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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011804" data-attributes="member: 172">Masters and Minions: A Swarm of StirgesMasters and Minions: A Swarm of Stirges is a sourcebook providing additional rules, information, ideas, and encounters regarding that classic bloodsucking nuisance, the stirge. The book is written by Tavis Allison, and is the first release by Behemoth3.A First LookI received a copy of A Swarm of Stirges as 54 page print-on-demand document priced at $12.00, though revealed elsewhere in the reviews section you will find that future printings will be more expensive. The book comes with a code to receive a PDF version of the book. I find this to be a fantastic arrangement. Some publishers are pricing their electronic books at 75%-100% of the price of their printed book, which totally neglects the value of the printed product. Providing an electronic version is of great added value, though, and I heartily hope that this becomes more common; it provides the buyer with an electronic copy that can be updated and be used for copying and pasting pertinent sections in one’s game notes, while still delivering the inherent value of a printed book.All artwork is by Sang Lee. The cover of the book has a rather nice illustration of bat/mosquito hybrid looking stirge. The interior art is black and white (though is colorized in the PDF version.) The art is rather appealing throughout.The copy I received uses the inside cover for some text (primarily company information and the like). The printing on the inside cover looks rather splotchy. The author discussed this with me and professes that this printing error should not recur in later version.A Deeper LookTo catch your interest, the author sets the tone with a tale about a stirge that reads like a slightly respun childs tale, forshadowing some of the material in the book.While I was expecting an extended belaboring of stirge ecology, it turns out that most such notes were limited to a single page in the introduction. The bulk of the book is rather more meaty.A 12 page section on monsters includes a new, more detailed writeup of the stirge. But it only begins there (er, well, not quite begins, as this particular writeup is about halfway thought). In addition to this, we get: -Ashmalkin: These are wicked little fey that tame and ride stirges. They also use alchemy to create weapons that make you take notice of the little beasties, like shocking whips and flaming darts. -Blood Bloat: The brief ecology section intoduces the stages of a stirges life cycle, the last one being the blood bloat. Blood bloats are the flightless egglaying form a well fed stirge metamorphoses into. -Hollow Husk: The hollow husk is an undead creature that has been sucked dry, a common state of being in stirge infested swamp. This curiosity has a few game mechanical impacts; a hollow husk may fill itself with air or water. Or, in a more sinister vein, ashmalkins have been known to fill the creatures with swamp gas, bacteria, or toxic spores, making for a nasty surprise. -Stirge Swarm: Stirges being the traditional swarm creature, using the swarm creature seems like only the natural thing to do. This makes it more convenient to handle a large swarm of the creatures.Though what is described to this point is but a third of the document. Everything from here on out is additional options and encounters for stirges and (more often) the new creatures. The ashmalkin receive a full PHB style writeup, with additional random character details and a short prestige class, the wing jockey. Encounters include a ashmalkin wizard, a hollow husk lich, a ghost stirge, and a vampire bloated blood. More extensive encounters include a larger units, a stirge swamp lair, and an ashmalkin swamp colony. Appendices to the book summarize the main creature statistics and provide a progression for an ashmalkin wizard from levels 1-20.ConclusionsI have got to admit, when I first saw this book, I was rather skeptical. A book about stirges? How much can your really say about stirges that would remain interesting? I was expecting something rather droll, having bad flashbacks of obvious to the experienced reader factoids like the early Slayer’s Guides.I was surprised to see that the contents were actually offered quite a few possibilities. The ashmalkin, to me, are really the focus of the book, and an intriguing one.Further, I also appreciate the approach of providing a PDF with a book, something I spend the extra money to do on occasion with other publishers.That said, there are a few problems with stat blocks (mostly some misplaced modifiers, such as HP and Con modifiers not matching). Though the PDF-add-on format provides the potential to correct such problems (and they have already been pointed out by another reviewer), as of a few days ago when I pulled down the PDF, it was not updated with correct statistics yet.Overall Grade: B -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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