Sunday, October 25, 2015

Reviews & Commentary Lesser Gnome's Creature Catalog From Lesser Gnome Games For Your Old School Campaign


Once again I'm late to the party with Lesser Gnome's Creature Catalog From  Lesser Gnome, 
this is a twenty -two page monster filled pdf harvested from their adventure, the majority have their own original illustrations by Lloyd Metcalf. Includes creature's sections from adventures including: Whisper & Venom, Bird of a Feather, & The First Sentinel. Given the fact that these are Lesser Gnome's spin on some familiar monsters, they each have some rather unique properties. The layout is solid and well put together, the monsters interesting and easily put into any old school adventure but this is a case where the adventure should be built around the monster.



The monsters are done in a style that echoes and emulates the old Monster Manual style without aping it. Most if not all of the stats here are done for Labyrinth Lord and easily adaptable to your favorite rpg system including Lamentations of the Flame Princess. These monsters should be used sparingly because of the twists and kinks put into them. Examples of these sorts of creatures include this lovely little nasty; "The Byrgh, or rubbish crab, is a crustacean that lives amidst the filth of caves. Byrghs are usually found near cave/
cavern entrances. Unless in mortal peril they never venture above ground. Byrghs are generally found in groups of 5-7 individuals sharing a single nest. The nests are made from whatever cast off items or refuse the Byrghs scavenge"  Basically these are the type of horrors that players are going to remember and used correctly not the type of thing their going to want to encounter again. Favorites of mine include the Murkbeast, The Nexid demon kind, and Gaunt Swept Scavenger among the many others in this book. There's a bit of an other worldly quality to these horrors and they'd fit right into a sword and sorcery or a Lovecraftian horror fest. Is this pdf a big advertisement for Lesser Gnome products? Most assuredly and they do deliver a quality piece of an adventure or monster.
Basically this is a pdf that show cases some solidly done and well thought out horrors many of which can be applied to a wide variety of settings and adventure venues. Given the fact that these horrors have been created for the Labyrinth Lord retroclone game systems they're easily adaptable across the board and this includes Mutant Future's D&D back game Mutants & Mazes. Which is something that doesn't often seem to get mentioned or forgotten by other bloggers. Why this is I have no idea because it makes many of the retroclone and monsters easily adaptable across the board. This is a fact that I've often employed at the table numerous times. This makes Lesser Gnome's Creature Catalog a bit more flexible & do I think you should download it? Yes its worth your time and effort. A four out of five free download in my humble opinion.

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