francisca
I got dice older than you.
I recently had the opportunity to review a new Goodman Games product, aptly named "The Random Esoteric Creature Generator For Classic Fantasy Games and their Modern Simulacra".
In short, it is exactly as titled and why you might expect from such a product. That is to say it is a book of tables used to randomly generate characteristics of creatures. What kind of creatures? All kinds. As we shall see later in this review, you can roll for basic creature type, though you could just as well start with an archetypal creature and roll for unique characteristics. This approach of course hearkens back to Appendix D of the the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. Clearly this product is nod to E. Gary Gygax's classic Tome, Gary himself, and old school gaming in general.
First I'll discuss the presentation of the material, then dig into the meat and bones. I reviewed a PDF copy of the book, though it is also available in print. The book weighs in at 32 pages, including the title page and the last page which is an advert for other Goodman Games products.
Credits:
The book is authored by James Edward Raggi IV. Harley Stroh is listed as Developer, with Ken Hart given Editor credit. Doug Kovacs did a nice job on the cover illustration, while many weird creatures are illustrated by Brad McDevitt in the interior, with additional art contributed by David Griffith and William McAusland. All interior art is black and white, and distinctly "old-school" in feel. Peter Bradley is also listed as Graphic Designer.
Layout/Presentation:
The book itself is laid out in a fairly simple and effective format: standard two column text, for the introduction and closing sections, while the meat of the book, the charts, are full page width. Interior illustrations are also also full page width, and are interspersed at various positions on the pages throughout the body of the work. All of this is on top of a shaded backdrop with an embossed feel to it. In short, the layout is just how I like it: it presents the material effectively and doesn't get in the way. There is nothing more annoying than trying to read RPG material while the layout is subliminally screaming, "Hey look at my cool layout!" That doesn't happen in this book.
The Meat and Bones:
The book begins with a two page introduction by the author, wherein he extols the virtues of old-school gaming, while rightfully framing a problem common to players and DMs of old school FRPGs: we all know what the monsters do, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a DM, how often have you beset a group of 1st level PCs with a horde of Skeleton, just to see these rookie characters put away sword and axe, and switch to Mace and Club, as the veteran players running the PCs know skeletons only take half damage from edged weapons? The Random Esoteric Creature Generator (TRECG) is an attempt to provide unique, and indeed Esoteric creatures for your old school games (though being systems neutral, it certainly could be used for the latest revisions of any game which uses the familiar 6 attributes.)
After the intro, we are treated with a discussion of building the monster. The author stresses that end-users of the work should add to, delete, and modify anything and everything found in the book, a philosophy I whole heartedly agree with. The author then discusses the Alignment, AC, Damage, Experience, Hit Dice (HD), Intelligence, Morale, Movement rates, Attacks, Appearance, Saves, and Treasure found with the monsters. Being system neutral, this section is rightfully slim on hard stats, rather, guidelines are given for each of these sections, the details being left to the DM to manage for his preferred system.
Pages 6 - 26 are composed the meat of the product, the charts and notes concerning the chart contents. The charts included in the book include:
Basic Body Shape
Basic Characteristics
Size
Movement
Attack Methods
Distinctive Features (almost 4 pages)
Special Abilities (the majority of this section, weighing in at almost 10 pages)
Delivery of Special Attacks
Combat Strategy
Motivation
There is a lot in these charts. Simply reading through them is enough to get the creative juices flowing, as you wonder how a creatures with an admixture of these abilities could come into being. Note that while the book offers the option of simply starting at the beginning and rolling through the charts, you are also told to leave out any you do not feel you need.
Perhaps to best illustrate what this book is about is to actually sit down and create a creature. What I've done below is simply run through the tables in order and noted what I was thinking along the way. So here we go!
The gist of the system is to start with baseline human stats for movement, AC, base damage is a d6, etc.. You then roll on the tables in order, with each roll modifying the creature in some way. Sometimes, the rolls change up the stats, in others they appear to be window dressing, but in other cases, this window dressing ends up being a key component of the monster.
I've decided to create a creature for a party of average level of 4. Inspired by the example in the book, I decided to roll 1d8 - 2 to determine HD. I end up a 4HD monster.
Next roll is for basic body shape. I roll and get bipedal. Other possibilities include quadruped and most standard body forms found in nature, plus polyhedral (shout out to the Modrons!).
I roll for the general body characteristic, and get: Crustacean. According to the chart, this creature has a hard shell and it's limbs are claws. Because of the shell, it gets an AC bonus, and I roll a 9, for a solid AC. It will also get 2 claw attacks, presuming two arms ending with claws. Right away, I'm thinking Crabman, Lobsterman, no, wait, Crawdadman, no, CRAWDADDY! Complete with a cajun accent! But what's this below the body characteristic table? Oh, a table to roll on to further describe the body's characteristics. I roll on the Crustacean table and get......Clam? Bipedal Clam? Ok, so right about now, I'm thinking back to 1st edition Gamma World, the "hopeless creature" illustration. You know the one with the sad looking Q*Bert thing with arms and feet for hands (think Sebulba, but Emo...). Mmmm....what can we do? Perhaps it can pull it's limbs inside it's shell. Initially, it looks like a run of the mill Giant Clam. However, this one will chase you down!
Ok, up next: Size. I roll and get Enormous. This doubles the HD to 8, adds an extra die of damage (now 2d6), and it gains 20 feet of movement. Man, this thing is going to be a clamtastrophe for the players! I then roll for any special modes of movement, and get none, just the standard. I'll assume this creature can walk on land, on the bottom of the sea floor, and swim in some form.
Next is attack method. As I've decided this creature has claws, I'll stick with it and forgo a roll here.
Now we are on to distinctive features. The author encourages you to keep rolling until you trick your creature out to your tastes. My first roll, I get: multiple legs, getting another set of legs and another 20 feet of movement. Yikes! Next, I roll high and get "re-roll twice, combining the results." The re-rolls yield: perpetually wet and on fire, which would seem to cancel each other out. As this is a clam, I'll keep the perpetually wet. One more roll, and I get: Distinctive Marking of Geometric patterns. Mmmmm.... Well, maybe this is a creature from the elemental plane of water, and the geometric patterns are actually a large circle with two lines radiating outward, about 90 degrees apart from one another, terminating in smaller circles, kind of like a model of a water molecule, with the 2 smaller circles being the hydrogen atoms and the larger oxygen. Cool. Let's run with it.
Now on to the special abilities section. On this table, you roll percentage dice twice and add the results to find the special power. The number of special powers is determined in an interesting way. You multiply the number of HD by 10 to get a percentage. You then roll percentage dice, and for every 10% under the base, you roll for a special ability. I shake 'em up and roll an 06, which means I get 7 special abilities. A quick glance at the chart tells me things will be very, very bad for the party when they meet this critter. Here are the results:
1) Improved Damage: creature gets a d8 roll, which determines a damage bonus applied to all hits with the main attack (I roll a 6, damage from a claw is now 2d6+6).
2) Destroys Metal: The creature destroys metal it touches. There is an asterisk on this entry, which means I need to roll to see how this is delivered. Mmmm. So maybe the claws themselves don't cause the corrosion. I roll, and get "On sight"! Wow! I think I'll roll again, as I think that is just too crazy. So, I roll "Projectile". Ok, what could a clam shoot? Perhaps it could spit pearls out. Black pearls. Yep, there we go. I'll say that it spits black pearls out that corrode metal on a successful strike.
3) Bonus Attack: This says that if at least half the creature's attacks hit, it will get a bonus attack using it's most damaging attack form. Well, I have a couple of options here. I guess I could say that if both claws hit a creature, the clam gets to "bite" with it's shell for another 2d6+6, or perhaps it gets to spit a pearl at +4 to hit.
4) Drain: Intelligence: 1 point: Drains 1 point of INT per attack. This also has an asterisk, I roll Projectile again. So, back to the spitting pearls. So now the creature can spit pearls which destroy metal and drain 1 point of INT. Better yet, let's make that drain Wisdom. The can be Pearls of Anti-Wisdom. (No, I never met a pun I didn't like.)
5) Improved Saves: Creature gets a bonus of 1d6, rolled once before besetting the creature on the party. (I rolled a 1.)
6) Continuous Damage: Attacks from primary attack mode automatically do damage in subsequent rounds, and also deny DEX and Shield bonuses to AC. Nice. Now the claws have retrograde hooks in them which dig into the flesh, while the Clam-thing works the claws back and forth, in a sawing motion, chewing through flesh and bone.
7) Immune to Lightning: as it says, no damage.
That is one nasty dude!
Ok, so what else is there to do? We now have a table of suggested combat strategies. I roll and find this creature goes after whatever PC has done the most damage to it in a prior round.
Finally, we have the Motivation chart. This gives the referee a point of reference for just why this whacked out creature is in the dungeon/cavern/etc... and what it's purpose might be. For this Clam-thing, I find that it is an Abomination (no kidding!) and it is so unnatural that it can't stand mundane life forms. Further, any magically affected character will be ignored, except in cases of self-defense.
Wow. Now to stat this guy out. I think I'll stat him out for the recently released, "Swords and Wizardry". Here we go:
Clamavore
Armor Class: 0 [19]
Hit Dice: 8
Attacks: 2 Claws 2d6 + 6
Saving Throw: 8
Special: Bonus attack: Bite 2d6+6; Spits Pearls which destroy metal and drain 1 point of WIS; Immune to Lightning;Half Damage from Water
Move: 18 (Swim 18)
Challenge Level / XP: 14 / 2600 XP
Clamavores are an abomination from the Elemental Plane of Water. None know what purpose brings these horrors to the Prime Material Plane, but one thing is certain: when on the Prime Material Plane they seek to destroy all mundane life, though curiously, unless attacked, they ignore any creature under the effects of magic, whether cursed, poly-morphed, or under another dweomer.
At rest, Clamavores simply appear to be enormous clams (8-10 feet across the widest part of the shell) with peculiar markings all over the shell. The markings consists of a circle with two lines radiating outward forming a V shape, terminating in smaller circles. However, when the Clamavore takes notice of a mundane lifeform, the true, horrifying nature of the creature becomes apparent. The shell opens, the hinge at the base separates, and 6 limbs sprout forth, 4 clawed, chiton encrusted legs, and two likewise encrusted arms, each terminating in terrible, snapping claws.
A Clamavore will always attack whichever opponent which has done the most damage to it most recently. The primary attacks are with the 2 claws. Should a claw strike an opponent, rearward facing spikes will embed itself in the target. In subsequent rounds, the Clamavore will work the claws back and forth in a saw-like fashion, automatically doing damage and denying DEX and Shield bonuses to the ensnared victim. Should an unfortunate individual be struck by both claws, the Clamavore will attempt to bite with it's shell for an additional 2d6+6 damage.
However, the most feared attack of the Clamavore are it's cloudy black pearls. The Clamavore can spit one pearl per round up to 12". The pearls will destroy any metal it contacts, and drain one point of Wisdom from the victim (save to negate). If the opponent is in the grasp of both claws, the Clamavore can forgo the bite attack and spit a pearl at +4 to hit. A Clamavore will have 1d3+2 pearls available for spitting, which are replaced at a rate of 1 per week.
Merely getting out the water will not save the Clamavore's victims, as the Clamavore can move on land just as fast as it can under water. When out of the water, the Clamavore excretes water out of the shell and limbs, which allows it to survive, leaving a trail of water, and pooling underneath the creature. The Clamvore can maintain this watery excretion for 6+1d6 rounds, before being forced to return to the water for a like number of rounds. This excreted elemental water has the additional benefit of halving damage from fire.
Hopefully, that will give you a feel of what you can do withe material in the charts.
The book concludes with 5 pages of text. The first section, Putting it all Together, stresses that the DM should make sure the creature created makes sense in the context of his game world, and to roll the creature up and become familiar with it well before dropping it in on the players. He further elaborates on some old-school philosophy, mainly, keeping info from the players, all in the name of maintaining the oft-touted sense of wonder. I can get behind this idea, as well. He also discusses the advantages of keeping a human-centric point of view in the game, and not letting fantastic creatures and powers become mundane. This will sit well with some (me, for example), but not others. Certainly, this goes right back to the source of Fantasy Roll Playing Games: pre-70s fantasy literature. Conan wasn't swinging a +3 Bastard Sword, hacking his way through hordes of mundane undead and Orcs. No, he was occasionally confronted with a strange creature, and rightfully freaked out, turning the adrenaline rush into super human strength and determination to simply survive.
Conclusion:
In the end, TRECG accomplishes the goal of providing a vehicle for creating creatures never see by your players. It is much more than Appendix D on steroids, as I am sure some will consider it. At a minimum, the material is a laundry list of attributes that can be added to existing creatures for more flavor. At it's best, you can use it to create brand new creatures, to inspire you to expand your game world.
In short, it is exactly as titled and why you might expect from such a product. That is to say it is a book of tables used to randomly generate characteristics of creatures. What kind of creatures? All kinds. As we shall see later in this review, you can roll for basic creature type, though you could just as well start with an archetypal creature and roll for unique characteristics. This approach of course hearkens back to Appendix D of the the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. Clearly this product is nod to E. Gary Gygax's classic Tome, Gary himself, and old school gaming in general.
First I'll discuss the presentation of the material, then dig into the meat and bones. I reviewed a PDF copy of the book, though it is also available in print. The book weighs in at 32 pages, including the title page and the last page which is an advert for other Goodman Games products.
Credits:
The book is authored by James Edward Raggi IV. Harley Stroh is listed as Developer, with Ken Hart given Editor credit. Doug Kovacs did a nice job on the cover illustration, while many weird creatures are illustrated by Brad McDevitt in the interior, with additional art contributed by David Griffith and William McAusland. All interior art is black and white, and distinctly "old-school" in feel. Peter Bradley is also listed as Graphic Designer.
Layout/Presentation:
The book itself is laid out in a fairly simple and effective format: standard two column text, for the introduction and closing sections, while the meat of the book, the charts, are full page width. Interior illustrations are also also full page width, and are interspersed at various positions on the pages throughout the body of the work. All of this is on top of a shaded backdrop with an embossed feel to it. In short, the layout is just how I like it: it presents the material effectively and doesn't get in the way. There is nothing more annoying than trying to read RPG material while the layout is subliminally screaming, "Hey look at my cool layout!" That doesn't happen in this book.
The Meat and Bones:
The book begins with a two page introduction by the author, wherein he extols the virtues of old-school gaming, while rightfully framing a problem common to players and DMs of old school FRPGs: we all know what the monsters do, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a DM, how often have you beset a group of 1st level PCs with a horde of Skeleton, just to see these rookie characters put away sword and axe, and switch to Mace and Club, as the veteran players running the PCs know skeletons only take half damage from edged weapons? The Random Esoteric Creature Generator (TRECG) is an attempt to provide unique, and indeed Esoteric creatures for your old school games (though being systems neutral, it certainly could be used for the latest revisions of any game which uses the familiar 6 attributes.)
After the intro, we are treated with a discussion of building the monster. The author stresses that end-users of the work should add to, delete, and modify anything and everything found in the book, a philosophy I whole heartedly agree with. The author then discusses the Alignment, AC, Damage, Experience, Hit Dice (HD), Intelligence, Morale, Movement rates, Attacks, Appearance, Saves, and Treasure found with the monsters. Being system neutral, this section is rightfully slim on hard stats, rather, guidelines are given for each of these sections, the details being left to the DM to manage for his preferred system.
Pages 6 - 26 are composed the meat of the product, the charts and notes concerning the chart contents. The charts included in the book include:
Basic Body Shape
Basic Characteristics
Size
Movement
Attack Methods
Distinctive Features (almost 4 pages)
Special Abilities (the majority of this section, weighing in at almost 10 pages)
Delivery of Special Attacks
Combat Strategy
Motivation
There is a lot in these charts. Simply reading through them is enough to get the creative juices flowing, as you wonder how a creatures with an admixture of these abilities could come into being. Note that while the book offers the option of simply starting at the beginning and rolling through the charts, you are also told to leave out any you do not feel you need.
Perhaps to best illustrate what this book is about is to actually sit down and create a creature. What I've done below is simply run through the tables in order and noted what I was thinking along the way. So here we go!
The gist of the system is to start with baseline human stats for movement, AC, base damage is a d6, etc.. You then roll on the tables in order, with each roll modifying the creature in some way. Sometimes, the rolls change up the stats, in others they appear to be window dressing, but in other cases, this window dressing ends up being a key component of the monster.
I've decided to create a creature for a party of average level of 4. Inspired by the example in the book, I decided to roll 1d8 - 2 to determine HD. I end up a 4HD monster.
Next roll is for basic body shape. I roll and get bipedal. Other possibilities include quadruped and most standard body forms found in nature, plus polyhedral (shout out to the Modrons!).
I roll for the general body characteristic, and get: Crustacean. According to the chart, this creature has a hard shell and it's limbs are claws. Because of the shell, it gets an AC bonus, and I roll a 9, for a solid AC. It will also get 2 claw attacks, presuming two arms ending with claws. Right away, I'm thinking Crabman, Lobsterman, no, wait, Crawdadman, no, CRAWDADDY! Complete with a cajun accent! But what's this below the body characteristic table? Oh, a table to roll on to further describe the body's characteristics. I roll on the Crustacean table and get......Clam? Bipedal Clam? Ok, so right about now, I'm thinking back to 1st edition Gamma World, the "hopeless creature" illustration. You know the one with the sad looking Q*Bert thing with arms and feet for hands (think Sebulba, but Emo...). Mmmm....what can we do? Perhaps it can pull it's limbs inside it's shell. Initially, it looks like a run of the mill Giant Clam. However, this one will chase you down!
Ok, up next: Size. I roll and get Enormous. This doubles the HD to 8, adds an extra die of damage (now 2d6), and it gains 20 feet of movement. Man, this thing is going to be a clamtastrophe for the players! I then roll for any special modes of movement, and get none, just the standard. I'll assume this creature can walk on land, on the bottom of the sea floor, and swim in some form.
Next is attack method. As I've decided this creature has claws, I'll stick with it and forgo a roll here.
Now we are on to distinctive features. The author encourages you to keep rolling until you trick your creature out to your tastes. My first roll, I get: multiple legs, getting another set of legs and another 20 feet of movement. Yikes! Next, I roll high and get "re-roll twice, combining the results." The re-rolls yield: perpetually wet and on fire, which would seem to cancel each other out. As this is a clam, I'll keep the perpetually wet. One more roll, and I get: Distinctive Marking of Geometric patterns. Mmmmm.... Well, maybe this is a creature from the elemental plane of water, and the geometric patterns are actually a large circle with two lines radiating outward, about 90 degrees apart from one another, terminating in smaller circles, kind of like a model of a water molecule, with the 2 smaller circles being the hydrogen atoms and the larger oxygen. Cool. Let's run with it.
Now on to the special abilities section. On this table, you roll percentage dice twice and add the results to find the special power. The number of special powers is determined in an interesting way. You multiply the number of HD by 10 to get a percentage. You then roll percentage dice, and for every 10% under the base, you roll for a special ability. I shake 'em up and roll an 06, which means I get 7 special abilities. A quick glance at the chart tells me things will be very, very bad for the party when they meet this critter. Here are the results:
1) Improved Damage: creature gets a d8 roll, which determines a damage bonus applied to all hits with the main attack (I roll a 6, damage from a claw is now 2d6+6).
2) Destroys Metal: The creature destroys metal it touches. There is an asterisk on this entry, which means I need to roll to see how this is delivered. Mmmm. So maybe the claws themselves don't cause the corrosion. I roll, and get "On sight"! Wow! I think I'll roll again, as I think that is just too crazy. So, I roll "Projectile". Ok, what could a clam shoot? Perhaps it could spit pearls out. Black pearls. Yep, there we go. I'll say that it spits black pearls out that corrode metal on a successful strike.
3) Bonus Attack: This says that if at least half the creature's attacks hit, it will get a bonus attack using it's most damaging attack form. Well, I have a couple of options here. I guess I could say that if both claws hit a creature, the clam gets to "bite" with it's shell for another 2d6+6, or perhaps it gets to spit a pearl at +4 to hit.
4) Drain: Intelligence: 1 point: Drains 1 point of INT per attack. This also has an asterisk, I roll Projectile again. So, back to the spitting pearls. So now the creature can spit pearls which destroy metal and drain 1 point of INT. Better yet, let's make that drain Wisdom. The can be Pearls of Anti-Wisdom. (No, I never met a pun I didn't like.)
5) Improved Saves: Creature gets a bonus of 1d6, rolled once before besetting the creature on the party. (I rolled a 1.)
6) Continuous Damage: Attacks from primary attack mode automatically do damage in subsequent rounds, and also deny DEX and Shield bonuses to AC. Nice. Now the claws have retrograde hooks in them which dig into the flesh, while the Clam-thing works the claws back and forth, in a sawing motion, chewing through flesh and bone.
7) Immune to Lightning: as it says, no damage.
That is one nasty dude!
Ok, so what else is there to do? We now have a table of suggested combat strategies. I roll and find this creature goes after whatever PC has done the most damage to it in a prior round.
Finally, we have the Motivation chart. This gives the referee a point of reference for just why this whacked out creature is in the dungeon/cavern/etc... and what it's purpose might be. For this Clam-thing, I find that it is an Abomination (no kidding!) and it is so unnatural that it can't stand mundane life forms. Further, any magically affected character will be ignored, except in cases of self-defense.
Wow. Now to stat this guy out. I think I'll stat him out for the recently released, "Swords and Wizardry". Here we go:
Clamavore
Armor Class: 0 [19]
Hit Dice: 8
Attacks: 2 Claws 2d6 + 6
Saving Throw: 8
Special: Bonus attack: Bite 2d6+6; Spits Pearls which destroy metal and drain 1 point of WIS; Immune to Lightning;Half Damage from Water
Move: 18 (Swim 18)
Challenge Level / XP: 14 / 2600 XP
Clamavores are an abomination from the Elemental Plane of Water. None know what purpose brings these horrors to the Prime Material Plane, but one thing is certain: when on the Prime Material Plane they seek to destroy all mundane life, though curiously, unless attacked, they ignore any creature under the effects of magic, whether cursed, poly-morphed, or under another dweomer.
At rest, Clamavores simply appear to be enormous clams (8-10 feet across the widest part of the shell) with peculiar markings all over the shell. The markings consists of a circle with two lines radiating outward forming a V shape, terminating in smaller circles. However, when the Clamavore takes notice of a mundane lifeform, the true, horrifying nature of the creature becomes apparent. The shell opens, the hinge at the base separates, and 6 limbs sprout forth, 4 clawed, chiton encrusted legs, and two likewise encrusted arms, each terminating in terrible, snapping claws.
A Clamavore will always attack whichever opponent which has done the most damage to it most recently. The primary attacks are with the 2 claws. Should a claw strike an opponent, rearward facing spikes will embed itself in the target. In subsequent rounds, the Clamavore will work the claws back and forth in a saw-like fashion, automatically doing damage and denying DEX and Shield bonuses to the ensnared victim. Should an unfortunate individual be struck by both claws, the Clamavore will attempt to bite with it's shell for an additional 2d6+6 damage.
However, the most feared attack of the Clamavore are it's cloudy black pearls. The Clamavore can spit one pearl per round up to 12". The pearls will destroy any metal it contacts, and drain one point of Wisdom from the victim (save to negate). If the opponent is in the grasp of both claws, the Clamavore can forgo the bite attack and spit a pearl at +4 to hit. A Clamavore will have 1d3+2 pearls available for spitting, which are replaced at a rate of 1 per week.
Merely getting out the water will not save the Clamavore's victims, as the Clamavore can move on land just as fast as it can under water. When out of the water, the Clamavore excretes water out of the shell and limbs, which allows it to survive, leaving a trail of water, and pooling underneath the creature. The Clamvore can maintain this watery excretion for 6+1d6 rounds, before being forced to return to the water for a like number of rounds. This excreted elemental water has the additional benefit of halving damage from fire.
Hopefully, that will give you a feel of what you can do withe material in the charts.
The book concludes with 5 pages of text. The first section, Putting it all Together, stresses that the DM should make sure the creature created makes sense in the context of his game world, and to roll the creature up and become familiar with it well before dropping it in on the players. He further elaborates on some old-school philosophy, mainly, keeping info from the players, all in the name of maintaining the oft-touted sense of wonder. I can get behind this idea, as well. He also discusses the advantages of keeping a human-centric point of view in the game, and not letting fantastic creatures and powers become mundane. This will sit well with some (me, for example), but not others. Certainly, this goes right back to the source of Fantasy Roll Playing Games: pre-70s fantasy literature. Conan wasn't swinging a +3 Bastard Sword, hacking his way through hordes of mundane undead and Orcs. No, he was occasionally confronted with a strange creature, and rightfully freaked out, turning the adrenaline rush into super human strength and determination to simply survive.
Conclusion:
In the end, TRECG accomplishes the goal of providing a vehicle for creating creatures never see by your players. It is much more than Appendix D on steroids, as I am sure some will consider it. At a minimum, the material is a laundry list of attributes that can be added to existing creatures for more flavor. At it's best, you can use it to create brand new creatures, to inspire you to expand your game world.
