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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2584740" data-attributes="member: 172">[imager]http://www.exp.citymax.com/i//WebsiteBBCover.JPG[/imager]A Magical Society: Beast Builder is a book providing conceptual and mechanical resources for the creation of new creatures for d20 fantasy games. The book is written by Joseph Browning and published by Expeditious Retreat Press; the book spins off of topics introduced in their book A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture.The book is available in both print and PDF format; this review is principally based on the print edition.A First LookA Magical Society: Beast Builder is available in hardcover and PDF format. The hardcover book has 224 pages and has an MSRP of $35.00. The PDF is available at RPGnow for $13.50 U.S.The cover of the book depicts some manner of feral looking creature leaping towards the viewer. The illustration is Kenshiro Suzuki, who illustrates comics in the UK.The interior is black-and-white. The illustrations predominantly picture new and in some cases bizarre creatures, possibly serving as a source of inspiration in their own right. Illustrators include Rick Hershey, Ash Jackson, Mates  Laurentiu, Michael LoPresti, and Jason Walton.A Deeper LookA Magical Society: Beast Builder is divided into 7 chapter, but most of these chapters can be fairly divided into two categories, which I would roughly call inspiration and implementation.The first two chapters are what I term inspiration. These chapters are along the lines of the material that appeared in Expeditious Retreat Press’s A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture regarding the role of different creatures in the environment.The first chapter, Monster Concepts and Functions provides a number of starting points when it comes to conceiving monsters. This can be further divided into sources of inspiration (such as “folklore and legend” and “fish out of water”) and more specific conceptual categories that existing d20 system monsters tends to fall into (such as confusers, disablers, etc.) This latter set of categories provides example creatures from the SRD and XRP’s own Monster Geographica: Underground, as well as providing a statistical breakdown of how many creatures of each type exist in the SRD.This analysis of monsters is interesting and potentially useful. Its primary use is probably primarily in considering which roles a creature concept is likely to fill. However, I think that it could even be potentially useful in considering how you deploy monsters; you might find that you are repetitively using monsters with similar capability and could afford a bit of variety (or, on the other hand, it could give you a theme to seek out and provide you with a list of appropriate creatures you could muster to provide that theme.The second chapter, Monsters and Their Environment comes at creature concepts less from the angle of how they fit in the game and more from the angle of how they fit in the game world. This is a good thing to me, as I see believable monsters as compelling ones; the fewer questions you raise about why a creature is where it is and why it does what it does, the less likely you are to remind players that they are just playing a game.The chapter discussing authentic ecological topics such as food webs and environments, and layers on top if it fantasy born theories about the role of magic and magical creatures in such a food chain. Sections devoted to specific environments describe which creatures with which characteristics are likely to exist in creatures that dwell in that environment. Most of the remaining chapters are, in essence, a rules breakdown of what goes into a monster. At first I was a little nonplussed by all this. After all, they are just parsing out what you already have in the SRD, right?Well, not quite. Yes, a lot of this information is gleaned or reprinted from the SRD. But a lot of painstaking analysis goes into these chapters. For instance, are you uncertain what ability scores to give your creatures? The section on ability scores lists minimum, average, and maximum ability scores for creatures given their size and CR, which can serve as a very useful guide for choosing appropriate ability scores for your creatures. Other topics covered are other creature statistics, creature types, template construction, and creature abilities (with a compilation of all the creature special attacks and qualities that appear in the SRD or Monster Geographica: Underground.The odd chapter here is the chapter on Bits and Peices. It describes some potential uses for a number of items harvested from creatures. Though the harvesting techniques aren’t simple, their uses are fairly straightforward and some of these can provide effects of spells with no further enchantment. I found these rules a bit weak; similar rules I have seen elsewhere (such as Monsternomicon and Advanced GMs Manual) have rules such as checks to harvest or know about the special bit or piece, which makes their use in game a little more practical.Finally, the book features three appendices. The second one seems to be the dud to me; it translates d20 target number to chance of success, something that strikes me as pretty straightforward math.The other two appendices are valuable, however. The first is a brief but useful walkthrough of a creature statistics blocks, describing things to check for to ensure that a creature that you have created can be all that it can be and has as few errors as possible.The third appendix is a “random(ish)” monster generators. It provides a selection of tables that can provide you with the creature type, attack modes, and special abilities of a monster. The results of these rolls can be used as inspirations or starting points for creature creation.ConclusionsThe audience for A Magical Society: Beast Builder is limited if apparent: if you have a hankering to create customized creatures for your game world, this book is for you. The book provides a bevy of useful tools and inspiration to help realize d20 system creatures.The above goes doubly if you have any intention of creating d20 system creatures for pay. I have seen more of the mistakes listed in the first appendix in various products I have reviewed than I care to mention.Overall Grade: B -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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