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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011709" data-attributes="member: 18387">Swarm of Stirges    I have been waiting four years for someone to do this.  One of the great things that the Open Game License has allowed is for people to expand on the traditional creatures of D&D.  But it never did happen.  People took the classes and the races and gave them depth and redefinition.  But this was not done with the monsters.  New monster book came and went all the while offering new and interesting creatures.  But the classic creatures just got a little information that was written in the Monster Manual.  There is a new series of books though that will look at and redefine some of the old and classic creatures.  The first in the series is A Swarm of Stirges and it takes a classic and scary creature and looks at it in a new light.    A Swarm of Stirges is a small book, only about fifty four pages.  It is brought to us by a new company, Behemoth 3.  The book is also available as a PDF and when one gets the book they can get a copy of the PDF for free from Behemoth 3’s site.  The softbound book is well organized but it does seem like they stretched things out a bit to make a bigger book.  The art is good and it is all black and white.  The layout is good as well.      The book starts off with a nice short story of a little Stirge and how it comes to be in life.  It is a strangely entertaining yet creepy story from the point of view of the Stirge.  The book starts with ecology of the Stirge and it greatly expands on the version that everyone is familiar with.  The book then presents a few new creatures that deal with  Stirges.  The first is a fey called the Ashmalkin.  They ride stirges and are considered enemies of the Seelie Court.  One of the highlights of the book is the Designer Notes that the auther includes on many of the creatures and other ideas presented here.  He goes into detail about how things happened in the play testing and it gives great insight on how to use the creatures with greater ease.  One of the great ideas that I really like with the Ashmalkins is the idea of their nations and their separation of them through civil wars.  In the designer notes it has an idea of the Fifth Expeditionary Cavalry and other political bodies.  The ideas are brief and not defined but it really is more then enough to get the creative juices flowing.  I found it the most creative idea in the book.    Another new creature is the Blood Bloat.  It is a stirge later in life.  It a nice idea that furthers the life cycle of the stirge.  After them there is the Hollow Husk, a undead creature that the husk of a drained animal or person can turn into.  The strength of the hollow husk is that the author actually goes into detail how they come about.  Most undead just seem to happen or it’s explained as magic.  Again it is the details that really make the creatures.  The Stirge is reprinted here and greatly detailed.  But it’s the Swarm of Stirges that follows that is truly scary.  Now, the write up of the swarm is not nearly as strong as I would think.  It only has a challenge rating of three.  It is the right challenge rating considering the stats they gave the swarm, it is just I think a swarm of stirges should be a lot more lethal and powerful.  The book goes on to give the option of playing the Ashmalkins as characters.  And while they are given no level adjustment I really think one is needed.  They are diminutive creatures with pretty good stat bonuses.  They can’t use most equipment but they have Wizard as their favored class so they can make items they can use.  There is a Wing Jockey prestige class for them.  It represents the great ability they have to fly the stirges.  As a prestige class they made it very simple to get into.  One can qualify for it at first level.  The designer does state that he did that because he wanted to keep the levels of the creatures low since the challenge ratings in this book are low.  However, I feel it should have been a core class then, even if just a five level one.  The adventure section is where I had the feeling that things were stretched.  There are some nice ideas here but there are stat write ups that take over a page and it just seems like wasted space.  I know large stat write ups are a part of d20 and are a problem in many books.  Swarm of Stirges does a great job of breathing new life into an old favorite.  The idea of using the swarm rules and apply them to the stirge is truly a great idea and showing a strength of the new systems rules.  The book does a great job of introducing us to a creature we know but in a way we did not.</blockquote>

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