Mail Room: Creatures, Critters & Denizens (DCC)

Ever flip through Dungeon Crawl Classics and wish you had a solid monster manual for the system? I know the system's spirit is one that monsters are unique, and having a set bestiary is not really the way to go - because players should never really know what they are facing.

D&D of all versions has this problem of players memorizing the Monster Manual and knowing every weakness and the best tactic for every monster in the book. What monsters can only be hit by magic weapons, silver weapons, elemental resistances and weaknesses, attack patterns, special defenses, and how to best take on anything. You lose the sense of awe, wonder, fear, and experimentation when you know everything - and the monsters cease to be monsters and become video game challenges.

Well, enter Creatures, Critters & Denizens, a third-party monster book for Dungeon Crawl Classics that hits upon a lot of the old standards, animals, the OSR favorites, and a bunch of new ones - and tries to mix things up by adding an extensive mutation system for all the creatures in the book so you can't be really sure that herd of sheep hasn't been mutated into carnivorous crab-claw wielding beasts that sense heat, have mouths filled with teeth that extend to half their body and climb in trees when they are hunting at night. That wool hides a lot.

And this is good stuff, the nightmare fuel that runs a great DCC game.

Everything feels like a fan zine, the art, quality, and other aspects of the book are a step less than slick production values, but I do not really mind since a lot of great DCC stuff has this homebrew feeling that gives it the air of notebook notes and fan material.

I love this book and wish I could get it in print, and I can see myself flipping through it and using it as a quick base for an encounter. Even if I reskin the monster entirely to be something else, it is a great resource, and they also provide extensive conversion notes for pulling in the vast library of OSR monsters out there and give you some great things to think about and consider rather than using AC, hit points, and attacks straight.

More on this soon, but an excellent resource for those used to a traditional OSR experience and needing a giant list of monsters to take inspiration from and use in encounters.