Review & Commentary On Insults & Injuries: A Pathfinder Sourcebook for Medical Maladies From Skirmisher Publishing

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HERE

I have been reading through this book over the past day or so and wringing my hands as to how to approach this book. Confession time, Skirmisher sent me this book and I don't play Pathfinder, in point of fact I don't even own a single Pathfinder book. But for years now I've been following Dr. Eric Lis, blog posts on the D-Infinity blog site for years now . This source book could be used with a wide variety of SDR style games and includes a huge swath of information on death, disease, personal injury and all kinds of ins and outs on healing, PC classes,etc. In point of fact this book is incredibly useful for not only 3.0 and beyond edition games but also other near clones such as Dungeon Crawl Classics. But the material there in of Insults & Injuries could also be applied to newly emerging games of post apocalyptic goodness where disease and death is at the center of life quite literally.
 The first thing to note is the inclusion of an index and overview of the book's contents marking this as a well organized product and allowing the Dungeon Master to have a quick scan of the contents quite literally at a the drop of a hat. Much of the book's first chapter is literally a quasi historic overview of  a fantasy world's setting and how these health, healing and disease elements fit into the context of the DM's world view. In this case the folks over at Skirmisher publishing have oriented Insults and Injuries toward a Kos their own Neo Grecian mythological campaign world with public domain artwork peppering the product throughout.   Chapters such as the first one are Head & Neck along with a ton of injuries that can happen to PC's as well as incredible detail about these injuries along with a break down of system details and ideas. For the kind of detail that I'm talking about let's look into a sample entry in this case 'Headache' :
Headache
Also known as: N/A.
Ages: Any.
Description: Headache is one of the most common
illnesses in the world. It afflicts all races to varying
severities and can range from annoying to debilitating.
Stories tell of Beholders who end their lives and Hydras
who chew off their own heads to end their pain,
although the headaches of most humanoids are rarely
so terrible. Although dozens of types of headaches have
been categorized, broadly speaking there are three
common types.
Tension headache is the most common type and is
usually associated with stress, uncomfortable position,
or hunger. Pain can be severe but rarely disabling and
usually goes away on its own after four to six hours,
although in rare cases tension headaches can last for
years. Pain is usually on both sides of the head and is
often described as a squeezing feeling.
Migraine headache is often more severe than a
tension headache and often includes some nausea or
dizziness. Before a migraine begins, the creature may
see flashes of light or other brief vision changes. Pain
is often on only one side of the head and has a throbbing
quality, and may become worse with bright light or
loud noise. Pain usually lasts 3d8 hours.
Cluster headache is immensely painful and usually
brief. Several short headaches may occur in rapid
sequence. This headache is described as one of the
worst pains known and is sometimes said to be worse
than childbirth. Typically, the pain occurs on only one
side and has a stabbing quality, and is almost invariably
accompanied by a drooping eye, pupillary constriction,
red eye, runny nose, or sweating. Pain usually lasts
between 15 minutes and three hours. There may be as
many as five to 10 attacks per day.
Hangover (post-alcohol headache) is discussed in
Chapter 11: Drugs & Toxins.
Mechanics: A creature suffering from a tension
headache is considered to be Sickened for the duration
of the headache. A creature suffering from a migraine
is considered to be Staggered. A creature suffering from a cluster headache is considered to be Nauseated (even though they may not actually be nauseated).
Treatment: Any cure spell immediately ends the
headache but does not prevent the headache from
recurring. Remove disease ends the headache and
prevents a headache from recurring for one week.
The Heal skill has no effect on headache.
  Yeah this is the type of detail here that your going to get in Insults and Injuries, this is product presents and its very well done at what it does. Chest is next then abdomen, the limbs, followed up with Cancers, etc. We don't simply have a fast book here we get a discourse on the mythological and legendary causes of these medical conditions. So this over all the product's strength and detail here. Dr. Eric Lis goes into just this sort of background with common D&D and Advanced dungeons and dragons elements like mummy rot  and much more. We get a full plate of infections, injures, nutritional deficiencies,etc. There is a ton of byplay material when it comes to the game elements here and the level of research detail is far in excess to most other D20 and Pathfinder books that I've seen.  
   When it comes to the latter half of the book there's a ton of useful bits for a dungeon master, drugs & toxins, medicines, race specific illnesses, surgeries, feats, defects, and finally prestige classes  are all given center stage. A quick note on the prestige classes, we get the 'Alienist' is described thus 'some choose instead to turn their attention to sicknesses of the mind. These
specialized healers are known as Alienists, from an ancient word for “insane” or “estranged.” While  Alienists may lack other healers’ abilities to banish diseases and fix broken bones, they work hard to gain insight into how intelligent creatures think and what processes can go awry in their brains. ''  For games where supernatural elements and horrors play a part, the real hell were the insane asylums of the ancient world. And injuries and insults tackles this head on. Apothacary is another essential class whose appearances in games is often down played, part physician, part herbalist, and part  alchemist, such characters, known as Apothecaries,
unravel the mysteries of the body by learning how different chemicals can help or harm the body’s natural processes. Apothecaries take the often interesting and strange approach to the path of healing with drugs, powders, herbs, toxins and can be a wizards best friend or worst enemy. Chirurgeons are also given their due here and they're very well fleshed out for the most part, knives and all. Physicians come under the heading of the cleric and its amazing to see how they were worked in.
Finally we are given the tools of the trade and how to work them under the heading of equipment. This includes everything from hooks to scalpels plus some of the tools of the medical trade of the historical past. Yeah, there are more then a few squeamish bits here to make me skip over this chapter and return to it again and again to figure where the author was taking his audience.  And yes there are leeches and using their works in game.
Finally we get a full range of spells and their basically work ups of the diseases and injuries covered in the book in 3.0 and 3.7 Pathfinder terms.  They're well done and up to Skirmisher Publishing usual standards. That being said I do think that parts of Insult & Injury are a bit dry but entertaining by turns. With the amount of information packed into this book its going to be in places. Do I think that the book is worth the entry fee? Yes I do but if I were you I'd wait till the book goes on sale. This book packs a ton of information
 Using Insults & Injuries
For Your Old School Campaigns

Here's where I personally think that this book would shine in a Dungeon Crawl Classic's rpg campaign. All of the death, disease, and horror that this book presents is right up the alleyway of DCC. For that matter I can clearly see this game being of great use to another near clone game close to my heart Fantastic Heroes and Witchery is well suited to using exactly this level of detail. For post apocalyptic settings such as Crawling Under A Broken Moon and  Mutant Crawl Classics.  much of the material in Insult and Injury is worth converting over. With Rosetta stone OGL and SRD campaigns much of the information here is perfectly suited to frame everything that's needed in a campaign should a medical situation arise and believe me it will. 

One thing that DCC and its children are lacking in is detailed medical rules for exactly the sort of things that Insults & Injury covers so its worth having for the DCC dungeon master. For sword and sandal games this book is essential, the injuries, diseases and weirdness of a quasi Roman empire and a sword and sorcery game are perfectly framed by I&I. The legends and mythological aspects that I&I brings to the table are at once daunting and very nice due to the sheer volume of material. This is another example of Chinese Restaurant DMing that one encounters when handling D20 product. Picking and choosing is an exercise in patience and strength for campaigning. Because of the very nature of historical material with its medical background screams out either post apocalyptic or Old West,given the number of DCC fanzines on the market with this them its easy to see the utility of this product when making adventures. Speaking of many of the elements of this quasi historic and fantasy book one could easily see using this as a source book for the multi platform book by RPG Pundit's Dark Albion The Rose War. In point of fact this is exactly the sort of a platform sourcebook that would generate hours and hours of campaign adventures. The apothecary PC class  is a perfect fit for a campaign where PC's are sent to distant lands to recover medical herbs, powders, etc.
The book is a solid and well thought out source book that can be back ported into a wide variety of applications for campaigning.

Retro Review & Commentary - Ancient Kingdoms - Mesopotamia D20 From Frog God Games For Your Old School Campaigns

 Introduction
A city of unspeakable antiquity, buried for centuries beneath the desert sands, has been rediscovered deep in the accursed desert known as the Red Waste. Dare you enter The City That Worshipped a Thousand Gods, seeking the treasures and relics of its Hierophants? Beware the lurking terrors of a bygone age!

 This is a retro review and commentary on a D20 product so if that's not up your alley then please stop reading now. Still with me then good because one of the best kept backroom secrets of middle 2000's was Frog God Games which was back when I got it a White Wolf's  Sword and Sorcery title. Don't ask there's way too much history and water under the bride. But sufficient to say that its owned by Frog God Games today and available as a pdf. Ancient Kingdoms - Mesopotamia From Frog God Games is a damn good D20 title. There I said it and here's my personal experiences with the book. Way back when Conan D20 was a licensed tittle White Wolf games was producing a weird mix of books for the D20 lines. The Sword and Sorcery division came out with lots & lots of D20 titles. Ancient Kingdoms was one of their best in my humble opinion and it came out right around the same time as the D20 Conan book wayback in 2003. So what's this got to do with Mesopotamia? Well, actually everything because this book was created to mate up unofficially with Conan and his D20 ilk. You see woven into the backdrop of this D20 book are bits and pieces of large scale destruction and post Disaster or Flood. I've also been noticing that much of the Conan D20 material has been rising in price on Amazon (you can never trust prices on their website for gaming material anyway)& yeah, yeah it was a mixed bag system from Mongoose anyways blah, blah. But that being said its also flown off of the shelves of Noble Knight as well. But why would anyone care about the D20 Conan game and shouldn't price go down? No not at all. There are two reasons for this most would think that collectors would be holding onto their copies and they are. But the second reason is Pathfinder. D20 is alive and well thanks to the continuing play of that game. This is all based on my opinion and subject to the rpg audience and  market's hub bub. This is my personal opinion and it could be gasp, wrong.

 Now the book goes into a whole bunch of both historical, pseudo historical, and sword and sorcery mummery about the cradle of civilization during the time of the mythological past of your campaigns. Hell its even got a side bar with a riddle of steel title in it. The author Morten Braten knows his stuff and there are ton of sword and sorcery goodness tie ins throughout the book. From desert survival to classes based around the setting material with some weird bits thrown in for good measure. This book is three things at once you get a PC setting and background book in the first half, a cosmology book in the second, then straight into a bunch of adventures set into the regions described in the book in the middle bit, lastly you dive into a straight up sword and sorcery monster book in the latter half of the book for using the SRD D20 monsters in the setting as appropriate to the book. Is it good? Yes I think it is.

 The gods chapter alone takes the Mesopotamia deities and divinities making them accessible to the dungeon master instead of merely watching another PBS documentary on the region in which they tell you how advanced the region was you get a whirl wind tour into the mind and take of the region.

 You basically get a cultural jam on the material that presents it as one part comic book Conan and two thirds Mesopotamia seen through a pulp magazine lens with lots of historical pseudo setting material. Make no mistake this book is presented as a living campaign that you can adapt as you see fit with factions, divisions, and adventure locations ready to go.

 I've seen review after review of this book that says that the maps alone are worth the price of admission. Yes the artwork and material set the tone but there's something missing in Ancient Kingdoms - Mesopotamia D20, that is your background for your campaigns. See that's the thing with this book, much of the pulp lens and adventure setting is really up to the DM. Not unlike a book such as Carcosa or the Greyhawk box set. Your given just enough to whet the appetite and go forth to use the book as you would. This is something that is rather unique about the book. That not unlike other books its campaign world over PC classes here. Yes I think that this was done on purpose and this is one of the old school connections.

 The book isn't really about  Mesopotamia at all, this is a desert wasteland that can be dropped right into the background of an ongoing campaign and bring the focus onto a sword and sorcery theme. And this is where the tie in is for Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. 
Simply have a sand storm or other dimensional event and drop your PC's right into the middle of the setting source material. There are more then enough SRD monsters and horrors that AS&SH has under the hood already to allow a crafty DM to adapt on the fly as needed. 

 Much of the material here has another other worldly or dreamlike quality to the adventures and setting with a bit of writing and DMing slight of hand a dungeon master could back track the material into HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands or other appropriate material. I've seen some criticisms where there have been over sixteen references to the Tome of Horrors also by Frog God Games but many of these monsters are now available through the system reference document as well.

 With an even clever bit of slight of hand work on the DM's part if they happen to own the Swords and Wizardry version of the Tome of Horrors book, the Swords & Wizardry - Monstrosities you convert everything into a retroclone sword and sorcery extravaganza as you see fit. There's even a S&W free version with old school style analogies but the conversion work is going to be a bit more work on the dungeon master's part. 

 The dungeons are weird, solid, challenging, nonlinear and strange getting into a way of adding in the elements of strangeness as the DM needs. But there's more that can be done with this book, with near clone games such as Dungeon Crawl Classics the last section allows a dungeon master to convert regular SDR monsters into solidly Lovcraftian style horrors. And since I've heard that 3.0 and D20 monsters are a snap to convert then its a no brainer to grab this book even for reference.

 This book brings both loosely based Mesopotamian monsters to the fore and adding a twist with some of your traditional D&D style looseness to the game setting. Given the fact that these are some nasty pieces of work, I would go with the Lamentations of the Flame Princess and DCC advice and make each of these horrors one offs or as post Flood survivors.

 And now let me mention Fantastic Heroes and Witchery because this book is a great resource for that rosetta stone of a system. This is such a great book to use as a plug and play conversion resource its not even funny. Let me count the ways right off of the top of my head. 

• The PC classes are easily converted to the game,stripping down some of the system crap that's not necessary. 
• There's the weirdness factor of the nonlinear adventures making this a great setting book to drop your adventurers into. Because of the pulp nature of the book the weird science classes can be used to deal with the Mesopotamian themes as extra dimensional threats on a one on one basis. 
• Because the hardiness of Fantastic Heroes and Witchery PC's Ancient Kingdoms makes a great tie back to other weird themed games such as Dark Albion Rose War;  where your adventurers from Dark Albion are dropped into the thick of some of the pulp elements of Ancient Kingdoms.

 This is not to say that Ancient Kingdoms - Mesopotamia D20  isn't without faults and there are a few of them. A lack of an index, the over use of white space, the confusing nature of exactly what Ancient Kingdoms of Mesopotamia is trying to be and there are a few more. No matter I'm very lucky to have this book in my collection. If you come across this book in your travels then by all means do yourselves a favor and pick it up.