Morgrave Miscellany

I've largely taken to ignoring the DM's Guild, mostly since I'm barely gaming any more, because the quality is necessarily very uneven, and because frankly I've got no chance of keeping up anyway. However it does have one extremely nice feature, which is that as WotC open up the various settings it gives scope for an interested creator to expand his or her creation, potentially in ways that WotC never would (due to market pressures). And so, very occasionally there will be a product on there that screams "must have" to me.

That is the case with the "Morgrave Miscellany", an Eberron sourcebook from the creator of the setting, Keith Baker, with mechanical help from Ruty Rutenberg (who is a new name to me).

The Miscellany comprises four chapters: one on classes, one on other character matters, a third on running a game in a noir style, and then a set of noir-ish adventures (actually, for 0-level characters).

As the name perhaps implies, this one is very much a mixed bag. The material for the classes is generally good (and, since this represents the bulk of the document, it is probably worth the price of entry by itself). Likewise, the expanded options for Dragonmarks (in chapter two) are also interesting and likely to see use. On the other hand, I'm unlikely ever to use the new feats (not a fan of feats in general), and I found the material on races rather bland.

The chapter on running a noir game was interesting, but should be filed under "you'll probably never use this" - it's mostly techniques that should only be attempted by a pretty skilled GM... but a pretty skilled GM will probably be aware of them without this book. I was also very much not a fan of the adventure material that rounds out the book, partly because I have no interest in 0-level adventure material, but mostly because it all struck me as too short and far too linear to be worthwhile - there's very little inspiration on offer here.

The upshot is that this is one has a conditional recommendation. It's good if you want more material for classes, especially material slanted towards Eberron. And there are some good ideas here. But it's not as polished or as consistent as most of the published Eberron books, or indeed the "Wayfarer's Guide".

Bottom line: I'm not at all unhappy I bought this, but I suspect it's unlikely ever to see any actual use.