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Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
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<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 7003581" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>Some good ideas there. I think that the Morkoth has a lot of really interesting plot hooks, mostly thanks to its wee island. I'm looking forward to using one - they seem like great recurring NPCs, bouncing from campaign to campaign, world to world.</p><p></p><p>---------</p><p></p><p>I’ll be honest with you, dear readers: I’ve never read a single page of a <em>Spelljammer</em> supplement. It really isn’t my thing, though a modern reinterpretation (or AP) might catch my interest. And so I’m really in the dark for our next entry, the <strong>Neogi</strong>.</p><p></p><p><img src="http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/0/04/Image-0.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140929135322" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The art in Volos appears to be better than any of the other options on Google, so we can give it credit for that. The artist also managed to incorporate all three size categories of the Neogi at once, which is quite the feat, and gave them a very alien demeanour in both looks and personality at the same time. They seem to transition from ‘potato with legs’ to ‘Alien Chestburster + spider body’ to ‘giant spider + Gold Dragon head’. I don’t know what to say about that, really.</p><p></p><p>The Neogi have a really weird entry. It desperately skirts around some really obvious elements - Great Old One pacts and Spelljamming, for example - which gives the impression that the writer was trying to incorporate a cool race without being able to presume that it could make use of the things that made it cool. In addition, they are an intelligent, slave-owning, evil race. I wonder if there is a connection between the mainly American nationality of the D&D content creators, and a neurosis about slavery in D&D? That is probably a bit heavy for our purposes here, but it is really noticeable just how many of these races keep slaves, and it does rather make you wonder where they all come from! But then, if life in D&D-land was easy, you wouldn’t need adventurers…</p><p></p><p>The Neogi are given an alien mindset, one where age leads inevitably to use as combination cradle and buffet, where no emotions are worth noting, loyalty is only worth exercising in the face of clear authority, and hierarchy is all. To be honest, I think that I’d rather be enslaved by Devils than these guys, since at least the Devils sound like interesting conversationalists. The Neogi are determined to win prizes for evil, and have managed to win a reputation for this to the extent that basically only other mad and evil races - Drow, Illithids, fiends - will give their trading missions the time of day. </p><p></p><p>To be honest, adding all of this together, the Neogi kind of fail to explain what their purpose in the game is. I’ve mentioned this concern before - why use X race when race A, D, and K already exist? - and the Neogi fall into it pretty badly. They seem to fill a role that is already filled by Drow and Fiends (evil slave-trading race that everyone hates, which has an obsession with hierarchy and advancing up the ladder of command, and which uses nasty magic), beyond the Spelljamming stuff that their entry sidles around. They’d be a <em>lot</em> more interesting if they came with an AP which featured their ship, to be brutally honest.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, enough negativity, let’s talk about their profiles. There are three: a CR 1/8th Hatchling, a CR 3 Neogi, and a CR 4 Master. The Hatchling is, well, a potato with legs. By the time that you can face Neogi this will be a minor threat at best, so they are clearly just here to explain what a hatchery would be full of. The standard Neogi is much more interesting. They are essentially a spider creature with an elf’s resistance to <em>sleep</em> and <em>charm</em>, but with a nasty ability to use a charm ability of its own - <em>Enslave</em> - which they can only use once. The save is not impossible, being off of the reasonably common Wisdom score, but I can’t imagine a party would enjoy making lots of these saves to be honest, since it is pretty devastating. Unlike a Vampire’s Charm, however, you can break the effect on taking damage, so expect players to dedicate attacks to keeping the party in line. Finally, the Master is a full spellcaster, gaining 7 levels of Warlock goodness. They get what looks to me like a standard Warlock spell list - albeit with a souped-up <em>Eldritch Blast</em> - which gives them a lot of ranged oomph. These are not the kind of leader that buffs their allies much, but instead the one that lobbs heavy damage spells downfield while their minions rush the players. It’s a solid list, and the base Neogi stats are so interesting that I don’t think they really needed much more, so I think that this entry is a solid one. </p><p></p><p>Final thoughts: the Neogi have more interesting statblocks than story hooks, but seem to have plenty of utility for people who feel that D&D doesn’t have enough spiders in it. I’d like to see them in an AP, if only because I think that this entry doesn’t have the space to give full justice to the concept, but until then they are unlikely to get much use.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 7003581, member: 32659"] Some good ideas there. I think that the Morkoth has a lot of really interesting plot hooks, mostly thanks to its wee island. I'm looking forward to using one - they seem like great recurring NPCs, bouncing from campaign to campaign, world to world. --------- I’ll be honest with you, dear readers: I’ve never read a single page of a [i]Spelljammer[/i] supplement. It really isn’t my thing, though a modern reinterpretation (or AP) might catch my interest. And so I’m really in the dark for our next entry, the [b]Neogi[/b]. [img]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/0/04/Image-0.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140929135322[/img] The art in Volos appears to be better than any of the other options on Google, so we can give it credit for that. The artist also managed to incorporate all three size categories of the Neogi at once, which is quite the feat, and gave them a very alien demeanour in both looks and personality at the same time. They seem to transition from ‘potato with legs’ to ‘Alien Chestburster + spider body’ to ‘giant spider + Gold Dragon head’. I don’t know what to say about that, really. The Neogi have a really weird entry. It desperately skirts around some really obvious elements - Great Old One pacts and Spelljamming, for example - which gives the impression that the writer was trying to incorporate a cool race without being able to presume that it could make use of the things that made it cool. In addition, they are an intelligent, slave-owning, evil race. I wonder if there is a connection between the mainly American nationality of the D&D content creators, and a neurosis about slavery in D&D? That is probably a bit heavy for our purposes here, but it is really noticeable just how many of these races keep slaves, and it does rather make you wonder where they all come from! But then, if life in D&D-land was easy, you wouldn’t need adventurers… The Neogi are given an alien mindset, one where age leads inevitably to use as combination cradle and buffet, where no emotions are worth noting, loyalty is only worth exercising in the face of clear authority, and hierarchy is all. To be honest, I think that I’d rather be enslaved by Devils than these guys, since at least the Devils sound like interesting conversationalists. The Neogi are determined to win prizes for evil, and have managed to win a reputation for this to the extent that basically only other mad and evil races - Drow, Illithids, fiends - will give their trading missions the time of day. To be honest, adding all of this together, the Neogi kind of fail to explain what their purpose in the game is. I’ve mentioned this concern before - why use X race when race A, D, and K already exist? - and the Neogi fall into it pretty badly. They seem to fill a role that is already filled by Drow and Fiends (evil slave-trading race that everyone hates, which has an obsession with hierarchy and advancing up the ladder of command, and which uses nasty magic), beyond the Spelljamming stuff that their entry sidles around. They’d be a [i]lot[/i] more interesting if they came with an AP which featured their ship, to be brutally honest. Anyway, enough negativity, let’s talk about their profiles. There are three: a CR 1/8th Hatchling, a CR 3 Neogi, and a CR 4 Master. The Hatchling is, well, a potato with legs. By the time that you can face Neogi this will be a minor threat at best, so they are clearly just here to explain what a hatchery would be full of. The standard Neogi is much more interesting. They are essentially a spider creature with an elf’s resistance to [i]sleep[/i] and [i]charm[/i], but with a nasty ability to use a charm ability of its own - [i]Enslave[/i] - which they can only use once. The save is not impossible, being off of the reasonably common Wisdom score, but I can’t imagine a party would enjoy making lots of these saves to be honest, since it is pretty devastating. Unlike a Vampire’s Charm, however, you can break the effect on taking damage, so expect players to dedicate attacks to keeping the party in line. Finally, the Master is a full spellcaster, gaining 7 levels of Warlock goodness. They get what looks to me like a standard Warlock spell list - albeit with a souped-up [i]Eldritch Blast[/i] - which gives them a lot of ranged oomph. These are not the kind of leader that buffs their allies much, but instead the one that lobbs heavy damage spells downfield while their minions rush the players. It’s a solid list, and the base Neogi stats are so interesting that I don’t think they really needed much more, so I think that this entry is a solid one. Final thoughts: the Neogi have more interesting statblocks than story hooks, but seem to have plenty of utility for people who feel that D&D doesn’t have enough spiders in it. I’d like to see them in an AP, if only because I think that this entry doesn’t have the space to give full justice to the concept, but until then they are unlikely to get much use. [/QUOTE]
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