HackMaster Hacklopedia of Beasts Volume V: Meenlock to Nefarion, Other: Soul Larva
The fifth volume of creature reference manuals for the HackMaster 4th Edition RPG, continues your horrifying tour into the horrors and monstrosities that plague your campaign world. With the Monster Matrix and Field Manual added on, this represents the halfway point of HackMaster monster books with its 2001 release date.
The Hacklopedia of Beasts is an Encyclopedia series of monsters for Hackmaster. It is of course, GM-Eyes-Only material, but there's plenty of excellent illustrations for the players to be shown as they meet their doom!
This volume provides statistics, behavior information, and uses for beasts from Meenlock, to Nefarion: Other, Soul Larva in alphabetical order.
The first seven pages are the typical Hackmaster disclaimer about roleplaying games, table of contents, and explanations of creature statistics. The major differences from Hacklopedias and prior monster books are that nearly every beast in Hackmaster has a twenty-hit point kicker to add to its 1d8 standard hit die and the Yield table. The Yield table says what the monster's corpse is good for, as well as what loot the monster might have accumulated. Again, you've seen seven Hacklopedia of Beasts introductory pages, you've seen 'em all, so skip ahead to some Nefarions!
Hacklopedia of beast volumes always focus on one creation type; this volume makes demons, devils, and daemons the stars. 65 of the 128 pages are taken up by various races of nefarions and background information on these beasts and then even ran some Nefarions into volume VI for space issues.
Modrons and Men (read humans if you need to be PC) are not slighted. In fact there's 11 pages on modrons and 15 modron types, all illustrated. Men, or humans, get 8 pages so you can have your farmers, vikings, prostitutes, thieves, bandits, and torchbearers. Plus, you get a stack of mummies and the ever-popular herbal refreshment, Shimmer Moss.
The artwork is the typical black-and-white Hackmaster interiors showing a great deal of violence and dodging the naked creatures; Succubus, Type V, Evilyn, Zyandal (Lloth for prior edition players), and Dark Enchantress images try and hide fully naked torsos. The full-color front cover continues the mural of Hacklopedia art where one player character dies per book. On this cover, the ugly blue-clad human female cleric has her lower internal organs ripped out by a Mummy! At least the halfling torchbearer is getting the torch ready as the green ranger prepares to hit the mummy in the back with his sword. Who knows what the magic-user is doing, as he looks like he's just standing there. The party really shouldn't have opened the mummy's tomb-those little statutes in the rear alcove are worth him being finally killed for. The back cover has an excellent full-color illustration of the Type XI demon (the one also on the PHB cover)with summarized statistics. Favorite pieces include Shimmer Moss on page 48 (the guy is just staring lankly at the wall as cobwebs grow around him) and the Fraim's rendition of Gar'Rangeeze, the Demon Blob, on page 80. Their work reminds me of Pizza the Hut from Spaceballs, a very funny movie.
The internal text contents of this volume of the Hacklopedia of Beasts are likewise excellent. Besides a long description of dragons that brings up many KODT jokes (like the dragon's length times it teeth equal its hit points) and attempts to give the monsters interesting motivations in the culture section, the text gives you the specifics you need on the species to start playing it. If you have the Monster Matrix or want to make an individualized monster, these give you the framework you need. An Imp named Penster and Lord Scroud, a type II demon who overcame his hunger, show that there are variations. I've done variations on the Duke of Evil, who is a badass, because the greedy players in my game just fall for it too easily. As always, the tables are well-laid out and easy to read, especially the yield.
Demons and Devils are tough in HackMaster-the demons go up to type XI and the big demons and devils from prior editions are here (Tiamat is in volume II, but she's a devil lord). This is HackMaster, so the only reason they were called nefarions besides the obvious fact they are nefarious, was for an encyclopedia-style monster series of 128 page books. Wouldn't have room for the D volume at 128 pages with dragons, demons, devils, and daemons in it.
You'll find other interesting tidbits on humans, molds, monkeys, and other fascinating beasts with a quick read.
This is one of my two favorite Hacklopedias, with Hacklopedia II, the dragon volume, coming a close second for first depending on whether on not the PCs whopped dragon butt recently.
Overall, this is a 5-star product and worth adding to your Hackmaster collection, or taking to find evil demons and evils to beat the PCs up with in your other games.
