In short, I love it. Great monsters, beautiful design.
Ron Spencer and Jason Engle's art is fantastic, and I was blown away by how pleasantly surprised I was by Udon's visuals. Highlights include the Stahnk, Kyrie, and Fire and Frost Dragons. They even managed to make the Urkhan Worm look cool. And while I wasn't in love with Jennifer Meyer's people in the Age of Mortals sourcebook, her animals in the Bestiary are beautiful!
On the low end of the art scale are the pieces by Brad Williams and Scott Harshbarger. Ugh. Not pretty. But even their subpar work is considerably better than the most cringeworthy art that appears in WOTC books (Dennis Crabapple, anyone?) But that's just five or six pieces out of the whole book. All in all, the good far outweighs the negative.
As for the monsters themselves, I think they're great. The Kani doll is outrageous. All the different kinds, scampering at you, and attaching themselves to suck your life away. Sweet! Move over Chucky, these guys remind me more of that old short story where the girl buys a voodoo hunting doll as a gift for her friend and it ends up tearing up her whole apartment to get at her. Very cool.
I've already commented on the Frost Dragon. Its great, and the Fire Dragon appears justly represented as well. In fact, I'm enormously pleased that you could pretty much run the whole Chaos War right out of the books now. Knights of Neraka and Solamnia from the DLCS, plus Chaos' legions all presented in the Bestiary. Well done! These guys are hardly anything to sneeze at. The Daemonlord, Malrauthin, Shadow Wights. Chaos has quite the badasses.
I really like how the Bestiary tailors its own backbone of Outsiders and Undead to the setting.
My current campaign features a character battling the evil monstrosities in the Silvanesti Nightmare Forest, and the Bloodrager and Wichtlin templates will greatly enhance many of those encounters.
I am curious as to how monsters were selected to include in the book, however. The Huldrefolk have appeared in some major novels and game products, yet they were cut in favor of several random or original creations such as the Tree of Zivilyn and several mundane flightless birds? A bit surprising.
And I'd like to know the source material for the Sligs. I was really looking forward to these guys, but they're quite different to how I envisioned them. Tanis the Shadow Years depicts them as reptilian creatures with brown and black stripes, rocky hides, and tails that dragged on the ground. But in the Bestiary they're orange-yellow, snake-headed, and with short stubby tails. Very strange.
When I rechecked Tanis the Shadow Years to get their description, I also noticed the book featured Bullboggs, large draft animals that were described as being a cross between horses, bulls, and buffalo. Was there any consideration given to including them in the Bestiary as well? Just curious.
I'm also curious about the write-up of the effects of Dark Thrall Fever on pregnant women. Very gruesome and Book of Vile Darkness-ish. Do you think its something Tracy Hickman would have approved?
The Acceptance rules look well though out and the Encounter tables will get tons of use.
All in all I'm extremely pleased with the book. Second in usefulness only to the Monster Manual, but possibly my favorite overall. Well done!
Originally posted by Kai Lord
And I'd like to know the source material for the Sligs. I was really looking forward to these guys, but they're quite different to how I envisioned them. Tanis the Shadow Years depicts them as reptilian creatures with brown and black stripes, rocky hides, and tails that dragged on the ground. But in the Bestiary they're orange-yellow, snake-headed, and with short stubby tails. Very strange.
Sligs have been in the setting since DL12, which is where they're first described as being orange-yellow, with thick stubby tails and thorny reptilian hides. They also appear with that description in the 2nd edition DL Monstrous Compendium and then in Tales of the Lance. I imagine Tanis the Shadow Years constitutes something of a break from the previous description, though nothing significant.
I went with the snake-like quality to contrast them somewhat with the kobold's lizard-like qualities, the two of them being related in much the same way as hobgoblins and goblins are. Udon's artwork, while very cool, left their ears off, but this is included in the actual text, so it's OK by me. All in all, they're one of my favorite Bestiary races, after the ursoi and disir.
Cheers,
Cam
Originally posted by Cam Banks
Sligs have been in the setting since DL12, which is where they're first described as being orange-yellow, with thick stubby tails and thorny reptilian hides. They also appear with that description in the 2nd edition DL Monstrous Compendium and then in Tales of the Lance. I imagine Tanis the Shadow Years constitutes something of a break from the previous description, though nothing significant.
I went with the snake-like quality to contrast them somewhat with the kobold's lizard-like qualities, the two of them being related in much the same way as hobgoblins and goblins are.
I kind of figured that. With Draconians, Bakali, and Dragonspawn (and now Kobolds as you mentioned) DL does have a lot of lizard headed reptilians.
Originally posted by Cam Banks
Udon's artwork, while very cool, left their ears off, but this is included in the actual text, so it's OK by me. All in all, they're one of my favorite Bestiary races, after the ursoi and disir.
Its a bit difficult to picture a snake head looking cool with big ears, but I still like their write-up in the book. The stats are perfect for how I imagined them, it was just the description and art that surprised me.
And I like the Ursoi and Disir as well.
I think it would be great (and I know I'd purchase it) to have another book with new monsters and monsters from the other books as well put in...as a kind of conglomeration...a collection of all the monsters so that we could have them all in one place. (I understand this may be difficult getting permission to re-print some of them what with WotC owning the draconians, dragonspawn, shadowpeople, thanoi, etc. from the DLCS) Really...I think my alterier motive is to get some better drac art (ie now friggin' bozak with curved horns...that's the baaz, damnit...the draconian on the cover of the Doom Brigade by Parkinson was never intended to be a bozak...look at Parkinson's earlier work "What Do You Mean We're Lost?" and you'll see what his interpretation of a bozak is) and some art for the dragonspawn. heh heh
Man...I went off on a tangent there, huh?
Anywho...I think a second Bestiary would be great...I mean there are plenty of monsters left to be explored. 'Yevi, huldrefolk, aaracockras, phaethons, brine dragons, yaggol, those strange cat folk in all the PHB&TCC books, the list can go on and on and on.
I think Sean still has that original list we were working on...it was huge (of course it also included a lot of 3e monsters...but it was missing a good portion of the novel only monsters).
Damnit...now I'm all excited for another bestiary, and even if it's decided that it's a good idea...there's already no room for next years plate...probably not even '06's plate either.
That's okay...I'm a patient sort (except when it comes to flying again...
)Okay...I think I've definately gone off on my own now...
:D
Their plate is full and I'm sure they have a few goodies up their sleaves.
Because they're evil and like to tease us.
The Gazetteer...or Atlas, or whatever you want to call it.
My copy of the Bestiary finally came in at B&N today. I must say, even without a thorough read, this book is beyond good in its quality. There were too many monsters that made the cruel DM in me smile. The first 36 pages being dragons definitely makes this book stand out. There are almost more dragons in here than in the MM, which is amazing to say the least. The rest of the book only adds to the fun, with a few monsters that I have never heard of before (I never had the original Bestiary), and others that I never quite understood (Skorenoi and Kyrie). All in all, the monsters in this book really made me love this thing.
The art presented here is top-notch, and even saying that doesn't do it justice. Wizards could only be so lucky to have art this good, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
Keep it up guys!
Originally posted by Daedavias
Keep it up guys!
We'll do our best! Thanks for the comments, Daedavias. I hope you get to use a few of the creatures in the near future.
Cheers,
Cam