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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN num: 9781844162260
ISBN number: 1844162265
Label: Black Industries
Manufacturer: Black Industries
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 127
Printing Date: May 14, 2008
Publishing house: Black Industries
Sale Popularity Level: 65799
Studio: Black Industries
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Information on Monsters of the Warhammer world that expands on the very basic information contained in the Core Rulebook. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP or WHFRP) is a roleplaying system created by Games Workshop. It is set in the Old World, which bears some resemblance to late medieval / renaissance Europe. The world is threatened by the forces of Chaos. The major power in the Old World is the Empire, in which most of the adventures are located. The Empire itself is a country full of intrigue, conspiracies, and dark plots. BL Publishing is the publishing wing of the world famous Games Workshop group of companies. As well as its new Black Industries imprint, the division is also home to the Black Library, which has been producing best-selling and award-winning novels, comics and artbooks set in the worlds of Warhammer since 1997. It also includes the Black Flame fiction imprint for non-Warhammer titles, and Warhammer Historical Wargames. Warhammer Fantasy Battle was originally published in 1986 and subsequently licensed to Hogshead Publishing. This is the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
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Rated by buyers -
Yes, the old V1 had these monsters (and more) but this updated version with "what the players know" and what the GM knows is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time.
Rated by buyers -
While I feel this book could have been longer, overall I've been impressed with the book and it is already one of the more extensively used in my Warhammer collection. Like most GM's who create there own material, (even if it is just as filler between pre-fab adventures) I find a useful guide to critters is indispensible. This one fits the bill nicely, although I do hope they follow it up with Volume 2 as I am looking forward to an even wider array of creatures to select from.
For those familiar with WFRP, most of the old favorites are here. Some of the more esoteric ones which were never popular have been removed to make room to expand on the more popular ones, and a few new creatures which are popular in fantasy genre in general have been added.
For those who are new to WFRP, the 'Slaughter Margin' is a useful tool for guesstimating the challenge of various encounters for a beginning party so that you don't inadvertantly annihilate your party before they really get hooked on the game and all it has to offer. It's also somewhat handy for experienced gamers from the very first edtion who are still getting their hands around the second edition rules for much the same reason.
The book is laid out in basically two sections, the players section and the GM's section. This is a bit of a misnomer, since really neither is really meant for player's eyes. However, it is handy in that it seperates knowledge for the GM in a very convienient fashion. The 'players section' includes different viewpoints of the monsters which can be used to give the players background without giving them a list of the monster's statistics. The GM's section contains ways to modify individual encounters to make them tougher (or easier) without sacrificing credibility. It also holds all the stats of the monsters in a concise format including their armor, skills, talents, mutations, weapons, and any special rules.
The Player's Section includes a 'Common View' which is how the monsters are percieved by the inhabitants of the Old World in the form of quotes from various persons ranging from a retired mercenary, to a farmer, to a church official, to a scholar. The interesting thing about these is they are not always based in fact, and some are flat out wrong or misguided, which is in keeping with what the characters would 'know' when encountering a new creature for the very first time. These are good for player's who use their 'Common Knowledge' skill successfully to find out how much they know about what they have just encountered in a dark alley. (As a GM I also find this section very handy when foreshadowing an encounter.) It also has a 'Scholar's Eye' section which is a supposedly informed perspective by a researcher of the monster in question which can also be mistaken but is generally more reliable and is useful when players make an 'Academic Knowledge' skill test. Finally, there is an 'Our Own Words' section which gives a paragraph or two describing the monster from it's own perspective. This is particularly handy when a player decides to capture or otherwise parley with a monster rather than simply destroy it and move on.
The GM's section goes into a fair degree of depth on the social structure of the greenskins, beastmen, and skaven as well as the various factions therein and their relationship to each other, as well as detailing various statistical differences between them. While it clearly leaves room for a sourcebook on each for future expansion, it is more than enough for detailing the occassional encounter.
Also found in the GM's section are: the aforementioned 'Slaughter Margin' which ranks monsters in terms of difficulty (Ranging from Very Easy to Impossible) for a standard soldier with half the advances of his very first career for easy comparison to help guesstimate encounters until new players and GM's are used to the new system; new skills and talents available to some of the monsters; an expanded chaos mutation table, and a selection of new spells for magic using monsters. This last section is particularly useful for getting the attention of players when they go to slaughter yet another skaven or greenskin and suddenly find themselves facing spells they have never seen before and cannot find in the core rule book. (What can I say? I enjoy keeping them on their toes.)
The book is as well illustrated as any of the second edition books, and in fact may be slightly above average in that regard.
Throughout the book are margin notes which detail things such as daemonic auras and chaos armor. These notes are placed well, almost always subsequent to a relevant entry and provide useful but non-essential detail which is handy when running an encounter or for dealing with players who want to ask esoteric questions or strip every corpse for every last brass penny.
I was initially annoyed at the way the monsters were organized into ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
First thing: Amazon is mistaken, this isn't a Warhammer Novel. It's a supplement for the second edition of the Warhammer RPG.
That being said, it's the best supplement they've put out (the line is currently in the process of putting out the Skaven sourcebook: Children of the Horned Rat)
It's also the best "Monster Manual" I've ever seen, a must for all Warhammer FRP GMs, unlike the rest of the series (which honestly has been quite hit-and-miss, unfortunately).
The reason it's so great is that there's a beginning section detailing all the monsters using the "peasant superstition" method WFRP players have come to love (and sectioning them off by "Chaos Beasts", "The Undead", etc), and leave all the monster stats alphabetized in the back of the book for quick reference by the GM.
While the whole line is a bit pricey, the Old World Bestiary easily merits it's purchase to a WFRP GM, especially at the Amazon discount.
Here's a list of the monsters outlined in the Old World Bestiary:
Banshees
Beastmen
-Bestigors (leaders)
-Centigors (centaur beastman)
-Gors (horned beastman)
-Ungors and Brays (barely-horned and non-horned beastmen)
Chaos Cultists - 4 different cults
Chaos Dwarves
-Bull Centaurs (dwarf centaurs)
Chaos Marauders
Chaos Warriors
Daemons - 5 different types
Dire Wolves (undead with skull-like heads and glowing blue eyes)
Dragons
Dragon Ogres (Ogre/Dragon centaur)
Dryads
Elven Corsairs
Fenbeasts (basically a swamp-golem)
Ghouls
Giants
Giant Rats
Giant Spiders
Giant Wolves
Goblins
-Night Goblins
Great Eagles
Griffons
Harpies
Hippogriffs
Hobgoblins
Hydras
Manticores
Minotaurs
Mummies
Mutants
Ogres
Orcs
-Black Orcs (biggest and strongest orcs)
-Savage Orcs
Pegasi
Rat Ogres (exactly what the name implies)
Skaven - 4 different clans
Skeletons
Squigs (big furry balls with big mouths)
Snotlings (kobolds)
Spirits
-Ghosts (not usually evil)
-Poltergeists (tricksters)
-Spectres (mostly insane ghosts)
Treemen (treants)
Trolls
-Chaos Trolls
-River Trolls
-Stone Trolls
Unicorns
Vampire Bats
Vampires - 5 clans
Warhawks
Werecreatures (the Were template)
Wights
Wild Boars
Wraiths (look like death himself)
Wyverns
Zombies
Rated by buyers -
I have to say I like this "monster companion" much more than some of the other rpgs that are out there at the moment. Instead of giving one or two paragraphs about the monster, and the main focus being on the statistics of the monster, this supplement to the WFRPG is a delight. It examines the ins and out of what makes up a creature in the Warhammer world, whether the normal orc style bad guy to the demons and the dragons. This is not an index of monsters, this is (and this might sound silly) the National Geographics of monster exploration. What makes up a creature in the Warhammer world? What provokes the creature on and off the battlefield or dungeon or city, what action does the creature normally take in day to day, why does the monster do as he does? A GM worth his or her salt will look at this book and truly see villains and creatures to be encountered in the vast campaign of Warhammer, not some lvl 2 goblin that is placed in room 5 like some games are designed. We GMs are tired of just having creatures for the sake of placing them into some room to be encountered, after encountering another creature beforehand in the earlier room. We GMs, like this book hands us, want meat in our creatures, we want them to have their own reasons and whys, we want them to have their own character for the sake of the game world's dynamics. What might be a simple orc encountered in a dungeon in another game, becomes a 3-dimensional villain in this game's makeup.
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