Here Be Monsters: Aching for Blood (Mosquitofolk)

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ZSP_HBMAFB_cover-300x231[1]By Thilo Graf

This pdf is 22 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page, 1/3 of a page editorial/ToC, 1/2 page SRD, leaving 20 1/6 pages of content, so let’s dive in!

Apart from the fluffy and crunchy content, we get 1 full-color cover-like world map page, 1 regular world map page and 1 beautiful full color encounter map page.

The pdf kicks off with approximately 2 pages of introduction to the new critters, which just plainly ROCKS. I just can’t describe it any other way, the writing is evocative, supremely cool and made the jaded bastard of a reviewer, yours truly, immediately want o implement the Mosquitofolk. Now, that’s quite a feat! After that, we get extensive statblocks of the different kinds of Mosquitofolk:

After being introduced to two varieties of common mosquitoes, we get a plethora of stats for Mosquitofolk for low-CRs till the upper echelon of mid-levels, providing a multitude of possibilities to torture your PCs with an extremely disturbing new kind of adversary.

  • Mosquito, Giant (CR 1)
  • Mosquito Swarm ( CR 2)
  • Mosquitofolk, Hollow (CR 2): Undead Mosquitofolk
  • Mosquitofolk, Blood Jumper (CR 4): Rank and file hunters
  • Mosquitofolk, Secret Sting (CR 6): Agents and poison-using killers
  • Mosquitofolk, Blood Blade (CR 7): Fighter-champions
  • Mosquitofolk, Cage Glider (CR 8): Huge terrible mutations that catch enemies
  • Mosquitofolk, Swarm Spewer (CR 9): Swarm-vomiting elite-mosquitofolk
  • Mosquitofolk, Woundmage (CR 10): The casting, bloodmagic-using apex of Mosquitofolk society

we also get 5 new items common/alchemical items against Mosquitofolk.

After that, we get a beautiful full color map and 3 scenarios for the map, featuring different premises for the camp presented, including texts for the respective areas. Thankfully, we also get a version of the map without the map key and annoying letters. We also get a full color version of the world map and another full color page of another world map that is ripped asunder by a kind of rip.

Conclusion:

Editing is top-notch, I didn’t notice any mistakes. Layout adheres to the horizontal three-column standard and is beautiful. In contrast to other ZSP-titles, the file is (relatively) printer-friendly, although there is, as of yet, no b/w-version. The pdf is also extensively bookmarked.

Then, there’s the writing. Once in a while, when reading a monster book, you encounter a critter that just blows you out of the water, that is just so disturbing and cool that you practically HAVE to implement them into your games. A critter so iconic you won’t forget them in quite a while and just continue to use them or even base a campaign around them. Mosquitofolk are such creatures – supremely disturbing and cool, these blood-addicts that brought their own civilization down via magical engineering of their young just rocks HARD and made me reminiscent of the wonderfully detailed “monstrous arcana”-series of the 2nd edition days of old, to be more precise, of the wonderful books on Sahaugin and Illithids. However, there is one aspect that marrs an otherwise perfect pdf – the artwork. It’s comic-style. And not creepy or on par with the other ZSP-artworks. That being said, this is still not enough to pull down an otherwise stellar book – be sure to check it out, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

My final verdict is 4.5 stars.

Here Be Monsters: Aching for Blood (Mosquitofolk) is available from:

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