Customer Reviews

Fiend Folio: Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign: (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons)

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The Fiend Folio, if you can still find it, is an excellent source of monsters "malevolent and benign," but mostly malevolent. It introduces many creatures which are staples to 2nd edition AD&D, such as the githzerai and githyanki (from Planescape) and the Death Knight (from Krynn/Dragonlance). It has an excellent mix of extraplanar and standard monsters, so it will be suitable for any level campaign. However, I would recommend it especially highly if you were running a campaign that dealt with the Elemental planes, because this has very detailed information on Mephits and the Elemental Princes, as well as other incidental elemental creatures. All in all, it makes an excellent creature sourcebook for those of you still dedicated to 1st edition AD&D.

Fiend Folio is a second tome of monsters for the AD&D first edition game. It came after the original Monster Manual, but before Monster Manual II.

While the monsters in the Monster Manuals are primarily authored by Gary Gygax, the monsters in the Fiend Folio are created by players of the game itself in the United Kingdom. In truth, the book is a compilation of other people's creations, and some monsters (namely from the D series) from AD&D modules.

That said, Fiend Folio feature some monsters that survives to this day in the 3rd edition: the slaad, kenku, githyanki, githzerai, aarakocra, achaierai, bullywug, the ever popular death knight, mephits, gibberlings, grimlocks, penaggalan, to name a few.

Not to mention there aren't stinkers...there are a whole bunch of monsters of questionable worth, like the flumph, an unsually aligned (lawful good) thing that was once voted the most useless monster in AD&D, the gambado, the garbug (wasp bodies lobsters(!), forst men, tirapheg, umpleby, adherers, just to name a few.

There are also a few standouts like the Elemental Princes of Evil, and the nilbog (goblin spelt backward).

One big downer however, is the art. Although there are a few by old time favs like Jeff Dee and Erol Otus, but too many are by other artists whose style are too violently graphic and lack the fantasy feel of the first monster manual.

Overall, Fiend Folio is good, but not as good as Monster Manual.

The Fiend Folio (1981) is a classic AD&D supplement that originated in Great Britain. It's filled with the classic black & white illustrations (very good artwork, I might add), but this time the monsters border on the bizarre and tend to gravitate more toward evil as a whole. For advanced campaigning, this is the perfect supplement to accent a complex mission. All of the relevant tables and treasure info is here, as well. So, if you're looking to spruce up your adventure with exotic creatures and add a little more darkness,then this book is for you. This is a Dungeon Master's dream!!!!

Had this book years ago. For early edition lovers, this is a good book to add to the collection. Has many strange creatures that the Monster Manuels do not have. I got this book quickly and in great condition, it was like brand new.

I had this same edition Fiend Folio as a youth, back when we would gather on weekends for our gaming sessions. It was misplaced and I was glad to find a replacement. This is a very imaginative and well written compilation of fantasy creatures. The style of the edition is such as to be reminiscent of an earlier age in role playing games, where much more was left to our own imaginations than today's beautifully illustrated books. Simple, but sufficient and quite fun.

A bunch of extra monsters that you could pull out to surprise people. Some of these were from previous official products, and others were made up and sent in by fans and others, and a lot of them were from Britain, from memory.

Part of the attraction is the Jeff Dee art in places, along with the silly reverse name monsters.

I ordered the Fiend Folio for my 12 year old son. I remember playing Dungeons and Dragons 30 years ago so I was worried about the condition of the book. It was in very good condition.

I was pleased with both the quality of the book, and quickness of delivery. The book arrived in less than two weeks. It was scheduled for 21 days delivery. I had been looking for the original AD & D books for some time in stores and had no luck. But when I looked on Amazon, it was right there! Along with all the others I had been searching for. Thanks Amazon for making my day.

This book fleshes out the denizens of the outer planes and the astral.