Kobold Press Is About to Unleash the Tome of Beasts into Dungeons & Dragons

[PatrickJS]

Kobold Press Is About to Unleash the Tome of Beasts into Dungeons & Dragons

Kobold Press has launched the Kickstarter for Tome of Beasts, a third-party monster manual filled with over 300 new baddies for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Is there anything more harmonious to the ears of a DM than to hear their players scream, "what even is that thing?!" Kobold Press [http://www.koboldpress.com/] clearly doesn't think so, and is about to unleash over three hundred monsters in the Tome of Beasts that promise to make players shout with fear and/or delight.

KP has launched a Kickstarter campaign [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/350683997/tome-of-beasts-300-new-monsters-for-5th-edition] for the 5th Edition project, with delivery expected in April of next year. We have a preview page showing off the Fext (with a higher-resolution image in the gallery below), a warlock twisted into undeath in order to serve its patron absolutely. If the writing for the Fext is any indication, a tremendous amount of thought and love has gone into the lore and mechanics of each of these creatures. The book's illustrations look downright delicious.

Featuring new demons, devils and dark fey; dragons and drakes; undead (Lich Hounds!); clockwork critters and more, the tome is going to be jam-packed with more than twice the number of creatures featured in Wizards of the Coast's own Monster Manual. Also in the Kickstarter is the Tome of Lairs, a compendium of, well, over a hundred monster lairs - pre-made, short encounters with monsters from the Tome.

Keep in mind that Kobold Press has a pretty decent track record. They've been publishing supplements for Pathfinder [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140625-Kobold-Press-Kickstarting-Advanced-Races-Compendium-For-Pathfinder] and previous Dungeons and Dragons editions for several years, now, and won an Origins award in 2012.

[gallery=4820]

Who else out there is going to back this? Any warlocks out there already considering purging their souls for their patron's eternal favor?

Source: Kickstarter: Tome of Beasts [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/350683997/tome-of-beasts-300-new-monsters-for-5th-edition]

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[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Oi... that is beautiful. I may just have to back it as well as invest in the 5e books. I don't normally do so, and I was considering forgoing this edition due to a lack of players in my vicinity but... I may just end up getting it anyway.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

The article layout is borked in Firefox:

Spoiler

OT: If all the illustrations in the manual are of that quality, consider me singularly impressed; that is some beautiful artwork.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I love the initiative, and I might even get it if I actually end up using my 5e books, but I can't help but feel a wee bit disappointed that the art of the book (partially the monsters, mostly the layout and whatnot) isn't in line with the actual 5e Monster Manual. Simply because I love that book's art so damn much. Some of those monsters do look amazing though.

Regardless though, more monsters to play with is always swanky.

 

[PatrickJS]

(Snip).

The article layout is borked in Firefox:

Spoiler

OT: If all the illustrations in the manual are of that quality, consider me singularly impressed; that is some beautiful artwork.

That's cause it's not laid out for the forums, it's for the news page [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/142707-Kobold-Press-Launches-Kickstarter-to-Publish-the-Tome-of-Beasts-for-Dungeons-and-Dragons]. n00b

 

[Barbas]

That's cause it's not laid out for the forums, it's for the news page [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/142707-Kobold-Press-Launches-Kickstarter-to-Publish-the-Tome-of-Beasts-for-Dungeons-and-Dragons]. n00b

Why does it show up in the thread OP as well? I never understood why some articles do that and others don't.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

That's cause it's not laid out for the forums, it's for the news page [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/142707-Kobold-Press-Launches-Kickstarter-to-Publish-the-Tome-of-Beasts-for-Dungeons-and-Dragons]. n00b

Why does it show up in the thread OP as well? I never understood why some articles do that and others don't.

I like that news articles show up in the forum in full; it means you can go directly to the forum to read and talk about them, while longer articles benefit from a proper layout.

OT: Does anyone else get a little guilty glee when the text and illustrations in a MM don't match? The red text describes a creature in sea-green armour and blue eyes, covered in fish-scale tattoos and wielding a trident, while the drawing of an untattooed sword-bearing monster in black with eyes like stars. I get that the fext don't all look the same, but even still a bit of coordination is nice.

 

[Mortuorum]

OT: Does anyone else get a little guilty glee when the text and illustrations in a MM don't match? The red text describes a creature in sea-green armour and blue eyes, covered in fish-scale tattoos and wielding a trident, while the drawing of an untattooed sword-bearing monster in black with eyes like stars. I get that the fext don't all look the same, but even still a bit of coordination is nice.

Third-party bestiaries are always a bit wonky. As TC points out, the pictures are often mismatched and the actual writeups are unbalanced and/or fraught with inconsistencies. The pictures look pretty, though.

 

[Randomvirus]

Is it me or are their reward levels not clearly written?

Like

"LAIRS PRINT + PDF"

I dunno, just a nitpick I guess. I just think the level should say

"Book of Lairs"

Anyways, I'm interested for sure, loving 5e.

 

[JonB]

OT: Does anyone else get a little guilty glee when the text and illustrations in a MM don't match? The red text describes a creature in sea-green armour and blue eyes, covered in fish-scale tattoos and wielding a trident, while the drawing of an untattooed sword-bearing monster in black with eyes like stars. I get that the fext don't all look the same, but even still a bit of coordination is nice.

I've actually asked some TT devs about why this is, and the answer I get most often is that the box/descriptive text is usually the author's vision of the critter that the artist got as art direction. The image is what the artist made out of it after the drafting and feedback process from the publisher. So a bit of telephone goes on - somtimes with odd or bad results. In this case, I like that the dissonance honors two visions of the critter!