Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Review of D20 Terrors of Egypt From NUELOW Games

I was looking for some new D20 resources for my upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics game. I received Terrors of Egypt as a gift from a friend today and now I'm very sorry I did. This pdf retails for around two dollars and twenty five cents clocks in at forty eight pages of public domain horror comics. These are really good horror comics with really zero D20 material. There's one crappy D20 Egyptian themed zodiac chart in this horror comic book anthology for character generation and that's part of the missed opportunity of this book. The author simply looks like he cleaned up the public domain comic book source material and didn't bother to write in the adventure opportunities, D20 monster stat blocks, mystic items, and mini adventures all hidden in the comic book stories themselves there by rendering this book for game use absolutely pointless.




But then again NUELOW Games it seems isn't about giving the public useful D20 gaming resources its about making a quick buck out of public domain comic book material. Terrors of Egypt had the potential to be a really useful forty eight page anthology and source  book woven together from public domain comic book material. Instead they've put together a slip shod hacked title that they've got the nerve to charge the public money for. This book isn't even worth the half a star. The design is crap, the premise is a solid one but one little D20 resource surrounded by some great vintage horror comics that with a bit of work could have been something great. F- for this effort in slip shod writing and design work. According to the Drivethrurpg blurb "The center piece of Terrors of Egypt is Alan Hewetson and Cesar Lopez's tale of the mysterious and bewitching Khefra, collected here for the first time anywhere, but the other stories are also sure to haunt your imagination long after you've put the book down."  Umm not exactly, these comics were taken from the  The Digital Comic Museum which offers free access to thousands  of pre-1959 comic books, uploaded by users who often offer historical research and commentary alongside high-quality scans. NUELOW dusted the scans off & knocked this "comics anthology"  together. Save yourselves two dollars and a bunch  of gaming pain and headaches. Grab yourselves a membership over at the Digital Comic Museum and begin downloading your own precode horror, fantasy, and sci fi comic book titles yourself then create your own old school gaming material.



 Christ, this is the first time in a long time that I've given this low of a rating to a product but what pisses me off is the potential is there but it seems like sheer laziness on Nuelow games part.  If they had put some effort into a product that advertises itself as Terrors of Egypt this title really had a lot of potential to really be something very useful at the table. Next time Nuelow games  please put i a bit of effort into your next Egypt line title. As a precode comic book fan and old school gaming enthusiast Terrors of Egypt left me bitterly disappointed, incensed and totally pissed off at the author whose past work was far more up to par then this drek that passes itself as a "D20"  product. This is one to avoid at all costs.

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