To no one's big surprise, Wizards of the Coast's Oriental Adventures product has been very popular. AEG has a special licensing agreement with Wizards to produce Oriental Adventures supplements for its own setting, Rokugan, originally from the Legend of the Five Rings game. So far, I've got to say, AEG's Rokugan products have been very good.

Creatures of Rokugan is a 112-page bestiary. It contains more than 100 new creatures and templates, five prestige classes, a few magic items, and some interesting miscellaneous rules material. In short, it's jam packed.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a lot about Asian myth, so I am probably not even the target audience for the book. Yet I really liked it. There are many monsters in here that I would use in my Western-oriented campaign. The shadow beast, for example, is a creature of the Lying Darkness and breathes energy-draining shadow stuff. The Seiryoku no Oni are outsiders that gain power if spells are cast in their vicinity. The Ianwa no Oni, disgusting sluglike creatures, deal in fear so potent that it forces you to do their dark bidding. Lots of cool stuff.

Mechanically, Creatures of Rokugan seems quite sound. The designers appear to have avoided most the of the simple mistakes (giving incorporeal undead a Strength score, forgetting to take size into account for AC and attack modifiers, and so on). And let's face it, there's a lot to remember when creating a good monster. Even more importantly, the really hard parts -- like assigning CR -- seem solid as well. A few questionable points pop up here and there (I'm not sure why the guardian statue has an Intelligence score, or why the garegosu no bakemono -- a huge octopuslike thing -- has only 8 HD, for example), and I saw a fair number of editing gaffes. But these are quibbles, and they are actually few and far between.

Some of the supplemental material, like the prestige classes, is less sound and not nearly as exciting, but don't worry. Buy the book for the monsters. Whether you run an Oriental Adventures game or not, check this out. At $25, that's about a quarter a monster -- clearly worth it.

As good as Creatures of Rokugan is, I like Magic of Rokugan even better. However, a learning curve's involved here. To really utilize these spells, you have to learn a few Rokugan concepts, such as Void magic, honor, the Taint, and the properties of jade. And unfortunately, that material is in the Rokugan setting book, and Oriental Adventures itself, but not here. That makes Magic of Rokugan a little less universally adaptable, and thus I rated it a bit lower than I would have if I'd found that background material in there. However, once you round this curve, judge this book on its own merits: It's full of wonderful stuff.

Magic of Rokugan contains more 150 new spells, lots of new magic items, and four prestige classes. Of the classes, I really like the jade magistrate and the phantom hunter.

The spells are imaginative. Many of them are usable by standard classes, and even many of those specific to shugenja you could adapt fairly easily into spells for wizards, clerics, or what have you. (If you do this, pay close attention to the spell level -- shugenja spells across the board, in this product and Oriental Adventures, often seem underpowered to me compared to their standard class spell levels.) Endless depths allows a character to cast more spells in a given day, but she suffers Constitution damage to do so. Piercing the soul allows a caster to give an arrow the power to inflict Charisma damage. The inner ocean turns a caster into a being of living water.

Like the Creatures book, this one isn't perfect. A few spells are probably broken. Stand against the waves, as an example, gives a target an extra attack at his highest bonus for every five caster levels. Cast this 3rd-level spell on your high-level fighter friend and watch your similarly leveled fireball spells pale in comparison to the damage he deals. (Yes, I know shugenja don't cast fireballs, but you get the point.)

But the thing is, the book doesn't stop with just spells. The magic items here are excellent. If your players are tired of the same old +1 rings of protection, throw in some of the flavorful items you'll find in Magic of Rokugan. Dragon helms, naga pearls, and all sorts of cool items await. I particularly like the artifacts, such as the Bloodswords -- evil katanas, each with a unique power -- and the Twelve Black Scrolls, which once contained the essence of a powerful evil being and still may exist, waiting to be opened, their evil powers unleashed.

In short, Magic of Rokugan is a storehouse of cool magical ideas. It won't fit as seamlessly into a standard d20 game as most of the Creatures of Rokugan, but if you're willing to adapt, or if you are running an Oriental Adventures campaign, it's a must have.

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