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The Racial Class
The supplement gets directly to the meat of the matter, defining the Dryden racial abilities by means of a racial class. Any character can "become" a Dryden by taking a feat that defines one of his parents as a Dryden. From that point on, the character can take levels in Dryden, refining his racial ability to change some or all of his body - which is normally perfectly camouflaged as a member of his other species, be it elf, human, or extraterrestrial - into tangled, writhing masses of living vine.One appreciable point is that the Dryden is prepared for use in OGL Fantasy, Modern, and Future. It may not have required an enormous effort, but it's quite a nice touch. Unfortunately, the Dryden class is significantly stronger than most classes found in the Player's Handbook and is rather awkwardly constructed to boot. By level five, a player can give his Dryden the ability to regenerate one hit point per minute and a limb or eye in less than thirteen. Taking a different path through the "Dryden Talents," at the end of the ten-level Dryden class a character could possess a +5d6 damage to every attack. Though combining this with weapons is against the spirit of the rules, it is certainly within their letters.
More damning is the cascade of prerequisite Talents required to progress in the tree. Though the only requirement to take the Born Dryden feat is GM approval, the author should have further required either a Constitution or Dexterity of 14 or higher. If neither of these abilities is this high, the character will fail to meet the prerequisites for enough of the Dryden Talents to fill out the slots gained by rising to level 10 in the class. Indeed, if both Constitution and Dexterity are 12 or below, the character will be able to take only one of the fourteen Talents. If only one of the two all-important abilities is as high as thirteen, a tenth-level character would be able to fill only nine of his allowed ten Talents, and that includes taking one five times.
This is an example of severe technical error in the creation of an ability cascade.
Brief Interlude: Mating
This section details the "Mating attack," a reasonably well-executed set of mechanics for impregnating an unwilling recipient. These mechanics could be exported to any OGL tentacle-sex game, if such games didn't probably already have everything they needed. Also detailed here are the details for three different pregnancies: one at normal speed, one that takes a month, and one that takes a few hours. Although it's not entirely clear at the time, each properly suits a different setting and genre of game. Coincidentally enough, these settings and genres are given a few quick sketches of life in the subsequent pages.
Review Interlude: Art
There's nothing significantly bad to say about the art. Some of the black and white interior material was quite pleasant. However, there is only so much one can do when drawing a [species]-tentacle hybrid. Beyond the first such picture, they became somewhat repetitive. There also seems to be an issue with pixellation in some of the art; the cover, especially, came out more poorly than it could have.
The Settings
What follows is a collection of three settings. One is made for Fantasy, one for Modern, and one for Future. Each presents a different origin and society for the Dryden and begins with a short work of fiction to illustrate the setting. The Fantasy setting is the most creative, introducing Dryden as basically benign creatures whom the elves see as embodiments of nature. This is the setting that most easily supports Dryden as PCs. The Modern Setting makes the Dryden expressions of long-dormant genes, released by cruel medical tampering. This setting is quite balanced in its delivery of the Dryden; it could easily support a group of Dryden hiding from the authorities and the assassins of the laboratory or a horror story with the Dryden as the spooky creature. The Future setting should be familiar: alien seeds that can combine with any species to create a frighteningly powerful monster with that species' attributes. It lends itself more fully to the thriller/horror genre, with a bit of space opera if the GM wants to grab it.Each setting also offers a little bit extra: The Fantasy setting includes the statistics for a powerful dragon-Dryden which serves as a poor example when it breaks the rule that impregnated species spawn Dryden that are otherwise their own race. This dragon spawns draco-dryden through its human mistresses, which seemed to be overkill. The Modern setting includes a well-rendered map and description of a Dryden safehouse. The Future setting provides statistics for two Dryden-human assassins who operate within the rapidly-growing galactic Dryden society.
Summary
The Good: Three interesting settings that could serve many uses and spawn myriad interesting ideas, each centered around the same kernel of an idea.The Bad and Ugly: A ten-level class that is broken in sheer power and in actual use. Also, repeated effect v. affect error and other small grammar mistakes that should have been picked up by the editor.
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