Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Author: Mike Major
Pluses
+ Excellent interior artwork.
Minuses
- Inattentive cover art and weak interior maps.
- Repetitive information and ill-conceived ideas.
- The fiction is dull, cliché and/or nonsensical.
- Minor technical errors; in need of some editorial rearrangement.
- Repeated descriptions of graphic violence and sexual innuendo involving children.
Physical Details
The Slayer’s Guide to Troglodytes is just not up to the standards set by the other guides in this otherwise excellent series. This particular guide lacks some of the refinement of later guides, perhaps because it is only the forth in the series. The guide is a standard 32 pages in length though much of the information could have been imparted in about half that. The price is the usual $9.95. I picked this one up for a song on eBay and that price was far more fair all things considered.
The cover art is perplexing and ill-fitting considering the text in the guide. Essentially the cover depicts three troglodytes in battle pose. The menacing trog at center wields a javelin as does the trog at right. The trog at left wields a scimitar and is riding a giant lizard. The three figures are standing in what appears to be a ruined temple. However, there are some problems with the details of the composition. First, the two javelin wielding trogs are wearing loin cloths in a most human fashion? The text mentions that trogs lack this sort of modesty and, not to put too fine a point on it, the anatomical drawings on the interior fail to even hint at a member to hide beneath a loin cloth. The trogs also have four toes and fingers on their claws while the interior anatomical art depicts five. The temple setting in which they are standing is also confusing. The adventure section in the guide involves a temple: a European monastery. So why then do Egyptian hieroglyphs appear on a stone block in the cover’s foreground? The cover would have been far better if the artist had read the text, examined the interior art and followed suit.
The remaining interior art is spot on. The anatomical drawing on the inside cover is excellent as always and brings the trog form easily to the imagination. The drawings of troglodytes throughout the rest of the guide range from pretty cool to stunning. The lizard rider on page 16 is quite striking in its detail and realism. The only place the interior art collapses is in the adventure section. The overhead drawing of the Shrine of St. Darius is just plain dull and reminded me of the black and white line art in the early days of Dungeon magazine years ago. The map of the shrine on the back cover also lacks a scale or grid making it difficult to use. There are no maps of the above ground structures. The small map of the underground tunnels is also vague, showing neither the tunnels in relation to the underground part of the shrine nor how they connect to it. The adventure text was simply too ambitious demanding better maps and should have been paired down or dropped in favor of something else.
The guide also suffers from heavy redundancy and some ill-conceived ideas about troglodyte aptitudes, covered in the content details section below. The guide also has some minor technical flaws and the habitat and society sections could both use some editorial rearrangement, also discussed further below. There were in places a few questionable choices in adjectives the worst being the use of the word ‘goodly’.
Finally and most seriously, this guide sets off some major parental alarms. The guide contains a description of a trog ceremony involving the debasement and agonizing death of a young child which was at best disturbing and at worst downright offensive. The entertainment value of the guide plunges in those paragraphs and there is no warning at all that this disturbing scene is coming. As if this is not bad enough the scene is reiterated in a different form in a later section of the guide. This emphasis makes it seem that troglodytes especially enjoy children which was probably not the intent. While these scenes are intended to demonstrate, in the most extreme way possible, the demonic cruelty and malice of this evil race, it does so in a sickly gratuitous fashion. Parents should be warned that they may not want their kids to read this work for that reason.
Content Details
The Slayer’s Guide to Troglodytes is divided into several sections:
The Introduction is done well and introduces the trog appropriately, mentioning the almost demonic cruelty and malice they posses. It also promises to change your view of trogs as mere sword fodder as with the other guides in the series and it accomplishes this. The fiction ending the section is cliché.
The Troglodyte Physiology section introduces several key ideas none of which are really all that surprising. The most useful is the idea that trogs grow to their environment and the amount of food they have access to. This is true of reptiles in nature so again, no surprise. What is surprising is how superficial a treatment the troglodyte chameleonic and glandular abilities is given in this section. This is rather disappointing. A deeper explanation of these functions in comparison with creatures found in nature would have been most welcome. Ecological data such as this would have made the monster more believable, suspending disbelief for improved game play. The section mentions nothing about the literal biological function of trog musk glands. Is there a real reptile that exhibits musk glands? How is the musk delivered? Is it excreted from the skin or scales? Are the glands visible or subcutaneous? Can they be attacked or targeted from a game stand point to eliminate their advantage? There is certainly nothing wrong with the quality of the writing in this section, except the lack of emphasis on these two major extraordinary abilities.
The Habitat section is short and redundant. The facts that they live underground and that they grow to the availability of food is restated from previous sections. The subsection regarding the trog underworld and their place in it starts off with some new and interesting information but is cut off before it has a chance to develop into something useful.
The end of the Troglodyte Society section contains a subsection that would have fit better here entitled Relations with Other Races. The way trogs relate to other races would seem to have more to do with their habitat in the underworld than to trog society. Relations with other races are external having more to do with their environment than anything else. The Cavern Lairs subsection in the Troglodyte Society section also belongs in this section since it describes the actual living conditions in a trog lair – in other words, its habitat.
The Troglodyte Society section continues to pound on the idea that trogs grow to the available food supply extending this to tribal structures. The trog “caste system” is relatively unremarkable except that the chieftain controls competition in the tribe by controlling the food supply. This is somewhat counterproductive in game terms and to the purpose of the guide, since the weaker majority members become the cannon fodder the guide is trying to keep trogs from being.
The most problematic part of this section has to do with the “crafter caste”. Capable of forging steel weapons, the “crafter caste” is somewhat poorly thought out. Foremost, since trogs are subterranean monsters possessed of more powerful dark vision than even elves it seems improbable that a trog could or would want to operate a forge. The blinding light of a forge fire would probably be too painful to bear. Also, an examination of the anatomical drawing on the inside cover of the guide shows that trogs have reptilian hands, long claws, and slight webbing between their fingers. Both of these physical features just don’t seem conductive to even mediocre forging ability. The guide claims (in the next section) that trog “javelins fly straighter and truer”. This level of forging expertise just doesn’t seem likely from a physical standpoint.
Running a forge would also require some organization and management of tools and supplies, not the least of which would be coal. The guide states that trog lairs are filthy with bones and garbage strewn at its edges and that all other races are viewed as food. How does the crafter caste manage to overcome their chaotic nature enough to manufacture tools and manage forging resources? How do they manage to acquire enough coal for forging weapons? They are incapable of trading for it because they view other races as food. They are incapable of using slave labor because they would eat the labor force before they could get any mining done. Its improbable that they’d be able to take it from other, usually more powerful underworld races or mine it themselves. Again trog forging ability just doesn’t seem plausible.
The Methods of Warfare section has almost no new information. The verbiage here consists mostly of boasting about their chameleonic ability, javelin use, and precise yet furious ambush tactics that seem improbable the way they’re presented. No mention is made of lizard rider (i.e. cavalry) tactics other than the use of long spears. This section is almost pure filler.
The Role-Playing With Troglodytes section contains some mildly entertaining information about the trog alienesque mindset. By the guide’s own admission role-playing opportunities will be too few and far between to bother with since trogs have little motivation to talk to their food before killing and eating it. Combat will be prevalent. Notes are provided on how to plan a trog community which are somewhat useful, though most of the advice could be used to design pretty much any monster lair. It should be noted that there is no Troglodytes as Characters section as with other guides which is probably as it should be, barring the odd trog raised by lizard men or in captivity.
Scenario Hooks and Ideas contains one or two interesting or unique adventure ideas out of the seven presented.
The Crafters section is ridiculous; it’s doubtful that any game master is going to waste valuable prep time on a prestige class for trogs.
The Shrine of St. Darius is long winded, boring, and over ambitious. The utility of the maps is poor, having no scale, grid, or discernable connectivity to the underground. The fiction ending the section is overdramatic nonsense. This entire section should have been cut in favor of a far more common “Underdeep” scenario.
The Troglodytes Reference List is statistical filler.
Overall Comments
Sorry to say but I would give this particular guide a miss since there are far better ones to spend your hard earned gaming dollars on. Though all too brief, “The Ecology of the Troglodyte” by Spike Y. Jones (Dragon Magazine, November 1996, #235) is a far more interesting treatment of the topic. Foremost, it does a great job of exploring the relationship between the troglodyte language and their musk glands. It also better explains the trog ability to act as one force on the battlefield. It’s also far more entertaining. It just goes to show that newer doesn’t mean better.
