The Creatures Bestiary
Published by Highlander Designs
Written by Edward E. Simbalist, G.W. Thomspson and Stephen Cornine
Price: $24.95 or $29.95
Continuing the fine line of products for the game that could not be killed, The Creatures Bestiary is a huge collection for Chivalry & Sorcery 3rd edition. It covers monsters, animals and races as well. The book comes in both soft cover and hard cover. It's easy to spot because of the great cover art by Clifford Vanmeter, which shows a gargoyle leaping toward the viewer with lightning flashing in the back ground.
The book starts off with a brief introduction on how to use the entries. It explains what the statistics mean, gives rules for advanced critical hits, lists the gruesome details of extracting magic from slain monsters, and gives some great rules on aerial combat. The introduction ends with an explanation of the square cube law. This is a brief overview of size variation, and gives some quick rules on how to deal with the biology of giagantisim in role playing games - in other words, what happens when you have a giant that's too big!
The book is broken up into alphabetical sections for different types of creatures. This helps a lot in some cases, as with the Undead. No turning to "L" to look up Liches and "S" to look up Skeletons. Just go to "U" and there they all are. In addition, instead of just listing one type of creature, there are sub-sections which describe different varieties . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: July 31, 1998
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