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Menagerie
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I was given this product for a honest, no-pressure review. They got it!
The Menagerie is a 32 page mini-monster manual.
Cost: This book weighs in at 12.95. At 32 pages, thats a stunning 40+ cents per page. Its the most expensive 32 page game book i have ever seen.
Art: This book has a marginal amount of art for its size, all of which i consider of marginal quality. The picture of the Beast of Drahcir is quite nice however and appears to be done by a different artist. The main problem is that many of the creatures do not have a picture, thus making it difficult to picture.
Introduction/background: In the introduction we are given a look at a missive penned by Drahcir of Ryatbesir (known as the Mad One). In the missive he claims to be misunderstood. However he is the one who created the Menagerie, a dreaded tome praised and sought by evil minions and pursuers of the dark arts. Within its sun-faded leather pages, the lore of many strange and unique creatures resides.
Material Description:The creatures presented in this book are for the most part dark and macabre beings. A good thing in my opinion. The many of the creatures are Fey/trickster (or fey-like) and undead creatures, which will give your adventures a darker and/or more gutteral feel.
The Menagerie contains the following list of creatures:
-Arcane Echo - The remnants of great battle wizards who have died on the battle field. They now haunt the areas of battle in which they died with warped arcane powers.
-Attorcroppe - A race of small serpentine humanoids that inhabit dense forests and woods.
-Beast of Drahcir - Frightening two-headed 6-tailed dragon-like creature created by Drahcir himself, who eventually turned on him.
-Blackthorn - Noble steeds, kin to unicorn, that strive for a balance between order and chaos.
-Bloodthorn - Another unicorn-kin steed, but who spread evil throughout their territory.
-Bog-dwarf - Small impish bog-dewllers that like to harass travellers as they pass through their domain.
-Bonecrown - The animated reamins of fallen unicorns, a frightening testament to the forces of evil.
-Cailleac Bhuer - Benevolent fey who appear to be old and weary and travel the long empty stretches of the known roads.
-Cloak - Vile creatures hailing the darkened reaches of underground cities and caverns. These slimy winged octopi
-Daggerfey - A tiny race of malicious creatures who have become a degenerate race of trained forest stalkers. Though perhaps they are the most abused creature in the book(mechanics wise) they are probably my favorites.
-Daughters of Light - The fiery spirits of mothers who died protecting their children, often haunting their relatives to keep them from further harm.
-Dragoncat - A sleek wingless dragon mutation created by The Mad One.
-Dragoneye - Also created by Drahcir the Demented, these creatures seem a strange hybrid of a dragon skull and beholder.
-Drogg - Strange amphibious merchants that hail from the swamps and trade their wares at local markets.
-Fell Knight - Ancient elite warriors who have remained in the services of evil, even after death has claimed them.
-Harvester - Grim, robed agents of death.
-Inkqueen - squid-like creatures with human female torso. They seek to dominate the land and sea both.
-Trickster - Bipedal coyote-kin, whose goals are to prank and joke every race in the known land.
Appendix 1: This section is the best part of the book, as both of these special Templates are are very interesting and balanced (game wise).
-Loup-Garou - Children born of a pact between pregnant wives and distant gods that animalistic shapechangers.
-Outcast Skeleton - These creatures hail from the distant planes, either fallen angels or demonic princes, and have been banished to the prime material planes and cursed to a shrivelled human form!
D20 Mechanics:
Each of the creatures in this book seem to suffer from skill point miscalculation. Both too many and too few at times. The only thing i can think is that the creator(s) flubbed the EHD modifiers for skill points. But because of this none of the creatures are truly off in skill points (generally 1 or 2, but as many as 6 because of size EHD modifiers)
Mistakes were made in so many of the creatures, including Base attack calculations (notably the Beast of Drahcir, which has up to 8 secondary attacks all at the same value as its main attacks), as well as hit points and Save totals.
Also, some of the creatures were overpowered for their Challenge Ratings. The Daggerfey has a CR 1 rating, but has 3 HD (listed avr 15 hps which is incorrect according to their stats), 27 AC, a Move of 140!, constant Blur and Haste, spell-like abilities, +15 missile attack, 40 Dex!, and Reflex save of +20. I can only hope this CR rating was a typo, as opposed to intentional, because even 1 of these creatures will likely wipe out group of 1st level characters! They usually come in packs.
The Arcane Echos also seem overpowered for thier rating (6), considering they have several battle spells they can perform at will (burning hands, shield, fireball, fly, blur, Flame arrow, flaming sphere, etc) and as well as 8 HD, undead, incorporeal, and a Spellburn ability the does 5D4 damage (plus their original D6) with each touch attack (save vs 20 for half).
Overview:
Cost: -1 (pretty much as bad as it gets)
Art: -1 (somewhat poor overall and missing many creature pics)
Material: +1 (extremely good)
Mechanics: -1 (my god)
Overall rating: 3 (5-3+1). Based on a scale from 1(the worst)-5(the best). beginning at 5.
In short, this book is chock full of great ideas, but the mechanics follow-through leaves a lot to be desired. Stat Blocks are relatively simple calculations and mistakes are unacceptable in a professional product. The price of the book is scary as well. But the material and game ideas given within this book are exceptionally cool and can't fail to enrich your campaigns. If you don't mind the high price and work you'll have to do to fix the mechanics, you may even want to consider this book a 4 because of the great flavor and unique material this book presents! Despite all of the mistakes, most of these creatures will definitely see game time in my campaigns. However with its drawbacks, i can't give it more than a 3. It has some real great stuff, but has some real serious flaws as well.
The Menagerie is a 32 page mini-monster manual.
Cost: This book weighs in at 12.95. At 32 pages, thats a stunning 40+ cents per page. Its the most expensive 32 page game book i have ever seen.
Art: This book has a marginal amount of art for its size, all of which i consider of marginal quality. The picture of the Beast of Drahcir is quite nice however and appears to be done by a different artist. The main problem is that many of the creatures do not have a picture, thus making it difficult to picture.
Introduction/background: In the introduction we are given a look at a missive penned by Drahcir of Ryatbesir (known as the Mad One). In the missive he claims to be misunderstood. However he is the one who created the Menagerie, a dreaded tome praised and sought by evil minions and pursuers of the dark arts. Within its sun-faded leather pages, the lore of many strange and unique creatures resides.
Material Description:The creatures presented in this book are for the most part dark and macabre beings. A good thing in my opinion. The many of the creatures are Fey/trickster (or fey-like) and undead creatures, which will give your adventures a darker and/or more gutteral feel.
The Menagerie contains the following list of creatures:
-Arcane Echo - The remnants of great battle wizards who have died on the battle field. They now haunt the areas of battle in which they died with warped arcane powers.
-Attorcroppe - A race of small serpentine humanoids that inhabit dense forests and woods.
-Beast of Drahcir - Frightening two-headed 6-tailed dragon-like creature created by Drahcir himself, who eventually turned on him.
-Blackthorn - Noble steeds, kin to unicorn, that strive for a balance between order and chaos.
-Bloodthorn - Another unicorn-kin steed, but who spread evil throughout their territory.
-Bog-dwarf - Small impish bog-dewllers that like to harass travellers as they pass through their domain.
-Bonecrown - The animated reamins of fallen unicorns, a frightening testament to the forces of evil.
-Cailleac Bhuer - Benevolent fey who appear to be old and weary and travel the long empty stretches of the known roads.
-Cloak - Vile creatures hailing the darkened reaches of underground cities and caverns. These slimy winged octopi
-Daggerfey - A tiny race of malicious creatures who have become a degenerate race of trained forest stalkers. Though perhaps they are the most abused creature in the book(mechanics wise) they are probably my favorites.
-Daughters of Light - The fiery spirits of mothers who died protecting their children, often haunting their relatives to keep them from further harm.
-Dragoncat - A sleek wingless dragon mutation created by The Mad One.
-Dragoneye - Also created by Drahcir the Demented, these creatures seem a strange hybrid of a dragon skull and beholder.
-Drogg - Strange amphibious merchants that hail from the swamps and trade their wares at local markets.
-Fell Knight - Ancient elite warriors who have remained in the services of evil, even after death has claimed them.
-Harvester - Grim, robed agents of death.
-Inkqueen - squid-like creatures with human female torso. They seek to dominate the land and sea both.
-Trickster - Bipedal coyote-kin, whose goals are to prank and joke every race in the known land.
Appendix 1: This section is the best part of the book, as both of these special Templates are are very interesting and balanced (game wise).
-Loup-Garou - Children born of a pact between pregnant wives and distant gods that animalistic shapechangers.
-Outcast Skeleton - These creatures hail from the distant planes, either fallen angels or demonic princes, and have been banished to the prime material planes and cursed to a shrivelled human form!
D20 Mechanics:
Each of the creatures in this book seem to suffer from skill point miscalculation. Both too many and too few at times. The only thing i can think is that the creator(s) flubbed the EHD modifiers for skill points. But because of this none of the creatures are truly off in skill points (generally 1 or 2, but as many as 6 because of size EHD modifiers)
Mistakes were made in so many of the creatures, including Base attack calculations (notably the Beast of Drahcir, which has up to 8 secondary attacks all at the same value as its main attacks), as well as hit points and Save totals.
Also, some of the creatures were overpowered for their Challenge Ratings. The Daggerfey has a CR 1 rating, but has 3 HD (listed avr 15 hps which is incorrect according to their stats), 27 AC, a Move of 140!, constant Blur and Haste, spell-like abilities, +15 missile attack, 40 Dex!, and Reflex save of +20. I can only hope this CR rating was a typo, as opposed to intentional, because even 1 of these creatures will likely wipe out group of 1st level characters! They usually come in packs.
The Arcane Echos also seem overpowered for thier rating (6), considering they have several battle spells they can perform at will (burning hands, shield, fireball, fly, blur, Flame arrow, flaming sphere, etc) and as well as 8 HD, undead, incorporeal, and a Spellburn ability the does 5D4 damage (plus their original D6) with each touch attack (save vs 20 for half).
Overview:
Cost: -1 (pretty much as bad as it gets)
Art: -1 (somewhat poor overall and missing many creature pics)
Material: +1 (extremely good)
Mechanics: -1 (my god)
Overall rating: 3 (5-3+1). Based on a scale from 1(the worst)-5(the best). beginning at 5.
In short, this book is chock full of great ideas, but the mechanics follow-through leaves a lot to be desired. Stat Blocks are relatively simple calculations and mistakes are unacceptable in a professional product. The price of the book is scary as well. But the material and game ideas given within this book are exceptionally cool and can't fail to enrich your campaigns. If you don't mind the high price and work you'll have to do to fix the mechanics, you may even want to consider this book a 4 because of the great flavor and unique material this book presents! Despite all of the mistakes, most of these creatures will definitely see game time in my campaigns. However with its drawbacks, i can't give it more than a 3. It has some real great stuff, but has some real serious flaws as well.
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