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Bane Ledger $2.99
Average Rating:3.8 / 5
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/31/2007 16:15:21

An RPG Resource Review:

The introduction states straight out what's special about this book: all the monsters herein are based on ancient lore from the real world (mostly Africa, Australia, Polynesia and the Americas). Some are real beasties, other thrived only in legend... and now in your campaign!

Each creature is given the standard D&D treatment, with statistics, appearance and ecological notes and details of its preferred combat style and special abilities. Most are illustrated, attractive line art for the most part. Rather disappointingly, unless you are well up in real world moster lore, you'll have to do some research as only the names are given, there's none of the background legends that spawned them. The monsters themselves, however, do match up with what legends say about them.

Naturally, as many of the original D&D monsters drew on legend, some look familiar. We have a couple of dragons - rather nice ones, the Storm Dragon and the Summer Dragon. Storm Dragons love fighting, and have two breath weapons: a gust of wind or lightning. Indeed they enjoy a scrap so much they've been known to heal opponents or let them have a breather, just so that the fight will go on longer! Summer dragons, on the other hand, don't really enjoy fighting and are too lazy to indulge much.

Many of the monsters are undead spirits, the restless remains of people - especially young children - who have been illtreated in life. Understandably, they hang around seeking revenge on the living.

There is also an appendix of real but unusual (and sometimes extinct) animals. So if you've wondered how a ranger or a paladin might cope with a shoal of piranas, read on...

Overall, it's quite an intriguing look at monster design, although it would have been improved by a brief retelling of the legends that inspired them.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Chris G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/22/2006 00:00:00

Bane Ledger proves that if one wants creepy and interesting creatures one only needs to look into the mythology and legends of the world. Bane Ledger is a 32 page pdf filled with a bit more then two dozen creatures. All of them are inspired from legends and myths of our world. The pdf comes in a zip file of less then 700 KB and unzipped the file is just a bit over 700 KB.

The art in the book I found average. It is black and white and does the job of showing some of the odder creatures presented. The art in the product is a little on the light side. I?ve always felt that monster books need art to better show the creatures being described. The layout is in the normal two columns per page. It requires a little bit of scrolling to get the stats on the creatures if one uses this from a computer or laptop while one plays. The bookmarks are simple just listing the monsters.

The monsters fill a wide variety of types and challenges. There is the Asari, a very small fey creature that is rather non combative. There is also one of the most powerful creatures I?ve seen, the Ya-o-Gah. It is the sheer power of winter. The creature has a challenge rating of 32, over a thousand hit points, and some devastating abilities. One of my favorites though is the Djien. It?s a spider creature that actually buries its vital organs to protect itself. Many of the creatures have unique abilities like that.

Some of the creatures in here are not well balanced for their challenge ratings. The Abatwa is a challenge rating one fey. It has a 24 AC, +14 to hit with its poisoned arrows, and the poison has a fort save of sixteen. It is a slow creature being diminutive in size and has only a single hit point. There is also a creature, the Aswang, which has a feat that is not described. I think by the notation next to the feat that it is included in another book, the Hero?s Handbook. Reprinting that feat under the creature is a little detail that would have gone a long way.

While the creatures are from the legends and mythology of real world civilizations, there is no thing that says what creatures come from what myths. It does not even have a basic list saying if the creature is from an African or European source. So, while I salute the author for using creatures from mythology, I really feel that many people besides myself who like to have seen a listing of were these creatures are from. I also like to see tables listing the challenge ratings and terrain the creatures can be found in. While these last two are rarely seen in monsters books, some of the lesser known publishers can distinguish themselves by going the extra mile.

Over all, this is a nice collection of monsters. There is a good variety and there are many ways to use them. Not all the monsters are designed for killing and the book does explore other ways to use monsters to some degree. I think the product could have been a little more in depth and that a few extras could have been used to really make this shine.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Shane O. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 03/23/2006 00:00:00

The Bane Ledger volume I is a monster collection from Bloodstone Press. The monsters in this book are themed, containing creatures from pre-colonial Australia, America, and Polynesia.

The zipped file and the PDF itself are roughly 850 kb. The PDF has both bookmarks and a hyperlinked table of contents. The book has a color cover, and roughly two-thirds of the listed monsters have pictures, though these are universally in black and white. The entire book is forty-two pages long, including the cover and OGL. No printer-friendly version is given, though this is largely a non-issue due to the relative lack of color and illustrations.

The Introduction mentions that most of the monsters included here are from an earlier release, the Primal Codex, and have since been reprinted here for 3.5 updates. It also notes that the document uses web hyperlinks not only for related products, but also to link key terms (such as shaken) to their entry in the Hypertext SRD. A brief list also confirms which monsters come from which cultures.

Following this is a list of monsters by Challenge Rating. This nicely breaks down the variety of creatures. The product has a fairly diverse range of CRs covered, up into the mid-twenties if you count the dragons at higher age categories (and a single creature in the low 30?s). The product has, counting sub-types of various monsters, thirty creatures altogether.

The individual entries are written well, though the lack of pictures for some creatures (such as the mannegishi) can make visualizing them difficult. However, in reading them over more than once, a number of mechanical errors become noticeable. Outsiders don?t have Native or Extraplanar subtypes. Some abilities lack Ex, Su, or Sp tags. A lawful evil creature is said to have access to the Chaos domain, etc. None of these are major errors, but they add up, and altogether they tend to sour one?s opinion of the product in question.

Sidebars dot the product, describing two new feats and a new disease. Likewise, three new animals (the piranha, electric eel, and kangaroo) are given after the main monster entries. The product closes with a single page ad for the Bane Ledger volume II, and then a page for the OGL.

Altogether, the Bane Ledger is a good source for monsters with an ?old-world? feel. However, the execution leaves something to be desired. The rules errors and monsters without illustrations (which are very important for creatures) make this book feel like it didn?t live up to its potential. Regardless, GM?s looking for monsters with a folklore feel to them will be served well by the Bane Ledger. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This product had an excellent selection of creatures from pre-colonial cultures. The sidebars with the new disease and new feats were quite well done also.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Rules errors popped up a number of times throughout the book. Also, many of the creatures lacked pictures, which are important for displaying what the monster looks like.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Peter I. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 02/16/2006 00:00:00

Bane Ledger I is a 42 page monster pdf from Bloodstone press, and collects the monsters from their original Primal Codex after updating them to the new core rules revision. Bane Ledger I now forms part of Bloodstone Press' Primal Legends line, along with other titles such as Bane Ledger II. The pdf is all about monsters, and presents about 30 different monsters, although if you can all the sub-varieties in the dragons, mammoths and other monsters, there are more than 50 individual monsters that can be used in your campaigns. The layout and art is generally good, with some visually impressive art images, although unfortunately not all the creatures in this pdf get their own art and hence one must rely on the descriptions given. The cover art features one of the creatures in this pdf, the civatateo, an undead creature created when a creature of royal status dies while giving birth.

The monsters in this pdf are all mythical, legendary or extinct monsters taken from different cultures in our own world, such as American, African, Polynesian and Australian monsters. A handy table provides the particular region for each monster, and allows DMs to select monster from a specific region that best fits their own campaign world, although this is not required. A table is also provided to sort the monsters by challenge rating, and the CRs vary between 1/2 for a piranha, to a whopping 32 for the ya-o-gah. There's a good selection in between for every challenge rating, so most DMs will immediately find something useful in the pdf for their particular party.

Different types of monsters are also reasonably well represented, although there are no humanoids, constructs, giants, oozes or plants. Of the remaining types, dragons, aberrations and outsiders feature quite strongly, followed closely by undead, fey, animals and magical beasts. The mechanics for the most part is solid with very few errors barring the occasional size modifier that got left out of an attack bonus calculation or other minor errors one can pick up through casually scanning the stat blocks.

The concepts and ideas behind each of the monsters is thoughtful, interesting and generally good, although given the origins of most of these ideas that should be expected since these creatures have supposedly captured the imagination and dreams of people for hundreds of years. The concepts and ideas in turn translate well into the mechanics, although in some instances not in a terribly exciting or evocative fashion. Where the pdf is really lacking however, is in the descriptions and details of the various monsters. Information beyond the idea and one or two lines of description would've fleshed the concepts out a lot better, given the monsters life and coupled with some information on ecology enabled DMs to make the best logical use of these creatures.

Despite the lack of descriptions, this is a good pdf with an enjoyable selection of interesting creatures, including the ga gorib that enjoy playing games of stone throwing with passing travellers, the flesh-eating impundulu, the legendary piasa or 'storm bird', the wendigo that stalks and hunts evildoers, and the ya-o-gah, the creature that is the embodiment of winter and cold. Overall it's good to see these creatures of legend come to life in a d20 game, although it would've been much better to see more descriptive detail.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The variety, number of creatures and creature concepts behind the creatures provide for interesting and enjoyable creatures for DMs to use in any campaign. Given the selection of different challenge ratings, there's something here for all levels of play as well. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of descriptions and details on the creatures beyond the concept was disappointing. In addition, some of the different creature types are underrepresented and a wider variety of types could've been included in the pdf.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Sean H. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 02/11/2006 00:00:00

Bane Ledger, Volume 1, is a monster source for D&D/D20 and part of Bloodstone Press? Primal Legends line. It draws upon real world mythology for its monsters, drawing from African, Australian, American and Polynesian legends for this collection.

The collection includes 24 monsters and 3 animals, ranging in CR from ? to 32[!], my count differs from the 25 listed as some of the monsters have sub-variants (mammoths, for example, comes in steppe, woolly and dwarf variants). There are animals, fey, monestrous humanoids, undead and even some outsiders, a good mix of types and power levels.

The creatures are interesting including such as: the Impundulu, a necromantic creature (from Africa) that is beautiful for a few hours after it feeds then it reverts to its visibly undead state. A useful creature to act as a companion for a villainous necromancer. (Though it may have been better served by a template.) A take on the Wendigo that is unusual, as a powerful and good protector of holy places. Along with two new dragon types, of the nature type, storm and summer.

However, the creatures descriptions are limited many have minimal descriptions. ?An angiaks is about the size of a newborn infant. Since it is incorporeal, it is weightless.? is an example of one of the worse offenders. Further, most of the creature have only a minimal context of where they fit into the ?mythic ecology? of the culture they come from or suggestion on what sort of scenario they might be used in.

The mechanics are solid, though nothing innovative. The layout is acceptable, though keeping it to one creature to page would have made printing and referencing just what was needed for an adventure easier.

Overall, a solid product for those who would like some unusual monsters for their campaign.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Fascinating creatures drawn from all around the world.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The lack of adventure seeds makes it slightly less useful then it could be.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Bane Ledger
Publisher: Bloodstone Press
by Steve S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/24/2004 00:00:00

A Great set of new monsters to throw at your unwary PCs. A must to any serious GM's library.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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