I love this book! It has creatures both real and imaginary for just about any setting. It's not perfect, but boy is it a great reference. And it's dedicated to a cat, wholly appropriate given the subject matter.
The HERO System Bestiary has four chapters and a couple of appendices. The cover is a serviceable illustration of an elf riding a unicorn, her faithful owl and dog alongside. A couple of butterflies float in the background. Only the elf and the butterflies are not described inside.
Inside, there's a brief introduction. We then move to chapter one, which is all about creatures in the game. The roles creatures play comes first, such as companions or opponents. This is useful fodder for both GMs and players on how to treat animals.
The creature creation section that follows gives a solid description of the design philosophy of the Bestiary, and provides useful information not only on how to build a creature, but how Skills, Talents and Powers a PC has might interact with a given animal. In particular, the section on the Animal Handler skill gives additional rules and insights beyond that in the main HERO System rulebook.
Continuing on, an assortment of templates provides ready-made ways to customize creatures. There's even a pseudo-martial art, "Red in Tooth and Claw", which simulates animal combat skill. It brings to mind Bun Fu. Information on creatures in combat and their potential economic value rounds out the chapter.
The remaining chapters are creature statistics. Each entry has standard game stats, plus notes on ecology, personality, combat tactics and appearance.
Chapter two covers creatures from mythology and fantasy. Some of these are useful as PCs, centaurs for example. There's nothing new here, but this is supposed to be a chapter of well-known fantastic beasts. I must say, though, Newt Scamander has the more authoritative work in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Chapter three gives us real animals, though some are extinct. This is where we find common household pets, swarms of biting insects, birds of prey, and so on. It is of course impossible to stat every known animal, so we're only given the high points here. Five of the great cats (including the sabertooth tiger!), seven varieties of small mammals, etc.
One dinosaur in this chapter made me do a double take. "Deinonychus, better known to modern humans as 'velociraptor.'" Oh, come on. Is that really true? My seven-year-old son knows those are two distinct species. I realize the bad girls of the Jurassic Park movies were called raptors, but they were closer in size to Utahraptor than deinonychus, which was bigger than velociraptor anyway.
There's also a glaring omission among the mundane animals: the kangaroo. Crocodiles and snakes make appearances. The also missing platypus can be handled through the small mammals information. But skipping the 'roo is a serious mistake.
Science fiction and movie creatures make up the final chapter. Nothing here is from any specific work of fiction, but the references are obvious. For example, the giant dinosaur has obvious Japanese ancestry. ("It's Gojira, you moron!") The neuroparasite echoes from Heinlein's puppet masters.
One interesting addition is the mad slasher. By treating him as a creature, he can have superhuman abilities in an otherwise non-powered game.
Following chapter four are some nifty appendices. There are hex templates for assorted animals and area effect attacks, such as the dragon and his breath weapon. Non-humanoid hit location tables are reproduced here from chapter one for quick reference. And a summary table lists every animal in the book, together with combat-vital numbers.
Finally, the index. It's a thing of beauty. Every creature in the book, every skill mentioned -- it's all here. All RPG books should have such a thorough index.
Of course the book is illustrated. Black and white line drawings show each animal. Some are clip art, some are original. The original work is pretty good overall. The clip art is mostly OK, though the picture of the giant rat looks more like a wombat.
Aside from the kangaroo and dinosaur mentioned above, I have only one additional complaint. The animals are all built on a 75-point base, and a sidebar on page 18 explains exactly why. Heroic games default to a 75-point base. But when you look at a songbird, total cost -37, and compare it to the giant space amoeba, total cost 2999, it's patently ridiculous. Especially when you look at the 2824 experience points the amoeba requires to make up the difference between its abilities and its Disadvantages. I believe it would have been better to ignore the base cost entirely. Instead, give the point totals for each animal and list the Disadvantages each has. Precious few of the animals are actually point-balanced anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. And tacking on additional abilities where needed for higher-powered games is standard for HERO System anyway.
To sum up for you HERO System fans, buy this book. Every genre has animals. The HERO System Bestiary gives them to you, with the tools to create more. It's even a decent reference for other game systems.
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