JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Dangerous Denizens, the Monsters of Tellene, is one of, if not the first 3.5 sourcebooks on the market. Games Plus, my not so local hobby shop, had this puppy in stock about two weeks before the 3.5 books hit the shelves.
The book starts off with a quick page of why one should use the Kingdoms of Kalamar. It's a good background check for those interested in where all of these creatures came from and by limiting it to a page, they don't tread on those just looking for another monster book. The next page, Introduction, gives you the break down on how to read the entries, common feats of monsters, how monsters advance and other useful material that's covered in the monster manual.
Chapter One, the bulk of the book, is the Monsters of Tellene: A to Z and goes from page 9 to page 172. The book's appendices are broken down into the following: A, Animals, B: Tellene Variants, C, Half-Races, D, Charts and an Index.
I'm not a master of stats in the first place, and this is the first book for 3.5 so I can't be 100% sure, but it looks pretty solid as far as being 3.5 compliant. About the only thing that looks suspicious is the damage reduction as some have very high ratings like 25/+1 and I know that part of 3.5's 'charm' is the many different types of pokemon, I mean magic items, necessary to overcome the lower DR.
Creatures have their total armor class, as well as a break down. Their attack bonus includes their base, and their grapple. One interesting thing is that their speed actually gives you the number of squares that they can move. For example, the Deep Stalker Hunter, an underwater monster, has a speed of 20 ft. or 4 squares.
Ironically enough, one of the book's strongest points to me is something Wizards of the Coast advertised for their revised Monster Manual and failed to follow through with in all but a few brief instances. Yup, Tactics Round-By-Round are listed for all of the monsters. While this is sometimes a simple pattern, it reveals the creature's mentality quickly. Simple minded monsters are going for the eats so to speak by using full attacks whenever possible while smarter creatures often have a round '0' so that they can observe and get details about their foes strengths and weaknesses.
After the stat block, information about the creature, like origin and appearance is listed, followed by combat abilities, society notes and how to use them On Tellene. The material for Tellene is often about a paragraph, sometimes two in length, so it doesn't take away from the general utility of the book.
In terms of utility, the monsters range form the Twilight Dragon, masters of shadow magic, to the Reliquis, an undead guardian created by liches. The art for the creatures is of high quality in most cases with a few suffering from being too dark. Some of the monsters aren't going to make anyone go, “I needed that” as they're variants of other creatures like Ratfolk or Sand Worms, but it's good to have a 3.5 version and its good for KoK fans to have a Tellene version.
The nice thing about appendix A is that it includes a table with purchase prices for the animals it describes. The animals range from the Thisa bull to the hunting cats. The good thing is that this section is a little more customized for Tellene and allows a GM to see how to take normal animals and make them a part of the setting. Anyone else ever notice that there are never any bears or standard animals in fantasy woods?
Tellene Variants, covered in Appendix B, causes some confusion. See, there's a massive section on trolls and mummies in the main monster material, so why a separate section on the variants instead of just putting them in with the rest of the beasts? It's because this is background information with minor game notes on how these creatures are different than the standard versions. Having said that, the monsters themselves are a varied lot from the plains minotaur to the shafanivar yuan-ti.
For those players wanting something different, the half-races in Appendix C should have them covered. Races introduced include: Half-dwarf, half-githzerai, half-gnoll, half-gnome, half-goblin, half-satyr, tel-amhothlan (half-elf and half-orc). This is one part of the book that fails to give each race a good visual to ingrain it despite one group illustration in combat.
All necessary racial traits are included like starting ages, aging effects, weight and height, and all of the role playing information like religion, lands, alignment, relations and adventurers. Full game stats including racial traits, favored class and automatic languages are provided.
The only serious issue with the book is the ranges. Palladium is one of the few companies that has a monster book that provides a good clean map so its easy to see what ranges the monsters hail from. The maps here look like they came straight out of the full color maps and were then put into a black and white scale which doesn't showcase anything well. Even here though Kenzer saves face with the Monsters by Region which lists the monsters in alphabetical order and abbreviates the major countries with * to indicate which ones have the monsters.
A minor issue is art. The art style is great and most monsters are illustrated but since the range is so difficult to use, more art instead of the range would've been the way to go. When the Crs are listed, my own pet peeve shows up again and that's no page numbers for the CR listings. Sure, it's fairly easy to find something, but this book uses some different listings like variants. So is that Drhokkeran Ogre under O, D, or under Variant O or D? Look and discover for yourself!
Before someone asks, these monsters are not all new. Several of them have been collected from various Kalamar products ranging from 3rd edition official books to general all purpose settings and adventurers for any game system back in the day. If you've played a Kenzer adventure with a unique monster, chances are its in here.
Something that bothered me, but probably won't effect the KoK hardcore fans base is the lack of higher level creatures to challenge and experienced party. Not counting the Dragons, It goes from the Tunnel Hag, a CR of 12, to the Aquatic Tarrasque of 20, with a lot of open spaces there.
The book is 224 pages, in hardcover and sells for $24.99. That's like what? Twelve cents a page or something? That goes a long way in covering up any minor issues I have with page listings and lower CR monsters. A long way.
If you're a GM of 3.5 and looking for all purpose monsters, Denizens has something for you. If you're a Kingdoms of Kalamar GM and want to add 3.5 goodness to the game right away, as well as a host of races and ideas, then this is a must purchase.
The book starts off with a quick page of why one should use the Kingdoms of Kalamar. It's a good background check for those interested in where all of these creatures came from and by limiting it to a page, they don't tread on those just looking for another monster book. The next page, Introduction, gives you the break down on how to read the entries, common feats of monsters, how monsters advance and other useful material that's covered in the monster manual.
Chapter One, the bulk of the book, is the Monsters of Tellene: A to Z and goes from page 9 to page 172. The book's appendices are broken down into the following: A, Animals, B: Tellene Variants, C, Half-Races, D, Charts and an Index.
I'm not a master of stats in the first place, and this is the first book for 3.5 so I can't be 100% sure, but it looks pretty solid as far as being 3.5 compliant. About the only thing that looks suspicious is the damage reduction as some have very high ratings like 25/+1 and I know that part of 3.5's 'charm' is the many different types of pokemon, I mean magic items, necessary to overcome the lower DR.
Creatures have their total armor class, as well as a break down. Their attack bonus includes their base, and their grapple. One interesting thing is that their speed actually gives you the number of squares that they can move. For example, the Deep Stalker Hunter, an underwater monster, has a speed of 20 ft. or 4 squares.
Ironically enough, one of the book's strongest points to me is something Wizards of the Coast advertised for their revised Monster Manual and failed to follow through with in all but a few brief instances. Yup, Tactics Round-By-Round are listed for all of the monsters. While this is sometimes a simple pattern, it reveals the creature's mentality quickly. Simple minded monsters are going for the eats so to speak by using full attacks whenever possible while smarter creatures often have a round '0' so that they can observe and get details about their foes strengths and weaknesses.
After the stat block, information about the creature, like origin and appearance is listed, followed by combat abilities, society notes and how to use them On Tellene. The material for Tellene is often about a paragraph, sometimes two in length, so it doesn't take away from the general utility of the book.
In terms of utility, the monsters range form the Twilight Dragon, masters of shadow magic, to the Reliquis, an undead guardian created by liches. The art for the creatures is of high quality in most cases with a few suffering from being too dark. Some of the monsters aren't going to make anyone go, “I needed that” as they're variants of other creatures like Ratfolk or Sand Worms, but it's good to have a 3.5 version and its good for KoK fans to have a Tellene version.
The nice thing about appendix A is that it includes a table with purchase prices for the animals it describes. The animals range from the Thisa bull to the hunting cats. The good thing is that this section is a little more customized for Tellene and allows a GM to see how to take normal animals and make them a part of the setting. Anyone else ever notice that there are never any bears or standard animals in fantasy woods?
Tellene Variants, covered in Appendix B, causes some confusion. See, there's a massive section on trolls and mummies in the main monster material, so why a separate section on the variants instead of just putting them in with the rest of the beasts? It's because this is background information with minor game notes on how these creatures are different than the standard versions. Having said that, the monsters themselves are a varied lot from the plains minotaur to the shafanivar yuan-ti.
For those players wanting something different, the half-races in Appendix C should have them covered. Races introduced include: Half-dwarf, half-githzerai, half-gnoll, half-gnome, half-goblin, half-satyr, tel-amhothlan (half-elf and half-orc). This is one part of the book that fails to give each race a good visual to ingrain it despite one group illustration in combat.
All necessary racial traits are included like starting ages, aging effects, weight and height, and all of the role playing information like religion, lands, alignment, relations and adventurers. Full game stats including racial traits, favored class and automatic languages are provided.
The only serious issue with the book is the ranges. Palladium is one of the few companies that has a monster book that provides a good clean map so its easy to see what ranges the monsters hail from. The maps here look like they came straight out of the full color maps and were then put into a black and white scale which doesn't showcase anything well. Even here though Kenzer saves face with the Monsters by Region which lists the monsters in alphabetical order and abbreviates the major countries with * to indicate which ones have the monsters.
A minor issue is art. The art style is great and most monsters are illustrated but since the range is so difficult to use, more art instead of the range would've been the way to go. When the Crs are listed, my own pet peeve shows up again and that's no page numbers for the CR listings. Sure, it's fairly easy to find something, but this book uses some different listings like variants. So is that Drhokkeran Ogre under O, D, or under Variant O or D? Look and discover for yourself!
Before someone asks, these monsters are not all new. Several of them have been collected from various Kalamar products ranging from 3rd edition official books to general all purpose settings and adventurers for any game system back in the day. If you've played a Kenzer adventure with a unique monster, chances are its in here.
Something that bothered me, but probably won't effect the KoK hardcore fans base is the lack of higher level creatures to challenge and experienced party. Not counting the Dragons, It goes from the Tunnel Hag, a CR of 12, to the Aquatic Tarrasque of 20, with a lot of open spaces there.
The book is 224 pages, in hardcover and sells for $24.99. That's like what? Twelve cents a page or something? That goes a long way in covering up any minor issues I have with page listings and lower CR monsters. A long way.
If you're a GM of 3.5 and looking for all purpose monsters, Denizens has something for you. If you're a Kingdoms of Kalamar GM and want to add 3.5 goodness to the game right away, as well as a host of races and ideas, then this is a must purchase.
