Deep inside the Referee book (now free) in the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grind House edition, the author laments the use of stock monsters stating that they just aren’t scary or interesting and everyone knows what an Owl Bear is and can do and a Githianki isn’t frightening at all after you’ve fought hundreds. He encourages DM’s that ALL monsters in games should be original creations entire. The man put his money where his mouth is by creating the excellent Random Esoteric Creature Generator published by Goodman Games. What’s more, in the Referee book he describes at length how to USE monsters in game so they have a, well, monstrous effect and don’t become ZZzzzzz or just a combat challenge. This is why LoTFP hasn’t had a bestiary or monster manual equivalent these years past until very recently with Raphael Chandler’s Lusus Naturae. Reading only a handful of entries so far, I have been extremely impressed, much more so than his previous work for OSRIC, the Teratic Tome which every other creature had some sort of boobs on it…lots of cool stuff, but too many boob monsters, even for me!
This leads me to a tangent about how generally impressed I’ve been with two other very recent bestiaries, one for Numenera, which has TONS of amazing creatures and entities that could be used in any type of game regardless of Numenera’s very different system from D20, and the 13th Age bestiary which really fired up my desire to run the game once I got my hands on it last year. Both are inspirational tomes. While 13th Age’s monsters are pretty stock D&D in many cases, the USE and EFFECTS of them are very original and what an AD&D Bullette does and what a 13th Age Bullette does is quite surprising. Numenera has some basic stuff, but many, many of the creatures just go so far off the deep end your campaign will never come back– including a WEAPONIZED MEME.
Back to Lusus Naturae– each of the entries I read so far are worth at least a session of play, and some of them, an entire campaign. So if you are a hapless player in my LotFP or Numenera games– look out! (not so much 13th Age, since it’s gonzo fantasy and while I want the characters in real danger, they are super difficult to actually kill by design)
