Crossbreeding

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Crossbreeding is a sourcebook on magical inter-species breeding to create new varieties of monstrous creatures and is the thirteenth in Mongoose Publishing's Encyclopaedia Arcane series.

Crossbreeding is a 64-page mono softcover product costing $14.95. A fairly wide right-hand margin and double spacing between paragraphs is somewhat balanced by the use of the inside covers for a range of tables. The art is generally (but not always) appropriate to the text and the artwork depicting the various creatures is particularly evocative and atmospheric, including the chimera escaping from its cage on the front cover. The writing style is eloquent and engaging, and clear in its rules explanations. Editing seems good, with occasional minor errors.

Magical Crossbreeding: An Overview
This chapter takes a broad look at magical crossbreeding, including motivations for those who practice the art (why create a new species, why recreate a crossbred race?), the differences between polymorphing and crossbreeding, and the type of person that might practice crossbreeding, including what others' perceptions of the crossbreeder tend to be.

Designing Magical Crossbreeds
This chapter takes creature attributes apart and allows the possibility of building up a creature trait by trait from the chosen creatures. Ability scores, size, creature type (with a table showing which types are retained in a crossbreeding with another creature type), HD, Initiative, Speed, AC, attacks and damage, face and reach, special attacks and qualities, saving throws, and skills and feats all have their own section with advice on how to pick and choose between the creatures' traits and the result of those decisions. There are also sections on the secondary stat block (climate, alignment, challenge rating, treasure, advancement, organisation), personality, and naming considerations. There is also a short sidebar dealing with templates.

Transmutation Rituals
This chapter begins by looking at the equipment and preparation required for magical crossbreeding - information on laboratories, test subjects, tranquilisers and research notes is given, as well as some notes on possible useful magical items (detailed later in the book). Nine different transmutation rituals are then discussed, though more are possible. These include the use of magical circles, runes inscribed on the body of the creatures, magical mirrors, burning the creatures and mingling their ashes in a magical maelstrom, and several other means of amalgamating the two creatures. Each method has certain requirements for the caster of the ritual, along with advantages and disadvantages of the described method.

Creating Magical Crossbreeds
This chapter contains guidelines for setting the DC for any magical crossbreeding and the roll required to perform the ritual effectively. A Creature Type Modifier table shows the modification to the DC for merging different creature types. Tabular guidelines for adjusting the DC based on any size or feature adjustments to the creature are also given. The wizard's level, intelligence and practice can modify the roll. Various things can go wrong with the procedure and this chapter gives a range of possibilities, in the form of random tables, of abnormalities and defects that can occur. A step-by-step example of magically crossbreeding a diminutive toad familiar with a tiny monstrous spider to create a Spidertoad Familiar is given.

Advanced Procedures
This chapter looks at self-hybridisation (and its advantages and disadvantages compared to polymorph self), reverse crossbreeding (getting rid of defects caused by an erroneous crossbreeding ritual), multistage crossbreeding (adding an additional (third or more) creature to a hybrid), and crossbreeding with more than two progenitors (using three or more base creatures to create a multi-hybrid).

Magic Items
There are also eight magic items to aid in magical crossbreeding, such as a focusing mirror (used in magical mirror transmutation rituals) and stasis rugs, which allow crossbreeders to keep their victims still during the transmutation process.

Sample Hybrids
The remainder of the book (nearly half) is taken up with over twenty examples of hybrid creatures, created from magical crossbreeding. The entries include information on the progenitors (base creatures) used, the transmutation ritual DC, and the material costs of creation. Examples include the Fisher Tree (created from a roper and a treant), Gorgotaur (gorgon and minotaur), Haemovorid (pixie and stirge), Ooze Hound (riding dog and grey ooze), Psionaga (mind-flayer and water naga), and a worgoblin (worg and goblin).

The book finishes with some designer's notes (where the author explains his decision to not add to the list of skills and cause a wizard to waste valuable skill points, by not creating a Crossbreeding skill). It also has a crossbreeding worksheet for creature design.

The High Points:
For me, the delight of this book as a GM was all the possible creatures this system will allow me to create, and the sample creatures given really stimulate the imagination on this level. The system provides a solid rules base for wizard characters who wish to pursue crossbreeding in-game, and the rituals described, whilst leaving it open for the GM to design her own, are imaginative and present a range of possible plot hooks and adventure ideas in and of themselves.

The Low Points:
A question one has to ask, is how many players are actually going to want to use this book? And how many GMs want their players using this book? I would think it would appeal more to GMs with its innate plot hooks, expanded possibilities for transmuted creatures and the hybrid samples given - the crossbreeder would make a good NPC. Having said that, it may still appeal to groups who enjoy a slower-paced game and enjoy experimenting with creating new spells, magic items and the like.

Conclusion:
An interesting and unusual book that opens a great can of half-worms half-scorpions as far as possibilities for new monsters goes. On the whole, probably of more use to GMs than players but may suit a group of creative players with an experienced GM.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Ever wondered how creatures such as the Cockatrice, Chimera and Hydra came into being? This tome of the Encyclopaedia Arcane holds all the answers, and allows competent spellcasters to create their own magical creatures. With complete rules on mixing and matching body parts, how to breed bizarre creations and make modifications at a very base level, Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding sets new standards for creature mutability. Whether used by players to gain a vital edge on their enemies or Games Masters seeking to create a nightmare scenario, this tome is the most complete of its type available.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Pluses
+ Quality professional-level game supplement.
+ Detailed without sacrificing simplicity; excellent coverage of the immediate topic.
+ Good for beginning game masters interested in monster design.
+ Nice price.

Minuses
- Some interior art work is just adequate; one piece seems out of place.
- Additional topics, such as adventure and crossbreeding campaign ideas, could have been explored but would have made for a longer possibly more expensive work.

The premise for this ingenious game supplement is so simple how could anyone have missed doing it before now?! The designer mentions that the idea for this work started with an article idea in 1996. Someone clearly missed the boat...until now. This excellent work provides everything players and game masters need to play a fantasy version of genetic engineering and/or gene splicing using two or more monstrous subjects. The author goes way beyond the call of duty in examining every possible avenue, from the reasons why a wizard would want to mix it up monster-wise to maintaining game balance by considering every possible rules angle. This excellent supplement is attractive, through, detailed yet simple, and provides a great frame work for campaign expansion into this uniquely exciting area.

Physical Details
The supplement is a standard 64 pages in length with color art on the cover and black and white art inside. The black back cover is engaging and accurately informs you about what you will find inside. The appealing cover art depicts a crossbred monster escaping from a cage near a terrified jailor, with other monsters in cages in the background. Its cost is $14.95. The interior art is adequate in the first half of the book while the drawings in the latter half, i.e. the monsters section, are stunning depictions of crossbred monsters. The interior edges are bordered by attractive gray-scale art. The text, table, and statistical block layouts are clear, almost error free and easy on the eyes. The selected type faces and arrangement of all elements are attractive and the work overall is of professional-level quality well worth the cost.

Content Details
Crossbreeding is divided into several expertly written sections:

The Introduction provides a very familiar backdrop using the owlbear as the classic key example of magical crossbreeding. This monster is used as the prime example throughout the rest of the work, knitting all the sections very neatly together and adding well to the comprehension of the subject matter at hand.

The Overview continues with the owlbear example and goes on to explain the reasoning behind a desire for creating magical crossbreeds, why alternatives such as polymorph spells will not work, what classes of wizards practice the art, etc. The overview provides the general fictional and game framework for the sections to come.

The Designing Magical Crossbreeds section provides the details related to planning the monster mix from their base ability scores to all the other details of the monster stat block. Here you will decide what the monster will look like and its relevant stats. Thoughtful guidelines are provided for making decisions for every item in the block including size, type, hit dice, initiative, speed, armor class, attacks and damage, face and reach, special attacks and qualities, saves, skills and feats. The secondary stat block is also addressed, making it possible to add crossbreeds as permanent residents to the game world.

The Transmutation Rituals section features details on required equipment, facilities (i.e. the laboratory), how the test subject should be prepared and mention is made of useful magic items detailed in a later section. Nine distinct and creative transmutation rituals are provided in fine detail, loaded with adjectives, bringing each of the processes clearly to the imagination. Guidelines for creating your own rituals are also provided, though it would be difficult to top those provided.

The Creating Magical Crossbreeds section is the game-mechanical guts of the work providing the means for calculating the rates of success and associated bonuses and penalties. Costs for experimentation are also provided. The most interesting part is what actually happens during success, partial-successes, and failures. Tables for abnormalities and defects are also provided. The section ends with a very useful detailed example of combining a toad and a spider. The artwork on the last page of the example is the most disappointing thing about this section. It is noticeably incongruous since the monster depicted is not the spider/toad crossbreed?

The Advanced Procedures section covers such topics as self-experimentation (the wizard combining himself with a monster), reversing the process (the undo) particularly in light of failure, multistage crossbreeding (combining crossbreeds with other crossbreeds) and transmuting more than two monsters at one time (the chimera being the classic example here).

The Magic Items section contains 8 inventive magic items useful in one or more of the transmutation processes. The art work in this section is also good depicting each item in fine detail. Since these items are specific to crossbreeding they would not be useful in the campaign otherwise.

The Sample Hybrids section is for true monster lovers. This section contains a whopping 21 new crossbred monsters. Even if the crossbreeding concept has absolutely no appeal, here is a wealth of new monsters available for immediate addition to your campaign. Need a blood-thirsty flying shark with bat wings? How about a lightening-breathing hydra? What about a sinister water-dwelling mind flayer with the body of naga (the picture of this one causes a definite double-take)?

The Designer’s Notes section gives some interesting background and a nice personal touch to the end of a very professional product.

Overall Comments
There are a few things the supplement does not mention probably due to limited space which does not detract from its appeal, but might have been relevant to campaign expansion or developing campaigns around the topic. There are lots of adventure ideas that could have been detailed in the work but were not though fair mention is made in passing of a few.

If you, as a game master, are new to the game system and timid about creating new monsters for your campaign this book is an excellent spring board. You can use this guide to get your feet wet by practicing the creation of your own monsters using existing ones and eliminating most of the statistical guess work that goes along with it in one shot. Practicing the design process can help familiarize you with existing monsters and allow you to gauge monster powers while adding to the fabric of your campaign - not a bad deal.

Also, probably the most famous example of crossbreeding today is the scene in the recent Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring movie wherein Sauruman creates a new breed by combining the best of orc and goblin specimens! This game supplement actually provides a solid rules base for accurately depicting this type of wizardly deed in your campaign. In addition, popular culture and science and fantasy fiction are replete with other examples of crossbreeding plots which could benefit from the rules provided in this work. The Island of Dr. Moreau (men mixed with animals) and Swamp Thing (man mixed with plant) are just a couple of easy examples that spring to mind.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer

Sizing Up the Target
Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding is written by Johnathan Richards (of Gorgoldand’s Gauntlet fame) and published by Mongoose Publishing. Subtitled “Flesh and Blood”, this 64-page softcover sourcebook retails for $14.95.

First Blood
Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding is the thirteenth volume in Mongoose’s Encyclopaedia Arcane series, and appropriate to that number Games Masters will find a coven of frightening ideas within its pages. If you’ve ever wondered how the owlbear was created, or where the chimera, dragonne, or hippogriff came from, Crossbreeding provides the answers.

Crossbreeding provides rules for player character wizards and NPCs to create magical hybrid creatures by crossing virtually any type of creature (except for constructs and undead) with virtually any other type of creature. These are permanently new species, not just polymorphed creatures – the player or GM can use Crossbreeding to come up with entirely new species of creatures to populate the campaign world.

The basic creation mechanics are fairly simple. The final creature is a rough average of the base creatures. Crossbreeding provides methods for determining the hybrid’s final statistics for each line of the standard monster stat block. The wizard then selects a crossbreeding ritual, each of which has certain prerequisites, magical preparation requirements, and effect upon the difficulty of the cross. The actual ritual results in a skill check, whose difficulty is determined by the size and types of the hybridizing creatures. Practice makes perfect -- a poor crossbreeding attempt can result in creatures with deficiencies that range from minor to crippling.

Crossbreeding provides a step-by-step example for the entire process from start to finish that a wizard could follow to create a new spidertoad familiar. There are also advanced crossbreeding techniques, like a reverse hybridizing process, or the multi-stage crossbreed that can be used to create creatures like the chimera. Six new magic items that can be used in crossbreeding experiments are also included.

About half of the book is devoted to a wide range of example creatures, a total of 21 of them. Some of my favorites include the Barbazaur (a sort of demon-centaur based on a nightmare), the Drakkanal (think fire-lizard), the Fisher Tress (a nasty combination of a roper and a treant), the Mud Elemental, the extremely bizarre Ooze Hound, the Psionaga, the silly Slithertoad, and the Worgoblin (who takes goblin cavalry to a whole new level).

Critical Hits
Crossbreeding provides GMs and players with an excellent tool. One of the great things about the presented mechanics is that they really don’t create anything new – these are core feats and skills that are applied and combined in interesting ways. No worries about strange and unbalancing feats to keep up with here.

For the GM, this provides an almost infinite variety of new monsters. Need a new, unusual, and challenging creature for your campaign? Pick two or three creatures at random, and then combine them using Crossbreeding’s techniques. You’ll definfitely have something that will surprise your players.

Critical Misses
Crossbreeding does make a couple of odd choices. While the focus on wizards is fairly traditional, I would think that there might be room for a similar discussion of evil druids as fantasy crossbreeders. Applications of the Handle Animal skill, which one would think should be part of this sort of thing, are also conspicuously absent.

While the mechanics are extremely simple, they are almost too simple. There is no mechanism to track and balance creature special abilities – everything is based on size and creature type. While the size penalties will keep the tarrasque-crossbreeds under control, there needs to be some way of balancing special abilities. An ogre-hill giant mix, for example, isn’t too different in difficulty than a troll-black dragon hybrid, though the latter is probably significantly more dangerous. A great deal of GM judgment is required to ensure the stats of the final crossbreed come out balanced – carelessness can result in extremely powerful creatures with a Challenge Rating too low for their abilities.

Coup de Grace
Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding provides some original applications of game mechanics as Open Content, with the rest of the text as product identity. Though there are a few challenges to balance the results, Games Masters in particular will find the results of monster hybridization will provide them with an almost infinite set of new monsters, meaning that from one point of view this is the best-valued monster book on the market.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I think it's safe for us to assume that this book wasn't written with player use in mind.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Well-contructed guide to monster-making
Reviewer: jaundicedeye from Hollywood, California, USA
"Crossbreeding: Flesh and Blood" is part of the Mongoose Publishing "Encycloaedia Arcane" line of accessory books for d20 fantasy role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. It is a handbook for players and GMs who want a standardized set of easy-to-consult rules for crossbreeding animals and/or monsters to make new creatures.

This is one of the "crunchiest" Encycloaediae Arcane I have seen. The inside front and back covers are filled with the crossbreeding tables from the book, and make using "Crossbreeding" remarkably easy: a one-time read-through and access to the tables is all that should be necessary to get gamers into the monster-making business ... or art ... or defiant tampering with the Laws of Nature, depending upon your point of view.

The book is set up like the other Encycloaediae Arcane, with an introduction to the subject and the book, and closing words from the designer (author Jonathan Richards). The beginning of the book's "meat" discusses the general hows and whys of crossbreeding, and is lacking, in this reviewer's opinion, in a sufficient exploration of the MOTIVES for crossbreeding. One way this might have been rectified is by including more grey-lighted narratives of "actual" crossbreeders (such as Waldimer, who has a full page across from the Introduction, but of whom we hear no more, or Sasha, on page 33, whose "successful" experiment on herself doesn't quite satisfy her). Other gamers do not like such narratives, I know, and dismiss them as "fluff," but the subject of magical crossbreeding has been dealt with rarely in gaming -- I can think of only one instance in "regular" D & D, a quasi-example in "Ravenloft" (which would be the ne plus ultra of settings for crossbreeding experiments, although this book is geared towards "normal" fantasy worlds), and of course there are the various insanities perpetrated by cultists in "Call of Cthulhu." It would have been very nice to have more insight into the mindset of crossbreeding wizards rather than just dismissing crossbreeding as a stage in a typical wizardly career (which it most certainly isn't). I think Jonathan Richards shows himself as a good enough narrative writer that a bit more of the "grey matter" would have been helpful.

Richards does introduce one very powerful rule mechanic which deserves adoption in most games: the reason why hybrid monsters can't be "simply" created with a polymorph spell is that there MUST exist a template creature for a creature being transformed by a polymorph spell. Fuzzy bunnies exist, therefore a creature may be polymorphed into a fuzzy bunny. Owlbears exist, so creatures may be polymorphed into owlbears. Richards suggests, however, that before the first owlbear was created by crossbreeding, it would have been impossible to polymorph anything into an owlbear. Very Platonic. Very useful. And a good reason for mages to want to crossbreed creatures: to make things into which to polymorph other creatures. Richards also suggests that polymorphed creatures are reproductively of their original species. As I understood it, this means that a human polymorphed into a fuzzy bunny may "go at it" as often as a fuzzy bunny, but its offspring would have to be human, and it could not sire a human-bunny crossbreed; this suggests that a male and female human polymorphed into fuzzy bunnies would spawn a human child, one whose birth would undoubtedly kill the mother, making fuzzy bunnydom a particularly hideous torture for an evil mage to inflict.

Richards provides an elegantly simple chart for what the monster type of a crossbreed would be, and I found nothing to argue about in it. An "aberration" crossed with a "vermin" yields an "aberration;" a "humanoid" crossed with an "outsider" yields another "outsider" (damn those evil cultists!). Note that in order to properly understand this chart one must be familiar with monster "types" as outlined in the Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook III, the "Monster Manual" (3rd edition or 3.5, the latter being "official" now).

"Crossbreeding" next gives a selection of suggested magical crossbreeding rituals (followed by attendant new magical items for said rituals). Parents should note that Richards does not give details for any of these rituals which might lead an impressionable youngster to actually undertake a magical hybridization of Fluffy and Kitty. Richards states in his Designer's Notes that this was to allow gamers to create spells appropriate to their own campaigns, but it also makes the book acceptable to younger gamers than it would have been had he introduced more specifics.

Tables of possible results from various crossbreeding experiments are given (and reproduced inside the covers). These deal with most eventualities of crossbreeding experiments, detailing the possible results of crossing what with what to obtain this or that result. Note that a familiarity with the core rules of the d20 system are required to apply these in a game, although someone playing D &D under second edition rules (or playing an entirely different game) could probably "homebrew" adaptations of the charts for the local gaming campaign.

"Crossbreeding" also has a large selection of "known" hybrids (which means creatures into which others may be "officially" polymorphed if these rules are adopted for a game). Among the noteworthy critters are the "Gulor," a cross between an orc and a wolverine, the "Ooze Hound," a hybrid of riding dog and grey ooze, the "Slithertoad," part snake and part toad, the "Skyshark," a flying cross of dire bat and shark, and the "Haemovorid," a hybrid of pixie and stirge ("I'm not making this up, you know!"). Although some gamers simply can't get enough of new monsters, this is one section which I personally found over-long, and I would have gladly sacrificed the page-and-one-half given to the Mud Elemental (are there not enough on the Para-Elemental Plane of Mud or Ooze or whtever it's called?!) for more narrative material. ("Fluff!" comes the cry from the peanut gallery, but I stand by my opinion.)

Another reviewer has already zapped "Crossbreeding" already for a serious editorial gaffe which I must echo: on page 30 an incorrect illustration is used for the "Spidertoad," the new hybrid familiar which is used as an example for a crossbreeding experiment -- our first held-by-the-hand walkthrough of the process. The illustration shows the result of an arachnid-fey crossing, apparently, not a spider-toad hybrid. Woe betide the foolish GM who uses the illustration as an example of what a "spidertoad" looks like!

I really enjoyed "Crossbreeding." Its rules mechanics were clearcut and easily applicable, its layout was almost uniformly good, and the charts on the inside covers were very useful. I give "Crossbreeding" four stars and recommend it for Gamemasters and (with GM approval) for PCs, too.