Customer Reviews

Children of the Night: Werebeasts (Accessory)

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"Children of the Night: Werebeasts" is the third in the "Children of the Night" series, which also includes "Children of the Night: The Created," "Children of the Night: Vampires," and the out-of-print "Children of the Night: Ghosts." "Werebeasts" revolves around people becoming beasts and in one case, a beast becoming a person. It is suitable for use in Ravenloft and in other campaigns, and is intended as a complementary volume to the various "Van Richten's" books. As with others in this series, WereBeasts presents 13 small, expandable adventures, each a story centered around an interesting individual or type of lycanthrope, some being quite unusual.

"Children of the Night" series accessories are a great value, each offering 13 detailed, expandable adventures in a single book. Additional rules are included from the "Van Richten's" volumes: types of lycanthrope (true/born, maledictive/cursed, pathologic/infected), shapechange triggers (symbolic, physical, and other), consequences of change (healing, damage to armor, and more), bloodlust frenzies, and cures.

This volume includes: an assassin who is the evil spawn of a human woman and an elder serpent; a wizard whose "primal serum" creates lycanthropy of any animal species on demand; a dashing nobleman whose "other life" involves drinking blood as a horrific bat creature; a half-elven maiden whose singing career masks a fox's face; an entire ship's crew infected with lycanthropy by their captain, a man under a curse; a hunter with tigerish tastes in human prey; the master of a travelling roadshow who has been cursed by the Vistani of Ravenloft; an outcast werejackal priest; a woman with a scarred throat who is gradually turning an entire village into were-stingrays; a black cat who became a catwere from werepanther wounds; a huge man upon whom religion has bestowed the alternate form of a crocodile; a mad artist whose lycanthropy aids him in his use of a magical relic; and a wild woman, head of an extreme monastic order, who shapechanges into a dire wolf. Excellent and dramatic cover art combines with interior black and white portraits of the usual Ravenloft high quality to add to the general creepiness.

A wonderful collection of bloodthirsty beast-folk, excellent for making your players jumpy and suspicious of anyone they meet. Highly recommended for any AD&D 2nd Edition campaign.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

you want to spice up your campaign with some frightening acventures? you need new enemies or allies for your players? you just want to play something which adds a little gothic touch to the game? you're interested in werebeasts? want to play a little.... complicated character? then buy this.

the adventures connected with the werebeasts are quite good, especially the case of hilde borganov and her village of wererays, but i find the characters portrayed in this book even more fascinating. they are the cremé de la créme of most of the werebeasts you have ever imagined - there are brutal and bestial ones, there are melancholic ones, sad about what they've become... they are personalities. frightening personalities of course, but i like them.

the book gives the DM quite all the information he/she needs to run a campaign in the domains of dread or any other d&d world (i used one of the characters in a planescape campaign and it fit in pretty good) with some werebeasts. if the players don't think of a party of werewolves as something extremely frightening any more, then you should give them the opportunity to experience the good feeling of facing something extremely dreadful - this book gives you the possibility.

There are some pretty good stories here, riffs off of gothic fiction novels like Phantom of the Opera and a ripping good pirate yarn. My small complaint is the misleading cover which has a sort of Aztec motif and is not reflected in the stories presented therein. Wonderful interior art.

Thirteen lycanthropes-cursed with changing forms and the madness of bloodlust-are featured with histories, roleplaying strategies, and adventures created specifically for them. All play well both as stand-alone adventures and as parts of larger campaigns.