Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes

[Psion]

Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes

Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes is resource adding background material and rules additions for lycanthropes in d20 System fantasy games. The book is published by Paradigm Concepts as part of their Races of Legend series of race related books. The book is written by Mike Mearls.

A First Look

Slaves of the Moon is a 96-page perfect-bound softcover book available for $19.99 US.

The cover of the book is illustrated by Todd Lockwood. The cover picture is a nicely done image of a white weretiger in hybrid form with a full moon in the backdrop.

Interior art is black-and-white, and features work by Ken Burles, Paul Kerrick, Paul (Prof) Herbert, Peter Kopotowski, Raven J. Mimura, Joel Talakco, JP Targete, and Roel Wielinga. The art is nicely detailed. Three of my favorites, Burles, Mimura, and Targete are amongst the talents here, but the remaining artists are also a benefit to the book.

One layout convention bugged me: the class table for classes in the book don’t label which class they belong to, so if two are in proximity, you have to deduce which goes with which. Another annoyance is that chapter breaks are not distinct; you need to use the table of contents or be paying attention closely when trying to flip to a chapter.

A Deeper Look

Slaves of the Moon has a structure fundamentally similar to earlier books in the Races of Legend series such as Unseen Masters. The book has background text relating to the culture, history, and religion of lycanthropes, followed by a rules section defining rules for playing lycanthrope characters, and prestige classes, feats, and magic for lychanthropes. Finally is a GM oriented section for utilizing lycanthropes in the game.

The book focuses on the lycanthrope species presented in the MM other than the hill giant were-dire boar: werebear, wereboar, wererat, weretiger, and werewolf. Each of these has a 6-7 page culture section devoted to it. The culture section includes the general character of each of the lycanthropes, (very myth-like) history and tradition, and religion. The religion section includes 1-3 deities for each lycanthrope race. Though some adaptation might be required for specific campaigns, the book is not written assuming Arcanis as a background.

The second chapter concerns lycanthrope characters, primarily with a focus on lycanthrope PCs or more detailed NPCs.

This chapter proposes three paths into lycanthropy. Afflicted and natural are the two traditional means of being/becoming a lycanthropy. This book adds a third method: wereblooded. Such a character begins fairly normal, but can develop lycanthropic characteristics over time.

To handle lycanthropes in more detail, the chapter introduces a number of lycanthrope classes. These are similar in concept to racial classes from Savage Species (and Dragon #313, which had Savage Species style racial classes for lycanthropes). These classes convey the abilities of the appropriate sort of lycanthrope over a number of levels. Unlike savage species, these classes don’t intersperse “virtual levels” that lack skill points and hit dice into the advancement. This means the class won’t quite match the creature as it appears in the MM, but is more consistent with the standard class structure.

The number of levels in each class varies by class. The wererat class only has 4 levels, but the werebear and weretiger weigh in with 9.

To access these lycanthrope classes, a character must be one of the aforementioned conditions. An afflicted character taking a level in the class gains control of their transformations, but their curse becomes irreversible. Natural lycanthropes are a race; they gain a number of characteristics, including their racial class as a favored class, but lose some abilities of their humanoid race. Finally, wereblooded are treated as members of their basic race, except that the have access to their lycanthrope class (but don’t gain it as a favored class.) This is an interesting and flexible arrangement that allows for a lot of character situations.

Thirteen new prestige classes are presented in the chapter. One is for non-lycanthropes, the wolf hunter, which specializes in stalking and slaying lycanthropes. The other 12 classes are exclusive to lycanthopes. Four of these are available to any lycanthrope (like lunar adept and bestial warmaster), while the remaining 8 are only available to specific lycanthrope races (like emerald claw for weretigers or herald of decay for wererats.) All told, this section is a good resource for both GMs in crafting unique lycanthrope villains, or as options for players wishing to define the role of lycanthrope characters better.

The feats in the character chapter are divided into two categories. The first is simple lycanthrope feats and general feats that are useful to lycantropes. The lycanthrope feats are available only to lycanthropes, these allow a lycanthrope character to better utilize their abilities, such as using your resistance to normal weapons to allow you to grasp blades.

The chapter segues into a different sort of feat with some variant rules on the control shape skill. In the core rules, the control shape skill is only used by afflicted characters to better control their transformation. The feats listed here provide more beneficial options that any lycanthrope with the appropriate feat can use the control shape skill to do, such as transforming only your hands to claws in humanoid shape, or use the attribute scores associated with different forms in your humanoid forms.

The new spells are a little more contemporary than the new feats, with many spells that would not be foreign in standard spell lists, and many are not lycanthrope exclusive.

The third chapter is GM-directed, and provides guidelines, rules, and advice for using lycanthropes in a game. Topics covered include variations on the role of lycanthropy in a game, expanded variant rules adding depth to handling afflicted characters, ideas for adding significant lunar events to a game, and methods for handling those inevitable worlds with multiple moons.

Conclusions

This is a very nice take on the topic of lycanthropes. It has a nice balance between exposition and rules material, and most of both are carried off well. Slaves to the Moon is a compelling purchase for anyone wanting to feature lycanthropes in a game, in either the role of villains or PCs.

Overall Grade: B+

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes is written by Mike Mearls and sports a stunning cover by Todd Lockwood. This book presents rules, background ideas, and options for introducing lycanthropes as player characters into your campaign. Even if you would rather not have shapechanger PCs, you can use the rules and information in this book to add depth and detail to the lycanthrope friends and enemies the party meets. Tossing an unexpected element into a roleplaying game is one of the best ways to inject excitement and uncertainty into your game. With the prestige classes, new rules, and magic items found in this book, you can ensure that no two werecreatures are ever alike.

 

[GameWyrd]

Sweeping generalisations are wrong... but, there's one I often find hard to fault. There's often a big difference between RPGs which begin by describing the game world, setting and theme and RPGs which begin by describing character creation, combat and skill checks.

Slaves of the Moon, The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes, is a d20 supplement which discusses the origins of various were-creatures, their society or culture with organises, ethics and religion, etc to at the start. Then, in later chapters (oh, okay, the very next section), Slaves of the Moon presents the game mechanics.

Strictly speaking and as Mike Mearls points out the term lycanthrope refers to werewolves. Slaves of the Moon isn't so limited and sticks with the D&D catch-all replacement for the word. This Essential Guide from Paradigm Concepts includes werebears, wereboars, wererats, weretigers and werewolves. There's no flying were-creatures (surely swans who are also humans are a common European myth) here nor aquatic weres (and weresharks are a common Indonesian myth). I just happen to be one of those gamers who suck up any trivia (like wereshark myths) that might possibly be useful for a roleplaying game but there is a concise discussion of this very thing at the start of the book. Bonus.

The were-creature introductions work in what I'll call a D&D world neutral way. The only assumptions made are that demi-humans like elves and dwarves exist and that they, as do their goblinoid rivals, fulfil the standard D&D race-casting. Elves are respectful of the woods. Orcs see woods as firewood and battering ram supplies. Despite this and because of this (that's not as mutually exclusive as it sounds) the history-cum-flavour text that is given for each were-creature is a strong point for the book. You could buy Slaves of the Moon just for the weretiger rules or just for the wereboar rules. First you're told about characters you'd want to play or include as NPCs and then you're told how. First you're given the bait and then the hook.

In d20 core rules you can be born a lycanthrope and you can become a lycanthrope, the Essential Guide to Lycanthropes covers both. There's yet another angle, of course, in that you could be a human wereboar or an elf weretiger or a gnome wererat, etc. And yes, this supplement makes accommodation for those possibilities too. Your base race does effect you stats. If we flick back to the cultural sections for the lycanthropes we find a wide range of ideas for each sub-race too. There are no cookie-cutter solutions wasting your money here.

Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes may have begun with juicy flavour and held off with the crunchy bits until appropriate but this is very much a d20 supplement. We have prestige classes and feats.

Prestige classes are a mix of were specific classes and generic were ones. The Bestial Warmaster, Master of Fang and Blade, Lunar Adept and Pack Lord are suited to any lycanthrope. The Emerald Claw and Midnight Justicar are weretiger prestige classes, the Herald of Decay and Shadow Prowler are wererat prestige classes, the Knight of Glade and Glen is a werebear prestige class, the Master of the Hunt and Night Howler are werewolf prestige classes and the Relentless Charger is a wereboar prestige class. The wolf slayer is more suited to human, demi-humans and goblinoids who live in territories infested with werewolves.

There's similar breadth for the feats and spells - we have feats and spells applicable for everyone (whether they're a slave to the moon or not) and feats which only suit were creatures. All the feats and spells, though, have that lycanthropic feel too them. You don't have to be a were creature to cast the level 1 Bestial Fang spell but it'll certainly give you a were-creature appearance. All the spells were, we're encouraged to imagine, devised by lycanthrope casters. Some of the feats are a bit icky, Blade Grasper, for example, which is lycanthrope only, has a wound heal so quickly that it catches the blade in the were's flesh, allowing the were to twist and pull the weapon from their opponent's hand. Now that's got to hurt! There is enough new spells as well as a suitable supply of feats to give ambitious GMs all they need to run an entirely lycanthrope based campaign. That strikes me as one easy way to maintain group game balance.

The closing sections of Slaves of the Moon returns to the less crunchy side of the hobby and addresses such issues as the relationship between the were and the moon, possible cures, how the different D&D races deal with lycanthropy and even lycanthropic magic artefacts. What Slaves of the Moon doesn't really bother too much is address the negatives of being a were creature. Of course, in D&D you're likely to quickly master the effects of the diseases/ bloodright and cope with it if you want. There's no tragically hip angst here or a doomed struggle against the dark, tree hating, gods and the orc minions. No, Slaves of the Moon is typically high fantasy; if you're a werewolf then you're a lucky puppy with extra cool powers.

Slaves of the Moon is a good looking book. It has great artwork (the blurb mentioning that the best talent of the industry used) and a professional, third party, layout firm used. The Essential Guides are part of the OGL Interlock and thus Slaves of the Moon is partnered with Green Ronin's Mythic Vista Spirosblaak and goes well with the lycanthrope overrun setting.

Here we have an OGL product working in a way that might once have been imaged as all OGL should work. This is a high quality but niche d20 publication. If you want to use a lot of lycanthropes in your campaign then Slaves of the Moon is a supplement to consider, if you're an avid collector then you won't object to this but as is the case for almost all supplements there's no compelling reason to fork out the cash, there's no leap forward in gaming ideas here nor desperately needed d20 fix. Me? I liked it.

* This Slaves of the Moon review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Paradigm]

Thank for the review, we are certain that any DM that makes use of Lycanthropes will have use of this title and it is also ideal for players that want to have were-creature PCs. Mike did a great job of balancing the races.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Slaves of the Moon is another entry by Paradigm Press into the OGL Interlink project. This is “The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes”, written by Mike Mearls and is the latest entry in Paradim’s Races of Legend line. In short, if you’re looking for a book of crunch on lycanthropes, Slaves of the Moon is your ticket. Coming in at 96 black and white pages for $19.99, the book is priced at industry standard.

The book uses standard two column layout. Todd Lockwood’s cover is a fantastic piece and almost looks more demonic, like the rakasha, than lycanthrope. The interior art is handled by a wide range of talented artist ranging from Ken Burles to Pawel Kopotowski and others whose names I don’t recognize, like Raven Mimura, but whose skill is evident in the book. The artist who did the stout wereboar in humanoid form on page 46 and it’s counter weretiger in humanoid form on the opposite pages for example, does an excellent job of capturing the savagery inherent in these creatures. The top of the book indicates what chapter you’re in, which is useful since the table of contents has no chapter breakdown and there is no index.

Included are details for werecreatures of the following types: bears, boars, rats, tigers, and wolves. There is no grand unifying vision of how the lycanthropes came about as each race provides a different divine origin. For example, the bears are the result of their divine patron offering them a choice. Live among the bears as simple beast or gain lycanthropy and with it, the caretaker’s promise. This version of the werebear puts them as nature’s ultimate defenders as they have to protect the natural world and guidelines for doing that are provided. Those who have a specific vision of how this can best be accomplished have different pacts like the pact of blades, favored by the warrior caste while those who favor magic, follow the pact of magic. Each pact has a set of guidelines and ideas on how to use them.

These different sections make for good reading and inspiration, along the lines of the myths from The Book of the Righteous as they rely, at this point, on no game mechanics but rather, information on how that breed of lycanthrope lives and survives. What its outlook on life is. This ranges from the lazy but materialistic wererats to the bullying and short-tempered wereboars.

Those looking for crunch have several lycanthrope character classes to look at. These are similar to the progression of levels in Savage Species and other books in that the character gains ability score improvements fairly quickly as well as his innate abilities. It differs in that they gain hit dice and class skills at every level making them a different breed than the Savage Species progressions where hit dice are based on what the designers thought would ‘balance’ the class against other core classes and skill points are only gained when you gain those hit dice.

For those who want to customize their werecreature, there are several prestige classes included. Now these may belong to a specific race of lycanthrope, like the Emerald Claw, a monk that uses partial transformations to turn hands into claws or jaws into fangs, or open to all lycanthropes like the Master of Fang and Blade, a warrior trained to fight while in hybrid form using natural attacks and weapons in a devastating combination.

While not useful to most campaigns, the Wolf Slayer, a master of battling lycanthropes, would be of use to any GM or player looking to specialize in killing the lycanthropes.

Another way to customize your lycanthrope, is through the use of lycanthrope feats. Some of these enable the creature to continue to use it’s human equipment like armored shapechange where the lycanthrope removes it’s armor as a free action or blade grasper where the fast healing of the lycanthrope acts to grab weapons that strike the creature and yank them from their master’s hand. While most of the feats fall into the lycanthrope type, a few are all purpose like Power Slam where you make a single attack at your highest bab and knock your opponent prone in his current square if he fails to beat you in a strength check.

Those looking to augment their native abilities via magic have new options as well. Some of these new spells would work for anyone though. Take Bestial Fangs, a 1st level druid or ranger spell that gives the caster fangs and claws. Unfortunatly, no damage is listed with this particular spell so I’d assume that it just turns your base unarmed attacks into armed attacks, which isn’t a great boon. More useful would be Hail of Fangs, a 3rd level arcane spell that inflicts 1d6 points of damage per two levels in a 30 ft-cone. The true curse of the spell though is that it forces those struck to make saves to avoid contacting lycanthropy themselves. The bad news though is that spell only works for a lycanthrope.

A few magic items help round out the section including items with long term implications like the Blood Cauldron, an artifact that grants damage resistance and spell resistance to those that use it or the Hunter’s Arrow, an arrow that inflicts movement penalties to those hit by it or Ripper Blades, matched daggers that rend their target if both blades hit.

But how can you use all of this information? The author provides a lot of ideas in his section, Lycanthropes in the Campaign. This includes how various kingdoms might handle the issue of lycanthropy, as well as how the humanoid races welcome or handle being lycanthropes. Some like the elves embrace the good and neutral werecreatures while others like half-orcs move into human dwellings. It would’ve been nice to see this section move outside the core races from the Player’s Handbook, but were would you stop? Orcs? Giants? Goblins?

Mike does a great job of providing alternatives for the GM to use. These range form the origin and curing of the disease, to phases of the moon that have direct impacts on the campaign world like the Night of Void where the lycanthropes lose their connection to the moon and lose their alternative forms and damage reduction.

 

[PCIHenry]

Hello,

Thank you for the thoughtful review, Mr. Kushner.

Best,

Henry Lopez
President
PCI