GURPS: Space Bestiary Review ★★★★☆

The cover and contents (from Warehouse 23)

GURPS Space Bestiary is exactly what it promises to be: a bestiary. The monsters are good and flavourful, the environments they inhabit are very varied (from cold tundra to hot silicon to complete vacuum) and most of all, it is fun!

Content:	★★★★☆
Clarity:	★★★★★
Grab & go-ability:	★★★☆☆
Overall:	★★★★☆
Availability:	PDF Only ($4.99)

I have really enjoyed reading from this book. From page 1, descriptions are clear and it's easy to see how to apply these creatures to any campaign. Some of the standout creatures are:

• Sea blimp p. 15 - an interesting take on lighter-than-water swimmers
• Turbo shark, p. 16 - think shark meets jet engine
• Korreath p. 60 - 'realistic' pheonix complete with (limited) physics explanation
• Animator p. 79 - telekinetic mountain burrowers
• Bio-planetoid p. 85 - proto-sentient planets from birth to adulthood

There is a short discussion (3 pages) on creating custom creatures with no tables to roll on. It would be nice to have more in this regard but since it's a bestiary, I can't really complain.

One thing that stands out about this book is the completeness of each creature. The creatures are designed to be stand-out features of an alien ecosystem rather than parts of a whole, so you can sketch something out with only 2 or 3 of these creations and a little fluff. While this may not sound like much, the film Avatar (2009) did exactly this when it created the world of Pandora; a world so wonderful that some viewers became invested to the point that they felt depressed they couldn't actually live there.

Another thing which (doesn't) stand out is that this book has not aged a day despite the fact that it is 28 years old! The descriptions come alive and feel as if they could have been written yesterday. Discerning readers may notice the book mentions SJ games BBS (which was famously raided by the secret service), but this can definitely be forgiven, since this book is literally as old as the World Wide Web!

From a GURPS 4e perspective, a nice feature of the book is that it has core stats and damage dice in a table, but describes attacks and behaviour in the text so you do not need to rely on 3rd edition knowledge. This can be a double-edge sword though, since you will need to prep these creatures beforehand or leave your players hanging for 2-3 minutes while you read the description. If there is ever an update of this book, fully statted 4e creatures would be very welcome.

I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to create new alien ecosystems on a regular basis since it can be used to create something believable in 10-15 minutes. While this book is certainly not a grab and go (I won't be using it for surprise encounters), it makes great fuel for the imagination and is perfect for when PCs are approaching a world which should be truly alien.