Ahh, I love the smell of a new book. Particularly one in which I have an author's credit, even if my contribution was a small one (the forsaken spirit, for those curious to know what). For which I received two copies, which also puts me in a good mood. But, I'll try not to let any of that unduly influence my review.
The Creature Collection III: Savage Bestiary is the latest in Sword and Sorcery Studios line of Scarred Lands monster books, this time focusing on the settings continents of Termana and Asherak. However, even if you're not playing in the Scarred Lands setting, most of the monsters in this book can readily be made use of with little to no alterations. Which, while I do make use of the Scarred Lands setting, is definitely a plus. It reaches a good compromise between maintaining the flavor of the campaign setting while simultaneously remaining a useful monster book to DM's who could care less about the Scarred Lands.
Furthermore, even after three decades worth of D&D monsters and who knows how many monster books for 3rd edition alone, there's still a number of new, inventive beasties to be found within. Sometimes a bit silly, sometimes a bit bland, but there all the same. Take a group of about, oh...I'll guess...almost one hundred authors, and there's bound to be a few gems amongst all their numerous ideas. The large number of authors is probably the books greatest advantage. Conversely, it's also possibly the books greatest weakness, when you have such a mixed bag of goodies and inspiration. So let's get the bad out of the way first, and then go into what I liked about the book.
The Bad
I have to say that some of the naming conventions are rather simplistic at times. This isn't always such a bad thing - Keep It Simple Stupid is a good rule of thumb - but sometimes the names came off as fairly bland or tepid. At other times, I was strongly reminded of Magic cards. While Magic: the Gathering is a good game and all, I have little urge to role-play in the card games setting. The name which most stuck out as coming off like a Magic card was the Battle Angel, though the celestials and fiends in general gave me a sense of Magic. Perhaps it's just me, though. Then there are just those overly simplistic names like the "glassilisk." In either case, I'm not overly fond of them, and think a bit more creativity could have been used in naming some of the creatures found within. At least none of the creatures within have a name that starts with the word blood, unlike the second Creature Collection, which had 10 in total.
This is entirely my own flavor preference, and Savage Bestiary certainly isn't guilty of starting this trend, but I'm not particularly fond of petitioners or, for that matter, outsiders like celestials and fiends being crafted out of dead souls. While this has at least been the case since Planescape, if not before then, and has cropped up in other products, Savage Bestiary frequently refers to outsiders being crafted from the dead souls of the devout. I suppose this is just my being influenced by In Nomine and the real worlds take on angels and demons, but mortal souls regularly being crafted into such creatures does nothing to win me over.
Dark Triumvirates: This isn't a monster but instead a trio of a Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil fiend working together, and the powers they gain from working together. While not necessarily a bad idea, the writing made the dark triumvirates, along with the settings gods of evil, come off like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or a group of cartoon super-villains.
The Slaver's Pet: This construct is essentially giant, robotic spider-car. Ahh...what the heck is it doing in here? Maybe it would work in the Iron Kingdoms, or even Eberron (not that I claim to know much about it), but I don't particularly like giant robot spider-cars in my fantasy settings and their books. I don't know many people who thought Wild Wild West was a good movie, either. If I want giant robot spider-cars, I won't be playing D&D. Easily the worst monster out of the bunch. But then there's also the...
Jungle Squid: A huge sized squid that lives not in the water, but instead, in the trees. What? That's just goofy. Bad goofy. They even talk. Well, so do krakens, but come on, really. Huge, talking, tree-dwelling squids? Huge, evil, talking, tree-dwelling squids? That I'm supposed to take seriously? Come on, not even the artist took that idea seriously; the picture really is amusing. The squid has this look of, "What the heck am I doing up here? In a tree?! Help!" I would ask the same about it being in the book.
Overseers: Psychic worgs. Evil, mind-reading wolves. Again. Silly.
Devil, Gladius: How subtle is a 10-foot tall lizard that talks, if it can't disguise the fact that it's a 10-foot tall talking devil-lizard? This monster is described as being subtle, yet is a large-sized devil that looks like a snake with legs and arms, and has no ability to alter its appearance. You can't have both. While it has a number of spells to charm people and can potentially access the Trickery domain, that's still not particularly subtle.
There's also a distinctive lack of humanoids and fey. This might not be a big deal to some, but I like my monsters to be capable of more than killing and dying. Not that other monster types can't do that, but humanoids and fey are generally geared towards being a bit more three-dimensional than many monsters.
Notably, there's also no table listing the monsters by Challenge Rating. I find one of the most helpful things to have on hand when my player's are traveling a good distance, and I'm trying to spice up the encounter for them, or even just to plan one out ahead of time, is a break down of monsters by Challenge Rating. Being able to quickly flip to all the CR 5 or 15 or whatever monsters is invaluable and lacking in here.
The Good
While those not interested in the Scarred Lands might care less about the first few pages of this book, to those who use the setting, they're rather nice to have. The book starts off by going into just how a number of different monster types fit into the Scarred Lands, and how they relate to the various gods and titans. It gives setting details on a few pre-existing monster types, such as angels, demons and devils, and goes into the new types of creatures which show up in the book, such as the lawful neutral outsiders, the intercessors. Some of these descriptions are rather brief - the part detailing how devils fit into the Scarred Lands is all of seven lines long - but for those who run games in the setting, it's a nice little addition to the book.
Although I haven't given the monsters in the book a good spin yet, from just my read through, they also seem fairly balanced. This is notable due to the first Creature Collection, which was just done abysmally, and even the Creature Collection Revised, where a severe lack of understanding about Level Adjustment was apparent. The CR's all seem about right, and the Level Adjustments seem to be taking into account monster Hit Die (even if a break down of the monsters as PC's is lacking).
Bees! Bees! All right, perhaps I'm getting unduly excited over bees, but there's a mundane bee swarm detailed within. All of a Challenge Rating of one, and perhaps something most people would scoff at, but I personally like to use mundane, real world monsters. I think it helps to make the more magical ones appear all that much more magical, and provides a good contrast. While I believe it's the only truly mundane monster in the book (there's also the dire hyena, which vaguely is, and possibly one or two other creatures that, while not real, are close to it), I rather do like the bee’s presence within Savage Bestiary.
Spontaneous Golems: While none of the golems themselves necessarily excited me, the concept of self-animating golems, without the need of a spellcaster, does catch my interest. Created when strong emotions attract the attention of the elemental spirits that normally animate golems, they're formed when those spirits willfully take residence in an item or items (be it gallows or a treasure hoard) that were the focus of those emotions.
Phoenixes: Three new phoenixes pop up in here, the autumn phoenix, the black phoenix and the storm phoenix. The first two in particular attracted my attention. The autumn phoenixes were once tied to all the seasons, but have since remained tied to the fall after the god of the high elves died. I for one am usually all for monsters tied to the Scarred Lands forsaken elves, particularly ones with a sense of tragedy to them - I'm an angst factory and you'll all feel my, ahh…wrath? Right. Then there's the black phoenix, a curious, and powerful, creature, which acts as a dark reflection to the normal phoenix. In the wake of the black phoenix rise the dead, animated by the presence of the mighty bird. These undead ceaselessly follow after the black phoenix, waiting for it to finally roost, at which point, they fall upon it and kill the bird. Once another bird dies where the black phoenix had, that bird rises up as the next black phoenix, and the cycle begins anew. Deliciously evil, if you ask me.
The Piper: I personally think the further away from traditional mythology and fairy tales one gets, and the more different and bizarre folk try to make their monsters, the worse they get. No, it's those creatures and characters that at least loosely stick to the good old archetypes and legends, but add their own twist, which most catch my interest. In this case, the Piper is a fey Pied Piper, evil, child stealing, and powerful beyond compare. Not that he goes around using that power like a club; no, he comes into villages in need, and makes a deal, offering to do some near-impossible deed for them, and asking some near-impossible to meet price in return for having it done. The villages, in need, almost always agree, and the Piper nearly always succeeds, potent as he is. When this happens, the villages inevitably find that they can't meet the Piper's price, having namely agreed to the bargain mainly because they figured the Piper couldn't possibly do what they needed done. When the village can't meet his demands, well, off the children go, taken by the Piper...
The point still stands, though: Putting a new spin on old archetypes and creatures is generally the best way to go, in my opinion, and for doing that with the Piper, Savage Bestiary gets a thumbs up from me. He's also more three-dimensional than many of the monsters in here which, as I already said, is what I look for.
In the same vein as the Piper, there's also the Dread Child, a type of Daemon that is exceptionally similar to Samara from The Ring. While some might believe taking inspiration from a movie to be rather uncreative, there's bound to be a number of DM's who see a movie like The Ring and want to run a game that integrates it into it. For those looking for a Samara-like figure, well, look no further than the third Creature Collection.
The Amusing
The Grillin: Thieving little monkeys with a fascination for magic items, I mainly note them for their picture, that of a monkey with a wand. It gave me a grin. That, and the thought of a group of PC's being jumped by a pack of wand of sleep wielding monkeys who want to do nothing more than loot them of their magic items before running off into the jungle.
The Forge Beast: It's a frog. It's an anvil. It's a frog-anvil. The description of the monster itself says that it looks rather comical. It's a mobile anvil. Unlike the jungle squid, the entire thing seems slightly tongue in cheek. So I don't mind it so much, and it really is amusing. Urbit.
Anyway, with all that said, time to wrap it up.
The artwork I found was fairly good. All black and white mind you, but I've never found that to be too big of a deal. There are a few poorly done pictures, such as the Unbegotten, or the Soulless, but for the most part, I think it's above average. The Living Bog has a dark kind of beauty to it, and the Hellfire Bloodshark is just a frightening sight. Good stuff, for the most part.
One thing that, while I suppose I understand, yet is still worth mentioning, is that this book is about twenty pages shorter than the last Creature Collection, and five dollars more. Even if you discount the fact that the last Creature Collection's extra twenty or so pages were primarily tables and lists, which Savage Bestiary could have probably used anyway, it's still five dollars more for the same number of pages. While definitely a superior buy to the Creature Collection, I'm not so sure that applies to the Creature Collection Revised, which is as near to a core monster book that the Scarred Lands has, or the Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie, which also has a few of the settings iconic monsters (the Sutak, most notably). For those who could give a hoot about the Scarred Lands...well, Savage Bestiary is written for 3.5, as opposed to just 3rd edition, like Dark Menagerie was. So there's that.
All told, I find the third Creature Collection, Savage Bestiary, to be a worthwhile book, with a number of monsters in it that I'll likely use or at least think about using, but nothing too spectacular. It's not the best monster book out there, but it's a fine addition to any Scarred Lands collection, or D&D monster books in general.
