Make weapons from beast parts in this Monster Hunter-like supplement for D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E

Defeat a collection of over 100 deadly creatures and create equipment from their parts in Battlezoo Bestiary, a roleplaying game supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 5E and Pathfinder 2E.

Created through a competition held by Roll for Combat - an official actual-play podcast for Paizo, the studio behind fantasy RPG Pathfinder - wherein participants submitted their creature ideas to be chosen for the book, Battlezoo Bestiary is a supplement that focuses on monstrous enemies and the gear that players can make from them. Designed to be used with both D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E, Battlezoo Bestiary provides players and games masters with a variety of terrifying monsters to fight.

In a similar fashion to the popular video game series Monster Hunter, the player characters in Battlezoo Bestiary are able to re-purpose the corpses of the creatures they defeat - should they manage to overcome them - into entirely new equipment, or to enhance the gear they already have. With the monster parts system, players are able to have new weapons and armour forged from the various pieces of a slain creature, depending on what they manage to scavenge up.

From a new sword from the teeth of a dinosaur to armour from the scales of a deceased dragon, players can customise and improve their equipment with every monsterous foe successfully defeated. Eventually, players will have the option to imbue their gear with different damage or resistance types - such as cold and fire - or gain impressive abilities through having certain pieces equipped. There are also two new subclasses for players to give their character based around monster hunting, including the monster mage - who can take spells from the monsters they slay - and the vestige hunter, a subclass that unlocks new abilities via monster parts.

Alongside the Battlezoo Bestiary is a supplement that enables players to create a playable dragon character with abilities linked to their ancestry, called Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragon, and a campaign for D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E called Jewel of the Indigo Isles, which has players investigating a pirate-themed island in search of lost treasure.

Battlezoo Bestiary was co-created by the founder of Roll for Combat, Stephen Glicker, alongside Mark Seifter and Patrick Renie - who co-developed the monster parts system for the supplement - and adventure developers Ron Lundeen and Linda Zayas-Palmer.

The Kickstarter campaign for Battlezoo Bestiary is live until October 2nd, with a pledge of $39 (£29) getting backers a physical copy of the supplement that’s estimated to arrive in March 2022. Alternatively, a PDF version of the book is available at a pledge of $25 (£19).