Review: Rite Publishing – Headless Horseman (Monster Templates)

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Monster Templates: Headless Horseman
Headless Horseman is an epic fantasy supplement, from the Monster Templates series of supplements, for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Steven D. Russell and published by Rite Publishing.
By Cape Rust
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This is a nine page supplement that contains four pages of actual crunch. In typical Rite Publishing fashion those four pages are overflowing with good and, more importantly, useful information. This supplement opens with the the Headless Horseman Monster Template which adds a plus two Challenge Rating (CR) to any creature it is placed on.  Monster Templates: Headless Horseman includes the Headless Horseman fully realized as a Challenge Rating eleven creature. The headless horseman write-up includes statistics for its horse Stygian, which when included with the Horseman along with several other factors actually bumps the Headless Horseman up to a much higher Challenge Rating. Following the stat blocks is a detailed description of the Headless Horseman as well as an extensive lore section. This Monster Template includes two new monstrous feats, Come Back Strong and Strike of Sharpness. The new spell Animate Headless Horseman rounds out the crunch.

While most people might think of the Headless Horseman as just a Halloween monster that only belongs in a Halloween-themed game, Rite has come along and proved them wrong. Sure the tale of the Headless Horseman is classically associated with Halloween and any respectable game played on Halloween should include an encounter with one, there is much more to this type of creature than tangling with an awkward academician. What Steven D. Russell and the folks at Rite Publishing have done with Monster Templates: Headless Horseman is take this well known seasonal tale and turn it into a challenging creature. A creature which has thematically  appropriate powers that not only have the potential to own a party of Player Characters if they are not careful, but has the potential of creating an ongoing conflict with a powerful creature that requires “quests” to defeat.

The cover art is solid and seeing a Headless Horseman in broad, bright daylight was a refreshing change. At first I was going to comment that it should have been set at night time, but by achieving cranial rectal separation, I realized it was a smart and unique move. The ethereal pumpkin page borders were unique and wonderful. I would have liked to have seen Rite play with the whole concept of the pumpkin head a bit more and would have loved to seen some “other” suggestions, but I in no way felt cheated on that front. The formatting was up to Rite’s normal high standard, but I was distressed to see a grammatical mistake on the first page. Rite normally catches stuff like this. In their defense they are human and I’m sure they will have it fixed soon. There was the usual mix of original and stock art and as usual it met with mixed success. All of the art was relevant, but still felt disconnected.

Even with the minor, and I do mean minor problems, this is a great, fully usable plug and play monster. The description of the given creatures background was great and would easily keep even high level adventures busy for gaming sessions a plenty.

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