A few weeks ago, Earth Nerd Clave called out in desperation for D&D help from his fellow ne’er do wells around Nerds on Earth Headquarters. He was exploring the origins of slimes and oozes, as one is wont to do from time to time. Being a South Carolinian, I was sheltering down for Hurricane Florence and had nothing better to do than to follow him down the nerdiest rabbit hole imaginable, providing him some information from my 1e D&D bookshelf. You can read his awesome, if slimmy, article here.
Of course, one of my go-to books for arcane knowledge of beasts and baddies is the deliciously strange Fiend Folio from 1e. Originally published in 1981, Fiend Folio is packed with monsters that can be best described as… oddities. It is certainly not your standard Monster Manual! The strange collection of monsters owes its uniqueness almost wholly to its use of fan submissions to White Dwarf’s “Fiend Factory” column.
Some of the monsters became staples of the D&D tabletop experience, like the Githyanki, the Aarakocra, or the Death Knight. Other monsters are just plain weird. There are fey creatures, strange undead, and oozes and slimes that made Clave shiver with delight. Oh, and there are also Flumphs. Can’t forget the Flumphs.
With such a richly unique menagerie of characters, I always come away from any reading of this book with fun ideas for my games. It’s a difficult task to narrow down my favorite monsters from this book down to a list of seven, but here’s my attempt to do just that! I have chosen seven monsters from the original Fiend Folio that can teach us some very good life lessons about adventuring in D&D. I will try to steer clear of some of the more famous and infamous entries from this book, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them!
Sorry, Flumphs. Maybe next time.
Fiend Folio ROCKS!
I hope you have enjoyed this small dive into the original Fiend Folio with me. If you can find a copy, do not hesitate to buy one. It is hands down one of the funnest reads from the original run of D&D. I guarantee most players will walk away with ideas for their own games. PDF copies and softcover reprints are available online from the Dungeon Masters Guild.