Monster Manual

Monster Manual

Cover of the original Monster Manual
Genre Role-playing game
Publisher Wizards of the Coast
Media type Print (Hardback)

The Monster Manual (MM) is the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It includes monsters derived from mythology, and folklore, as well as creatures created for D&D specifically. It describes each with game-specific statistics (such as the monster's level or number of hit dice), and a brief description of its habits and habitats. Most of the entries also have an image of the creature. Along with the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, it is one of the three "core rulebooks" in most editions of the D&D game. Several editions of the Monster Manual have been released for each edition of D&D. It was the first hardcover book of the D&D series. Due to the level of detail and illustration included, it was cited as a pivotal example of a new style of wargame books. Future editions would draw on various sources and act as a compendium of published monsters.

History of the Monster Manuals

Early Dungeons & Dragons

The first D&D boxed set did not have a separate Monster Manual but provided listings for monsters in Book 2: Monsters and Treasure, one of the included booklets.

After the series was separated into basic and advanced games, the basic game continued to be published in level-based boxes. Monsters of the appropriate level were included in the rulebooks for the various basic game sets (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal) and later collected in a single D&D Rules Cyclopedia book.

First edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Original Monster Manual

The first publication bearing the title Monster Manual was written by Gary Gygax and published in 1977 as a 108-page book.[1] It was the first hardcover book for any D&D game,[2][3] and the first of the core manuals published for the new Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) version of the game.[1][4] The Monster Manual was a supplement to the game, intended to describe the standard monsters used in AD&D.[1] The book was a compendium of more than 350 monsters. Some monsters were new—others were compiled and revised from older sources such as Monsters and Treasure, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, The Strategic Review and Dragon magazine.[2] Each monster was listed alphabetically with a comprehensive description and full statistics and was, in many cases, supported by an illustration.[2]

The cover of the original printing was illustrated by David C. Sutherland III. A softcover version of the Monster Manual was printed in the United Kingdom by Games Workshop in 1978.[1] When the book was reprinted in 1985 it featured new cover art by Jeff Easley.[1] The book remained little changed throughout its fifteen printings up to 1989. Minor changes during the print run included a cover art change to match a new logo and house style and some minor corrections introduced in the 1978 printings.

The credited artists of the first manual, in order, are David C. Sutherland III, David A. Trampier, Tom Wham, and Jean Wells. The editor of the original edition was Mike Carr.[5] The first edition Monster Manual notably included topless portrayals of some of its female monsters, including the succubus, Type V demons, lamia, and sylph. The casual depiction of female nudity is a hallmark of first edition D&D art.

Tim Kask, editor of Dragon magazine, reviewed the original Monster Manual, calling it "a radical departure from the norm in wargame publishing".[6] Kask felt that "Gary Gygax, in his prefatory remarks, spreads the credit around, but the majority of the kudos should be heaped on his shoulders".[6] Kask also mentioned that the hardbound format of the book would make it an ideal surface for mapping, and ensure that the book would hold up for a long time. It was Kask's opinion that the book's profuse illustrations were "outstanding", and that the illustrations "in themselves would warrant the cover price".[6] Monster Manual was also reviewed by Don Turnbull who felt that "this manual deserves a place on every D&D enthusiast's bookshelf", and praised the explanatory text, stating that it "amplifies, where necessary, [the game statistics] and the result is the most comprehensive listing of D&D monsters you will find, presented in a clarity which is unfortunately all too rare in other sources."[2] Turnbull noted some minor printing errors and felt that some of the drawings were not as good as others, but felt that the book's quality "is as high as one can reasonably expect in such a complex matter".[2] Turnbull concluded by saying "I can do no more than heap high praise on the Monster Manual. If every DM and every player didn't buy it, I would be very surprised. It is without doubt the best thing that TSR have produced so far."[2] Lawrence Schick, author of Heroic Worlds, commented that "As nothing is easier to design than new monsters, it has spawned a host of imitations."[1]

The 1st edition Monster Manual was reproduced as a premium reprint on July 17, 2012.[7]

Fiend Folio

Main article: Fiend Folio

Fiend Folio was published by TSR, Inc. Fiend Folio was primarily made up of monsters described in the Fiend Factory feature of White Dwarf and from various D&D modules, while some were original creations. It introduced several popular monsters to the D&D game including drow, githyanki, githzerai, slaad, and death knights. It also featured monsters that were widely ridiculed, such as the flumph, one of the few non-evil creatures presented in the volume.

Monster Manual II

Main article: Monster Manual II

Monster Manual II was a 160-page hardcover book published in 1983, also credited solely to Gygax.[1] The book was a supplement describing over 250 monsters, most with illustrations. Many of the monsters were drawn from scenario modules.[1] The book included random encounter tables for dungeon and wilderness settings built from the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II.[1] Some of its contents were taken from various AD&D adventure modules, in particular quite a number from S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and a dozen new devils that had been first published in the pages of Dragon magazine. Like the Fiend Folio before it, the monsters in Monster Manual II listed the experience point value for each monster within the entry. The Monster Manual II along with the First Edition Unearthed Arcana book featured quite a number of monsters, races, and places from Gary Gygax's Greyhawk Campaign world.

Second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

The Monstrous Compendium superseded the Monster Manual with the release of AD&D 2nd edition.[1] The Compendium was a binder of looseleaf sheets, rather than a hardback book. The first two volumes contained the core monsters of the game. These were followed by a large number of appendices that contained extra monsters for particular campaign settings.

The format was intended to help Dungeon Masters (DM) keep handy only the monster statistics needed for a particular game session, as well as to greatly expand the information about each monster, as each was given at least one full page. It would also mean they would only need to purchase core volumes and appendix volumes for the campaigns they wanted, rather than getting a mix of monsters in books. However, the binder format ultimately proved impractical for two main reasons. First, looseleaf pages were not as durable as the hardcover format. As it was a frequently used game aid this was a serious concern. Second, TSR routinely printed different monsters on both sides, making it impossible to keep monsters in strict alphabetical order.

In 1993, the Monstrous Manual was released,[3] compiling all monsters from the first two volumes of the Monstrous Compendium plus a large number of monsters from other sources into a 384-page hardcover book edited by Doug Stewart. More Monstrous Compendium appendices were released as a supplements to the Monstrous Manual in the form of paperback books, usually 128 pages. They included updated reprints of loose leaf Monstrous Compendium Appendices and new volumes.

Third edition Dungeons & Dragons

The Monster Manual for the third edition of D&D was released in 2000 as one of three core books of the system. Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams all contributed to the third edition Monster Manual.[8] Williams is credited with the design of the book. Cover art is by Henry Higginbotham, with interior art by Glen Angus, Carlo Arellano, Daren Bader, Tom Baxa, Carl Critchlow, Brian Despain, Tony DiTerlizzi, Larry Elmore, Scott Fischer, Rebecca Guay, Paul Jaquays, Michael Kaluta, Dana Knutson, Todd Lockwood, David Martin, Matthew Mitchell, Monte Moore, rk post, Adam Rex, Wayne Reynolds, Richard Sardinha, Brian Snoddy, Mark Tedin, and Anthony Waters. The updates were not intended to make major changes, only to update older monsters to third edition rules. According to Williams, "the first item on the agenda was coming through the game's twenty year collection of monsters, and deciding which ones were going into the book... The design team decided to focus on creatures that fit well into classic dungeon style adventures, with extra emphasis on creatures we felt the game needed."[9] In 2001 Monster Manual won the Origins Award for Best Graphic Design of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement 2000.[10] One reviewer called it "...an essential reference book, and it is a bargain..."[11]

The next editions, Monster Manual II and Fiend Folio were new monster-specific rulebooks. They contain mostly updated monsters from the sourcebooks of earlier editions, though some monsters have almost no overlap with those of their first edition namesakes. There were no new versions of Monster Manual II or Fiend Folio for the 3.5 edition of D&D, although update errata for both volumes and for the original third edition Monster Manual are available for download from the publisher's website.[12]

Dungeons & Dragons version 3.5

In July 2003, the Monster Manual was revised and released again for D&D version 3.5, subtitled Core Rulebook III v3.5. The revision was done by Rich Baker and Skip Williams. Cover art was by Henry Higginbotham, with interior art by Glen Angus, Carlo Arellano, Daren Bader, Tony DiTerlizzi, Scott Fischer, Rebecca Guay-Mitchell, Jeremy Jarvis, Paul Jaquays, Michael Kaluta, Dana Knutson, Todd Lockwood, David Martin, Raven Mimura, Matthew Mitchell, Monte Moore, Adam Rex, Wayne Reynolds, Richard Sardinha, Brian Snoddy, Mark Tedin, Anthony Waters, and Sam Wood. The v3.5 revision has a slightly different entry on each monster than previous editions. Notably, each monster's attack has been divided into attack and full attack entries.[13] When asked about the hardest part in revising the book, Rich Baker replied: "The hardest part of the job was probably the sheer volume of the work we needed to do. There are hundreds of monster entries, and each monster has a couple dozen data points to examine and check."[14] The reviewer from Pyramid noted that some creatures from the Psionics Handbook and the third edition Manual of the Planes were added to the revised book.[13] Further revision included the addition of an enhanced version of most monsters as an example of advancement (usually either with a template or with class levels). Many monsters also included instructions on how to use them as player characters.

The 3.5 edition Monster Manual was reproduced as a premium reprint on September 18, 2012.[15]

Monster Manual III

Main article: Monster Manual III

Monster Manual III was published in 2004, and was designed by Rich Burlew, Eric Cagle, Jesse Decker, Andrew J. Finch, Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, Rich Redman, Matthew Sernett, Chris Thomasson, and P. Nathan Toomey. This Monster Manual is notable for its descriptions of where the monsters might be found in the Eberron and Forgotten Realms campaign settings.[16] Chris Perkins explained: "Almost all of the monsters in the Monster Manual III are new. We didn't want to give gamers a bunch of beasties they'd already seen, and we found several interesting monster niches to fill.[17]

Monster Manual IV

Main article: Monster Manual IV

Monster Manual IV, published July 2006, was designed by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Matthew Sernett, Eric Cagle, Andrew Finch, Christopher Lindsay, Kolja Raven Liquette, Chris Sims, Owen K.C. Stephens, Travis Stout, JD Wiker, and Skip Williams. This book was also published in the v3.5 format and used the new stat block format that was introduced in the Dungeon Master's Guide II. Monster Manual IV contained fewer actual monsters than Monster Manual II and III, but had sample lairs and encounters for them, gave stats for classes and templates applied to old creatures, and full page maps. The book also ties into the "Year of the Dragons" theme that Wizards of the Coast planned out for 2006 with the Spawn of Tiamat, yet contains no new monsters that are considered true dragons.

Special Edition Monster Manual

In October 2006, the Special Edition Monster Manual was released, completing the set of special edition core rulebooks started in 2004 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of D&D. Like the others, this book was leather-bound with silver-gilt edges and a cloth bookmark. The book was expanded with some new information, 31 new illustrations, and a new index. All collected errata up to its release date were included in this revision, making this edition the most up-to-date Monster Manual to date.[18]

Monster Manual V

Main article: Monster Manual V

Monster Manual V was released in July 2007, with David Noonan as lead designer, and additional design by Creighton Broadhurst, Jason Bulmahn, David Chart, B. Matthew Conklin III, Jesse Decker, James "Grim" Desborough, Rob Heinsoo, Sterling Hershey, Tim Hitchcock, Luke Johnson, Nicholas Logue, Mike McArtor, Aaron Rosenberg, Robert J. Schwalb, Rodney Thompson, and Wil Upchurch. This book was published in the same format as the Monster Manual IV, featuring lairs and tactics and, like III and IV, detailing how these new monsters fit into Eberron and Forgotten Realms.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

Monster Manual for the D&D 4th Edition Rules

The D&D 4th edition Monster Manual was released with the other core books on June 6, 2008. It featured the demon prince Orcus on the cover. The book was designed by Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Front cover art is by Wayne Reynolds, and back cover art is by Ron Spears, with interior illustrations by Dave Allsop, Steve Argyle, Daren Bader, Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai, Miguel Coimbra, Stephen Crowe, Jason A. Engle, Carl Frank, Lars Grant-West, David Griffith, Espen Grundetjern, Fred Hooper, Ralph Horsley, Heather Hudson, Michael Komarck, Doug Kovacs, Ron Lemen, Todd Lockwood, Warren Mahy, Izzy Medrano, Raven Mimura, Jorge Molina, Jim Nelson, William O'Connor, Saejin Oh, Steve Prescott, RK Post, Wayne Reynolds, Richard Sardinha, Marc Sasso, Ron Spears, Chris Stevens, Anne Stokes, Arnie Swekel, Jean Pierre Targete, Francis Tsai, Eric Vedder, Adam Vehige, Pete Venters, Franz Vohwinkel, Eva Widermann, Sam Wood, Ben Wootten, Kevin Yan, James Zhang, and Jim Zubkavich.

Monster Manual 2 was released on May 20, 2009 with Demogorgon on the cover; Monster Manual 3 was released on June 15, 2010 featuring Lolth on its cover.

Monster Vault was released November 16, 2010 and featured monsters introduced in the Monster Manual revised to the new format that was introduced in Monster Manual 3. Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale was released June 28, 2011 and re-introduced a few new monsters as well as several related to the setting of Nentir Vale. All volumes of the Monster Vault are parts of the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials line of 4th edition D&D products.

5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

The D&D 5th edition Monster Manual was the second core book released for the new edition. It was released in two waves; the first on September 19, 2014 to Core level stores (and above), the second on September 30, 2014 as a general release. The cover depicts the beholder Xanathar attacking adventurers in the Underdark.

Chuck Francisco of mania.com comments: "The varied visual depictions of each beast in the newest Monster Manual rank head and shoulders, claws and paws above those of preceding editions. And so when DM's cast about for interesting and unique creatures to populate your imagination's landscape, they're aided by this visually resplendent treat to the eyeballs."[19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. pp. 106–107. ISBN 0-87975-653-5.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Turnbull, Don (August–September 1978). "The Open Box, The Monster Manual". White Dwarf (8): 16–17.
  3. 1 2 "The History of TSR". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2008-10-04. Retrieved 2005-08-20.
  4. ↑ "Dungeons & Dragons FAQ". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2008-10-03. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  5. ↑ Gygax, Gary. Monster Manual (TSR, 1979)
  6. 1 2 3 Kask, Tim (February 1978). "Editor's Library". The Dragon (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: TSR) (#12): 22.
  7. ↑ "Monster Manual". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Profiles: Monte Cook". Dragon (Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast) (#275): 10, 12, 14. September 2000.
  9. ↑ Ryan, Michael G. (October 2000). "ProFiles: Skip Williams". Dragon (Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast) (#276): 12, 14, 16.
  10. ↑ "2000: List of Winner". Origins Game Fair. Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design. Archived from the original on 2007-12-24. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
  11. ↑ Shafer, Scott (2000-10-20). "Pyramid Picks: Monster Manual (WotC) and Creature Collection (Sword & Sorcery Studios), for D&D3/d20". Pyramid. Steve Jackson Games. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
  12. ↑
  13. 1 2 Ehrbar, Steven E. (2003-08-22). "Pyramid Review: Monster Manual v.3.5 (for Dungeons & Dragons)". Pyramid. Steve Jackson Games. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
  14. ↑ Ryan, Michael (July 4, 2003). "Product Spotlight: D&D 3.5". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
  15. ↑ "3.5 Edition Premium Monster Manual". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  16. ↑ Honeywell, Steve (2005-01-21). "Pyramid Review: Monster Manual III (for Dungeons & Dragons)". Pyramid. Steve Jackson Games. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
  17. ↑ Ryan, Michael (September 3, 2004). "Product Spotlight: Monster Manual III". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
  18. ↑
  19. ↑ "Review: Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual". Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.

External links

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