Paranormal Animals of North America - FASA, Dream Warrior

Paranormal Animals of North America is one of my favorite supplements for Shadowrun after the Native American nations. There is just something abut a book full of exotic creatures. This is tru for any game going back to the first time I opened the AD&D Monster Manual. It may even go back to a love of dinosaurs and reading books on them as a child.

Paranormal Animals was released in 1990 and comes in at 176 pages. The book features a varied collection of creatures as they exist in the Shadowrun world. The contents may be a little hard to use as most of the adventures in Shadowrun tend to focus on urban locations. The GM will have to make a point of finding ways to incorporate many of the creatures in the book.

The book covers over eighty new creatures and provides the GM with information on where they will be found and their behavior. The art for the creatures is very well done as is the cover art. The book features a size comparison chart which is something that is nice as it is often hard to get an idea of the scale of a beast even with defined sizes.

FASA ended up release a second book in the series which I will most likely write about at some point in the future. Even if you don't play Shadowrun the creatures in this book could easily be adapted into a Gamma World or Mutant Future setting. The creatures could even be used for game setting such as Traveller or other similar space based game. This is a book that I think would fit well on any gamers shelf.


Spell:

Dream Warrior

Level: Fourth
Range: 6"
Duration: 1 Round/Level
Ares Effect: One Creature
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 2 Segments
Saving Throw: None

When this spell is cast the magic user causes the victim to phase into a dreamlike location. The appearance of the world they enter will be identical to the current location. In this state the victim will be attacked by an mirror image of themselves.

The creature attacking them will be exactly as if they had cast an image on a Mirror of Opposition. The attacker will have exactly the same equipment and abilities as the victim had when the spell was cast.

In reality there is not a real creature attacking them. The conflict is all within the mind of the victim. For those in the real world the victim is still visible there will be no indication of what is happening. While under the spell they will stand motionless as they battle their mirror image. Any direct attack on the victim will break the spell and while in this state they are immune to physical attacks or spells.

The spell will continue until it expires or the combat is resolved. If the victim wins then they will return with the hit points they had after the resolution or when the spell expired. If they were to lose they will return with 10% of their total hit points remaining. If they were to have cast any spells these will be gone as well though any physical items used will remain.

Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last, were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper credit.