I was very excited about the MIDNIGHT campaign setting when I first heard of it; I love all things Tolkien and the idea of world similar to Middle Earth where the Dark God wins sounded intriguing. Certainly DRAGONLANCE had done something similar, but MIDNIGHT takes the premise to its logical and final conclusion: there is only one deity in the world, and he has won. There's really no going back. The world belongs to the Shadow and nothing will displace him. His only goal is to crush all life and magic to wring the last drops of power from this world, and when he has taken everything, he can escape. You might think that this would lead to a nihilistic fatalism, but really I find it oddly invigorating. Your characters are heroes but rebels and subversives at the same time. Also, quests, fantasies, and mythologies can become pretentious and hackneyed, but MIDNIGHT takes place on a much smaller scale. You can't save the world, but you might be able to save your village. There are no princesses to rescue, but if the characters are smart, careful, and lucky, they might be able to save someone's mother or daughter. In a world of darkness, even the smallest and briefest flame has a victory over the shadow merely by giving off light.

MIDNIGHT packs a lot of material for the players and the DM. At 400 pages, it still feels too small to tell all that it wants to. The book is a sourcebook for the world of Midnight, a player's guide, and a DM's guide, so you are really getting a lot for your mpney. There are a lot of changes to the "standard" fantasy world due to MIDNIGHT's unique characteristics. With all that the characters have going against them, there are substantial edges to help them survive.

On the plus side, all races get attribute bonuses (with a balancing attribute penalty, of course). There are dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and even 3 races of humans (who also get bonuses - not your standard vanilla humans). Most races also get some kind of bonus weapon ability and survival skills. There are also "paths" which grant special bonuses at every level the character survives. These have intersting themes; besides "class" specialties like healer and the faithful there are paths like giantblooded, dragonblooded, and pureblooded which are themed to your ancestry. Also, anyone can use their feat slots to buy spells, and you can buy any kind (no class restriction).

The ability to use spells is strongly curtailed, however, as part of the effects of the Shadow being cast out of heaven and into the world. Magic-using classes have to purchase schools of magic individually, and pay for spells from a limited pool of energy. Also, magic use is banned (along with owning magic items, books, the ability to read, and a great many other things) and the Shadow actively hunts down any who have or use magic. Also, there are no clerics, at least, not any good ones. The Shadow is the only deity that answers prayers and only his servants dare to call on his name. But it's not just magic users who take the hit; owning any kind of armor, or any object that can be used as a weapon, is also a capital offence. This makes all combat dangerous and orcs in particular are deadly foes, not to be crossed. And don't think that you can just find any gear lying around or to be bought in a village - the Dark Lord's armies have thoroughly crushed the human population, starving and humiliating them into submission, until the average peasant would rather kill any hero himself than risk drawing the attention of any servants of the Shadow. With the Shadow's armies taking all the food, even rations for a journey are hard to come by. And we still haven't brought up the hordes of walking dead whose souls cannot leave the world as long as the Shadow dwells there. It's not easy being a hero...

So you might ask, why would I want to buy MIDNIGHT? Well, if nothing else, it is 400 pages of sweetness, a cross between high fantasy and apocalyptic survival horror. And I can see that not everyone is up for playing in this kind of challenging environment. Everything is stacked against you, from magic to weapons to scrounging for food. But in another sense, MIDNIGHT will force you to focus on what's important. No kingdom-saving or dragon-slaying but you can make life more tolerable for your fellow beings, tired and hungry as they are. You might even be able to light the spark of another's rebellion, the pride to no longer be a boot-licker of the armies of oppression. Every choice you make, every resource you can scavenge, every ally that can be gained is critical to continued survival. And you can take pride in whatever small wound you can inflict on the Shadow, because you will not go quietly into that dark night ...

I purchased this book in the last month. And in that time I have had numerous pages fall out. I have barely had a chance to use it, having opened no more than 40 times. I still have books from 1st & 2nd edition AD&D that are in good condition--all pages are intact.

Aside from the book binding problems, I really enjoy this campaign setting and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for setting to challange their players thinking and roleplaying skills. Attacking first and asking questions later becomes less of an option.

I only have two wishes, other than fixing the binding. It would be nice if there was a downloadable PDF version similar to what Iron Crown does. And it would be nice if there was a player only version of the manual that contains only what players need to create characters. The Retail $50 price is very steep if each of your players are expected to purchase a copy. Oh, and did I mention the problem with the book binding.