Legends and Lairs, Twisted Lore by Fantasy Flight Games

How then can this book be anything but a waste of time?

Legends and Lairs, Twisted Lore by Fantasy Flight Games is a short book; shorter even than most modern adventure paths as it clocks in at a measly 62 pages. The book is focused on aberrations, oozes, and shape-changers which should excuse its brevity under normal circumstances, but this is a Third Edition product. Third Edition products are gluttons filling their pages with needless rules, superfluous text, and countless variations on the standard themes with a key eye on the repetition of trite, unoriginal monsters.

How then can this book be anything but a waste of time?

Before we can answer that question we must first understand what they mean by aberrations, oozes, and shape-changers:

. . . An aberration is a creature with either a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three traits . . .

. . . [A shape-changer] has a stable body but can assume other forms . . .

. . . An ooze is an amorphous or mutable creature . . . (Twisted Lore pg. 2)

In addition to the three basic categories of monsters presented in this book there are an additional five types of monsters that this book was designed around: Grudge Monsters, Chase Monsters, Terrain Monsters, Plot Monsters, and Puzzle Monsters. Each type of monster was designed with a specific purpose in mind. For example, Grudge Monsters are designed to hurt your players and to have long term effects both mechanically and through the continuation of the story beyond that encounter.  I really like that Fantasy Flight Games have set out to create a book that actually possesses a potential beyond the standard, or even the very complex, encounter.

Since this book wasn’t made by AEG it might actually have a chance of succeeding in its goals.

The Monsters

The Bloodgnarl Tree (pg 4 – 5) is a good addition to any campaign looking to find a new way to shake up the players’ confidence. It is a smart creature that actively bates its victim – a rare commodity in most monsters. The picture for the Bloodgnarl is a bit of a crap fest to be honest. I wish that they had been able to get someone like Brom or Sam Keith to do this picture. Either of those guys could have done it justice without turning it into the heavy handed affair that Patricio Soler fell into. The lines are too thick and the overall impression given is of a really piss-poor imitation of Rob Liefeld.

The Curtain Crawler (pg. 5 – 6) is a waste of time and money as the concept behind the creature is a bit trite and the entry is poorly executed. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like ambush predators, but this is so lackluster that hardly feels like it should have been included in the book. It seems that the artist assigned to it agreed as they didn’t draw a creature that resembled anything like the one designed and instead drew an H.R Giger knockoff.

I like the idea of a Dopple Steed (pg. 6 – 7) but find the execution lacking. At the same time as it is entirely too powerful in certain regards it is too weak others, leaving you with the understanding that this was the pet project of one of the authors and they were bound and determined to have it be canon somewhere so that they might actually get to play with the thing. The illustration with this picture is so bad that I’m ashamed for the artist and cannot believe that anyone would willingly publish this picture.

On the one hand they can be a fantastic elder race in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, but on the other hand, they require a lot of freaking work

The Face Hunter (pg. 8 – 9) is a well thought out concept with a shitty illustration. The concept is of a creature that rarely fights and only lives by slipping from one disguise to the next, never leaving its “disguise” alive so that it might be caught, is brilliant. I am absolutely in love with the concept and can’t wait to sneak this little villain into one of my campaigns. That said the illustration is a second rate imitation of Brom focusing on the more barbaric elements of the creature without focusing on the actual description. The Face Hunter should be a small, wormy creature that could easily find a place to occupy within a civilized setting – not a massive barbarian who could make even Arnold Schwarzenegger wonder if the guy’s been hitting the gym too much.

The Feign Beast (pg. 9 – 10) is a perfect ambush predator. The concept is well done, the game mechanics are well thought out, and the illustration evokes the right notes. I am going to be using this creature the next time my players forget to prepare for the long haul in the wilderness and have to go hunting for grub.

Glut Snails (pg. 11 – 12) are a mixed bag. On the one hand they can be a fantastic elder race in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft, but on the other hand, they require a lot of freaking work. Their entry is poorly written and confused; and their abilities feel tacked on and incomplete for a creature with such potential. My only advice is to use the creature in a way that makes sense to you and clean it up. Oh, and the illustration is about a billion times better than the description.

The Gorger (pg. 12 – 13) and its Larva (pg. 13 - 14) are fucking pointless. Use a Carrion Crawler instead and have a creature that is worth a fuck.

The Greater Lycanthropes (pg. 14 – 16) are a mostly pointless retooling of the Lycanthrope. The challenge ratings are not that much improved and the template abilities are either pointless or so over powered that it makes you wonder if there was a Dungeon Master out there just trying to justify his most recent Total Party Kill (T.P.K.) by arguing that they were really just fighting an ancient variant of the normal creature.

I’ve used the Guardian Ooze (pg. 17 – 18) on multiple occasions in my campaigns. It’s a pretty cool little creature that can be an interesting addition to the campaign, especially when you give it to the villain.

I’m telling you that this is a great way to take a wizard who’s becoming way too powerful and give him more power while pumping him up with a malicious little symbiote that thinks every bad, evil, vile deed that crosses the wizard’s mind is an outstanding plan of action.

The Husk (pg. 18 – 19) is kind of a niche creature. For the most part it seems as though working it into your campaign wouldn’t have that grate of a reward. But I can’t really fault it’s concept or execution.

I can’t think of a time that I would use the Lurcher (pg. 20 – 21). Unlike previous entries in the book this creature is without a narrative and comes across as a page filler rather than a well-executed monstrous entry.

The Mana Symbiote (pg. 21 – 23) was clearly created after someone watched way too much Vampire Hunter D. Now I’m not saying don’t use this little bastard, far from it. I’m telling you that this is a great way to take a wizard who’s becoming way too powerful and give him more power while pumping him up with a malicious little symbiote that thinks every bad, evil, vile deed that crosses the wizard’s mind is an outstanding plan of action. This is the sort of thing I was hoping for when I picked up this book.

Manglefolk (pg. 24 – 25) are a classic example of a failed concept and poor execution. The narrative for the creature tries so very hard to be scary and disturbing but comes off like a third grader telling you about his nightmare.

I like the Mind Rider (pg. 25 – 26) and could see it being used in my campaigns in a variety of ways.

The Mind Steed (pg. 26 – 28) is one of those creatures that I hated even before I read the entry (it’s the name if you must know). But once I read the entry I hated it even more. The concept is dull and its execution is poor. Fuck this creature.

You’re all crap and I hate that I wasted my time reading your entries. 

 Ooze Queen (pg. 28 -30) are another mixed bag. On the one hand you have an unfathomably old ooze with tons of treasure waiting in her gullet; and in the other hand, you have an intelligent ooze that can cast magical spells and communicate with your players telepathically that really doesn’t jive with how I want to run the creatures.

Your call on if you find that cool or not.

I hate the Ooze Sentry (pg. 30 – 31), the Ooze Swallower (pg. 31 – 32), the Pain Wasp (pg. 32 – 33), and the Phantasmal Jelly (pg. 33 – 34). You’re all crap and I hate that I wasted my time reading your entries.

By contrast to that shit fest above the Poltergeist Worm (pg. 35 - 36) is a blast. This thing has an attitude like a cross between a beholder and an aboleth. It’s really quite powerful and I would just love to drop this bastard into a long-term campaign as a major villain in the Underdark.

The Sailor’s Bane (pg. 36 - 38) is one of those odd creatures that is really appealing but you can’t ever imagine a scenario where you would make use of them. I mean if I ran campaigns like Iomandra where my players are constantly at sea this would make a fine addition to the mix, but I rarely run adventures near the sea; and my players, nearly all being mountain born and bred, tend to view bodies of water so large with a natural suspicion. No, it’s a good creature and well executed, but worthless for my needs.

The Silent Snatcher (pg. 38 – 40), by contrast, is a creature that I could regularly use in any campaign. It could blend in perfectly with a city, wilderness, or dungeon environment. It requires little additional work to make it serviceable in any of those areas and it has the best artwork in the book. Whoever came up with this creature, my hat is off to you sir. Well done.

The Sky Whale (pg. 43 – 45) is a serviceable creature that has been done before. Which is fine as these guys did so before Dr. Who so who minds it too much. Anyway, I like the concept of a sky whale just as I like the concept of an atmospheric beast that floats through the sky. There’s no way that I could give you a reasonable explanation for how either would be able to fly let alone find a sustainable food source, but I like them nonetheless.

It’s like someone had been watching a bunch of Troma films and though, “Huh, I bet that would make a good Dungeons and Dragons monster.”

You thought fucking wrong.

The Sound Devourer (pg. 45 – 47) is a bit of a daft concept that if you’re desperate might be salvageable. I’m not that devoid of ideas yet in my campaigns so I’ll move on. The Steel Ooze (pg 47 – 48) is a needless addition to the ooze family. By contrast the Vile (pg. 48 – 50) has more effort put into its description and abilities than most of the creatures in this book – unfortunately all that means is you get to wade through two pages of wasted text. It is the sort of creature you throw in for a jump scare and to punish your players when you’ve run out of challenges for a 14^th level party.

The Waywatcher (pg. 51 – 52) is another service creature in the same mode as the Sky Whale (pg 43 – 45) and Guardian Ooze (pg. 17 – 18). It provides the player with a neat companion that can do more than just take up space. I don’t know that any of my players would be interested in using it because of its grotesque appearance, but it’s something that I would like to test out.

Finally we come to the Yeoman Jelly (pg. 52 – 53). I cannot express how much I hate this creature. It’s like someone had been watching a bunch of Troma films and though, “Huh, I bet that would make a good Dungeons and Dragons monster.”

You thought fucking wrong.

Appendix: Templates

The Swarm Drone (pg. 54 – 57) is an interesting template. It has heavy influences from sources such as the Tyranids but it comes up short. It would have been far better had the author drawn from M. John Harrison’s Viriconium and the Locust that populate the stories there. Instead there’s a heavy handed narrative that could provide you with a single use, maybe a double use if you’re lucky. But if you tweak it you could expand its influence exponentially.

I’m not a fan of the Alternate Lycanthropes (pg. 57 -62) that are proposed in the index either. They shouldn’t be here and should be included in the proper monster entries above. It’s an odd move to place them here.

The Skirr (pg. 40 – 42)

People hate bugs and the bigger the bug the more they hate it. 

The Skirr are designed as the only playable race in Twisted Lore. As such you would expect that they are given a fairly detailed description with an eye towards integrating them into your campaign worlds without causing the Dungeon Master a conniption fit. In this you would be wrong.

The Skirr is an aberration that begins life as a male and soon – if they’re fucking lucky – transform into a fully sentient female. Which is an odd turn. The implication is that the males are somehow not sentient and yet sentient. That’s like saying that you are a black man and not a black man. You either are, or are not.

So that’s a bit difficult.

The biological processes involved in the Skirr evolution is a bit of a stretch though it’s clear that the creatures are based, at least in part, with a nod toward the honey bee. The terminology is similar though the biological roles are reversed.

Now all that aside it should be easy to work such a creature into your game – until you begin to ask yourself how would a bipedal, beetle, with huge fuck-off wings that doesn’t wear clothing yet has all the normal human female extremities be able to function in a world where people wear clothes and run from scary monsters?

The answer is it doesn’t. People hate bugs and the bigger the bug the more they hate it. So how does that big fucker survive?

Legends and Lairs: City Works by Fantasy Flight Games Part 2

  For every ounce of goodie you find in City Works you'll have to dig through a ton of esoteric garbage to get there

When we left off in the previous post, Legends and Lairs: City Works by Fantasy Flight Games Part 1, I had finished with the first two chapters and had come away with an overall positive impression of the product. Now there are several faults with the product that had become glaringly obvious. First the product is given to over-thinking and over-complicating the basic processes around the creation of a fantasy city setting. Secondly, the product is subject to the normal trials and tribulations associated with any Mike Mearls production: namely that for every ounce of goodie you find in City Works you'll have to dig through a ton of esoteric garbage to get there. Fortunately that ton is well written and thought provoking so it's worth the effort. 

Chapter 3: City Construction

I found myself going glass eyed and wishing that I had more alcohol in the house

The third chapter in City Works begins by laying out the districts of a typical city both socially and topically to good effect. Now I would not personally use all of the groupings that Mike Mearls ascribes but I can find no real fault with his logic or descriptions in these first four pages of the chapter. 

It is when he describes how to create a map of the city I found myself going glass eyed and wishing that I had more alcohol in the house. Seriously, this section is overly complicated and choked with needless rules designed to dictate everything from the size of your city blocks and their percentages of the overall land area to the layout of the districts and the types of streets you detail.

Honestly the chapter only has three sections worth reading City Precincts (pg. 86 - 90), Key Structures (pg 101 - 102), and the Example Map (pg 103). From those sections you can create a useful map that will service all your major needs without the morass of rules that Mike created.

Chapter 4: City Adventures

Tone is absolutely everything when it comes to running Dungeons and Dragons

This chapter is for the Dungeon Master and in many ways this is the best chapter of the book. There are no delusions of ease for Mike Mearls and he begins the chapter by talking about how everything about the city is interconnected. For Mike this means that the architecture, city folk, landmarks, and tone mean everything. I would argue that he confuses everything by trying to be too detailed. Tone is absolutely everything when it comes to running Dungeons and Dragons: it encompasses the people you meet, the scenery, the way that events are told and portrayed. To take it aside and say that it is a factor along with the others that make up tone is a mistake and creates a situation where you're trying to do too much.

That's a recipe for disaster.

The key to setting a good tone for an adventure is to strike the right balance between too much detail and not enough. You need to be evocative with just enough verisimilitude to not alert your players of where things are going.  But if you're trying to do too much you will screw it all up.

Urban Adventure Basics (pg 112 - 119) is a great resource for new Dungeon Masters and an okay review of the process of adventure writing. Again he is overly detailed but the kernel is good and worth digesting. Just don't get your head wrapped up in all the mess he chucks on the page.

The Urban Environments section (pg. 119 - 126) is an okay resources but he really tries too hard to provide rule mechanics for every situation that you can come across. I don't need a mechanic for the chase or for going in the sewers. A simple description of each of these environments without mechanics would have been a better use of the page. That's true for far too much of this book.

Urban Events (pg 127 - 134) is a mixed bag. You have rules for fires (pg 127), floods (pg 128-129), and riots (pg 131 - 133) which are essentially useless in most games as any good Dungeon Master is going to have those events move according to the players actions dramatizing the play as much as possible with the players' enjoyment foremost in his mind rather than worrying about the rules associated with such events. But then you have the plague (pg 129 - 131) and siege (pg 133 - 134) where Mike provides some really interesting ideas about how these sort of events affect the city and game play. Now I don't agree with everything, but there is enough crunch here where I find myself intrigued with where I can go from his starting point.

Chapter 5: City Encounters

To waste your time fictionalizing these fantastical people who even you don't believe in is the very definition of wasting your time.

This chapter is mostly filled with tables for all manner of encounters. Some of them are fantastic but most are not that great in and of themselves. My suggestion is to look at his tables and make your own. Detail the tables for your city and forget the generic crap he left for you.

Oh, and the Non Player Character creation tables awful. I just hate how piss poor every NPC table I run across is so fucking useless. They barely function and you can make up something better just by thinking about people you've actually seen and encountered in your daily life. To waste your time fictionalizing these fantastical people who even you don't believe in is the very definition of wasting your time. Be a better story teller. Think for yourself and use your experiences to create a dynamic world that your players will believe in as much as they believe in you and your abilities as a Dungeon Master. Using these fucking tables is lazy and spells out disaster for your game. Make the fucking effort to be better.

Overall Review

 I don't regret buying City Works, I'm just not overly thrilled with the experience I've had reading it.

City Works is a fine product designed to provide you with a framework to build your fantastical cities around. It has some really good resources and couple of classes worth playing any day of the week. But there is a lot of effort involved in wading through this resource. The artwork is nothing special and certainly isn't helping the book - of course it isn't hurting the book either as was the case with Dragons by AEG.

I don't regret buying City Works, I'm just not overly thrilled with the expereince I've had reading it.

Score: 5 out of 10

Legends and Lairs: City Works by Fantasy Flight Games Part 1

 You could easily dismiss [Fantasy Flight Games] as a third rate knock off . . . produced by some shiftless hobo fueled on super glue and whippets.

The Legends and Lairs product line has often been overlooked in spite of their quality; and looking at their covers its easy to see that unless you're familiar with Fantasy Flight Games you could easily dismiss them as a third rate knock off product line produced by some shiftless hobo fueled on super glue and whippets. And if you did, you'd miss out on one of the better third party publishers from the d20 boom.

City Works clocks in at a 157 pages of dedicated material with an additional 16 pages previewing their next book Sorcery and Steam. I'm ignoring the preview as I own that book too and will be reviewing it later.

Chapter 1: Characters

It is a common complaint where Mike Mearls is concerned that you will have to wade through some copious amounts of cow flotsam . . .

The chapter begins with a quick explanation of the difference between an urban and wilderness environment. Why this is necessary I haven't a clue though I would wager a guess that Mike Mearls was getting paid by the word as every chapter begins with a rather redundant series of introductions and an unnecessary addition of another hundred words or so. This introduction is followed by the subheading Running Characters (pg 6 - 11). Now I want to point out that in my last review, Dragons by AEG, that I didn't come to anything useful in that book until page 10, and what I found was rather measly at best. By comparison there are already neat little ideas in this product starting at page 5 where Mike has had the forethought to provide the player with some ideas for the basic classes in an urban environment. Some of these are great, like the Barbarian as Bodyguard (pg. 6) and the Fighter as an Officer (pg. 8); while others are just so very, very bad.

It is a common complaint where Mike Mearls is concerned that you will have to wade through some copious amounts of cow flotsam in order to get to the gems that he drops every two or three pages. But my god! The Cleric is a missionary (pg 7); the Fighter an officer (pg 8); the Bard a star of the stage (pg. 6); and the fucking Druid is a damned gardener (pg. 8)? That's the best you could come up with?

Really?

And you follow up that brilliant moment by copying the officer career path onto the Ranger (pg 10), proclaiming that the Monk is a martial arts instructor (pg. 9), the Paladin is a Justicar (pg. 9), and the Rogue (pg. 10) and Wizard (pg. 11) can aspire to no greater height than Guild Membership. 

Really, Mike? That's the best we can do for those guys. Nothing creative or unique just some trite mess that we have to wade through and pretend like it's all cool? Right.

it's as though they were so focused on chanting to the reader "Organization, organization, organization!" that they forgot to follow their own advise.

Next we come to the inevitable Feats (pg 11) section which manages not to provide me with anything new and should have been lumped into the General Advise (pg. 12) section instead. And while we're on the General Advise section let me just say that this section should have been at the beginning of the chapter with a fuller discussion of playing in the city environment and the proper mindset that you have to develop for the urban game. Then we should have begun talking about the base classes and tailoring them to the city life.

This book could be so much better just by cleaning up the organization of the chapters and streamlining the thoughts expressed. I swear it's as though they were so focused on chanting to the reader "Organization, organization, organization!" that they forgot to follow their own advise. 

At this point in the book we come to the Urban Character Classes (pg 13 - 25). Now normally when you come across a third party character class you hold your nose and tip-toe past it hoping that your players don't dredge it up because they're usually fucked; but unlike most of my previous experiences Mike Mearls is actually able to create two usable classes in this book: the Acrobat (pg. 13 - 17) and the Pit Fighter (pg. 21 - 25). Each possess inspired abilities - I love, love the Acrobatic Maneuvers, espescially Death From Above (pg 15) - are well thought out, and don't overpower the game's base classes. Which is phenomenal. 

We follow this up with Urban Prestige Classes (pg 25 - 32) which are mostly useless but there is a gem here too. The Speaker of the City (pg 28 - 30) is outstanding. The concept is really well done and it's actually carried out in thoughtful manner that makes it worth using. 

The Urban Feats (pg 32 - 35) are a mixed bag with only two being worth including in your regular third edition game: Face in the Crowd (pg 33) and Opportunistic Shot [Fighter General] (pg 34). The other feats are either too nuanced to be used in a sandbox game (which mine almost always are) or just simply begging to be abused in ways that will make you regret buying this book. 

The last part of this book is dedicated to Spells (pg 35 -36) and the dubious Urbanmancy Prestige Spells (pg. 36 - 39) choking the remainder of the chapter. Of those last four pages only the spell Erad's Silent Killer (pg 35) is worthy of being included in an active game. The others are mostly trash and barely worth reading.

Chapter 2: City Basics

This is the sort of chapter that can drive a man to make spread sheets

This is the real meat of the book with a detailed analysis of how a city comes together through a mindful conceptualization of the fantasy setting in its most basic sense. It is well written and thought provoking. It provides a very basic framework to organize your city around with a naive understanding of political groups, power structures, and governments. 

Under no circumstances should you read this chapter. 

This is the sort of chapter that can drive a man to make spread sheets detailing the resource management structures of imaginary civilizations with no tangible gain from his efforts. Following the processes detailed in this chapter will cause you to have a stroke because will spend years formulating a city that will not survive two minutes with your players. 

Remember, to your players: your government is meaningless; your laws are worthless clap trap; your detailed histories will be ignored; and your magnificent city's origin story will be a joke. This is a game that can be incredibly rich and detailed but it only works if your players become interested in the world. Until they do, creating all that extra work for yourself is asking for pain and suffering. Instead of laboring for nothing skip the majority of this chapter and read the following sections: Trials (pg 77), Organized Crime (pg 78), Economics (pg. 79 - 80), and Religion (pg 80 - 84). Each of these sections have enough inspirational elements to help your game along without undercutting your momentum. 

Before I finish this chapter I would like to point out that the Secrecy section (pg 84 - 85) has one of the most useless game mechanics I have ever run across. Forget that nonsense.

More later.