The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk

[Messageboard Golem]

What are Scorpion Folk and where do they come from, this is a question that many have asked, what is know is that they are savage and destructive. But who are they really, how can they be so savage and yet still exist surely they would all have killed one another in an orgy of violence; so there must be more to the scorpion folk than meets the eye.

The Slayers Guide to Scorpion Folk will lift the veil that obscures these fascinating and dangerous creatures from mortal ken.

The first travellers normally know that they are the targets of a Scorpion Folk raid is when they are faced with the awesome and terrifying vision of these huge creatures charging them. Somewhat akin to Centaurs these creatures appear to be the blending of two forms, that of a monstrous scorpion some 10ft in length with a human upper torso. The skin tone matches that of their scorpion cousins, being dull grey or light brown, the colours of the rock or sand in which they make their homes. Bearing down on their prey with lance to hand and claws and stinger twitching the Folk make short work of their targets taking what they will, food valuables and other treasure. Most caravan routes through the hot barren lands avoid known hot spots of Scorpion Folk activity, but it is not always possible to gauge where they will hit. It is much safer to find routes around than to venture into the known haunts of the Folk, they acknowledge no authority or boundaries other than their own. Only the most powerful and well armed expeditions venture into the stomping grounds of the Folk, and then only at great need.

Often portrayed as mindless savages the Folk have had a bad press, insular and tribal in nature little is known about their origins, their society and their very nature. This Slayers Guide will open the book on their coming and goings and try and allow players the option of peaceful communication rather than outright war. The normal reaction of a PC seeing a band of Folk travelling is to hide, and hope to remain unnoticed, or fight if they are discovered. This book aims to give another option to the player, for who is best to provide information to the adventuring group than the very people who live of the land. For the Folk are a people make no mistake about that they have a society, a culture, and a way of life, alien though it may be, they act in a logical and predictable fashion. Understanding these rules could save player characters unnecessary combat and the casualties these combat will inevitably bring.

This series of supplements, designed for use in all fantasy-based D20 game systems, takes an exhaustive look at specific monster races, detailing their beliefs, society and methods of warfare. Typically, these will be races all but ignored by Games Masters and players alike who pay heed as countless thousands get slaughtered during the acquisition of new levels and magic items.

Each Slayer's Guide features a single race, in this case the Scorpion Folk. Within these pages you will find a large amount of information on Scorpion Folk physiology, habitat and society, giving you a deeper level of understanding on how this race exists and interacts with the rest of the world. Scorpion Folk do not fit in to polite society but they make excellent challenges for player characters to face. Inhuman for the most part they are difficult to role play for either GM or players. From this book players will learn how to approach Scorpion Folk tribes safely and how to defend themselves if necessary. Games Masters are presented with guidelines on how to introduce this race into their existing campaigns. They will also benefit from material demonstrating how to actually portray Scorpion Folks to their players, thus giving their campaigns and scenarios even greater depth than before. For the truly ambitious, rules are given for using Scorpion Folks as player characters.

 

[John Cooper]

The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk
By Robert Neil Smith
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 0029
32 pages, $9.95

The latest (and possibly last?) entry in the popular "Slayer's Guide" line, The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk is a brilliant concept, taking a monster that many people are unfamiliar with (since the scorpionfolk do not appear in the Monster Manual and thus are not in the SRD; they appeared in Monster Manual II under the Open Game License, having originally appeared in the original Creature Collection) and bringing it under the spotlight. I really applaud the whole idea, and I'd love to see more books like this one - there are, after all, quite a few interesting monsters out there under the OGL, even if most of the ones from the Monster Manual have already had the "Slayer's Guide" treatment. Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet there's an audience for such books, as many DMs would no doubt love to see the depth of knowledge provided by a "Slayer's Guide" applied to a relatively unknown monster (got to keep those players guessing somehow, right?). Whoever came up with the concept for The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk gets my highest accolades for the concept.

The execution, however, leaves a bit to be desired.

The cover is an interesting work by Jon Hodgson (they're back to spelling his name this way, so I'll do the same), featuring a rather Greek gladiator-looking individual fighting a scorpionfolk out amongst some desert ruins. Jon does a nice job with the color scheme, a tricky thing to do given that scorpionfolk coloration is such that they blend into the sands of their environment; with some nice shadow-work, Jon manages to have the scorpionfolk stand out, yet you can still see how he'd easily blend into the background. The only problems I had with the cover are that the detail work isn't uniform; while the scorpionfolk is given very distinct features, the gladiator's hands are rather indistinct (his fingers blend into each other, for one thing). Also, there are some problems with the scorpionfolk's anatomy: his tail stinger is rather weird looking (certainly not like that of a scorpion), and his face is far too human (he seems to have human skin and soft, pliable lips, whereas a scorpionfolk's entire body is covered in chitinous armor). Also, for some strange reason he has a human hand at the end of the only scorpionlike leg visible in the picture. I assume this human hand anomaly is a direct result of the artist basing his picture on the illustration of the scorpionfolk from Monster Manual II, which has human hands for feet (despite there being no description of this in the creature's write-up for that book), rather than basing it on the descriptions or interior artwork in this book.

Speaking of interior artwork, this time Tony Parker provides all of it: the 13 black-and-white illustrations and the full-color anatomical diagram on the inside front cover. I like how a single artist on a monster book focusing on a single monster helps give a unified vision of the beast in question, and I like the design that Tony has given the scorpionfolk in the book. (If I had one quibble, it would be that he gives the scorpionfolk rather thick legs for a creature supposedly patterned on a scorpion.) The artwork is pretty good in the book, but the scanning job doesn't seem to be as good as in other Mongoose books for whatever reason - some of the edges seem "blotchy" (not quite pixelized, but close). Still, I like the whole look that Tony's given the scorpionfolk (I especially like the creepy "death mask face" he gives them), so overall I was pretty pleased with the art job.

Before I get into details about the writing job, let's go over the chapter breakdown of The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk:

• Introduction: describing the "Slayer's Guide" line in general and this book in particular, followed by a page of fiction that starts an ongoing story finished up in other fiction blurbs scattered throughout the book
• Physiology: the physical structure of scorpionfolk, describing their chitinous skin, their "hair" (actually, hollow tubules), growth rate, body flexibility (and lack thereof), plus sections on their racial origins and mindset
• Habitat: the typical layout of scorpionfolk camps
• Scorpionfolk Society: sections on prestige rankings among scorpionfolk tribal members, mating rituals, gestation and birth, child-rearing, feeding habits, molting, thoughts on the different types of magic, language, relationships with other races, scorpionfolk armor (made from scorpionfolk, not for them), and renegades (scorpionfolk who are cast out from their tribes and who take up with members of other races)
• Methods of Warfare: the advantages a scorpionfolk has over a typical humanoid, scorpionfolk tactics, and arms and armor (including 6 new weapons and the disadvantages inherent in a scorpionfolk wearing armor)
• Roleplaying with Scorpionfolk: roleplaying scorpionfolk when the PCs intrude upon their lands and when scorpionfolk intrude upon other races' lands, and scorpionfolk names
• Scenario Hooks and Ideas: four ideas upon which the DM can create a scorpionfolk encounter
• The Krakk: a brief (2-page) description of a scorpionfolk tribe, complete with a breakdown of the individual members
• Scorpionfolk Reference List: stats for 5 different scorpionfolk NPCs, ready for use

As for the writing: where to start? I'm not familiar with Robert Neil Smith's previous RPG works (if any), so I went into The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk with no preconceptions. Let me just say that I knew I was in for a chore when I had documented five errors not only on the first page, but on the first column of the first page! My notes on a 32-page "Slayer's Guide" normally take up one side of a sheet of legal paper; this one took three times that amount, mostly documenting errors that had made it past the proofreader (Richard Ford) and the editor (Ted Chang). Now, I have no idea what the original manuscript looked like, but if these are the ones that made it through the error-detection process, then I'd say in the future Robert might want to do a little more work polishing his product before he sends it in. Most of these were problems with punctuation (in particular, a displayed ignorance on the differences between a comma, a semicolon, a colon, and a dash, and the times when they're called for, although the "question mark at the end of sentence" concept seems to have made it past him as well). There were also numerous instances where a similar-sounding or similarly-spelled word was used in place of the correct one, such as borne/born, none/non-, loosing/losing, descent/dissent, and here/hear, and places where a compound word was broken into two ("before hand," "mid way," "what ever").

I was similarly unimpressed with his research when I read, on page 4, that scorpionfolk are "a mix of insect and humanoids." Come on, Robert, scorpions aren't insects, they're arachnids! Of course, he must have known that, since he refers to their "arachnid side" on page 11. Also, he apparently did some research on scorpions since he mentions that young scorpionfolk do not eat the way adults do, as they "lack the enzyme injectors on their legs," but sadly he neglects informing his reading audience what that is all about. (You'd think that might have been mentioned, in some detail, in the section on scorpionfolk eating habits.)

Still, despite some initial problems, I have to admit that Robert does a pretty good job of fleshing out the scorpionfolk. I like the whole nonhuman viewpoint of the scorpionfolk (as Robert points out, a scorpionfolk is much more "monstrous" than most centaurian-build creatures, as nearly all of them are mammal/mammal hybrids: horse/humanoid for a centaur, lion/humanoid for a lamia, deer/humanoid for a hybsil, ram/humanoid for a bariaur, etc.) - scorpionfolk, on the other hand, have a mindset much more closely aligned with the "scorpion" end of things. Also, given the scorpionfolk's unique (and admittedly improbable) build, Robert does an absolutely fantastic job of creating a plausible origin myth for them: in short, after a war between two humanoid races, the worshippers of the Scorpion God decimated their enemies, and in retaliation the enemy god turned the land they were fighting over into a desert; the Scorpion God, unable to reverse the desertification and change the land to fit his worshippers, instead altered his worshippers to fit the land. Brilliant! I also love the little bits that are thrown in, sometimes just in passing, throughout the book that make absolutely perfect sense when you stop and think about it. Scorpionfolk cannot bend their torsos sideways, nor can they lie flat, having nearly no flexibility in the torso region thanks to their hardened carapaces. I never would have thought of that, but he's right. It's interesting to note that scorpionfolk spellcasters almost always disdain the use of direct-damage spells (fireball, magic missile, etc.), but when you consider that they spend most of their time fighting other tribes of scorpionfolk - and fighting amongst the members of their own tribe as they jockey for position in the "pecking order" - it only makes sense; since scorpionfolk have an innate spell resistance, they wouldn't want to possibly waste a spell that could be "shrugged off" by the enemy. There are all kinds of these little gems sprinkled throughout the book, even something as innocuous as a total carapace preventing facial expressions help to make the scorpionfolk just downright alien.

Still, when it's apparent that Robert's obviously put some thought behind fleshing out this little-known race, it only makes it that much more puzzling when he completely ignores a major aspect of the monster: their venom. Scorpionfolk, like scorpions, have stingers at the ends of their tails. Robert's well aware of this fact, he even has "(plus poison)" as part of each stinger attack in the game stats section. However, nowhere in The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk is there any discussion of scorpionfolk venom, not even an explanation of what the venom does. (For the sake of those picking up the book without having either Monster Manual II or the original Creature Collection - where, if memory serves, the creature goes by a different name - I'll post the relevant section from MMII: A scorpionfolk delivers its poison (Fortitude save DC 17) with each successful sting attack. The initial and secondary damage is 1d4 points of Dexterity damage. Note, however, that this is based on the standard formula of 10 + (one-half the creature's Hit Dice) + (the creature's Constitution modifier), so if you advance a scorpionfolk be sure to increase the Fortitude save as appropriate.) By not addressing this issue, Robert has left the following questions unanswered:

• Are scorpionfolk venomous from birth? If not, when do they become venomous?
• Do they coat their weapons with their own venom? If so, how long does it last in the open air?
• Are scorpionfolk immune to the effects of their own venom? (In real life, scorpions are not.) Are they immune to the effects of (monstrous) scorpion venom?
• Do scorpionfolk use their sting attacks only as a last resort? (If they're not immune to their own venom, then poisoning an enemy makes him inedible, possibly an important consideration to a hungry scorpionfolk.)

I really think this is a major oversight, and in my mind is the book's biggest failing.

There are a few problems with the game stats of the scorpionfolk at the end of the book, as well:

• Tribal Leader Female: HD should be 20d8+20 (110 hp), not 20d8+16 (110 hp). She should only have 3+1 3rd level cleric spells, not 4+1 (she has a Wis 15). Save DC for her spells should be 12 + spell level, not 13 + spell level. There is no soften earth and mud spell, it's soften earth and stone. There are no domains listed, but based on the spells prepared she has the Earth domain; from the information on the Scorpion God on page 14, her other options are Animal, Law, and Travel.
• Tribal Leader Male: HD should be 20d8+40 (130 hp), not 20d8+36 (130 hp). He needs a second ranger spell prepared, even if it's the same spell as the first one.
• Tribal Elder Male: HD should be 12d8+24+6d12+12 (129 hp), not 12d8+24+6d12+16 (129 hp). AC breakdown should include "+6 natural," not "16 natural." Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 16.
• Untrained Young: AC breakdown should include "+6 natural," not "16 natural." Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 16. Under the Full Attack listing, the claws should be a +13 melee attack, not +19.
• Young: Spell Resistance shouldn't be 18 until 12 HD. According to the rule on page 14, it should be SR 2, but the math doesn't work out: if the maximum is SR 18 at 12 HD and the rate of gain is +2 SR/HD, then a 5-HD scorpionfolk (like this one) should have SR 4.
• Finally, according to the entry in Monster Manual II, a scorpionfolk's trample attack should deal 1d8 plus one-and-a-half times the creature's Strength bonus. For some reason, the stats of the creatures in The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk has base trample damage of 1d6 in all of the entries.

Overall, I was disappointed with some glaring oversights and a plethora of proofreading mistakes, yet when Robert sits down and spends the time to work his way through a concept, he does a great job with it. I think The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk could have been a much better book than it turned out had Robert just done a bit more work on it up front. (I don't know what the schedule was like, but surely if he was coming up to the deadline he could have asked for an extension; I'd think Mongoose would have been better served with a corrected book shipping later than planned than an on-time book of lesser quality because it was rushed.) What I disliked about The Slayer's Guide to Scorpionfolk I really disliked, but what I liked about it I really liked. I suppose that puts the book at about average overall, and that's the rating I'm going to go with: a 3, but a pretty high 3 notwithstanding. (Despite the problems, I can't wait to spring some scorpionfolk encounters on my unsuspecting players.)