Template Troves Volume 1: Serpents, Spiders, & Godlings
By Sean K. Reynolds
Silverthorne games product number STG 1008
42 page PDF, $5.00
Following up with the success of their
Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition, Silverthorne Games has just released the first PDF in a new series,
Template Troves Volume 1: Serpents, Spiders, & Godlings. Written by former WotC employee and noted game designer Sean K. Reynolds, this PDF focuses on 20 templates, most having to do with either spiders, serpents, or beings derived from Norse mythology (offspring of Loki in most cases - that guy sure liked to shapechange and sleep around a lot, it seems!).
The cover is a full-color painting of a medusa by Camille Kuo (hmm, what would happen if she married Jim Toa and decided to hyphenate her last name?), easily the best cover I've seen on any Silverthorne product to date - and better, in fact, than many covers I've seen on print products! While I was a bit disappointed by the obligatory nose ring (I'm one that doesn't like all of the tattooing, body piercing, and spikes all over the place that have run rampant with the onset of the Third Edition), I absolutely love everything else about it. The shading is excellent, the details on the snakes in her hair is very well done, and I love the glow in her eyes. Based on this painting, I hope to see more of Camille's work in the future!
The interior artwork consists of 19 black and white illustrations - almost, but not quite, an illustration for each of the templates provided within - all but one done by Cara J. Mitten, who has done work for Silverthorne before and whom I have admired in the past. (The sole exception was a section reprinted from the cover.) Cara does an equally great job here, once again sticking very closely to each creature's descriptions (a trait I highly admire in an artist; I wish more would pay such close attention to the written descriptions and not decide to create their own "interpretation"). The only downside was that a couple of the templates didn't get an illustration, which always particularly bothers me in a monster book.
Template Troves Volume 1: Serpents, Spiders, & Godlings is laid out as follows;
- Foreword/How to Use this Book: A few words up front by Sean detailing the origins of this book, followed by an explanation of how each template is broken down
- Arnrach: Spidery creatures with aranea ancestry
- Behirling: Basically, the "behir" equivalent of the half-dragon
- Chemdrake: An sort of alchemy-based half-black dragon template for non-draconic reptilian creatures
- Couatlan: Serpentine creatures with a couatl ancestor
- Devourer Survivor: Those whose life essences were drained away by devourers, but survived the process and are now hyper-aware of undead (especially those that drain levels)
- Dragomongrel: Dragon/dragon crossbreeds
- Fenrirrin: Lupine/canine creatures who trace ancestry to Fenris, the giant wolf son of the Norse god Loki
- Flashbeast: Subterranean creatures with light-producing organs that dazzle their prey
- Gullinburstin: Boars and boarlike creatures that trace ancestry back to Gullin-Bursti, a boar servitor of the Norse goddess Freya
- Hobart's Greyman: Zombie bodies with short swords in place of forearms, and a "brain ooze" controlling its actions
- Jormugandrin: Reptilian and serpentine creatures whose ancestry dates back to Jormugandir the World-Serpent, another of Loki's offspring
- Lenkag: Snakes with crossbred features of dark nagas and lillends
- Medusan Creature: Basically, a non-humanoid medusa
- Murmouth: A gibbering mouther given humanoid form (although it has mouths in place of hands)
- Oxeph Host: A decapitated humanoid with an oxeph - an intelligent octopus - riding it in place of its head and controlling its every action
- Poisonflow: Elementals and oozes whose bodies contain poisonous substances
- Shulgspawn: Insectoid humanoids that lay eggs in other humanoids to create more of their race
- Skoth: A half-skum template
- Sleipnirrin: Equine creatures that trace their lineage to Sleipnir, Odin's 8-legged horse (and another of Loki's offspring - that guy sure got around!)
- Twilight Hagling: A half-night hag template
- Appendix I - Template & Creature Indices: The templates and new creatures of this PDF organized alphabetically, by Challenge Rating, and by Level Adjustment, plus lists of new feats, spells, and treasures
- Appendix II - Licenses & Legal: The OGL stuff
Sean K. Reynolds has written quite a few templates on his website, many of which made it into
Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition. This book proves that he has plenty more where those came from. The ones he provides here are all well though out, seem balanced (as far as Challenge Ratings and Level Adjustments go), and serve logical purposes. I don't think the book's subtitle is really needed (nor is it particularly accurate), as there are quite a few templates here that are neither spidery, serpentine, nor descended from a deity. Still, that's all for the best: I'm glad there's more of a variety than just those three categories.
Of the specific templates, I think I liked the Flashbeast and Hobart's Greyman the best. The Flashbeast I liked because it made sense for such a creature to have developed, and the template was so widely applicable to just about any type of creature. (Many of the "godlings" were focused on a very narrow type of possible base creature: equine, reptilian, boarlike, etc.) I was particularly pleased to see 5 additional variants of the Greyman theme; it makes sense that people altering zombie servitors would want a bit of variety, and I liked the fact that there was a gray ooze variant "controlling" the greyman in the first place. The Poisonflow is also of particular interest; I like its inherent versatility. I also like the Devourer Survivor; I think Sean applied a lot of creativity with that one, especially in the way it's so well attuned to level-draining undead. On the other hand, I wasn't particularly fond of the Oxeph Host, which seemed a bit too similar to the "possessor" that Phil Reed devised to replace the suddenly-non-SRD illithid.
As with
Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition, I was pleased to see that many of the templates provided not one but two sample templated creatures. However, just like that earlier work, there were some problems with some of the templated monster stats. Being the stickler for accuracy in that area, I suggest making the following changes to the sample creatures provided:
- p. 8, Ankhir: Average hp should be 34, not 39. No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +13 natural). As a bonus feat, Improved Grapple should be annotated with a superscript "B."
- p. 9, Chemdrake: Actually, this entry should be called "Chemdrake monitor lizard," not just "Chemdrake." Base Attack should be +3, not +2 (as a 3-HD magical beast). Grapple should be +6, not +5 (+3 BAB, +3 Str). Bite attacks should be at +6 melee, not +5 (+3 BAB, +3 Str). The Full Attack entry is missing the "and 1 acid" from the damage.
- p. 10, Chemodol, 1st-level Warrior (chemdrake-kobold): No AC breakdown given; should be (+1 size, +1 Dex, +5 natural, +2 leather). Grapple should be -4, not +4 (+1 BAB, -1 Str, -4 size). Full Attack should be the spear or the sling, but not both.
- p. 11, Totixata, female couatlan constrictor snake Sor1: "HD 3d8+12, 1d4+3" should be "HD 3d8+9 plus 1d4+1 plus 3" to accurately account for the +3 Con bonus and the three extra hp from the Toughness feat.
- p. 13, Amurath, male devourer survivor-dire bear: Average hp should be 105, not 93. AC not broken down; should be (-1 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural).
- p. 14, Cuprinflash, male red dragomongrel juvenile copper dragon: Full Attack only lists one claw attack and one wing attack; there should be two of each. At 14 HD, he's missing a feat; he should have 5 in all. His first breath weapon (the line of acid/fire) should only be 60 ft., not 120 ft. His second breath weapon (the slow gas) should only be 30 ft., not 60 ft.
- p. 15, Rivalf, male fenrirrin dire wolf: Grapple should be +17, not +19 (+4 BAB, +4 size, +9 Str).
- p. 16, Flashbeast Large monstrous centipede: No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +2 Dex, +3 natural). Missing Weapon Finesse (a bonus feat) in his list of feats.
- p. 17, Gullinburstin dire boar: No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +10 natural). Since Endurance is a bonus feat (as per the template), it should be annotated with a superscript "B" - and another feat added to his list in its place.
- p. 19, Ooze, brain: No AC breakdown given; should be (+1 size, -5 Dex). Flat-footed AC should be 6, not 11.
- p. 23, Scalefur, medusan dire wolf: No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +2 Dex, +4 natural). Attack: Snakes should be at +10 melee, not +6 (+4 BAB, -1 size, +7 Str).
- p. 26, Gulunulun, male murmouth bugbear: AC should be 19, not 18, and breakdown should be (+1 Dex, +5 natural, +2 leather, +1 light wooden shield), not (+1 Dex, +2 natural, +2 leather, +1 light wooden shield). Flat-footed AC should be 18, not 17. Morningstar attacks should be at +5 melee, not +0 (+2 BAB, +2 Str, +1 Weapon Focus (morningstar)).
- p. 27, Dursil, oxeph host human: No HD given (it just says "HD ;"); should be 4d4+4. No AC breakdown given; should be (+3 Dex, +1 bracers).
- p. 28, Psionic Oxeph: Why does the psionic version of this creature lose the cold resistance 2? Or is that an oversight?
- p. 28, Oxeph: "Abberation" should be "Aberration." No AC values at all are provided; they should be AC 16 (+2 size, +3 Dex, +1 natural), touch 15, flat-footed 13. Grapple should be -8, not +0 (+0 BAB, -8 size). Bite attacks should be at +5, not +3 (+0 BAB, +2 size, +3 Dex due to Weapon Finesse).
- p. 29, Poisonflow air elemental: No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +7 Dex, +4 natural).
- p. 33, True skoth (skoth-skum): No AC breakdown given; should be (+3 Dex, +6 natural). All attacks (including the rake attack) are at one number too low to hit; they forgot to take into account the automatic +1 attack bonus due to the creature's "aura of bravery" special quality. As Alertness is a bonus feat, it should be annotated with a superscript "B" and another feat added to the creature's list.
- p. 35, Lidiskalf, female sleipnirrin light warhorse: Grapple should be at +10, not +9 (+2 BAB, +4 size, +4 Str).
- p. 35, Sleipnirrogriff: No AC breakdown given; should be (-1 size, +3 Dex, +8 natural). Mobility and Spring Attack should be annotated as bonus feats.
Also, for some reason, many of the Attack and Full Attack entries used "thrown" instead of "ranged." I found it odd that Sean K. Reynolds would use inappropriate terminology like that, as he's proven to be somewhat of a stickler on such matters in the past.
There are a few other things in
Template Troves Volume 1 that I had problems with. Why, on p. 16, does a flashblister, the light-generating organ of a creature with the flashbeast template, emit a burst of light
upon command? I would imagine you'd have to squeeze it, or prod it, or do something physical (probably taking at least a partial action) to get the thing to flash, not say some command word. I found it unbelievable that behirs can reproduce with "any living, corporeal non-dragon of at least large size" - you realize, of course, that this definition includes oozes and plants! Also, I dislike the whole concept of behirs being able to sire weird offspring all willy-nilly like dragons do; at least dragons are inherently magical in nature, what with the spell-like abilities and all. (A bunch of them can polymorph, too - that helps!) The behirling template just seemed kind of "forced" to me.
I was also a bit disturbed by the overall poor editing and proofreading job done on this book. There were all kinds of mistakes made, from the obligatory typos and misspellings ("thos" instead of "those," "past" instead of "passed", "Jormugandir" used as a page header when the template name is "Jormugandrin," etc.), to punctuation mistakes, to formatting issues (the second column on page 11 bleeds into the border art on the side of the page, obscuring some of the words; a creature's description paragraph and numerous spells aren't italicized when they should be; "hit dice" and size categories aren't capitalized), and even at least one instance of 3.0 terminology (the
polymorph other spell). There are also quite a few copy-and-paste errors scattered throughout: the "How to Use this Book" section refers to templated creatures that don't appear in this book at all (the apocalyptic hell hound, giant troglodyte, and metallivore all appeared in
Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition), sleipnirrogriffs are referred to as hippogriffs, and brain oozes are called gray oozes. All in all, I think the editing job here is about the worst I've seen in a Silverthorne Games product (although by no means the worst I've ever seen in
any gaming product).
So, what we're left with is a group of 20 monster templates, many of them very interesting but quite a few of them based on Norse mythology (which makes them somewhat problematic if your campaign doesn't include the Norse gods: if there's no Loki, then where did Sleipnir, Fenris, and Jormugandir come from? - better do some renaming and reworking on the backgrounds, quick!). Again, quite a few of these templates, while well-constructed, fall into the rather boring "half-something" camp (this time we get half-night hags, half-araneas, half-behirs, half-gibbering mouthers, half-skum, half-black dragons, and half-medusas - again!). A sub-par editing job, and most importantly to me a slew of errors in the creature stats, bring
Template Troves Volume 1: Serpents, Spiders, & Godlings down from a low-to-mid "4" to a high "3." I hope future books in this series (and with that "Volume 1" in the title, you know there will be future books in the series!) get a bit more attention spent on the creature stats and overall layout editing and formatting. (And I hope they keep up the tradition of the excellent cover artwork!)
