Monsternomicon

Volume I - Denizens of the Iron Kingdoms

The Monsternomicon is a D20 supplement for the Iron Kingdoms fantasy setting by Privateer Press. It's a hardbound, 240 page "Monster Manual" of sorts, although it also contains some new Prestige Classes and other setting information. How good is it?

Well, I have to admit that I liked it pretty much from page one. Even the fine print on the credits page has a few cute bits in it. The general basis for the text is that it's a compilation of information by noted monster scholar, Professor Viktor Pendrake, and pretty much every entry has some "in character" commentary by him on the critter in question. He's apparently lost a lot of comrades over the years, because many of the entries have descriptions of how friends of his got eaten by something while he got away to write about it. The writing is fairly good, though, and I never really found it to be repetitive or boring.

First, a basic overview of what you get. The Monsternomicon has about 200 pages of critters, ranging from small and relatively inoffensive animals like the moonwing moth up to enormous, unique monsters like Blighterghast the dragon. Each entry follows a standardized form (with the occasional exception) consisting of its D20 stats, Professor Pendrake's description, and then a number of subheadings like Combat (how it fights), Treasure (what sort it may possess), Legends & Lore (what sort of information PCs might reasonably know about it), and possible adventure Hooks. There's always at least one illustration and a nice silhouette comparison of how big the creature is compared to a human being. There may also be special commentary notes scattered throughout the entry, done in a stylized "handwriting" font that contain little comments from the Professor. I didn't have any trouble deciphering this font, but your mileage may vary.

Legends & Lore

After all of the monsters, the book next discusses how to handle the Legends & Lore entries. This is a very nice touch, and something I greatly appreciate as a potential DM. Basically, most of the entries (not all, alas; some may have been cut for space reasons) have four different things that PCs might know about the creature, depending on their Creature Lore skill and how much research they've done. The categories are "Common", "Uncommon", "Rare", and "Obscure". For example, the entry for the brutal Spine Ripper (a rather nasty spike-covered humanoid) notes as common knowledge that they may be found in any climate, as uncommon knowledge that they are active at dawn and groggy in the evenings, as rare knowledge that they gather in specific mating grounds twice a year, and as an obscure fact that they are strongly attracted to the scent of the spice vetlum. This sort of information can add a lot of color to the setting and make scholarly characters a lot more playable (an important point, considering that the Adventuring Scholar is the first Prestige Class offered). Of course, if your players all buy a copy of the Monsternomicon and memorize every entry, as D&D players are sometimes wont to do, well, this may not be as useful. But I'll bet Privateer Press wouldn't mind.

Tomes of Lore

Next they describe tomes of creature lore, what sort of bonuses they confer, and how to create them for your game. Three example tomes are given, with descriptions of what they cover, who wrote them, and why. For example, the disturbingly described "Manual of Ked Dram Duran" is an in-depth study of the mutant monsters found around the city of Corvis (particularly in its sewers) and grants +3 to attempts to research aberrations (for those of you unfamiliar with D&D3's monster system, monsters are all grouped into one of several major categories like "monstrous humanoid", "aberration", "outsider", "giant" or "fey"). I love the fact that this tome glows a sickly green color in the dark, giving off just enough light to read the pages by.

Quickplates

After that are the "Quickplates"... a series of templates to be added to standard monsters in order to customize them a little. For example, the "Alpha Hunter" quickplate should be applied to the leader of a pack of hunting creatures. It makes the leader a little tougher, a little faster, and gives it a number of minor bonuses and an effective Leadership skill for purposes of leading the pack. The other quickplates consist of things like "Bloodthirsty" (for particularly vicious carnivores), "Crafty" (for particularly sly ones), "Holy" (for creatures blessed by the forces of Good), and the amusing "Urban" (for wild creatures that have managed to adapt to life in a city). All of them consist of a number of stat alterations and often grant minor special abilities (the "Deep Dweller" quickplate, for example, enables a creature to survive on half as much food as normal, since prey is hard to come by in the depths of the earth). These didn't seem particularly revolutionary, and I'd probably consider them too much trouble to use regularly, but they are an excellent source of ideas for making individual monsters more distinctive.

Professor Viktor Pendrake

Then they give you a three page write-up of Professor Pendrake himself, as a 14^th level Ranger / Adventuring Scholar. This is actually surprisingly detailed, covering not just his history and some of his exploits, but has short descriptions of 7 different NPCs who are his friends, allies, or in one case sworn enemy. It's interesting to note that his 5 levels of Ranger are actually in a special "spell-less" Ranger variant which they promise will be described in a future Iron Kingdoms supplement. There were a few awkward bits in the description ("Pendrake usually charges into combat headlong, most often opening up with a volley of arrows..."), but nothing really major.

Prestige Classes

There are three Prestige Classes included in this volume, all of which seem at least nominally interesting. Each one also has two short descriptions of example characters who follow that class, so you have some basic ideas for NPCs included.

The Adventuring Scholar is an Indiana Jones style professor-at-large: they get a lot of skills and particular bonuses in their chosen field of expertise. A cute bit is that at 3^rd level they can now add their Charisma bonus to their AC with the Adventurer's Zeal feat. The Pen Scholarly Works feat also seems interesting, and lets the scholar write his accumulated knowledge down into new reference books. The more (and better) books he's published, the better his Scholarly Reputation rating, which can add to Charisma-based rolls with other academics.

The Bone Grinder is a fairly novel one. A bone grinder is someone who makes short-term magical talismans out of the body parts of dead creatures. They're always out trying to restock their supplies, and usually team up with a party of adventurers to hunt monsters. The higher level the creature, the more potent the enhancers and totems created can be. The Enhancers look to be pretty lame. Basically, a low level bone grinder can create a magical enhancer which duplicates the effects of a Metamagic Feat which he already possesses, for a single casting of a spell. The user still has to fulfill all of the minimum requirements to take that feat (this isn't usually a problem, most metamagic feats don't have any prerequisites), and if the feat increases the effective level of a spell, the increase is 50% more than the real feat would be (round up). So enhancers are pretty much useless to the bone grinder himself, and I'm not sure I can really see anyone paying the suggested 400gp for a one-use "Still Spell" feat. At 3^rd level, though, they can start making Tokens, which are far more useful. Tokens provide a specific bonus for a set time period, like +3 to a particular skill or +1 to AC. Greater tokens give more impressive bonuses (+6 to a skill, +2 to AC, +3 to Melee Attack Bonus, etc.) and last more than twice as long.

Now the tokens seem like they could be a really awesome addition to a campaign... or a real pain in the neck for an uncreative GM. Basically, the only restriction on what sort of critter you have to kill to make a particular kind of token is the opinion of the GM. The creature is supposed to be "appropriate" for the desired effect. So a ghoul's hand might make a good token for resisting paralysis, but a lousy one for improving your Pick Locks skill. We have a handful of examples given, but really... there are untold thousands of additional possibilities. Another possible problem is that they never actually say how many enhancers or tokens you can make from a single creature. If your enhancer calls for wolf-feet, can you make four from a single wolf? Or are you limited to using just one paw from each wolf? It doesn't say. If your players tend to run roughshod over you whenever you give them free reign, you probably shouldn't allow bone grinders in your game. That said, I'd love to play one, just because I adore coming up with creative combinations for stuff like this. To keep the bonuses from getting out of hand, you can only use two lesser or one greater token at a time.

The Monster Hunter is someone who hunts, tracks, and kills particular sorts of creatures. He may hate them, or he may be after a bounty of some sort. Basically, it's a fighter-type oriented around tracking and killing his Favored Monsters (he gets an additional Favored Monster every four to five levels). Monster hunters use a variety of traps, snares and specialize equipment, so there are a good number of examples included.

Cosmology & Infernals

This is a very brief overview of the difference between gods and infernals in the Iron Kingdoms setting. It's just two pages long. The gist is that both use mortal souls as warriors in their endless battles against their spiritual rivals. But the souls of the dead migrate to the gods naturally, whereas the infernals only get those that they can steal or bargain for. Thus they are always looking for mortals who are willing to sell their souls for power. The description of the infernalists (folks who bargain with infernals professionally) makes them sound like an interesting NPC character class, but no actual details are included.

Playable Races

In case you're interested in playing one of the new monster-races in this book, there are a handful of them that make acceptable PCs. All of these seem fairly balanced. Gobber rogues look quite interesting since they get a number of racial bonuses for thief skills (their ability to adjust the color of their skin can give them up to a +4 bonus to Hide checks depending on how much clothing they are wearing). Trollkin and ogrun also look like fairly well balanced races, with a minor +1 level adjustment to reflect their superior stats and special abilities.

There are a few other races in the book that you might expect to see here, like the reptilian Gatormen, but they aren't included as possible PCs.

Here There Be Monstyrs...

Of course, the real meat of any supplement like this is the monsters themselves, which is why I've left discussion of the actual creatures for last. The Monsternomicon has a wide variety of critters to menace your PCs (or, on rare occasions, aid them). I'll touch on a few of the more distinctive ones, but there are far too many to discuss them all. I'll go ahead and note that steam-driven technology is a big part of the Iron Kingdoms setting, and firearms and semi-magical robots are quite common.

The dreaded Deathjack is a rogue automaton of terrifying power. Honestly, reading the description and its powers, I'm iffy on it being just challenge rating 15. I mean, the sucker casts spells as though it were two 17^th level clerics. I particularly like the "secret" information about how the Deathjack manages to come back to life after being destroyed. I don't want to give out spoilers, but I could see even PCs being tempted to assist it.

The Dragons of the Iron Kingdoms are exceedingly powerful creatures. Toruk, the first dragon and god of dragonkind, created them all long ago to serve him, but they eventually rebelled and went their own ways. Toruk killed most of them, but a few escaped or banded together to hold off their irate parent. There aren't many left. In addition to their rapacious and territorial natures, dragons can acquire power by devouring other dragons, making peaceful coexistence between different dragons iffy at best. Dragons are creatures of death and corruption and their mere presence blights all of the land around their lair within as many miles as their hit dice rating. The only dragons actually given stats are three huge and unique ones, Scaefang, Blighterghast and Halfaug. They can create twisted and eyeless dragonspawn from their own blood if need be, and they are often served by other races who have been turned into fanatical servants of the dragon by extended exposure to the dragon-blight. In short, the dragons here tend to be godlike beings (Toruk can even grant spell-casting powers to his worshippers) that could give the most overpowered of PCs a serious run for their XP. I like the fact that they don't really have "generic" dragons, only unique, named ones. It makes them more impressive.

Gobbers and Boggers are the local goblins and hobgoblins. In an interesting twist, they have a natural skill at alchemy and jury-rigging mechanical devices. The gobbers are small and peaceful, and can often been found trying to scavenge useful parts from mechanical debris. They end up being sort of like jawas... folks trade with them for parts, but rarely trust them. Boggers (or Bogrin, as they are more correctly known) are much more aggressive and violent. When they rig devices, it's usually things designed to spew fire or poison gas.

Umbral Reavers are a special kind of Infernal who are remarkably, dangerously easy to summon. No arcane powers or skills are required; one need simply know the proper ritual, which could be learned with just a little research in the right locations. They come in three sorts, assassins, sorcerers and warriors, and each serves a slightly different purpose, though all of them are destructive. Their ability to emerge from any shadow makes them spooky and dangerous foes without being overly powerful.

The Iron Lich is a wizard who has replaced their own flesh and blood with a soul-powered mechanikal (if it's spelled with a 'k', that means that it's magical machinery, right?) body which keeps them going. Like a normal lich, they aren't that dangerous just because they're liches... it's the impressive magical powers required to become one that make them truly dangerous. Iron liches power their spells with collected souls, so they're always on the lookout for fresh prey. My only major qualm with the write-up is that they require a whopping 300lbs of the magical fuel "necrotite" per month to survive. The longest they can survive without it is 14 hours. There's no description of how you get necrotite, so it better be readily available or else being an iron lich would really suck. I'd probably drop that requirement, or let them convert captured souls into necrotite somehow.

The Kaelram is basically an elephant that doesn't have a trunk. They're highly prized in some areas, where they are domesticated and used as beasts of burden. The illustration is a little impractical, though; with its short neck, no trunk, and tusks so large that it couldn't lower its head to the ground, there's no way that sucker could eat enough to survive without human aid.

The Totem Hunter is, well... they're obviously inspired by the "Predator" from the movies (and subsidiary spin-offs) of the same name. They are lawful neutral creatures obsessed with collecting trophies and proving themselves against other races. They aren't rip-offs, though. They use spells and magic items and they don't have a super-camouflage power or blow themselves up when killed. They're an interesting antagonist, and there's actually a quite detailed discussion of why they hunt things and what they get out of it.

Trolls in the Iron Kingdoms are a little different from the standard D&D sort. They are divided up into a number of subspecies, from the civilized Trollkin to the diminutive Pygmy Trolls. An interesting detail is that unlike D&D trolls, severed limbs don't reattach themselves. Instead, they grow into tiny, degenerate copies of the original troll called Whelps. Troll whelps don't live long, but they serve their "parent" loyally and trolls will often be encountered with a few whelps. Trollkin are just about the only breed that can't spawn whelps, probably because they thought that it would be an unbalanced power to give to a PC race.

A Woldwarden is a huge golem-like creature created out of wood and stone by a powerful druid. While druidic constructs are a very interesting addition to the setting, with a lot of potential, they apparently decided to leave the process mysterious rather than detail it. All we know is that the creation of these automatons is closely controlled by the upper ranks of the druidic order. Apparently druids are rare, mysterious and highly distrusted figures in the Iron Kingdoms, rather than well-known nature lovers. In some ways, I like this idea better than the traditional D&D druid, but I still think that they should have included some idea of how a woldwarden is constructed.

A Wyldegeist is an interesting creature. Outwardly, it looks like an undead warrior, perhaps wreathed by a sickly green mist. Actually, it's a corpse animated not by a form of unlife, but by a nature spirit. A wyldegeist exists to destroy those who would despoil its forest home, making it perfect for plots where the PCs have to figure out who the real enemy is.

Final Notes

Overall, the Monsternomicon is a winner. Oh, it hasn't got the color interior art that Wizards of the Coast put in their Monster Manual, but the black and white illustrations are all quite well done. There's hardly any cheesecake art; most of the females depicted are at least reasonably proportioned and attired. The Rusalka is probably the closest to a cheesecake pic, and it's really not that bad. There are some minor inaccuracies, like the pics showing Pendrake wearing riveted plate mail when his write-up tells us that he wears enchanted dracodile-hide armor. Or his female elven assistant, who is shown wearing as practical of an outfit as is possible while still adhering to the unwritten rule that sorceresses must always have their midriff exposed. I think that covering their belly button interferes with their powers, or something.

There are a lot of little jokes hidden in the text, like the death of Professor Staroscik (There are two Starosciks in the credits, you see) or the illustrations in the Gremlins entry.

There are a few critters whose descriptions or illustrations seemed out of place or lacking, but no outright stinkers. You'll probably want the normal Monster Manual too, though, since Monsternomicon doesn't cover a lot of the basic creatures like animals or common undead like skeletons and zombies. I'm no D&D3 expert, but I didn't see any obvious cases of them getting rules wrong.

All in all, I give it a 5 for substance and a 4 for style. It's a very nice book, and there were elements here that I'm seriously considering stealing for non-D&D settings.