Weekly Wonders – Fiendish Herbs 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 twelve page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1.99 but which was purchased at the reduced price of $1.49 during a sale. Two pages are the colour front and rear covers, one page is the front matter and one the Open Game License.
This is the latest in a series of supplements that make alchemy in Pathfinder more interesting, by having unique herbs (with a broad definition of such) that are required to make special preparations or combinations. After the first, The Secret of Herbs, the supplements have been more specialised (jungle, desert, urban and mountain), with this one covering the lower planes. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was released shortly before Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Planar Adventures.
The first page is pretty standard for the series; there’s a brief Introduction to the supplement, rules on harvesting herbs and overview of herbs and preparations.
Next are the new herbs. There are five new hers: Abyssal Maw, Corruption Vine, Hellmoss, Reaper’s Blossom and Soul Tree. Listed for each are the environments in which they can be found, their worth, difficulty to forage and a description. Some herbs may be dangerous in and of themselves. Each also has several preparations listed that can be made from the herbs, including a poison.
Finally, there are various compounds that can be made from two different herbs.
There are sidebars on foraging, growing your own herbs and a herbal economy. These are standard for the series and duplicated from other supplements in the range.
Weekly Wonders – Fiendish Herbs in Review
The PDF is bookmarked but not as well as some others in the series; the major sections are linked but it doesn’t go into much more depth. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two column format and was mostly free of errors. There is a single moderately appropriate stock art greyscale photo. The sidebars have an awful bright red background. This is not a great colour choice and makes them more difficult to read. Presentation could be better.
This PDF doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of content that the first three in the series did, but it has a bit more than the most recent two. Correspondingly, the price is slightly higher than the latter two and quite a bit lower than the former three.
Roughly four pages of the content have been duplicated from A Necromancer’s Grimoire: The Secret of Herbs; this does mean that that supplement is not needed to use this one. If that supplement, or others in the range, are owned, then this is simply duplicate content.
There aren’t just the five new herbs described, which as mentioned can be themselves dangerous, there are a lot of new preparations and compounds. Each herb has 3 preparations, making 15 in total, and there are six new compounds as well. Effects and values of these cover a decent range, from a mere 10 gp item to some over 2,000 gp.
As with the others in the series, Fiendish Herbs does make alchemy a lot more interesting, and a lot more true to traditional portrayals of alchemy. There are new herbs to find and new, often useful and/or valuable, preparations that can be made. One of the poisons may be a little on the deadly side though, but these herbs are got from dangerous places anyway. This latest supplement in the series continues to spice up alchemy in Pathfinder and is a useful supplement if a campaign using such ventures into the lower planes. Weekly Wonders – Fiendish Herbs can be found by clicking here.
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