Non-generic bestiaries

[prosfilaes]

I was looking at the Aventyr Bestiary Kickstarter and it reminded me of a running frustration with D&D/Pathfinder bestiaries; most of them seem so generic. Paizo and (3.x/4th era) WotC pumped out a number of generic bestiaries for their market plans. But after 5 Paizo Bestiaries, who really needs another generic bestiary? (To which the obvious answer is the 500 people kicking it.) I read through the Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms 2 volume recently; I paid for it in the first era of WotC PDFs, and figured I should read it. It exemplified this problem for me; there were a lot of generic creatures that could be dumped in Golarion or Greyhawk as easily as the Forgotten Realms. There was a trio of interesting interacting ice creatures, but shuffled in among 60 other random creatures.

Part of the thing driving this complaint is the randomness of many D&D settings. There's a crystal dragon in the Mummy Mask AP, and as far as I can tell it's not because crystal dragons are thematic to Osirion, or that the global Inner Sea distribution of dragons leaves Osirion to the crystal dragons, it's just because there's one in the book and it could be used there.

To make this positive, what great D&D bestiaries are there out there? I'd point to Dark Sun (2E; never saw 4E), Spelljammer (2E), and Planescape (2E). Maybe that's a little unfair, since the worlds were so distinct; I'd have a hard time imaging a Forgotten Realms book that felt good in this manner, but a Sword Coast bestiary could definitely work. The Inner Sea Gods also has a large bestiary section that was specific to the gods of that setting. What bestiaries have you found that don't feel like just more golems and dragons, but actually a set of creatures that fit together for a setting?

 

[Voadam]

I really like the first Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium. Very dark gothic D&D monster collection appropriate for Ravenloft. Lots of undead with weird origins, lots of cursed creatures, even the golems felt right for the setting, and all dripping with flavor.

For 3e the Bestiaries for the Scarred Lands (Creature Collection Revised, Creature Collection II, Creature Collection III, and the Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands) tied well into their mythic setting with lots of stories about their divine or titanic origins and tie-ins to the Divine War.

Bestiary of Loerem gives a good flavor of the Sovereign Stone setting with a strong emphasis on nonmagical beasts and a consistent art style.

Creatures of Rokugan is strongly themed oriental adventures creature collection with a lot of ties to their horror themed Shadowlands.

The Midgard Bestiary feels very slavic and appropriate for lots of the Midgard campaign setting.

 

[Celebrim]

The sad truth is that most campaigns are kitchen sink. And even if they aren't kitchen sink, there would be no economic sense catering to them.

I've always found monster books to be about the worst rules investment I can make. The only real reason to have one is to flip one open and run the monster straight off the page. And that's only a good investment if you plan on running monsters that aren't modified or customized in some fashion, and you also are planning to use more than 5-6 monsters out of the book over the course of a 5-6 year campaign.

For me, the intersection of those things being true tends to mean that only 'Monster Manual 1' has been of any value to me at all since late 1e.

The problem is that even back in 1e, I tended to modify or invent unique monsters. In 1e that often meant something like, "This manticore has 12HD and can roar like a Dragonne. It can also bash with it's tail for 6d6 damage when in melee." 1e stat blocks were notably compact, so I also could do something like "Muck Elemental: 10HD, Atk: 2 slams 1d10". In 3e it often means writing out my own custom 4 line stat block that basically mimicks the 1e block with some extra 3e'y details like attribute scores.

When I open a monster book I usually only find less than a dozen monsters I'd actually use, and less than half I'd use as written. Part of that is driven exactly by your complaint that too many monsters of disparate sorts can make the setting seem random or illogical. For example, I figure a large dragon needs a 100 mile wide hunting territory. So how many dragon species can a setting reasonably support? Eventually the breeding pairs are going to be so scattered about that even dragons would have a hard time finding each other. I mean, there might only be 500 mature dragons on an entire planet. That might work dividing the dragons among 5 species, but 10? 20? 30? And what about all those other barn sized predators?

And in 30 years of gaming, I've never found a reason for using a good dragon outside of Dragonlance, and the one DM that did use one ended up regretting it I think.

All of which makes a $40 book with 300 pages just not worth it.

The best Bestiary I've ever found is Betabunny's, "Bestiary: The Predators", because really, who doesn't use animals occasionally and often extensively for the first 2-3 levels of play? As for your criteria, it's pretty rare to have a setting where Earth like plants and animals don't exist in some numbers.

 

[gamerprinter]

While there will eventually be a Kaidan Bestiary, when I'm involved in PF adventure design (for publication), the monsters are usually custom designed as well. The Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy for Kaidan, for example has almost 2 dozen monsters across three modules, and most of them weren't from PF Bestiaries, those few that were really aren't either, as the names and folkloric creatures are the same, but often the abilities are completely unique, as its our version. Note: Kaidan is a dark fantasy feudal Japan setting built mainly with authenticity in mind.

Right now I am working on a setting and series of one shot modules for an alternate Old West setting for Pathfinder, called Gothic Western, and working on the first 2 one shots, both including new kinds of aberrations (since the setting is Cthulhu inspired).

So when I design adventures for publication, I never look to the Bestiaries to populate it, rather I always custom create my own monsters. The setting guide will include probably as many 50 new monsters.

 

[Voadam]

I also find themed monster books very useful.

Expeditious Retreat Press' Monster Geographica series does a great job of providing lots of monsters broken down by terrain and CR. In the past I've had a low level group in a forest and flipping through a couple in the approximate CR I want I found inspiration that served me well.

Bastion Press' Into the X series is also very good for thinking about what to throw into a certain terrain. Using snailfolk as an underdark trade partner for mountain dwarves worked well for me and came out of such a process.

EN Publishing's EN Critters Series is another good one along those lines.

Themes can also be along different lines such as Fantasy Flight Games' Necromantic Lore's focus on undead. Last year I was running a Reign of Winter campaign and at one point there was a darkness and cold and death themed dungeon and I wanted to swap out an encounter with I think six shadows. I pulled out the Book of Beasts: Monsters of the Shadow Plane and found something appropriate fairly quickly.

 

[delericho]

I was looking at the Aventyr Bestiary Kickstarter and it reminded me of a running frustration with D&D/Pathfinder bestiaries; most of them seem so generic. Paizo and (3.x/4th era) WotC pumped out a number of generic bestiaries for their market plans. But after 5 Paizo Bestiaries, who really needs another generic bestiary?

The problem is the cruel reality of commercial needs. Nobody actually needs even a second bestiary for their game, which means that while "Monster Manual 2" is probably one of the best-selling DM-side supplements for the game it probably sells considerably less well than even "Complete Fighter" or similar. And that's assuming a generic bestiary that is at least of some value to every DM out there.

Produce a non-generic bestiary, and you probably produce a better product, especially if it's tied to a setting that has a strong theme. But the problem is that you're immediately cutting your potential market right down to only those few DMs who are interested in your theme (a minority of a minority, even amongst gamers). And then you've got the problem that even the majority of them probably won't buy it.

To follow on to your more positive note, though: TSR produced a fair few good non-generic bestiaries. My favourites were probably the ones for Ravenloft, though the Dark Sun ones were pretty good too.

 

[Voadam]

Denizens of Avadnu by Inner Circle Games is a distinctive setting monster book. Very little came out about the world besides the huge d20 monster book but it gives a very out there feeling. Part of it is the nonstandard monsters, the vibrant full color art that focuses a lot on purples and greens, the extraplanar bad guys, and the world flavor information in each monster description that fleshes out the world's cosmology and history.

I liked the d20 Everquest ones (Monsters of Norrath and Monsters of Luclin), the Manual of Monsters for Warcraft, and the Iron Kingdoms ones (Monsternomicon I & II) too. These were a lot of standards with some variation and probably were not to everyone's taste but I like them despite having the core MM and PF Bestiary which cover a lot o the same territory. Everquest gave a ton of high HD and CR monsters including for things like orcs and weird new creatures. It was nice to have this in addition to the MMII for high level monsters when needed. The trolls of both Warcraft and IK had distinct personality as major races of the world and the variations plus good art and descriptions worked well to flesh out these worlds for me despite not playing the computer or miniature games they were based on.