In the role playing world, Mummies and Vampires are far more notorious than there ancient monster lore brother Frankenstein. Even the wolf man has more movies, booksand RPG supplements.
Apparently someone at UKG publishing felt sorry for classic monster and decided to dedicate 124 pages of ink to Frankenstein, for flesh golems in d20 language, in The Immortal: Unliving. Once again, the publishers that brought us Year of the Zombies and Immortal: Vampires, stitch together the wonders of fantasy and the horrors of unnatural creations to present a great read for d20 and horror fans alike.
The Immortal series takes an iconic horror monster and creates a d20 sourcebook around that monster complete with history, variations, ideas, magical items and role playing tips. Unliving is focused on the flesh golem. I had not thought much about the Flesh Golem before reading this book, but the crafty writing and solid ideas are enough to inspire a DM to include flesh golems as often as you do lycanthropes and blood suckers.
Unliving begins with a short introduction and history of the Frankstein in history and in the d20 world. The writing is informative without being textbook. The section is lengthy, very much enough to be its own chapter. There is some really good advice on how classes relate to the flesh golem and a good little write up on the differences between a flesh golem and an undead creature. The section carries into the mechanics of the flesh golem in Chapter One. The new feats, skills and mechanics all help integrate a flesh golem into being a solid normal member of a party. The new skills assist creation and the feats are needed to balance out the lack of healing and armor negatives of the monster. The optional rules is the masterpiece of the section, detailing mechanical changes that may be needed to a campaign world to make flesh golems a possibility.
Chapter 2 lists 26 flesh, mechanical and unliving monsters. Despite their similarities, none of them seem to retread over the other one. This makes for a very useful book even if you ever have the need for a living construct. The final chapter turns the table and focuses on the creator of the flesh golem, the mad scientist. Though the weakest part of the book, it was enjoyable to see the thought put into the prestige classes and science of the unliving.
For the Player
Unliving makes the flesh golem a viable race choice for a player looking to do something different. Your character will obviously need to stick to feats from this book considering you?ll want the extra healing and weapon bonuses provided by things like Divine Spark and Shocking Jolt.
For the DM,
The Optional Rules section is a treasure trove of interesting spins to put on a campaign helping you add important PC characteristics such as memory, weaknesses and pain. There?s also the possibility of interchangeable parts for more scientific campaigns.
The Iron Word
UKG does a nice job of taking a class and expanding on it so well that you could base an entire campaign around it. The rules introduced are balanced enough to make the flesh golem usable without overpowering it. It almost feels as if they introduced a new type of creature.
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<b>LIKED</b>: - Lots of detail and creativity into a normally underused monster
- artwork brings you, its not overpowering
- there are lots of feats and options for players and the dm. Though i was a bit miffed that the mad scientist class did not come with a henchmen<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - The mad scientist section should have been given more options and attention. Coming after the monster section, it feels as if its thrown in the back of the book because its incomplete. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>
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