Warhammer Fantasy: The Imperial Zoo Review

Monster manuals are one of the evergreen books in tabletop RPGs. Monsters can help define the world not just as things for the players to battle but also through their art and the bits of lore connected to each creature. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition has kept monsters to a minimum so far, focusing on human antagonists with the occasionally fell Chaos beast at the end of an adventure...

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Monster manuals are one of the evergreen books in tabletop RPGs. Monsters can help define the world not just as things for the players to battle but also through their art and the bits of lore connected to each creature. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition has kept monsters to a minimum so far, focusing on human antagonists with the occasionally fell Chaos beast at the end of an adventure. This may also be a byproduct of their release schedule focusing on adventures in towns and cities, most of which have an investigative tone rather than a good old fashioned dungeon stomp. That changes with The Imperial Zoo, the first dedicated monster book for the line. Though, in flipping through the review copy sent to me by Cubicle 7, they do keep the magazine style of the rest of the line by including some player facing elements to make chasing after beasts more about earning a profit than saving a town from a monster. Does the book deserve praise from the Emperor? Let’s play to find out.

The Imperial Zoo frames itself as a narrative exploration of the Old World wilderness written up for the pleasure of the court. The book splits the tour into three trips, with each section roughly corresponding to one of the three broad levels of character experience. On the low levels you have things ranging from giant wolves and rhinox, while the third trip looks into shard dragons and merwyrms. Many of these creatures offer glimpses of the world beyond the Reikland. Each writeup is framed as the explorer’s encounter with the beast. A handful of entries offer different statblocks, one for a generic version and the other for a “legendary '' one. TS Luikart, Elaine Lithgow and Padraig Murphy use one of my favorite game writing techniques to offer a little variety. Though the official account is in the main text, many entries come with small sidebars offering argumentative takes and alternate ideas about the monster's powers and behaviors. I’ve loved this element ever since I first encountered it in Shadowrun where the various shadowrunners would offer sarcastic takes on the text. These sidebars give the monster sections a little more pep.

On the players side, the game takes a swing at providing a new system for players who are fans of a certain silver-haired monster hunter known for taking steamy baths and having coins tossed at him. There’s a brief discussion on how monster hunters can profit off of slaying the beasts in the book by chopping the beast up and selling parts in town. It could just be that carnosaurs are good eating or that the local witch needs the eye of a night goblin for an upcoming ritual. It’s a pretty good fit for the Old World given how so many of the adventures are focused on player characters making a dishonest buck. This leads into the other new system in the book for players by brewing potions and poisons for themselves out of these exotic ingredients. The book rounds out with writeups of the characters who commented on the zoo entries, weapons and armor that are useful in monster hunts and a collection of creature traits for a one stop reference shop.

The Imperial Zoo sits somewhere between a monster manual and a wilderness campaign guide. Given the urban nature of this edition, I can see why now is a good time for a book like this. While I enjoyed the dissension in the write ups, my preferences lean towards direct discussion with the GM by providing hooks, variants and monster strategy over flash fiction. I found the wilderness guide stuff like selling monster parts and alchemy more engaging. I hope that we see a few more adventures focusing on those elements, as that’s where the strength of this edition truly lies.
 

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Rob Wieland

Rob Wieland

EthanSental

Legend
Supporter
Thanks, I was looking at this when I purchased the PDFs for the game on drivethrurpg a week or so ago. I’m leaning toward the pdf purchase now as this is my first time reading through the system and setting and enjoying the game so far.
 

J.M

Explorer
Thanks for the review. When done well, the flash fiction (as you call it) can make for a fun read and maybe get the GM excited to run the monster. But it would be better to also list a few adventure hooks for each monster to help me figure out how to include it in my game. Actually I can’t really think of any bestiaries that do that consistently….can anyone think of one? Kobold Press had the Book of Lairs to go with their Tome of Beasts, which I thought was a cool idea.
 

EthanSental

Legend
Supporter
Thanks, I was looking at this when I purchased the PDFs for the game on drivethrurpg a week or so ago. I’m leaning toward the pdf purchase now as this is my first time reading through the system and setting and enjoying the game so far.
Bought it yesterday!
 

timbannock

Hero
Supporter
Thanks for the review. When done well, the flash fiction (as you call it) can make for a fun read and maybe get the GM excited to run the monster. But it would be better to also list a few adventure hooks for each monster to help me figure out how to include it in my game. Actually I can’t really think of any bestiaries that do that consistently….can anyone think of one? Kobold Press had the Book of Lairs to go with their Tome of Beasts, which I thought was a cool idea.
I believe one of the (many!!) versions of the Tome of Horrors by Necromancer/Frog God did this. I want to say it was the Swords & Wizardry version of ToH Complete, since it had a lot more "white space" in it converting the monster stats from 3.5 to S&W, so they made up for that with plot hooks and lairs.

Along slightly different but related lines, the 4e Monster Manuals all included a section titled "Encounter Groups" with every monster entry that listed premade lists of multi-monster encounters, pulling from other monster entries from the book (or in rare cases, even from other books, usually referencing Monster Manual I while in Monster Manual III or something like that). There wasn't much of any flavor text for these, but it did act as unique inspiration and world-building to see what monsters "paired well" according to the designers.

A recently released (electronically, so far) Kickstarter monster book called The Monster Overhaul has LOADS of entirely functional stuff like this in the monster entries.
 

J.M

Explorer
I believe one of the (many!!) versions of the Tome of Horrors by Necromancer/Frog God did this. I want to say it was the Swords & Wizardry version of ToH Complete, since it had a lot more "white space" in it converting the monster stats from 3.5 to S&W, so they made up for that with plot hooks and lairs.

Along slightly different but related lines, the 4e Monster Manuals all included a section titled "Encounter Groups" with every monster entry that listed premade lists of multi-monster encounters, pulling from other monster entries from the book (or in rare cases, even from other books, usually referencing Monster Manual I while in Monster Manual III or something like that). There wasn't much of any flavor text for these, but it did act as unique inspiration and world-building to see what monsters "paired well" according to the designers.

A recently released (electronically, so far) Kickstarter monster book called The Monster Overhaul has LOADS of entirely functional stuff like this in the monster entries.
Thanks Tim, I'm not familiar with your examples so I'll check them out. As I was reading your post I thought of another one: the 13th Age bestiaries. But it should be standard practice, really.

Here's another idea: a short read-aloud paragraph to describe the monster to your players. Adventures have them so why not monster books??

See, there's still plenty of room to innovate in this hobby! This has been on my mind recently as we're developing a monster book for Elemental.
 

timbannock

Hero
Supporter
Thanks Tim, I'm not familiar with your examples so I'll check them out. As I was reading your post I thought of another one: the 13th Age bestiaries. But it should be standard practice, really.

Here's another idea: a short read-aloud paragraph to describe the monster to your players. Adventures have them so why not monster books??

See, there's still plenty of room to innovate in this hobby! This has been on my mind recently as we're developing a monster book for Elemental.
For sure! If it helps at all, my personal "best of" monster books are:

Most recent edition of the Hackmaster bestiary (Hacklopedia of Beasts, I think they are called), The Monster Overhaul, and AD&D's monster trifecta (MM1, MM2, and Fiend Folio). Each of these delivers some absolute "killer app" material:
  • Detailed worldbuilding/ecology (AD&D monster books)
  • Comprehensive encounter tables/environment info (AD&D monster books)
  • Loaded gameable information, individualized by monster entry (The Monster Overhaul)
  • Excellent visual material and even more ecology stuff like tracks, spoor, etc. (Hacklopedia of Beasts)
Add in little notes like how many Mork Borg monsters have their "harvestable parts" listed with coin values (i.e. 'Dragon's Scales 50gp'), and the aforementioned Encounter Groups from the 4e monster books, and combined you'd have the best of all worlds. It IS a lot of material, though, so it's not something that's easy to do for a one-person writer/designer.
 


TheSword

Legend
I really like the monster parts rules. You could easily crib them for D&D by changing the values. The good thing is that it can lead into further adventures and contacts.

Another I like is the fact that a monster is described with a stat block, along with an elite unique monster created using the rules. It’s full of great examples of how monsters can be made interesting and scary.

It’s important to remember that the base stat lines in WFRP 4e are just that, a starting point.
 
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Crusadius

Adventurer
It’s important to remember that the base stat lines in WFRP 4e are just that, a starting point.
Which is why WFRP 4E really needs a bestiary that is basically a list of stat blocks with monsters of various… whatever the equivalent to a character’s career level is.

I realise products such as The Night Parade and The Cluster-Eye Tribe exist, but I think we can all agree that having a printed product with all that and more would be fantastic.
 

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