Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9538241" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/tvsf3Jp.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter Four, Part Two: Rest of the BestiarySpirits are a diverse range of beings animating the forces of reality. This chapter covers the ones intelligent and powerful enough to interact with mortals and be a threat, but not so all-powerful as to be gods.Beast Spirits represent the souls of animals unable to move on to the afterlife for whatever reason. This is a template that can only be added to giant/dire versions of animals, changing their type to fey, giving them maximum possible hit points for their hit dice, increasing their mental ability scores to 10 unless already higher, and gaining a limited number of spells whose power depends on their Challenge Rating.Danag (CR 11) are sky spirits who used to help mortals during farming, but got corrupted when a farmer started bleeding from an injury. When one of their number tried to lick the wound to help the farmer, the spirits discovered that blood was delicious, and the danag as a whole now hunt and eat mortals. They fight with manufactured weapons which gain a unique “blooded” condition whenever they damage a target, which deals bonus necrotic damage and can expend said condition to perform a variety of special abilities, such as casting Lightning Bolt or gaining temporary hit points.Diwata (CR 12) are fey who hold supreme dominion over a stretch of nature such as a holy glade, ancient tree, or pristine river. They are worshiped like gods, with mortals offering tribute and respect. They have a variety of druidic-flavored spells, can shapechange into humanoids and giants, and can telepathically communicate with all allied beasts and spirits within their demesne.Hukluban (CR 18) is a unique spirit who has the form of an old woman. She presides over the passing of dead souls, but unlike Magwayen she enjoys hastening the process via murder. She was banished by the rest of her kind for her perversions, and she looks for ever more ways to kill large amounts of creatures in the most efficient manners possible. In terms of stats Hukluban is an 18th level spellcaster specializing in death and insect-themed magic, has a rechargeable multi-target life-draining attack, and legendary actions and resistance.Kumakatok (CR 3) are spirits who come in threes, all wearing black cloaks that shroud their faces in darkness. They travel to people’s homes to deliver premonitions of illness and misfortune, and people guard against them by lining their doors with salt. In spite of common belief, they do not possess the ability to bring curses and destruction on others. They are but diviners, and bring people bad news as their duty. They share a single stat block and space in combat, their sole offensive ability is a very damaging dagger attack, and their divination talents let them be aware of all doors within 100 feet, teleport between doors when passing through them, and cannot be surprised.Litao (CR 2) is a unique fey spirit, who grows from bamboo thickets alongside rivers. He is kind to those who bring him gifts of fish, awarding them gifts in return. But he responds violently to those who cut down or despoil his bamboo, which he views as his home. Litao is in love with the daughter of the datu of a nearby village, but she rejects him due to knowing her father will never allow her to marry a spirit. In terms of stats he can teleport between bamboo like a dryad does between trees, knows some low-level druid spells, and fights with bamboo tendrils that have a long 20 foot reach.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/3XQtADq.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Nagined, Arapayan, and Makbarubak (collective CR 18) are the Aspects of Desire, War, and Poison, representing metaphorical concepts of inter-mortal harm. Such negative things have made them very powerful, and they travel the islands posing as mortal mercenaries. They believe that the more misery they spread, the more power they’ll get, which will eventually allow them to become gods. Although the Aspects manifest as three different spirits, they all share one mind and intelligence, although they still use separate stat blocks. They almost always fight together, reflecting the collective Challenge Rating listed earlier. The Aspect of Desire is primarily a spellcaster who uses powerful enchantment magic, the Aspect of War is a physical fighter who uses “death by a thousand cuts” with a bunch of individually weak Multiattacks, and the Aspect of Poison has a venomous gaze attack, can poison people as part of their bite, and ignores resistance and immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition with said attacks.Tamawo (CR 6) are spirits who live in trees, appearing as beautiful humanoids but can be recognized by the lack of a philtrum. Their trees are a common gathering spot by babaylan training proteges, as the tree helps them undergo spirit visions. Yet tamawo can be indirectly dangerous, for they often abscond mortals they fall in love with into their tree and never allow them to leave. In terms of stats their primary method of offense is using a Songil weapon that is also poisoned, and they can cast a spell called Spiritual Spear at will. But this spell is not one I can find in official sources, and it’s not referenced anywhere else in the book. Tamawo don’t have very damaging attacks otherwise, being mostly utility and defensive; such as having perfect beauty that can force people to be unable to attack them on a failed Charisma save, or casting Dominate Person and Magnificent Mansion (entrance is in the tree) once per day each.Beasts is our final category in Chapter 4, covering existing and new mundane animals. As you can expect, creatures that are native to tropical islands are found here, but one can also find cats that live in forests, deer who forage for food in mountains at night, and eagles who can be found on every island. The new stat blocks cover animals that are either virtually harmless or have low Challenge Ratings, with the Dire Eagle and Giant Coconut Crab being the strongest at Challenge Rating 3 each.AppendicesThe book’s final 16 pages cover 3 appendices. The first appendix discusses the writers’ real-world research and sources of inspiration, as well as what aspects they changed either for game design or modern sensibilities when transporting them into an RPG setting. The second appendix is a Glossary of common terms in the islands, while the third appendix is a Pronunciation Guide for common words.The writers of Sina Una really brought their A-game when it came to research, and go into detail on just about every major facet of the world along with covering the major character options. For instance, the Mangangayaw Ranger subclass was inspired by the timawa warrior class of ancient Visayan societies, who were their own social class somewhere between the commonborn and nobility. Or how the spirit Paglipad was inspired by a Filipino folktale of a bat refusing to join the war between birds and mammals.Thoughts So Far: I like a lot of the spirit monsters, as they have particularly interesting mechanics or backstories and thus adventure hooks in the case of the unique individual spirits. The Danag’s ability to draw from a pool of abilities when they damage targets in battle, Hukluban and the three Aspect’s ready-made roles as high-level villains, and the Kumakatok’s misunderstood role as harbingers of bad news are all quite thematic and can make for some memorable adventures and encounters. I don’t have much to say in regards to mundane animals, as they won’t be dangerous enough for most gaming groups to feel all that memorable. When it comes to Druid Wild Shaping, none of the beasts have any out-there abilities that make them ideal picks over existing official creatures.I really enjoyed the Appendix going over research material. It’s nice to see where aspects of the setting originally came from. As a lot of D&D gamers aren’t as likely to be familiar with the Philippines in comparison to Western Europe, Japan, and China, it does a good job of showing that this culture is also full of neat ideas for fantasy gaming.Final Thoughts: The Islands of Sina Una is very much a book with a lot of work put into it. The authors did their due diligence in pulling from their culture’s legends and myths to create a fantasy setting, they made ample use of evocative illustrations of lands, people, and creatures, and made sure to include material for both players and Dungeon Masters.But in spite of this content, I cannot recommend this product for two major reasons. The first is in regards to balance, where many options for PCs are outright broken and break the system’s math. The other is that as far as settings go, it’s lacking a lot of detail that helps drive adventure and conflict. To say nothing of smaller errors, like the mislabeled content warning of the spider illustrations, the nonexistent Spiritual Spear spell, or the out-of-nowhere mention of Bathala having banished mortals in the giant entry. These last few things individually aren’t much, but when combined with the bigger picture lowers the book’s overall ratings.The Islands of Sina Una can be a useful resource in taking elements of inspiration from Filipino legends and folklore for 5e games, and has a sizable bestiary for monsters and adversaries. But as a general product, it would take a lot of work to make it usable at the game table.</blockquote>

Verification