Hungry Little Monsters

[Krug]

Hungry Little Monsters is a compilation project initiated by Sean K Reynolds to be a charity fundraiser for FoodForAll.org, a program to help feed the hungry.
Hungry Little Monsters features 43 new monsters (each approximately one page long) for the d20 system. The theme for this book is "monsters for which you can use existing miniatures or tokens." Rather than a collection of bizarre-anatomy creatures that you can't represent with anything on your miniatures shelf or in a store, this book is full of creatures which you can represent in play with commonly-available miniatures or tokens. This is set up by a serious of monster archetypes -- corpses (skeletal or zombielike undead), fiends (your typical bat-winged demonic or devilish creature), humanoids, oozes, spirits (bodiless undead), and so on.
This book is authored by volunteer members of the RPG industry, including Sean K Reynolds, Dave Mattingly, Matt Forbeck, Scott Bennie, and Ed Greenwood, as well as a dozen other established game designers. Likewise, the editing, art, and typesetting is donated as well. Hungry Little Monsters is created entirely on volunteer time. The game material in the book is entirely open game content as defined by the Open Gaming License.
All proceeds from this book are donated to Food For All.org

 

[Krug]

Hungry Little Monsters is another product from Sean K Reynolds Games that follows the highly successful Swords into Plowshares, which raised US$1,600 for the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund. This time around, the proceeds raised will go to Food4all.org, a charity that works to alleviate hunger around the world.

This book, priced at US$7, comes in three parts. The main book, a PDF with just the illustrations, and another PDF with the 43 monsters featured as tokens. The contributors range from Ed Greenwood, Sean K Reynolds (naturally), Dave Mattingly, Matt Forbeck, Scott Bennie, Wil Upchurch and others. All the monsters are illustrated, which is another plus, and this PDF is professionally done. The Challenge rating for these creatures ranges from CR1/2 to CR20.

There's some imaginatively done creatures here, such as the Courier Tree, Pyrite Dragon, Sugareater, Vaporhound and Xoan. (You can find short one-line descriptions of the monsters here.) I found the Sugareater particularly interesting; it's a plant-like creature that emits a sticky sap that turns its victims into zombies. Other creatures of interest include the Pyrite Dragons. also known as 'fool's gold dragons', and part of their attack includes an ability to inflict hideous laughter. Famine Sprites are faerie that have no interest in games, and their sole purpose is to feed and consume. There's also two templates for that old veteran the Owlbear, altering the creature that could give an experienced party a few surprises.

One of the best things about these collection of monsters is that they are intended for use with existing miniatures, which makes them even easier to use. This doesn't mean that the monsters are just old hat; they're creative and at the very least intriguing.

Kudos to SKR Games for putting together an exceptional product. It might be for charity, but it's exceptionally well put-together and detailed, and should give DMs itching for new monster some material to drop into their campaign.

Hungry Little Monsters is available from RPGNow.com at this link.

 

[tylerthehobo]

Great stuff; great cause!

I helped proofread this, and yeah, I was blown away. Generally, I'm not too big a fan of monster supplements, but a lot of these are very imaginitavely done.

And hey, it's for charity, so do a good deed and get it, folks.