Imperial Zoo - Oh what a bestiary!

[TheSword]

WFRP The Imperial Zoo Pre-Order Live! – Cubicle 7

www.cubicle7games.com

Cubicle 7 have just released a great bestiary for WFRP 4e. 60 unique creatures along with some new creature traits.

I particularly like how they have included generic creatures and next to them included unique, more powerful version, with new rules and souped up abilities.

My personal favourite is an appendix with rules for chopping pieces of monster and selling them. With four stages of ripeness! Fresh… gamey…preserved and rotten. It’s a great little addition to a really fun book.

The chapters are presented as three expeditions, each detailing the monsters they come across with lots of world description and adventure ideas folded into the descriptions.

This is a truly great warhammer bestiary, but I think D&D could do some equally good stuff. It is choc full of conversion potential either way. Check it out in the link if you’re interested.

 

[Crusadius]

And pre-ordered!

 

[Crusadius]

My initial impression - a little disappointed the format of the book is different from the rest of 4E. I've grown fond of the grey background and the bronze/brown background of The Imperial Zoo makes it feel like it's not a WFRP 4E book to me.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Looks pretty cool. For those who have it, how much greater "world-building" info is there? I see in the description that it ranges from Karak Kadrin to Miragliano in Tilea.

Reason I ask, is most of the material I've seen published so far seems very constrained to The Empire, so I'm curious how far-aflung they explore in this one.

 

[TheSword]

Looks pretty cool. For those who have it, how much greater "world-building" info is there? I see in the description that it ranges from Karak Kadrin to Miragliano in Tilea.

Reason I ask, is most of the material I've seen published so far seems very constrained to The Empire, so I'm curious how far-aflung they explore in this one.

The first expedition is to Talebheim and the Middle Mountains. The second from the West Reik into Bretonnia. The third to Tilea. So yes.

However the book is pretty Monster focused. So you’ll only get regional world building in the context of their monsters (which is still very good.

incidentally there are also 3 varieties of Lustrian Dinosaur, and sever sea creatures.

 

[Retreater]

It looks interesting, and I've enjoyed collecting a lot of the Cubicle 7 books so far. But it sort of feels like the Cthulhu bestiary - you can't fight any of them anyway, so why does it matter when you're just going to die?

 

[Crusadius]

Hmmm. There are a number of beasties with no rating in Grim. I assume that means the rating is 1.

It was confusing reading the description of the trait Grim mentioning a Rating when the first creature with Grim had no rating. Only when I read Caledair, The Scythe of Fire who has Grim 3 did I realize what the description of Grim meant.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The first expedition is to Talebheim and the Middle Mountains. The second from the West Reik into Bretonnia. The third to Tilea. So yes.

However the book is pretty Monster focused. So you’ll only get regional world building in the context of their monsters (which is still very good.

incidentally there are also 3 varieties of Lustrian Dinosaur, and sever sea creatures.

Well, that's still pretty interesting. I may check this out, though I'm not sure it will be super helpful for my Enemy Within campaign just yet.

 

[Crusadius]

It looks interesting, and I've enjoyed collecting a lot of the Cubicle 7 books so far. But it sort of feels like the Cthulhu bestiary - you can't fight any of them anyway, so why does it matter when you're just going to die?

I assume the weakness of Caledair, the Scythe of Fire is laughter because a creature with such a name would only end up dying of embarrassment when confronted by PCs.

 

[TheSword]

Hmmm. There are a number of beasties with no rating in Grim. I assume that means the rating is 1.

It was confusing reading the description of the trait Grim mentioning a Rating when the first creature with Grim had no rating. Only when I read Caledair, The Scythe of Fire who has Grim 3 did I realize what the description of Grim meant.

I’m pretty sure that the case with most creature traits. If there’s just one level, there’s no number.

One level of grim is still pretty scary though.

 

[TheSword]

It looks interesting, and I've enjoyed collecting a lot of the Cubicle 7 books so far. But it sort of feels like the Cthulhu bestiary - you can't fight any of them anyway, so why does it matter when you're just going to die?

Why can’t you fight them. It seemed to be a book aimed at providing a range of threats, but definitely filling out the foes for tier 2 and 3 careers. Even Caledair, while a mighty foe could be an option for a level 4 party, with the right magic items, equipment and tactics. Though I wouldn’t expect her to be easy. 344
Wounds… ouch.

 

[Crusadius]

I see TS Luikart was also writer for WFRP 2E’s Old World Bestiary.

 

[Retreater]

Why can’t you fight them.

To me, it just doesn't seem to matter if the thing that killed you had 90 Wounds or 300. Both are equally impossible to kill. And how often does anybody actually fight in WFRP? My group has had basically two fights in our campaign so far, against human opponents who nearly killed them.
Imagine throwing a dragon against someone?

 

[TheSword]

To me, it just doesn't seem to matter if the thing that killed you had 90 Wounds or 300. Both are equally impossible to kill. And how often does anybody actually fight in WFRP? My group has had basically two fights in our campaign so far, against human opponents who nearly killed them.
Imagine throwing a dragon against someone?

Enemy within is pretty special in that regard. Other larger campaigns I’ve seen have more monsters. Particularly Doomstones and some of the Ubersreik Adventures.

For a single monster 90 wounds really isn’t very much. Don’t forget ranged are probably getting +20 to +40 bonus to hit and more for close range. Outnumbering means melee are getting similar. Those wounds soon get stripped when people are fire pistols etc.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

This is more off-topic, but I just learned that cubicle 7 has been planning a new, entirely fresh campaign that would have taken players to Albion, Lustria, and Ulthuan. But it seemed like it got shelved.

Very disappointing. I'm really hoping that WFRP will be able to expand beyond the reprints they've done so far, but it seems very Empire-focused. I get that's the biggest appeal for a lot of folks, but it would be nice to get some content for at least Kislev!

 

[Retreater]

This is more off-topic, but I just learned that cubicle 7 has been planning a new, entirely fresh campaign that would have taken players to Albion, Lustria, and Ulthuan. But it seemed like it got shelved.

Very disappointing. I'm really hoping that WFRP will be able to expand beyond the reprints they've done so far, but it seems very Empire-focused. I get that's the biggest appeal for a lot of folks, but it would be nice to get some content for at least Kislev!

Wonder if they're shelving it to focus on Soulbound? (I hope not.)

 

[TheSword]

This is more off-topic, but I just learned that cubicle 7 has been planning a new, entirely fresh campaign that would have taken players to Albion, Lustria, and Ulthuan. But it seemed like it got shelved.

Very disappointing. I'm really hoping that WFRP will be able to expand beyond the reprints they've done so far, but it seems very Empire-focused. I get that's the biggest appeal for a lot of folks, but it would be nice to get some content for at least Kislev!

My pet hate is when people say Cubicle 7 is just reprinting. Surely you’re not discount UA 1 & 2, Archives of the Empire 1 & 2, Altdorf, Imperial Zoo, Horned Rat and a half dozen other original pdf only stuff. That 7 original hard covers on top of the reprinted stuff. Come on!

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Wonder if they're shelving it to focus on Soulbound? (I hope not.)

It wasn't clear why, but the closest explanation seemed to be (of course) GW didn't want it.

My pet hate is when people say Cubicle 7 is just reprinting. Surely you’re not discount UA 1 & 2, Archives of the Empire 1 & 2, Altdorf, Imperial Zoo, Horned Rat and a half dozen other original pdf only stuff. That 7 original hard covers on top of the reprinted stuff. Come on!

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that it's just reprints. But there is a very big focus on recreating and creating homages to the original materials. Even the Horned Rat, which is original, is developed from the 1st Editions first plan for part 4 of the Enemy Within (that was replaced quickly with Rotten in Kislev for some business reasons).

I was just trying to say that sometimes it feels that the new edition's writers feel trapped within the Empire, and the scrapping of the Albion/Ulthuan campaign seemed like a lost opportunity to expand.