While the primary rulebook for Realm of Runes contains a comprehensive guide for creating balanced and challenging monsters and NPCs, it can be helpful to have a stable of pregenerated statistics. Similarly, one way that first party adventures can remain streamlined is to have an already existing reference for more commonly occurring foes. This also means the space in an adventure that would otherwise be taken up by repeating information that could be found elsewhere can instead be dedicated to unique monsters and NPCs not found outside of the adventure.
The Realm of Runes Menagerie serves both of those goals with aplomb. Containing more than 375 monster stat blocks and templates, spread across twenty different creature types, there is some serious heft to the type and variety of creatures contained within, making it a well-rounded resource for any GM or adventure to reference for quick, easy and effective foes to throw against a party. While these monsters are balanced and have been playtested to provide the appropriate amount of challenge to those that encounter them, they do not also have to be balanced for "player use." Thanks to summoning spells in Realm of Runes creating custom monsters without ever referencing an outside supplement like the Menagerie, a GM never needs to fear that this book, or a later entry in its line, will add something that can seriously alter the balance between player and NPC.
The Menagerie also capitalizes on many of the innovations that the basic rules have developed over the course of their parallel playtesting. Extensive use of hyperlinks makes navigating the digital version of the Menagerie quick and easy. These links help to reach an individual entry very quickly, but are also used within entries to link to definitions of important terms and conditional effects. Indeed, many important conditions like feeble, sluggish and dizzy have their linked definitions reproduced in the Menagerie's glossary for reference, cutting down on the number of times a harried GM has to switch back and forth between documents in order to keep track of everything going on in an encounter.
From a continued overview standpoint, much like the way that first-party adventures are written in Realm of Runes, all of the stat blocks for the hundreds of monsters in the Menagerie are presented in a level-agnostic format. This way, any given monster in the book can be made to serve as appropriate threat when needed. Whether your group likes to savor low levels or rocket through them, you never have to set aside the appropriate encounter because the party is at the inappropriate level range. This helps keep the entirety of the book relevant at all times.
In addition to the monsters themselves, which are sorted by creature types for the locations of their stats, the Menagerie also has a helpful section for choosing encounters on the fly based on where they are needed in play. The Creature Biomes appendix contains entries for all sorts of varied terrains where a party might encounter danger. These biomes list all of the monsters in the Menagerie that could be encountered there. These lists are further sorted by the rarity of those encounters, with common monsters, uncommon monsters and rare monsters grouped together. Each biome also lists the boss-type encounters that might be found in such areas as well. Like everywhere else in the rules, the monsters in these lists are linked to their statistics, so the time between choosing your encounter and getting into the thick of it is mere seconds.
The Menagerie is an extremely useful resource for GMs who do not want to always create every encounter from scratch, and using this reference is a quick and effective process every time. Next week we'll take a more in-depth look at the contents of the Menagerie itself.
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