Grim Hollow Monster Grimoire Review
Now that the hit piece of Ghostfire Gaming is officially out in physical form, its' time to take a good luck at many of the pieces amongst its' trove of treasures.
Almost 1 Year ago I ordered the Grim Hollow Monster Grimoire, backing the infamous Kickstarter. Ghostfire Gaming has done it again with an incredibly fine product, with some hiccups along the way. The Tier I ordered was the lowest one, but I made sure to add on the things I thought were the most interesting for me. I of course received the Grim Hollow Monster Grimoire and PDF, along with some Stretch Goals that all Backers received. This included the Monster Grimoire Character Sheets PDF, Monster Grimoire Lairs PDF and Soft-Cover booklet along with its’ own map pack, a Grim Hollow Pin, and a fairly large poster of The Great Beast (which also has artwork in the Monster Grimoire itself).
More than that, though, I made sure to order some of the tagline items which peeked my interest most: The Monster Trinkets, the Special Edition book, and the Daemon Oak Miniature. These items were more than worth the wait, and now to discuss each in great detail.
The Monster Grimoire
The base Monster Grimoire is an amazing piece of artwork and highly polished piece of workmanship amongst TTRPG creation. The cover shows a 4-armed undead fighting a Malcinder (A creature within the book). It also shows a creature in the backside of the cover with horns and flowing tentacles and hair coming off its’ body. It of course gives a minor description amongst its’ cover on the backside as well, giving a colorful simple description of the book. Within the book you’ll find wonderful art, great creature stat-blocks, and most importantly new useful mechanics for aspiring DM’s out there short on ways to introduce lore to your players in a way that isn’t Meta-gaming.
Art
The art of the book is top-notch as always, creatures are delightfully horrifying and wonderfully articulated with colors that catch the eye. They also provide the perfect blend of Grimdark, Gothic Horror, Eldritch Horror, and more types of horror within that allows you to evoke imagery of terror for your players. The artwork is evocative and indicative of a general idea around the creature shown. Some stat-blocks don’t have artwork depicting their looks to their strength and weakness. For example, the Candelight Daemon has no description for it, it simply states that its’ a Daemon summoned from the Netherworld (Grim Hollow’s version of hell). Other instances are for NPC stat-blocks which are strengthened by this lack of art, providing a great deal of DM improvisation to foster.
Mechanics
This is the meat and bones of this book. The tag-line improvements on the game are this: Salvage and Lore checks. These two additions to Monster Stat-blocks feel like Natural progressions to the system that aren’t overly burdensome while providing the most important notion for any DM: Tools for Storytelling.
Salvage provides a great idea for creating legends around a creature, perhaps your players need to find a cure for a curse. The Doom Boar will set you straight upon your path, finding them will be an adventure of its’ own. Salvage also provides a great way to include the Magic Item system in Grim Hollow, Magic Items are made from creatures and not overly invented. This is a wonderful tool for building up your characters as forces in the world, depending on their equipment, people may instantly recognize their feats of strength. If you’re wearing Ithjar Hide and wielding an Ithjar lightning spear, people know you’re that strong. Conversely, any DM can use this for evoking the correct imagery for their NPC’s, a Vampire’s minion having a bone sword with the smell of bat on it clearly means business, when it comes to chopping heads off that is.
Lore Checks are a great way for a DM to involve players in the research and knowledge department of the game, it gives creative players and inquisitive players the tools to work within the system rather than metagame about creatures they know between characters. As is the case with the normal game, once you know the weaknesses of a Troll, you rarely forget them between characters, now the DM can typically have you make Checks about such a fact. Of course, a troll would be a DC10 Intelligence (History) or Wisdom (Perception) check to either remember or note that fact on the fly. This is a great way to make sure your players are involved with the game in a healthier manner than just metagaming.
Creatures
The creatures in the book are all top-notch, they also have great ideas involving many of the creature types within. The boat-load of creature types are Aberration, Celestial, Dragons (minorly), Fiends, Fey, Humanoids, Monstrosities, and Undead, along with a fairly small section on the strange beasts of Etharis. Each creature type’s listed creatures are incredibly iconic, well thought out, and provide a major picture on the state of Etharis’ creatures. The most important nature of these new creatures is that many of them are rated much more intelligently around how Magic Items and Feats currently work. Many high CR creatures are now much more resilient than previous supplements, excepting the newly released Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (A topic for another time). My favorite among the High CR creatures is the Angel of Empyreus and Gegazol, the highest Challenge Rating creature in the book (CR24). Of course, you can’t include The Great Beast in that calculation, as it has no CR and is therefore more powerful than all of the rest.
There are hiccups here and there however, the aforementioned Angel of Empyreus has a strange calculation going on, it has a +24 to hit with its Holy Avenger. Now, that’s the highest bonus to hit amongst all creatures in the game. It has a 29 (+9) Strength, a +7 Proficiency Bonus, and is wielding a +3 Magical weapon in the form of a Holy Avenger, add that all up and you get +19. So, where’s that +5 bonus coming from?
Other issues come in the form of editing issues such as grammar, words not being put in alphabetical order, and other instances of words having extra letters or other misplaced words. This is overall a very small issue with the book.
Chapter 2: Vampires
This chapter is by far one of the most important chapters in the book. It describes updated, and most importantly, improved stat-blocks for vampires for more interesting gameplay around them. Like other entries in the book, it lists Lore, Salvage, and a general description. The vampire stat-block in base-game has always felt lacking to me, and these stat-block updates have made those worries disappear like mist.
Within the changes, they have taken the route of the Dragon, there is now Vampire Spawn, Young Vampire, Adult Vampire, and Ancient Vampire, along with Age listings (unlike for the dragons in the Monster manual, how confusing is that?) You also have listings of specific vampire lineages for specific humanoid creature types within the book, except for the Disembodied that is. Bugbears, Downcast, Dragonborn, Dreamers, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, Laneshi, and Ogresh are all covered at least at one stage of vampirism. Each offers interesting ideas for each stage of life and gives a clear indication of key abilities that each form of vampire can now take. These entries are incredibly helpful for designing vampires of a specific humanoid slant, my favorite is the normal stat-block however, as it has the most general use.
Chapter 3: Mastering Intelligent Monsters
This section of 6 pages is ultimately very helpful for any DM, an experienced DM won’t have much use for this section however. The most important note here is that any aspiring DM will find this section immensely useful for an analysis on the game at large. It has obvious information about the action economy and special actions of the game, and less obvious strategies around tactics that you may not even think of when deciding the location of a monsters’ encounter. It has a lot of information, so read it yourself if you’re an aspiring DM, I would recommend it greatly, as it provides amazing DM tools.
Chapter 4: Magic Items
Besides monsters, this is the juicy part of the meal when it comes to DM’ing. More than the new toys to fight your players with, giving them new toys is always fun for your players. The magic items section is not a complete reckoning of many of the new magic item, or pseudo-magic item, entries listed in the Salvage section of monsters. It does however provide a great way to introduce many new magic items as part of the game, as described before, because magic items come from creatures primarily rather than creations of the distant past, it gives a great way to world build with your NPC’s. Some minor, or major depending on the way you look at it, with this chapter come from the balancing of some of the magic items in it. The Caustic Rapier is described as a rapier fashioned from the mandibles of a Hivewolf (A giant Ant with some features of a wolf). It lists the rarity as Rare, however, it has a +2 Magical bonus to hit and damage, deals an additional 7 (2d6) Acid damage on a roll of 19-20, and grants immunity to Acid damage while wielding the weapon. This item in base game rules would easily qualify as at the very least Very Rare, and at the more likely end Legendary.
Other items in this section are wholly interesting and very good story items or rewards for the defeat of powerful enemies, such as Coldrazor the handaxe wielded by Runa Banasar, and a weapon truly worthy of Legendary status.
The Monster Grimoire (Special Edition)
The book comes in a wonderfully supple Red Leather with gold filigree for its wording. It otherwise has little to no changes as the base book, it smells like leather though, which is an amazing upside. This book won’t be reprinted, ever again, so I count my lucky stars it didn’t come damaged, and I still have it.
Lairs of Etharis & Lairs of Etharis Map Pack
This piece of work is one of the more wonderful additions to the Stretch Goals of the Kickstarter. The lairs presented provide very interesting stories around many of the famous foes of the book, and they also seem very well balanced for the higher-level Lairs, as its’ almost impossible to challenge High Level Characters without a great deal of understanding around their capabilities. However, the quality of these miniature stories isn’t the coolest part of the Lairs of Etharis, its’ the 1-1 maps that come with it and are Miniature compatible. The maps that come with it are made of a durable paper that folds out and are double-sided, they are each 1-inch representations of the map, you can actually set your Miniatures on it and your players can interact with the amazing artwork of each Lair.
Grim Hollow Character Sheets
These PDF sheets are wonderful additions to any pen & paper game that can be played, too bad they aren’t a preset for dndbeyond. They feature a grimdark aesthetic that provides you that oomph of atmosphere needed for your character sheets. What’s more is that it lists Grim Hollow specific mechanics released in other supplements for the game, Transformations. It also has a very helpful area for companion creatures. The only criticism I have is that it’s not a fillable PDF, so you can’t do it all by computer, Pen & Paper is what you’ve got with it.
Poster of the Great Beast
This large poster depicts The Beast in all its’ infamy, it has a crown of antlers, a dead appearance, and it towers over the trees. Its nature is corruptive, and so there are corrupted Hogs, rabbits and other unidentifiable creatures within its’ poster, along with a great deal of mist and clouds covering the sky around. The poster is great for hanging on whatever wall you wish to adorn with the majesty that is The Beast.
Grim Hollow Pin
This pin isn’t the sturdiest on its’ opening mechanisms, at least for me. One side of the clipping mechanism doesn’t open too well. The pin is otherwise a nice look at a metallic work made by Ghostfire Gaming, it has a glossy sheen and mirrors the Grim Hollow Logo to a tee.
Grim Hollow Stickers
These stickers are a great way to show your love of the game, I’ve got two of them on my computer as we speak. The Giant Gasdra sticker, and the Grim Hollow sticker (of which there are three), other stickers include the following: Empyrean Knight, Aberrant Horror (Shifting Hulk), Bugbear, Hurrock, Night Serpent, Troll Zombie, Shadowsteel Ghoul, Lich Troll, Wandering Head (First Page). Second Page: All of the various non-human vampires, the Primordial Trolls (Fireborn, Stoneborn, Seaborn, and Windborn). Third Page: Poppet Demon, Tar Creep, Box-Bound Jack, Dolly, Bloody Teddy, Marie O’nett, Wandering Eye, Wretched Reveler, Jack-out-the-box.
The stickers represent their in-book counterparts art, and are great to see, even downsized.
Grim Hollow Trinkets
These wonderful trinkets come in a box called “The Book of Forgotten Spells” which is red and has silver text upon it. It’s quite thick (to contain the trinkets themselves) and is wonderful to look at and prop up. My shipment came with one broken unfortunately, the Eldritch Larvae. By broken I mean that the Glass dome they are all under was broken. Within the felt box are 4 trinkets: A Danxoni Eye, an Eldritch Larvae, a Talisman of Brimstone, and a Witches Poppet. Each one is incredibly well made and amazing to look at. Each one also of course has a unique aspect about it. The Eldritch Larvae glows in the dark (assuming you let it absorb light), the Danxoni Eye has glass in its’ construction for the pupil, the Talisman of brimstone has a shiny polymer of “gold” in it, and the Witches Poppet has the texture of burlap sack and actual hair in it. Each one, except for my Eldritch Larvae, rests under a 2” x 3” glass dome with a sticker telling you what it is upon it.
Gargantuan Miniature: Daemon Oak
The Daemon Oak miniature, despite its’ in book counterpart stating its’ Huge, is an amazing piece of work by the Ghostfire Team. It requires hours of building, and I would recommend Plastic Cement to do so, but the result is worth it to build. It comes in a naturally grey plastic that probably doesn’t need painting to get the correct color of bark as compared to the book (unless you want a darker shade), but it does require some painting which any aspiring miniature collector would want to do (Myself included). The miniature is amazing to look at and has a high level of detail.
Final Verdict
The product, while being flawed at many points, provides huge leaps and bounds for DM tools. As a DM product, I cannot stress how awesome this book is for creating world-building and storytelling through creatures, it doesn’t put it all on you to come up with everything. I would give this product a 5/5.
I do not own any photos published in this article, Grim Hollow is owned by Ghostfire Gaming and its partners. This review is my own personal opinions on the products released in a public capacity.