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Message: <blockquote data-quote="enrious" data-source="post: 2009151" data-attributes="member: 2126">Overview: Denizens of Darkness is a 184 page hardcover monster supplement for the Ravenloft campaign setting from the Arthaus brand of Sword and Sorcery Studios.  It seeks to update earlier Ravenloft monsters to the d20 system as well as introduce new monsters for the Realm of Dread.The interior artwork is all done in black and white illustrations of the various creatures detailed, usually in an action shot of foul deeds.  The artwork ranges in quality, even from the same artist, but over all seems to do a good job recreating the associated monster.  The one complaint I have about the illustrations is that some have an anime-ish quality about them (such as the Arak or Dhampir) which detracts from the mood.Denizens and Darkness contains three pages of advice on making monsters fit in better with a Gothic horror setting by showing how the land can corrupt and twist "normal" creatures.  It then delves in to the creatures, arranged alphabetically, with an average of one creature per page for a total of over 100 creatures, not counting subtypes or variants.  The pages are set in a two column format with a medium sized font that seems perfect to me.  There are around 8 pages used at the back for a telling of Van Richten's tale and advertisements for other SSS products.In Detail:Happily this book did not focus mainly on undead creatures, although there are plenty of them to be found.  You can bring about a certain sense of overwhelming dread with undead such as the Grim Reaper, but you can also generate revulsion by using a creature a bit closer to home, such as the Bloodrose dread plant.  There are several Ravenloft adaptations of standard D&D creatures, such as Nightmares, Lycanthropes, race-specific Vampires, Elementals, Fey, Dread Golems, and so forth.  For the most part these adaptations make the creature seem more at home in a Horror setting, be it Cthulhu or Ravenloft.  There are also some mixed races, such as the Dhampir, someone who is half-vampire and will become a true vampire upon death.  How a vampire can successfully impregnate a mortal is never explained, however.  It is an interesting concept, nonetheless.The majority of the creatures found in this book seem to be used as much for role-playing or atmospheric reasons as much as simply giving the PC's monsters to bash.  This is completely in line with the atmosphere of Ravenloft is well done in most places.What I liked about Denizens of Darkness:Would you like to recreate the terror from Poltergeist or The Amityville Horror?  You'll like the Animator.  Want to provide a bit of paranoia in your players?  Try putting a Hearth Fiend in their fireplace.I liked the number of templates available.  It greatly increases the variety of monsters available and can provide for some interesting role-playing possibilities.Not every creature is undead.  Perhaps most people think of undead when they think of Ravenloft, but there can be much more subtle ways of creating terror or horror in the players than just throwing some new form of skeleton at the party.  Taking a normally innocent or harmless creature or object and turning into a force of malevolence is something the writers didn't forget.The few good aligned creatures in the book tend to have some aura of tragedy about them.  Again, this is perfectly within line of the mood of Ravenloft.The idea of undead lords, which are stronger forms of standard undead (such as ghoul and zombie), allow for a more dangerous "leader" monster for otherwise unintelligent undead.  This can cause quite a shock to a party expecting to meet mindless undead only to find out there is a sinister intelligence behind their behavior. There are plenty of examples of how to take otherwise neutral or good creatures and give them a Ravenloft "taint", such as the Shadow Unicorn, an evil version of the Unicorn.There are Oriental style horrors within.  Nice inclusion for a book that could have easily ignored them.What I didn't like about Denizens of Darkness:I think that one of the constant criticisms of monster compilations is that Challenge Ratings are off on some creatures. This has been said of WotC's Monster Manual and I think it can be said of the creatures in Denizens of Darkness.  An example of this would be the Boowray, which is CR3 but can whisper Suggestion at will, is Incorporeal, Immune to mind-influencing effects, and can go Invisible at will as a standard action.  This seems a tad high for CR3 to me.Some of the artwork seemed cartoonish, which didn't' fit in with the mood of the book or setting.The spine of the book creaks every time I open it, making me cringe.  Perhaps this was an intentional effect to cause a sense of dread when opening this book of horrors, or perhaps it's because of cheap binding.How do a vampire and a living humanoid create living offspring? Summary:I think Denizens of Darkness is a must have book if you are running any sort of Gothic-style campaign, such as Ravenloft or Call of Cthulhu.  Almost all of the creatures listed within bring interesting role-playing hooks.  There is a slight tendency towards temptation or corruption style monsters as opposed to PC punching bags, but again this fits in with the overall theme of Gothic horror. I don't think many of the monsters presented would fit in well in a more standard style of fantasy play.  They tend to be much more subtle than most of the fantasy groups I have seen.  I think Ravenloft appeals more to parties looking for a change of pace from fantasy, so this is not necessarily a bad thing.All in all I would recommend this to anyone seeking to run a horror game.  There are some monsters that could be used in a non-horror campaign, but I don't think they would be used to their full potential.Open Content Used:None.  It is an Officially Licensed Wizards of the Coast product and thus not subject to the OGL.Reviewers Notes:None.</blockquote>

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