Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand (Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 Supplement): An Environment Series Supplement Dungeons and Dragons (Hardcover)

It opens with a lengthy section on the 'Waste' as desert environments are referred to in this book, detailing waste formation, rules for travel over sand, heat dangers, from mundane to magical (like the flaywind, a nasty but neat idea) and more. There is a lot of information here that may seem a bit overwhelming at first, but the variety is good and the rules contained within it can be used to whatever degree of realism suits your campaign.

The new races in this book are interesting and well detailed, the asherati (sand swimming humanoids) and bhuka (kind of good tribal desert goblin), as well as a section on the varients of the core races as they appear in the waste. Not really alot of surprises there. It also contains variant class levels for barbarians, druids and rangers, which allow for a nice degree of cultural flavour for either NPCs or PCs. It also contains three new pantheons for clerics, including the Egyptian and Babylonian deities. The feat selection is both useful and pretty cool, from the nifty Sand Dancer (throw sand to blind an opponent) to functional Heat Endurance. There are some cool unarmed combat feats like the Rattlesnake Strike and Serpent Fang. It finishes with a lengthy spiel of Touchstone sites, a concept introduced in the not-so-good Planar Handbook. The sites are interesting and apart from the benefits they grant make lots of interesting adventure hooks and sites.

The prestige classes of the book go for a sense of 'quality over quantity' rather than the usual shipload of new classes of standard D&D supplements. However, this approach is rather disappointing in a way, because the space taken to fully flesh out the prestige classes sometimes seems a little silly, as they become often too specific to fit in just any campaign. Having said that, this section contains the brilliant Walker in the Waste, a must have class for NPCs: a class of mummy-creating people dedicated to spreading the waste and who become Dry Liches at 10th level. This class can be used as arch-villians or sort-of background villians in any campaign.

The equipment section contains some cool weapons like the eagle's claw, and other gear neccessary for kitting out in the desert. The magic section contains some brilliant new spells of the theme of blasting enemies with thirst, sand and fire, and even a few new epic spells and psionic powers, although these latter are very thin on the ground.

The monsters section is very good as well, with a variety of devious and deadly creatures to inhabit the wastes and challenge the your PCs. The book finishes off with some pretty decent adventures mostly revolving around mummies.

But what makes this book so good is the overall impression, from the excellent artwork to tone of the monsters and information. This book practically radiates dry heat. Even if you're not intending to run a whole campaign in the desert (which, despite the wealth of information, this book cannot support entirely on its own, be prepared to use a lot of imagination and time) this book is simply a very cool supplement to have, and will make you think seriously about having a sojourn into the perilous heat of the desert at least once, and enjoy it.