Frost & Fur: The Explorer's Guide to the Frozen Lands

by Michael Tresca

BRRRRRR! Everyone knows the arctic can be an unforgiving terrain. But there's much more to the wintry land than cold damage and snowstorms. In Frost & Fur, players and Game Masters alike will find a wealth of information about what the arctic has to offer...and how to survive it. Inside you'll find new rules for environmental hazards, survival equipment, and the effects of cold on skills and spells. Discover a variety of cultures, both magical and mundane, and the prestige classes, races, creatures, and spells that are an integral part of their mythology. Frost & the cure for the common cold!

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2004

About the author

Michael "Talien" Tresca is a game designer, author, communicator, and artist. He is the National RPG and Sci-Fi Movie Examiner and recently published three books, the non-fiction history of gaming, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games from McFarland Publishing, his fantasy fiction debut, The Well of Stars, from Three Ravens Books, and the young adult fantasy Awfully Familiar from Dark Quest Books. Michael has authored numerous supplements and adventures for publishers of Open Game License and D20-compatible games, including AEG, MonkeyGod Enterprises, Goodman Games, Otherworld Creations, Privateer Press, RPGObjects and Ronin Arts. A top 1,000 reviewer for Amazon, his articles and reviews have appeared in Allgame.com, D20 Filtered, Dragon Magazine, Gamers.com, Pyramid, and RPG.net. He has participated in panels about electronic and tabletop role-playing games at ConnectiCon, Dragon*Con, and I-Con.

When he's not writing, Michael can be found as his alter ego, Talien, on RetroMUD as an administrator. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[JT · Rating 4 out of 5]

As splatbooks go, this is a good one. Not perfect, mind, but the parts about climatic and other environmental hazards are spot on. While I had looked forward to the cultural sections, I was a bit disappointed in how they were implemented. If, for instance, one is going to do a section on Ice Age Neolithic culture, just go ahead and mention that an Atlantean culture might be going at the same time, and put out a separate book for that, where you have the space to do it right. Still, Norse, Eskimo/Aluet/Tlingit we all fairly good (don't see myself using the classes given, mind, but fairly good), and adding a Slavic section, with a very Fairy Tale flavor, was unexpected and welcome.

I would say that one might need Frostburn as well as this one to really nail down a sub-artic (or arctic) campaign.