In the frenzied run of projects at the end of last year, I added even more fun to the pile by jumping in and providing some Starfinder development work for Legendary Games's mammoth Alien Codex. It's right here!

Now, I only saw piecemeal bits of this massive book, developing a few parts of a few chapters. I didn't see the whole thing in its entirety until just a few days ago when I got my contributor copy. And it's really neat! I already knew there would be fun toys for players, like the Overwatch feat (allowing you to make ranged attacks of opportunity in a cone you designate) and the mechanical repair spell (a much-needed spell that allows efficient healing of construct creatures). The thing that impressed me, though, is the sheer number of NPC stat blocks in this 300-page book. There are an incredible amount of stat blocks of all sorts of roughly-humanoid, mostly-playable creatures. 

At first, I was a little turned off by the organization. The chapters group all these creatures by rough type--bestial NPCs, aquatic NPCs, constructed NPCs, and so on--and that made navigating them to browse the book a little different. But this is actually a benefit in play, because I don't need to know all the possible CR 5 NPCs my heroes might meet. I need to know which they'll meet on this jungle planet (flip to the bestial NPCs section) or in this hive of scum and villainy (flip to the villainous NPCs section). There's an index at the back that helps cross-reference, although it indexes by chapter rather than page, so it's not quite as efficient as I'd like.

Legendary Games casts a broad net in what it provides, and this product is no different. The Alien Codex is sold for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and 5E, and it incorporates NPCs from their own Legendary Planet line of adventures (I recognized many of the creature types from the Legendary Planet adventure I developed) and from the Aethera campaign setting. I've enjoyed the little bit of Aethera material I have, and it was a pleasant surprise to get more. 

I'm often pleasantly surprised by the finished project of material I've worked on. This is the first time I've been so overwhelmed by the options and utility of a finished product that I had to squee a little bit. Check it out!