Sean Winningham
Last year, Swedish game company Free League Publishing released Dragonbane, a high-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) that uses a D20 roll-under system, adapted from the popular 1980’s game, Drakar Och Demoner. Filled with a series of quests, adventures, pre-gen characters, and monsters, the new TTRPG has been a popular option for those looking to try new fantasy-based games.
Following up on its popularity, Free League Publishing announced that it will be releasing a bestiary as a companion to the game, giving game masters (GMs) and players new monsters to fight as well as new kins they can use for their character creation. In addition, there will also be an option to purchase standees of the listed monsters to use for the game. Pre-orders are available and the book will be released on February 27th.
Thanks to the marketing and public relations team at Free League Publishing, I was able to get a digital copy of the book to preview and get a sneak peek of the upcoming book, and here are some of the highlights.
(By the way, if you’re like me and became interested in the game because of the gothic Darkwing Duck character that’s on cover of the rulebook, you may want to think about buying the monsters standees. In case you’re wondering, the illustration is based on Gizma, a female duck kin assassin that is a main character in a Drakar Och Demoner novel, Uppvaknandet.)
Art & Writing Style
One of the most noticeable aspects of Dragonbane is the art that accompanies it. Even from a glance, the artwork gives off the fantasy style that is so recognizable and gorgeous in nature. With its tan and emerald green colors, it provides that familiar yet distinct look that has gives the game its iconic look.
In addition, the writing style in the new Bestiary is designed to be immersive. Instead of reading just a info dump of static facts, the book is written from the viewpoint of Theodora Sneezewort, a confident (okay, probably cocky) halfling who is writing about the creatures that she has encountered in the world, and hints that if we’re reading this, she’s probably dead (insert sad trombone). This style of writing makes it more engaging for the players since they can read it as characters, learning from a non-playable character (NPC) about the creatures that they may run into during their adventures. People always love it when the world they’re playing in feels real, and this book just elevates that experience for the game masters and players.
New Playable Kins
As shown in the image above, the Bestiary will introduce nine new playable kins that players can choose from when creating their characters. In the Core Rulebook, the standard kins that were available to players were humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, mallards, and wolfkins. This book will introduce orcs, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, frog people, karkion, cat people, lizard people, and satyrs. Each kin will have their own special ability (much like the other kins) and will also have “subkins” that you can choose. These are not really subraces since they’re more like classes in nature, but it does allow you an option to choose what kind of kin you may want to play. For an example of what this looks like, go to the Stat Blocks, Random Encounters, & Adventure Seeds section of this article.
Categories Of Creatures
One of the things that I absolutely appreciate about this book is that it has categorized its creatures into categories, which will make it easier to find certain creatures as well as help you plan out an adventure/campaign based on a certain theme. There are a total of 9 categories, from Night Kins all the way through, you guessed it, Dragons and Demons. Beasts is the biggest category in this list, serving as almost a catch-all for any creature that doesn’t necessarily fit into the other categories, but the list of creatures in it is just as exciting.
In going through the various creatures, there are a lot of fun creatures that make interesting stories, as well as challenging creatures that I would be terrified of trying to go up against in a campaign. If a player is reacting like that, then the designer should feel comforted in the fact that they’ve done a fantastic job in creating that creature.
Stat Blocks, Random Encounters, & Adventure Seeds
Every creature listed in the Bestiary comes with a character quote about that creature, a one-to-two paragraph description from Theodora, a stat block that lists its features and abilities, a pre-written random encounter that you can use to insert an encounter into any campaign you are running, and an adventure seed that serves as an inspiration on creating an adventure or quest revolving around it. Player kins will have more detailed stat blocks for players to use, while non-playable kins will have a different kind of stat block that will also include a d6 (a six-sided die) option for kinds of attacks that it can do during combat.
By the way, make sure to read the random encounter for the Goblin. The writer must have been chuckling about this one!
If you want to see a deeper sneak peek into the book itself, I created a video (below) where I go through a creature in each category of the Bestiary and record my initial thoughts and reactions to many of the creatures.
