Customer Reviews

Faiths & Avatars (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms, Campaign Expansion/9516)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I felt like I was taking a chance bying this book, hard to understand what is really in it by these reviews. The content is as follows: An introduction to the Powers of the realms. (How worship works, how spheres work, Births & Deaths of Powers, Divine abilities and Members of the Clergy). The Fearûnian Pantheon (Listing all the Deities, naming their aliases, allies, foes, symbols etc etc. Then describing its avatar, church and special priest.) At the end there is listed a number of priest classes: Clerics, Crusaders, Druids, Monks, Mystics and Shamans. Then it describes these classes.

So why should you buy this book? Maybe you need some in-depth information for a number of priests in your realm, or you need a circle of believers, maybe you need a divine opposing power, a cult worshipping a power they are trying to restore. This book provides the perfect solution and information for you. Maybe you just need new priest spells, then there are a handfull listed for every Speciality Priest in this book.

196 pages total with colour drawings of all the deities' separate priests. B/W pictures of groups of deities within the pages aswell. An enjoyable and very useful book.

Julia Martin and Eric Boyd team up to provide one of the most important titles in a Forgotten Realms library. An exhaustive list of all the Lesser through Greater human gods and their churches. This supplement provides numerous spells, and special powers with which to make each different faith pop out from the rest. It details the clergy, the ethos, and all important information needed to properly bring the Fearunian pantheon to life (figuratively of course) in your campaing, a must have! (*Note* the demi-gods and demi-human pantheons are detailed in two subsequent texts of equal quality, "Powers & Pantheons", and "Demi-Human Deities")

Finally, TSR made a book focusing the role-play! The Faiths & Avatar series gives to the priests of the Forgotten Realms details of church organization, specialty priests powers, and more! Some information was retrieved from older books (i.e. Forgotten Adventures and the first Boxed Set), but that's revised, and a lot of new information was added (including the Avatar statistics and powers). One of the best Forgotten Realms accessories ever published.

This is an amazing product!!! While best suited for an FR Campaign, any DM could benefit from the information here, especially from the section on each god's dogma and the Specialty Priests (after all, Tempus is a pretty typical war god and that Talos kit works well for priest of a god like Zeus). The Demihuman Deities book is perhaps even more useful as these gods, like Moradin and Corellon, are involved in many D&D worlds. GET THE BOOK!!! No matter what the bad reviews may say, this IS NOT reprinted stuff... the SP kits in FR Adventures were terrible and as far as sitting down and doing all this yourself, GOOD LUCK! This is the best roleplaying product in the TSR line.

This book and its second sequel, Demihuman Deities, should be on every player's shelf. Powers & Pantheons (the book directly following this) was a big let down.

F&A is still a very worthwhile buy, even if you've converted to 3rd. Most of the material is story based (rather than mechanics based.) It's worth it for information on Moander, Bhaal, and some other deities who `died.' Some of the deities were shortchanged in the newer FR hardcover. F&A has complete write-ups and pictures for these gods as well.

Definitely an excellent guide to every major religion in the Realms. There do happen to be a few missing, but it's neither here nor there when you take in all of the information for use in your Forgotten Realms campaign. From specialty priests and their specifics to god-specific spells, you've got enough information to answer any strange question your players throw at you, or at least enough information to squeek your way out of it. This is a must-have item for anybody who uses religion as a role-playing tool in their campaign.

In my humble opinion, this should be bought if you are planning to play a campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting. This book has it all. It explains the history of religion in the realms, it explains the expectations of the clerics in each religion. The granted powers of the clerics are very powerful, but can be adjusted for any campaign. It explains the allies and foes of each religion, the restrictions, the minimum requirements, and day to day duties. It would take me more than a 1000 words to give the book the justice it deserves.

Normally I'm loathe to give a product five stars, but this is one of the best AD&D accessories I've ever seen. Tons of information on all the significant powers(even dead powers), their faiths, and their specialty priests(some of whom are VERY powerful... see Helm's section). New character classes, information on killing and ressurecting gods, and much more make this the definite resource for DMs and cleric fans playing in the Realms. Ever want to see how Cyric's church manages to operate, play a crusader of Lathander, or bring Bane back from the dead? Now you can. Combine this with Monster Mythology -which it makes references to- and you have all the godly information you could ever need in the Realms. No, I am *not* being paid by T$R; this is really that good of a product. It does repeat some old information, but if you missed out on old Realms pantheon publications, you'll do well to buy this. More than worth its cover price -- a rarity among T$R products these days.

I have had this book for a while now and am finally getting around to reviewing it. Granted, some material is repetitive but anything that is repeated is then expanded on. I use the book for all differant campains, it is a good guide for a DM that needs to create a god, and also a good guide for a PC interested in what the godsreally do. Since I got the book it has rarely been in my hands, all my friends want to borrow it and get some ideas for their characters. I think this book gets more use than my Players Handbook, and if you are looking for a new book to add to your collection deffinantly try this one.

Faiths and Avatars, Powers and Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities make up for one of the BEST Forgotten Realms accessories (they are in trilogy form) ever made. The Trilogy sheds light on exactly what the title says: Gods-and there sure is lots of them! The books, which are very well written and very well presented, also focus on other areas such as each church's distinct culture, tradition, and history. As a result, they will win you over for sure!

Eric Boyd does a FANTASTIC job of presenting the different pantheons, ranging from background history, to rank descriptions, to their respective magic, thus allowing for the creation of important people and characters, to adventure hooks and encounter tables, to magical items and artifacts, to new spells and treasures. This accessory has it all and more!
Each god has his own supplementary text information, clerics' and worshippers' alignments, Specialty Priest class and their alignments, church symbols, specific spells, special abilities, dress garb, even information relating to actual temples.

For other FR references/adventures, I STRONGLY recommend: the Old Empires accessory on Chessenta, Mulhorand, and Unther, Dreams of Red Wizards on Thay, Dwarves Deep, Draconomicon, the Jungles of Chult and Moonsea accessories, the Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep adventures, the Ruins of Myth Drannor (Elven pantheon) and the Ruins of Zhentil Keep Box Sets for Bane vs Cyric material (they are Second Edition AD&D, out of print and it will take a bit of searching, but it's well worth it). For updated editions of events in the Realms, see the Third Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, which even though is quite expensive, is still very useful to all FR fans.

Moreover, for those interested in the gods, the Forgotten Realms novels to read are: The Avatar Trilogy- Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep, the Prince of Lies, and Crucible: the Trial of Cyric the Mad. In addition, the Ring of Winter is relevant to the Chultan pantheon and specifically to Ubtao, as it is the only novel set in the Jungles of Chult.

Faiths and Avatars, Powers and Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities along with the Forgotten Realms Adventures accessory, and the three Forgotten Realms Campaign Settings (one for each edition) are a "must!" They all compliment each other.
Whether you are playing in the Forgotten Realms or in the Planes, this trilogy of books will be of tremendous help in collecting all the information you'll ever need.