This article originally appeared in d20 Weekly
The Book of the Righteous
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
Written by Aaron Loeb
320 b&w page hardcover; $39.95
Book of the Righteous is the latest in Green Ronin's Arcana series of sourcebooks, and by far the biggest at a whopping 320 pages (When a book this big, it's safe to call it a tome). This book is designed to provide an entire pantheon of gods and the myths that surround them, offering a complete alternative cosmology to GMs.
Religion is a seminal part of all societies throughout history, but it's rarely been translated to the gaming table with any depth or resonance. Often, treatment was too shallow to allow a player to effectively run a cleric or paladin, or for GMs to make effective use of them to shape and color his world. The Book of the Righteous attends to these concerns, allowing players and GMs to really understand the various deities and their worship, and therefore portray them with the nuanced depth they deserve.
A hardback tome, Book of the Righteous is graced with a beautiful cover painting by Brian Despain that manages to convey the power and majesty of gods. The black-and-white interior artwork is excellent and very evocative, and includes work by Mike Vilardi, Chris Keefe, Todd Gamble, and Toren Atkinson, among others.
As mentioned, the book is over 300 pages, but it's so densely packed that it probably has the equivalent of 350+ pages in most other gaming products. The text is small but not painfully so, margins are almost nonexistent, illustrations enhance . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 9, 2002
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