The Wilderness Survival Guide that released for 1e AD&D is the best thing that this book could be compared to. It looks at six different specific types of environments and goes over them in some level of detail. The book starts by having an overview of outdoor survival. This section is perhaps the best because it is not specific and addresses concerns that the DM, and as a result, the players might have dealing with the great outdoors. It deals with the ideas of building the ecology from the ground up as well as specific advice on how to build outdoor adventures and encounters. This chapter also added the section on new uses for old skills and well as new skills and feats.
The specific chapters on the different environments each add a ranger that is specific to that type of environments. I am not ill disposed to this idea but it is not something that I would really ever see allowing as a character class but that is just me. The chapters provide an overview of the specific environment and what the players might encounter. There are then feats specific to that environment provided as well as new spells and monsters. There are of course also a varying number of new prestige classes added for each as well. The environments discussed in the book are:
Desert
Forest
Jungle
Marshes
Mountains
Tundra
As I said I found this book to be in the upper half of all the AEG books I have been able to look over. I think it may just be that I am partial to the hex crawl idea and can see more direct usability for the information in the book than perhaps in others. As with the other books these can be found at a reasonable cost in the secondary market and suggest any DM interested in outdoor adventures grab s copy of this.
Published: 2003
Pages: 176
From the publisher:
The wild frontiers of demon-haunted forests, sun-blasted deserts, windswept glaciers, and rolling plains are now open for adventure with this exciting d20 sourcebook. Features include guidelines for constructing wilderness adventures, complete with ready-made encounters, new creatures, rules for weather, and other effects unique to the outdoor environment, plus new prestige classes, feats, and skills tailored to exploring the wilderness.
From the back of the book:
Go Beyond the Dungeon
This sourcebook expands the venues of adventure, presenting an array of hostile environments for your wilderness campaigns. From the tundra's deadly cold to the desert's searing heat, the wilderness offers dangers and threats that make an angry ogre or hungry troll look like a pushover. With the rules and advice outlined here, DMs can design adventures that emphasize the environment's daunting challenges and strange, wondrous realms.
Leave the dungeons behind.
The Wilds Await:
*Over 80 new feats
*Nearly two dozen prestige classes
*New ranger classes for each environment
*40 new spells
*26 monsters
*New rules for six different environments
Spell:
Return to the Grave
Level: Fourth
Range: 9"
Duration: Instantaneous
Area of Effect: 6" Radius
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 2 Segments
Saving Throw: Negates
This spell allows the magic user to act as a poor mans cleric when it comes to ridding a party of undead. When the spell is cast it will cause the affected undead to return to the location of their demise.
The undead who fail the save will immediately turn and proceed to move as directly as possible to the location in which they died or became undead. They will continue to make their way to that point for a period of time equal to one turn plus the caster's level in rounds. Those who make their save will not leave but will suffer one point of damage per level of the caster.
Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last, were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper credit.
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