E.N. Critters Volume 4 - Along the Banks of the River Vaal

[Crothian]

The fourth volume in the E.N. Critters series of Open Gaming Content Sourcebooks – Along the Banks of the River Vaal. The E.N. Critters series as a whole is a set of theme-based creature books.

This volume's theme is of creatures dwelling along a wide river known as the River Vaal although the water’s edge in any body of fresh water, be it lake, pond, marsh, etc. will work just as well. The primary range is from temperate to warm, although some allowances have been made for creatures that could be found in colder climes.

* More than two dozen all new creatures
* Full colour illustrations throughout
* Detailed ecologies and background
* A "Suggested Knowledge" table for each creature
* A "Rules & Game Balance"section for each entry
* Counters for all creatures

 

[John Cooper]

E.N. CRITTERS VOLUME 4 - ALONG THE BANKS OF THE RIVER VAAL
By Jim Gonyea, Robert Lajoie, Bill Salloway, and Jim E. Vilandre
E.N. Publishing product number ENP CR4
64-page PDF, $4.95

E.N. Critters Volume 4 - Along the Banks of the River Vaal is the fourth in the series of monster-based PDFs by E.N. Publishing. This time, as you might have guessed by the title, it's a collection of river-based creatures.

The cover artwork, by Mike McMenemey, is a line drawing of a crocodile that was later colored by computer. (Actually, as we'll learn later in the PDF, it's not an actual crocodile but a crocodile-shaped construct called a river warden.) It's a simple piece, but it fits with the focus of the PDF and is nicely rendered. Likewise, the dark aqua-blue-green color scheme goes nicely with the river motif.

The interior art is by the usual "Guillotine Studios" trio - Allen Kerswell, Jeffrey LeBoeuf, and Mike McMenemey - that have worked on the previous volumes in the series. The artwork for the most part is accurate as far as matching the written descriptions of the creatures; the few discrepancies all seem to have snuck in during the coloring stage, as the grolna vaal (a stone giant offshoot) should have dark grey skin, not Caucasian, and the shiaga (a water naga/medusa hybrid) should have blue/green facial scales and blue lips - again, she was rendered as a Caucasian. There are a total of 18 full-color illustrations of the monsters, plus a full-color map of the lands around the River Vaal, and 62 two-sided, color tokens of the monsters in the PDF. The artwork is for the most part pretty good, although I notice that once again Mike McMenemey found it necessary to incorporate a naked woman into one of his illustrations; in E. N. Critters Volume 2 he had a "coldsnake" wrapping its strategically-placed coils around a nude woman, and in this volume he found it perfectly natural (if you'll excuse the pun) to have a bare woman riding a giant water strider in a fantasy version of Lady Godiva. Fortunately, this time around the naked woman did not make it to the corresponding monster tokens; the giant water strider tokens all feature close-ups of the creature's head.

The other piece of artwork I wanted to make special mention of was Allen Kerswell's illustration of the kwall, a humanoid, otterlike creature. This manages to be both one of the silliest-looking and yet technically adept pieces in the whole book. The fact that it's wearing a pair of loose-fitting pants, has a pocket watch (on a chain) in its leather vest, and wears a multicolored, tie-dyed bandanna over its head that wouldn't look out of place on a Hippie can't help but make this creature look rather silly, and yet Allen's conformed to the creature's description perfectly. Furthermore, the shading is excellent and I really love the hair details on the backs of the kwall's hands.

The map is simple but serviceable, and yet I couldn't help noting that despite the fact that there are a full two pages of written description of most of the areas on the map, there are quite a few that didn't get mentioned in the write-up of the River Vaal environs. These include the Ashen Plain, Berk's Salvation, Berk's Wasteland, Black Swath, Cipher's Vale, Cliffs of Woe, Flaming Wastes, Flatrock Hills, Gauth's Spires, Layered Hills, and the OrcMarsh. It's also worth mentioning that the lands of the River Vaal flow seamlessly into the Pale Jungle (the environs of the first volume in the E. N. Critters series; it lies just to the south). Of course, while you don't need the first volume to make use of this one, there are quite a few creatures from the first volume mentioned throughout this PDF - arachs, kithrotto, leaflings, qual aanan qualo - a fact that might prove somewhat frustrating to those who have only purchased this volume, and not the first. I'll emphasize the fact that this is definitely a standalone product (you don't need Volume 1 in order to make full use of Volume 4; it would certainly be easy enough to plug the River Vaal area into wherever it best fits in your own campaign world), but having both would certainly make it much easier to make sense of some of the descriptions.

By now, having read this far through a John Cooper review of a monster-based product, many of you are probably anxious for me to get to the "unofficial errata" section, where I point out the errors in the monster stat blocks. You'll all be no doubt pleased to learn that the "unofficial errata" section is going to very small this time around. (I know I was very pleased.) Of the 26 separate sets of individual monster stats, here are the only changes I recommend:

• p. 10, Awrie: Only because special mention is made of the fact that the awrie use their Dexterity modifiers for their Swim skill checks, I'd add "Swim +4" to their list of skills.
  
• pp. 34-35, River Warden: This creature's frightful presence special attack has results listed for those of less than 4 HD, those more than 4 HD but less than 9 HD, and those with more than 9 HD, but doesn't say what the effects are for those with exactly 4 HD or 9 HD. Granted, it's going to be one or the other effects on either side of it, but it would have been nice if the author (Robert Lajoie, in this case) had thought this through. Also, the Will save for the frightful presence should be DC 14, not DC 13 (10 + 8 - 4).
  
• p. 36, Sandbar Horror: Speed is listed as "30 ft. (4 squares)" - obviously, those can't both be true. It's either "30 ft. (6 squares)" or "20 ft. (4 squares)" - and given that the monster in question is a Small, crablike creature, I'd probably go with the latter.
  
• p. 42, Silt Dragon: This creature has a breath weapon that causes those who fail their Will saves to be dominated by the silt dragon as per the dominate person spell. However, nowhere is there any limit given as to how many victims the silt dragon can control at one time. Usually, in cases like these, there's a limit along the lines of "as many Hit Dice of creatures as the caster's own Hit Dice" or "twice as many Hit Dice as the caster" or what have you; as written, a single 24-HD silt dragon could theoretically dominate every living thing within the entire River Vaal map within the 24 days it would take until the effects would start to wear off of those who succumbed on Day One. I really think there needs to be an upper cap placed upon this ability.
  
• p. 51, Giant Water Strider: Has 5 HD, yet Advancement is listed as "5-8 HD (Large), 9-12 HD (Huge)" - not only should that start at 6 HD, but to follow the standard "triple starting HD maximum" concept, the giant water strider's Advancement line should probably read "6-10 HD (Large), 11-15 HD (Huge)" instead.
  
• p. 56, White Foam: 5 feet does not equal 2 squares. Given that this is a slow-moving ooze, I'd believe it should read "5 ft. (1 square)" instead.

And believe it or not, that's it. I really have to give the Bearded Dragon guys credit (despite appearing under the E. N. Publishing banner, the authors have their own company, Bearded Dragon Publications), they've really done a great job in improving their monster stats over the few months since they started the "E. N. Critters" series.

Of course, there are other problems on the proofreading/editing front. It's nothing too major, just a string of punctuation errors and a few typos here and there (the most amusing being in the snapping turtle's Environment listing, where "Ant" replaced "Any"). Well, okay, there were almost two pages of errors along those lines, most having to do with comma usage with a string of adjectives (and in 4-digit numbers), and several instances where it becomes apparent that newcomer (to this series at least) Jim Gonyea hasn't quite mastered the apostrophe (most of the apostrophe errors were in his "white foam" monster section, the only monster he provided to the PDF). As usual, I'll pass on my corrections to the authors and let them take it from there.

As for the monsters themselves, I again liked the fact that there were several "links" between several of the creatures. In this volume, there's a landbound, humanoid race called the terravis, who have an aquatic offshoot called the vissalia as well as an undead version, the bandalvis. They're nicely tied together, although I have to admit I'm not overly fond of the apparent ease by which a vissalia becomes a bandalvis. (Basically, every time a vissalia enters battle there's a relatively good chance that it'll be undead shortly thereafter. I'm surprised the entire race hasn't succumbed by now.) The kwall raise giant water striders to pull their barges. A powerful silt dragon and an equally powerful shiaga combined forces to destroy a grolna vaal settlement. All in all, the relationships between the various creatures aren't as tight as they were in the previous volume, but they're still there to a lesser extent. And at 3 animals, 2 aberrations, 1 construct, 1 dragon, 1 fey, 1 giant, 3 humanoids, 5 magical beasts, 1 monstrous humanoid, 2 oozes, 1 plant, 2 undead (one of which is a swarm), and 2 vermin, the creature type spread is about right. (Although I was a bit surprised that there was only one plant - I would have thought that a riverbank would be ripe for many different kinds of "monster plants.") Some of the monsters here are a bit too "weird" for my taste, such as the two-tailed, snake-headed, rocklike-turtle-shelled "whiptail snapper" or the shapeshifting "heron hunters" (they have a heron form and a humanoid-heron form, and often spend several days in heron form plotting a plan of attack against their prey...um, okay). I was rather more impressed with the unassuming giant osprey and the giant hellgrammite/giant dobsonfly (larva and adult forms of the same creature); they might not be flashy, but they fit the river theme just fine.

Taken as a whole, E.N. Critters Volume 4 - Along the Banks of the River Vaal isn't the best of the series - I still feel that title goes to the third volume - but it's still a strong contender, well worth a look if you're planning on running aquatic adventures anytime soon. (Along those lines, it makes for a handy companion to WotC's new Stormwrack book on sea-based adventuring, if you're looking for even more monsters to use in aquatic environments.) I give it a strong "4 (Good)," and look forward to further PDFs in the series.

 

[Crothian]

EN Critters 4 Along the Banks of the River Vaal

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Monster books are always an interesting read in games. They are filled with potential and obstacles for the players. Many times it seems monsters are constructed though to be killed and just placed in the path the PCs tread. The Monster Manuals and Tomb of Horrors have that type of feel to me. I seem to prefer the monster books that provide a bit more information and feel about the monster. Monsternimicon has always been good for this and Denizens of Avandu. Those type of books really allow the monsters and creatures to be easily used in their environment and be brought alive. It is a fine balance though. A monster book that has to much ecology information will read like a National Geographic. In a game the focus and details are for the players and it can be easy to go overboard with it and provide too much information and too many details that the players concern themselves with. This of course brings us to this review which involves a monster book oddly enough. The book is EN Critters 4: Along the Banks of the River Vaal and it is by EN Publishing.

EN Critters 4: Along the Banks of the River Vaal is the newest of the EN Critters books to come out. Each one gives a bunch of new creatures all from the same general area. EN Publishing publishes this book and they are one of the big boys in the PDF community. They have a knack for mostly high quality and useful PDFs that cover a wide range of topics. This PDDF is sixty four pages in length and has a lot of nice options as a PDF. It does not though have a good option for printing. The art is in color and the lay out also has color pieces in it. The pictures and background in the book will take a bit of ink to print out. There are also monster counters in the back of the book that can also consume a bit of ink. They are designed to be printed out. The book is book marked and should be relatively easy to use from a computer at the gaming table. The lay out of the book is generally good. There are no real problems with reading the text or following the stat blocks of the many creatures. The art though is not much to my liking. The pictures are in full color but the art in them just is not that good. The coloring is a bit bright and just does not look like real creatures at times. There is a map of the area the monsters are from and it too just does not look that good. The map is easy to read and to follow but the look of it just does not seem that good to me.

The book starts with a very nice description of the place the monsters are from. This is a very nice addition to any monster book. The description includes the monsters and gives them a place in the environment for them to be. It shows in some ways how the creatures interact and bring the place alive. The description talks of where creation creatures can be found and even if they are dangerous or if they might be approachable and helpful. The first few pages of the book is devoted to the description. This is at times more flavorful then actual settings and makes for a nice place. It seems to be easy to drop this into an existing setting as this section is not all that large and should easily fit with another river and be used for that description and place. I would have likes to seen a few more plot hooks in the description and possible some rumors or mysteries built into the setting. What is here is a nice start it just needs a little more to really become a very useful place for a role playing game to use. A little extra work by the writers usually provides the difference between a DM being able to easily use it for an extended campaign verse a simple adventure or two that hits the highlights of the place.

There are about two dozen new creatures presented here. There is a nice variety of things to be found around this river. Each creature has a picture of it that mostly matches the description the creature is given. The creatures here are better described and detailed then in the Monster Manual and other more commonly used monster books. That to me is a very big plus. The creature write ups in here are usually a page or two in length. The idea here seems to be to give each creature its due with length of description and detail. And it is not to fit as many creatures into the books as possible as many of the other books seem to try to do. Each monster has a nice ecology section for it. This is a nice section that really provides details on the creature and allows the DM to come up with new and creative ways to use the beasts instead of just having the players kill them. Each creature also has a very nice section on balance and notes from the author on play testing and just about the creature and its abilities. Each creature also has a knowledge DC and suggestions for what the player or character might know about them according to their roll. This is a very useful and great addition to any monster books as determining character knowledge on creatures is always a real pain in the butt at times. I would love to see web enhancement for books in print that detail this type of information or at the very least a cool fan project to cover these things. It would be very useful to many DMs and it is the type of thing that can survive editions.

This is a nice addition to anyone looking for a river and surrounding area that has a good collection of unique and new creatures. The thought put into this book is readily apparent and the effort to describe the ecology of the creatures as well as the whole area really makes the place a good small setting as well as a good set of monsters.

 

[Voadam]

Along the Banks of the River Vaal is the fourth in the EN Critters series of terrain themed pdf monster sourcebooks. It is also the first in the series to be comparatively budget-priced at $5 for 64 pages so not a bad choice for those wanting to check out a sample of the series and see if it appeals to them.

The 25 creatures are 3.5 and almost every one has a full color picture and a lay flat paper counter for table top miniature use. Some of the giant versions of real world animals and insects do not have pictures with their monster entry, although they have full color counter pictures using stock art for them so you can get a picture of the Dobson fly and giant osprey without using google or opening a zoology book. The art varies from fair pieces such as the awrie fey whose lines are a bit sketchy, to the very good such as the color version of the Kwall otter man (loses a lot of shading nuance in gray scale printing though) and the crocodile mithril construct that is shown on the cover.

The counters are a great idea that more monster sourcebooks should include.

Each creature has from one to two pages of description with almost all starting at the beginning of a page. Each entry has a section on knowledge checks with custom designed DC entries that are tailored to the creature instead of the standard HD formulae. Also each entry has a section on design notes and game balance, a short paragraph telling of the story niche the creature is to fill or how some of the numbers such as CR were derived when comparing to somewhat similar standard monsters. This puts the reader more into the behind the scenes construction of the monster when reading the entry. This is analogous to a DVD extra feature, but those who just want to use them can still find value in knowing the story/adventure niche the creature was designed to fill.

The theme for the book is a great river that covers vast distances and is up to ten miles wide at its widest. This makes it broader than the Nile or the Mississippi so the terrain is not little streams and can accommodate big creatures easily.

In addition to being the theme for the book there are a few pages in the beginning devoted to providing a setting of the River with bordering areas such as Berk’s Wasteland and the Pale Jungle that are fleshed out in other books in the series. Every creature in the book has a paragraph in the beginning showing how they fit into the River Vaal area along with other normal MM/SRD creatures. These are great little entries such as one of the three awry fairy villages being recently slaughtered by lizardfolk at the command of a hag who is using the fairy wings for magical components. Just a few pages but it provides a lot of adventure hooks and more fleshing out of the creatures by putting them into a context. There is enough of a mini setting to use as a background for a game. The map is low quality but the little gazetteer of peoples and beasts in the area is a great use of a few pages.

Every non extraplanar type is covered with at least one monster entry and there are swarm and psionic subtype entries, but no templates. CRs range from ½ to 11 with two going higher.

Many creatures include ties to other entries in the collection, such as one of the giant vermin being created by the Kwall to be used as draft animals for their barges. Another being the Vissalia mermen who forsook river gods splitting into two cursed races, one that took to the land but cursed with longing for riparian terrain, the other aquatic but cursed with bloodlust that if they succumb can turn them into undead Bandalvis bloodsuckers who grapple and drain strength then drink the blood of helpless victims, a good combination for a weak undead.

One notable is the Grolna Vaal, a virtuous river giant variant of stone giants that are master stone crafters with some water magic including minor at will summon aquatic nature’s ally. Inspired by the Thomas Covenant novels’ giants the ties to existing stone giants and their water magic make them unique enough to have grown on me despite an initial dislike for yet another powerful good giant who could trounce most of the rest of the evil in the collection.

The otter-like Kwaal are an interesting mix. They look like dwarf sized humanoid otters but share neither dwarf nor otter personality traits instead being more like shifty barge gypsies who trade and grift then move on.

On the down side are mostly just nitpicking details. The snapping turtle while given an ability to retreat into its shell gains no extra protection against physical attacks from predators, just area effects when doing so. A later giant two-tailed turtle monster has no shell defense ability at all even though it is described as retreating into its shell if fighting with more powerful predators. The Kwaal, though described as grifters, have no bluff skill. The White Foam’s acid ability can cause a ton of continuing damage for such a low CR creature. The sawtail seems a bit like it was only included so that there would be a plant creature in the collection.

Overall a solid monster collection with well developed monsters, counters for the monsters, and a sample mini setting with plot hooks to use them in.