Creatures of Rokugan
AEG made a splash in adapting their Legend of the Five Rings setting to the d20 System with the Rokugan book, which used the D&D Oriental Adventures book as a jumping-off point. Rokugan delivered a level of production values, imagination, and rules implementation unseen by that point in third party d20 publishers. Yet while it is obvious that they put a lot of effort into the Rokugan d20 book, one wonders if they can keep it up.
To answer that query we must turn our attention to the latest d20 book for L5R. Creatures of Rokugan expands upon the creatures available in the L5R setting from those defined in the Oriental Adventures book.
A First Look
Creatures of Rokugan is a perfect-bound, softcover book. It has 112 pages and is priced at $24.95 US. I was surprised when I did a page count, as the book feels rather hefty; the book appears to be printed on rather heavy paper.
The cover has a similar appearance to the Rokugan book, with a beige rice paper look and symbols of the various L5R clans in the backdrop, as well as a simulated blue binding with a cord along the spine. The front cover depicts a humanoid creature with horns and tusks wielding a sword (a tsuno).
The interior is black-and-white. The illustrations are mostly pencil drawings, and most of the creatures described herein are provided with an illustration. The illustrations are good to excellent. I found the illustration for the mokumokuren especially interesting.
The text density in the book is fairly high, similar to WotC supplements. The margins are modest, and the outside margin is filled with a shaded bar and a darker bar with the name of the creature on the page for ease of use. The section headers and creature names are done in a font that appears like calligraphic characters. The creature descriptions are not arranged one per page, but rather are arranged for maximum density like WotC's Monster Manual.
Creatures of Rokugan runs about 22 cents per page, which is a bit high for a book of this size, and similar to the smaller WotC classbooks. Coupled with the text density and presentation, however, it delivers a decent value.
A Deeper Look
Creatures of Rokugan is sorted into a brief introduction, a sizable main section containing all of the creatures, and three appendices.
The introduction has a short story and a variety of new rules that apply to the creatures described herein. This is primarily concerned with two elements: new (or variant) subtypes that apply to Rokugan, and variant rules that apply to jade and crystal weapons. In Creatures of Rokugan, incorporeal creatures can be affected normally by jade and crystal weapons, and creatures classified as spirits are more difficult to affect with enchantment effects except by other spirits. Other new or adapted types are darkness, oni, shadowlands, and void.
The section on jade and crystal weapons introduces a new variant of the damage resistance rule that is used in the book. Creatures can have a damage resistance rating with a crystal or jade descriptor, such as DR 10/ 2 (crystal) or DR 10/ 2 (jade). If a creature has this sort of descriptor, then you count the weapon bonus needed to bypass the DR as two points lower for that type and one point lower for a weapon of the other type. For example, a creature with DR 10/ 3 would be affected normally by a standard weapon of 3 or higher bonus, a crystal weapon with a 2 or higher bonus, or a jade weapon with a 1 or higher bonus.
Creatures of Rokugan introduces over 100 new creatures and 7 templates. Given this, there is a great variety of creatures, but there are a few strong themes. The book offers a great deal of undead, principally restless spirits who cannot find rest, a great many otherworldly oni, and other Shadowlands creatures. Enumerating all of these creatures would be beyond the scope of this review, but it may be worthwhile to touch on a few:
- Ashalan: Not technically from Rokugan, but rather from the lands beyond, Ashalan are immortal humanoid creatures covered with tattoos. They are commonly sorcerers, and they have the ability to cloak themselves in shadows and dominate those that they tattoo. The ashalan are possible PC material.
- Elemental Terrors: Powerful oni that can be summoned - but not controlled - by maho tsukai (blood sorcerers). There is one greater terror and one lesser terror for each of the five L5R elements. The elemental terrors are tainted elemental creatures that serve dreadful beings who dwell in the Shadowlands, known as dark oracles.
- Gaki are undead creatures, spirits of evil individuals consumed by hunger. Gaki can take the shapes of insects and appear in a variety of forms. For example, skull tide gaki look like swarms of skulls floating on the waves and make a maddening chattering sound and try to chew through the hulls of ships to get to the crew inside.
- Guardian Statues are not intentionally created, but are statues given life by the spirits of samurai in order to assist their clan.
- Kenku appear to be the Rokugan variant of the tengu from Oriental Adventures. They are crow headed winged creatures, known for their mastery of the katana. For some reason, the Rokugan version is listed as a fey creature (I would have pegged it as a monstrous humanoid, as OA did with the tengu, but perhaps the designer felt it important for all creatures from the spirit realm of Sakkaku to be fey). Yet in one of the few deviations from the guidelines, it has the wrong hit dice type for a fey.
- Maneseru no Oni are a variant of oni that resemble a blob of darkness. They can spawn duplicates of other characters in order to destroy them.
- Mokumokuren is a unique ghost that protects the emperor. The illustration of this creature is extremely intriguing. The ghost appears as a swarm of eyes, and it is an very nasty little creature.
- Naga are the snakelike creatures that have in the past allied themselves with the clans of Rokugan. Naga come in five varieties: asp, chameleon, cobra, constrictor, and greensnake. Each type has different attributes and capabilities. I found it odd that some of the naga, classified as Large creatures, only have 1 hit dice. Yet as is implied in the Rokugan book, many naga have character levels.
- Ninja Shapeshifters are minions of an entity known as the lying darkness. Ninja Shapeshifters have alternate form and spell-like abilities that they use to sow confusion.
- The Oni Lords are manifestations of the great evil power of the Shadowlands. The oni lords are described, but not statted, as they are said to be beyond the power of normal mortals to harm.
- Plague zombies are a dangerous variant of the zombie. They spread a nasty disease that, if it kills the victim, causes the victim to rise as a plague zombie.
- Toshigoku spirits are faceless spirits of those that died lusting for blood and revenge. They have the unfortunately nasty attribute of being incorporeal, yet their spirit weapons and armor work fine for them. Their blades bypass armor and inflict negative energy damage.
- Ubume, or mourning ghosts, are spirits of women who continue mourning tragedies in their life. Ubume cannot be killed in combat; to deal with them, one must seek to resolve the reason for its mourning.
- Zenmensonsu are constructs, animated war machines that shamble out of the Shadowlands. There are different varieties, such as tosekiki, which are catapults constructed of animate bone and with a literal arm for the arm of the catapult.
As well, there is a nice selection of templates:
- Goryo are ghosts who seek to exact vengeance on their killers. Goryo are not considered incorporeal to their killers. Like ubume, goryo cannot be permanently destroyed through combat. They must be exorcized, their killer destroyed or brought to justice, or be convinced that their quest for vengeance is misguided.
- Darkness spawn: Mortals that have been corrupted by the lying darkness eventually lose their own identity and become darkness spawn. Darkness spawn appear like the base creature, albeit with less distinct features, but gain some spell-like abilities, including a fearsome shadow bolt; improved abilities and stealth skills; and spell resistance and damage reduction that is bypassed by crystal.
- Shadow samurai are spirits of samurai who have died in the Shadowlands and returned as a shadowy silhouette of what they once were. They exhibit some vestiges of honorable behavior, but are nonetheless very dangerous.
- Shiryo are spirits of those who have passed on. Unlike most undead in this book (or most other d20 books, for that matter), shiryo are not evil. Rather, they are the benign spirits of blessed ancestors.
The first appendix addresses characters. Level equivalents are provided for playing many of these creatures, such as ashalan and naga. The section, however, refers you to the Dungeon Master's Guide section on the topic, despite the fact that there is a much better method for handling this sort of thing described in the Oriental Adventures book, to which AEG has license to refer.
In addition, the first appendix contains five new prestige classes, two for naga characters (naga slayer and shahadet's legionnaire), two for nezumi (nezumi chuk'tekk, or "chieftan general," and nezumi rememberer), and the shadow-walker (a pawn of the lying darkness).
Finally, the first appendix goes into greater detail about tainted characters and defines a number of shadowlands powers that tainted characters may acquire.
The second appendix discusses the spirit realms, which may help spread some light on some of your creature explanations. Also, this appendix introduces a few new items such as the aforementioned jade and crystal weapons and further defines their effects.
The third appendix leads off with stock character types for Rokugan character classes (courtier, inkyo, ninja, samurai, and shugenja) from levels 1-20, in the same fashion that the DMG had samples for basic d20 System character classes. This is very convenient for running games off the cuff.
The third appendix also provides some guidance as to how best to use creatures as encounters in Rokugan and gives advice for adapting creatures from other d20 products to Rokugan.
Finally, Creatures of Rokugan has a list of creatures by CR. The book features creatures with challenge ratings from ½ to 25.
Conclusion
This is a nice selection of creatures. Most of these are primarily useful in Rokugan or another Oriental Adventures campaigns. Many of them, though, could also be used in fairly typical D&D games. The thought of using animated bone catapults for that army of undead your necromancer summoned or recasting the shadow samurai as a shadow warrior is rather intriguing.
One thing I appreciated a lot about these creatures is that many of them strongly suggest or even demand a solution other than combat. The book is brimming with great creature ideas - and great adventure ideas to go with them.
Needless to say, I was rather pleased that AEG is maintaining a high level of quality and imagination in their follow-up books to Rokugan. I eagerly await the next one!
-Alan D. Kohler
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)