The cold of death was upon the lands of Kislev, death of fall and warm months were long behind them. The trees were twisted with the harsh breath of winter and heavy flows of snow and ice. Yet the borders to the north had to be patrolled. Without the stout men watching for the things of chaos, spring would fail to come for the common folk who toiled a living from the harsh northern lands. The small company of soldiers trudged through the high snows of the previous night, breaking the trail clear for those who would use it in the days to come. It was neither easy nor silent work. Suddenly, a horrible stench filled the air and as the men began to gag and retch, a hideous roar issued from the stilted trees that was followed one of the uglyest giant man like thing that the soldiers had ever seen! It used the moment of shock to its advantage, sending the foremost soldier flying into the trees on the other side of the trail with a wild swing from the uprooted tree it was using as a club. The blueish white creature stumbled into the midst of the remaining soldiers and vomited directly into the face of a second patrolman as the others were desperately pulling their weapons free. The corrosive and foul smelling liquid ate out the eyes and soft tissues as the man fell to the ground screaming and writhing in pain. It was but a matter of minutes for the rest of the group to compose themselves and destroy the winter troll. The rest of the day was somber and the group kept weapons bare except for the men who carried the bodies of their two dead friends. Two less to guard the border. It was a lesson in watchfulness that the group would not soon forget.

The Beasts of the Empire

As mentioned in my review of the Warhammer Fantasy Core Rules Book, the long lived world of grim adventure has gotten a face-lift. One of the things that Black Industries has done is to present the game as a series of individual books, much as the Dungeons and Dragons game has always been marketed. Unlike the other companies, each volume for the Warhammer Fantasy game has been presented in such a way that it contains information that is useful to players and game masters alike. The Old World Bestiary is the most obvious use of this new format.

When you open the cover and the pages slant slightly from the pull of the hard bound binder, you will notice that the pages are of two different colors. White edged pages for the first half of the volume and yellowish gold edges for the second half. The difference in the color is subtle, for all the pages are "aged" for the look of being made from parchment rather than pulp paper. A turning of one or two pages reveals a great work of research, addressed to the players, of a man who has spent 50 years of his life traveling the world and collecting data on "creatures both foul and fair." You hold in your hands the result of that work.

Wait a second! Where are the monsters? Well, they are right there in front of you. 75 pages of vivid descriptions, hearsay, rumors, eye-witness accounts and experiences of dozens, perhaps hundreds of men and women from all over the known world about the various creatures that are to be found. Right here in this very tome on knowledge are the interviews of soldiers, merchants, peasants, scholars, men of magic and even a few words from some of the beasts themselves. The author traveled far to gather this information into a single place for you to gain wisdom from. Some of what it contains is even true. There are detailed drawings of many of them and it is all right there for the adventurer to partake of. Provided that hearty soul can even read, that is.

So what exactly ARE we up against?

Chaos, mostly. Demons, greenskins, dark elves and the like are all there. But there is more, much more. Things that go forth only in the darkest night and others that have no fear of day. Creatures that have remained hidden from the world for so long that no one even believes they are real. But they are real and they are very dangerous. Within the second half of this volume is the "full" listing of all the creatures that a player group is likely to encounter. Not that Warhammer actually needs a monster volume. There are plenty enough villains of the human type to occupy any player group for the life of their characters. Still, the variety is nice.

As you turn the cover page that leads into the Game Master's section, the first thing you will see is something new for this edition of the game. The creators call it The Slaughter Margin. Pretty gruesome, but it fits in with the game. Have you ever thought that you had the perfect encounter for your player group and then either the creature(s) you picked or the player characters themselves were slaughtered out of hand? It has happened to me. The main reason for this kind of encounter is that often the statistics of a creature do not give an accurate gauge of how a fight will unfold.

What the creators did to correct this problem was to take a single Imperial Soldier character who has taken half his advances and has good equipment and pit him against a single representative of each of the creatures listed. The result is a range of difficulty that can be used to judge if a player group will be able to take on the same adversary. This is represented with eight divisions: Very easy (kill without trouble or becoming wounded), Easy (kill without trouble with maybe a scratch or two received), Routine (you have the upper hand but may get wounded if not careful), Average (equal to own skills, can go either way), Challenging (the creature has the edge, still winnable but may be costly), Hard (creature is likely to kill the character), Very Hard (creature will almost certainly kill the character with a few hits) and Impossible (creature is immune to anything the character can throw at it). Keep in mind that this is a battle that takes into account only the mundane methods of combat. Not ambush, not luck, not magic, not even fate is used in this battle. Only the normal methods that are called upon in combat by the Imperial Solder are considered.

New Talents, But Not For You

One of the more innovative things that this version of Warhammer has is the addition of new stuff with every volume. In this case it is a couple of new talents that monsters can have. It also defines one of the Divine Lores, the Lore of Spirits. This lore comes with six new spells that can be called upon once the Lore is learned. There is also a set of foul creatures that have special spells that only they can employ.

The Critters

Each entry for these guys is done quite well. It starts with a brief description of the creature and is followed by the profile and advance scheme (if any). Skill, talents, trappings and career paths follow. Some creatures have skills or talents that nothing else will have and if this is the case, a full explanation is given the first time it comes up. thereafter, should another creature have the same ability, the reader is referred back to where is was defined the first time.

Because the new Warhammer is a work in progress, often there will be an entry that states something along the lines of: "until the whatever can be dealt with in detail in a future volume, use this to simulate this power." Nice way of dealing with the problem without having to just leave out whatever it is they were wanting to print. I particularly like this method much better than the "these powers and abilities are defined in whatever volume which can be purchased at your local game store" method of dealing with the problem.

The creatures are listed in alphabetical order, with the exception of very few entries that have sub-classes of the same monster type, such as demons. In this case, all the demons are listed together rather than splitting them up. 74 monsters in all are given full details in this section and that's more than any GM should ever need. Should the GM feel the desire to make a creature a little tougher, all he has to do is give it a career from the main book. Almost every creature is capable of learning a career of some sort.

Mounts and Animals

After the monsters comes a good list of the various mounts that are to be had in the game. These are for both the players and villains and everything that you need to know about them except the cost is detailed here. Then there is a small section of the common animals in the world, basically hunt animals, birds and snakes, the normal stuff that might be seen or needed in the wilds. Last is a special hit location chart for use against animals and monsters. In Warhammer, each roll to hit also determines the spot on the body that was struck. Under the old system, that was only good for man like beings. Now, if a creature has armored scales on it's back only and fur everywhere else, it makes a difference about where the blow landed. This set of charts will give that detail for you.

And the index, such a wonderful thing to have in any book, does, well, what an index is supposed to do. So there you have it. 125 pages of reading fun for the whole gaming group. Again, I have to say that I really do like the first part of the book. It gives me a good bit of material to use should I need an "eye-witness" account of something for the players without giving away exactly what it is they might be facing.

Recommended: Yes