Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie
Sword & Sorcery Studios is well known for having one of the first major D20 System products. It is also known for having one of the best D20 System products.
Note that when I say that, I am speaking of two different books.
S&SS gained a good degree of notoriety for releasing the Creature Collection (CC I) book before the D&D 3e Monster Manual came out. The book made did make quite a splash for its early appearance, and it provided many 3e DMs with some fresh takes on creature for their games. Still, the book’s rush to market was telling. It is still derided for some of its truly poor artwork. More importantly, due to its early release date and the designers’ attendant lack of mastery of the system, many of the book’s creatures had errors in their treatment under the D20 System.
S&SS is also well known for the Relics & Rituals (R&R) book. R&R is a magic sourcebook for both general use by D&D 3e players and for the Scarred Lands setting that S&SS is producing. A large portion of R&R was based on fan submissions. Despite this, R&R was of outstanding qualities. The book showed that the authors had learned a little since CC I, and had the editorial and D20 System expertise to synthesize a doubtlessly varied batch of fan submissions into a high quality D20 System sourcebook.
Given this, S&SS’s second creature book was awaited with much anticipation. Many who appreciated their earlier efforts were anxious to see if S&SS could effectively apply their newfound expertise to a creature book. Hopes are high. But are they too high?
A First Look
Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie (CC II) is a 244 page hardbound book. Like WotC and many of its imitators, the book has a cover image made to resemble some ancient tome; in this case the book is made to appear as if made from the skin of some green scaly creature.
The interior is black and white and thoroughly illustrated with at least one image per creature. On the whole, the quality of the art is good, but seemed more illustrative than evocative. Few pictures had the effect of bringing a concept to life that (as an example from a recent work by WotC) Wayne Reynolds’ artwork in Tome & Blood did.
The use of space is slightly above average. The margins are average in size, and illustrated with the same “cracked” pattern that adorns all Scarred Lands products. The white space is moderate. Most entries show little white space, but there is some on the trailing end of entries that don’t end on a page break.
The font size used varied from entry to entry. It seems as if ensuring that the entries used exactly 1 or 2 pages was a primary consideration. This probably wastes some space, but gives it a layout that is more comfortable to read and use than WotC’s 3e Monster Manual.
As with prior Scarred Lands D20 System / OGL products, each entry is split into description and combat sections which mark the dividing line between the copyrighted material and the open game content. Probably more importantly if you are not running a game in the Scarred Lands and you are not looking to make your own OGL products, this clearly divides the Scarred Lands specific material from the game mechanical content.
A Deeper Look: Breaking it down.
As befits the subject matter, the bulk of CC II consists of creatures for the D20 System. My quick count shows a total of 169 creatures and templates.
It’s hard to quickly sum up the creatures in a book like this, but alas I shall try. A quick breakdown of creature types is as follows.
Outsiders
There are many entries for outsiders in the book. A majority of these creatures are servants of the various deities of the scarred lands, and most of the ones depicted are evil (which are the ones you were most likely to use anyways, right?)
The same general alignment oriented demon / devil dichotomy that is used by the 3e MM (demons are chaotic evil and devils are lawful evil) is used here. However, as these creatures are primarily servants of the three major evil deities of the scarred lands, and there is one such deity for each evil alignment, the book resorts to using the archaic 1st edition title of “daemon” for neutral evil outsiders. The Planescape-inspired titles that are now part of the standard D&D conventions are not used here.
There are a number of outsiders that for one reason or another don’t fit into the standard “three D’s” convention. Some are just plan combatants or other servants of the various deities. Others fit a specific theme, such as three “dream creatures” that are servants of the demigod of dreams. There are oddities like the Slarecian Gatekeeper, a creature summoned specifically for its ability to provide instantaneous transportation. And alas, there are some creatures in this book that actually aren’t evil.
My picks from this category:
Daemon, Grisly Minstrel: The most fiendish seeming of the evil outsiders, the grisly minstrel is the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a giant cricket. It has a good background concept, set of abilities, and a creepy feel.
Daemon, Plague Angel: Probably the best of a batch of plague-themed creatures in the book.
Demon, Blood Horror: At the core of this creature’s concept is an interesting (to DMs) / frightening (to players) ability. Wounds from blood horrors resist being totally healed by any means short of a heal spell, and they continue to bleed each day. This ability is somewhat like the wounding magic weapon ability, but even more insidious.
Darkling Sentinel: A straightforward but interesting concept, the darkling sentinel is a crystalline creature. It is interesting in that when it can struck, it can voluntarily shatter and reform to avoid most of the damage from the blow.
Shackledeath: This skeleton-like creature has a number of shackles attached to it. It can attack with the shackles. The shackledeath can use spell-like abilities on creatures trapped by the shackles – the more shackles attached to the creature, the worse the ability it can use.
Constructs
There are many constructs in the book, most of them cast as instruments of terror during the titanswar. Many are truly odd but somehow fail to invite themselves into my game. Some make the cut though. My picks from the constructs are:
Golem, Serpent: There are a few golems in the book patterned after the fearsome magic-resistant golems from the 3e MM. This one is both odd enough to notice and good enough to used. The serpent golem is a mass of writhing snakes that acts as a single creature. The golem is only affected by certain spells that affect snakes and can be healed by summoning snakes and ordering them to join the mass.
Ioun Beholder: Another rather odd construct. I don’t know if I would use it in a game, but it sounds like an interesting concept but probably only a one-shot sort of thing. The ioun beholder masquerades as crystal ball but is actually more like a cursed crystal hypnosis ball. If it can get its owner to collect a number of ioun stones, it animates and takes control of the ioun stones, and can use them to project rays like a beholder.
Undead
As CC II is focused at dark and creepy creatures, this is one of the biggest categories along with outsiders and aberrations. Some of the undead ideas we have seen before elsewhere, such as burned ones (a flaming skeleton variant, which has been done in 3e in both the Diablo II books and in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). Some are fresh, interesting, and campaign portable. Here are my picks from the undead:
Skull king: The skull king is a skeletal figure with 2-4 skulls floating above the remainder of its body. It is depicted as sort of a behind the scenes puppeteer and can cast multiple spells each round. It casts spells as a sorcerer, but I think to make the “puppeteer” image complete I would allow it levels of the mindbender prestige class from Tome & Blood.
Shadowlord: Actually, I didn’t care for it but I know many people will like it and find it useful. The shadowlord is sort of a super-shadow with spell like abilities largely related to shadows.
Abberations
In many ways, this is the catch all category, and you would think that it would get used a fair bit amidst all of the titan-spawn that we were promised and odd creatures we expect in this book. There are a few, and they have all the bizarreness and unkind nature you might expect, from the blade handed blood reaper to the gory bloodman. (Did I mention that a blood theme gets a lot of use in this book?)
Arcane Symbiote: A creature that can attach itself to a spellcaster and allow the character to use its abilities… for a price. Also comes in a parasitic variant for less kind DMs.
Sundered Mage: Strange concept with a strange picture. The sundered mage were a titan-spawn race that another one of the titans experimented with. Basically, the creature has two faces, and can even split into two less powerful creatures.
Humanoids, Monstrous Humanoids, and Giants:
There are a variety of these, mostly new races that crawl the face of the Scarred lands, plus new variants of races you saw the last time around – hags and ratmen. Many of the races are creations of the titans or the gods who struggled against them.
Some of my picks – and one pan:
Piscean: A new aquatic race with a variety of subraces. You may already have enough sea-dwelling creatures if you use sahaugin, merfolk, etc. But the pisceans would fill the role of larger ogre-type humanoids.
Skin Weaver: A very cool concept for an NPC race with an interesting ability, skin weavers are a race with the ability to make items from other creatures. These items grant them a random ability of the creature to the skinweaver.
Face Stealer: This one’s pretty hideous. And it does just what it says – removes a creatures face, leaving it with no face other than nostrils. Victims are blind, deaf, and soon die from starvation unless the condition is cured. (Did anyone else have flashbacks to the ST:TOS issue Charlie X?)
Carnival Krewe: Though I’m not a big fan of the Carnival Krewe creatures, I understand that many people like the ones appearing in CC I. Three new Carnival Krewe members appear in CC II. Of these, my favorite is the Dark Harlequinn.
Haglings: The concept is good enough – some hags retain maternal instincts and decide to steal children and subject them to the same transformation they went through. However, the artwork makes them seem to cutesy and really killed the concept for me. They looked like trick-or-treaters!
Fey
There are a few fey in here, and they are used well to display the corrupted nature of the land in the Scarred Lands setting. The best example and my pick from this section is:
Sundered Woman: This is sort of a creepy creature. It is a dryad like entity whose forest home was corrupted or destroyed during the titanswar. Not only are they driven to madness, their condition gives them a hideous appearance of continually opening and resealing wounds on their body, which they seem oblivious too. This one would be bound to elicit some sort of response from the players.
Beasts, Magical Beasts, and Vermin
There are a variety of these, and these are possibly the most campaign portable creatures.
Blade Beast: This unusual magical beast can actually absorb bladed weapons into its body when struck, and then reuse them as its own body parts / attacks.
Fleshstrippers: These unsettling rodents have a bite that anesthetizes the victim. Their victim may not even notice that they are being eaten alive.
Shadowcat: A naturally invisible great cat, the shadowcat is cloaked in invisibility that cannot be purged or dispelled. The only indication is that in bright light, it casts a shadow.
Plants and Hazards
Surprisingly, there are some of these. There are a few of the “carnivorous tree / vine” variety, but some fresh takes as well:
Spectral Plant: These are undead plants that existed in regions plagues by demons or fallen afoul of necromantic rites. They are normally incorporeal and normally invisible, but if anyone walk through them, the flicker briefly and have the effect of an energy drain on the unfortunate person walking through.
Shapechangers
There are a few in the book. My favorite is a category of creatures called vermin hosts. They are mostly former worshippers of Vangal who have been infested by vermin. Now they can change form be become a swarm of vermin. As interesting (and creepy) as the concept sounds, I think it would have worked better as a template so you could make any creature like this.
Templates
CC II has a good selection of templates. Here are a few of my favorites:
Belsameth Spiders: An odd (okay, hideous) version of undead, Belsameth spiders appear as a head mounted on spidery legs. They can spread their horrific condition by killing creatures with their poisonous bite.
Conundrum Creature: Creatures cursed by the powerful unique sphinx Athentia, creatures with the conundrum creature template become constructs, living puzzles. They can speak no words except for the one riddle that can return them to their original state. Their curse can be lifted if all of the pieces are assembled and their riddle is correctly answered. The template is a bizarre but compelling concept, and the possibilities of how these creatures are used and abuses are well explored in the text.
Appendices
Finally, the book has some appendices. First is a list of all creatures in the MM, CC I, and CC II by CR. Second, and more welcome, are revised monster summoning tables that include new creatures presented in the book as options for use with summoning spells.
Conclusions
Overall, I found this to be a fairly good book. My expectations were perhaps a little higher than the mark, but I still find the art quality up to snuff this time and didn’t notice the same type of inexperienced rules gaffs that cropped up with such great frequency as CC I. The creatures are largely campaign portable, and you should be able to fish out some odd new denizens for your campaign here.
Edit: After extensive experience playing with this book, I have decided to up its score to a 5. CCII is one of the few monster books I use that has a wide variety of neat ideas for creatures that contribute to the adventure-building process without coming off goofy or trite. Definitely one of the best monster supplements.
