Recovered: Bestiaries
The Ashmole Bestiary (Source: Wikipedia)
Monster books are great. Let’s look at some more obscure ones than the Monster Manual that everyone knows.
Bonus Bestiary by Jason Bulmahn and F. Wesley Schneider
Paizo released this pamphlet as a preview of the Pathfinder Bestiary on Free RPG Day 2009.
- It’s marked “3.5 OGL Compatible” on the back, even though it uses the Pathfinder rules. I guess they’re close enough that Paizo was hoping not to scare people.
- At the time of printing, the Bonus Bestiary was monsters that didn’t fit in the main book, and so this was the only place for them. Some of them I can imagine were missed (the Allip), and some of them less so (the Ascomid).
- As of the Bestiary 3, I think all of the monsters in this book have appeared in other Pathfinder supplements.
Monster Manual II by Ed Bonny, Jeff Grub, Rich Redman, et al.
A follow-up to the 3.0 Monster Manual. Hereafter referred to as MMII.
- Pages 4-21 explain how to read a monster’s write-up, but the information is complete enough that it could probably be used for making monsters too (a laborious task in 3.X).
- The last two monsters (Scorpion Folk and Razor Boar) are designated open game content, which I think makes MMII unique among non-core WotC publications (Technically even including core: the books themselves are not OGC, only the SRD).
- The MMII is unique among the monster manuals for never getting a 3.5 printing.
- I think the skull on the cover is meant to be that of an ethereal marauder, but I don’t know that there’s a “canon” solution.
- This book is often remembered for its stupidly high-level monsters, but in fact, they do not compose the majority of the monsters (see Figure 1). I remember it more for introducing me to many of the more off-beat monsters from older editions, such as myconids and thri-kreen. A lot of the new monsters are pretty uninspired though; it’s very hit-or-miss.
Figure 1: Challenge rating distribution in MMII.
Legions of Hell by Chris Pramas
I think I got this free with a subscription to Dungeon Magazine a while back. It’s pretty good though.
- The stat blocks are irrelevant, as are the templates and prestige classes. What really makes the book worthwhile is the dozens of detailed devils with their schemes and maneuverings through the political structure of hell. Each of them has goals and activities outlined both in hell and in the material plane.
- I appreciate that entries frequently play off of each other. For example there are rival dukes of rhetoric and eloquence (appealing to logic and the psyche, respectively). It gives the book a very complete feeling.
- The book has occasional tie-ins with Hell in Freeport, which I do not own. But I would be interested to see if any of it also appears in the associated “world of Freeport” settings; I seem to recall that Green Ronin had all of their settings in a shared world.
This post was first shared on January 20, 2013. Free RPG Day 2023 is tomorrow!