Psion
Adventurer
Deadliest Creatures Tome
The Deadliest Creatures Tome is a monster sourcebook for d20 System fantasy games published by Fast Forward entertainment. Contributing writers include Herbert A. Beas, Bret Boyd, Jarad Fennell, B.D. Flory, Jason Hardy, Kurt Hausheer, M.K. McArtor, Gary McBride, W. Jason Peck, Geoff Skellams, and James M. Ward.
The book seems to use a mixture of pre-revised and revised standards.
A First Look
Format: 128 perfect-bound softcover book; $24.99
Art: The cover art (by Chris Arneson) depicts a skeletal creature with a goblin-looking head about to swing a glowing sword at the viewer. The interior is black and white and illustrated by Phil Renne, one of the better illustrators featured in the early d20 books by Mongoose Publishing. Good artwork is an essential component in a monster book, where it must bring the concepts to life; Renne's artwork does the job nicely.
Layout: The book has a two column layout throughout. The body text font size varies between entries, and each entry consumes two facing pages, with the stat block and illustration each using about half a column.
A Deeper Look
Except for a short introduction and CR table the content of the book is entirely creatures. There is one entry for every two pages, with a total of 60 different entries. The creatures run the gamut of types, but there seem to be more outsiders, monstrous humanoids, and magical beasts than any other types.
In past books by Fast Forward, I have noted that stat blocks are a problem. That being the case, that is the first thing I scrutinized here. There were some problems, but for the most part they were minor compared to prior works. Problems include:
- Many creatures have average HP figures that are not the mathematical average of the creatures HD plus con bonuses (and no special qualities explaining why this would be.)
- An outsider (albeit an incorporeal one) lacks a constitution score, which it should have. Despite this, it has an HP bonus as if it had a constitution score.
- There seems to be mixed implementation of edition standards. For example, a creature early in the book has DR 5/+1, but a creature later in the book has DR 5/magic.
The creatures themselves espouse no singular theme. A few of the included creatures are:
-Azamer: Azamers are especially destructive fire elementals. They only appear when destroying buildings, and have more complex abilities than fire elementals, including the ability to spawn more of their kind and hypnotize onlookers.
-Bone Orchard: This ghastly tree feeds on animal matter. It animates corpses of victims to find more via a tendril that it attaches to them.
-Corrupted Elemental: The corrupted elemental is the result of the merging of a fiend and an elemental, in this case an earth elemental, granting it additional abilities and a malevolent intelligence. The advancement chart and spell make it obvious that this is not the only type of corrupted elemental possible; other elemental types and sizes exist with different abilities. This being the case, I am at a loss as to why they did not make this entry into a template entry.
-Daylight Shadow: These slender ellipsoid aberrations are adept at hiding in the daylight, hence their names. The creature includes a racial writeup allowing them to be easily used as NPCs, and the PC race statistics are complete with all the necessary information for playing them as a race (which Fast Forward has frequently botched in past books.)
-Deathstorm: Possibly the most boring entry in the book, the deathstorm is essentially a slightly modified really big air elemental.
-Face-eater: Winner of the "creepiest picture" award, the face-eater is a shapechanging monstrous humanoid with a maw that consumes most of its head. The creature has some pretty creepy abilities to match its picture, including abilities to drain memories and suck out a victim's innards.
-Heart Shrub: A rather insidious creation, the heart shrub bears healing berries. However, some of its berries allow the shrub to dominate the consumer, and continued consumption of the normal healing berries extend this effect.
-Ik'taan: Just in case you thought that the mind flayer's ability to extract external organs shouldn't be unique, the Ik'taan is an undead creature that can extract a victim's heart.
-Lorkan: Crystaline in nature, the Lorkan have a few annoying traits. The creature, if struck with a critical hit, can divide into a lorkan of a smaller size. Lorkan also have a tendency to eat their enemies' armor, though it is not quite as efficient as a rust monster in this task.
-Quicksilver Assassin: Probably the coolest creature in the book, the quicksilver assassin is actually fairly simple in concept: it is a construct specialized in assassination. The creature only has hide and move silent skills and the sneak attack and death attack abilities of an assassin. Being made of quicksilver, it can assume the form of various medium sized creatures and can regenerate. Okay, so it's not a totally original concept (T2 anyone), but still cool. One technical flub is that constructs, being immune to subdual/nonlethal damage, should have fast healing ability instead of regeneration.
-Sidhe Lord: Not too dissimilar from the concept of the leshay from the Epic Level Handbook: an ancient race of elf-like fey. The sidhe lord, however, only has 10 HD and is much more suitable to normal campaigns.
-Thunder Lord: These are essentially golems animated by lightning spirits. Thunder Lords are tough nuts to crack, having the usual golem immunities and a damage reduction with an unusual bypassing requirement: conducting. Weapons that are insulated do no damage, by weapons that have a conducting wire bypass the DR. This is the sort of creature that is best inserted where the DM doesn't want the players to have a chance unless they know the secret to beating it.
-Young Feyoak: Another strange concept, the young feyoak has spores that act as a lethal poison, with one strange side effect: the victim of the spores is reincarnated.
Conclusion
This is an unusual selection of creatures. The thing that seems to most refreshing about them is that many of them don't strike me as stuff you just stock a dungeon with. Many of the creatures herein almost demand that you use them as part of a developed storyline - which can be good or bad, depending on your needs. But as generally, there are tons of "dungeon stocking" monster books out there, I'll call it good.
Though I don't find the concepts quite as interesting as some of those in Fast Forward's Encyclopedia of Demons & Devils, the execution is much better, with much more playable end products. There are a few problems here and there, however.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
The Deadliest Creatures Tome is a monster sourcebook for d20 System fantasy games published by Fast Forward entertainment. Contributing writers include Herbert A. Beas, Bret Boyd, Jarad Fennell, B.D. Flory, Jason Hardy, Kurt Hausheer, M.K. McArtor, Gary McBride, W. Jason Peck, Geoff Skellams, and James M. Ward.
The book seems to use a mixture of pre-revised and revised standards.
A First Look
Format: 128 perfect-bound softcover book; $24.99
Art: The cover art (by Chris Arneson) depicts a skeletal creature with a goblin-looking head about to swing a glowing sword at the viewer. The interior is black and white and illustrated by Phil Renne, one of the better illustrators featured in the early d20 books by Mongoose Publishing. Good artwork is an essential component in a monster book, where it must bring the concepts to life; Renne's artwork does the job nicely.
Layout: The book has a two column layout throughout. The body text font size varies between entries, and each entry consumes two facing pages, with the stat block and illustration each using about half a column.
A Deeper Look
Except for a short introduction and CR table the content of the book is entirely creatures. There is one entry for every two pages, with a total of 60 different entries. The creatures run the gamut of types, but there seem to be more outsiders, monstrous humanoids, and magical beasts than any other types.
In past books by Fast Forward, I have noted that stat blocks are a problem. That being the case, that is the first thing I scrutinized here. There were some problems, but for the most part they were minor compared to prior works. Problems include:
- Many creatures have average HP figures that are not the mathematical average of the creatures HD plus con bonuses (and no special qualities explaining why this would be.)
- An outsider (albeit an incorporeal one) lacks a constitution score, which it should have. Despite this, it has an HP bonus as if it had a constitution score.
- There seems to be mixed implementation of edition standards. For example, a creature early in the book has DR 5/+1, but a creature later in the book has DR 5/magic.
The creatures themselves espouse no singular theme. A few of the included creatures are:
-Azamer: Azamers are especially destructive fire elementals. They only appear when destroying buildings, and have more complex abilities than fire elementals, including the ability to spawn more of their kind and hypnotize onlookers.
-Bone Orchard: This ghastly tree feeds on animal matter. It animates corpses of victims to find more via a tendril that it attaches to them.
-Corrupted Elemental: The corrupted elemental is the result of the merging of a fiend and an elemental, in this case an earth elemental, granting it additional abilities and a malevolent intelligence. The advancement chart and spell make it obvious that this is not the only type of corrupted elemental possible; other elemental types and sizes exist with different abilities. This being the case, I am at a loss as to why they did not make this entry into a template entry.
-Daylight Shadow: These slender ellipsoid aberrations are adept at hiding in the daylight, hence their names. The creature includes a racial writeup allowing them to be easily used as NPCs, and the PC race statistics are complete with all the necessary information for playing them as a race (which Fast Forward has frequently botched in past books.)
-Deathstorm: Possibly the most boring entry in the book, the deathstorm is essentially a slightly modified really big air elemental.
-Face-eater: Winner of the "creepiest picture" award, the face-eater is a shapechanging monstrous humanoid with a maw that consumes most of its head. The creature has some pretty creepy abilities to match its picture, including abilities to drain memories and suck out a victim's innards.
-Heart Shrub: A rather insidious creation, the heart shrub bears healing berries. However, some of its berries allow the shrub to dominate the consumer, and continued consumption of the normal healing berries extend this effect.
-Ik'taan: Just in case you thought that the mind flayer's ability to extract external organs shouldn't be unique, the Ik'taan is an undead creature that can extract a victim's heart.
-Lorkan: Crystaline in nature, the Lorkan have a few annoying traits. The creature, if struck with a critical hit, can divide into a lorkan of a smaller size. Lorkan also have a tendency to eat their enemies' armor, though it is not quite as efficient as a rust monster in this task.
-Quicksilver Assassin: Probably the coolest creature in the book, the quicksilver assassin is actually fairly simple in concept: it is a construct specialized in assassination. The creature only has hide and move silent skills and the sneak attack and death attack abilities of an assassin. Being made of quicksilver, it can assume the form of various medium sized creatures and can regenerate. Okay, so it's not a totally original concept (T2 anyone), but still cool. One technical flub is that constructs, being immune to subdual/nonlethal damage, should have fast healing ability instead of regeneration.
-Sidhe Lord: Not too dissimilar from the concept of the leshay from the Epic Level Handbook: an ancient race of elf-like fey. The sidhe lord, however, only has 10 HD and is much more suitable to normal campaigns.
-Thunder Lord: These are essentially golems animated by lightning spirits. Thunder Lords are tough nuts to crack, having the usual golem immunities and a damage reduction with an unusual bypassing requirement: conducting. Weapons that are insulated do no damage, by weapons that have a conducting wire bypass the DR. This is the sort of creature that is best inserted where the DM doesn't want the players to have a chance unless they know the secret to beating it.
-Young Feyoak: Another strange concept, the young feyoak has spores that act as a lethal poison, with one strange side effect: the victim of the spores is reincarnated.
Conclusion
This is an unusual selection of creatures. The thing that seems to most refreshing about them is that many of them don't strike me as stuff you just stock a dungeon with. Many of the creatures herein almost demand that you use them as part of a developed storyline - which can be good or bad, depending on your needs. But as generally, there are tons of "dungeon stocking" monster books out there, I'll call it good.
Though I don't find the concepts quite as interesting as some of those in Fast Forward's Encyclopedia of Demons & Devils, the execution is much better, with much more playable end products. There are a few problems here and there, however.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
