*Monstrous* on Kickstarter: rich monster lore for any game!

[ART!]

As a note: I have no involvement with this project, other than the creators - Cloud Curio - have a local brick-and-mortar store, and I have enthusiastically backed this Kickstarter.

Monstrous is basically a system-neutral monster sourcebook, emphasizing "flavor and narrative impact", with rich backgrounds and motivations for classic monsters, and a system to generate your own versions of that same kind of stuff.

From what I've seen, it's written in such a descriptive way that it would be easy to take the ideas and express them in whatever system you're using.

It looks like a way to think more deeply about monsters and the stories you can tell with them, surprise your players with strange new versions of monsters they know, inspire yourself with new ways of thinking about monsters, and grow your setting.

The project page features art by Kyle Latino, of the Map Crow YouTube channel. He's got at a few videos up about this project.

The project page has a links to a free preview, videos, and a podcast episode about using Monstrous to develop or flesh-out the map of your setting.

It seems like a really valuable addition to any gamer's library.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I backed. This looks useful. I don't need more statblocs, I need more ideas for bringing stat blocs to life.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The PDF has gone out to backers. Some of the archetypes aren't terribly archetypal ("bugs" is about creating your own insect people who continuously work on some endless project that is mysterious even to them -- cool, but hardly any sort of universal archetype), but it's an interesting project.

I would have liked more archetypes overall -- there are 10 in the book -- but some of them, like Celestials and the Lich in particular, are extremely good.