Love the review! However, I heard you mention the "punk-rock" theme of the artwork when I think it's pretty obvious the entire book was inspired by Black Metal (specifically the Norwegian bands) . The setting is a northern wasteland full of profane left-hand path types("frostbitten" is a common term sometimes used to comedically describe black metal like "grimdark" is for Warhammer, and like you said it resembles Norway.) The design of the Amazons is based around the motif of corspepaint and a lot of their poses seem to evoke famous album covers like "Translvanian Hunger". Hell, a monster is named "Necrobutcher" which is the stage name of the bassist for Mayhem, the most (in)famous black metal band ever. Just thought this might be an interesting bit of trivia for your viewers who don't listen to metal and would like to see where the author most likely got their inspiration from.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks! I wouldn't really call it fact checking lol you didn't make any factual errors I just thought it would be worth mentioning it since I didn't see many people talking about it the comments. Be careful with looking up images of Mayhem. A great band but they have a reputation as one of the most infamous bands in history for a reason (i.e. never look for the "Dawn of the Blackhearts" bootleg cover because it features a photo of their former singers suicide which is pretty sickening to look at). But yeah Norwegian Black metal in general is easy inspiration for RPG material. Varg Vikernes of the one man black metal band Burzum has published his own role playing game called MYFAROG which I heard is pretty good and might be worth taking a look at. Another warning though is Varg went to prison for arson and murder (he killed the guitarist of Mayhem) and has notoriously right-wing views.
One of the prime black metal bands is punk-rock all the way: Darkthrone. They never stopped being black metal (I mean, once they abandoned death metal) but they are totally punk-rock!
This reminds me very much of 'Mork Borg' in its metal theme and design style. I also feel it could work well in conjunction with 'Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter'.
Wow, I LOVE the typography and layout. Really slick looking. I also like the concise NPC descriptions. Just enough to give the DM something to work with, but not so much to make reference at the table while running the game difficult. Great review, professor!👊
It didn't feel long to me. If your analytics shows that audience retention remains good through to the end, then I wouldn't worry about the length so much.
I've never heard of a setting this cool before in my life. This is what I strive for in my D&D games. I gotta try this supplement and the game, I doubt I could return to D&D after this. My homebrew setting is like the movie Profession of Arms but in Icewind Dale instead of Milan.
"Hubris" is great too. Shortly after this video aired, Zak Smith was accused of some sordid behavior with his former girlfriend(s). It's awkward because he wrote great products. If you want it get it soon because it will never be reprinted. None of his work will be.
The aesthetic reminds me a bit of the old White Wolf Storyteller series that I ran and played a lot in the '90s. One night I ran them through a series of tests based on the Seven Deadly Sins. The "Wrath" segment required my intervention to prevent a TPK.
I got the pdf after watching the vid and I agree wholeheartedly, the imagination that went into this stuff is astounding. It's hard to put down. One publication I'd like somebody to put together one day is a book solely comprised of descriptions for locations. In other words, a chapter on entering a forest seasonally, rooms, creatures, etc. Sometimes there's so much going on at the table that being eloquent at every turn is an ambitious unlikelihood! I've seen Questing Beast and Ivanmike1968 talking about this system the last few years and it is intriguing. I'm partial to the fairytale aspect of fantasy RPGs, so Lamentations and its offspring may suit me - hopefully the crew as well!
Nice! You should get paid for the reviews you are doing for us. Going out to buy both Frostbitten & Mutilated.and Lamentations of the Flame Princess. THANK YOU !
I am super stoked to buy this book! I am currently running my players through an actic tundra and have been struggling with adventure design. And the art in that book looks gorgeous and creepy! Kind of reminds me of the 'Art of Metal Gear' book I had years ago.
Ever seen Zak’s I Hit it With My Axe - web series? Pretty raw and fantastic eye into the authors personality and DMing. He creates great stuff. Good vid.
Very cool. Love the grotesque monsters, jutting fear into players minds. It seems this can be rendered into a D&D setting (I find it difficult to get people to play non D&D games). Curious if you think this book could be a good addition to a DM’s dark repertoire? That critical chart got my eye brow up. I would like to mention that I play Core only. A heavy emphasis on character customization in regards to skills and a magic system that takes into account heavy drawbacks on failed rolls. I’m looking into a custom mechanic that deals with critical injury charts, like warhammer has but more emphasis on players rolling fortitude saves for each hit taken. This book seems to have a solid foot hold on that.
DUNGEON CRAFT really appreciate the reply. If you don’t mind me asking an off topic question,regarding your style of dming where you hard cap players hitpoints. Here goes; the warhammer rpg style of combat seems way more visceral and exciting when it comes to a good ol fight. It’s obviously because taking any kind of damage after you loose those wound points starts the rolls on the critical tables and arms, legs and heads start to fly. Been racking my head on this and curious your thoughts on an idea I been mulling around. Here goes, Cut players hit points in half after they roll for each level and they can’t go below 1 hp, per level gained. Their fortitude score will be their damage resistance after they reach 0 hps. Every damage over the players fortitude score will be another notch worse on the critical table, like we see with the warhammer critical table when a player is down to 0 wound points. Heck, can even use their system for where the hit lands and use their descriptions. Fighters could technically last much longer than their hp’s would normally allow but being at 0hp’s is obviously a huge risk to stay at, much like having 0 wounds. It could be that any damage taken after reaching 0hps incites critical effect but the fortitude save for the player could drop the % roll for how serious by 10% per fortitude that the player still has remaining from the hit. (Player currently has 0 hps takes 9 more damage from a hit but player has 12 fortitude. The player absorbed all 9 hps taken but must now roll on the critical chart at a -30% to the severity of the hit as seen in the warhammer critical chart, the DM rolls 42% but the -30% brings the severity to - 12% on the +1 chart (because the damage wasn’t over the players fortitude save). As per the chart, a 12% nets a value of 2 to a particular body part. Most 2’s are dropping a weapon, loosing an ear or keeling over from a groin hit. The biggest problem with this system is what is to be done for magical effects such as fire or ice damage? Do you allow a player a save vs the effect on the critical chart to resist the effect dc 10+damage done? How would I need to scale monster damage, if at all? And would I need to scale magic damage, as it is now very potent against creatures with half their hps? Would magical damage be WILL save based to resist critical charts once hps are below 0, like fortitude is for physical damage? I feel like this method would be an easier way for players and dms to scale the encounters without having to rework all the enemies damage dice, hps etc... toughness in warhammer is basically replaced with fortitude. Makes me also wonder if defensive maneuvers, like combat expertise should be applied to the players fortitude and not AC? Any insight as to how you have handled the low hp hero’s vs monsters and how it’s played through? Obviously TPK’s are more numerous and it brings a large element of gun shy to most encounters. I want to stay away from further adding to players paranoias, knowing death is around every corner... can bog down a session. Cheers! Much appreciation for your insights!
Ah. Warhammer and Toughness. So I played Warhammer for years. It was our go to fantasy RPG. However, I jettisoned the critical wounds because it was too complex: rolling damage, adding wounds, subtracting toughness. That's algebra territory. It slows the game to crawl. This is how I do it now: Low hp means lower monster damage. d10 damage is a big deal. If someone goes negative hp they roll a DC 11 save for shock or they die instantly. If they make it, they bleed out at 1hp per round until someone staunches the flow of blood. Then I have a critical wound table where they lose fingers, eyes, hands, etc. I may share it at some point--but I really just describe the critical wounds on the fly, using common sense. If a character goes to negative hp because of an acid arrow, I tell them "half your face got melted off. You now look like Gus Fring from Breaking Bad." Back to FBAM--those descriptions can be used like the old Warhammer tables, but you don't need a chart. It's faster and smoother, IMO.
DUNGEON CRAFT cheers! Yeah, the whole bogging down of the game, combat is the mother of it! I completely agree that the charts get in the way. Keeping it to the DM’s description and keeping the story, combat and roleplaying going without pause is what’s most important. Gonna table the critical chart until I start a new campaign. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sorta thing.
Love this video (actually all the vids are great) however what my attention was the description of the "troll cat". Absolutely hideous. I had come across something like this only once in Johan Egerkrans book "Vaesan", a beautifully illustrated tome of northern European folklore. In that book they are called "Moljk Hare" (Milk Hare) but no doubt they both derive from the same source material. Mr. Egerkrans also has two other books that are great sources of material for a campaign. Norse Gods and The Undead. They obviously have creatures that we are all familiar with but there are also some lesser known things "that go bump in the night". Either way, like I said previously beautifully illustrated. Love the vids!
Hi, could you clear up some confusion for me¿? For the classes presented in Frostbitten and Mutilated, how would the Saving Throws (Paralyze, Poison, Breath, Device, and Magic) translate over to something like 5e¿?
Why do I think of Amazons as being from warm climates, and think it's out of place for them to be in a cold wilderness setting? That's a strange bit of cultural baggage this video has brought up for me. So, Prof. DM, how do your female players feel about the the sort of T&A art style of the book being reinforced in the rules, essentially encouraging female warrior characters to be scantily clad in a tundra?
Would probably be best to take this vid down professor. Was about to buy this when a review warned me of Zak. Very nearly dodged a bullet there. As a community we shouldn’t be supporting content creators like Zak, just my two cents.
Do not speak for the whole community please. Many of us can separate the author from the work and it is a personal decision if you consume or not. The rest is just censorship.
I am of the idea that, anytime someone tells me what I should or I shouldn't like, I have to go and do the immediate opposite of it, got the book as soon as someone threw a fit a game I was in (she got kicked out of course) when I said that I enjoyed the game, one of the best book I have.
You're NOT a whole community! So shut a f##k up, and go play with dolls. Zak - the best author and the most creative designer settings, contents and monsters for ttrpg. The others is a boring, hollow and awful, just meh.
I never heard of this until just now but holy cow it is awesome and I want it…! Thanks for all you do, friend.
Love the review! However, I heard you mention the "punk-rock" theme of the artwork when I think it's pretty obvious the entire book was inspired by Black Metal (specifically the Norwegian bands) . The setting is a northern wasteland full of profane left-hand path types("frostbitten" is a common term sometimes used to comedically describe black metal like "grimdark" is for Warhammer, and like you said it resembles Norway.) The design of the Amazons is based around the motif of corspepaint and a lot of their poses seem to evoke famous album covers like "Translvanian Hunger". Hell, a monster is named "Necrobutcher" which is the stage name of the bassist for Mayhem, the most (in)famous black metal band ever. Just thought this might be an interesting bit of trivia for your viewers who don't listen to metal and would like to see where the author most likely got their inspiration from.
Thanks, Sauron! If I could afford to hire fact-checkers, you'd get the job. Mayhem, Must look it up.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks! I wouldn't really call it fact checking lol you didn't make any factual errors I just thought it would be worth mentioning it since I didn't see many people talking about it the comments. Be careful with looking up images of Mayhem. A great band but they have a reputation as one of the most infamous bands in history for a reason (i.e. never look for the "Dawn of the Blackhearts" bootleg cover because it features a photo of their former singers suicide which is pretty sickening to look at). But yeah Norwegian Black metal in general is easy inspiration for RPG material. Varg Vikernes of the one man black metal band Burzum has published his own role playing game called MYFAROG which I heard is pretty good and might be worth taking a look at. Another warning though is Varg went to prison for arson and murder (he killed the guitarist of Mayhem) and has notoriously right-wing views.
One of the prime black metal bands is punk-rock all the way: Darkthrone. They never stopped being black metal (I mean, once they abandoned death metal) but they are totally punk-rock!
I need this product, its so dark and imaginative. I hope its still available.
This reminds me very much of 'Mork Borg' in its metal theme and design style. I also feel it could work well in conjunction with 'Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter'.
Wow, I LOVE the typography and layout. Really slick looking. I also like the concise NPC descriptions. Just enough to give the DM something to work with, but not so much to make reference at the table while running the game difficult.
Great review, professor!👊
Thank you. I hope it wasn't too long. I'm trying to get the next one between 10-12 minutes.
It didn't feel long to me. If your analytics shows that audience retention remains good through to the end, then I wouldn't worry about the length so much.
Have you seen Hot Springs Island?
Omg, your description of this book sounds like it would give me nightmares forever!
I've never heard of a setting this cool before in my life. This is what I strive for in my D&D games. I gotta try this supplement and the game, I doubt I could return to D&D after this.
My homebrew setting is like the movie Profession of Arms but in Icewind Dale instead of Milan.
"Hubris" is great too. Shortly after this video aired, Zak Smith was accused of some sordid behavior with his former girlfriend(s). It's awkward because he wrote great products. If you want it get it soon because it will never be reprinted. None of his work will be.
Very helpful review. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The aesthetic reminds me a bit of the old White Wolf Storyteller series that I ran and played a lot in the '90s. One night I ran them through a series of tests based on the Seven Deadly Sins. The "Wrath" segment required my intervention to prevent a TPK.
I got the pdf after watching the vid and I agree wholeheartedly, the imagination that went into this stuff is astounding. It's hard to put down. One publication I'd like somebody to put together one day is a book solely comprised of descriptions for locations. In other words, a chapter on entering a forest seasonally, rooms, creatures, etc. Sometimes there's so much going on at the table that being eloquent at every turn is an ambitious unlikelihood! I've seen Questing Beast and Ivanmike1968 talking about this system the last few years and it is intriguing. I'm partial to the fairytale aspect of fantasy RPGs, so Lamentations and its offspring may suit me - hopefully the crew as well!
Nice! You should get paid for the reviews you are doing for us. Going out to buy both Frostbitten & Mutilated.and Lamentations of the Flame Princess. THANK YOU !
How about your review after purchase, man? I'd like to hear what you think now after having it.
Wow this book looks great. Definitely going to pick it up
Glad you found the review helpful.
Lovely review, professor Dungeon Master!
Thanks, Matheus. I thought it was pretty thorough.
great review of an excellent product. time to check out what other excellent stuff this channel has to offer too!
Glad you found us and there is TONS of back content.
I am super stoked to buy this book! I am currently running my players through an actic tundra and have been struggling with adventure design.
And the art in that book looks gorgeous and creepy! Kind of reminds me of the 'Art of Metal Gear' book I had years ago.
How did your game go/ how is it going?
Looks awesome! Thanks for the review Professor. 😎
Am now waiting for my copy to arrive.
4:18
"....his weapons. Very short and to the point."
Oh, so like daggers I guess? 😊
I saw the title for the video and my first thought was "Crap, what did he do to his players now!"
Lol. Wait until the first week of November when I show you what a goblin prison looks like.
I thought the title was a soft reference to The Thing(1982) and had to click.
I too am now waiting for my copy to arive.
Hope you're feeling better, Professor! Keep rolling 20 health checks!
I'm improving. Thanks.
Lemon McBoss I’d give you a +1 if I could bro
That looks awesome of course with the current frequency that we play we wouldl never finish it.
Gygax would have loved these charts I imagine, if there was ever a man that had a fetish for random roll tables it was him
Ever seen Zak’s I Hit it With My Axe - web series? Pretty raw and fantastic eye into the authors personality and DMing. He creates great stuff. Good vid.
Absolutely. He's brilliant.
Scandinavian Black Metal + D&D
Love your content, keep up the good work
Very cool. Love the grotesque monsters, jutting fear into players minds.
It seems this can be rendered into a D&D setting (I find it difficult to get people to play non D&D games). Curious if you think this book could be a good addition to a DM’s dark repertoire?
That critical chart got my eye brow up.
I would like to mention that I play Core only. A heavy emphasis on character customization in regards to skills and a magic system that takes into account heavy drawbacks on failed rolls.
I’m looking into a custom mechanic that deals with critical injury charts, like warhammer has but more emphasis on players rolling fortitude saves for each hit taken. This book seems to have a solid foot hold on that.
Yes. The critical hit chart is worth the price alone. It's easy to convert to 5e. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is just Basic D&D circa 1980.
DUNGEON CRAFT really appreciate the reply.
If you don’t mind me asking an off topic question,regarding your style of dming where you hard cap players hitpoints. Here goes; the warhammer rpg style of combat seems way more visceral and exciting when it comes to a good ol fight. It’s obviously because taking any kind of damage after you loose those wound points starts the rolls on the critical tables and arms, legs and heads start to fly.
Been racking my head on this and curious your thoughts on an idea I been mulling around.
Here goes, Cut players hit points in half after they roll for each level and they can’t go below 1 hp, per level gained. Their fortitude score will be their damage resistance after they reach 0 hps. Every damage over the players fortitude score will be another notch worse on the critical table, like we see with the warhammer critical table when a player is down to 0 wound points. Heck, can even use their system for where the hit lands and use their descriptions. Fighters could technically last much longer than their hp’s would normally allow but being at 0hp’s is obviously a huge risk to stay at, much like having 0 wounds.
It could be that any damage taken after reaching 0hps incites critical effect but the fortitude save for the player could drop the % roll for how serious by 10% per fortitude that the player still has remaining from the hit. (Player currently has 0 hps takes 9 more damage from a hit but player has 12 fortitude. The player absorbed all 9 hps taken but must now roll on the critical chart at a -30% to the severity of the hit as seen in the warhammer critical chart, the DM rolls 42% but the -30% brings the severity to - 12% on the +1 chart (because the damage wasn’t over the players fortitude save). As per the chart, a 12% nets a value of 2 to a particular body part. Most 2’s are dropping a weapon, loosing an ear or keeling over from a groin hit.
The biggest problem with this system is what is to be done for magical effects such as fire or ice damage? Do you allow a player a save vs the effect on the critical chart to resist the effect dc 10+damage done? How would I need to scale monster damage, if at all? And would I need to scale magic damage, as it is now very potent against creatures with half their hps? Would magical damage be WILL save based to resist critical charts once hps are below 0, like fortitude is for physical damage?
I feel like this method would be an easier way for players and dms to scale the encounters without having to rework all the enemies damage dice, hps etc... toughness in warhammer is basically replaced with fortitude. Makes me also wonder if defensive maneuvers, like combat expertise should be applied to the players fortitude and not AC? Any insight as to how you have handled the low hp hero’s vs monsters and how it’s played through? Obviously TPK’s are more numerous and it brings a large element of gun shy to most encounters. I want to stay away from further adding to players paranoias, knowing death is around every corner... can bog down a session.
Cheers!
Much appreciation for your insights!
Ah. Warhammer and Toughness. So I played Warhammer for years. It was our go to fantasy RPG. However, I jettisoned the critical wounds because it was too complex: rolling damage, adding wounds, subtracting toughness. That's algebra territory. It slows the game to crawl. This is how I do it now: Low hp means lower monster damage. d10 damage is a big deal. If someone goes negative hp they roll a DC 11 save for shock or they die instantly. If they make it, they bleed out at 1hp per round until someone staunches the flow of blood. Then I have a critical wound table where they lose fingers, eyes, hands, etc. I may share it at some point--but I really just describe the critical wounds on the fly, using common sense. If a character goes to negative hp because of an acid arrow, I tell them "half your face got melted off. You now look like Gus Fring from Breaking Bad." Back to FBAM--those descriptions can be used like the old Warhammer tables, but you don't need a chart. It's faster and smoother, IMO.
DUNGEON CRAFT cheers!
Yeah, the whole bogging down of the game, combat is the mother of it! I completely agree that the charts get in the way. Keeping it to the DM’s description and keeping the story, combat and roleplaying going without pause is what’s most important.
Gonna table the critical chart until I start a new campaign. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sorta thing.
Awsome tables for roll20
Sharing!
Thank, buddy. I really appreciate it.
Zak no longer receives any financial benefit from the sale of LoTFP products. Enjoy.
Great review. How evocative does the art get? PG13? R?
PG 13
Holy crap!!! This is a must own! Thank you for exposing me to it's gruesome romance!!!!
Just bought one! Thanks again
Yeah. I'd say it's worth the money. And I'm cheap.
eBay 23 bucks! And from what I saw I can't complain, being a penny pincher as well!
Love this video (actually all the vids are great) however what my attention was the description of the "troll cat". Absolutely hideous. I had come across something like this only once in Johan Egerkrans book "Vaesan", a beautifully illustrated tome of northern European folklore. In that book they are called "Moljk Hare" (Milk Hare) but no doubt they both derive from the same source material. Mr. Egerkrans also has two other books that are great sources of material for a campaign. Norse Gods and The Undead. They obviously have creatures that we are all familiar with but there are also some lesser known things "that go bump in the night". Either way, like I said previously beautifully illustrated. Love the vids!
Thank you; no doubt Zak S. has read it. He is brilliant, has an MFA from Yale, and reads widely. Thanks for the info!
Hi, could you clear up some confusion for me¿? For the classes presented in Frostbitten and Mutilated, how would the Saving Throws (Paralyze, Poison, Breath, Device, and Magic) translate over to something like 5e¿?
S***! This book is serious💗😬
Scantily-clad amazons in an arctic setting??
Fantasy role-playing, Tell yourself its only a game it's only a game :) !
Why do I think of Amazons as being from warm climates, and think it's out of place for them to be in a cold wilderness setting? That's a strange bit of cultural baggage this video has brought up for me. So, Prof. DM, how do your female players feel about the the sort of T&A art style of the book being reinforced in the rules, essentially encouraging female warrior characters to be scantily clad in a tundra?
scant clothing in the snow is nowhere near Zak's biggest problem with women
@@Lodane Sounds like a book I need not bother with, then.
Would probably be best to take this vid down professor. Was about to buy this when a review warned me of Zak. Very nearly dodged a bullet there. As a community we shouldn’t be supporting content creators like Zak, just my two cents.
Do not speak for the whole community please. Many of us can separate the author from the work and it is a personal decision if you consume or not. The rest is just censorship.
I am of the idea that, anytime someone tells me what I should or I shouldn't like, I have to go and do the immediate opposite of it, got the book as soon as someone threw a fit a game I was in (she got kicked out of course) when I said that I enjoyed the game, one of the best book I have.
You're NOT a whole community! So shut a f##k up, and go play with dolls. Zak - the best author and the most creative designer settings, contents and monsters for ttrpg. The others is a boring, hollow and awful, just meh.