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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy

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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Harald W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/23/2005 00:00:00

A very nice collection of beasts, ready to use in about any fantasy campaign on a D&D bend. I especially like the variant on the squidheads.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Edmund W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/12/2005 00:00:00

This e-book is well worth the cost of minting. The "new takes on some old takes" kitch biz aside, this is a damn good rethink on a lot of old trieds-and-trues. Some are virtually identical (or, in the case of the demonic-things-with-random-physical-features, identically dissimilar) to their originals, and others have enough new stuff to reinvigorate old obsessions (as with me and the snake-people-of-varying-proportions-of-snake-and-human).<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: To quote the line, it was "old skool". It created new monsters (and honestly new, at that, such as with the Greymalkin) while creating the same level of evocative feel that many of the old AD&D "style monsters" evoked.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I'm not quite happy with all of the directions they took, but none of those things is irreperable.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Alan K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/25/2005 00:00:00

An unusual product to say the least, but a nice one to have. Classics of Fantasy provides different takes on some classic creatures. So if you want snake-men, chaos-spawm, or psycic alien entities, either because you are a publisher who can't tap into the wizards IP, or are merely a GM who wants to go a fresh direction or wants to surprise your players, this is a nice book.

In some places, while the author taps into the same basic concepts, he turns some things around. For example, the Ophiduan social caste is reverse from that of the Yuan-Ti; the most human ones are the nobility.

I also like the Ei'risai. Randomized traits were sort of an afterthought with the slaad; the concept is a lot more central to the Ei'risai.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Ophiduans and Ei'risai, mainly.

Cover art is also good.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Being a fan of the XPH, I would have much rather seen the Ophiduan's and the Phrenic Scourge magical abilities expressed in those terms. (Incidentally, Malhavoc's Hyperconscious contains such a beast, an open content mind-flayer like alien psychic entity.)<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Philip D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/13/2005 00:00:00

Fun book. It's very useful to those of us with thus-far-unrealized dreams of publishing our own material. These "almost" versions of the iconic creatures make sense, are plausible, and can be discarded to use the iconic histories as needed.

If they do additional releases in this line, I'll probably pick them up.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Everything is top-notch. The content is interesting and well-thought out, and the editing is better than most published work. I haven't done a stat accuracy breakdown, though I've been assuming it's as good as the writing and text editing.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It ended. ;)<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by James S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/13/2005 00:00:00

This is a truly wonderful idea and I am gald to see someone thought of it. While I have no true need of the monsters herein (not being a publisher) to replace existing monsters whose names cannot be mentioned in 3rd party publications; the monsters DO provide excellent sources of back up to those same existing monsters. I fully intend to use the Tunnel Brute as variant of the Umber Hulk. The others are nice and fresh; this product clearly delivers as promised.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Lions Den Press: The Iconic Bestiary -- Classics of Fantasy
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Derek H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/02/2005 00:00:00

This file has alternatives to the slaad, beholder, yuan-ti, displacer beast, umber hulk, illithid, and carrion crawler. All are clever alterations:

The Ei'risai (slaad) is more chaotic than the frogs as they are individualized by physical mutations. There are 5 different ranks.

Evil Eye (beholder) looks like a huge eye ripped out of the socket. It can fly and the powers come from the single lense. Personally I would drop the flying and make up some creature from with the evil eye was removed.

Greymalkin (displacer beast) uses dimentional movements instead of tentacles to gain reach. I won't spoil the displacement replacement.

Ophiduan (yuan-ti)has 3 castes, all of which have spell-like ablities. All in all a decent replacement.

Phrenic Scourge (illithid)- instead of humanoid, this is a mass of tentacles that can assume humanoid form at will. Adults do not eat brains, but rather implant offspring that do (the mechanics are very different from the illithid attack).

Scavenger Worm (carrion crawler)- uses a spray to paralyse potential prey. Like the ophiduan, there isn't much wiggle room here and so what has been altered, has been done so with a clever twist.

Tunnel Brute (Umber Hulk)- the confusion has been replaced with two things- a poisonous tail and an aura of dispair.

All of these creatures can be considered mutants or varients of the MM versions or can be used as replacements. I like them all and hope to see them used in other publishers' works. Almost everything in the file is open content (the only closed stuff is company names and logos).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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