Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure – 4th Printing is a role playing game supplement published by Troll Lord Games. This is one of the core rulebooks for Castles & Crusades, the others being the Players Handbook and Castle Keepers Guide, and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The 5th printing is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $19.99; this reviews the 4th printing which has some differences, though not significant ones. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF has 178 pages with two being the front and rear covers, one the front matter, two the Table of Contents and one the Open Game License.
Upon the Edge of Battle Lie the Spoils of Glory explains that the supplement is a core rulebook for Castles & Crusades and is designed to be used with the Players Handbook. It is divided into two parts, one of which covers monsters, the other covering treasure.
The Introduction starts by looking at what monsters are and how to play them. They can be background material, things that get in the way of the characters as they quest for something, or they may be the goal of the adventure, such as defeating a dragon. Monsters may impede or help characters and playing intelligent monsters like characters make them a more challenging threat and more realistic.
It then looks at the characteristics of monsters. Many of these will be familiar to some degree for anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons and derived games. The stats used in Castles & Crusades are number encountered, size, hit dice, move, armour class, attacks, special, with that referring to the monster’s special abilities with many given, saves, intelligence, alignment, type, such as dragon, elemental, extraplanar etc., treasure, experience points and experience per hit point. It then looks at how the Castle Keeper can create their own monsters.
Monsters is an alphabetical listing of monsters. Many of these are familiar to those who have played D&D and its derivatives, though some are new. Each is given its stats, a paragraph describing it, how it does combat and any special abilities that need their own section. The monsters are slightly more complicated than those in older versions of D&D, but not as complex as in 3E or later.
Treasure is divided into different sections. It starts with coins, extraordinary items, jewellery, unworked precious metals and stones. Much of the chapter is devoted to magic items of all types. There are some details on creating scrolls, potions and unusual items, the effect of special materials and destroying magic items. It also covers sentient items with tables for creating them. Land and titles as a reward are looked it, divided up by the classes, and how and when to award treasure. After that are treasure tables.
Following this are the descriptions of magic items; potions, scrolls, weapons, armour, shields, miscellaneous magic, cursed items, wands, staves, rods, rings and artefacts. The descriptions of these are pretty standard for a D&D-derived game.
Appendix A: Awarding Experience looks at the different ways of giving XP to characters. There is base experience for an adventure, which isn’t recommended as success or failure are irrelevant in such a case. More standard is experience for killing monsters, and optionally for non-magical treasure. Magic items, like monsters, also have an XP value, and the final option is for roleplaying.
Appendix B: Poisons explains that there are many different kinds of poison and that the Castle Keeper is encouraged to develop their own to fit their game. There are some guidelines for common poisons, including cost, details on making poison and some special rare poisons.
Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure – 4th Printing in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major sections and some minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be mostly free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations, including for every monster. Presentation is decent.
This is a pretty standard collection of monsters and treasures for a D&D-based game. The vast majority of the monsters and magic items will be familiar to anyone who has played D&D and similar games, just adapted for Castles & Crusades. There are some other bits of information on using them as well, but overall, though a decent resource and needed for Castles & Crusades. Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure can be found by clicking here.
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