Reviewer's Bias:
I received a review copy of this product.
Update, 12/29/04:
Ancient Awakenings Publications has updated this product, and I have appended my comments on the updates below —– twice, in fact, as I don't seem to be able to edit my comments.
Dryden: Hero or Horror is a 57-page PDF product from Ancient Awakenings Publications that presents a new race, the titular Drydens, for use in any d20 campaign, whether it's fantasy, modern, or future. First things first, the book itself is intended for mature audiences -- some of the art contains nudity and adult situations (actually,
all the border art contains nudity) and some of the topics dealt with inside can be disturbing (the Dryden use other races to incubate their young, which means that the PDF considers their reproduction habits). John Bowden, the author of the book, acknowledges and explains this in a sidebar with his Foreword, and, on the whole, I think his warning overstates the case a little bit, although the book's certainly not for kids. That said, better to be safe than sorry, I suppose, and Bowden's certainly on the money when he reminds DMs that "just because you don't find something 'offensive' does not mean your players will think the same way. Think of others before using some aspects of this book." A good caveat, and one that holds for my review. I didn't find the material offensive but do suggest that consumers think carefully about their campaign and group before buying this book. The
preview (1.91 MB PDF) posted online comes highly recommended for this reason.
Moving along, the cover art, by Fil Kearney, depicts a female Dryden grinning maliciously at the viewer, her arms, legs, and hair devolving into vines. Kearney clearly has talent, although the cover art did little for me. The interior art, by Brad McDevitt, Brian Laframbroise, and Rick Hershey varies in quality, but is generally strong. I much preferred it to the cover art and particularly liked pieces on page 21 (a trio of fantasy Dryden portraits), 30 (a female Dryden in bed with a rather surprised man), and 47 (a Dryden hunting a man on a spaceship -- reminded me of
Alien, actually). The layout is clean, with each page framed by vines, which are attached to a female Dryden. This is one of the better pieces in the book, but it's on every page, so its impact is lessened quite a bit -- a judicious use of it, perhaps only on the first page of each chapter, with vines for borders on the rest of the pages, would have felt better to me. Simply put, it's too much art for every single page. Occasional rules sidebars are in bright green boxes or blocks using bright green ruled-lines -- a bit bright, especially given the very lowkey green used in the borders and headers, but serviceable. Other than that, I would have preferred full justification in the columns of text, but appreciate the consistency of all other stylistic choices and the PDF's freedom from intrusive errors (although "Foreword" is misspelled "Forward" in the Table of Contents and a later reference to "this version of the Dryad" instead of "this version of the Dryden" are somewhat unfortunate).
As for content, the first section covers the Dryden as a race, modeled through the use of the Born Dryden feat (character has Dryden blood and may take advantage of the hybrid form) and the Dryden class (allows development of Dryden abilities and access to the tangle form). The class itself has moderate saves and poor BAB, coupled with a limited amount of skills and low number of skill points. Characters taking it make a huge sacrifice in these areas in order to gain new some potent racial abilities. Drydens gain new abilities through the selection of talents, which belong to various talent trees: Reformation, Malleable, Tendrils, and Shapechange. I really liked the first two, which allow the reformation of lost limbs and the adjustment of the body to move through tiny spaces. The other two didn't grab me as much. Shapechange was kind of puzzling to me (why would a Dryden be able to shapechange like a Druid?), and I was a little bit leery of the mechanics of some of the Tendrils talents. For instance, Area Attack allows the Dryden to attack everything within a ten by ten foot square (this includes the square the Dryden is in), but, rather than having the Dryden make attack rolls, the victims make Reflex saves based on the Dryden's BAB (which is still used to determine how many victims need to make saves). This seemed odd to me, as the Kyton's Dancing Chains ability is similar and uses the Kyton's BAB for attacks -- there's a precedent set for one mechanic, but the ability uses a different one, which I found kind of odd. Bonus Damage also seemed a bit off as it's essentially bonus damage on all attacks, but one that might work far better in play than it seems to on the page (the requirements are fairly steep: three different talents, meaning that it's not available until 4th level and caps at +4d6 damage at 10th, assuming that the Dryden takes it every other level from 4th on).
The class itself is followed by information on mating, the Dryden's Mating attack, gestation and pregnancy, and then three sample settings. All this worked well for me, although the recommendation that a normal (9 month) term be used for fantasy games, an accelerated (1 month) term for modern, and an instantaneous term be used for future games struck me as a bit odd -- granted, these are the times that match genre conventions most closely, at least as far as I'm familiar with them, but I would think that the real choice here is not how long you want the pregnancy to be, so much as how scary/dangerous you want the Dryden to be. To me, the longer gestation period makes the Dryden seem more benign (something which is made explicit in the fantasy sample setting, where the Dryden are benevolent plant/animal tribesmen), with the Dryden becoming more horrific and evil as the term shortens (the instantaneous option has the baby ripping its way out of the mother and devouring her, with a rather vivid illustration to boot). For a GM using this, I'd suggest keeping this in mind as you design your campaign, rather than the recommendations here.
The three sample settings, one for fantasy, modern, and future games, are interesting and have enough depth to be useful. A short piece of fiction precedes each setting, establishing some of the conflicts and tones to be taken up in that section. The fiction is competent and serves its purpose fairly well. Each setting presents the Dryden in a different way. In the case of the fantasy setting, the Dryden are peaceful villagers allied with tribes of elves; in the modern setting, the results of government experimentation escaped and living in secrecy; and in the future setting, sadistic sexual predators aiming for galactic domination. I liked the first two sections very much. The fantasy section, with its Dryconians (evil half-dragon/humanoid drydens) and bestial Drydens (animal/Dryden crosses) was neat and could be part of a very nice campaign arc centering on themes of tolerance and environmentalism, where the party has to deal with the peaceful Drydens and the violent Dryconians of the dragon Bereverak and confront their preconceptions of the race. The modern setting, however, including the Dryden safe house, was my favorite part of the book and has a nice thematic subtlety. I found both of these to be extremely portable to most campaigns, as they allow for the muting of the sexual themes as necessary. The future setting, which is, by far, the most explicit in its detailing of Dryden biology and gestation, was the least interesting to me, as it eliminates a lot of the grey areas that made the fantasy and modern sections so appealing to me. The twin Dryden presented, Mischief and Malice, were nice NPCs with an interesting background, but, again, are essentially evil and probably only good for one or two scares in a campaign before the party attacks them on sight.
In the end, I could see myself using
Dryden: Hero or Horror's sample fantasy and modern drop-in settings in most of my campaigns -- it adds something horrific and twisted to the background that can be easily modified based on my group's tastes. I'm less enamored of the future setting presented here, as it oversimplifies the case, eliminating the potential for moral grey areas, at least as it is presented here -- these Dryden are just bad folks, which is far less interesting to me than the other cases. Mechanically, the ideas are mostly sound and the book gives a fantastic amount of context to these mechanics, creating a nice, three-dimensional race ready for use in any campaign looking for a touch of horror and tentacles.
Score: 4.5 - My mechanical concerns and lukewarm feeling on the future section have knocked the score down from a full five.
