Sword & Sorcery Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie (Core Rulebook)

The monsters are very monotone and lack flavor variety. Pretty much, the folks at Sword and Sorcery are singularly obsessed with horror builds, but what they provide are not terribly creative or compelling, like something a short-sighted junior high DM would come up with. The variety is very flat: indeed, they have a lot of different categorizes of monsters, but they all somehow come out with a very "samey" feel to them. If you want more monsters for your 3.5 game, I would recommend simply buying campaign books, like Eberron and Forgotten Realms, and lifting the unique monsters from those.

I love Sword & Sorcery Studios. I've loved 'em since they came out with the Creature Collection 1, before the official Monster Manual came out. They're a high quality publisher, backed by one of the biggest companies in the biz, White Wolf, and it shows. This product is of great quality, much better than the first Creature Collection, which was admittedly mediocre in several departments. There are a huge range of monsters and other assorted things tailored for the Scarred Lands setting, but most if not all of them can be dropped into any setting with little if any change.Also, you get a wide range of different sorts of monsters, because the book was not just written by a few individuals. Rather, they had open writer calls, so anyone could send in a permission form and their own monsters to be included in the book, so you get the cream of the crop from the collective minds of the entire D&D community.

More monsters, nastier monsters, wierder monsters. Few "good guys", but who needs 'em? I want to see more from SSS on the Carnival of Krewes. Whenever I need to freak out the players, this book comes out. If you like Call of Cthulhu and want a little more of that flavor in your campaign, this book does it. SSS continues to crank out hi quality stuff for DMs. I don't think I'd use their setting, but they give you a lot of inspiration to do your own thing. Any of the setting "specific" monsters in here can be put in your own setting quickly. The "specifics" just flesh out the monsters more, but my experience is that players aren't neccesarily gonna care.

Perfect condition for a hard to find book

The book was in near perfect condition, we were able to use it with the next campaign!

For those that are NOT familiar with the idea, WOTC has offered an 'Open Game License' to any publisher that would like to contribute to the further growth of the d20 system that has been implemented with D&D3Ed.Sword and Sorcery Studios is one of the leaders in the race to see who will dominate the d20 market (outside of WOTC). With White Wolf Games as Publisher/Printer of their materials they stand a good chance.The Creature Collection II is the much anticipated sequel to the sometimes maligned Creature Collection. Though I really enjoyed the creativity that went into the Original CC, CC2:Dark Menagerie is by FAR a better product. The illustrations are of a much higher calibre (though still black and white) and it is obvious that the creators had a great time putting this work together. Much like the Original CC, the whole collection manages to work well and add some very nice elements to what appears to be an exciting campaign setting.Unlike the Original, CC2 seems to be more geared towards the minions of the Dark Titans that once ruled the Scarred Lands. These creatures run the gamut from the Frighteningly deadly to the just plain DISGUSTING... but it all manages to work, giving the GM (whether he is using the SL campaign setting or not) a veritible army of bizzare minions to delight and confound players in his/her d20 game. By far, this is one of the most pleasing products recently released for the ever expanding d20 game system.Finally, SSS has stated their manifesto to be "3rd Edition D&D with a 1st Edition feel"... with that goal in mind... I'd say they are succeeding.

"Creature Collection II" contains a lot of interesting monsters, most of which can be used in most campaigns (a few entries are a little too world specific to use if not playing in the Scarred Lands). For the most part, this book is well written, and the artwork is very good except for a few rare cases. Most of the creatures are well balanced (in my opinion anyway), and of course there are the critters which make you wonder why did they put that in here. I definitely like the amount of detail and information they give for each monster (this is something I miss from 2nd edition AD&D). This book would be an excellent addition to any game master or person adventuring in the Scarred Lands.

Once of those groups who have been playing for years, and they know every single monster and all their stats from all the Monster Manual books? Are you a DM who is sick of every time you start to describe a Cockatrice they already know what you are talking about before your sentence is finished? If so, you are like me, and this book plus the others from Sword & Sorcerery did the trick. Finally some monsters no one had heard of! This book has a great selection of all kinds of things, perfect for any campaign. My only complaint is that its not in color.

All good