childbirth: Magic and Magical Items

Chapters 7 is a big factor in the supernatural aspect of the Testament setting: magic. Appropriately enough for a setting so focused on piety and deities, the chapter begins with five new Cleric domains – Desert, Fertility, Heaven, Pestilence, and Thunder, if you were curious – that are keyed toward the deities of the ancient Middle East, and Jehovah in particular. There is also a note on forbidden magic: namely, the fact that core D&D spells dealing with planar travel or etherealness are a no-go. Still, these big judges on the final score of the title, so let’s get to the actual meat here. Some of the new spells are pretty obviously based on specific legends, such as the 1st-level Israelite Cleric-only spell Challenge of the Lord being a reference to David and Goliath, the 8th-level Cleric/9th-level Sorcerer and Wizard spell Curse Unto Generations taking inspiration from to far too many Old Testament ragequits by Jehovah to count, and Water to Wine being a surprisingly New Testament-style spell for an Old Testament campaign. There are also a good deal of spells that call directly upon Jehovah or an appropriate deity, typically for boons, curses, or portents.

So, with all those blights and blessings, is there anything left for a non-priestly spellcaster? Thankfully, yes! For your Hery-Kheb, there are a fair dose of spells dealing with both truenaming and birds (yes, bird magic), your Qedeshot has a fair deal of fertility rites and attraction-related spells in addition to the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin spell Cramps, and four new “Wall of” spells (light, song, stars, and thunders) provide some rather novel ways of protecting yourself while also producing additional qualities such as deafness or the humiliating side-effect of forcing your opponents to hold hands and sing to get through your wall of celestial song-energy-stuff.

And what of magical items? Well, you loot hounds needn’t worry, as there’s a nice amount of new material. The start of that new material is in the form of new weapon special qualities, ranging from the Counterstrike and Multiplying Criticals qualities that increase your potential damage output to more magically-inclined ones such as Idol-Linked (which allows the weapon to receive a touch spell via a nearby idol of a deity worshipped by the wielder) and Serpent (wherein the weapon turns into a viper, in the vein of the story of Moses vs. the Egyptian court khery-heb; you know, the one where the Nile manages to turn to blood after already being turned to blood). Armor aficionados get sufficiently less special qualities, but still have some nice toys in qualities such as Holy and Unholy armors (defending against their opposite party) and the cooling, sand- and- wind-rebuking Desert armor quality.

As for full-fledged magical items rather than magical item qualities, most present are geared toward a specific nation; the Babylonians get incenses (basically potions you burn and sniff rather than drink) and the Egyptians get mekhets (small amulets giving minor bonuses to some sort of skill or ability), for instance. One could also say that the Israelites rule the artifacts, as most of them present – the Ark of the Covenant and its contents, the Bronze Serpent of Moses, and the cloak of Elijah, for instance – belong to them; of course, there are also some items that belong to the other nations in this category as well, such as the Egyptian book of Thoth, so it’s all good.

A Monstrous Assemblage

Ahh, chapter 9, the Biblical Bestiary. As anyone that frequents this blog knows, I love me some monsters. So, what exactly does this bestiary provide? Well, let’s break it down by nation, since the book proper does the same.

Israelite Monsters

Angels: As a game invoking Biblical lore, it shouldn’t be surprising that the headliners of Testament are the Heavenly Host. What may be surprising, though, is just how strong they are. While D&D’s closest seraph (fire angel) analog, the solar, is CR 20, the seraph here is CR 25. The CR 22 cherubim (storm angels), CR 13 mazzalim (guardian angels), and CR 10 malachim (messenger angels) are no pushovers either, each having some rather nasty abilities.

Demons and Devils: On the other side of the coin, the demons and devils you are more likely to combat dont’ reach the same lofty heights. Sure, the desert spirit Azazel is CR 22, but the CR 5 possessor demon, CR 10 tempter devil, and CR 15 ruination devils don’t have quite the same bite as the angels do.

Dragons and Giants: So, if the demons and devils aren’t quite your style, what is a high level Israelite to fight? Well, for starters, you have the sin dragons, CR 2 to 21 (depending on the age category) dragons that can bring forth possessor demons, breath unholy flame, and generally ruin your day. If dragons aren’t quite your taste, there are also the CR 6 nephilim giants and the half-nephilim template, both of which allow you to have an enemy that can gain class levels to be at whatever level you need. The nephilim also have a subset, the undead rephaim that attack with a corrupting touch and a necromantic moan that produces echoing fear of the Biblical Flood that claimed the life of the rephaim.

The Big Three: Quite possibly the most imposing beasts here, however, are the earth-shaking CR 24 Behemoth, the flood-spewing CR 22 Leviathan, and the somewhat less impressive CR 11 (at youth, at least) “king of birds” known as the Ziz. One might say that these three monsters are the ultimate Israelite challenge, being the ancient Jewish figures of land, sea, and sky. Of course, you’d definitely have to advance the Ziz to its full 26 hit dice to get it on par with its land- and sea-dwelling brethren.

The Oddballs: The sea goat is an intelligent CR 15 goat-headed whale with prophecies written on its horns that both loves the prophets of Jehovah and is the favored prey of the Leviathan. The CR 3 shamir can tear apart any stone or metal, and was used in the building of Solomon’s Template. Together, they fight crime form a baffling oddball duo that doesn’t quite fit in any other category of the Israelite monsters.

Babylonian Monsters

Anzu: The CR 10 anzu are loyal but greedy griffon-like creatures used as servants by the gods of the Sumerians, Persians, and Babylonians. While usually acting as an ally of adherents of those gods, the anzu can also be a challenge to face due to their overzealous treasure hording.

The Bull of Heaven: While Gudanna, the Bull of Heaven, may not be quite as powerful as the Israelite mega-monsters at a mere CR 13, he is a fierce creature. This giant bull is an ill-tempered creature mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh as divine punishment. It holds much of the same purpose in Testament, being loosed on any poor sap that offends the Babylonian pantheon.

Demons: The disease-spreading lamashtu and vitality-draining lilitu are both CR 10, providing two equally strong but differently operating demons from the mythology of the Fertile Crescent region. Stronger are the CR 13 imhullu, Sumerian “robber gods” whose mighty giant-like shapes roil in the storms they herd like cattle.

The Death Dragons: Death dragons are the grandchildren of the Babylonian dragon of strife and chaos, Tiamat, being born of her sons Dahak, Zahak, and Labbu. They have the same Challenge Rating expansion as the sin dragon, and are arguably even more frightening, bringing desolation and corruption with their ability to defile the land and breathe forth disintegrating energy.

Humbaba: Another monstrosity faced by Gilgamesh in his eponymous epic, the mighty Humbaba has a paralyzing aura, fear-inducing roar, and can breathe gouts of flame at his enemies, all in defense of the cedar trees of Lebanon that are held sacred by the god Anu. He also must have some sort of typo in his Challenge Rating, as he is listed as CR 12 in spite of having immense power and 40 hit dice.

Scorpion Guard: The CR 9 scorpion guards (or aqrabuamelu, for those into using their original name) are popular figures in Mesopotamian mythology, appearing in temple reliefs and various stories that include, unsurprisingly, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Scorpion guards are tauric entities with scorpion features replacing horse features, and guard desert temples and the lands of the gods with ferocity. If their venomous stingers and crushing pincers aren’t enough to dissuade you, they also have a keen expertise in human weaponry.

Canaanite Monsters

The poor Canaanites, always on the short end of the stick, only get two new monsters listed, both of them insectoid and CR 5. The akilem are cattle-sized locusts born of the plague god Reshep, while zebub-spawn are disease-spreading, fist-sized fly-children of the god Baal-Zebub. …Yeah, the Canaanites don’t get much.

Egyptian Monsters

The Egyptians are last, but not least, in this bestiary. Of course, they aren’t the least only on the virtue of the Canaanites being given a shorter stick, but still! The Egyptians get two monsters in the form of the radiant CR 9 phoenix and the serpentine CR 3 Apep-spawn, as well as the Accursed Ka-Spirit template that represents accursed undead sorcerers barred by the gods from reaching the afterlife.

In addition to the monsters, there are also three animals – the wild cattle, aurochs, and another interpretation of the hippopotamus – and tables that present D&D Monster Manual critters that are as fitting for each nation as the newly-presented beasts.

Civilization and Culture

Chapters 10 through 24 covers culture, religion, geography, and other facets of each of the nations in this title. While I could go on about how there are charts that let you tell your Purim festivals from your Parmutit months, or the bok making the entirely correct statement that the Israelites were henotheists rather than monotheists, but I’ll instead just note that most of these chapters are good. The exception would be the deities and NPCs…not their stats (such as Cain being a 20^th level Fighter/Sorcerer, or Moses being a 20^th level Levite Priest/Prophet/Paladin), mind you, since those are fine in a fantastical game. No, what I’m talking about are the listed alignments. For instance, Jehovah is Lawful Good. This…is the same Jehovah of Exodus 20:5, Numbers 11:1-2, Numbers 31 in its entirety, most of the rest of Numbers, Judges 19, and numerous other passages, right? If he manages to qualify as Lawful Good, I’m rather puzzled why the Baal gods (Baal-Peor and Baal-Melkart) are stuck as Lawful Neutral. Similarly, Israelites are pretty much always listed as some flavor of Good – Elisha, the prophet who summoned bears to massacre kids for calling him bald, is Lawful Good! – while non-Israelites are typically listed as some flavor of Evil.

The End

The final chapter has some advice on gamemastering a Testament campaign. That’s…pretty much it.

Final Thoughts

Pros

*Monsters!

*Pretty much anything you want to know about ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern cultural practices can be found in here..

*Lovely utility spells and abilities.

*It’s a rather different flavor of D&D from standard swords and sorcery, which may appeal to you.

Cons

*The book is a 3.0 title, meaning it needs some hammering out to be up to code for play in 3.5 D&D.

*Abrahamic faith is intrinsic to the setting, which may put off some.

*Israelites get more the book’s gifts than any other nation.

This is a toughie. Testament is not poorly written, nor is it really imbalanced beyond a few places. It isn’t low on materials overall. Hell, it’s not even particularly controversial. Still, it’s very much a niche title, and it needs a bit of mending to fit the system’s 3.5 upgrade. For my final verdict, I’d have to give Testament a solidly above-average 7/10.

John Hagee’s Jesus would be willing to cause collateral damage to Christians in order to divinely murder LGBT individuals, sex workers, and anyone else that he happens to hate on any given day (conveniently, those individuals his followers happen to hate).

John Hagee’s Jesus created a Great Plague that somehow didn’t have Christian deaths in Christian Europe, instead killing the “pagans” without even giving them a chance to be “converted” at the sword’s edge.

John Hagee’s Jesus loves those that work themselves to death, but hates people on welfare or social security.

John Hagee’s Jesus only helps those that have stable, well-paying jobs.

John Hagee’s Jesus needs constant attention or he gets angry at people thinking thoughts or doing things that don’t directly stroke his ego.

John Hagee’s Jesus disowns Christians that are pro-choice or don’t hate gay marriage.

John Hagee’s Jesus wants all Christians to work together…unless they’re the type of Christians above, which are for some reason not true Scotsmen Christians.

John Hagee’s Jesus hates the sin and the sinner.

John Hagee’s Jesus doesn’t really sound like a deity I’d like having around.

Feats of Faith

As with many such books, most of the general feats in Testament can be divided into categories: in this case, feats based on one’s status in life, feats that improve mass combat (more on that below), feats for crafting special items from the classes seen last time, feats for prophetic abilities, and feats God gives you because he doesn’t want you added to his death count. These feats range from the boons and banes of Israelite slave-holding (yes, this title doesn’t shy away from noting Leviticus’s rather racially-charged rules about the Israelites and the slaves they keep) to simple bonuses from being a snake handler. There is also a section about “mythic feats”, which are basically feats that are intentionally unbalanced as a reflection of legendary feats (no pun intended) of strength, magic, and knowledge from Middle Eastern lore. Some of the more notable ones include Celestial Charioteer (which lets you use divine vehicles such as the sun barge of Amun or Jehovah’s “flaming chariots”), Nazirite (which gives you a +8 bonus to a single ability score as long as you follow Nazirite code; chances are you may know of a +8 Strength Nazirite by the name of Samson), and Relic Spell (a feat that means you literally have magic in your bones). All in all, a decent assortment of feats, though you definitely might want to keep tab on those mythic feats, perhaps even making their prerequisites more stringent if you wish to utilize them elsewhere.

Glory to God (or Whoever) in the Highest

Chapter 4 brings us what might just be the most notable addition to the system that can be found in this book: the Piety system. Acting as a major facet of the setting, a character’s Piety (maximum Wisdom score +1) reflects their standing with the deity or deities of their culture. A positive piety score reflects an individual that follows their cultural and religious laws well enough that they are given favor by the beings above, while negative piety can result in social ostraciziation, exile, or being cursed by the gods because they happen to dislike you. Each nation has listed sins and punishments based on their ancient culture; for instance, one of the Egyptian sins is defacing the name on a person’s tomb, which nets you -5 piety (-10 if you’re dumb enough to deface the name of a pharaoh) and the death penalty, while the Israelites have sins for pretty much everything short of jaywalking…which makes sense, given Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Further modifications of your piety can be produced by either fulfilling (bonus) or breaking (penalty) an oath, or sacrificing some piety for an immediate bonus to a roll as a form of temptation.

War!

Go back and read my Blood and Guts: General Edition review; the mass combat system in chapter 5 of this book isn’t that different. I will note, however, that I love the illustration of an Assyrian mage and the towering figure of Pazuzu calling down lightning on Israelite sling-throwers that appears in the mid-pages of this chapter. Try David and Goliathing that.

Taking Home and Temple Economics

Chapter 6 deals with the economy and equipment of the Testament setting. This starts out with Knowledge checks for trade information, as well as a simple but effective barter system, which reflects the emphasis on trading over monetary exchange in the time and regions dealt with by the book. In addition, there are, of course, new forms of equipment for you to utilize. If you’re looking for weapons, a total of four are provided: Sumerian clay ball thrower (think a mega-sling), slingshot stones inscribed with fake arcane or holy symbols to scare enemies into believing they’re under magical assault, the ever-classic Egyptian khopesh, and the Sumerian metal-shod staff. Armor gets out with a few more entries, with seven items that include cloth armor, leather and studded leather cloaks, and simple helmets. Finally, there are chariots – as well as basic rules for chariot combat, of course – and general goods and services such as camels, wine, and slaves (again, it’s not shying away from the dark fact of slavery in those times). So yeah, basic, but decent.

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Next time, we’ll be looking at spells, magical items, and monsters, as well as chapters 10 through 25 of the book as we finish up Testament. Yes, I really did say 10 through 25. You’ll see.

This image has nothing to do with the review, I just find the glitch hilarious.

So, where better to start with Zoo Tycoon 2, than with the start? Put out in 2004, ZT2 was definitely different than its predecessor: it was 3D rather than an isometric perspective game, had set habitats/biomes (alpine, boreal forest, desert, grassland, savannah, scrub, temperate forest, tropical rainforest, tundra, and wetlands) to utilize in exhibits, and a bigger emphasis on animal interactivity. While hiring a zookeeper is entirely possible, it may be more cost-effective to feed, water, and clean up after animals and maintain exhibits on your own terms. With a collection of 30 popular zoo animals such as the Nile crocodile, hippopotamus, African elephant, Thompson’s gazelle, and giant panda, it provided a decent starting point for a new game series. Still, we aren’t here to talk about decency, now are we? So, let’s head deeper into the game through its expansion packs.

Endangered Species

A pack of African wild dogs show off the variant patterns system.

2005 brought us Endangered Species, the first expansion pack for the game. As its name implies, much of the 20 new animals in ES are threatened or endangered species such as the orangutan, Javan rhinoceros, Galapagos tortoise, and Florida panther; of course, it also had some animals that are popular zoo attractions, but simply weren’t cut out to make it into the main game, such as the always adorable Fennec fox, similarly adorable koala, and sturdy American bison (which is, unsurprisingly, common in American zoos). It also gave us several major innovations, such as a personal favorite of mine: animal variants. Obviously, in real life, you sometimes end up with a wild card. The variants system introduced this to ZT2, allowing for king cheetahs, white tigers, and other unusual animal color patterns to manifest in the game as they would in nature. The game also added some more advanced animal AI, such as preventing animal incest and letting herd and pack behavior manifest.

An exhibit-level view of an elevated path.

Of course, the guests weren’t left out either, especially in transportation department. If you’re a Louisianian like me, you’ll know that pretty much every zoo seems to have a prerequisite of at least one boardwalk above a crocodilian (almost always American alligator) exhibit; the elevated path system from ES added this to Zoo Tycoon 2, as well as providing a way for zoo guests in the game to see animals without making them feel too shy and stressed out. In addition to elevated paths, sky trams and Jeep tours were added in ES, allowing guests an even larger range of ways to see the animals besides peering at them through fencing from a pathway. The designers were even kind enough to throw in some tour enrichment pieces such as sequoia tree tunnels for Jeeps to drive through, fog machines, geysers, and volcanoes.

African Adventure

Gelada baboons, one of two alpine biome animals from African Adventure.

My, my, where to start with African Adventure… To be honest, while a lot of people apparently hated the expansion pack, I liked African Adventure. Sure, its only mechanical add-ons were a rehash of the Jeep tour and expanded herd animal and pack hunter behaviors, but it had 20 animals from all sorts of biomes, yet still all from Africa! To me, that’s a perfect example of just how diverse the natural world is. From a single continent, this expansion pack produced creatures from every habitat other than the tundra, such as the scrub-dwelling meerkat, wetlands-loving Nile monitor lizard, the enigmatic rainforest creature that is the pygmy hippopotamus, and the grasslands-roaming ratel (also known as the honey badger). And…well, really, that’s all I have to say about this expansion pack. It’s all about the animals in this XP.

Marine Mania

The kelp beds of California, right in your very own zoo!

Sooner or later, most zoo-themed games tend to want to do the aquarium gig. And why shouldn’t they? After all, plenty of zoos do have aquarium sections, such as the California sea lions at the Houston Zoo in Houston, Texas, or the American river otter exhibits in many zoos. For Zoo Tycoon 2, the aquarium craze kicked in late 2006 with Marine Mania. While that year had already produced African Adventure, I can only imagine that Microsoft wanted to put out something else to hedge their bets, and this is what we got. First off, it is worth noting that Marine Mania added four new biomes: benthic, coastal, pelagic, and reef. Sadly, this meant that out of the 20 animals included, most of them were in these habitats, save for four (the beluga whale, narwhal, Pacific walrus, and orca) that were in the tundra. Now, don’t get me wrong, this was a great add-on for the game… It’s just, well… You see… Guh, okay, out with it. I would have liked some freshwater fish too. Sure, you could say “hey, it’s Marine Mania”, but Endangered Species had non-endangered species, so hah.

Front row seats are a big deal when the dolphins are on stage.

In between the oohs and ahhs at housing goblin sharks, whale sharks, rockhopper penguins, blue marlin, and other denizens of the deep, Marine Mania also provided the potential for even more money pouring in from guests in the form of marine animal shows. Beluga whales, bottlenose dolphins, California sea lions, false killer whales, orcas, Pacific walrus, sea otters, and short-finned pilot whales can all be taught tricks to perform for awed crowds in specially organized shows, bringing both added fame and revenue to your marine-themed zoo. Of course, the main way of training them is…a minigame. A minigame that can vary from easy to teeth-grindingly annoying, depending on how good your hand-eye coordination and/or mouse workability. If you couldn’t guess my ability with a mouse in this case, I’ll simply state that I tend to pony-up the extra cash to buy a marine animal trainer to do the work for me.

Extinct Animals

Quick, someone call Dr. Mario!

In 2007, the Zoo Tycoon 2 games decided they’d go out with a bang. An expansion pack with not 20, not even 30, but a grand total of 35 animals (36 if you count the killer penguin, a joke animal that is only created in laboratory accidents), all of them extinct creatures that you could resurrect to have your very own Jurassic (or Cretaceous, or Pleistocene, or whatever) Park. This is another one of those more controversial expansions, and it would be a lie for me to not air my own statements on ZT2′s last official hurrah in this retrospective. The first thing I have to note is that somebody at Blue Fang R&D must have loved minigames, as there are plenty in this expansion. Want prehistoric animals without paying ridiculously expensive prices compared to non-extinct animals of similar zoo fame? Play the fossil finding mini-game, then the mini-game to put the fossils together, then the mini-game to clone the creatures! Dinosaur extremely upset? Better get out that dart gun for the rampage tranquilizing mini-game! A freakish prehistoric ailment plaguing your park? Better get your detective gear on to find the cure! Thankfully, as with the marine animal training mini-game, you can buy specialists to do the fossil finding and rampage tranquilizing..though you’re still on your own with the others.

The Galapagos tortoise and the "mega-dillo" Doedicurus: modern and prehistoric, living together.

Second off, it’s hard not to notice that some of the biome choices in this game seem odd, to say the least. While most of the more recent extinctions such as the dodo bird, thylacine, woolly rhino, and short-faced bear and even some of the deep past denizens have proper biome choices, others are less probable. Tyrannosaurus rex in the tropical rainforest? Not likely. Lastly, I can’t help but notice some odd gaps in the choices for extinct animals for the expansion. While I applaud the decision to have a good dose of recent human-caused extinctions such as the bluebuck and Falkland Islands wolf (also known as the warrah), the only creature we get from before the age of the dinosaurs is the old standby Dimetrodon, and there are no creatures from the Triassic, the oft-nicknamed “dawn of the dinosaurs”. Still, it would be foolish of me to write off the pack entirely. For every awkward biome choice or could-have-been, there were solid choices like a properly-sized and correctly-feathered Velociraptor, the ancient giant wombat Diprotodon, and the classy short-faced bear. For every palaeontologist you might buy to save your time on fossil finding, there are also costumed entertainers to keep your guests happy in new ways.

User Expansion Packs

A showcase of Southeast Asia and UXPs: the northern cassowary and dingiso of Artifex's Island Excursions meet with the hiding Sulawesi babirusa and lowland anoa of DinosaurMan's Artiodactyla pack.

Before I end this blog off, I have to take a moment to talk about the elephant in the room: the hefty user-created content community that has built up around this game. User expansion packs, or “UXPs”, as well as singular downloads, can be found in droves if you know where to look. With time and effort, these homebrew meshers and coders have been able to even create creatures with no real basis in the official ZT2 animal rosters, such as baleen whales, eels, and sauropod dinosaurs. In particular, I’d like to talk about two groups in this section.

First off, let’s take a moment to talk about Artifex. This group caught my eye by the fact that, while it hasn’t made a lot of material, the two UXPs it has created – Arabian Nights and Island Excursions –have gone above and beyond in trying to look as official as possible, right down to the classic “20′s the magic number” of the official expansion packs of old. The first of the two, the Middle East-focused Arabian Nights, definitely seems to have the feel of treading the waters for the first time. Many of its animals, such as the Baluchistan bear, mugger crocodile, and Blanford’s fox, seem to be selected as things that could be easily made out of existing material. Still, there are some signs of wild imagination even at these early stages: in particular, it is worthy of note that they managed to take existing ZT2 materials and mold out the supremely weird freshwater creatures that are the Indus river dolphin and the beluga sturgeon. Where they really broke the mold was in their second expansion pack, Island Excursions. Focusing on the often quite odd wildlife of the world’s islands, creatures such as the mahi-mahi, Southern minke whale, spotted eagle ray, and tamaraw pushed the envelope even farther than the Indus river dolphin and beluga sturgeon of Arabian Nights had. Plus, there are (amongst plenty other items) decorative Moai! Who can say no to Moai?

A forest of mushrooms, ferns, red deer, and wild boar, courtesy of DinosaurMan's European Excursions.

Second, I’d like to note the works of Northern Skies, in particular one DinosaurMan. The teams of Northern Skies just do all-around phenomenal work, especially in Aurora Designs’ “Radical Remake”, a series that is designed to reskin and remesh the official animals to more realistic 2011 standards. Still, as I said, I plan on talking about DinosaurMan’s packs. From various hoofed animals in his Artiodactyla pack to chameleons, geckos, cobras, and crocodiles of various shapes and sizes (not to mention marine iguanas and sea snakes) in his Reptilia pack, DinosaurMan’s work continues to shock and amaze. I’d particularly like to highlight his European Expeditions pack as an example of a good return to the African Adventure formula. In spite of only covering one continent, EE has a wide range of habitats covered (ironically enough, all but the tundra, just like in African Adventure), from thornback rays and white pelicans in the coastal biome to Northern pike and wels catfish in the wetlands. While, unlike Artifex items, you need to register on their forums to download, I’d say give DinosaurMan’s works on the Zoo Tycoon site Northern Skies a looksee if you own the Zoo Tycoon 2 series and want some fresh content.