The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates by Owen K.C. Stephens is a role playing game supplement published by Rogue Genius Games (originally Super Genius 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 nine-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $3.99 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two thirds of a page is the cover illustration and one page is the Credits and Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs discuss that you can never have too many monster options and that simple templates allow a creature to be redone without rewriting the stat block. These are designed like the monster advancement templates from the Bestiary and as a result might lead to statistics that don’t match what would be obtained by rewriting a monster from scratch, but are, essentially, close enough. There are six templates all told, and most have a sample monster.
Diamond is for creatures made of living diamond, described as being from the deepest sections of the plane of earth or created guardians. These are hard with a sharp blade and a diamond spider is the creature.
Eternal creatures cannot be killed. At all. They will always, always come back; the downside for them is that they cannot change and will always be fixed as they are.
Ghul is related to ghouls and ghasts and are powerful undead, more powerful than those lesser creatures. They have much of the same abilities, but look lifelike, and the example is the draghul.
Mighty creatures are stronger, more powerful versions of their kind. They are recommended for creating such as pack leaders, chieftains and warlords. The mighty cyclops is the example.
Missing is a creature with innate displacement and invisibility and are hard to spot. Missing lynx is the example.
Two-Headed are creatures with, naturally, a second head. The example is a two-headed winter worg and variants of the template can be used to add more heads.
The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, though short, has enough sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains the old three-column landscape format used by Super Genius Games and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of pieces of stock art. Presentation is fine.
The templates may not be as precise as creating new creatures, or as rebuilding one from scratch, but they provide a quick and easy way of making an existing monster different. And different means more dangerous. Some are naturally more dangerous than others but any creature given one of these templates will be an increased challenge, and have different powers. The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates is a decent little supplement and it can be found by clicking here.
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