Review & Commentary On Book of Lost Beasts By Joseph Bloch From BRW Games For Adventures Dark And Deep Rpg & Other OSR Games

 "Nearly 200 new monsters for your old-school campaign!" 

From the massive prehistoric ambelodon to the terrifying plague zombie, within these pages you'll find a bevy of new monsters to use in your campaign. There are angels, bladegrass, undead dragons, rakshasa nobles, and much more! Creatures found in dungeons, wilderness, the prehistoric past, the sea, and even alien planes of existance are within." 

Joseph Bloch's  Book of Lost Beasts was a present from my wife last year for our anniversary. It was on the review pile and then with Wizards of the Coast's OGL debacle 'The Book of Lost Beasts' got put on the back burner of the review pile. But I'm determined to get this review done! 'The Book of Lost Beasts' is a really nice addition to the grand edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition style games. 'The Book of Lost Beasts' follows the Monster Manual I & II school of layout and stat blocks but cleaner. She comes in at 132 pages of old school monster filled horror to inflict on your players.

Personally, my wife invested in "The Book of Lost Beasts" because it works with old school Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or with a little tweak Troll Lords Castles & Crusades with a collection of 205 monsters. Now what "The Book of Lost Beasts" does is to help fill in some of the gaps found within the Monster Manual I&II. And what makes it useful is the fact it helps to fill in some of the ranks of monsters from Jeff Grub's Manual of Planes. Because 'The Book of Lost Beasts' gives us something  new are the ranks of nobility of the Dao, Djinn, Effrti, Madrid, and Rakasha.

What makes "The Book of Lost Beasts" worth the price of admission is the fact that there are  205 or so monsters that  are  followed by appendices on Treasure Types and a random Creature for the Lower Planes generator. These remind me of  the ones found in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide again all in line with Jeff Grubb's Manual of the Planes. And many of the articles of the planes found in Dragon magazine. But is the "The Book of Lost Beasts" worth the price of admission?! In a word, yes the quality and care for the book is there. "The Book of Lost Beasts" is a perfect book to add into your archives for running OSR games. 

OSR Reviews & Commentary On Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu By Joseph Bloch For Adventures Dark & Deep rpg

 So what makes Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu different!? All day we've been talking about this? Swords of Cthulhu has a very different take on the Cthulhu mythos then the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dieties & Demigods by Kuntz & Ward. First of all are the mythos races the Deep Ones & the Degenerate. These plug directly into the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition system easily. 

The feel of Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu is one of absolutely fitting in with the rest of my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons collection. New classes included  are the Cultist and the Scholar. The cultists are very dangerous depending upon what cult of the Old Ones they belong to! So this is going to effect where & when the cults might show up! The Scholar could be anyone from the patron who collects forbidden occult tomes to obsessive searchers after forbidden lore. There's potential here for PC's or powerful NPC patrons for adventurers. The feel of Joseph Bloch's writing is both a love for the lore & his movement into realms of the Mythos for Adventures Dark & Deep as a whole system. The Cultist (cleric subclass) and Scholar which is a magic-user “split” class seems almost to lend themselves better to NPC then PC's. With that being said I could conceivably see veteran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons players being able to play either class. The Lovecraftian spells are very evocative & downright creepy within Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu. 
The mythos monsters section feels down right dangerous as a player reading through. As a DM there are some really cool innovations about these versions of the Mythos usual suspects. The ability to combined & scale back the Mythos monsters makes using Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu both different & something for the players to dread. 

The one thing that sticks out right away is the insanity rules & these are well done. The insanity rules with Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu compliments others that we've seen within the Adventures Dark & Deep rpg products. These rules really fit the Lovecraftian horror idea verging quite nicely into the world of madness. The section on the gods is incredibly well done and dovetails nicely into the rest of what Joseph Bloch has done with Adventures Dark & Deep rpg systems. 

But how does one use Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu?! To built a very nicely thought out OSR Lovecraftian campaign. My one nagging problem is the same issue that I've had with other Adventures Dark & Deep rpg products & that's the lack of an OGL. Sorry but this is a major concern for me as a writer/designer with Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu book or for that matter the other Adventures Dark & Deep rpg products. 
Does this make Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu as a supplement impossible to use?! Certainly not! Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu is a great addition to the Adventures Dark & Deep rpg product lines! 

Adventures Dark & Deep Swords of Cthulhu By Joseph Bloch For Adventures Dark & Deep rpg Is Available in POD & PDF Here