1. by Ed Greenwood	-	2. by Alan Zumwalt	-	3. by Donald Turnbull
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons	-	Dragon magazine	-	Dragon #55

FIEND FOLIO Findings:
Flat taste didn't go away
by Ed Greenwood

Its cover was beautiful; I bought it
eagerly, and retired from the din of the
GEN CON® XIV dealer area to a dimly lit
booth, to devour a pizza and my brandnew
FIEND FOLIO™ Tome.

Four hours later, I set the book aside,
hoping my views would change upon
later reflection. Perhaps it had been the
pizza.

Come later reflection, and much discussion
with friends and other gamers at
the convention: no change. The FIEND
FOLIO was a disappointment. Not a
crushing disappointment — a new collection
of official AD&D monsters is not
exactly a cause for sorrow — but irritating
nonetheless. Perhaps it should have
been a D&D® book, not one for the
AD&D™ game.

The beauty of the AD&D rule system is
its careful attention to detail, “serious”
(i.e., treating monsters as creatures in a
fantasy world, not as constructs in a fantasy
game) tone, and consistency.

The FIEND FOLIO Tome mars this
beauty. In its pages this DM finds too
much lack of detail, too many shifts in
tone, and too many breaches of consistency.
I do not know why the book has
these failings—and I hasten to add that I
do not know of Don Turnbull or British
gaming beyond what one learns from a
few contacts and magazines such as
White Dwarf (which I’ve followed eagerly
since its first issue) and Trollcrusher.

I suspect that most of the book’s flaws
have come from viewing the AD&D game
as one in which monsters are sudden
new challenges to a party rather than
creatures who live out an existence before
— and sometimes after — a party
encounters them. But perhaps it would
be better not to speculate. Here, then, is
what I find wrong with the book.

1st and foremost, contradictions of,
or inattention to, existing (official) AD&D
rules. Careful editing should have prevented
these mistakes — such as the
mention of raise dead fully in the description
of the Pernicon, and “antipaladin”
in the listing for Githyanki.

Minor quibbles? Not if the careful “international
tournament standard” consistency
of the AD&D game is to be
maintained. Gary Gygax speaks of this
as one of the reasons for creating the
game in the first place, and an official
AD&D book such as the FF Tome should
contribute to that sought-after consistency.
In many places throughout the
work, one is reminded more of the freewheeling,
decide-it-yourself D&D rules
than the more specific and detailed descriptions
of the AD&D game.

There are many incomplete or inadequate
monster entries. Monsters such as
the Al-mi’raj and the Hook Horror have
strange appearances and little else; there
is no depth to their listings. Certainly not
enough information is given to ensure
that one DM will present them in a
manner similar to another DM’s handling.
Similarly, one needs to know more
of the real nature of the Dune Stalker, the
Dire Corby, the Eye of Fear and Flame,
and the race of Dark Creepers.

Why are the languages of the Dark
Creeper and the Babbler incomprehensible?
Many weird creatures in the Monster
Manual have languages usable by
other creatures through study and magic
(i.e., a Tongues spell); DMs should be
told why these two are special.

And phrases like “mysteries so far unexplained”
(in the Berbalang listing) are
not good enough — in an official rulebook,
complete listings should be required.
The origin of the Achaierai, for
instance, would seem to be Acheron
(“infernal regions”) but the exact home
plane would be nice for DMs to know.
The Guardian Familiar’s plane of origin
is likewise a mystery. The identity of the
Vision’s “own plane” is unclear, as are its
powers when on that unknown plane.
Explanations should be given for the
humanoid appearance of plant life such
as the Cifal and the Needleman, or the
believability of such creatures suffers.

Other monsters seem to have no ecological
niche, being merely “gamey” party
opponents — such as the Adherer
(originally the Gluey of White Dwarf #7)
and the Enveloper. In the pages of White
Dwarf, no rationalizations are required
for the appearance of such things as the
Russian Doll Monster, the Dadhi, and the
Nilbog. When (as in the case of the Nilbog)
these creatures are adapted and/or
rewritten for inclusion in official AD&D
rules, the results are sometimes clumsy
or worse.

Some of the monster’s names grate on
the mind’s ear; one cannot envision sweating
adventurers fleeing a cavern with
one saying, “Warily, now! That Protein
Polymorph almost slew us, friends!” Try
inserting “Caryatid Column” or “Symbiotic
Jelly” into that sentence, and the
result is the same. One would expect adventurers,
and not 20th-century North
American scientists, to have named such
beasts. (I suspect this is the root of my
disaffection with the “Adherer.“)

There are 2 other major problems
with the book. First, a host of new undead
(specifically described as such) or
undead-like creatures see print. Many
contributors to the expansion of the
AD&D rules have felt that there is no
more room for additions to the undead
class save under the “Special” heading;
there is little one can add that is not a
simple variation on, or overlapping of the
powers of, existing undead.

The Penanggalan, the Revenant, the
Skeleton Warrior, and the Death Knight
— although possessing some abilities of
existing AD&D undead — are well-developed
and therefore distinct. But other
of the book’s contributions appear to be
no more than skeletons with special
powers tacked on, such as the Huecuva,
the Crypt Thing, and the Eye of FEAR and
Flame. (The latter creature probably isn’t
undead, but the entry doesn’t say enough
to determine this with certainty.) One
must know more of the origin of all of
these creatures and their powers. The
Sheet Phantom, in particular, needs more
information to link it with already-existing
undead. Is it a wraith or an undead
lurker above? The listing hints at both,
and in the end gives no reason for the
formation of this monster.

The origin of the creature needs be a
part of every new undead write-up. An
undead lacking an origin has the air of a
1-shot “DM’s special” variant concocted
for an interesting party encounter
(“Well, this mummy is green, and it
drains levels . . . .heh-heh, surprise, surprise!").
The “statement of origin” is the
anchor that lends an air of legitimacy to
other new undead entries in the FF Tome
such as the Coffer Corpse, THE APPARITION,
and the Son of Kyuss.

In all, the FIEND FOLIO Tome adds
several good low-level undead to AD&D
play (although I had hoped to see the
very playable Blink Skeleton also make
the leap from White Dwarfs' Fiend Factory
to the Folio). All of these should see
yeoman service in AD&D campaigns; the
3 skeleton variants mentioned above
need more depth if this expected heavy
use is not to put too many DMs in the
position of having to invent justifications
for the creatures’ existence.

The 2nd large problem found in the
Folio has to do with races: too many of
them, that is. Some new races such as
the Firenewt, Flind, Forlarren, Norker,
Quaggoth and Skulk may assume a comfortable
place in the AD&D bestiary rolls.
Others, such as the Crabman, Booka,
and Bullywug, leave one desirous of
more information as to their social life
and activities, but are adequate.

And then the problem is upon us. Too
many races are incomplete — is the
Frost Man human (as in “Men, Berserker”
et al from the Monster Manual)? Is the
Qullan race humanoid? What are their
interests and aims? Why do the Lava
Children — “offspring of a union between
spirits of earth and fire” — appear
human, specifically resembling the famous
visage of Alfred E. Neuman of MAD
magazine fame?

Too many races must be fighting for
elbow room in the caverns and deep places
beneath the earth; in addition to the
Jermlaine, Drow, Kuo-Toa and Svirfneblin
(from TSR™ modules), found herein
are the (deep breath) Gibberling, Grimlock,
Hook Horror, Kenku, Killmoulis,
Meazel, Meenlock, Mite, Snyad, and
Xvart. All of these creatures have promise,
but the Hook Horror and the Grimlock
again seem incomplete.

The Xvart, a rewritten Svart from the
Fiend Factory in White Dwarf #9, is redundant;
the Factory original was a poor
variant of Alan Garner’s presentation (in
the novel Weirdstone of Brisingamen) of
the svart-alfar and lios-alfar of Scandinavian
mythology. The svart-alfar are already
in the AD&D rules; they were the
model for Gygax’s Drow. The Xvart, a
3-foot-tall beastie with no strikingly unique
or colorful characteristics, is a prime
example of needless overpopulation.

Including the other new races of small
beings, the list (just of those who dwell in
subterranean or related surroundings) is
now comprised of goblins, kobolds,
dwarves, halflings, gnomes, svirfneblin, <dwarves are M>
meazels, mites, snyad, jermlaine, and kill
moulis. The race of xvart need not have
been added to the list.

Obviously, a DM need not use all of the
above races in a campaign, but all now
are now considered to officially exist in
the AD&D multiverse. To their ranks the
Folio adds yet another creature type not
listed above: the mysterious Dark Creeper,
about which too little is revealed to be
certain of its nature. It is of dwarf height
and wears clothing over its lower face in
such a fashion as to cause one GEN
CON attendee to disgustedly label it a
“bedouin dwarf,” and another to add,
“No, it’s a dwarf ninja.”

Those descriptions are personal reactions,
yes, but they are rooted in a real
problem; either or both of them could be
correct, given the vagueness of the FF
description. Likewise, too many of the
book’s other entries offer too little information
to play a creature without running
into questions.

The Monster Manual has many truncated
entries, but most of these cause no
problems, since the creatures (for example,
the dinosaurs, “Herd Animal,”
and “Cattle, Wild”) need nothing more.
The FF Tome has a few entries which can
be taken care of with brief descriptions;
the Rothe is one. But most of the book’s
creatures require longer, more carefully
worded entries.

The only entries in the Monster Manual
I have often heard criticized for incompleteness
or lack of clarity are the
beholder — Does the central eye produce
the anti-magic ray? It would seem
so, but there is room for argument — the
rakshasa, the lich, and the vampire. (Speculation
concerning the rakshasa usually
centers on its place in the ranks of the
demons vis-a-vis the demon princes and <link to list of demon princes>
their orders, conjurations and the like.)
Many DMs have filled in the details of
these complicated monsters as they saw
fit, or perhaps have followed the guidance
of magazine writers. Similar salvage
work is needed for many entries in
the new book — more than there should
need to be, given the advancement of the
state of published AD&D rules between
the release of the Monster Manual and
the FIEND FOLIO Tome.

Other criticisms of the Folio fall into
the category of personal disagreements
over style. Every DM has these disagreements
with many parts of the AD&D
rules, but I have more with the FIEND
FOLIO Tome than with any other of the
official volumes. Here are a few:

If new dragons, why oriental dragons
and not also the carefully composed
neutral dragons published in DRAGON™
#37?

Why is a poltergeist lawful evil, when
its behavior, both as described in the FF
and as allegedly exhibited in the real
world, suggests a chaotic evil, or at least
chaotic, alignment?

Why are distinctly separate listings
necessary for creatures which are essentially
sub-races or variants of, or additions
to, existing Monster Manual entries?
Examples of these are the Lamia
Noble, the Lizard King, and the Babbler.
These could be sub-classified in the
same manner as the Drow, the new Giant
sub-races, and the new Demon and Devil
are, so that the MM and FF are closely
linked.

The Aleax entry is uneasily vague; it is
of necessity not firmly tied to any deities,
but I feel it should contain more directives
for the DM as to what sorts of deities
would and would not employ such a
creature.

The Hell Hound from the Monster
Manual is a familiar DM’s friend, but adding
the Death Dog and the Devil Dog to
the canine community is perhaps too
much of a good thing.

When some names such as as “Screaming
Devilkin” threaten to outstrip the
monsters they describe, why must there
also be such unimaginative names as
“Gorilla Bear” or odd-sounding names
such as “Ogrillon” (for an orc/ogre crossbreed)?
But enough of style grievances;
others will find reason for praise in the
same things I complain about.

The graphics and overall layout of the
FIEND FOLIO Tome are both beautiful
and clear, making for ease of finding and
reading desired information. Some illustrations
are particularly effective — the
Revenant scene on page 76 comes immediately
to mind.

But many illustrations are irritating, in
that they do not closely resemble depictions
of the monsters already published
in the official AD&D modules. The Mezzodaemon
is one such example; so is the
related Nycadaemon. Some illustrations
are not as visually striking or as complete
as those published earlier in the
Fiend Factory (such as the Sheet Phantom,
Tween, and Sandman) and the modules
(the Kuo-Toa, Jermlaine, and KELPIE).
Why the change, if it was not markedly
for the better? Other illustrations
are noticeably crude, particularly those
of the Mephits and the Enveloper (which
at first sight earned the nickname “Pillsbury
Doughboy” among gamers at GEN
CON XIV). But all in all, the artwork and
design of the book are excellent.

Also on the positive side, there are
some very good monsters here. It is nice
to see the Volt and the Necrophidius
made official; new arrivals such as the
Slaad, the Elemental Prices of Evil and
the Penanggalan are also worthy additions
to any campaign. Monsters from
the modules such as the Drow and Kuo-
Toa are expected attractions, but good
to see nonetheless.

The FIEND FOLIO Tome has much
promise; a revised edition which disposes
of most of the omissions and problems
mentioned above would win my
warm welcome. Many thousands of people
consider the AD&D game to be the
best thing going; a revised and polished
edition of the FF Tome would help reinforce
that opinion.
 

FIEND FOLIO Findings:
Observations of a semi-satisfied customer
by Alan Zumwalt

I was about to enter my friendly neighborhood
hobby shop on my weekly visit
to see if any new AD&D modules or accessories
were in, when out of the corner
of my eye I saw something in the store
window. I did a double-take, then my
eyes bulged out, and alarms went off in
my head. At last it was here—the FIEND FOLIO had arrived!!! I had been waiting
for it for a year, since I saw it mentioned
in the DEITIES & DEMIGODS™ Cyclopedia.
I grabbed a copy off the shelf
and sprinted to the counter.

After I left the store, I sat down on the
curb and started looking. It was a good-looking
cover: a blue background with a
hideous brown and yellow humanoid in
the foreground (which I later found out
was a githyanki). I would have liked to
see more monsters on the cover (like the
Monster Manual has), but the cover is
not the most important part; the inside is.
I quickly flipped through the pages and
looked at the pictures — and boy, what
pictures! Drawings of all sorts of new
weird monsters — from tall, stilted birds
that are mostly head, to lady vampires
with no body. More illustrations than the
Monster Manual. “So far, so good,” I
thought. “All outward appearances look
fine.” But are the words as good as the
pictures? I looked further, and found
most of the monster descriptions to be
interesting and original, but...

But a few of them are just Monster
Manual creatures that are changed or
crossbred with other monsters. The Vodyanoi
is a prime example. The Vodyanoi
is an aquatic umber hulk that, instead
of the ability to confuse, has the ability to
summon electric eels. This monster is a
cheap ripoff of the original AD&D monster,
and shouldn’t have been allowed in
the book. Others I don’t like for similar
reasons are the Kamadan, the Lamia
Noble, The Lizard King (I would accept
this monster as a leader of lizard men,
but not as a separate race), the Ogrillon,
and all the new trolls. This book was going
to have new monsters, I thought, not
mutations of the old.

One pleasing thing to see, at last, was
the establishment of some official neutral
dragons. The Oriental dragons in the
book are fairly interesting dragons (although
I was sort of disappointed that
some of them didn’t have a breath weapon),
but I did find three problems in
their presentation that makes these
dragon descriptions inferior to the ones
in the Monster Manual.

First, the names of the dragons are
given in the wrong order. If you look in
the Monster Manual under the entry indexed
as “Dragon: White” you would see
at the top of the description, “White
Dragon (Draco Rigidus Frigidus).” The
Latin name of the dragon is put in parentheses
after the English name. But in the
FIEND FOLIO under “Dragon, Oriental”
a subtitle will read, “Li Lung (Earth
Dragon),” with the Chinese name first
and the English name in parentheses.
Now, who is going to call this dragon “Li Lung” when “Earth Dragon” is much easier
to remember? The names should
have been given in reverse form (Oriental
name last) for the sake of convenience,
if nothing more.

Second, these dragons are distinctly
and undeniably Oriental in nature, and I
don’t think Oriental monsters fit very
well into the European medieval-era environment
that most AD&D campaigns
use. I wish the game’s official neutral
dragons had been constructed more similarly
to the Monster Manual dragons.

The most important problem of all is
the lack of a leader for the Oriental dragons,
corresponding to Tiamat and Bahamat.
A rulership structure of some
kind for each type of intelligent monster
helps lend credibility to the existence of
that type of creature.

I discovered that many of my favorite
monsters from past issues of DRAGON
magazine and AD&D modules were not
included. The only module monsters included
in the Fiend Folio were from G3
and the D series. I realized the monsters
from the more recent modules and issues
of DRAGON could not be included in the
FIEND FOLIO, but the S series monsters
and some of the earlier Dragon’s Bestiary
monsters could have been included.

One of my favorite monsters in the
book is the Slaadi. At last, creatures that
live on the chaotic neutral planes! The
race has leaders (unlike the Oriental
dragons) and understandable names (except
for the leaders). Reading about the
different types of Slaadi brought a question
to mind: Why no monsters for the
lawful neutral planes or the lawful, neutral,
or chaotic good planes? I would
have liked to have all the planes around
the astral plane “filled in” by having resident
creatures among the listings in the
second book of Official AD&D monsters.

I also liked the Elemental Princes of
Evil — but where are the Elemental Princes
of Good? Surely there must be some, <1 is named in the 1 of the RAS novels>
or else the Elemental Princes of Evil
would just be called Elemental Princes.

In my first look at the end of the book, I
was pleased to see a new random monster
encounter table containing all the
monsters from both books. But there
isn’t an ocean encounter table, although <FF aquatic encounter tables>
there were plenty of new sea monsters in
the FIEND FOLIO Tome. This was probably
an oversight, and I hope such a table
will soon be offered. Tables for seashore
encounters and underground-lake
encounters would also be good.
<list sea monsters>
This commentary has been predominantly
negative; maybe that’s because
it’s easier to put negative comments into
specific words than it is to do the same
with positive comments. As a whole, it is
a good book, with a lot of interesting
creatures that are destined to become
someone’s favorite monster.

How to sum it up? I would say the
FIEND FOLIO Tome is like a basket of
peaches: Most of it is pretty good stuff,
but part of it is the pits.
 

FIEND FOLIO Findings:
Apologies -- and arguments
by Don Turnbull
Managing Director of TSR UK, Ltd.
and
Editor of the FIEND FOLIO™ Tome

I will be more careful in future when passing Kim Mohan’s
door on my visits to Lake Geneva. He pounces! On this occasion,
politely but firmly, he asked me to reply to the comments
by Alan and Ed on the FIEND FOLIO™ Tome and not to leave the
country until the job was done.

An Aleax, cunningly disguised as Kim Mohan, has struck; I
have somehow transgressed the unwritten law; retribution and
penance are sought. (Who, me? Behaviour outside alignment??)

Very well — I’ll try.

Perspectives CHANGE, don’t they? There never was a Time
when I regarded the Tome as perfect; anyone thus making
himself a hostage to fortune deserves what he gets. But my VIEW
of “my” work has changed perceptibly over the years, and the
years themselves are responsible for that CHANGE.

The fact is that, for various contractual reasons with which I
won’t bore you, the book was in a sort of legal limbo — untouched
and untouchable — for nearly two years after completion
A very great deal happened in the AD&D™ world during that
time, didn’t it? For instance, the DEITIES & DEMIGODS™ Cyclopedia
was born, raised to maturity, and published. For instance,
DRAGON™ magazine advanced from issue 29 to the late
40s. (Editor’s note: DRAGON #52 was on sale when the FIEND
FOLlO tome was released at the GEN CON® XIV Convention.)
For instance, a host of new modules made their debut.

These are the reasons why monsters from more recent modules
were not included and why monsters from DRAGON™
magazine did not appear. It is also, at least in part, the reason for
my Raise Dead Fully gaffe; for this I accept full responsibility
and, red-faced, back off to the position of “I’m sure you know
what I mean.” (But not for “anti-paladin” — the full reference
includes words which clearly deny any implications of official
status.)

I suspect this information alone answers a number of questions
in readers’ minds. There has been some temporal distortion
— enough to raise at least a flicker of curiosity but not
enough (I sincerely hope) to detract.

Ed criticizes some entries on the grounds of incompleteness
and inadequacy. This begs the questions — what is “complete”?
What is “adequate”? I suspect these are, in the final analysis,
matters of personal taste. For every person criticizing absence
of information on these grounds, someone else will say that
certain information actually presented is superfluous, and accusing
me of padding. I have no god-like wisdom on this score
(nor, I suspect, has anyone else) — only instinct about what
“feels” right within certain obvious boundaries. If my instinct
differs from others, perhaps it’s because we’re only human.

Mind you, I don’t accept what Ed says about certain languages
being incomprehensible. If one admits to the existence
of the Tongues spell, then surely it requires no further stretching
of one’s imagination to postulate a language which somehow
has defied analysis. In like view, it would be a dull world (real or
fantasy) if everything was explained and comprehensible.

A personal point of view, certainly, but one which I believe is
shared by many. Once every problem is solved, every question
has an answer, and every mystery has been explained, the IMAGINATION
can turn up its toes and call an end to the matter, its work
accomplished. A sad and boring death.

Names. Try inserting into Ed’s quotation the Baluchitherium,
Titanothere, or (this is a real beauty) the Ixitachitl. Or even the
duck-billed platypus and many others from our real world. No, I
did not name monsters with particular regard for the smooth
flowing of the vocal chords. I imagine the word “man” might not
flow too well off a Martian’s tongue (or whatever organ is
appropriate).

The Eye of FEAR and Flame is not undead. If it were, it would be
on the undead table (page 115). Nor is the Crypt Thing an
undead monster. In neither case does the text leave any doubt
— and even if it did, the undead table would resolve the matter.

No, the Frost Men are not human. The text makes it quite clear
by saying they are "... in most respects very like normal humans....”
and then going on to say in what respects they differ.
The Qullan isn’t human, either — it says in the text that they are
humanoids. Ed, you are either not reading thoroughly or just
trying to put words into my pen in order to criticize them. Tut
— this is not worthy of you.

If Ed reads White Dwarf as carefully as seems to be the case,
he knows the Xvart is far from redundant to some, since the
monster features quite prominently in a “mini-module” in the
magazine’s pages, and furthermore, a mini-module which I am
assured is very popular. Are the dinosaurs (5 pages) in the
Monster Manual redundant? I doubt if one answer suits all.

As for the Elemental Princes of Good (or of Neutrality, or of
any of the nine ways), the leaders of the oriental dragons (if they
have any; they could simply be real democrats), the inhabitants
of the other planes Alan would like to populate and literally
hundreds of other new and not-so-new monsters which would
have been included... well, perhaps next time.

There are 3 types of complaints. In one category I retire
red-faced; in another I fear the critic is mistaken. But in the 3rd
—and largest —category I think we have conflicts or less major
differences in personal opinion (and for this reason I haven’t
commented on every example cited). If my personal opinions
don’t align with yours, I’m sorry. What more can I say?