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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trancejeremy" data-source="post: 6380494" data-attributes="member: 924"><a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/131922/Treatise-of-Twisted-Terrors" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/131922/Treatise-of-Twisted-Terrors" target="_blank"></a>[ATTACH]63996[/ATTACH]<a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/131922/Treatise-of-Twisted-Terrors" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/131922/Treatise-of-Twisted-Terrors" target="_blank">Treatise of Twisted Terrors</a> is the first product from a new company, QuasarDragon Games (they've since followed it up with a Pay What You Want Module, <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/134488/PO1-The-Stolen-Child" target="_blank">PO-1: The Stolen Child</a>).  It's a monster book with 70 new creatures based on critters from  folklore & myth. For the most part, not the usual stuff, either. All  the obvious monsters have already been covered in monster manuals and  folios, so this tackles a number of more unusual/obscure beasties. Those  that have been used already have a different interpretation here.It's not meant for any specific game, but a general "OSR" type of rules.  In practice, it mostly seems to follow a 1e format: Frequency, #  encountered, in lair %, combat stats, and so forth. Armor class is given  as descending only. Most monsters don't have much in the way of  treasure, and if they do, it is noted in the monster's description.  There is also an illustration of each monster, taken from public domain  sources, so the quality varies quite a bit.Mythology from all over the world is used to draw from. African,  American Indian, Aztec, Inuit, Melanesian, Philippines, but probably at  least half come from various European regions, ranging from the usual  suspects (Germany, Scotland, England, etc), to Asturias (Celtic Northern  Spain) and the Slavic region. It also features a couple of monsters  from cryptozoology, most notably the chupacabra.Much to my delight, it features a local monster, the Piasa Bird. It's  sort of a mix of a manticore, pertyon, and wyvern. It has a bearded  human head with antlers, scaled body, feathery wings, and a stinger  tail. Its origin and exact nature (does it have wings or not?) are  somewhat questionable, but it has been depicted as a cliff painting  since at least the 1600s.Other highlights include the proverbial dragon and princess (Cuelebre  and Xana), two different goat-women (Aguane and Glaistig), a wereorca  (Akhlut), and a variety of undead. The draugr and rusalka are fairly  well known (the former a norse revenant, the latter an undead woman that  drowns people), but also the Baykok, an undead hunter that is a  skeleton not completely stripped of flesh and some different types of  vampires, ghouls, and zombies. There's also quite a few domestic fairies  and spirits. A couple of monsters are extremely tough. The famous Lambton Worm is  almost tarrasque-esque, with an armor class of -10 and 25 HD,  regeneration, poisonous bite, and swallow whole on a natural 20. By  comparison the Gashadokuro, a 75 foot tall skeleton, is only 15 HD and  armor class -2, though with a nasty bite attack that can sever heads on a  natural 17 or better. Thankfully, the rest are much more manageable.  There's one monster entry per page, which does mean some excess white  space, but also means it's much easier to use and read. As mentioned,  the art is all public domain stuff, and one illustration (not of a  monster) was clearly the inspiration for one of the full page pieces in  the original Dungeon Masters Guide[ATTACH]63997[/ATTACH] One of the tricky things about taking monsters from folklore and  mythology and using them in D&D is that you need to turn something  that is not real into something that is real. Folklore creatures are not  just not real in the sense they don't really exist, they are often  unreal, things that don't make much sense. Faeries are a good example of  this - elves, goblins, even brownies and pixies were supernatural  entities almost more like ghosts or spirits than living, breathing  creatures. But in D&D they became the latter, somewhat magical in  some cases, but by and large, living, breathing, eating, drinking flesh  & blood creatures.That's my only complaint about this book (and a slight one), it doesn't  seem to go far enough to making these creatures D&D style monsters,  sticking too close to the original folklore and mythology. Though with  that said, the last portion of the book is full of suggestions on how to  use each monster in a D&D game. At $2, this is really a steal.A</blockquote>

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