Review of Chivalry and Sorcery Bestiary

The Chivalry and Sorcery Bestiary is the book that Ed Simbalist has always wanted to do. It's taken 20 years and three editions of the FRPG he co-authored but it's finally arrived (Feb/March 1998). The author credits also include GW Thompson, who brought out the C&S line from FGU and published the 3rd Edition, and Steven Cornine, whose previous credits with Highlander include proofreading the basic C&S rule book and drawing the map of Malvernia in the C&S Gamemaster's Handbook.

The volume contains a short, and useless, table of contents, 200 odd pages of individual creature stats and a three page listing of most of the creatures in the book masquerading as an index.

The Bestiary is, how shall I put it, done in a unique style. The use of wierd fonts and peculiar layout choices make some of the material hard to read.

These are the only bad points about a book C&S fans have been wanting for almost as long as Ed SImbalist has been wanting to produce it. His trademark attention to the 'feel' of the game world shows in many of the creatures found within the pages. Two pages on the hierarchy of Hell, motives, strengths and weaknesses of Demons preceeds the pages actually describing the fiends. Seven pages are devoted to the habits and peculiarities of Dragons before we get to the most fearsome beasts any adventurer could hope to avoid. One of Ed's favourites, the Troll of Nordic legend, has a page of background before these terrifying creatures march across the pages. The Faerie Folk have 5 pages of background on just about every denizen of Faerie ever mentioned in the legends of the British Isles. These are just some of the entries in a book jammed full of great material for the C&S gamer.

Each creature in the Bestiary has full details of its habitat, some details of the background to the beast to allow the GM to gain a feeling for playing these creatures. In addition there is a section for each entry giving details of what an enterprising Mage might find useful from the remains of the creature.

The hard bound version costs a little more (~30%) but the binding is definitely worth it. My copy of the Basic Rules is only 6 months old and the pages are already starting to drop out of the perfect bound volume due to heavy use.

Every GM running a C&S game needs to rush out and buy a copy of this if he or she hasn't already done so.

Content 10
Production 7 (those screwy fonts, poor layout and lack of a proper index)

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)