This book is interesting because, to my knowledge, it is the first RPG supplement designed by Monte Cook. I should have known he had his start working on Rolemaster – he’s kind of made a career out of complex but flexible systems that are jam-packed with ideas. This one feels like Monte Cook in the raw. Lots of weird and goofy monsters, lots of scaffolds of lore and interconnection, but all kind of rudimentary. A lot of this stuff feels young, if that makes sense? Any way, he designed a snake man whose hands are snake heads, which I feel like is right out of He-Man and if I ever meet him I kinda wanna thank him for that.

Lots of groovy James Holloway art. Dude knows how to make even the doofiest monsters look cool and threatening.

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Anyway, as you might have guessed, this is a book of monsters and treasures. This being an Iron Crown book, my standard complaint about Iron Crown books never having enough monster art inside is in effect (though the art that is in there, by Stephan Peregrine, is pretty swell). This being a Rolemaster book, there are far more charts than you’d expect in a monster book. That said, there is a pretty solid selection of critters here, plenty of which are weird, though nothing terribly earth shattering.

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