Pssst! Wanna play a toad?
One of the things that characterises White Wolf games is the obsession with making every possible intelligent creature a potential player character. As long as your Storyteller/Gamesmaster/Referee/DM/Whatever the hell he wants to call himself allows it, and you're all in agreementt, sky's the limit.

This book, which was technically released as part of the Sorcerers' Crusade line, could be construed as taking it too far, since it gives the option of playing a fabulous creature, like a unicorn, a griffin, a talking horse, or a sheep.

Yeah. You can play a sheep. A smart, resourceful sheep, right, but a sheep nonetheless. Is that the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped I hear?

The Book
Originally a 128-page softback, it's been given a new lease of life as a pdf on drivethrurpg.com. Like all their pdf files, it's an image scan, making for a big file (what do you mean, you're still using a dial-up?) that uses a lot of ink when you print it.

Although six artists are credited in the indices, the bulk of the artwork is mostly done by Steve Prescott, and is well-done. If you like Prescott's style, like I do - I think it's well-drawn and clean - this is a good thing, although I imagine that for many people his stuff is an acquired taste.

The writing is breezy and engaging; every creature mentioined in the book gets a piece of fiction or a summary of the folklore by way of introduction (although some are better than others), and it's mostly good enough to just dip into when you're looking for ideas.

The editing is fine. What? An index? Don't make me laugh.

The Nature of the Beast
The book's divided into three chapters. The first one gives a catalogue of mythological creatures, ranging from the inevitable (unicorn, griffin, loads of dragons) to the slightly more obscure (perytons, simurghs) to the downright odd (the marvellous and dotty Sea Bishop, an aquatic evangelist). It concentrates on European literature and myth, ranging from Pliny to the bestiaries of Shakespeare's time, and gives enough information for you to make each creature interesting, with some insights into personality, and thoughts about why they'd appear in a game. Most of the monsters have a brief paragraph about where they would be in the modern age, should you wish to introduce them into modern fantasy games, like Changeling or Mage: The Ascension.

The next chapter does the same, only with "ordinary" animals. In both chapters, the stat blocks serve a dual purpose: they're not just there for the "monster manual" effect, they're also templates for using them as player characters, telling you where to spend your points should you wish to be one of them.

The third chapter wraps it up with guidelines to creating your own monsters. Using the "Special Advantages" system from the early Mage supplement Ascension's Right Hand, you basically get to construct your beastie from the ground up (or by conforming it to a template in one of the first two chapters) and then play him as a character. It works as an extension of the "merits and flaws" system: you have a pool of points, and you spend points on advantages, and gain more points to spend by taking disadvantages. It's easy to min-max using this system, but then, freedom brings responsibility, you know?

The creation system is flexible and works well. I've used the book in my own Changeling and Mage games and it's proved very useful, even when creating some of the weirdest monsters out there (for example, I created a - needless to say NPC - monster based on the Odradek, from Franz Kafka's story The Penal Colony with little trouble). Although a few years old, there's nothing in this book that contradicts the Dark Ages rules, and I can see this book being a great deal of use in many Dark Ages: Mage or Dark Ages: Fae game.

To be honest, though, I can't really see how it works as a players' guide. While most of the animal and creature descriptions make for excellent roleplaying as supporting cast, as player characters they're limited and in many case pretty unplayable. To be fair to the writers, they do address this in the start of the book, where they point out that a magical beast can wreck some games. I don't know. Maybe you're feeling a bit Shrek and willing to let your player play a talking donkey. If you are, this is your book.

Don't let me put you off, though...
In the end, if you play the sort of fantasy game where monsters crop up a lot, you'll find this book useful for adding a bit of zip to your creatures. If you play Dark Ages, it'll be guaranteed to add a bit of wonder (if, of course, wonder is the feeling you're after).

All in all, a worthwhile supplement, which won't be of use to everyone, but which, with its pile of role-playing tips, might be a godsend to the right sort of game.