Dragonbane Bestiary Adds Antagonists And Allies To Your Game

Dragonbane remains one of my favorite products to recommend to new role playing gamers. It contains everything for a lovely campaign in the Misty Vale. Free League Publishing recently released the first expansion for the game with Dragonbane Bestiary. For a game that’s steeped in classic fantasy role playing game presentation, a monster manual seems like the perfect fit. The company sent along a review copy for me to look over. Does the latest work from Magnus Seter, Mattias Johnson Haake, Andreas Marklund and Tomas Harenstam make me want to drop them into a campaign? Let’s play to find out.

Monster manuals are often a choice between quality and quantity. The more monsters fit inside a book the more options the Game Master has to find the book useful. But other bestiary books dive into the details of their creatures that they want passed onto the players. Dragonbane Bestiary lends a little closer to the latter style with each creature getting two pages in the book. This style takes advantage of one of Free League’s great strengths featuring full page David Brasgalla art that fits in with Johan Egerkrans’s art style seamlessly. Part of why I enjoy Dragonbane is the unique visual style and this book keeps that flame burning. In addition to the stat blocks and the attack charts, each monster gets two short hooks. One is for an encounter that can be slipped into one of the wandering monster charts used by the dungeons and the other as an adventure hook where the creature becomes central to that session’s story. These options are short but flavorful and feel very useful for getting these monsters out of the book and onto the table.

Monster books tend to be for the Game Master but Free League opens this book up to players. The first two chapters offer multiple new kin options. The nightkin make up the first chapter as goblins, hobgoblins, ogres and orcs get heroic traits to use as player characters. They do have to deal with a sunlight allergy (hence their name) but it seems pretty manageable for anyone wanted to play one of these green-skinned kin. The rare kin chapter includes cat people, lizard people, frog people and satyrs as player options. The most unusual choice is a karkion a flying cat-like demon beast with the power of flight. All of the playable choices fit under the rules for non-monsters so they don’t have an attack chart and mst roll to hit just like the players do. I suspect future releases will include more playable monsters like some of the insect kin featured in their own chapter.

The rest of the monsters walk the line between things fantasy players expect in these sorts of books, like trolls and zombies, to things that give the world a more unique flavor. A couple of the monsters feel like they are making a very special guest star lost from Vaesen like the dire boar or brook horse. Many monsters also come with discussion about their weaknesses or ways to avoid their encounters. Given how often players try to sneak past set piece encounters,I appreciate taking the time to tell Game Masters the best way to go about avoiding Dragonbane’s brutal combat.

While I like what I got in the book, there are two areas I would have liked to see. The first is more guidance on how to use monsters against parties of differing power levels. I understand that game balance is more art than science and the game doesn’t have a CR style setup, but it’s still nice to have a heads up about what monsters work under the minion rules and which work under the boss rules. I also would have liked to see some legendary enemies to help build out the backstory of the setting further. Liked the Ancient Dragon write up, but even a sidebar with the legend surrounding Arknarath your players have probably heard would be useful. This is stuff that experienced Game Masters can do, but given how newbie friendly the original boxed set is, it seems like a missed opportunity to develop the skills of those budding storytellers.

Dragonbane Bestiary will delight fans of the original boxed set with options on both sides of the screen.

 

[Von Ether]

The bestiary is great and and a must have for DB GMs. Pretty much all the standard fantasy monsters are covered and so you have enough types of critters to use and reskin for most of your standard fantasy adventures.

 

[aramis erak]

The new Kins are fun, and the monster depth is great. The breadth of the Giants, nightkin, and demons is welcomed.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I haven't read Dragonbane, but I've heard that creatures actions are randomly determined round to round. Could anyone give any more insight into how that works, and do the creatures in the new Bestiary have actions listed to work with this mechanic?

 

[Maggan]

I haven't read Dragonbane, but I've heard that creatures actions are randomly determined round to round. Could anyone give any more insight into how that works, and do the creatures in the new Bestiary have actions listed to work with this mechanic?

Each monster has a table of attacks. The GM rolls a die (often d6) to determine which attack the monster uses. The attacks are "automatical hits", so the GM just applies the effect (which may include saves to avoid damage).

Also, monsters have varying numbers of turns, from 1 to 3 per round (I believe 3 is the highest so far).

E.g. a dragon has "Ferocity: 3" which means it can act 3 times in a round, each time doing one attack and move once. The GM rolls on the table below if an attack is made.

D6	ATTACK
1	Dragon Roar! The dragon opens its mouth and lets out a chilling roar. All player characters within 20 meters suffer a fear attack, with a bane on the WIL roll.
2	Claw Attack! The dragon sweeps its claws at two player characters, who suffer 2D10 slashing damage each.
3	Dragon Wind! The dragon flaps its great wings and creates a powerful gale that strikes all adventurers within 10 meters. Any loose objects and creatures of up to human size in the whirlwind are hurled 2D6 meters, take the same amount of bludgeoning damage, and land prone.
4	Tail Strike! The dragon sweeps its spiked tail at its victims. All player characters within 6 meters suffer 2D8 bludgeoning damage and are knocked down.
5	Dragon Bite! The beast opens its great jaws and devours a victim with terrifying speed. The attack inflicts 4D10 slashing damage.
6	Fire Breath! The dragon towers over the player characters in all its splendor before unleashing a devastating storm of fire from its mouth. The fire forms a cone that is 10 meters long and whose width at any given point equals the distance from the dragon’s mouth. Any player character hit by the flames suffers 3D10 damage. Armor has no effect.

 

[Reynard]

Each monster has a table of attacks. The GM rolls a die (often d6) to determine which attack the monster uses. The attacks are "automatical hits", so the GM just applies the effect (which may include saves to avoid damage).

Also, monsters have varying numbers of turns, from 1 to 3 per round (I believe 3 is the highest so far).

E.g. a dragon has "Ferocity: 3" which means it can act 3 times in a round, each time doing one attack and move once. The GM rolls on the table below if an attack is made.

D6	ATTACK
1	Dragon Roar! The dragon opens its mouth and lets out a chilling roar. All player characters within 20 meters suffer a fear attack, with a bane on the WIL roll.
2	Claw Attack! The dragon sweeps its claws at two player characters, who suffer 2D10 slashing damage each.
3	Dragon Wind! The dragon flaps its great wings and creates a powerful gale that strikes all adventurers within 10 meters. Any loose objects and creatures of up to human size in the whirlwind are hurled 2D6 meters, take the same amount of bludgeoning damage, and land prone.
4	Tail Strike! The dragon sweeps its spiked tail at its victims. All player characters within 6 meters suffer 2D8 bludgeoning damage and are knocked down.
5	Dragon Bite! The beast opens its great jaws and devours a victim with terrifying speed. The attack inflicts 4D10 slashing damage.
6	Fire Breath! The dragon towers over the player characters in all its splendor before unleashing a devastating storm of fire from its mouth. The fire forms a cone that is 10 meters long and whose width at any given point equals the distance from the dragon’s mouth. Any player character hit by the flames suffers 3D10 damage. Armor has no effect.

I really liek this concept. I am excited to see how it works out in play. it does seem odd, though, that only "monsters" are like this and not all antagonists. I wonder what the thinking there is.

Now I just need to get my group to be willing to give it a try.

 

[Von Ether]

I haven't read Dragonbane, but I've heard that creatures actions are randomly determined round to round. Could anyone give any more insight into how that works, and do the creatures in the new Bestiary have actions listed to work with this mechanic?

To further clarify on Monster Attacks:

• No same attack twice in a row - which avoids spamming by accident or on purpose.
• A GM can choose or roll.
• Many monsters have "attacks" that are not a straight up attacks giving PCs other tests other than combat

And while the monsters in the chapter and book bestiary have Ferocity from 2-4 (that Giant Octopus, yo!), many of the adventures give an end boss monster more attacks - usually equal to the number of party members or that number -1.

This is in line with the core books advice of using Ferocity first to make monsters better or worse. They suggest using HP second. After a few fights it starts to click.