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Chapter 1: All Things Weird & Wonderful (16 pages) We start with a series of mutation tables, broken down into categories like Amphibian, Bug, Plant, and so on. The mutation tables are tied by theme, such that rolling on the Mammal table won’t result in a plant mutation like Wilt. Also included is the “Mondo Mutant Mayhem!” table, which contains every mutation in IrrF and AH. It’s an interesting approach I think, as it allows one to randomly generate thematically appropriate mutants if they want (like an insect man with insectoid traits) or randomly generate something more bizarre (like an insect man that is also photosynthetic and able to shoot lasers from his eyes). The mutations themselves could be divided into four categories: Mutations (both natural and more comic-bookish), Flaws, and Psychic Powers. The Mutations consist primarily of “natural” traits one would find among plants or animals like Sticky Silk or Toxic Sap, but there are also a handful of more odd abilities like Laser-beam Eyes or Two Heads. New Flaws are added as well, and these too are more “natural” than not. The new Psychic Powers included are Electrokinesis, Empathic Projection, Metal Bending, Psychic Healing, Psychometry, Pyrokinesis, and Translocation (i.e. teleportation). New tables are offered to allow one to randomly determine Flaws and Psychic Powers using mutations from this book and the core.
Chapter 2: Each Little Bird That Sings (10 pages) and Chapter 3: Each Little Flower That Opens (3 pages) These two chapters are, essentially, the same thing: collections of stats for building (N)PC mutant humanoid characters based off of animals and plants. While no book could hope to cover every possible plant or animal, the sheer volume is quite impressive. Wombats, Baobab trees, minks, woodpeckers, yellow banded poison-dart frogs, and more are covered. A few of the humanoid race options from AH are revised here, but the vast majority of the content is new.
Chapter 4: All Creatures Great & Small (15 pages) There are essentially two types of mutant animals covered here. The first are strange new creatures like the Ice Rat (a rodent with natural antifreeze for blood), the Snak (an animalistic breed of non-intelligent humans, much like aggressive predators), and the Vampire (a snake that drains vehicles of gasoline and breathes fire). The other kind of mutant animals is essentially just normal animals made large. Giant bugs get about 7 pages, covering everything from cockroachs and ants to slugs and Orb spiders, with about another page devoted to things like giant armadillos and rats.
Appendix: Random Humanoids! (2 pages) A collection of tables to help groups randomly roll or choose from one of the numerous humanoid race options.
Appendix: Making Monsters (3 pages) A collection of guidelines and examples for using all the new tools to make new mutant monsters of your own.
And that’s it, except for four pages of indexes and a closing art page.
Style: First things first, the art is good and fun. You’ve got a gladiator platypus, an (American) footballer from Hell, a rosebush-man with an SMG, an Eagle holding a machine gun in its claws, and so forth. Lots of crazy, violent action here, and its wonderful! Heck, the cover is a bunny-man in body armor and gas-mask riding a giant armadillo. The layout seems just a little bit cleaner than that in AH, as if they shrunk the margins a hair or something, but that may just be my imagination. I think there may have been an omission or two in the tables, but when I went back to find them I couldn’t; the worst I can say about editing are some missing boldings and table colorings here and there. For overall Style I’m giving it a just under the line 4. The only reason I’m not giving it a 5 is because I’ve become a cheapskate with a rating 5 for Style; those are the books I loan out to my non-gamer friends because they’re so awesome to read or look at, or the books feel like a work of passion from front to cover. More art of this caliber might have helped push it over the line, and a slightly more generous reviewer might give it a 5.
Substance: I tried to be fair and partial, and wrote up a bunch of stuff that didn’t really say anything. So I’ll just try being direct and blunt. Chapter 1 is just okay; it doesn’t excite me, but it isn’t bad either. Even “normal” animal traits become interesting when you transplant them to different creatures and use them in unusual ways. Chapters 2 and 3 are just big lists, but I think these lists accidentally managed to make this book (with AH) into an excellent alternative for someone wanting to play “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness” without having to use the Palladium system. Plus the breadth and quality of the entries are pretty good in their own right. Chapter 4 is lame. Remember all the entries for giant animals in the old AD&D Monster Manual? That’s over half of this chapter. And while there are little mechanical differences between a “Huge” animal and a “Giant” one other than just stats, each version doesn’t need its own stat block and entry. It’s page filler that should’ve been condensed. The rest of the entries in the chapter are just “okay”. A monster manual, for any game, should be exciting and fresh, and this chapter is largely just an exercise of “in our game, we stat out huge ants like this and giant ones like that.” Using the mutations in Chapter 1 helps a bit, but I wish I was more excited by the stock beasties. As an idea mine for other games, I’m giving this book a just under the line 2. I think there really is some good stuff here, and I think I can more quickly roll up an idea for a mutant in IrrF than I could in Barbarians of the Aftermath for example, but I suspect GMs looking for a “post-apocalyptic monster manual” may be disappointed and a lot of this book’s strength is in statting out races for AH games. Which is why for AH gamers I’ll give it a solid to high 3, on the assumption they’re using lots of humanoid animals (and now plants) and mutations and want a book to save them a lot of work. More “over the top” mutations and creatures would’ve pushed this book higher I think. As is though the book just feels kind of light and focused on more “low key” games about mutants (an oxymoron if ever there was one).
Conclusion: I really want to either love this book or hate it, and I don’t feel either. I do think that there are some really neat and exciting elements to this book, but I also think it needed a lot more work. Products like this can’t make everybody happy with every entry and idea, but I think there should have been more stuff that grabbed me and screamed “put me in a game” than there was. On the flipside, I think those who like the core book’s approach to mutants may really appreciate this book, and Chapters 2 and 3 really are quite good.
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