By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer

Available from RPGNow for $2.50!!

Sizing up the Target
Dogs of War: Series 1, Issue 2 is a 27-page PDF product designed by Charles Plemmons and published by Mystic Eye Games. It is available for download for $2.50.

First Blood
This is the second release in Mystic Eye Games' Dogs of War series, each of which provides two fully-developed non-players characters for use in your campaign as villains. This release profiles Arjanis, a half-orc scorpion drider ranger-cleric, and Jhessa, a half-kraken drow fighter/sorcerer/assassin.

Each NPC comes complete with an entire background and history, complete stat blocks at three levels of development (10th, 15th, 20th), combat tactics appropriate to each stat block, adventure hooks specific to the character, and notes on using the character in the Bluffside, Freeport, and Gothos campaign settings. The designer provides his notes on how the NPC is constructed, and all the Open Content information is provided - the appropriate temples, spells, magic items, etc from a variety of sources used to build the character. MEG has also provided notes on using these characters in other d20 genres - modern, horror, sci-fi, and super hero - so they are not limited to just a fantasy game.

Arjanis was a half-orc ranger who became lost in the desert and learned to serve a dark deity of evil. A curse in a plundered tomb turned him into a scorpion drider - a creature with the lower body of a great black scorpion and the upper torso of a half-orc. The character is constructed using a modified drider template from Green Ronin's Plot and Poison; the drider temple, as well as scorpion drider and wasp drider templates, are all provided. Three spells (pack of ghouls, poison pillar, and wall of bone) and the acidic weapon property round out the included OGC material for this character, who is a walking nightmare for any party that encounters him given his great size, evil spells, and the huge acidic falchion he wields.

Jhesse is the daughter of a truce between a great kraken and drow elves. Raised y her kraken father and educated by the drow, she has harnessed her innate magical abilites to become a potent spellcaster, feared warrior, and effective assassin. Jhesse is built using Mongoose's half-kraken template, which is provided. Other open content material include two necromantic spells (flesh slough, touch of the void), a magic item, and construction costs for all the wands the character wields -- a potent foe for both undersea and Underdark campaigns.

Though the Dogs of War PDF file is a nicely formatted, colored production, it does include complete, printer-friendly black and white stat blocks at the end for ease of printing.

Critical Hits
As complex and time-consuming as creating high level NPCs has become in d20 - particularly if you want a character who is unique, or powerful, or uses some sort of temple - it is great to have a product that not only does all the work for you, but does it accurately, and is cheap to boot. If one of these NPCs interests you, the dollar value of the product in terms of preparation time saved is great.

The fact that Dogs of War draws from so many other d20 sources is a great bonus - it's refreshing to see the Open Game License used to its fullest. This product uses material from Thunderhead Games, Malhavoc Press, Green Ronin, Mystic Eye Games, Mongoose, and Fantasy Flight Games - to name a selection of contributors - and best of all the appropriate Open Content material is provided for you, so you don't need to own an entirely different product to put these NPCs to use.

Critical Misses
The characters provided are fairly specific - if half-krakens and driders (whether spider, scorpion, or wasp-variety) don't interest you, then you'll probably want to pass, or check out a different Dogs of War release, since those two items form the heart of this product - but at least you should know what you're in for before you purchase.

Coup de Grace
Dogs of War provides its "Crunchy Bits" game mechanics and stat blocks as open content, reserving its flavor text and names as Product Identity. The integration of game material is well done, and a nicely complementary set of mechanics is used in this product to develop two very unique, if somewhat esoteric NPCs. GMs are the primary targets of this product, but for them the time saved could be worth every penny.

Fast Tracks Score (Maximum 5 pts per category):
*Open Game Content: 3.75
*d20 Compliance: 5.0
*Originality: 4.5
*Playability: 3.0 (GM product, narrow focus)
*Value for the Dollar: 4.8

*Overall Score: 4.20
Final Grade: A-