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Message: <blockquote data-quote="negativtoo" data-source="post: 2008862" data-attributes="member: 1918">Creatures of Rokugan ? Hmmm, $25 for a non-hardcover, b/w interior art Monster collection of roughly 112 pages ? Not the best of bargains, at first glance, it seems. But then again, AEG has produced some outstanding supplements for L5R so it might be worth its price.Following on the heels of Rokugan, CoR has a similar extrerior, albeit being not a hard cover, with a vivid image of superior quality depicting a ferocious monster. Unfortunately, this is the best piece of artwork of the entire book - the interior art has a palish b/w look to it, is more cluttered and IMHO, some of the weakest to be found in any AEG suppelemnt for the L5R setting ( especially in compüparison to the great art in 'Rokugan'). The illustrations frequently fail to convey the spirit, size and even attitude of the creature depicted. As many of the creatures are probably entirely unknown to the reader, this represents a serious handicap.The composition  of the 112 pages is about 80 pages of creatures, 2 pages of rule changes/additions inherent to the rokugan setting, and 30 pages of PC/NPC races added material like PrCsAs for the creatures themselves, they span the gamut from several humanoid races ( Trolls, Ashalans, Mountain goblins, Kenku ( basically tengu with a new name....), Aberrations ( mostly of the "too-many-limbs-for-comfort" variety ), Undead , Several ( 2 dozens ?) Oni and elemental Terrors. Added are some huge beasties , some unique, many very rare, with exceedingly high CRs. There are usually 2 monsters per page, and with accompanying illustrations ( roughly two-thirds ) things become cluttered fast. leaving little space for a creature's background and possible application in a campaign.  Also many creatures are unique, limited to a specific area (such as the whole array of shadowland parasites, plants and inhabitants  ). There are three pages of the Oni lords ruling Jigoku ( basically Rokugani hell ), but no stats for them at all.....perhaps for the better, but what then are they doing in a creature collection ? In the end, there are too many creatures in too little space, and several of these are of little if any practical use ( I mean, how often are your players going to meet and fight CR 15, 17, 20, 25 and even higher opposition ?). Also both non-human Player races from the settings books ( the Naga and Nezumi) get 2 or more pages, with basically repeated/redundant information.... Oh well ! Also, due to the less than sterling illustrations, it is often difficult to find a specific critter fast, or to remember its distinctive featureswhen looking for it. As among all the clutter are some pretty cool creatures this is truly a shame.Following the creature listings are a series of templates, for ghosts (Goryos  - pretty nice and useful, much could hgave been done by providing similar templates for more ghost types), a naga-aberration ( of very limited use.....), a template for creating oracles ( nice, but basically a CR-20 creature has limited use for its stats), Shadow Samurai ( useful, but a terrible misnomer, this actually deals with shadowland undead, not minions of the shadow ) and two more templates for madman and ancestor ghosts (useful). Basically this is the strongest part of CoR (and a whole 8 pages long... 8(  ), but it does not truly belong into THIS book !The Appendices deal with some Naga and Nezumi Prestige classes,  an(N)PC class and rules for playing Tainted characters, some swift information on the many spirit realms, 2 entire pages of tables showing NPC development for certain classes (mind you, not those in this book ), and another 2 pages of general roleplaying hints. AHEM !!!! Even while some of this stuff is useful, almost all of it does belong into the Rokugan setting book, or at least someplace else, not a creature collection. They take up almost 20% of the whole frxedgfsfgj book ! And seeing how short shrifted  and cluttered some of the creatures in the main part are being presented , that is inexcusable ! Oh, and then they waste another 2 pages on the OGL stuff....ResumeeCoR falls far short of the expectations it raises. The L5R setting has beeen around for 5 years, and in all those years there no useful collection of creatures for Rokugan/L5R was published, out of 20(?) supplements. Therefore expectations were high ! What gets delivered is expensive ($25 bucks is not change), sub-standard in its execution (clutter, poor artwork, lack of background, balance of creatures delivered ) and the amounts delivered are strangely proportioned. As a silver lining, some ( just some...) stuff is pretty good, and compared to the almost total absence of information on rokugani beastsand wildlife.this has its uses. But in all honesty, the 20 pages of monsters in the OA book do a far better job....2 out of 5</blockquote>

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