Alien Compendium: Creatures of the Verge (1998)

From the back of the book:

They Were Here First.

In the Verge, you can go for dozens of light-years in any direction without seeing a single sign of life. You can land on hundreds of planets that are nothing more than frozen, airless rocks. And you can live to tell about it. But what fun would that be?

Heroes in the STAR*DRIVE setting want excitement, danger, and the thrill of meeting strange and terrible lifeforms. Creatures of the Verge, the first ALIEN COMPENDIUM book for the ALTERNITY game, gives them what they want... and may leave them wishing they had never left home.

Inside this 128-page, full-color book are more than 60 detailed descriptions and illustrations of aliens that live in and around the planets of the Verge. The text traces the voyage of the Concord Survey Vessel Kepler as it visits 14 different star systems around the Verge. In these pages you'll meet:

• The poisonous blackworm of the planet Bhruusil, which uses vibrations to track its prey.

• The elegant and mysterious deepfallen, native to the world–spanning oceans of Bluefall.

• The beautiful but terrible crystallis, one of the few creatures that can survive on the inferno world of Polyphemus.

• The "external" species--mysterious aliens who exist outside known galactic society--including the violent n'sss, the helpful blix, and the incomprehensible gardhyi.

Some of these aliens are vicious killers. Some of them are just the opposite. The excitement and danger comes from figuring out which is which--before the aliens figure out the truth about you.