Anyway. With that preamble done, let's look at some monsters.
A rattlesnake crossed with a Komodo dragon. Rather than venom, you suffer a random disease.
Reptiles with horrible Save or Suck effects are nothing new to the OSR. But the entry comes with a D12 table for generating random diseases. Festering Cough, which makes it impossible to sleep. Gripping Scabs, which makes you fail all Saves vs Poison. Night Duchess Boils, which blinds you in one eye.
3/5. A solid start.
ARCANIS ARACHNI
Magical spiders that weave their webs into random spell scrolls. This rocks. Monsters like this make it clear why anyone would bother venturing into this book's horrible eldritch woodlands. I really love that the spiders aren't sentient arachnoid wizards. They're just stupid animals that spew out magic.
5/5. If the entire book was like this, I would recommend it to everyone.
BAUIK
A clever monsterman with an unlimited use Charm Person. That's bad news right there. Intelligent monsters capable of spamming disabling effects at range are nearly impossible to deal with if you don't alpha strike them first. I should know, having just made a dungeon filled with them.
What makes this critter really nasty is its Lightless Lair ability, filling its dungeon of choice with a darkness that even defeats even magical illumination like Continual Light or Daylight. Combine this with its ability to squeeze through spaces as small as 1', and its home is going to be a cramped nightmare realm of Save or Suck bullshit. At least Charles says its lair is filled with loot (though the book lacks monster treasure).
I don't think treasure hunters would ever try to fight this thing. Given it only stockpiles metallic treasures, and eats anything made of cloth (e.g. scrolls), I imagine they just set its cave on fire and smoke it out.
2/5. Could be worse, but there's nothing special here beyond the extreme difficulty of fighting it. Being able to chop its tongue off for a permanent charisma boost is neat I guess.
BLIGHT MOTES
Flying undead that smell of cat piss, with a touch attack that destroys your rations. These critters suck, but that might be a good thing. Into the Wyrd & Wild tries to do the Veins Of The Earth thing of encouraging the players to eat the monsters they kill. But it lacks an equivalent of the elegant hunger mechanic that Patrick included for his book.
An ambush by Blight Motes could be a good excuse for why a competent group of well-supplied adventurers is left in the wilderness without a bite to eat. Now they have to engage in the butchering mini-game to chopshop dead enemies into rations.
3/5. I like the detail of hunters using metal trinkets to distract them; trapping the Mote in a recursive loop from facing something they can't rot with their touch attack. The art is the usual exposed-skull cryptid look.
BLUKSTOUND
A giant wolf made of splinters. The statblock is fine, with a leap attack it assumedly opens combat with, a cookie cutter multiattack, and an annoying debuff thanks to all the splinters now sticking out of you.
What makes this monster good is the loot. Each Blukstound comes with a random, powerful potion flowing through its veins. I especially like that each sap variety has an associated colour, which Blukstounds will conveniently glow. Is it a video game-esque contrivance? Maybe, but who cares.
4/5. The statblock is basic, but the stuff you can pull from its corpse is fun. I'm sensing a theme here.
BRAMBLEBEAST
A monster with a giant pile of HP, a nasty chance to grapple a target, and a multiattack that deals additional damage if both attacks strike the same target. Stats as Bear stays winning.
The infection this thing doles out is nasty. I like the implication that it won't maul you to death, but leave you alive for the infection to take its course. The loot is just a suit of nonmagical armour that makes your unarmed attacks deal more damage. Ironically, D&D's premiere unarmed class is well known for being unable to wear armour. Whoops.
2/5. Nothing too interesting, but still a decent twist on an OSR staple.
BRIARSCOFFS
Tiny tumbleweeds with a massive Number Appearing. I don't know why these things have individual statblocks. We've had statistics for swarm monsters since kingdom come.
0/5. Boring and tedious to fight.
CACOPHONOUS CROWMEN
Insane monstermen that are immune to being surprised. Their damage is piddly and their defences are terrible, but they appear in decent numbers and can fly. Their gimmick is a chip-damage AOE that requires a CON Save to avoid. Really not a big fan of this. I can't see these assholes being fun to fight.
Their AOE attack is especially strange when you realise the one piece of pseudo-loot they offer is a table of random effects you get by listening to them. But considering it requires an hour of uninterrupted exposure, and you're potentially taking 1 damage every round...
1/5. Saved a rock-bottom score by the fact that the table is kinda neat.
CHERUB
Another flying monsterman who screams at you. These are better than Crowmen, because at least Charles tells us how many are required to trigger their vocal attack. They also engage with the book's Exhaustion mechanics, which is alright I guess.
2/5. It's fine. I don't know why the stats refer to "Save vs Charm". The book swaps between 5e and OSE-adjacent terminology, likely in an effort to appear system-neutral. This probably fell through the cracks.
CHILDREN OF THE WOODS
Overpowered beastmen loners with confused lore. I've never used these guys. They'd be better suited as a playable race in one of the supernumerary 5e splatbooks littering the web, and I don't mean that as a complement.
1/5. Uninteresting, but not outright terrible. The table could be useful.
CINDERSHAM
Feline ambush predators that lure in prey with a pseudo-campfire. These guys are really cool. They've got a wide range of attacks to employ, a nasty modus operandi for surprising the PCs, and directly tie into the book's themes about being a city-dwelling jobber lost in an evil forest.
And once again, their loot is great fun. This time it's a double feature, we can harvest fire-resistant armour from their hide, and an powerful incendiary grenade from their guts.
4/5. A solid monster with amusing art. Reminds me of the Cheshire Cat.
CURSEWEALD
A tree that can throw out Sleep spells and strangle you up to 50' away. Combine that with high HD and great AC, and you've got a nasty combo for a TPK - assuming you're within range. Otherwise this thing is a pushover. Once it's out of Sleeps, just pelt it with arrows until you chunk through its giant pool of HP.
Funnily enough, the uncommon loot is the better of the two. Advantage on all saves and free HP regeneration for an entire day is good stuff. The rarer items are exemplars of an unfortunate trend we'll see plenty of in this book - vaguely evocative slop without any mechanics behind it. I know Patrick is also guilty of this, but his prose tends to be a lot better. Sorry Charles.
2/5. If I had to use this, it'd be as a set piece. The evil tree bushwhacks the party and they have to flee out of its effective range, maybe snagging a magical fruit on their way out.
DEVIL STAG
A bulk-standard demonic entity that offers Faustian bargains in exchange for your firstborn child, immortal soul, blah blah blah. Been there, done that, got the scars.
1/5. The loot is fine, but the mechanics are unnecessarily messy. "Cast like a spell 1d6 times per day". Just give us a set number of per day uses, or limited charges like a wand.
DIRE HORSEHAIR WORM
A giant aquatic parasite with an overcomplicated and lengthy blurb for its attack. I'd complain, but OSE is full of stuff like this. To this point, it reminds me of the Rot Grub, except you can actually pull this thing out with a Strength roll before it kills you.
2/5. Nothing special, but I think this thing would be fun to fight and freak the players out.
DRAGON TICKS
Bucket-sized insects that suck your blood out through their adamantine teeth. I like that their magical mandibles are an overengineered atavism intended to parasitise dragons, but now repurposed for cracking open armoured adventurers like a can opener.
I also enjoy how they transmute the extracted blood into a powerful healing draught, that not only regenerates HP but maximises the effects of your next spell. It's easy to imagine an amoral wizard setting up a farm of these things, feeding hapless victims to the bugs in exchange for infinite mana potions.
4/5. As a bonus note, it's fun that their AC worsens once they're engorged with blood.
DRYADI
These are knockoff Wood Elves. They aren't evil or scary or even weird. They're just whimsical forest folk. I thought the point of Into the Wyrd & Wild was creating this nightmare realm of branch and bone.
And sure, having non-hostile demihumans around could be useful as allies or traders. But see above. We've already got those in spades.
1/5. Why are they in this book?
ETHER RAT
This is just a Blink Dog. If you're gonna rip off an existing monster, at least do something niche.
0/5. The random tables don't save it this time. See my previous complaint about vaguely evocative slop that isn't actually useful in a game.
FALSE BEGGAR
An overpowered monsterman that upholds the moral law. Fail to show charity, humility, or common courtesy and it blasts you with an unremovable curse. I've used this guy once before, but nothing much came of it. I think the PCs just asked him for directions and moved on.
Given the long-lived online fixation with faeries that beat your ass for obtuse or ridiculous transgressions, I can see why Charles included False Beggars. But I don't see what purpose they serve. Either, like in my game, the players are cordial and nothing happens, or they piss it off and get a nasty permanent debuff. The writeup pays lip service to the Beggar doling out "great boons or secrets" as rewards for hospitality, but never gives any examples.
2/5. This isn't terrible, and the rhyming curses are alright.
Knight who went on a chevauchée Into the Wyrd & Wild (titlecard) and got devolved into feral, cannibalistic maniacs as karmic punishment. They appear as dying men imprisoned in rusted armour, covered in beautiful greenery and forest critters. I imagine they stay still to blend into the undergrowth and prevent their maille rattling, before surging out with their leap attack to open combat.
These monsters hit all the thematic points I expect from this book. Their primal savagery also cuts both ways, with them being moronic muscletanks that are easily manipulated or lured by clever adventurers.
5/5. The D10 table of descriptive text, signature weapons, and backgrounds is an added bonus.
GASTROPAL
A flesh parasite that offers symbiotic powerups to adventurers, in exchange for sucking nutrients out of their skin and being kept safe. I like these little guys. Instead of hitting you with a Save or Suck, they bargain with you. This is what the Devil Stag should have been.
The powerups themselves are quite good, but not overtuned. Taking half falling damage, getting innate leather armour, repelling wild animals. I can see adventurers being tempted to let these weird things suck their blood in exchange for advantage on Saves vs Poison.
3/5. My main hangup is there isn't actually any downside for these things parasitising you, nor anyway for them to stop you removing them. Without that, they're just a magic item with biopunk theming.
GOEROE
A massive aquatic ambush predator that swallows you whole. Hardly breaking new ground. Oh, and it also hits you with a Save or Suck fear effect.
1/5. Pulling out its eye for advantage on saves against fear-effects is alright, but it sucks that it only lasts an hour. Either make it actual immunity, or give it a longer duration.
GRIMMKING
If the dragon is the poster child of D&D, the Grimmking is the equivalent for Into the Wyrd & Wild. I don't say this because it's the best entry, just that Charles repeatedly name drops this thing throughout the book, using it liberally in the random tables and lore entries.
It's a gigantic pile of HD that can sling out 9th level spells, can't be trapped or slowed, and hits anyone nearby with constant mutations and debuffs. I'm not a fan. This thing doesn't even drop loot, meaning there's no reason to fight it. And based on the context clues, I don't think Charles intended for it to be fought, but merely ran from. But then why make it immune to being slowed down or immobilised?
This is an environmental set piece disguised as a monster statblock.
1/5. The random tables are quite good, if we ignore how horribly unfair they are to the players.
GRIPPLE BATS
Flying planes of flesh that fuse themselves to your flesh, forcing you to flay yourself alive to get them off. Hell yeah. These things are nasty and gross, with an interesting mode of attack. The fact that they also hunt via thermal signatures resembles Gene Wolfe's Notules, which I recently adapted myself.
We also get great loot, where the fusing properties of the Gripple Bat's skin is repurposed into a bandage. This reminds me of the descriptive text for bandages in Brigador Killers. Maybe Gripple Bat skin should be psychosomatically addictive and/or leave distinct scarring patterns.
4/5. Good stuff.
HERMIT SPIDER
A giant spider with a non-venomous bite. Its gimmick is that it hides inside hollow logs, using them as a protective shell. This is an alright spin on a classic monster. I would prefer the random table be for generating interesting shells, rather than minor loot items.
2/5. It would've been higher if the treasure had beaten the vaguely evocative slop allegations. "A fishnet satchel containing 1d6 colorful potions. Half are beneficial, the other half are dangerous."
JUNKENROTTER
A massive beastie with confused lore about it being able to control the flow of time. But I won't dock it any points for that, given I just wrote an adventure with a poorly explained temporal anomaly.
Junkenrotter have great HP, decent AC, and a wide panoply of abilities. It makes attacks at advantage from seeing into the future, inflicts randomised diseases, and inflicts bonus damage that assumedly damages or destroys non-magical equipment. These effects are fun and powerful, but could've used a second editing pass to clean up some of the language.
The loot here is very cool. You can eat a Junkenrotter's eyeball to gain a single reroll. In the OSR, where metacurrency is decidedly sparse, this is a powerful boon. But it gets better. Particularly deranged PCs can implant the eyeball into their skull and gain d6 rerolls every day, at the risk of going insane.
4/5. Tuatara. See what the lizard sees.
An evil cave that punishes you for interacting with it. What is this, Delta Green? This is another environmental hazard disguised as a monster statblock.
0/5. The XP is listed as ??? Cute.
KYROKOGRIM
A Swedish religious monster that's all exposed organs and animal parts. What is this, Mork Borg? This eldritch critter has a Save or Suck fear-effect, at-will teleportation, and a once per day banishment attack that reminds me of the Dimensional Shambler from CoC/DG. At least it doesn't kill you outright.
2/5. There's ample opportunity for a cool loot item here. Pity we didn't get one. I think the banishment attack could've used a buff. Either make it hit harder, or remove the once per day limitation.
LINNORM
Another 20 HD monster that Charles uses repeatedly throughout the book, especially in the Wilderness Dungeon sections. Similar to the Grimmking, I'm not impressed. This thing is apparently a mile long, spits Cloudkills, flings out even more 9th level spells, and spawns 10 HD worth of minions to fuck with you.
Oh, and it has a 50% chance to reflect spells cast at it.
And not a single piece of loot to speak of. At least we get some semi-useful lore. These guys hate dragons with a passion, so maybe you can sic them on a flying reptile and let them duke it out.
1/5. Confused design, barely gameable.
LIVING IDOL
A sentient object of worship that abuses Charm Person to force people into idolatry. I really like that this thing scales with the number of worshippers, boosting its HD for every 5. It can also grant said followers advantage on their rolls, once per turn.
Aside from its charm effect, this thing doesn't have much going for it. The real fight is going to be whatever worshippers it has accumulated. I wish Charles had included a Number Appearing for the jobbers following the Idol around. In lieu of that, I'd roll up a handful of low-level adventuring parties, plus some 0th or 1st level humanoids to round out the roster.
3/5. The random table for generating new idols is pretty good.
MIRE GHOST
A ghost with a 50% chance to resurrect after you kill it. Which is bullshit. At least it can't level drain.
1/5. Saved a lower score thanks to the inclusion of some banishing rituals. That's fun.
MOONSLAVER
A giant glowing bug that, like the Living Idol, uses mind-control to dominate lesser beings. Except this time we actually get a Number Appearing for its brainwashed minions. Very good. The Moonslaver's innate Charm AOE is nasty, luring people close enough to get lobotomised. But if you can resist that, it's stuck with a piddly 1d6 tendril attack.
A fun detail is the Moonslaver's minions can act like normal people, so long as they don't move more than a mile away from their alien master. With a NA of 4d6 thralls, this means we're probably going to find one of these things in a small hamlet or caravan. No doubt the PCs will end up in a Shadow Over Innsmouth or Wickerman situation, where the locals try to lure them into the bug's loving embrace.
We also get some good loot here. A cloak of perpetual moonlight, and the possibility of surgically implanting the bug's domination ability into someone. Good fun.
4/5. I only wish we got some guidelines on the minions following the Moonslaver. From the art we can see a brainwashed dog, which implies that non-human entities can also be controlled by the insect.
Zombies à la the Last Of Us, controlled not by necromancy but a parasitic fungus. We've arguably had these things for a while, thanks to the zombie-raising abilities of Myconid Kings. But Charles' zombies are substantively different, and include a mechanised disease for their spread - the Rotten Masque.
Creatures like this are good examples of pseudo-undead, things that look like zombies, skeletons, ghosts etc., but aren't. They were a deliberate attempt by Gygax to fuck with his Clerics, tricking them into firing off a Turn Undead only for it to do nothing. ShutteredRoom has an entire series going through this genre of monsters. I wouldn't be surprised if fungal zombies made an appearance.
When I used a similar critter in my Serpentman's Sacrament dungeon, I deliberately avoided making them pseudo-undead. They're the foremost combat threat in the dungeon, and cucking Clerics out of doing their core class ability didn't sit well with me, especially for a low-level scenario.
3/5. An example of a fresh take on a classic monster.
Sentient ooze that feeds on the memories of intelligent creatures. Despite being described as having a genius-level intellect, the slime only cares about eating people's brains and reproducing. I don't mind this.
Running super-intelligent monsters is a pain in the ass, because I am not myself super-intelligent. This is why the Mi-Go in my Mythic Outback are headless, and the Elder Things are all degenerate morons. Placing strict limits on such monsters' behaviour is a cheap trick for making things easier for the GM.
3/5. I like that the slime's attack temporarily buffs your intelligence. I can imagine wizards and academics getting addicted to this. Or adventurers capturing an Oracle Sludge and bringing it back to civilisation so that university students can get blasted and cheat on their exams.
PRIMAL SKAAL
Intelligent but insane elk (?) with bardic abilities. There's fluff text that they used to be sorcerer kings before the Wilds struck them down for their impudence. So similar to the Feral Knights in that regard.
These are a solid enemy. They have a pseudo-Silence effect, where their song drowns out enemy casters. If you get too close, they hit you with a powerful sonic attack. If that doesn't work, they can always trample you to death. The Skaal also chooses from a wide array of debuffs to inflict on its enemies, without a Save. It can swap between these every turn, giving it some really good flexibility in combat.
4/5. You can loot the Skaal's magical horn and use its Primal Song, if you're musically talented. That's fun. I wish there was a set AOE for this ability. Especially for the constant chip damage option. If that's got a mile radius, the Skaal could wipe out a party before it ever came into sight.
QUILLUFFS
A kiwi crossed with an echidna. Walking balls of spikes that can eject all their spines at once in a devastating AOE attack. For a 2 HD monster, they can really punch above their weight class.
A cute little monstrosity with surprisingly high Morale and great DPS. Don't let their silly appearance fool you, Quilluffs don't come to play.
3/5. Looting their quills is neat, but again we're lacking any real mechanics for what they do.
RAVAGERS
Bandits, brigands, and outlaws with a zooanthropic bent. Real SHOUT-REVEL-KILL material. This is an answer as to what happens to all the people who go crazy in the Wilds. They turn into these assholes.
The statblocks here are mostly superfluous. You could easily get away with using stats as Bandit, or equivalent level Fighters. Still, there's a few bespoke statblocks and a table of unique mutations.
2/5. A workhorse humanoid enemy with variety and scaling. The book's equivalent of orcs or goblins.
RITTERMOTE
I'm torn on the Rittermote. Thematically it's all off. A whimsical mothman that dwells in the Wild, yet adheres to civilised virtues of chivalry, honourable combat, and camraderie? The entire point of this book is the civilised world versus the primal wilderness. Forgive the pun, but this flies in the face of that.
That being said, the Rittermote was a smash hit with my home group. My players absolutely loved this freaky little guy, even after he beat their asses in a fair fight. They still talk about the combat to this day. And the statblock also comes with an array of unique combat manoeuvres, which the moth will teach PCs as a reward. Given the relative blandness of OSR fighter-types, such gimmicks are a welcome change.
Am I out of touch? No, it's the players who are wrong.
4/5. Take it or leave it. I think Charles knew this one was a fan favourite, because he commissioned fresh art for the book's 2nd edition. It's pretty good.
ROOT-TROLL
It's a suped-up troll that speaks for the trees. It can also command plants. Not terrible, it at least works thematically with the whole corrupting influence of the Wilds. Even classic monsters aren't immune.
2/5. I'm reminded of later editions of D&D penchant for stacking more modifiers and subcategories onto existing monsters. Check out my crystalline, undead angelic dragon infested with Mind Flayer tadpoles.
ROYAL FOX
Aha! I get to repeat my criticism of the Rittermote without needing to walk it back two sentences later. These magical vulpines have a pile of randomised immunities, many of which aren't actual damage types. Oh and they can cast 5th level spells.
1/5. Thematically odd. I don't mind talking animals in my fantasyslop, but we can do a lot better.
SHAMBLERS
People driven insane by the Wilds. Why do we need these? I thought Ravagers covered our bases for people corrupted by the evil forest. They're also another example of pseudo-undead, being "dead in all but flesh". These are a worse version of the Cholerids that Patrick included for Veins Of The Earth.
0/5. Just use normal zombies.
SKUNK APE
As I understand, this is an American cryptid of some mild repute. I'm not familiar with cryptozoology on the other side of the pond, so I can't comment there. But regarding the stats, we've got several options for Number Appearing, a handful of useful buffs, and a once-per-day hulk out they can use to lay on the hurt.
The loot is mediocre unfortunately. A pelt so smelly it gives you advantage on "other smell-based saves". Does that include gas attacks? Or is it exclusively other stinky monsters? Off the top of my head, all I can think of is the Ghast. I'd personally rule it makes you immune to Sleep while worn, because that's funny.
3/5. I wish Charles had clarified what "being nauseated" means. If its equivalent to 5e's Poisoned condition, that's a powerful debuff.
SLAVERN
A fucked up wolf that spews acid. This thing is like a faster Rust Monster, zooming after you and melting all your shit with its acidic vomit. Sometimes they hunt in pairs. I can imagine stacking their DOTs could really lay on the hurt fast. Good stuff.
I like the detail taken when explaining Slavern anatomy. It melts meat to slurp it up like a spider. The half-digested slop is a great fertiliser, leading to so-called "Slavern Groves" filled with lush vegetation, and a proliferation of prey animals. This is good lore, because it informs gameplay.
4/5. Once again, we get a nice double feature of loot. Acid resistant armour, and a corrosive grenade. Is this a repeat of the Cindersham? Yes. But anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
SNUFF HOUNDS
Small coyote-like dogs with heads like smouldering candles. Speaking of the Cindersham, these things are basically the inverse of that critter. They eat fire, be it mundane or magical. They're essentially a nuisance monster, snuffing torches and extinguishing campfires. Adding to this, they're also fast and are difficult to hit with ranged attacks.
I like that they're not actually aggressive towards humans. They're just there to eat your light sources and run away. Another great detail is how outdoorsmen will glut the beasts with a massive bonfire, so that they leave them alone later. This critter feels like a real animal, with understandable motivations and behaviours, whilst still have a magical twist. Good job Charles.
5/5. The loot here is great. If you manage to kill a Snuff Hound, probably by trapping it or running it down with movement buffs, its mane can be turned into magical leather armour with the same protection versus missile attacks. I imagine Thieves and Rangers would love this.
SPARKLIGHT CANARIES
Keeping with the "mundane animal but with extra fire" theme we've got going, the Sparklight Canary is a magical bird with a kamikaze explosion on death. The book recommends using them as lanterns if you can't afford oil, but I can't imagine players wanting to carry around a bomb as a lightsource.
It's more likely they rig up a highly unethical hand grenade with the poor critter, or abuse Speak With Animals / Charm Animals to turn it into an airborne suicide bomber. And that rocks.
4/5. VBIED move aside, BBIED are the hot new thing.
SPINDLE CATS
A predatory cat with hypnotic eyes that paralyse anyone looking at them. Basically a Necrophidius if it could climb, was twice as fast, didn't require a surprise round, and with a 1d6 NA. Nasty stuff.
2/5. Unpleasant to fight, but not outright terrible. The entry does talk about hunters needing to be wary, but why would anyone bother? They don't drop any loot. Maybe as a pest control measure.
SKULK
An overpowered boogeyman, complete with an accompanying nursery rhyme and big antlers. Real cryptid slop. It's fine. The thing can teleport between trees at will, extinguish lightsources, and unleash a decent multiattack. It'd be nasty to be worn down by this monster's hit-and-teleport attacks, but it's description and appearance just aren't that evocative to me.
3/5. The uncommon loot is the Skulk's blood, which is apparently worth a lot of gold. I've been asking for monster treasure, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. But its flayed hide is very powerful, granting the wearer the Skulk's (possibly infinite range?) teleportation ability.
TRUNK WORMS
A tree made of worms that falls on top of you. A trap disguised as a monster statblock, but that's about half of OSE. It's not terrible, and has a nice grisly description. The loot isn't very good.
2/5. The damage is pretty overtuned for a 1 HD monster. 10d6 damage? Ouch. At least this comes from an attack, not a saving throw, so it'd be mercifully inaccurate.
WEALD SIRENS
These are just normal sirens, but in the woods instead of the sea. The statblock even calls this out. Though they do rely on smell instead of sound, so maybe we've found a use for the Skunk Ape pelts?
The use of pheromones to lure horny men to their deaths reminds me of a fan theory I read about Severian's assault of Jolenta in The Claw of the Conciliator. The user theorised the horrible act was caused by him being mind-controlled by a perfume laced into her skin by the fleshworking of Dr. Talos. Victim-blaming cope or interesting theorycrafting? I lean towards the former.
1/5. A copy of an existing monster. Charles commissioned fresh art for the 2nd edition - an adventurer about to be devoured by naked women with lots of teeth and tattoos. It's a pretty good drawing, but one that I won't reproduce here for fear of Blogger nuking this post.
VAMPYLF
A bloodthirsty bat chimera. This statblock posits that vampirism came from a zoonotic spillover event, jumping from the animal kingdom to humans in the distant past. That's a fun theory, and is a thematic way to include vampires in the book. Like the Bramble Beast, this is a powerful melee bruiser that will hold off killing you, waiting for the vampirism to do its work.
The statblock comes with a mechanical explanation of how Feral Vampirism operates, which is a pleasant departure from much of the book. They're also an inverse of pseudo-undead, being something that looks like a normal monster but counts as undead. I like this. With the right intel, the party knows to bring holy water and throw out Turnings.
4/5. Solid entry. I think I've used this guy a few times.
VERMINCAUST
Last but not least. A giant swarm monster of tiny undead. Rats, birds, insects, spiders, all forming a sea of zombified corpses that flows over the forest floor to consume you. This thing has a built-in death spiral, gaining HD for every corpse it devours. It also radiates magical rage, forcing anyone caught in its AOE to make a Save or start mindlessly attacking the nearest living thing.
I don't like that the rage effect excludes the Verminclaust. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Besides, having it force the PCs to attack the unstoppable tidal wave of zombies instead of running away is still a big drawback. We also get one last mention of the unspecified "nauseated" condition.
3/5. Another environmental hazard disguised as a monster, but it's a strong core concept with a good random generator to back it up. That counts for a lot.
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