The kind folks over at Privateer Press are at it again, teasing and tantalizing me. This time it comes in the form of a rather juicy web rework for their main site, complete with tidbits of information of the long-anticipated Iron Kingdoms Campaign Guide.

Apparently amongst such problems as routine editorial reworks and a pen-arm injury for their lead artist (Brian Snoddy, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is a badass), they’re also trying for D&D 3.5 compliance. Luckily they didn’t announce this two weeks ago, or I may have been rather upset with them. As you would know if you’ve been reading Dragon Magazine or rapid fanboy sites (I suppose this qualifies), there are some rather serious game-mechanism changes happening in 3.5, not all of which I am excited about. However, my generous employer is buying me the 3.5 rulebooks now, no money out of pocket, so I won’t have to blame the PP crew for forcing me to shell out $60.00+ for a new ruleset. I’ll already have had the new core rules for several months by the time IKCG comes out.

Speaking of which, there is additional information now available that projects a release this fall (“…we expect to be sending the book to press near the end of the summer, and shipping it shortly after that…” per their site yesterday). This should give my DM plenty of time to kill us off before I restart my Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. Work progresses, slowly, on the Iron Kingdoms conversion of that particular mega-adventure, along with ample samplings from the Lock & Load Character Primer, the Monsternomicon, and the Book of Vile Darkness. We’ll see how well some of my editorial decisions mesh with the new 3.5 ruleset and the IKCG. Only time will tell, as I keep saying.

I picked up the Warmachine Prime book this past Wednesday, and have been greedily reading through it ever since. It’s a miniatures combat game, so it isn’t exactly my bag (I’ve tinkered with Blood Bowl and play an occasional game of Zombies from time to time, though). Being a non-Warhammer player, my views of this game are largely unhindered by comparisons with the Games Workshop money-making behemoth. The game itself isn’t why I purchased it. I got my grubby little hands on Prime just for the background info.

Background information covered in Prime that isn’t addressed in previous Privateer Press offerings includes more information on the nature of the Orgoth occupation, additional insights regarding the interaction between Menites and Morrowans in Cygnar and elsewhere, and additional information regarding the histories of the four major powers. Naturally, most of this information is of a military nature, and may never apply to your D&D game.
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The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is a notoriously large adventure for 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. It revolves around an effort by depraved cultists of the ancient god Tharizdun trying to bring about the destruction of the world. Heroes interested in stopping this group (or even finding out what they’re up to) are faced with a number of adventuring locations, including a ruined temple (the broken down old Temple of Elemental Evil of yore), and ruined moathouse, a ghost town, a thriving small city, a run-down old mining town, and a 200+ room volcano-top dungeon filled with literally hundreds of baddies.

The module itself is quite well laid out, including a reasonably in-depth explanation of what all is going on at each location, and even going so far as to provide tactics that some of the baddies will use against a party of adventurers. It is also set in Oerth, the world of Grayhawk. That is all well and good, but personally I prefer the Iron Kingdoms.

Because the premise of this adventure, which can be reasonably expected to take a party of four 4th level characters all the way to 13th or 14th level before they’re done, revolves around a religious cult bent on global destruction, this poses a bit of a problem for a DM that wants to plug it into the IK: there are no IK Deities that fit the bill smoothly. Let’s take a look.
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