Spooky Gardens Halloween Special by Jacob W. Michaels and Russ Brown is a role playing game supplement published by Rusted Iron Games for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 13-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was purchased at a reduced price thanks to a special offer. One page is the front cover and about a page is the Open Game License and Credits.
The first page has the Introduction which explains that Deadly Gardens is a series of PDFs featuring plant monsters and that this volume incorporates horror, with a breakdown of the contents. A sidebar explains the book references and there is a new magic item made from the wood of one of the monsters that is useful against the incorporeal undead.
The Brain Pumpkin is able to enthral other creatures and lure them close to implant a seed. A sidebar details the new infestation this causes, which turns the victims into pumpkin-headed creatures.
Pumpkin-Headed Creature is a new acquired template that changes the being to a plant, but destroys most of their Intelligence. Four sample afflicted creatures follow; Pumpkin-Headed Bull, Goblin, Hound and Villager.
The Gloom Bough is an evil tree, a combination of undead and plant. They grow in the corpses of violently slain humanoids, increase the chance of haunts and feed off visitors to graves, eventually causing suicides.
Vengeful Creature is a new template that can be applied to any undead, making them hateful and feed on negative emotions. Three examples follow; Vengeful Ghast, Bones and Wraith.
Haunts has six new haunts, ranging from CR 3 to CR 6. These are caused by birds being killed near gloom boughs, weapons tainted by the despair of a dying warrior, graves exposed to a powerful evil creature, the cold-blooded slaying of a penitent, bandits that were ridden down and the unexpected death of a loved one.
Natural Items are items harvested from creatures, with details on harvesting, use and preservation, followed by four new items and a new drug, most connected to the new creatures.
Natural Power Components are similar to alchemical power components and there are two, both connected to the new creatures.
Spooky Gardens Halloween Special in Review
The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and there was a possible error; in a number of places in the gloom bough’s description it is instead called a skeleton tree. There are a number of colour and black and white illustrations, most of which appear to be stock. Presentation is decent.
This isn’t just a bestiary with a couple of new monsters; it’s a bestiary with a couple of monsters, templates, monsters based on those templates, new items, many based on the monsters and new haunts, again many based on the monsters, making this a quite varied collection of interesting material. Spooky Gardens Halloween Special is a nice Halloween supplement and it can be found by clicking here.
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