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Kobold Press has a real winner in Tome of Beasts. They’ve taken their own impressive monster creation experience in Midgard, learned lessons from Paizo, some monsters from backers, and obviously they deeply studied the CR power curves in the 5th Ed. Monster Manual.

They’ve done their homework to the benefit of all 5th Ed. DMs.

WoTC has made the strategic decision to make new monsters part of their stories and the Realms with the side effect of making the publishing of the MM2 a far future product. This is frustrating for those of us running their own settings/adventures. Fortunatly, you can now safely purchase Tome of Beasts without fear of duplication in the far future MM2. In doing so, you will more than double the number of nasties you can through at your players. Also, while some monsters have sidebars related to the Kobold Press Midgard campaign setting, they do not interfere with the possible enjoyment of all these monsters in your favorite or homebrewed setting.

More importantly, for most players, all of these beasts will be new to them. You can now leave nostalgia behind and let your players experience unknown monster capabilities, for the first time. Again.

The artwork rivals anything you’ll find in the Pathfinder Bestiaries or the MM. I especially like the artwork for the Abominable Beauty, Bear King, Blemmyes, Corpse Mound, Qorgeth, and especially the River King (love his robes). Note that the Risen Reaver has an unfortunate phallic stance that could have been avoided with a different pose.

As I was reading it, I happen to have my hardbound open to the Snow Queen. My five your old daughter pointed to it and said “Elsa”. Elsa indeed. There are plenty wintery critters in this book. Fey, Clockwork, undead, dragons, demons, wide variety of terrains, and wide distribution of challenge ratings – they’re all here.

I can’t wait to freak my players out when the cobblestone street they are walking down comes alive as the Cobbleswarm. The Elemental Locus is the perfect natural combatant to through into the middle of a melee, leaving the players baffled until they figure out its motive. Redcaps are an old friend of mine from Pathfinder that I’m happy to see here.

I was a backer to this Kickstarter and ordered the Hardbound, PDF, and Pawns.
• Hardbound – Gorgeous thick book. Appears to have much better binding then what WoTC used for the PH/DMG/MM. Page numbers are easy to read for my old eyes. I love the fact that the page backgrounds are mostly white. Makes the text much easier to read, again for my old eyes.
• PDF – With such a massive book, I love that I can store it in my iPad to take to the game. They did a solid job in compressing it such that my iPad3 has no performance problems rendering it. Good job!
• Pawns – They clearly used the same company to print these as Paizo. And the quality is identical. At long last, I can use 5th Ed. Pawns, instead of reskinned Pathfinder Pawns, in my 5th Ed game.

I have only two negative things to say about this product:
• No monster by terrain tables. Wolfgang – please add this as a web enhancement.
• Section of NPCs (Appendix A: Villain Codex) is too short to be of much use to me. Wolfgang – please create a 400+ page Villain Codex in the same vain as Paizo’s NPC Codex. Take my money for this now please!

Tome of Beasts is a new standard for monster books. Kobold Press has created the right product at the right time, which is hard to do in this industry. Well done.

This scenario is all about an NPC's pride (impacted by the legacy of another NPC) and the primal nature of life in Urglin (and the surrounding Cinderlands). To GM this most effectively, I highly recommend you read the references in AP #8 and AP #10.

The bad:
* As a GM, it would have been difficult threading together the NPCs' reaction to things the PCs say and do without having read the journal in AP #8. But having read it, I had zero problems. See my tips, below.
* The trek throug the city is too linear. It would have been better to supply a map which allowed for more connections between the districts.
* The final encounter is underpowered. I can't say more without spoiling it. This is why I give 4 instead of 5 stars. When I ran it, the players found a way to "break" it (speaks both to their clever ingenuity and the boss' limited resources).

The good:
* A deceptively simple mission, allowing for some interesting NPC/PC interactions as the PC try to figure out what they actually need to do (and where they need to go).
* It felt like a true Orc city. Many RP opertunities to take the players off guard. If you enjoy extemporaneous RP then you will love this. The payers will discover new smells. :)
* The boss NPC has a rich backstory and was a true joy to play as a GM. It was easy to RP him because his motive was clear.
* Gladiator combat. Way cool and fun to describe. What more do you need to know? Sorry for the spoiler but needs to be said.
* Rich atmosphere: every location had a distinct feel.
* The Cinderlands Events added atmosphere (when you describe them). They are not simply a resource drain as others have characterized them.

Tips for GMs:
* On page 6 (left column) put the numbers 3, 2, 4, 5, 1 (in that order) by the distincts. On page 6 (right column) put the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4a, 4b (in that order) by the successes. and on page 7 (left column) put the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4a, 4b in that order) by the personages. This will aid you in figuring out who says what where.
* If you haven't read AP#8 then you will need to study the successes well to figure out how best to motivate the PCs to where they need to go (and foreshadow what they need to do).
* On lower right of page 7, Describe and show with miniatures (and/or pawns) the event which the PCs see.

Overall:
A joy to GM and the players seemed to have a great time.