A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Herbs of the Desert by Alex Riggs and Joshua Zaback is a role playing game supplement published by Necromancers of the Northwest for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
This is a 26 page which is available from DriveThruRPG for $4.99 but which was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the colour front and rear covers, two pages are the front matter, one page is the Table of Contents and References to Other Products and one page is the Open Game License.
The single page Introduction references the two other supplements in this series at the point of writing, A Necromancer’s Grimoire: The Secret of Herbs and A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Herbs of the Jungle. The role of alchemy in Pathfinder is discussed, referencing the Alchemist class and the Craft (alchemy) skill. Although it doesn’t quite say so, the overall implication is that alchemy is poorly and boringly handled in Pathfinder. Which it is. Any player expecting their alchemist to whip up concoctions from strange and unusual ingredients is largely going to be disappointed. This is where the Herbs books come in.
There are some rules on Harvesting Herbs, and a sidebar on foraging, and how to replace it if players don’t want to role-play looking for herbs.
Next is the list of Herbs themselves. The environments in which they can be found is given, their difficulty to forage and worth, as well as a description. Each herb then has various preparations given that can be created from the herbs. These include new poisons, diseases and monsters – one of the ‘herbs’ is actually a plant monster. All told, there are ten new herbs and a host of preparations. There are sidebars on characters growing their own herbs and what a GM who doesn’t want characters to know everything about plants should do.
New Compounds has yet more preparations, these ones created from combining the extracts from different herbs. This also has a sidebar on the value of herbs and mentions that characters wanting to make money from such could actually make more with Craft and Profession (which in a way is a bit odd; it might limit professional herbalists).
Finally, there are listing the different herbs, poisons and compounds organised in different ways.
A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Herbs of the Desert in Review
The PDF is very well bookmarked, with everything except the sidebars linked. The Table of Contents is not as thorough, only covering the major sections, but is hyperlinked. Navigation is very good for the length. The text maintains a two column colour format and appeared almost free of errors. There are a few stock desert images; presentation is okay. Images of every herb would have been nice, but highly improbable, and even more so for the compounds and creations.
Although the list of References to Other Products has 15 other supplements listed on it, it looks as if none of them are actually referenced in Herbs of the Desert. This does make it rather more standalone than it might seem at first glance.
As stated earlier, the way alchemy is handled in Pathfinder is really not evocative, or interesting. In fact, one of the best ways it’s been handled was an NPC Alchemist class in Dragon Magazine #130. Alchemy often conjures up images of laboratories full of glassware and strange and unusual substances used to create alchemical compounds. In Pathfinder, it’s either a feat – including for potions – or temporary creations, for the Alchemist class. None of this really gives the feel of interesting alchemy.
This supplement adds a lot of that back into the game. Players who want their characters to search for unusual items can do so. If they just want to be able to create the items without searching for ingredients, then that’s possible too. There are a lot of interesting new items in this supplement that can be created. A Necromancer’s Grimoire: Herbs of the Desert is recommended for anyone who wants to make alchemy in their game more interesting and it can be found by clicking here.
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