Fiend Folio

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Fiend Folio 1981

The Fiend Folio was a 1981 Monster Manual-like book for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition. It served to gather up the various monsters that had been submitted to TSR works but not made the MM itself as of its 1978 edition - for instance, kuo-toa, svirfneblin and of course the official full writeup of drow. Most came out of White Dwarf's Fiend Factory as of then.

Many of the latter monsters are laughable crap, like the Xvart which sounds like Fart, so have fallen into obscurity or - like the Flumph - notoriety. Hence why the "Monster Manual II" will - pointedly - not be "III" despite the Folio monsters being canon.

But a few gems do appear amongst the dross: usually cited here, Charles Stross' badass Githyanki and Githzerai. We could also shout-out to the Dark Ones, the Creepers and Stalkers. Who knows why later publishers didn't publish stuff featuring those guys, they were fucking sweet.

A 3rd-party company called Necromancer Games vaguely affiliated with White Wolf released the Tome of Horrors, which set out to fill in the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition's gaps up to 2002 - a spiritual successor to the 'Folio if ever there was one, and including many if not most of its monsters. WotC for 3e did its own Fiend Folio, figuring that was a decent brand for niche monsters - so Caryatid Columns and those Dark Ones were here. Others were brought back for Pathfinder. With the release of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, many of these monsters are starting to be revived and return to the spotlight. The Lava Children, Flumph, and Berbalang all entered the canon here, among others. 5th edition also has a new series of PDF supplements called Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio which updates even more obscure monsters from the original Fiend Folio to 5th edition.

1st Edition

• Aarakocra Big Bird, a Fiend Factory guy.
• Achaierai Another Big Bird, here infernal. Has a spherical body with no neck and tiny wings and four long metallic legs it attacks with. They can release poison smoke when badly injured. This should give you a good idea of the kinds of monsters that are to follow.
• Adherer, a weird creature that looks like a mummy but sweats glue.
• Aleax, a personification of a god's anger that resembles a duplicate of the person it has been sent to punish.
• Algoid, a humanoid that actually is a colony of intelligent algae. They can use mind blast and can control trees like a treant. They are immune to psionic attacks, edged weapons of less than +2 quality, fire, and electricity, but take damage from some spells that affect water.
• Al-mi'raj, the Arabian-folklore unicorn-bunneh. Actually kind of cute here; becomes more WTF in later editions.
• Apparition, an undead that cannot cause physical harm, so it tries to BOO! people to death.
• Assassin Bug, giant flies that attack humans in male/female pairs. The male paralyzes the victim so that the female can lay their eggs in their wounds. First of several xenomorphs to follow.
• Astral Searcher, a spirit formed from violent thoughts that attacks people psychically to destroy their mind to it can posses their body.
• Babbler, a mutated form of lizard man.
• Giant bat, just a giant bat.
• Berbalang an ugly bat winged humanoid that spends most of its time with its body dormant while its spirit hunts on the astral plane. During the full moon it instead hunts on the physical plane by sending out a physical projection of itself.
• Blindheim, a frog-like creature with brightly shining eyes.
• Blood Hawk, a bird of prey that likes human flesh.
• Giant Bloodworm, just a giant blood sucking worm.
• Bonesnapper a dinosaur that like to collect human bones. Is it that different from the Babbler...?
• Booka is Dobby The House Elf, who prefers attics.
• Bullywug frog people WHO ARE EVERYWHERE
• Bunyip, a seal like creature with strong jaws from Australia.
• Carbuncle, a strange creature with a jewel on its head that follows travelers around and tries to get them killed for its amusement.
• Caryatid Column, a stone pillar shaped like a woman holding a sword that can come to life. Illustration was full frontal nudity.
• Caterwaul, a chaotic evil feline predator with blue fur. They have a powerful screech for a breath weapon.
• Cifal, a tightly packed swarm of insects that forms a humanoid shape.
• Clubnek, a giant mutant ostrich.
• Coffer Corpse, an undead creature that can only be damaged with magical weapons. If you hit it with non-magical weapons with will pretend to be damaged and fall down, only to get up again and scare you
• Crabman, humanoids with hard shells and crab claws instead of hands.
• Crypt Thing, an undead guardian that teleports intruders to random places, or paralyzes them and turns them invisible, but claims that it disintegrated them. Not listed as evil; he's a mix of "plot device" and "dick". In other words, he's the DM.
• Dakon, Lawful neutral talking apes.
• Dark Creeper small humanoid that love to steal magic item. They have the abilities of a 4th level thief and creating magical darkness and detecting magic items.
• Dark Stalker taller and stronger leaders of dark creepers that can create walls of fog and explode when they die.
• Death Dog a two headed dog with a bite that spreads a deadly rotting disease.
• Death Knight, a powerful undead created from a fallen paladin transformed into a lich.
• Demon
  • Lolth, the demon queen of spiders.
• Denzelian, a peaceful creature resembling a large sheet of rock that slowly eats through rock, creating tunnels. May have been stolen from Star Trek.
• Devil
  • Styx devil, a humanoid devil with a oversized head and black wings. Their attacks have a chance of inflicting the imprisonment spell on their target.
• Devil Dog, a chaotic evil hound that uses its white fur to blend into snow.
• Dire Corby, a flightless humanoid bird that lives underground.
• Disenchanter, a tapir like creature that sucks the magic out of magic items
• Doombat, an evil giant bat with a barbed tail and a shriek that prevents concentration.
• Oriental Dragon
  • Li lung
  • Lung wang
  • Pan lung
  • Shen lung
  • T'ien lung
  • Yu lung
• Dragonfish a well camouflaged fish with poisonous spines on its back. Don't step on them. They probably could have just used the stonefish which is a completely real animal that is pretty much the same thing.
• Dune Stalker, an evil humanoid that attacks with powerful vibrations.
• Elemental princes of evil
  • Cryonax
  • Imix
  • Ogrémoch
  • Olhydra
  • Yan-C-Bin
• Drow Elf
• Enveloper, a shapeshifting mass of flesh that can copy the abilities of people it eats.
• Ettercap, a humanoid with the ability to generate spider silk, which it uses to make weapons and traps.
• Eye Killer, a monster with the lower body of a snake and the upper body of a bat. Once per day, it can absorb light from light sources and fire it from its eyes as a death ray.
• Eye of Fear and Flame
• Firedrake, a Dragonet with flaming hot blood.
• Firenewt Religiously fanatical and bipedal salamanders who ride Giant Striders into battle. Honestly pretty badass, deserved more love in the literature.
• Fire Snake, a snake that is only found in fires.
• Firetoad, a toad that hates water and breathes fireballs.
• Flail Snail
• Flind, a relative of the gnoll that often leads gnoll packs.
• Flumph
• Forlarren
• Frost Man, a humanoid that radiates cold and can lift its eyepatch to fire a cone of cold. They can have class levels.
• Galltrit, a small winged "gremlin" (which hadn't been defined yet, itself) that lives in dirty places and feeds on blood. If avoided being detected when feeding on victims with its anesthetic saliva.
• Gambado, a very strange monster with a skull for a face that can coil up its body to launch itself like a spring. It ambushes prey by pretending to be a skull sitting on a pile of rocks with its body hidden in a pit behind the pile. Like the demilich.
• Garbug, a flying lobster with tentacles that cause paralysis.
  • Black Garbug, attacks with a sharp proboscis.
  • Violet Garbug, attacks with powerful claws.
• Giant
  • Fog Giant
  • Mountain Giant
• Giant Strider, a flightless featherless bird that can shoot fireballs from its head. Fire heals them but they are vulnerable to cold. As noted above Firenewts use them as mounts.
• Gibberling
• Githyanki: George Martin's and Charles Stross' parable about how people freed from slavery are not necessarily morally superior to their erstwhile oppressors. It won't happen in 1e but this race will get love from future adventure designers.
• Githzerai will be even better supported... in that next generation, Planescape here.
• Goldbug, a beetle with a deadly poison bite that looks like a coin.
• Gorbel
• Gorilla Bear, a gorilla with the arms and teeth of a bear.
• Grell
• Grimlock
• Gryph, another evil four legged bird monster. Not as giant and silly looking as the achaierai. Females gryphs lay their eggs in people's bodies xenomorph style.
• Guardian Daemon, a daemon that has been summoned and bound to guard a treasure.
• Guardian Familiar, a cat that guards a treasure. It must be killed 9 times to destroy it, and it gets stronger the more times it has been killed.
• Hellcat, a cat from hell that serves lawful evil beings. It is only visible in darkness.
• Hoar Fox, a fox with ice breath. They are resistant to ice and vulnerable to fire, but you will want to avoid using fire because their pelts are very valuable if undamaged.
• Hook Horror
• Giant Hornet, just a giant hornet.
• Hound of Ill Omen, when a character does something to seriously offend their deity, this hound may appear and put a curse on them that prevents them from healing and quadruples all damage they take until they take a certain number of wounds. There is no saving throw for this curse, the remove curse spell is only partially effective and only has any effect if applied immediately, and the hound is impossible to harm in any way. This probably was put into the book to give DMs a way to more easily kill off misbehaving player characters without having to resort to falling rocks or sending monsters that risk a TPK.
• Huecuva
• Ice Lizard, a small winged lizard with magical abilities, including the power to turn into a white dragon twice per day.
• Imorph, a weird tentacled slug thing that slowly transforms into a copy of whatever it fights. Its liver can be used to make a potion of polymorph self.
• Iron Cobra, a powerful construct in the form of a metal snake that obeys its owner's commands. Well it is better than the pig golem in the 'Factory.
• Jaculi, a snake with sharp bones on the sides of its head and the ability to camouflaged itself like a chameleon. They can only attack by leaping at enemies from above.
• Jermlaine
• Kamadan, a relative of the displacer beast that looks like a leopard with several venomous snakes growing from its shoulders and fires a cone of sleep as a breath weapon.
• Kelpie, a shapeshifting seaweed monster that transforms into either a woman or a horse and charms men into drowning themselves so it can feast on them. Women are immune to its charm.
• Kenku
• Khargra, a very strange looking fish like creature from the elemental plane of earth that eats metal and can swim through stone.
• Killmoulis
• Kuo-toa
• Lamia Noble
• Lava Children a hybrid of earth and fire elementals. They are size of a man but look like children. They can be warriors, magic users, or clerics. They are immune to earth and fire magic. Metal objects cannot touch them and simply pass through them.
• Lizard king The flind of the lizardmen. There's an illustration of them failing to fight Lava Children.
• Magnesium Spirit, a fast moving flame that needs to possess a human in order to cast the spell to let it go home. They attempt to merge with a human, draining their energy and strength in the process. The human must be at least 9th level to survive the merging process due to the energy drain. If it succeeds the body it possesses will vanish with it. Victims that don't survive can't be resurrected without a powerful such as wish. They can only be damaged by silver and magic weapons, and can only be damaged by holy water while it is trying to merge with a human.
• Mantari, a flying ray with a stinger tail that does more damage the less constitution the victim has, and does quadruple damage if it hits the same target again the next round.
• Meazel, an ugly humanoid that likes to sneak up on prey from behind and strangle them with a cord. Maybe a Gollum expie before the choker.
• Meenlock, a hideously ugly evil bug creature that lives in underground shafts. If the entrance to their lair is opened but the party isn't able to get down the tunnel to attack them, a group of meenlocks will start following the party and will start telepathically harassing one of them to slowly weaken them. They will always choose a paladin as the target if there is one in the party, and if there isn't will select humans over other beings. When the party is sleeping, they will attack and teleport away with the chosen target back to their lair to be transformed into another meenlock.
• Mephit, breeds of fire-gremlin. The Fiend Factory and, later, Planescape will expand their range.
  • Fire Mephit
  • Lava Mephit
  • Smoke Mephit
  • Steam Mephit
• Mezzodaemon
• Mite, a small humanoid from the 'Factory hereby related to the jermlaine (and snyad). They set traps for lone adventurers in order to rob them.
• Necrophidius, the award-winning 'Factory construct made from a human skull and the spine of a giant snake. Used as either an assassin (because given Average INT here) or a guardian. They can hypnotize victims by dancing and their bite causes magic-paralysis.
• Needleman, an intelligent plant that looks like a zombie with the ability to shoot needles out of its body. They hate elves for some reason.
• Nilbog ?siht od yhW
• Nonafel, a panther like monster that uses its tail as a flail and has the ability to split itself into up to nine weaker creatures.
• Norker
• Nycadaemon
• Ogrillon, a hybrid of an orc and an ogre. With knobby knuckles.
• Osquip, a rodent the size of a small dog with powerful teeth and extra legs.
• Pĕnanggalan purest nightmare fuel from the South China Sea.
• Pernicon, a small grasshopper-like insect that lives in deserts and attacks in swarms. They suck out the body fluids of victims using the pincers on their tail. Their antennae can be used for dowsing for water.
• Phantom Stalker, a relative of the invisible stalker from the elemental plane of fire. They can polymorph but normally appear as a large humanoid with fiery eyes. If the summoner is killed, it vanishes to the ethereal plane and tracks down the killer and reappears a few hours later to kill them. They cannot use this ability at will.
• Poltergeist, an invisible undead that attacks by throwing things.
• Protein Polymorph, an intelligent colony of cellular organisms that can disguise itself as both living and non living things. It attacks by enveloping and crushing enemies or by using weapons if it is disguised as a creature that can use them. It can also disguise itself as multiple objects or creatures at the same time as long as they remain connected together.
• Quaggoth the literal-bugbear, we guess. Ends up taking the bugbear niche in the Underdark in (say) Night Below so, a winner was he.
• Quipper, basically a piranha, but it lives in cold water.
• Qullan, a race of insane humanoids who paint their bodies in bright colors and wield extremely sharp broad swords, although the swords aren't magical and lose their sharpness quickly when used. They also radiate an aura of confusion and instantly die if they fail a save against being charmed or controlled.
• Retriever, a construct created by Demogorgon resembling a giant spider. They have four eye rays, include one that transmutes victims into a random substance.
• Revenant has come to cut you up, has come to knock you down.
• Rothé, similar to an ox but smaller and lives underground.
• Sandman, a man made of sand who puts people to sleep.
• Scarecrow, an animated scarecrow. Touching it or meeting its gaze causes victims to be charmed.
• Screaming Devilkin, an imp-like creature that constantly produces a painfully loud scream while in combat. They are lawful evil, but are not true devils, as they are native to the material plane.
• Shadow Demon
• Sheet Ghoul. A sheet phantom that has successfully killed a humanoid. They cannot paralyzed victims like a true ghoul, but can spray acid out of their nose.

Holy sheet! How terrifying.

• Sheet Phantom, a wraith resembling a bed sheet with a face that attacks by dropping on people and suffocating them. If they succeed, the sheet phantom merges with the corpse and becomes a sheet ghoul. Seriously, how old was the person who designed who designed the sheet phantom and sheet ghoul? 5 maybe?
• Shocker, a humanoid that seems to be made of electricity. They can only attack once before they turn to dust.
• Skeleton Warrior
• Skulk
• Slaad, monster frogs from the Chaos realm. Chaotic Neutral, graded on a curve against the other monstrosities in this 'Folio. The lolrandumb shit will come in Planescape.
  • Blue Slaad
  • Death Slaad
  • Green Slaad
  • Grey Slaad
  • Red Slaad
  • Ssendam - Lord of the Insane
  • Ygorl - Lord of Entropy
• Snyad, another forgettable small ugly humanoid related to the jermlaine. Don't confuse with the Synad.
• Son of Kyuss, a disease carrying, regenerating, worm infested undead. People killed by one of its worms rise as another son of Kyuss. METAL!
• Stunjelly
• Sussurus, a strange monster that looks like a headless gorilla with an exoskeleton full of holes. It constantly sucks air through its body, producing a song that causes undead creatures that hear it to go into a sleep-like state.
• Svirfneblin the unpronounceable unspellable Deep Gnome from D2.
• Symbiotic Jelly
• Tabaxi
• Tentamort a spherical creature with short suckered tentacles on one side of its body it uses to move around and two much longer tentacles on the other side it uses to attack. One of the long tentacles constricts enemies, and the other has a stinger which first paralyzes prey and then injects them with digestive saliva and then sucks out their organs.
• Terithran, a humanoid from the ethereal plane. Casting powerful magic other than cleric or druid magic on the material plane close to its layer on the ethereal plane makes it angry, and it will try to kidnap and punish the magic user responsible.
• Thoqqua, a burning hot worm monster that tunnels through rock, like a smaller, fiery version of the Purple Worm.
• Thork, a bird resembling a stork, but its feathers are made out of copper, making it valuable. It defends itself by squirting boiling hot water.
• Throat Leech, a small leech that sucks that sucks blood from the person who accidentally swallows it while drinking from the water it lives in, choking them to death if it isn't removed.
• Tiger Fly, a giant wasp with a human face. Males have upper arms that end in sickle like blades and a poisonous sting, and females have a paralyzing sting. They are yet another monster that lays eggs in victims xenomorph style. The trope is definitely getting overused.
• Tirapheg, an extremely weird monster with three heads, three eyes that are all on the same head with the third on the back of the head, three arms with the third growing from the chest, three fingers that are all on the middle arm, with the other two arms ending in blades, three legs, three toes all on the same legs, its mouth located on its chest under the middle arm, and three small tentacles between the middle arm and the mouth. Aside from the blades, the only body part it has two of are its ears, also on the middle head. It can make two illusory copies of itself, but the illusions can do real damage if not recognized as illusions.
• Trilloch, an invisible energy creature that feeds on the dying. They cannot directly harm anything, but they can make unintelligent creatures more aggressive and attacks become more accurate and damaging in their presence. The trilloch is impossible to harm, but can be driven away by dispel magic.
• Troll
  • Giant Troll
  • Giant Two-Headed Troll
  • Ice Troll
  • Spirit Troll
• Tween, an Ethereal creature that bonds to a host and appears as a shadowy copy of that host. It grants the host increased luck, but at the cost of giving bad luck to everyone around them. Possibly the monster with the stupidest name in the book.
• Umpleby
• Urchin, sea urchins that can fire their spines as missiles and roll around on land. Inside of their bodies is a gemstone whose value depends on the type of urchin.
  • Black Urchin, the weakest and most common type.
  • Green Urchin, stronger and well camouflaged in water
  • Red Urchin, third strongest with venom that causes sleep
  • Silver Urchin, the strongest type with venom that causes a catatonic trance that can last for days.
  • Yellow Urchin, the second strongest type with venom that causes paralysis and is also well camouflaged in water.
• Vision, an ethereal shadow creature that wants to be destroyed so it can return to its home plane so it attacks other creatures to get them to fight back. It cannot directly cause physical harm, but anybody who sees a vision has a chance of being affected by the illusion that they have suddenly aged ten years. When a vision is destroyed, the illusionary aging becomes real if the victim fails their save. They can be damaged by bless and dispel illusion.
• Vodyanoi, a relative of the Umber Hulk that looks like a fish man instead of a bug. They lack the confusing gaze of an umber hulk, but can summon electric eels.
• Volt, a floating ball of hair with bulging eyes, short horns, and a long tail. It bites people's necks to drain their blood and its tail shocks what it hits with electricity. Is this pokemon?
• Vortex, a small sphere that generates a miniature tornado around itself.
• Whipweed, a plant like tentacle monster with two long tentacles it attacks with and eight small legs it uses to move around. Does this sound familiar?
• Witherstench, a hairless skunk like creature that produces a horrible smell constantly.
• Witherweed, a plant with venom that drains dexterity and can cause seizures. It is weak against fire, but when it burns it produces smoke that can instantly kill people that inhale it.
• Xill, a four armed monster reproduces by implanting eggs in humanoids Assassin Bug style. To justify this redundancy they ambush their victim from the ethereal plane and attempt to either subdue or paralyze them with their venomous claws and grapple them and carry them back to the ethereal plane. Thus being redundant with the Berbalang as well. They can be warded off with a protection from evil spell and it is extremely vulnerable while it is switching from the material plane to the ethereal and grappling a victim.
• Xvart a 'Factory fan-fave because Brits just love them some smurfs.
• Yellow Musk Creeper, a plant that sprays victims with mind controlling dust from its flowers which lures them into the plant so it can drain their intelligence. If the victim dies from the intelligence drain, a new flower is added to the plant, but if the victim survives they become a yellow musk zombie.
• Yellow Musk Zombie, a humanoid that has a yellow musk creeper seed implanted in their brain which allows the plant to control them. They can be restored back to normal using magic, but only if the plant that turned them is killed first. If not cured they will eventually die and grow into a new creeper.

(As to where in the AD&D canon you'll meet any of these, where Gygax hadn't introduced them in the first place: that would be WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. We figure that TSR in the mid 1980s were trying to clean out the warehouse.)

2nd Edition

2rd Edition's version of the Fiend Folio was the 14th volume of the Monstrous Compendium series. A lot of monsters from the previous Fiend Folio returned with expanded and revised fluff. The artwork in this book is also a lot better so a lot of (but certainly not all of) the dumb looking monsters are less so. For some reason, the artwork of a few of the monsters are not consistent with their descriptions, such as the volt, which is described the same way as in the previous edition, but the picture looks completely different.

• Aballin
• Achaierai, still stupid looking.
• Adherer
• Algoid, definitely looks a lot cooler now.
  • Purple Algoid, a new variant that lives in arctic areas. Instead of controlling trees they can talk to crustaceans.
• Al-mi'raj, now has the ability to teleport short distances.
• Apparition
• Caterwaul
• Crabman
• Coffer Corpse, the artwork is a huge improvement.
• Dark Creeper
• Dark Stalker, for some reason he appears to be dressed as a superhero.
• Darter, a blood drinking lizard that can fire it fangs as darts that cause paralysis.
• Denzelian
• Gem Dragon
  • Amethyst dragon
  • Crystal dragon
  • Emerald dragon
  • Sapphire dragon
  • Topaz dragon
• Dune Stalker, now has a more reptilian appearance.
• Fire Falcon, a bird that can fire explosive spheres from its wings.
• Faux Fairy, a fairy creature that lives to cause confusion through lies and tricks. They can copy the appearance of any kind of fairy creature. They completely immune to all spells. Whenever they are hit by a spell, they absorb the spell and store it. When they no longer have room to store spells, casting a spell at them will cause them to release one of the previously stored spells at the caster to make room. At night they merge with a piece of dead wood. Burning the piece of wood will cause the spells they have stored to release, and cutting it up will cause only some of the stored spells to release and make the faux fairy split in into two faux fairies.
• Firedrake
• Flawder, intelligent neutral good sea snails.
• Fyrefly, a insect that reproduces in fires. A adult fyrefly normally is harmless but when it is ready to reproduce, it will fly into a fire and rapidly divide into a swarm of up to 64 extremely aggressing flaming insects. Luckily the swarm only lasts for ten rounds of combat before the flies go dormant and change into adults.
• Gambado
• Garbug, the two different types are now the male and female of the same species. Oddly, it is the blood drinking black garbug that is that male, while in real life, blood drinking insects like mosquitos usually are females. Females, but not males, can be trained as guard animals.
  • Black garbug
  • Violet garbug
• Fog Giant
• Gibberling, now with a more canine appearance.
• Gorbel
• Grimlock
• Hellcat
• Ice Lizard
• Iron Cobra
• Khargra
• Mantari, its stinger tail works differently now. It now has a venom that causes temporary strength and dexterity loss.
• Great Mantari, a larger variant.
• Mephit
  • Fire Mephit
  • Ice Mephit
  • Lava Mephit
  • Mist Mephit
  • Smoke Mephit
  • Steam Mephit
• Penanggalan
• Pernicon
• Phantom Stalker
• Quaggoth
• Retriever
• Ruve, an intelligent dog with psionic powers. Although they are lawful good, they are extremely arrogant and obnoxious.
• Scathe, an ugly white reptilian humanoids\ related to the harrier, that lives in icy regions. They have poisonous beaks and are immune to cold.
• Scathe Larva, identical to harrier larva.
• Sheet Ghoul, it now sprays acid from the mouth instead of the nose. Probably an attempt to make it less silly.
• Sheet Phantom, no longer has a face. Probably an improvement.
• Shocker, completely redesigned. It now looks like a suit of armor crackling with electricity and it no longer crumbles into dust after its first attack. Now confirmed to be an elemental from the Plane of Lightning.
• Spanner, an intelligent living stone bridge that can talk and likes to gossip. It will drop you if you make it mad or try to cross it without permission. This should be fun for the DM to roleplay.
• Stwinger, a tiny humanoid with short wings whose favorite activity is swinging around using peoples hair or beards until they fall unconscious from the pain of their hair or beards being pulled on. They produce a pheremone that charms victims into letting them do this and even if they fail the stwinger is difficult to attack because of how cute it is.
• Sussurus, now redesigned into a plant monster related to the shambling mound made of bamboo. The song they produce now affects both the living and the undead.
• Symbiotic Jelly
• Terithran, now it attacks spellcasters because it likes to eat them, rather than wanting to punish them for disturbing the ethereal plane.
• Thunder Children, black humanoids that come out during thunderstorms to feed on people's fear. Their bites inflict electric damage and they can cast several spells, sense fear, and turn into a gaseous form. They like to scare people do death by sneakily doing things to increase the victims fear of the storm. The plane of Ravenloft is a paradise for them.
• Ice Troll
• Tween, it now looks like a short ugly humanoid while on the ethereal plane and it can fight with weapons but only against other things on the ethereal plane.
• Umpleby
• Urdunnir, a relative of the dwarf that has the ability to pass through stone and can innately cast stone shape and shape metal. They can kill people by dragging them into stone using their special ability and then leaving them behind.
• Volt
• Xill
• Xvart
• Zygraat, yet another bird monster with extra legs. This one is actually part spider. It can make webs and has a venomous bite.

3rd Editon

Monsters

Fewer monsters from the two previous folios return. It has way fewer stupid monsters. A lot of the monsters here probably deserved to go in the monster manuals or other books instead and many of the monsters from the previous folios that didn't appear in this book did appear in other books. The Achaierai actually made it into the first Monster Manual and the artist managed to make it less dumb looking. Since doesn't a ton of dumb monsters, this book probably could've been released as just another Monster Manual. It also contains stats for several obscure extinct animals that existed in real life.

• Abrian, an intelligent bird from the Abyss that looks like an ostrich with small arms instead of wings.
• Abyssal ghoul, an ghoul from the abyss. Possibly a creation of Doresain?
• Ahuizotl, a monster from Aztec mythology. It is part dog, part monkey and has a hand on the end of its tail. It lives in water and attacks people to eat their eyes, teeth, and fingernails.
• Aoa, a floating blob of silver liquid. Possibly is the neutral counterpart of the zag-ya and zeg-yi. They reflect energy instead of producing it and are attracted to magic. They are very dangerous to spellcasters and magic items as their touch dispels magic.
  • Droplet
  • Sphere
• Aquatic Ooze
  • Bloodbloater
  • Flotsam ooze
  • Reekmurk
• Bacchae, humanoid outsiders that spend all of their time constantly drinking and partying. People who get drawn into the party risk becoming a Bacchae as well.
• Bhut, a hideous incorporeal undead with a poison bite and is able to possess corpses. Except when possessing a body, they have a weakness against anything made of earth or stone.
• Blackstone Gigant, a stone construct that looks like a gargantuan woman with eight arms or a Marilith. Their touch can turn people to stone, and they can temporarily animate their victims into living statues.
• Blood Hawk
• Bloodthorn, an extraplanar plant that drinks blood and lures victims with its sweet smelling berries.
• Bonespear, a giant insect from Acheron resembling a giant grasshopper with venomous barbed horns. It can fire its horns like harpoons and reel them back in.
• Canomorph, a fiendish hound that has learned to assume humanoid form.
  • Haraknin, hell hound canomorph,
  • Shadurakul, shadow mastiff canomorph
  • Vultivor, vorr canomorph,
• Caryatid Column
• Century Worm, a gargantuan worm that tries to swallow everything it encounters whole. Its stomach is filled with baby worms that burrow into those it swallows. They get their name from the fact that it takes 100 years for a baby worm to grow to full size after implanting itself in a body.
• Chronotyryn, a bird with arms and adamantine feathers. They are powerful sorcerers and can stop time. They also have two brains, which lets them do twice as much per round of combat, somehow.
• Chwidencha, a giant spider completely covered in legs, created from a Drow who seriously angered Lolth.
• Crawling Head, the undead head of a Giant that crawls around with its intestines and has numerous smaller heads from people it bit off the heads of embedded in it. They can cast a lot of necromancy spells, but are weak to water.
• Crypt Thing
• Dark Ones
  • Dark Creeper
  • Dark Stalker
• Darkweaver, an Aberration from the Plane of Shadow resembling a spider but with tentacles instead of legs. They have several shadow related powers, including the ability to generate a web of shadow around itself
• Death Dog
• Demodand
  • Farastu
  • Kelubar
  • Shator
• Demon
  • Alkilith
  • Blood Fiend, a vampire demon that can turn other evil outsiders into more of itself.
  • Klurichir, a demon even worse than a balor.
  • Maurezhi, a ghoul like demon that can absorb the traits of what it eats. Wait, didn't this book already have a ghoul demon monster in it?
  • Myrmyxicuses, the most powerful of all aquatic demons.
  • Skulvyn, a lesser aquatic demon.
  • Wastrilith, a medium aquatic demon.
• Deva
  • Monadic Deva
  • Movanic Deva
• Devil
  • Paeliryon
  • Xerfilstyxe
• Dire Rhinoceros
• Disenchanter
• Ethereal Ooze
• Ethergaunt, aberrations from the ethereal plane resembling emaciated humanoids with their heads protruding from their chest, which they keep covered with a mask. The sight of their unmasked face causes psychological damage. They seek to purge themselves of all emotions and exterminated all creatures that may possibly threaten them. They have two unique weapons. The etherblade is a glaive that can fire shots of force damage, and the doubtbomb is a sphere that releases wisdom damaging gas when broken.
  • Black Ethergaunt
  • Red Ethergaunt
  • White Etherguant
• Fensir extraplanar giants resembling trolls from Ysgard. Sunlight causes them to turn to stone.
  • Rakka, a transformation that females fensir may undergo after they have given birth. They grow larger, lose their intelligence and spellcasting, become extremely gluttonous and then usually die in one year. If they are killed they can put a dying curse on their killer that acts as a geas or quest spell.
• Feytouched, the child of a half-fey and a humanoid or a giant.
• Fhorge, a monstrous boar that lives in the Outlands.
• Flame Snake, intelligent fiery snakes that are often used as guards, varying in size from small to huge.
  • Minor Flame Snake
  • Lesser Flame Snake
  • Greater Flame Snake
• Formian
  • Armadon
  • Observer
  • Winged Warrior
• Fossergrim, a fey similar to a dryad except it is male and is bound to a waterfall instead of a tree.
• Gathra, a half bull half boar creature from Avernus.
• Giant
  • Bog Giant
  • Shadow Giant
• Golem
  • Blood Golem of Hextor,
  • Brain Golem, created by an illithid elder brain out of a part of itself.
  • Demonflesh Golem, the components for making one include fiendish grafts found later in this book.
  • Hellfire Golem
• Half-Fey Template, a hybrid of a Fey and another creature. The example given is a half-fey centaur.
• Half-Illithid Template, what happens when a non-humanoid creature is put through ceremorphosis. The example giving is a half-illithid lizardfolk.
• Half-Troll Template, somebody, willing or not, mated with a troll and had a baby. The example given is a half-troll barbazu.
• Half-Scrag Template, a variant of the half-troll template.
• Huecuva Template, now a template instead of a monster. The example giving is a 5th level human cleric huecuva.
• Hullathoin, a massive undead reptilian creature that can control other undead as is always surrounded by a swarm of bloodfiend locusts (see below under swarm).
• Imp
  • Bloodbag Imp, the medics of hell. Drinking a bloodbag imp's blood heals injuries. They can also cast a curse that makes injuries bleed badly.
  • Euphoric Imp, living drug dispensers. Their stinger tail delivers a hallucination causing venom, which they themselves are not immune to.
  • Filth Imp, a disease carrying imp that can release foul smelling gas. They are hated by other devils, so they are often found on the material plane working for thieves guilds. They can speak several languages and have a talent for codes and cyphers, so often work as translators and forgers.
• Indricothere, a huge mammal resembling an elephant and a giraffe that is often used as mounts by giants. In real life, this is a family of extinct animals.
• Inevitable
  • Quarut
  • Varakhut
• Iron Cobra
• Ironmaw, a man eating oak tree.
• Jackal Lord, evil humanoid jackals who are clerics of evil gods. They can turn humanoids into regular jackals with their gaze.
• Jackalwere, another evil canine that can assume a Furry or humanoid form. They can put victims to sleep with their gaze.
• Kaorti, humanoids that have been warped by the Far Realm. The material plane is harmful to them if they are unprotected from it. They are slowly trying to take over the material plane and make it more like the far realm. They secret resin which they use to create homes and armor that protect them from the material plane, as well as weapons call ribbon daggers that are very sharp, but also flexible. They can only reproduce by turning humanoids into more kaorti. Subjecting non-humanoids to this process creates kaoti thralls, which are the creature with a modified version of the fiendish template from the Monster Manual or with the pseudonatural template from Tome and Blood.
• Keeper, strange humanoids whose joints can bend in any direction and have no eyes, which they hide by always wearing goggles. They are completely obsessed with gathering knowledge and secrets, but never share anything they learn with other creatures. They can transform their hands into weapons, spit poison, switch places with other nearby keepers, and share a hivemind with nearby keepers. They melt into puddles of poison if they are killed, and automatically die if they are captured or immobilized for too long.
• Kelp Angler, a carnivorous plant resembling a jellyfish made of kelp.
• Kelpie, now it is a fey creature whose natural form is a horse, but can make itself look human.
• Khaasta, Lizard people that work as mercenaries on the outer planes.
• Kuldurath, a beast from the Outlands resembling a rhino but with longer legs and with sharp teeth and tusks and no horn and can also produce and electric aura. They are used as mounts by Ferrumach Rilmani.
• Living Holocaust, No, not that kind of holocaust, an evil half fire half air elemental resembling a fire tornado.
• Lucent Worm, another gargantuan worm monster. This one is a magical beast instead of a vermin. Its body is transparent and they are very stealthy.
• Maelephant, fiendish humanoid elephants engineered by baatezu and used as guardians. They can breath a gas that causes amnesia.
• Maug, intelligent stone constructs from Acheron that live for war.
• Maulgoth, an aberration resembling a huge rhinoceros with four tentacles and only a mouth were its head should be. They are partially made of rock and have several druid like abilities and can move through stone as though it were water and their tentacles can send things to the ethereal plane.
• Megatherium, a giant land sloth. An extinct animal in real life.
• Mongrelfolk
• Necrophidius
• Nerra, humanoids from the Plane of Mirrors. They can travel through reflective surfaces and spells bounce off of them, but they are vulnerable to sonic attacks. They wield exotic weapons that appear to be made of glass but are very strong.
  • Kalareem, nerra warriors. Unlike other types they do not have the change self ability.
  • Sillit, nerra leaders.
  • Varoot, nerra spies.
• Octopus Tree, aquatic carnivorous plants with great magical abilities. They can be found rooted near shore, or floating on the surface of the ocean. Their magical abilities mainly involve controlling plants and wood.
• Ocularon, an aberration resembling a floating jellyfish that steals people's eyeballs and uses them as weapons.
• Ophidian, snake people that Yuan-ti often use as slaves. Their bite turns people into more of them.
• Oread, another fey creature linked to a natural feature. A stony skinned woman that defends mountains from being mined.
• Phiuhl, a strange aberration found on Gehenna made of poison gas. They might be the spirits of dead elementals.
• Planetouched
  • Maeluth, part dwarf, part devil.
  • Mechanatrix, descended from humanoids who bred with the clockwork creatures of Mechanus, somehow.
  • Shyft, descended from humanoids who bred with creatures of the Ethereal Plane.
  • Wispling, part halfing, part demon.
• Quth-Maren, an undead created by the clerics of Kiaransalee out of a person whose skin they removed. They have acidic blood they can spit, and they can command other undead creatures.
• Rilmani
  • Aurumach
  • Cuprilach
  • Ferrumach
• Rukanyr, a powerful aberration made by the Kaorti. They look like giant scorpions wearing armor but with multiple pincers near the back their body instead of their front, three lamprey like mouths on stalks where the pincers should be, a single large eye, and a spiky club instead of a stinger. They have a deafening roar that can inflict sonic damage.
• Sarkrith, large-sized lawful evil lizard people who hate magic.
  • Spelleater, the leaders. They can fire rays that dispel magic and spells that fail to beat their magic resistance heal them.
  • Thane, the soldiers. They can create antimagic fields around themselves for a short time once per day, and when they take damage from spells or effects that do energy damage, they gain resistance to that type of energy.
• Sea Drake, sea serpents that demand payment from any ship that passes through their territory.
• Selkie
• Senmurv, a lawful good sparkledog with bird wings instead of arms.
• Shadar-Kai, the page for details. This book also contains rules for several Shadar-Kai magic items. The gal-ralan is an armband Shadar-kai use to protect themselves from the shadow curse that anchors the soul to their body and enhances saving throws, but also causes constant pain since it stabs the wearer through the arm. The blackstone rune lets you planeshift between the material and shadow planes. Night extract is a liquid that darkens non-magical light around it when spilled.
• Shadow Asp, a poisonous snake from the plane of shadow that is often used as a guardian. They can become incorporeal, and their venom causes victims to come back as shadows.
• Shedu, a relative of the Lammasu resembling a winged bull with the face of a man and a fancy beard and an extra leg between their front legs. They travel between the material, astral, and ethereal planes spreading lawful good.
• Skulk
• Skybleeder, a huge aberration used as flying mounts by the Kaorti. It resembles a mass of eyes and tentacles with the arms ending in pincers and it is always surrounded by a cloud of mist that rains red acid.
• Mud Slaad
• Slasrath, a flying worm monster with razor sharp wings. They are used as mounts by yugoloths
• Spectral Lurker, a huge incorporeal slug-like aberration. It can turn victims it grabs with its tentacles incorporeal as well, then drags them into solid objects and lets go of them so they take damage as they turn corporeal again and get ejected.
• Spirit of the Air, a big monkey with batwings in place of arms. They can wield a mace with their tale, cast several spells and spell-like abilities, and transform into a whirlwind.
• Sporebat, a creatures resembling a big bat with an eye in the middle of its body that can shoot an enervation ray but is actually a fungus.
• Spriggan
• Steel Predator, a predator from Acheron that looks like a robotic mix of a cat, a lizard, and a fish. They have a roar that inflicts sonic damage, and they are deaf, but more than make up for it with a great sense of smell and an ability to sense magic items that are made of metal, which they love to eat.
• Sunwyrm, a shining dragon with brightly glowing wings, eight legs, and a ball of light on the tip of its tail. Their breath weapon is a beam of energy that only harms living things (radiation maybe?), and they can also transform their four front legs and teeth into energy weapons that pass through non-living matter and also change their whole body into an incorporeal form.
• Swarm, any large swarm of monsters treated as one monster.
  • Abyssal Ant Swarm, 8-inch long ants from the lower planes. Unlike other swarms they can be affected by mind affecting spells because the swarm shares a single mind. Their attacks do acid damage and penetrate as if they were +5 weapons.
  • Plague Ant Swarm, ants that spread disease and cause serious bleeding with their attacks.
  • Lesser Pack Cranium Rat Swarm.
  • Average Pack Cranium Rat Swarm.
  • Greater Pack Cranium Rat Swarm.
  • Bloodfiend Locust Swarm, energy draining locusts that reanimate their victims as vampire spawn.
  • Rapture Locust Swarm, flesh eating locusts affect people that see them as the hypnotic pattern spell and people who they feast on may become enraptured and stand still while they are eaten.
  • Scarab Beetle Swarm, flesh eating scarab beetles that can quickly reduce living things to nothing.
  • Viper Swarm, a swarm of venomous snakes that shares a single mind.
  • Wasp Swarm, you know what they are, swarm of tiny little jerks.
• Swordwraith Template, the wraith of a fighter who wouldn't stop fighting even in death. The example is a 5th level human fighter.
• Terlen, a shark with extra long fins that allow it to fly. We are doomed.
• Terror Bird, a large flightless carnivorous bird. Another extinct animal in real life.
• Thunder Worm, a colossal sized incorporeal giant worm that looks like a thunder cloud.
• Ti-khana Template, a reptilian creature that is part Yuan-ti, giving it a venomous bite and several psionic abilities, including turning into a viper. The example is a Ti-khana Deinonychus.
• Tunnel Terror, a huge stony psionic worm with a hollow body that pretends to be the walls of a tunnel to trick prey into walking inside it. This book has a lot of giant worm monsters, doesn't it?
• Ulgurstasta, a gargantuan inteligent undead maggot with many eyes created by Kyuss. Please no more worms! We have enough. Their stomach acid converts people they swallow or vomit on into skeletons, and their bodies are covered in 40-foot long tendrils that block nonmagical ranged weapon attacks and inflict slashing damage to everything around them.
• Varrangoin, skull-faced poison-tailed bat people from the Abyss
  • Acanist Varrangoin, the leaders who have the abilities of wizards and are immune to low level spells
  • Lesser Varrangoin, fighters who bullied by the other types and can have one of four different breathe weapons and explodes when it dies.
  • Rager Varrangoin, barbarians with a dispel magic ability and immunity to mind affecting magic and effects.
• Vine Horror, appears to be the equivalent of the algoid from the previous two books. Loses the mind blast ability it had before and can only animate vines.
• Vorr, rat dogs from the Abyss. Can turn into a living shadow and teleport between shadows.
• Wendigo Template. The example is a 4th level human sorcerer.
• Wicker Man, a huge wooden construct used for capturing human sacrifices which are then burned alive inside of it. They are immune to magic except for a few spells that affect wood. Probably inspired by the movie, The Wicker Wan. This book did come out the same year as the terrible remake.
• Yellow Musk Creeper
• Yellow Musk Zombie template, the example is an orc.
• Yuan-ti Anathema, see page. Also include rules for items used by Anathemas. Blasphemous weapons have evil spirits bound into them and deal damage like an unholy weapon and inflict a blasphemy effect and also weaken good characters who try to wield them. A serpent symbol is a holy symbol that can cast disintegrate and destruction, but can only be wielded by a Yuan-ti or someone who can use magic devices. Sickening weapons are unholy weapons that can also weaken good characters on a critical hit. Venomous fire is similar to alchemist's fire that also can do poison damage to what it burns.
• Yugoloth
  • Piscoloth
  • Skeroloth
• Yurian, a crab like creature that walks around on two legs like a humanoid.
• Zodar, a strange construct that looks like a suit of metal armor but is actually made of ceramic and muscle tissue. They almost never speak, but when they do everyone can understand them, and they also have an ability that works like the wish spell they can, but usually don't, use once per year. Nobody knows where they came from, but they sometimes join parties of adventurers.

Prestige Classes:

• Fiend of Blasphemy, an evil outsider that leads a cult of minions who are magically bound to it and gains spells like an evil cleric.
• Fiend of Corruption, an evil outsider who specializes in turning good mortals evil through temptation. They have abilities that let them give rewards to mortals who do evil, such as the fiendish grafts and symbionts later in this book.
• Fiend of Possession, an evil outsider who has learned to possess objects and people.

Grafts and Symbionts

Grafts and Symbionts are monstrous body parts that can be attached to creatures. Symbiotes are sentient creatures and have monster stats since they can act as independent beings (except for the fiendish familiar), but also have an ego score like a sentient magic item which may allow them to take control of their host, while grafts don't have monster stats can be created like magic items and function similarly to non-sentient magic items. Creating a graft requires the graft flesh feat for that type of graft. More grafts appear in other books. Lords of Madness includes a prestige class that specializes in making grafts and allows access to grafts that normally have race resctions on who can make them. And the book Tome and Blood includes some prestige classes that get some grafts automatically.

Grafts

• Aboleth grafts. Aboleths apply these grafts to their slaves. They can only be applied to Skum and creatures transformed by aboleth slime, and the graft will be destroyed if the transformed creature is healed. Includes aboleth tentacle, mucus sheathe, Skum eyes, and skum tail.
• Beholder grafts. Unlike most other grafts, the feat for making them is not race restricted. Beholder worshipers apply these grafts to themselves. Includes crown of eyes, eye stalk, gazing eye, plated skin, replacement eye, and third eye.
• Fiendish grafts. Given by fiends to mortals. They cause wisdom damage to good creatures and cause non-evil creatures to suffer temptations to do evil acts. Includes charming eye, clawed arm, fast leg, fearsome eye, feathered wings, fiendish ear, fiendish jaw, fiendish skin, flexible arm, grappling tentacle, long arm, membranous wings, springing leg, stinging tail, strong leg, trampling leg, and whip tail.
• Illithid grafts. Given by illithids to their slaves. They have the drawback weakening resistance to mind effects. Includes antennae graft, climbing legs, goring horn, grasping mandibles, hauling back, raking tentacles, rending claw, and weapon graft.
• Maug grafts. Spellcasting maugs give them to other maugs. Includes locking hand, rollers, shoving arm, shudder plate, spike stones, and stone splitter.
• Undead grafts. Unlike most other grafts, the feat for making is not race restricted. Applied by necromancers to the living. Includes bonemail, enervating arm, paralyzing arm, and weakening arm.
• Yuan-ti grafts. Given by Yuan-ti to their humanoid minions. Includes added tail, poison fangs, replacement tail, scaly skin, and serpent arm.

Symbionts

• Cerebral symbionts, symbionts with psionic abilties that may have been created by or have some connection to Illithids
  • Cerebral hood, a creatures resembling a small Cloaker with a long spiky tail that engulfs a host's head and sticks its tail down their throat, but allows the host to see by sharing its senses. It feeds on the host's mental energy and allows them to survive without eating or breathing. It has telepathy and it can use a powerful mind blast, but doing so causes intelligence damage to its host which they won't naturally recover from because it is constantly feeding on their intelligence at the same speed it heals.
  • Mind leach, a fine sized parasite that burrows into a host and coils around the brainstem. They have several psionic abilities, but the stronger ones cause intelligence damage to their host, though they will eventually recover because it doesn't drain intelligence constantly.
  • Psionic sinew, a worm like length of muscle tissue that can be attached to a creature's arm. It enhances the host's strength, protects itself and its host with a psychokinetic field, and can use the claws of the bear psionic power. They have no attacks without a host and cannot forcefully bond with a host. They cannot communicate with their host but are able to understand spoken commands in Undercommon.
• Fiendish symbionts, like with fiendish grafts, they cause wisdom damage to good characters and can make non-evil character succumb to the temptation to do evil. All of them can communicate telepathically.
  • Fiendish familiar, a small, evil-looking face that is grafted somewhere on a host's skin. They are completely helpless and immobile without a host and have no abilities other than acting as a source of magical knowledge and enhancing the spellcasting abilities of their host.
  • Gutworm, a worm that you can get infected with by drinking polluted water in the abyss containing its eggs. It lives in the host's digestive tract and improves the host's constitution, can protect them from poison, and gives the host rage like a barbarian, but also gives penalties to several checks and requires the host to eat extra food and lowers their endurance. It can be killed with a remove disease spell, but doing so will cause it to damage the host as it dies. Outside of a host it is harmless as it has no attacks and cannot forcefully enter a host.
  • Soul tick, a blood drinking tick from Baator. It empowers death, evil, and negative energy spells cast by the host while impeding good, chaos, and positive energy spells and also can protect the host from chaos and good. It also drains the host's constitution by feeding and can feed faster than the host naturally heals if they choose too.
• Ghostly visage, a incorporeal spirit that can manifest as a face on its host's body, including over their own face, which can paralyze people that look at it with fear. It also protects the host form mind affecting effects.

5th Edition

See Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio.