Beasts of the East reaches into the mythological and folkloric wellsprings across Asia to bring you an octet of amazing opponents. Whether your heroes are traveling on an epic transcontinental journey into Eastern lands, like the Far Eastern themed Adventure Path, or running a campaign already set in fantastic realms inspired by the Orient, Beasts of the East draws deeply upon the Asian legendarium to bring you creatures not just from the familiar stories of China and Japan, but ranges more broadly into the lore of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Tibet to bring you fantastic foes for your campaign. These creatively constructed creatures comprise a delightfully novel resource for GMs looking to expand their monster toolkit
The Beasts of Legend series from Legendary Games are not your usual bare-bones bestiaries, but bring you richly detailed and evocatively described monsters drawing upon the myths and legends of the real world with a double dose of fantastic flair. The Boreal Bestiary, Coldwood Codex, and Construct Codex have received lavish praise for their quality and inventiveness, and Beasts of the East follows proudly in their footsteps. The Legendary Games tradition is to combine rich story and background, innovative layout, beautiful aesthetics, and excellence in design that is second to none, allowing you to enliven and enrich your campaign in amazing and exciting ways. This product is the latest in that tradition, and we hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed making it. Game on!
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Beasts from the East is Legendary Games mini-bestiary in their Far East line of products. It is a beautifully illustrated and well detailed bestiary that doesn’t fall in the East=China/Japan trap.
What’s inside?
Without taking into account covers, table of contents, introduction, legal stuff and advertising, 16 pages of art and crunchy content, which include exactly 8 monsters, each with a full page illustration with a short description, and a full page monster entry, for 6 bucks:
-Flame Naga (CR5, NE): These large, red nagas have the head of an Eastern courtesan, as seen in the book’s cover. They have modest sorcerous abilities and a fire damage-dealing poison. They are often found near nagaji. They can be good as a low-level “boss” or as a crony of a more powerful evil naga.
Kami, Neak Ta (CR8, NG): These cute, small kami with a proto-smiley wooden face protect their wards (normally small buildings) with their magical powers. While they can be on the player’s bad side if the group needs to destroy the Neak Ta’s ward for whatever reason, these cute outsiders work better as allies. Maybe the Neak Ta wants to leave its ward but can’t do it until an evil Oni or undead is destroyed, or maybe it is missing.
-Kmoch Pray (CR11, NE): These evil, nightmarish intelligent plants have scythes for “arms” and have a caustic sap that damages those that strike it, and it can fling a blob of it. Interestingly, they can be harmed by positive energy, since they are animated by the dead of a mother and/or child. These guys are true monsters, most of the time solitary, but I can imagine a cult of evil druids forming around the tree (maybe with a penchant for acid spells?), maybe started by the spouse/father of the mother/child that died near the tree?
-Kting Voar (CR4, N): This one is bullsh… No, this bull is the sh… Yeah, these animals have amazing, extraordinary natural abilities that represent how to make a cool, legendary animal without having to resort to magical beasts. Every druid is going to love this beasts, since they make for amazing animal companions AND crafting materials, since they horns have the qualities of adamantine. You can treat them like modern-day ivory, where it is questionable to have items made of it, but they are awesome. How about a Kting Voar cemetery? Druids would kill (oh, the irony) to go to a place like that!
-Oni, Bakeneko (CR3, CE): I love Pathfinder Oni, but like many fiends they don’t make good adversaries for low level characters. Bakeneko fill that niche, being a cool tying of the traditional Japanese creatures with the Pathfinder race of fiends. Like most Oni, they have some magical abilities and can change shape, along with the awesome “Mark of Envy”. Unlike other Pathfinder Oni, Bakeneko aren’t tied with a humanoid race (sorry catfolk, no Oni version of you… for now).
-Oni, Yeren (CR6, NE): Another intriguing Oni, these guy also aren’t tied to an existing humanoid race. Think of them as fiendish, thieving Bigfoots (or Bigfeet?) that, unlike other Oni, don’t dwell in cities and prefer natural sites, which they overexploit. Excellent opponents for druids, rangers and the like, since they are like parasites of nature but fight well in it.
-Quyrua (CR6, N): Forget about stones or lakes, real heroes get their magical weapons from giant Galapagos-sized turtles! These turtles ooze potential (ninja levels optional). A paladin, samurai or other worthy hero could get so many quests from one of these intelligent turtles!
-Srin Po (CR7, LE): These undead were nobles who died a shameful death. They get cool fear-inducing claw attack and a wisdom-damaging bite to lower those will saves, and they get more powerful when in presence of a fearful opponent.
Of Note: The art, crunch and fluff galore! Wait, that’s most of the book, isn’t it? Yes! You see, there are two types of monster books. One that crams as much as possible in whatever pages it has, sometimes without depicting the monster, and one that devotes a whole page to each monster (like in the old days). This book, however, takes a radical approach of having A FULL PAGE MONSTER PICTURE! The art alone would be cool for tattoos or posters, but as intended it does the game master’s life easier by not making him show the picture while covering the stats, or having to take a photocopy or picture of the art.
Anything Wrong?: There is some blank spaces in some entries. I would have loved encounter ideas and adventure seeds here.
What cool things did this inspire?: That damned acid scythe tree gave an idea for a whole campaign! Imagine an evil ghoran kung fu druid (monk dip for the AC bonus LOL, if the players do why not the GM?), who leads a cult of evil druids venerating erosion, dies in a climactic battle with the PCs, and then the second in command recovers the ghorus seed. After regrouping, the new cult leader attacks the PCs, and in the middle of the fight he EATS the seed and transforms into a Kmoch Pray! What? The ghorus seed doesn’t work like that? I never let something as banal as rules get in the way of a nice adventure, and it looks like a videogame multi-stage boss. As did the Srin Po, but I won’t spoil my adventure seeds here.
Do I recommend it?: Unlike the Treasury of the Orient, this one gets a little away from Japan/China and borrows from many Eastern cultures, so yeah, this one is a winner. Even with the blank space and the modest number of monsters, there is no filler “kung fu elves with funny hats” or the like, so I wholeheartedly recommend it. 5 demonic half-oni stars for this one!
This bestiary by Legendary Games/Jade Regent-plug-in clocks in at 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page introduction, 1 page SRD, 3 pages of advertisement, 1 page inside of back cover, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 17 pages of raw content, so let's take a look!
So, what do we get herein? The oomphteenth version of the Yuki-no-onna? Nope, this is a bestiary of Legendary Games, after all. In an interesting take on the concept of monsters, this supplement begins by talking a bit about the real-world inspirations of some of these creatures...and guess what? They are more often than not new to me.
Take the naga on the cover - inspired by snakes in the Mekong river, these CR 5 nagas get fire resistance, fast swimming and an array of spells - which, strangely, feature several "3/4"s before spell names in an uncommon formatting glitch that extends to other creatures. The naga's poison causes fire damage, which is an interesting twist, but overall, I wasn't too blown away by this one. Next up is the CR 8 Neak Ta Kami - an innocuous piece of wood with a painted face on some bricks with twigs. Cute, small...and will mess you up if you: With superb telekinetic abilities and a devastating 3/day cyclone while within reach of its ward, these kami are benevolent and sweet...but if you try to destroy them...well. Don't.
The Kmoch Pray (CR 11) is creepy. Really creepy. Think of a tree covered in caustic, yellow sap that can fling it in globs...oh, and it has deadly, scythe-like claws...as well as a weakness to positive energy. Absolutely unique, creative and awesome - glorious critter! Speaking of "never saw that one before" - the Kting Voar (CR 4), a bovine beast whose horns erupt from bones is a great example of good animal design: Powerful and all about sensible abilities, using reinforced horns, tough skin and trampling to defeat its foes.
This one, I've seen before, though: The Bakeneko Oni (CR 3) is pretty much a staple of Japanese mythology and one that ultimately has me surprised it has not been done by Paizo at this point. Anyways, think of them as maleficent halfling-sized cats that can stand upright with a scoiopathic rictus-grin. With some nasty, stealth-enhancing SPs as well as the option to denote creatures as marked by their envy, they are a nice take on the evil trickster. At CR 6, the Yeren Oni would be the embodiment of the excessive need to withdraw from society to live in the woods...and while that's a black metal cliché, it's one I can empathize with. Basically, think of these fellows as a cross between the sasquatch and an oni, with appropriate nature-themed SPs and the option to create scrawlings that confuse the happless traveler AND then erases their memory. This one ability makes this creature stand out for me - you can make a really nasty investigation out of this premise.
Okay, so what about a turtle with a crystalline shell that has a powerful weapon embedded in its back? (Sword in the stone? Who needs a sword in the stone when you can have a sword from a turtle!) These creatures are the Quyrua (CR 6) and they are the caretakers of the magical weapons embedded in them - they are sentient and honorable stewards and may allow creatures to draw their weapon - but are slain in the process. Very cool idea here!
The final creature in this book would be the Sirin-Po (CR 7) - ghoul aristocrats that rose from the dead as a result of being slain in what they perceive as a "dishonorable death", these gangly-limbed monsters now prey on fear, causing panic with attacks from their grotesquely elongated limbs and gaining bonuses versus creatures suffering from fear-based conditions.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, though not as exceedingly tight as usual for Legendary Games. Layout adheres to a two-column full-color standard and the pdf's artists William Hendershot, Michael Jaecks, Jason Juta, Stephen Najarian and Rian Trost deserve a special shout-out: Each of these creatures gets a great one page artwork in gorgeous full color. And boy, these artworks make for great hand-outs. This pdf may be worth it for the artworks alone. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.
Additionally, it should be noted that we get an additional pdf containing paper pawns for the creatures herein - kudos for going the extra mile here. Thuston Hillman's beasts from the east constitute a cool little bestiary: When he gets creatures right, they are absolutely awesome; in particular the more unique ones make sense and a sufficient elaboration on their respective modus operandi provides ideas for enterprising GMs to use them. At the same time, though, I do feel that this pdf does not reach the lofty heights of some other bestiaries from Legendary Games - the naga, bakeneko and the sirin-po feel like they fall a bit short of being as unique as their concepts warrant. Make no mistake, though - at the low price-point, this book is most certainly a steal and a great addition to your bestiary-arsenal. My final verdict will clock in at 4.5 stars, rounded up due to in dubio pro reo...and the fact that this provides some cool critters I haven't seen before.
someone has a list of all the creatures? And are the artworks in color? How much monsters does this book have?
There's a total of 8 creatures presented in this product. All of the art is full color (ouuuu shiny), in the same vein as the cover art piece.
Legendary gave a brief "art call preview" on their blog that lists all the creatures presented in the book. You can read it HERE.
Jason Nelson
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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The artwork is in lovely and lavish full color, with full-page illustrations and an additional PDF of printable paper minis. As for the creatures within, Thursty wrote up a great introduction to show off the broad range of Asian cultures used as influences for the 8 creatures in this book.
INTRODUCTION
Asian-themed adventures and products in fantasy roleplaying games draw very heavily from the myths and legends of Japan and, to a lesser extent, China. Ninjas and samurai, oni and tengu, ki-rins, kappas, and kami, and even less common creatures are the norm, with a splash of imperial dragons, foo creatures, and terra cotta warriors. The legends and lore of India also appear in RPGs, especially with creatures like nagas and rakshasas, but they are rarely presented as part of the "Asian RPG" oeuvre. While each of those cultures has an abundance of great myths and legends, it also makes Asian-themed fantasy somewhat monotonous and predictable, and it ignores a rich trove of creatures and concepts from the other parts of Asia. The tide may be turning a bit in game design, as a number of creatures from the Philippines have appeared in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary series, like the penanggalan and siyokoy, and Beasts of the East is delighted to continue this trend of spotlighting some overlooked parts of Asian myth and legend. Each creature's statistics, description, and illustrations follow, but we would also like to present a bit on the mythological origins of each creature here.
Flame Naga: The ‘Phaya Naga’ is the source of the idea for the flame naga. They’re mythical serpents whose history is rooted with those dwelling along the Mekong River (particularly in Laos or Thailand). In game, the flame naga fills a lower-level niche in terms of power level, allowing for PCs to encounter a naga during their rise to power. They’re particularly useful in jungle settings adjacent to large empires of naga, or nations where naga/nagaji are a predominant force.
Kami, Neak Ta: These kami find their roots in Cambodian mythology, as spirits who watch over people places and things. Their association with settlements and the protection of people made them a perfect fit for kami. In a campaign, neak ta are excellent allies for PCs who find themselves resting in settlements. Should the PCs (or a particularly powerful ally) own an establishment, a neak ta is the perfect addition, likely improving the morale of those using the building and its services.
Kmoch Pray: Another element of Cambodian mythology, the kmoch pray are spirits of deceased mothers and children. Rather than create another form of undead, the rules in this product detail the spirits possession of flora—particularly trees—as a means of terrorizing communities. These creatures make excellent threats for mid-level groups making their way through spirit-haunted forests.
Kting Voar: These bovines are believed to be a now extinct species from Vietnam. Beyond their unique horns, there’s little to distinguish the kting voar from other cows, and some believe they may be the same species entirely. In this product, the kting voar are presented as a new type of animal. They’re particularly useful if trained as beasts of burden in caravans—their horns and skill at trampling, making them excel in the times such convoys are assaulted.
Oni, Bakeneko: A fringe spirit in Japanese mythology, the bakeneko is often confused with the more common nekomta. The bakeneko thrives on attention, basking under the pets and praises of those who appreciate its charismatic form. As oni, it is possible for find a bakeneko in almost any far-east themed region, though they’re one of the types of oni more likely to travel, as they enjoy the attention of creatures not familiar with their true nature. It’s entirely possible to introduce a bakeneko as a supposed-ally, only to have its true nature revealed when attention is directed away from it.
Oni, Yeren: Asia has just as many tales of ‘wild haired men’ as North America has myths of big foot or sasquatch. The yeren is the title given to the Asian equivalent of this creature, albeit more so out of China and Indonesia. In-game, these brutes are primitive haired ogres that live off the land. PCs exploring deep wilderness or unexplored natural sites, could come across one or more yeren. Their skill at theft—especially if the stolen object is an important campaign artifact—makes them perfect for diversionary side treks, forcing PCs off the main road in search of the thieving yeren.
Quyrua: Based off the nearly extinct Hoan Kiem turtle from Vietnam, the quyrua is a unique magical beast that combines real life legends with a fantasy flavor. In Vietnamese mythology, the turtle of the lake swallowed a sword, but the quyrua subverts that by having the sword visible out its back, giving it an almost Arthurian ‘sword in the stone’ take. These creatures are well-suited to introduce important historic figures into an ongoing campaign, especially when the GM plans to have the weapon wielded by such a hero end up in the hands of a PC.
Srin-Po: From the legends of Tibet, the srin-po are sometimes discussed as being similar to ghouls or vampires in a deific form. Here, the srin-po are a mix of elements, representing a form of undead nobility. Made powerless under the light of the sun, srin-po should be introduced in subterranean environments, or deep within lightless dungeons and fortresses. They’re particularly suited to the basements of castles or the sunless caverns at the northern edges of the world.
I'm delighted to see tat this PDF information on the yeren and the various Tibetan, Vietnamese, and Cambodian monsters.
Yeah!
A lot of these critters came from a home Tian-Xia game I was running—not that these monsters are any sort of Paizo Official product.
One thing Paizo did a great job in making their eastern analogue inclusive of several Asian regions. That being said, I ended up in a non-China/Japan equivalent nation, so I did a lot of research on the real-world mythological creatures of analogous regions.
Not in this one! But.... *notes that one down for the future*
Jason Nelson
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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We have I think one or two products left to do with the Far East Campaign Compendium, so maybe a couple of more Beasts of the East would be ideal bonus content if we run a Kickstarter for it as we did for the Gothic product line.
Contributor—Canadian Maplecakes
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
