The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Beasts of Lejend, subtitled "Cyclopedia of Creatures" is produced for the Lejendary Adventure Fantasy Roleplaying Game.

This book is broken down into the following parts: 1. Lejend Master Notes (GM Notes, in other words) 2. Animalia-Mundane and Dangerous (regular-Joe animals) 3. Creatures of Lore (Basilisks, Centaurs, Gargoyles, etc.) 4. Dragonkin (you guessed it, Dragons!) 5. Living Dead and Unquiet Spirits (Zombies, Spirits, Demons, etc.) 6. Humanalia (humans, elfs, dwarfs, etc.) 7. Reference section (charts, encounter tables) 8. Index

The Lejend Master Notes section describes how to use this product. The author was kind enough to show the readers a list of damage ranges (Harm, in LA lingo.) This is also one of my few complaints with this book, the Harm Ranges. For a LM to get a Harm range of 17 to 20, he needs to roll a d4 and add 16. Makes sense, but why not just put d4 16 in the creature listing? I am fairly proficient in math, but after a few beers, of which I drink many while gaming, I damn sure will have trouble with some of these numbers! I would recommend to the author to simply put the die-codes down on paper with the creature listings, instead of a range. In the LM Notes section, a list of abbreviations and designations is printed for the consumer. This is definately needed because a lot of the creatures have these "codes" in their descriptions. For instance, the Defense of an Anaconda is this: 2/18b/10s. In regular English this means that the Anaconda can shrug off two points of general Harm, 18 points if the harm is from a blunt weapon, and 10 points if from a stabbing weapon. This abbreviation and designation chart is another bone of contention with me. A couple of the designators are not intuitive, i.e. "i" refers to an immature creature's statistic, whereas "I" refers to a shield! "SH" would be a much better designation for shield, no?

The Animalia section is quite good. The author breaks down a lot of animals by age and sex. Is this necessary? Probably not, but it does not hurt the product and a lot of gamers may want to know the amount of Harm difference between being stomped on my a Bull Elephant and a Cow Mammoth. The Animalia section covers everything from Apes to Wolverines, including some animals that would probably rarely pop up in a campaign (ever been attacked by an ostrich?)

The Creatures of Lore section covers a multitude of creatures from the Aetherowl to the Zygar (yeah, never heard of it either!) Most of these creatures would be quite useful to a campaign. I can just picture a gamers face when his character first decides to seduce a Widowblack! By the way, the Zygar is sort of a nine-foot lizard-dragonfly crossbreed.

The Dragonkin section is about what you'd expect, a bunch of dragons and similar creatures.

The Living Dead section should be noted in that a great number of the Living Dead seem to appear in the LA published adventures. The Living Dead are divided into free-willed (ghouls, balewretch), unwilled (zomboid, bonewalker) and cunning (vampires, lichwights). Demons, Devils, Oni (or Onis?) and Fiends are all types of Spirits. For some reason, Elementals are grouped in this section. I guess because they are the "spirits" of the elements, but I would think that Elementals would fit better in Creatures of Lore. The reader should overlook a couple of the art renditions in this section. The second ghoul picture is very "Scooby-Doo-esque" in appearance, although most of the pictures are quite well done.

The author has entirely too many breeds of Humanalia to list, suffice to say that most "humanoids" gamers would think of are in this section. I am impressed that the author put the various "Orders" of humanalia in each listing. It is helpful to know the average differences and similarities in combat between an Archer Alf, a Lady Alf and a Priest Alf. Other game companies could take a lesson from this. You may recall that I mentioned in the Animalia section that there were too many sub-categories of animals. This is not a mistake. I find it more helpful to know the differences between verious elf professions than breeds of tiger. There is a listing by "family" of the various Alfar races. This could be handy, but the descriptions of some of the Alfar races do not lead one to believe that they should be considered "Fair" or "Neutral", etc. I tend to consider descriptions such as "aloof" and "lordly in dealing with almost all other races" a fine designation for neutral, rather than fair. It should be noted that the Humanalia section of the Beasts of Lejend appears to be the greatest in length.

The Reference Section and Index are quite well-done and are indispensible in game play. Ever wanted to know the percentage chance that a leper band is actually a group of disguised rebels? That information is in the Reference Section. The Index is useful when the LM wants to find out where in the heck Lung-Quai is located in the manual. 25% chance, by the way.

Overall this Cyclopedia of Creatures is invaluable for game play using the Lejendary Rules. It is the best of the three core books. There are a couple of typos, one or two misplaced pictures and another error or two, but this book should be recommended.

The artwork varies from fair to excellent, with most falling under the good heading. I mentioned the ghoul previously. It is one of the goofiest pictures. All the rest are much better than it. The cover is awesome! It was painted by a fellow named Jason Engle. I am hereby sending a hint to the folks at Hekaforge to keep this guy puting out images. The dark yellows and reds on the cover really emphasize the fantasy aspect of the game.

The biggest flaw with this product is the layout of the creature tables. I think that all of the information from this table should be printed along with the creature description (to keep from constantly flipping) and all of the creature tables should be moved to the Reference section of the book, something like the first edition AD&D DMG did.

Those converting this book to another system need to keep a few facts in mind. The "average" human would have a Health of 20, Precision of 20 and Speed of 10. The "average" Human Guardsman would have a Health of 26-35, Precision of 21-40 and Speed of 8-11. Your "average" Rogue may have a Health of up to 100! I would recommend that GMs convert rather loosely with the Base Ratings. The rest of the information should convert to your system of choice rather easily.

Good Luck.

Beasts of Lejend
Beasts of Lejend Capsule Review by Michael Wallace on 10/06/01 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) Overall this Cyclopedia of Creatures is invaluable for game play using the Lejendary Rules. It is the best of the three core books. Product: Beasts of Lejend Author: Gary Gygax Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Hekaforge Productions Line: Lejendary Adventure Cost: $24.95 Page count: 205 Year published: 2000 ISBN: 1-930377-06-1 SKU: HFP1009 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Michael Wallace on 10/06/01 Genre tags: Fantasy	Beasts of Lejend, subtitled "Cyclopedia of Creatures" is produced for the Lejendary Adventure Fantasy Roleplaying Game. This book is broken down into the following parts: 1. Lejend Master Notes (GM Notes, in other words) 2. Animalia-Mundane and Dangerous (regular-Joe animals) 3. Creatures of Lore (Basilisks, Centaurs, Gargoyles, etc.) 4. Dragonkin (you guessed it, Dragons!) 5. Living Dead and Unquiet Spirits (Zombies, Spirits, Demons, etc.) 6. Humanalia (humans, elfs, dwarfs, etc.) 7. Reference section (charts, encounter tables) 8. Index The Lejend Master Notes section describes how to use this product. The author was kind enough to show the readers a list of damage ranges (Harm, in LA lingo.) This is also one of my few complaints with this book, the Harm Ranges. For a LM to get a Harm range of 17 to 20, he needs to roll a d4 and add 16. Makes sense, but why not just put d4 16 in the creature listing? I am fairly proficient in math, but after a few beers, of which I drink many while gaming, I damn sure will have trouble with some of these numbers! I would recommend to the author to simply put the die-codes down on paper with the creature listings, instead of a range. In the LM Notes section, a list of abbreviations and designations is printed for the consumer. This is definately needed because a lot of the creatures have these "codes" in their descriptions. For instance, the Defense of an Anaconda is this: 2/18b/10s. In regular English this means that the Anaconda can shrug off two points of general Harm, 18 points if the harm is from a blunt weapon, and 10 points if from a stabbing weapon. This abbreviation and designation chart is another bone of contention with me. A couple of the designators are not intuitive, i.e. "i" refers to an immature creature's statistic, whereas "I" refers to a shield! "SH" would be a much better designation for shield, no? The Animalia section is quite good. The author breaks down a lot of animals by age and sex. Is this necessary? Probably not, but it does not hurt the product and a lot of gamers may want to know the amount of Harm difference between being stomped on my a Bull Elephant and a Cow Mammoth. The Animalia section covers everything from Apes to Wolverines, including some animals that would probably rarely pop up in a campaign (ever been attacked by an ostrich?) The Creatures of Lore section covers a multitude of creatures from the Aetherowl to the Zygar (yeah, never heard of it either!) Most of these creatures would be quite useful to a campaign. I can just picture a gamers face when his character first decides to seduce a Widowblack! By the way, the Zygar is sort of a nine-foot lizard-dragonfly crossbreed. The Dragonkin section is about what you'd expect, a bunch of dragons and similar creatures. The Living Dead section should be noted in that a great number of the Living Dead seem to appear in the LA published adventures. The Living Dead are divided into free-willed (ghouls, balewretch), unwilled (zomboid, bonewalker) and cunning (vampires, lichwights). Demons, Devils, Oni (or Onis?) and Fiends are all types of Spirits. For some reason, Elementals are grouped in this section. I guess because they are the "spirits" of the elements, but I would think that Elementals would fit better in Creatures of Lore. The reader should overlook a couple of the art renditions in this section. The second ghoul picture is very "Scooby-Doo-esque" in appearance, although most of the pictures are quite well done. The author has entirely too many breeds of Humanalia to list, suffice to say that most "humanoids" gamers would think of are in this section. I am impressed that the author put the various "Orders" of humanalia in each listing. It is helpful to know the average differences and similarities in combat between an Archer Alf, a Lady Alf and a Priest Alf. Other game companies could take a lesson from this. You may recall that I mentioned in the Animalia section that there were too many sub-categories of animals. This is not a mistake. I find it more helpful to know the differences between verious elf professions than breeds of tiger. There is a listing by "family" of the various Alfar races. This could be handy, but the descriptions of some of the Alfar races do not lead one to believe that they should be considered "Fair" or "Neutral", etc. I tend to consider descriptions such as "aloof" and "lordly in dealing with almost all other races" a fine designation for neutral, rather than fair. It should be noted that the Humanalia section of the Beasts of Lejend appears to be the greatest in length. The Reference Section and Index are quite well-done and are indispensible in game play. Ever wanted to know the percentage chance that a leper band is actually a group of disguised rebels? That information is in the Reference Section. The Index is useful when the LM wants to find out where in the heck Lung-Quai is located in the manual. 25% chance, by the way. Overall this Cyclopedia of Creatures is invaluable for game play using the Lejendary Rules. It is the best of the three core books. There are a couple of typos, one or two misplaced pictures and another error or two, but this book should be recommended. The artwork varies from fair to excellent, with most falling under the good heading. I mentioned the ghoul previously. It is one of the goofiest pictures. All the rest are much better than it. The cover is awesome! It was painted by a fellow named Jason Engle. I am hereby sending a hint to the folks at Hekaforge to keep this guy puting out images. The dark yellows and reds on the cover really emphasize the fantasy aspect of the game. The biggest flaw with this product is the layout of the creature tables. I think that all of the information from this table should be printed along with the creature description (to keep from constantly flipping) and all of the creature tables should be moved to the Reference section of the book, something like the first edition AD&D DMG did. Those converting this book to another system need to keep a few facts in mind. The "average" human would have a Health of 20, Precision of 20 and Speed of 10. The "average" Human Guardsman would have a Health of 26-35, Precision of 21-40 and Speed of 8-11. Your "average" Rogue may have a Health of up to 100! I would recommend that GMs convert rather loosely with the Base Ratings. The rest of the information should convert to your system of choice rather easily. Good Luck.