I've used several of these monsters in my adventure so far, and they've always been an absolute blast. I LOVE the inspiration for the monster is cited, so I can really get a sense for what animal or phenomena the monster's abilities are influenced by. Favorite monster: Mist Angel.

Scientific Secrets of Icewind Dale from Zeke Gonzalez (@FantasyEcology)

“It is often instinctive for many people to separate science and fantasy, but when we incorporate the two together, we create richer worlds, more dynamic encounters, and powerful motivations for characters, monsters, and NPCs alike.”

The ‘Scientific Secrets of’ series is back again with a chilling new edition serving fantastical creatures with roots in science and papers to prove it! Gonzalez et al return to entertain, educate and elevate your game with over 30 new creative creatures cooked up in their Icewind Station Zebra laboratory.

This is an unbelievably awesome, strange and thoughtful collection of creatures, exploring and inspired by science, existing creatures and sometimes strange amalgam of the two to produce some of the most of original and exciting creatures filled with fun lore, fluff and flavour as. Well as all manner of weird and wonderful abilities and traits.

From a monstrous feline with eyes that shine like candles in the night, an elemental that will steal your last breath and use your asphyxiated “corpsicle” to kill your friends; a beautiful, deadly veil of slicing fey diamond; a tremendously terrifying tardigrade that takes my adorable water siblings and warps into a nightmare of tentacles and teeth that uses your own hit dice against you; salt spray, poison on the crawler, frilled shark inspired a land worm, swallow you whole in the cold*; a soul-stealing winter weasel, a hallowed aurora of happy static from the sky; adorable reindeer-hares big enough to pull a sleigh, representing the mammals that live and adapt to the snow, a floaty swarm ‘brinicle’ beasties that deals with dangers using “the dense and more salinated mucus [to trigger] a freezing reaction in the water that surrounds it (which doesn’t seems simple if pleasant); a legendary eel spider, or spider eel, which either way is horrifying; an orchid so beautiful it will leech the heat from you; a funky elemental that takes over and powers corpses in a variety of different flavours for your needs inspired by the eternal wriggle of the dead salted frog legs; psionic land belugas; a creepy crawler with the cast of a dragon that becomes a CR 24 moth as pretty and woolly, as it is absolutely deadly; a floating angelic vision that turns out to be a tangle of paralysing tentacles and toothy maw; a big ole frozen undead mammoth and template to make it lots of frosty friends; A FREAKING PUFFIN-BEAR!!! MY HEART CANNOT CONTAIN THIS JOY! And you can use them as emergency tauntaun flesh tents; a icebound orca big splashy breaching polar bulette; tricky, Inner Planes-hopping arctic fox evee elemental absorbing adorable vulpes let’s-go-pus!; harder, better, faster, stronger golems covered in trippy, enthralling patterns; sneaky, little cousins of the remorhaz, their adorable babies and tasty little eggs; frost horses! The perfect mount for a chilly Paladin out on the ice; unbelievably gross coral mucus ooze that can string itself around things and make its own armour, but it’s hard to take much in after seeing the words mucus and ooze together; super cool ice constructs that wherever they go they always take the weather with them, bring down the temperatures and casually manifesting weapons from suoercooled water droplets on the wait, which is such a freaking awesome image; the result of starving stirges entering into Highlander combat until the last flapping absorbs the rest to form a big, scary hive mother capable birthing a cloud of stirges when threatened; a gargantuan heron with hypnotising mirage wings to attract prey, as in “an inviting log cabin with puffs of smoke emanating from the chimney” STOMP! Surprise giant birb attack!; and finally, the malignant, calcified remains of experimentation on the dead are uniquely formed with freezing stone flesh and a petrifying touch.

Whether you want to really surprise and knock the socks off your players, or you just want to read up on these fascinating fauna and the science behind them, I can’t recommend this more strongly! And if you’re running Rime of the Frost Maiden, Storm King’s Thunder, anywhere in Icewind Dale, or even somewhere it only gets a bit chilly sometimes, you need to check this out! Along the way there’s a few little hooks and insights dotted about the pages, along with a range of beautiful artwork, old, new, borrowed and icy blue. Reading through this and glancing over the referenced papers, flora, fauna, locations and effects from our own world has been an unbelievably eye-opening and rewarding experience! I’m now cold, scared and UNBELIEVABLY HYPE and excited to surprise my players with all manner of creature from this cool catalogue of curiosities!

This is one of those phenomenal, inspired projects absolutely packed with talented creators and original ideas; something really special and unique, most certainly worth you time and coin. There’s too much thought, talent and feeling in here than many monster manual and folders of fauna, for folx to miss out!

I also want to add my admiration for Gonzalez and the team for delaying the release significantly to ensure the appropriate sensitivity reading and amendments could take place. It’s not something a lot of folx would be aware of without a peek behind the scenes, but it should be recognised as a necessary element of creating the best work possible.

*to the tune of Salt Sweat Sugar by Jimmy Eat World

Credits Authors: Andrew Kornblatt, Chris Parsons, Eugenio Vargas, Kor-Artificer, Jacky Leung, Joe Raso, Jonathan Kennedy-Ellis, Kai Linder, Kirsty Kidd, Leon Barillaro, Maxine Henry, Mellanie Black, Nemo Bueno, Robert Cain, Sam Dillon, Teos Abadia, Tim Eagon, TK Johnson, Vic Harris, Willy Abeel, Zeke Gonzalez Production: Zeke Gonzalez (@FantasyEcology) Editor: Zeke Gonzalez Cover Art: “Orc Huntress” © 2015 Dean Spencer, used with permission. All rights reserved. An orc huntress and her animal companion track a terrible monster through the ice and snow of Frozenfar by Dean Spencer (@DeanSpencerArt) Interior Art: Erin Anderson, DMs Guild Creator Resources, Frederic Edwin Church, Nils Adolf Erik & B. Geelmuyden, Sebastian Münster, & 1 million cats (@Sketchport) Layout: Anja Svare

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/331050/Scientific-Secrets-of-Icewind-Dale?affiliate_id=1507682