A great third-party Monster Manual for D20. Minions is a little pricy for its content, but the quality is high. Recommended.

Review Originally Published March 13th, 2002

CONTENT

Minions: The Fearsome Foes is a third-party monster manual from Bastion Press. It’s a softcover featuring full-color printing on glossy pages, and weighs in at 96 pages. It’s not entirely clear why the product is named Minions: There doesn’t seem to be any particular theme to the monsters found here. (In fact, the Puppetmaster is described as the “ultimate voice of evil in the multiverse” with the possible exception of “the deities themselves”… which would be the exact opposite of a minion in my book.)

GOOD STUFF

But whether the book is called Minions or Grandpa Fred’s Cookbook, it’s the content that matters, and that’s where Minions delivers: 92 monsters, including templates, are squeezed between the covers – and most of them are good. Very good. A few samples:

Amberjuron. An enigma of the forest. The amberjuron is indistinguishable from a snowy owl, save for the gleam of intelligence in its eye. Amberjurons live for a thousand years, and their insatiable curiousity and fascination leads them to acquire a wide range of rare knowledge and magic. They can serve as sources of information and rare items, but only if the PCs know how to approach them diplomatically.

Am-Ren. An am-ren is a demon which steals the names of its victims. Those who have their names stolen literally lose their identity.

Blessed Ring. A blessed ring is similar to the fairy rings of folklore: Simple rings of common toadstools found in the wilderness. With a twist: Those who lie within a blessed ring for five rounds will find themselves surrounded by an impenetrable dome. Those who are pure of heart may rest within the blessed ring for as long as they want, protected from threat by the powerful acidic attacks of the ring. Those who are evil, however, will be digested by the blessed ring.

Cacogen. Stealthy undead, crafted from the remains of lepers, hunchbacks, or other deformed humans. They are essentially undead assassins.

Ebant. A well-executed dark treant.

Hearth Horror. Why is the evil temple in the middle of the wilderness always being rebuilt? Possibly because the ruins have spawned a hearth horror: A powerful undead which compels its mortal servants into restoring its original form.

Mirror Fiend. A powerful golem which lives within (and can emerge from) a mirror. When it returns to its mirror it can regenerate from its wounds; but it can also be destroyed by destroying its mirror.

Quickener. A powerful CR 20 creature which absorbs every spell cast at it – enabling it to cast the same spells at its targets. Unpredictable, quick, and deadly, high-level characters will need to exercise their minds as well as their brawn if they expect to defeat a quickener.

Slather. A huge magical beast which disguises itself as the entrances to buildings, dungeons, etc. – swallowing any who pass through its “doors”.

Sync. I really like this race of humanoids. Syncs have featureless faces, but when they enter combat they slowly assume the features of their chosen target. As they do so they become more adept at adapting to their target’s tactics – they become faster, stronger, quicker. PCs who don’t destroy a sync quickly will rapidly find themselves completely outclassed. There is a quality of the doppleganger here, but the concept is very original and can serve to totally panic your PCs.

In general, Minions succeeds at giving you a wide range of high quality monsters. This isn’t just another rehash of concepts you’ve seen a thousand times before: There are some truly fresh, original ideas which will send you scrabbling to take notes for your next game session.

One particularly nice touch in Minions is the inclusion of a “Campaign” section with each monster entry. This entry gives you adventure seeds, campaign ideas, and other notes for incorporating the monster into your game in an effective, compelling fashion.

CRITIQUES

I think the first strike Minions has against it is the title: When I saw the book on the shelf of my local game store I assumed it was a generic NPC collection and passed it over with little more than a quick glance. This is compounded by the cover design, which seems to be place where Bastion Press has been consistently weak to date (although the forthcoming Oathbound looks like its going to completely reverse this trend).

In short, you’re likely to overlook or underestimate Minions at first glance. Don’t. This is a great product, which suffers from only a couple of flaws:

First, some of the creatures in Minions have been given rather cheesy names. For example, the cavernivore. What? Does it eat caverns? The cavernivore is actually a solid creature (just in need of a name change), but there are a couple of others that just left me scratching my head: The chortler, for example, is a hyena-like creature that attacks with a deadly cloud of dandruff.

That’s right. Dandruff.

Minions also features a few too many humanoids for my tastes. This is just my personal taste, though: There’s only so many “they’re just like goblins, but they have the head of a dog!” that I can squeeze into a campaign world before I begin feeling a little ridiculous. And even with my strong tastes in this matter, this is still little more than a quibble for me.

I would have also liked to see stronger art in Minions. I like being able to hold up a book like this, point to a picture, and say: “This is what you see.” There are less than a half dozen pictures in Minions that I would actually do that with. I do appreciate that every monster (with the exception of one) has a picture associated with it. And the illustrations do not actively detract from the book – they simply don’t add much to it.

CONCLUSION

The only reservation I have in recommending Minions is the price: $24.95 is a hard pill for me to swallow for a 96 page soft cover, even in full color. If this book was priced at $20, I wouldn’t hesitate to push you out the door on the way to the game store. At it is, you should give it a good solid ponder to make sure you have a good use for it before you pick it up. Things would probably be slightly different if the artwork were of a higher quality (which would help justify the full-color).

Nonetheless:

Minions gets the job done. There are a lot of really clever, compelling ideas here: Monsters that make you sit up and want to use them in a game. Monsters that will add freshness and variety to your campaign. Monsters that will send shivers of terror down the spines of your players (and their characters).

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Greg Dent (Lead Designer)
Publisher: Bastion Press, Inc.
Line: D20
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0-9714392-1-4
Product Code: BAS1000
Pages: 96

I got quite a bit of use out of Minions for a couple of years after writing this review, but then I took a short break from D&D and it fell out of the rotation.

A good monster manual, in my opinion, is one that you end up using at least a couple dozen monsters from. A great monster manual, on the other hand, is one that inspires you to create whole adventures. By that metric, Minions veers closer to greatness than not. Unfortunately for most people reading this, it’s never received an update for D&D 5E. (Fortunately for me, I still run D&D 3E campaigns.)

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

On the cover of this book, written in blood, is the symbol of a coil. On the first page is an oath:

“I pledge my body, soul, and purpose to the furtherance of chaos. We shall act as one. We shall breathe as one. We shall think as one. And in our crimson coils we shall choke out the death of those who would us bring death. We shall choke out the order which stifles life. We shall choke out the civilization which crushes liberty.”

The rest of the book teaches the ways of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Coil. The cult acts like a virus – their faces hidden; their identities submerged into the Coil itself. The members of the cult do not mix in normal society, preferring to remain cloistered in remote temples or hidden demesnes. The only time the cultists make an appearance is to carry out a Purging. During a Purging the cultists appear en masse to carry out some act of terrible destruction.

The cult chooses a target, seemingly at random, and then show up to burn down a building; set fire to a field; slaughter a family; or deface a monument. They are neither subtle nor gentle. They show neither mercy nor fear. Usually, their raids come so suddenly and unexpectedly that they meet little resistance. They usually appear in numbers so great, they simply cannot be stopped—a hundred cultists to burn down a single house, a dozen to murder a merchant  walking down the street. They disappear quickly, often using spells to cover their escape.

DESIGN NOTES

The Crimson Coil is actually a defunct chaos cult: They were destroyed many years ago by one of the Orders of Knighthood in Ptolus. So whereas the other chaos cult lorebooks are describing the current state of affairs, this one is delving into the history of the chaos cults: Where did they come from? What is their legacy?

There are, I suppose, many such cults that could be described. Unless they become relevant for the narrative, however, it generally only takes one or two such details the evoke the possibilities of this vast abyss.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

A manga that really didn’t manage to distinguish itself in my eyes.

Review Originally Published February 5th, 2002

WHAT IT IS

Bastard!! is a series of manga created by Kazushi Hagiwara and first published in Japan in 1988 in the pages of Shonen Jump. New episodes are still being published today, and over the years (as the success would imply) it has garnered a fervent fan base and continues to enjoy a high level of popularity.

In 2000, in Japan, Hagiwara began releasing the Bastard!! Complete Edition: This was a re-release of the original 1988 manga. Like the Special Edition of the Star Wars movies, this Complete Edition was retouched, redrawn, and variously improved. Viz Comics is now releasing this Complete Edition in an English translation (oddly credited as being translated by Kaori Kawakubo with an “English adaptation” by Fred Burke – I don’t know what that means).

The comic is subtitled (at least in English) as “Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy”. Based on this first issue, it’s a little difficult to see where either of those terms would apply: The general tone is more comical than dark; and Hagiwara’s Heavy Metal influence doesn’t seem to really enter the series until later based on what I’ve seen.

Basically, here’s the concept of the series: The legendary evil sorcerer Dark Schneider was imprisoned several years ago by the high priest of the kingdom of Metallicana. Dark Schneider’s personality was sealed away and his body transformed into that of a young boy named Lucien. The good priest then “adopted” Lucien, raising him as the younger brother of his own daughter, Tia Noto Yoko. Dark Schneider can only be released by a spell which requires, as catalyst, the kiss of virgin innocent. The high priest taught this spell to his daughter. It is known to no one else.

In the first issue, Metallicana is beset by an army led by an evil sorcerer. To save them from their peril, they are forced to call upon Dark Schneider. Dark Schneider, of course, is not only evil, he is also breathtakingly gorgeous – and Tia Noto Yoko is instantly attracted to him, despite the fact that’s he Pure Evil(TM). Of course, to add a little spice to the mix, every time she kisses him he transforms.

Much comedy ensues.

WHERE IT’S GOOD

Hagiwara is justly commended for the high quality of his artwork. Even in the more primitive forms and compositions present at this early stage of his career, it is easy to make out the seed of an immense talent. In addition to being simply gorgeous at many times, Hagiwara is also capable of simplifying his style and compositions when it serves the story and characters.

The other high point of Bastard!! for me was the humor. The tone is nicely set on page four, when the soldiers of Metallicana, standing before the oncoming horde, say: “Dammit! They’ve attacked when the king, imperial forces, and the priest are gone!”

What are the odds, right? That type of tongue-in-cheek satire is designed to warm the cockles of a fantasy fan’s heart. Hagiwara also gets some decent mileage out of the somewhat strange, mystically tainted love triangle of Tia, Lucien, and Dark Schneider.

WHERE IT’S NOT

Although one can make out the seed of Hagiwara’s talent, these early issues of Bastard!! still need a lot of work. The pacing is dizzying and inconsistent. Many of the compositions are too crowded. Some panels appear to have been simply rushed. In several instances Hagiwara simply drops the ball when it comes to telling the story he’s apparently trying to tell.

Nor is Hagiwara helped much by what I consider to be a sub-par translation. (Or, at least, I’m going to choose to blame it on the translator, rather than on Hagiwara.) All of the characters talk with the exact same voice. Most of the dialogue makes you simply want to wince. Worst of all, many things which you can see are meant to be jokes are translated so badly that the humor is lost. For example:

Tia Noto Yoko: I swear … you little ant! Don’t you have any feelings of frustration – of being pissed off, or of wanting to pulverize someone?! How can you be totally VOID of those kinds of emotions?

Lucien: Y-you’ve got more than enough for BOTH of us!

You can see the potential humor in those lines, but it’s lost because the translation of Tia’s dialogue doesn’t ring true. It’s like watching one of those bad sitcoms where you can tell the joke is being set up because all the characters have suddenly become mouthpieces of the writers.

Similarly, you have instances where the dialogue fails to rise to the dramatic quality of the action. Thus, not only do all the characters sound like each other, they sound the same regardless of whether they are having a quiet chat over breakfast or annihilating giants with mighty magicks.

A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS

Having read Bastards!! from cover to cover, here’s my assessment: Slayers is better at RPG parody. Record of the Lodoss War is better at the RPG-inspired plot. Rumiko Takahashi is better at the bizarre love triangles complicated by strange magic.

Nor can I even say, based on this first issue, that Bastard!! earns the distinction of combining the three to any great effect. It doesn’t. Instead, Bastard!! simply seems to create an uninspiring mishmash.

I would suspect that I would enjoy this comic more if the translation were better at capturing character and conveying the humor. (There’s nothing more annoying to me than to read something and say to myself: “Wow, that would have been really funny if you’d just delivered the punch line correctly.) I also suspect I would enjoy Bastard!! more a year or two down the line – when Hagahashi’s talent has had a chance to mature.

Those of you who are big fans of Slayers, Record of the Lodoss War, or Rumiko Takahashi’s works might want to give this a shot, though: It would definitely be up you alley, and might appeal to you more than it did to me. I’ll probably be stopping back at this well from time to time myself to see if things have improved.

Style: 4
Substance: 2

Authors: Kazushi Hagiwara (Translated by Kaori Kawakubo; Adapted by Fred Burke)
Company: Viz Comics
Line: Viz Comics
Price: $3.95
Pages: 72

I received Bastard #1 as a review copy. I have absolutely no memory of how or why that happened. While I had some channels for receiving RPG review copies in 2002, I hadn’t done any work with comic books. (It’s possible this was somehow related to a letter I wrote that got published in a Punisher comic book several years earlier. My address had been published with the letter and several smaller companies sent me new comic books hoping that I would write back with letters they could use to fill their letters pages. I seemed to linger on some mailing lists for a while, but although I don’t remember the actual events, I don’t think that’s actually why I received Bastard.)

In any case, receiving a review copy it’s the only reason this review exists: This was still during the time when receiving review copies was such a novel experience for me that I felt honor-bound to review everything I received. For better or for worse, that’s not an ideal I can live up to any more: I’m simply too inundated with requests for reviews. When people ask if they can send me review copies, I tell them that the odds of getting an actual review from me are quite small. Even after getting the copy, the book has to intrigue me enough to read it cover-to-cover. Then, particularly if it’s a new game, it generally needs to be good enough to convince me to actually play it. And even then, it may still not get a review if I don’t have anything interesting to say about it.

The existence of review copies creates a surprising amount of distress for some people, which, to be perfectly frank, is mostly just amusing to professional reviewers, who know it’s  standard industry practice and always has been. “But you won’t review something honestly because then you won’t get more free stuff!” is a pretty common refrain, and there are some reviewers who think that way. But those reviewers don’t have integrity to begin with, so it doesn’t matter. The reality, particularly for professional reviewers, is — as I said — being inundated with more review copies than we know what to do with.

I do think it’s important to disclose when you’ve received a review copy. It’s an important facet in what brought you to the product. Something I try to be aware of is that receiving a book for free can have an impact on perceived value. This is also true of birthday presents, of course, but you subconsciously expect less from something that you got for free than you do for something you paid for.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

The pages of the first part of this volume are covered with an exhaustive detailing of disease – partly its symptoms, but always the methods for its spread, and never a word about its cures.

The second part of the volume espouses the teachings of the Brotherhood of the Plagueborn. These cultists seek to achieve destruction and devastation through disease and pestilence. They promote the accumulation of filth, rot, and decay. They sneak contaminated foods into marketplaces. They steal bed linens of the ill and slip them into the beds of children. They dump filth into wells.

Their temples, it seems, are almost always found in the sewers, trash heaps, and waste pits of civilization. They lurk in the places where civilization breaks down into its foulest parts and then – like vermin – seek to spread that corruption and decay to every part of the world.

Deadly Carrier
Transmutation
Level: Clr 3
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous

You render yourself immune to the effects of a single disease you currently carry within your body. At the same time, the disease becomes twice as contagious as normal. If the disease does not already have mechanics for contagion, assume that anyone spending at least 10 minutes within 20 feet of you must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC depends on the disease) or become infected.

DESIGN NOTES

Some material on this page is covered by the Open Gaming License.

Like the Songsingers, the Plagueborn weren’t part of the Night of Dissolution conspiracy.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

First: I’m frequently asked what my session notes look like. People want an example of what my prep looks like.

Second: Last week at Green Dragon Fest, I was asked if I would be sharing the scenario I ran on the Alexandrian. I said I’d like to do that, but wasn’t certain if it would happen, because it would involve a lot of work.

“A lot of work? For an adventure you’ve already prepped? Why?”

These two things are related to each other.

WHAT MY PREP LOOKS LIKE

What my prep looks like actually varies quite a bit. At one end of things, the scenario notes for the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies are what I used when actually running the campaign. Patrons of the Alexandrian can also grab my actual running files for the Dragon Heist Remix. These are expansive, detailed campaign notes with elaborate continuity, deep themes, and extensive, integrated player handouts.

But my adventure notes are generally written for an audience of one (me), and it’s not at all unusual for them to be essentially incomprehensible to anyone else. I was reminded of this while working on The Vladaam Affair, a campaign arc which I prepped in a significant amount of detail, but nevertheless discovered — when I started sharing it here — required extensive editing and additional writing to make useful to anyone else.

But more than just being tailored to my own idiosyncracies, it’s not at all unusual for me to be running adventures from notes that are essentially chicken scratch. The principle of Smart Prep boils down to not prepping stuff that you can improvise at the table, and I’ve been doing this long enough that there’s a lot of stuff that I can improvise at the table.

For example, here are the original scenario notes from Bloodwight Heist, the scenario I ran at Green Dragon Fest 2026.

BLOODWIGHT HEIST

Job: Steal a Namir-Radi G7 genesplicer from the Nanopore Genlabs facility located in Zoyechka, Katerineta. 30,000cr.

NANOPORE GENLABS (Zoyechka, Katerineta)

• Laboratory A – Genetic Census (Katerineta)
• Laboratory B – Aphrodite Crops
• Laboratory C – PT Soil Seeds
• Laboratory D – Yellow Goo Prep

Admin – File Servers

Offices – Cubicles and Offices on north/south side

Lower Level – The Blood

LEADS

• Splicer going to Genma (Nirvana).
• Admin: Missing Shipment @ Tranquility Station
• Lower Lab: Source in Dark System (Ukweli-17)

AT THE TABLE

This scenario was originally prepped for my Mothership open table. These notes, plus the monster stat blocks (which I pulled from a different adventure), were everything that I had prepped, although the “Job” entry was actually player-facing and I dropped it into a template to create a small card that I added to the Jobs Board that hangs in my game room:

In terms of play, I got four sessions of open table out of it:

• Group 1 took the job, had the heist blow up in their faces when the monsters showed up, and fled. This led to local authorities placing Nanopore Genlabs under quarantine. A new job was then posted, offering payment for retrieving data from the file servers and tissue samples from the basement lab.
• Group 2 attempted the new job, infiltrating a drone into the facility after an elaborate heist. They caught a fleeting glimpse of the monsters as their drone was destroyed, and they decided to high-tail it out of there. The contract remained open.
• Group 3, including a member of Group 1, took the job. It took them two sessions to complete and they were forced to abandon the tissue samples, but they were able to retrieve the data.

For Group 2 I had kept some brief notes of what Group 1 had done (e.g., breaking stuff and blowing up rooms), then added an adversary roster for the monsters and another one for the security team enforcing the quarantine.

For Group 3, I beefed up the federal security forces.

For Green Dragon Fest I added a few additional layers to the overall experience, but the heist portion of the adventure was essentially unchanged except that I prepped fancier versions of the blueprints to use as player handouts. (At the table, the adventure followed a similar course, with each additional group getting a version of the job and site modified by the previous team’s efforts.)

AFTER ACTION REPORT

If I were to make this adventure publishable — or, perhaps more importantly, to put it in a form where someone else could meaningfully run the same adventure I did — I would obviously need to download a lot more of my brain onto the page. For example, what are PT Soil Seeds? (Hint: PT stands for Pre-Terraforming and PT stations can be found in orbit around or on the surface of multiple planets in the Tempest Cluster.)

So what’s my point? Am I saying that you should prep your own adventures like this?

Not exactly. After all, I’ve already linked you to adventure notes where I prepped a lot more than this, and that was not, generally speaking, wasted effort.

But I’m also not NOT saying that. It’s definitely useful to be able to run a scenario from notes like this ­– or, at least, whatever your version of minimal looks like. Even if, like me, you’d generally prefer to have more notes when you’re running, occasionally running a scenario from minimal notes is a good way to test your limits and can also help you figure out what is and isn’t essential prep for you. (Which can improve the quality and usefulness of your more detailed prep notes.)