Publisher's blurb: Barval's Beastiary [sic], a manual introducing eight new character races, a few monsters, and two background for player characters. Several decades after a malicious wizard by the name of Therizhad Gloomstaff steals away thousands of citizens of the Forgotten Realms, a host of new creatures one day explode from a host of portals erupting throughout the worlds. Barval Vin, anthropologist extraordinaire and a victim of Therizhad's realm, documents several of these new races and monsters.