Great flavorful details for creating and descrbing and owlbear nest! I happen to have one right in my players' path for our next session, and this supplement was very fun to go through for details to throw in and bring it to life. Wonderful work as always from Raging Swan.

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The first of the Monstrous Lairs-pdfs clocks in at 8 pages, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, leaving us with 2 pages of content, so let’s take a look!

Sometimes, you just need a bit of dressing for a wayside encounter – or something specific to a monster type. Finding appropriate entries can be rough, and so, this series attempts to remedy this shortcoming on 2 pages, with a total of 7 d10-tables.

In this installment, we take a look at Owlbears and their nests: The first table allows us to describe the approach to the lair, including deep furrows or trees/columns marking the entrance. For a more organic approach, we have “What’s going on” – this table can yield results like sleeping owlbears, ones that scrutinizing a skull in its paw (Alas, dear Yorrick…) or that are just scratching against a wall – nice! 10 notable features include surrounding a massive column (topple it?), fissures, vents or waterfalls, and for more minuscule details, a second table is provided, with hallucinogenic shrooms half eaten, bones etc. Stoned owlbear. I need to inflict that on my players.

Beyond that, the pdf also provides 10 owlbear appearance customizations, like missing its feathers, being old, having a pair of rudimentary skinflaps between its upper arms, and the like – these really rocked! Treasures and trinkets have also been included – a table for each is provided, with the former including cuckoo-style cockatrice eggs in the best, encrusted, filthy silver dinnerware or neatly-tucked away rocks. Hooves with excellent horseshoes and similar remnants of past meals can also be found.

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I noticed no serious hiccups. Layout adheres to Raging Swan Press’ elegant two-column b/w-standard, and we get a nice piece of b/w-artwork. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience, in spite of its brevity (kudos!) and is included in two versions – one optimized for screen-use, and one for the printer.

Mike Welham is a master of writing amazing dressing (and designing all kinds of things!), and it shows here – he has actually managed to inspire me with his tables, and the odd behaviors fit the strangeness that is the owlbear creature to a T. From terrain-relevant components that may influence tactics to the curiosity-inducing details, this humble pdf is a fantastic kickoff for the series. 5 stars + seal of approval. Seriously, for the low asking price, this is definitely worth checking out.

Endzeitgeist out.