I wish I'd told you about this product earlier, when you'd have a better chance to find a copy. It's been out a while, so if you don't see it on your shelf, ask your retailer to order one.

Long story short, this is a really good product.

What you'll find in its 128 pages are seven fully developed strongholds: castles, fortresses, towers, and so on. Each one has a different focus. There's a living castle of briars filled with elves, a gnomish concrete bunker, a human keep (that may or may not contain an insane god), a halfling fort/waystation, an imposing dwarvish stronghold, and an orcish motte-and-bailey castle. There's even a new race, called the Psittae, which are avian creatures with a domed lair atop a mountain.

Each stronghold is complete and ready to just drop into your campaign. Although that's not really the right word. These strongholds don't drop -- they slide in nice and easy. Each has a unique story attached to it, but not so unique that the stronghold won't fit virtually anyplace in your fantasy world. Each has suggestions for proper placement and use in your campaign, with a variety of options. For example, Steelface Point is a dwarven fortress built to face constant assaults of goblinoids. But you can make the inhabitants noble defenders or cruel villains that keep refugees from passing out of a war-torn area. Or it might stand empty today, a relic of past battles.

The NPCs in each section are interesting, with detailed personalities. Like the fortresses themselves, the NPCs can be used in different ways, as allies or as enemies, as the DM needs. These locations have a fair number of new magic items, feats, monsters, and skills unique to them as well.

About the only criticism I have is in the physical presentation. In the NPC descriptions, Atlas presents everything you need to know about the NPC. Everything. For example, for every dwarf in the aforementioned Steelface Point, it gives a whole paragraph on dwarven traits-like a full description of how darkvision works, their chance to detect unusual stonework, and so on. Not only is this a little overkill, but since it's presented in every one, we get the same paragraph of text with each dwarf. It's an annoying waste of space. Each NPC's stat block is a half-page long.

But that's pretty minor. This is a good book, and I highly recommend it to every DM out there. Need an interesting location for the PCs to stumble upon in the wilderness? A goal for their long trek through dangerous territory? A new place to explore? A weird place to call home? Seven Strongholds offers a DM an effortless way to inject a fresh idea or two into the campaign.

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