Here we go again. Wotc has released Stormwrack, companion to the brilliant Frostburn and the not brilliant Sandstorm. Despite the GH "core" and despite GH having more than enough watery environments that might have been mentioned, Stormwrack includes none such that I could find, reading it in my FLGS. Stormwrack also strikes me as not brilliant purely as a rules supplement. In fact, Stormwrack is the worst of the environment supplements to date (example - no details on the variety of possible undersea environments - e.g., coral reefs, trenches, black smokers, undersea ridges, kelp forests, seamounts, submerged volcanoes, depth zones, red tides, blue holes, methane sinks . . .) I kept my money in my wallet. _________________ GVD
While the Greyhawk content is indeed near non-existent, I think you missed just about everything you were looking for.
looking over various heading in my copy:
Water Hazards:
Currents and Streams
Depth
Drowning
Hypothermia
Light
Sinking and Shipwreck
Special Perils of the Sea:
Disease
Poison
Supernatural Dangers
Marine Wilderness Terrain:
Beach
Tidal Marsh
Coral Reef
Ice Floes
Open Water
Sargasson
Kelp Bed
Ship's Deck
One of the adventures in the book takes place in a sea mount rising over a trench.
There is an absence of detail on various specific things, like say submerged volcanoes, but a good deal of it can be derived from the generic entries. (Like say the combination of depth, lightlessness, and cold, in a deep trench.)
Greyhawk references appear to be limited to listing Procan and Geshtai as sea deities, but that is almost to be expected.
Overall, I liked the book. The "crunchy bits" didn't appear to be unbalanced. I noticed one apparent typo in the summary table for the new races (Sea Elves are given a level adjustment of +1 which is not noted anywhere else), but aside from that all the new races are LA +0, something I think was quite good. (And they include the Hadozee, who first appeared in Spelljammer. Yay! Spelljammer!) Other little things also increased the appeal for me.
The one real charge I'd lay on it is referencing the Arms and Equipment Guide for "detailed" vehicle combat rules. Of course that is mitigated by the "Narrative Naval Combat" system provided, with a rather direct statement that it is there to get away from playing with the ships and get down to playing with the characters.
I suggest checking it out for yourselves, or at least deferring judgement until seeing a more in depth review.
Frostburn is the best. Hands down. In every way possible.
I agree that Frostburn is the best of the environmental supplements from Wizards of the Coast. I do, however, really like some of the spells and feats in Sandstorm. And, the latter has seen much application in recent Living Greyhawk adventures - namely the Blight on Bright Sands story arc. _________________ Don (Greyson)
I haven't seen stormwrack yet, but it would be hard for it to better then Frostburn which was an excellent book.
I do not share GVD's loathing of all things sandstorm, I thought it was an average quality WotC book, better then most of the races of books, but not in thier top teir of quality. and I can easily see Stormwrack being better then it if the new stuff is half-way decent.
(Note I do not buy Generic books for greyhawk content, I buy them for D&D content... we learned long ago that "Greyhawk as core" simply meant that WotC would use it to barrow names of people or places from as desired with no regard to context, and nothing more... although I did notice that DMG2 did go along ways towards trying to ruin Salinmoor).
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