And that’s one of the reasons
that I really like the way Kobold Press has developed Jeff Lee’s Demon
Cults #1: The Emerald Order.
It’s got 14 pages (9.5 of actual content when you take out the front and
back cover, TOC, a full-page art piece (good art though!), and ¾ page of
OGL). Of that 9.5 pages, .5 is
dedicated to anchoring the Emerald Order in Midgard. The other 9 pages are chock full of great ways to take this
evil order and incorporate it into any campaign setting.
The Emerald Order begins with a three-page spread that covers the
organization’s goals. We know that
they derive a lot of power from an Emerald Tablet and that they like to work
behind the scenes. Jeff Lee has
done a good job of being vague enough to make the organization slottable into
any campaign while providing concrete examples of how the Order works to
achieve its goals. We also get
stats on the organization’s leader and a full-color, full-page piece of art
illustrating him. Finally, we
learn how members of the organization interact with each other and with
outsiders.
I love the next two pages. The kids at Kobold have created
sections for APLs 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12 and provided us with three plot
hooks for each category that show how an adventuring party might cross paths
with the Emerald Order. These
reinforce that the Emerald Order is a secret
society and some of them sent some shivers up my spine just reading them.
We’ve then got two pages
describing the Disciple of the Emerald Esoterica prestige class. It’s a bit overpowered compared to
normal prestige classes, but I’m willing to ignore it for a couple of
reasons. First of all, it’s a 3PP
prestige class, and I feel like they are normally stronger, more in line with
3.5 prestige classes rather than with Paizo-produced Pathfinder prestige
classes. Secondly, it’s highly
unlikely a PC is ever going to use this prestige class—it’s really just for
villains. Next we have the Emerald
Tablet itself, along with examples of what happens when people experiment with
shards of it and the emerald deposit from whence it came. These include new emerald shard ioun
stones and smaragdine golem.
Overall, I really liked this
product. I especially liked the
organization. I have a pet peeve
for organization. It can be
maddening to have a plot detail hidden away in a specialized monster’s bestiary
entry, for instance. The Emerald Order admirably avoids
this. Overall, I’m very pleased
with this and look forward to the rest of the Kobold material in development to
support their Southlands expansion.
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