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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2009432" data-attributes="member: 2205">Creatures of Rokugan is yet another monster book.  Obviously, for anyone using that setting, the book will be pretty important.  I bought it -- and I suspect many others who do so are like me -- just to have more monsters I could use in any setting.  If the book failed on that front, frankly, it failed completely to be useful to me.Luckily, the book works quite well in most settings.  There is some setting specific info here: a little bit of background on Rokugan is given at the very beginning, including new monster subtypes, and some Rokugan "planar" information is also given at the back.  There are also Rokugan-specific prestige classes in an appendix in the back, although they could be fairly easily transported into another setting.  There are a few rules that, unfortunately, you seem to have to have the Rokugan Campaign Setting to use, which I think is silly bordering on downright unacceptable, but for the most part you can simply pretend those rules aren't mentioned, and get by just fine.  A few creatures, however, have feats that you don't recognize.  This is an automatic deduction for the book for me -- it likely would have had a 5 without this error, even though it's fairly small in scope.  Some other entries, like the Shadowlands madman template, or the lying darkness template, are very campaign specific, and may not work for everyone without significant rejigging of the background and possibly many fo the creature's abilities as well.The rest of the book is good enough to warrant a 4, though, I think.  I'm a firm believer in good art for monster books.  Creatures of Rokugan did a good thing, I think, in retaining only one interior artist for the entire book.  Sure, some of his work isn't as good as other pieces, but overall, the consistent quality and style really helps, when books by companies like White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast for example, both delight and at the same time frustrate by their widely varying styles and quality of their art.Some stand-out creatures (because how else do you really describe the contents of a monster book?) include the elemental terrors -- an entirely new class of outsider foes, various oni (spread throughout the book, depending on how they are named) -- another substitute for demons and devils, and also mostly done well, new and interesting fey like the kenku, kitsune or the bakeneko, a number of unusual undead creatures (such as the eye-encrusted mokumokuren, various weird interpretations even of standard creatures like goblins -- they have one who's arm is a mass of tendons and bones without flesh or skin, for instance.As I said, the book works quite well as a standard book.  In fact, I was somewhat surprised that more creatures didn't have an oriental feel to them other than the name, and wouldn't look out of place in the least in a more "occidental" campaign.  The prestige classes, and many of the templates, are more specific to Rokugan than most of the other material here, and you have to accept that there are all-new types of things like outsiders, for example, to make use of them, but otherwise I have no reservations in recommending this book for someone who wants more -- and slightly different -- monsters for any campaign.</blockquote>

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