A new group of d20 combatants has entered the fray, and they are not to be ignored. Eden Studios has started a line of d20 products under the title "Eden Odyssey." Both of their first efforts are "vignette sourcebooks." This is a concept I like very much. They take a single topic (in the first, it's a cult, in the second, an ancient civilization and its relics), give background and rules material relating to the topic, then present a few short adventures based on the topic.

"Adventures," however, isn't really the right word. The vignettes are locations, NPCs, and scenario ideas -- not really adventures. These products look like adventures on the outside (although technically they don't claim to be), but as long as you go into them with your eyes open, you'll realize you're not getting an actual scenario, just bits and pieces, and you might like what you find inside. This the plastic model car approach to game design -- if you would rather put together a plastic model than be given a plastic toy car, then this sort of product talks to you.

Akrasia: Thief of Time is 32 pages for the standard $9.95 that's become typical of the d20 industry. The cover and interior are snazzy and well done. The whole thing centers around a goddess, Akrasia, who's the patron of wasting time and not getting things done. She's an evil goddess -- but not the Set or Sauron type of dark lord. Her followers try to tempt people away from accomplishing anything. The aggressive ones work to stop important things (like the quest your PCs are on) from getting done. Of course, the logic problem here is that if you think about this too hard, her most devoted followers would always fail at stopping these things, since Akrasia is the goddess of not completing your work. But let's overlook that and examine the meat of the product instead.

For your 10 bucks, you get some new spells, a new domain, a prestige class, five new monsters, four magic items, the layout of a tavern, a temple, a few well-developed NPCs, and some scenario ideas. The spells are mostly of the "requires a lot of DM adjudication" sort, because they force characters to do things like "lose interest in long-term goals." The prestige class' powers have similar issues.

Aside from such (necessary) vagaries, the rules are handled moderately well throughout, with some mistakes. For instance, the DCs of the monster's special abilities appear arbitrary and some of the spells are not balanced: Indolence is a 1st-level spell that affects multiple targets for 5 minutes per level, forcing them to make a Will save every time they want to take an action in combat. There's more good than bad, however, and some of the concepts are really very interesting.

All in all, Akrasia: Thief of Time is a moderately useful supplement. You'll have to put a lot of your own work into it, though.

Wonders Out of Time is set up much like Akrasia. The author tries harder here to make the "vignettes" into actual adventures rather than just collections of NPCs and locations, with moderate success. This sourcebook is based around the idea that a Romanlike empire ruled most of the world a thousand years ago. It's fallen, but ruins and artifacts still remain.

Among the adventures, there's an old farm infested with goblins, a nicely handled (if a bit mundane) adventure with bandits in a ruin, and my favorite: the manor of a powerful wizard that you explore at low levels, then return to at higher levels when you discover there was much more to the place than you'd realized. Any of these might provide an interesting game session.

There are five new monsters -- three constructs and two undead, befitting a sourcebook about people who aren't around anymore -- and I like all of them, particularly the little "hand-golems" called bone guardians (although designers take note: Constructs do not have feats or skills). There is a new prestige class, the Centurion Knight, which isn't bad; it's certainly not overpowered, but it doesn't offer much that's new. There are also some magic items I'd advise you to stay away from -- they appear to be seriously undervalued and handle the game's mechanic's in a clunky fashion. For example, the officer's gladius is a "+1 lawful short sword" that casts shocking grasp on the victim. Of course, that's a bad thing, because you don't want your foes to have shocking grasp, you want them to take damage from a shocking grasp. Further, when the author says "lawful short sword," you have to infer that he doesn't mean lawful in the actual game sense (of inflicting +2d6 extra damage against chaotic opponents), since the sword only costs about 5,000 gp. Actually, I'm not sure in what sense he means "lawful." (Only lawful people can use the special power, maybe?)

Thus, you can see, this product has its ups and downs. The idea of incorporating an old empire into your campaign is a good one, though, and the vignettes are much more interesting and useful as short adventures than those in Akrasia: Thief of Time.

Both products contain useful information and interesting ideas for DMs -- pieces for the puzzle when you are putting together your own campaign. If you're going to buy only one, get Wonders Out of Time, but both are worth at least considering. It's true that both handle the rules only moderately well, but there's every reason to believe that Eden will get better on that front.

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