LORDS OF MADNESS
By Richard Baker, James Jacobs, and Steve Winter
Wizards of the Coast product number 17410000
222 pages, $34.95
The third in the "creature type" series (behind
Draconomicon and
Libris Mortis),
Lords of Madness takes an in-depth look at aberrations. However, since aberrations do not fall into as "generic" a category as dragons and undead, this book instead focuses on those specific aberrations that are intelligent, live together in societies, have some sort of magical power, and are a specific threat to humanoids.
The cover art is by Wayne England and Ed Fox; since the picture of the illithid holding a brain over a brain canister is simply a larger version of Wayne's illustration on page 67, I suppose Ed's contribution is the "magical tome" portion of the book. While the picture is nicely done, the fact that it's "rerun art" from the book's interior makes this the least impressive cover in the series thus far. (That, and unlike the other two books in the series, there is no artwork on the back of the book, just the "magical tome" stuff.)
The interior artwork, 77 full-color illustrations, 9 monochrome "chapter beginning" pieces, and 8 full-color maps by 16 different artists, is for the most part pretty good. I noted with a groan of disappointment that Dennis "Maybe if I keep changing my name people will eventually like me" Crabapple-McClain is back, and while his artwork shows a definite improvement when he isn't trying to draw a humanoid, I'm still not too impressed with his entries in this book; his beholder on page 55 is one of the sillier-looking I've ever seen (note how one "eyestalk" is really a tentacle with an eyeball halfway down its length, and how the beholder's teeth seem to be growing
through the creature's lips), his gas spore on page on page 149 isn't much better, and those are the goofiest beholder cultists I've ever seen on page 60 (one's wearing a "beholder hat" with only 9 eyestalks, and the other two look like Star Wars jawas; I'm not even sure what race the fat guy on the left is supposed to be). Fortunately, most of the rest of the artwork is very well done; I particularly enjoyed Ed Cox's full-color anatomical diagrams of the various aberrations, and the maps were all very nicely rendered and easy to read. Best of all, each of the prestige classes and new monsters received their own full-color illustrations, although there were some details off in some of the monster pictures. The worst offender was Colin Fix's painting of the psurlons on page 165; psurlons are supposed to have a humanoid build - thus, two legs - not the centipede/caterpillar build he gave them! (Their eyes are also supposed to be in a ring around their mouths, whereas Colin puts them in "clumps" where a human's eyes would be.) Also, it looks like two of the illithidae are mislabeled, as the saltor is the one with the chin tentacles, not the kigrid. Finally, the hound of the gloom illustration should have "milky white" skin instead of the gray as depicted, and its two extra-long tentacles should end in five-fingered hands, not three-fingered hands as shown.
Lords of Madness is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: A page describing how the book is laid out
- What Is an Aberration?: The Codex Anathema (a book of notes about aberrations compiled by a wizard over a thousand years ago), various origins of aberrations (out of space, out of time, from the outer planes, the dreams of mad gods, magical mutations), various aberration characteristics (sinister masterminds, inimical to nature, unhuman, perilous lore), aberration campaigns (heroic vs. horrific adventure, epic-level play, psionics, and vile darkness), 40 adventure ideas, and brief descriptions of 12 other aberrations not otherwise detailed in the book
- The Deep Masters: Details about aboleths, including their anatomy, mind, diet , 3 variant aboleths, the Savant Aboleth prestige class, 9 aboleth feats, 6 master glyphs, the origin of the aboleth, religion, (including descriptions of 5 aboleth deities), language, relations with other creatures, lairs, minions, cities, characters (with a set of NPC stats), and a 4-page mini-adventure, "The God in the Lake"
- The Eye Tyrants: Details about beholders, including their anatomy, mind, diet, 11 variant beholders and beholderkin, the Beholder Mage prestige class, 7 beholder feats, 6 magic items, beholder religion, language, relations with other creatures, sane beholders, hives and hive cities, lairs, minions, a 5-page mini-adventure ("Sekarvu's Lair), and a 4-page mini-adventure ("Cult of the Hungry Eye")
- The Mind Flayers: Details about illithids, including their anatomy, reproduction, mind, diet, 8 variants, 10 magic items, origin, language, religion, relations with other creatures, goals, and 2 separate 6-page mini-adventures ("Lagurno, Illithid Sept" and "The Lair of Sarkt")
- The Slave Takers: Details about neogi, including stats for the adult, spawn, and great old master forms, their society, characters, anatomy, reproduction and development, 4 variants, leaders and slavery, language, religion, relations with other creatures, goals, and a 6-page mini-adventure, "Wreck of the Mindspider"
- The Eaters: Details about grell, including stats for the grell and grell philosopher, their anatomy, senses, reproduction, development and aging (including stats for a hatchling and juvenile), language, religion, leaders, relations with other creatures, grell alchemy, 4 magic items, and a 5-page mini-adventure, "Sangkon Bhet"
- The Wearers of Flesh: Details about tsochari, including stats, characters, anatomy, senses, parasitism, reproduction, development and aging, a new feat, language, religion, NPC stats for a tsochar and its human host, relations with other races, 2 tsochar spells, a new magic item, and a 4-page mini-adventure, "The House of Deros Frist"
- New Monsters: 28 new monsters, 5 of which are templates
- The Aberration Hunter: 20 feats, 6 prestige classes, 6 cleric domains, 19 spells, 6 magic items, 16 grafts, and 4 organizations, all (but the grafts) themed around fighting aberrations
There is no index in the back, but a well-detailed Table of Contents should do nearly as well.
I was impressed by the proofreading and editing jobs, which is at a pretty high standard. While I noticed a couple of errors - some of the entries in the Table of Contents didn't have the string of periods leading to the page number, a "(see below)" should have been a "(see previous page)" and an "on this page" should have been an "on page 205," one instance of a one-eyed man having "eyes," a map key reversing the symbols for "hole in floor" and "hole in ceiling," a lack of the "A, B, C, and D" on the map on page 53 referred to in the description of the area, a period missing from a "ft" abbreviation, a magic item's name not being italicized, and that most irritating of oversights, a "see page xx" that should have read "See page 213." Not bad at all (for a 222-page book), but still some room for improvement.
I have to say, although I was at first a little bit disappointed to find out that there was no "unifying theme" for aberrations as a whole (like there was in the
Draconomicon and
Libris Mortis books), I think the way the authors approached this book was probably the best way possible. In fact, although there are still plenty of aberrations that I would have liked to see more information about (chuuls, destrachans, ixitxachitl, nagas, and nel-thalggu (brain collectors) in particular), going for the "aberrations that have societies inimical to mankind" approach works out well. I don't really mind that each "specific monster" chapter has little to do with the other chapters; as it is, it's rather like having six greatly-expanded "Ecology" articles (from
Dragon magazines) detailing the creatures in question. Most of the new monsters were interesting and made sense being there (I should point out that the gibbering mouther shows up in the "New Monsters" section, but only because the monster's been reworked to make it easier to play, and this is the "updated and official" version), although I was underwhelmed by the hound of the gloom (basically a Large dog with a ring of tentacles around its neck; surely they could have come up with something a bit more "alien" than that!), and the Shadow Creature template already appeared in the
Manual of the Planes. Still, it was nice to see some 3.5 versions of the various beholderkin and illithids from the AD&D 2nd Edition "Monstrous Arcana" books
I, Tyrant and
The Illithiad, and old favorites like the cildabrin and the gas spore. I was particularly surprised to see stats for the embrac, kigrid, and saltor, as these illithidlike creatures originally appeared in a "Dragon's Bestiary" article from
Dragon #150. (And, since the book's production team didn't see fit to give credit to the author on the Credits page like they did for the authors of previous TSR/WotC books - and magazine articles by "industry names" Eric L. Boyd and Michael Mearls - I'll do so here: the three creatures originally appeared in "All Life Crawls Where Mind Flayers Rule," by Stephen Inniss - nice job, by the way, Stephen! I always liked that article.)
As I read through
Lords of Madness, I ran across the first few NPC and monster stats, and was pleasantly surprised, as the error rate was initially very low. Could it be that
Lords of Madness was the first WotC book that had received the attention of an additional developer reviewing all of the game stats? I initially thought so, but as I progressed further and further into the book, the stat errors kept piling up, to the point that now that I'm done with it, I don't know that I'd say with any confidence that these stats had received any additional attention at all. With my standard disclaimer that these are the errors I noticed during a single reading of the book (and thus, I don't guarantee that these are the only problems with the stats), I recommend making the following changes:
- p. 35, Huck One-Eye, male human ranger 3: Longbow damage should be 1d8-1/x3, not 1d8+1/x3 (-2 Str penalty, +1 magic arrow bonus).
- p. 43, Kularkuthan, beholder elder orb sorcerer 16: Will should be +28, not +26 (+12 as a 20-HD aberration, +10 as a Sor16, +4 Wis, +2 Iron Will).
- p. 58, Hungry Eye Cultist, human commoner 1/rogue 5: Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 11 (the +3 Dex bonus is retained, even while flat-footed, due to Uncanny Dodge).
- p. 84, Intellect Devourer: HD should be 6d8+12, not 6d8+15 (+2 Con bonus, no Toughness feat). With 6 HD, it should have 3 feats, not 4; one should be annotated as a bonus feat.
- p. 85, Kuo-toa Cleric 5 of Blibdoolpoolp: Bite attacks should be at +3 melee, not +4 (+5 BAB, +3 Str, -5 for secondary attack).
- p. 87, Oristel, male elf rogue 6: Flat-footed Ac should be 18, not 14 (the +4 Dex bonus is retained, even while flat-footed, due to Uncanny Dodge).
- p. 88, Sarkt, mind flayer sorcerer 4: AC should be 19, not 23 (+4 Dex, +3 natural, +2 ring of protection). Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 19 (+3 natural, +2 ring of protection). (Of course, he knows the mage armor spell, so maybe that accounts for the missing 4 points of AC, but in that case there should be a "*already cast" annotated after the spell, as is the case elsewhere in the book in this situation.) Under Full Attack, tentacle attacks should be at +12 melee, not +10 (+8 BAB, +4 due to Weapon Finesse).
- p. 90, Adult Neogi: With HD 5d8-5, average hit points should be 17, not 18. (Round fractions down.)
- p. 91, Neogi Spawn: Since an adult neogi has 5 HD, Advancement for a neogi spawn should be 2-4 HD, not 2-3 HD (or else how do you account for a 4-HD neogi?).
- p. 91, Great Old Master: Flat-footed AC should be 13, not 14. (You don't ignore the -1 Dex modifier when flat-footed, otherwise your AC would actually improve when you weren't aware of an attack!)
- p. 95, Neogi Defiler: Under Full Attack, claw attacks should be at +3 melee, not +3/+3. (You don't get iterative attacks with natural weapons.)
- p. 96, Neogi Sorcerer 6: Under Full Attack, claw attacks should be at +7 melee, not +7/+7. (You don't get iterative attacks with natural weapons.)
- p. 104, Jawarkk Fel, Neogi Defiler, neogi rogue 5: Flat-footed AC should be 22, not 17 (due to Uncanny Dodge, it keeps its +5 Dex bonus). Claw attacks should be at +7 melee, not +7/+7. (You don't get iterative attacks with natural weapons.)
- p. 115, Silverspear: [Good catch by Kelleris (see comments below the review itself) - this one is actually correct as written]
- p. 137, Director: Tentacle damage should be 1d6+1, not just 1d6 (it has a +1 Str bonus).
- p. 144, Elder Brain: No Level Adjustment is given; presumably it's "-"
- p. 146, Elder Eidolon Kraken: Dex should be 14, not 11 (a kraken has Dex 10, and the Elder Eidolon template grants +4 Dex). Initiative should be +2, not +0 (+2 Dex). Speed should have "(4 squares)" after the "20 ft." AC should be 30, not 28 (-4 size, +2 Dex, +18 natural, +4 deflection). Touch AC should be 12, not 10 (-4 size, +2 Dex, +4 deflection). Space/Reach shouldn't have that "(9 squares)" after the "20 ft." in the "Space" entry. (Where in the world did that come from?) Ref should be +8, not +6 (By the template, one-third HD + Dex mod = 6 + 2).
- pp. 148-149, Gas Spore: Death Throes Reflex save should be DC 12, not DC 10 (10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier, or 10 + 5 - 3).
- p. 153, Hound of the Gloom: With HD 12d8+84, average hit points should be 138, not 156.
- p. 156, Saltor: Either the bite attacks under Full Attack should be at +2 melee, not +5 (+3 BAB, +1 size, +3 Dex due to Weapon Finesse, -5 for secondary attack), or it should have Multiattack as a bonus feat. Fort should be +2, not +3 (+1 as a 5-HD aberration, +1 Con). Ref should be +4, not +5 (+1 as a 5-HD aberration, +3 Dex). Screech Fort save should be DC 13, not DC 14 (10 + 1/2 HD + Con mod, or 10 + 2 + 1).
- p. 157, Mind Flayer Lich 12th-level Sorcerer: Its Possessions listing indicates it has a green ioun stone, but its stats don't take into account its +1 competence bonus to attacks, saves, and (presumably; I didn't check) skill checks. Either make tentacle attacks be at +20 melee, touch attacks be at +19 melee touch, spell attacks be at +19 ranged touch, Fort be at +11, Ref be at +17, Will be at +24, and possibly bump each skill rank by 1 point...or just delete the green ioun stone from the creature's possessions. If you choose the latter (and much easier) method, then you'll probably want to replace the ioun stone with 30,000 gp worth of equipment to balance it out. (An easy fix would be to give it both a dark blue rhomboid and a pearly white spindle ioun stone - 10,000 gp and 20,000 gp, respectively - which gives it the Alertness feat and allows it to regenerate 1 hp/hour. Since it already has the Alertness feat, you can then pick any other feat you want for it in its place.)
- p. 163, Average Psurlon: Touch AC should be 12, not 16 (it doesn't get the +4 armor bonus from mage armor).
- p. 164, Elder Psurlon: Touch AC should be 13, not 17 (it doesn't get the +4 armor bonus from mage armor).
- p. 167, Shadow Choker: Since this is just a templated choker, its Advancement should go to 12 HD (like the normal choker) instead of stopping at 9 HD (as its listed here).
- p. 168, Silthilar: In coalesced form, touch AC should be 15 and flat-footed AC should be 18 (no values were given). In coalesced form, grapple attacks should be at +6, not -10 (+6 BAB, +0 Str (Str 10 when in coalesced form), +0 size (Medium while in coalesced form); it looks like the designers were thinking it was still a Fine swarm with Str 1.
- p. 193, Erkin Tiorki, male gnome cleric 4 (Boccob)/wizard 5/fleshwarper 3: AC and flat-footed AC should both be 18, not 17 (+1 size, +1 ring of protection, +4 mage armor, +2 natural). Touch AC should be 12, not 11 (+1 size, +1 ring of protection). The "+2 natural" is a result of the +2 chitin plating listed under "Possessions" - it would have been nice to explain where that came from! (It's listed on page 216, under Silthilar Grafts; I didn't completely fix this set of stat blocks until I finally reached page 216 and figured out what that "+2 chitin plating" was all about!)
- p. 218, Whitecap, hawk animal companion: Dex should be 22, not 24 (a hawk has Dex 17, and it gets +5 Dex for being the animal companion of a 15-HD master). Initiative should be +6, not +3 (+6 Dex). AC should be 30, not 29 (+2 size, +6 Dex, +12 natural). Touch AC should be 18, not 17 (+2 size, +6 Dex). Talon attacks should be at +16 melee, not +17 (+8 BAB, +2 size, +6 Dex due to Weapon Finesse). Ref should be +13, not +14 (+7 as an 11-HD animal, +6 Dex). Since it doesn't have 3 or more natural attacks, it shouldn't have Multiattack as a bonus feat; instead, according to the "animal companion" sidebar in the druid section of the Player's Handbook, it should have a Full Attack listing showing talon attacks at +17/+12 melee.
- p. 219, Jasper Ringlerock, male halfling ranger 7/darkrunner 1: AC should be 20, not 19 (+1 size, +4 Dex, +5 from +1 mithril chain shirt). Touch AC should be 15, not 14 (+1 size, +4 Dex). Flat-footed AC should be 16, not 15 (+1 size, +5 from +1 mithril chain shirt).
- p. 221, Korrath, male human fighter 4/psion (egoist) 1/sanctified mind 4: Masterwork light crossbow attacks should be at +8 ranged, not +12 (+8 BAB, -1 Dex, +1 masterwork weapon bonus).
- p. 222, Halvar Marth, male human ranger 1/paladin 4/topaz guardian 4: Fort should be +12, not +13 (+2 as a Rgr1, +4 as a Pal4, +4 as a TpG4, +2 Con). Ref should be +6, not +7 (+2 as a Rgr1, +1 as a Pal4, +1 as a TpG4, +2 Dex).
Not overly impressive, and making it rather unlikely that the "stat block cavalry" we keep hearing about has made it to WotC just yet.
While I'm in "pointing out errors" mode, I also wanted to mention that the
arms of plenty spell on page 209 should probably mention that a Small creature's arms rend for 2d4 points of damage (plus 1.5 times the subject's Str bonus), instead of the 2d6 mentioned in the spell's description. (The description goes out of its way to mention that Small creatures using the spell do a lesser amount of damage with the extra arms the spell provides, but doesn't mention a corresponding lesser amount of rending damage.)
Okay, with that out of the way, I can get back to pointing out the good things about
Lords of Madness. Of the 6 highlighted monsters, one, the tsochar, is a brand new, never-before-seen creature designed especially for this book. This is kind of an unusual approach, but again,
Lords of Madness, due to its aberration theme, isn't quite fitting the same pattern as the previous books, and I for one think that the tsochar makes an excellent addition to the ranks of the master aberrations. First of all, I absolutely love the fact that this is a colony creature, made up of individual strands that work together to create a unified organism. That in and of itself makes it stand out from the crowd. Then, I also love the fact that it can either kill humanoid prey and live inside its animated body, or just squeeze in between the organs and live inside a host. Just imagine your players' eyes when you have a tsochar suddenly burst out of the body of the wizard they've been fighting!
I was somewhat less excited about the prestige classes, but then it takes an extraordinary prestige class to excite me any more. The six provided grant a wide variety of abilities - one is even psionic in nature, which is fitting given how many aberrations have psionic attacks - and pretty much cover all the bases, although "knightly order" gets covered more than once. I do rather like the Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, though; I think what I like best about it is the cerulean sign itself, a glyph of power that's anathema to aberrations, and which predates even the gods. It's colorful, it's got a neat background - I like it.
I was rather impressed with the various mini-adventures, as well. Again, just about all of the bases are covered, from the lairs of individual aberrations, to a downed neogi spelljamming vessel under repairs, to an entire illithid city hidden underneath the "cover city" of duergar above it. However, I think the one I like best is the wizard's tower with the wizard inhabited by a tsochar - besides being a cool adventure, I
really like the design of the wizard's tower! Each of these mini-adventures should make for an evening's play.
One concept new to this book (that I'm aware of, anyway) is that mind flayers are from the distant future, instead of the past, and time-traveled into the past (the campaign world's "present") to avoid annihilation. This is a really cool idea, and one that gives a "standard" D&D monster (one from the very beginnings of the game) a new twist without completely rebuilding it from scratch (something too many game designers seem overly eager to do).
Halfway through
Lords of Madness, I was still hovering on the border of a "5 (Superb)" rating. By the time I had finished it, it had dropped smack into the middle of a "4 (Good)" rating - definitely a good read, but all of the stat problems really bug me. (I find it difficult to refer to a book with that many stat block errors as "superb.") Still, I can highly recommend it, and while I'm not sure what creature type is next in line in this series, I wouldn't mind seeing a second "aberration' themed book focusing on some of the other aberrations mentioned only briefly in
Lords of Madness. They could even skip the prestige class stuff - already covered here in this book - and fill it up with chapter after chapter of already existing aberrations, in the same format as the six presented here. I know I'd buy it in a heartbeat!