Fiend Factory
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Fiend Factory was an article series that ran in the early issues of White Dwarf, starting January 1978 and ending January 1986. Those were the days when that magazine was devoted to all manner of RPG systems prior to Games Workshop founding its own multiverse of game systems and thus turfing out rivals to focus on their own product. The Fiend Factory was a series connected to Dungeons & Dragons, and was a place where fan-submitted monsters would be edited and then printed for the perusal and interest of players and Dungeon Masters across the world. A surprising number of fan-favorite D&D monsters got their start here, and the splatbook "Fiend Folio" was actually intended to be something of a Greatest Hits Collection of submissions to this article series.
Considering how that book is received... yeah, you have been warned in terms of quality.
Its precursor was "Monsters Mild and Malign", which only ran two articles in total in White Dwarf issues #4 and 5, before being renamed to the arguably catchier Fiend Factory. Its successor was the even shorter-lived Creature Catalog of Dragon Magazine, which only saw six articles in total released over the course of Dragon's lifespan, covering D&D editions 1-3.
Due in large part to the thoroughness by which TSR threw Fiend Folio under the bus, very little past WD #13 even has parallels in published TSR / WotC product - the manscorpion, the rusalka, and not much else. And these were probably adapted independently.
Also, White Dwarf was published from London at the time. Most authors are British and where they're not, the magazine will helpfully tell you if he's a Canadian or some other lower form of colonial.
Index of Fiends
Because 1d4chan is awesome, we're gonna tell you what issues of White Dwarf had Fiend Factory articles in them, and what monsters were in each one.
White Dwarf #6
These all start with "The". Everyone agreed that this affectation was lame so it will be abandoned from the next issue on.
Needleman: A green-skinned forest-stalking humanoid covered in iron-hard spikes like pine needles, which it can launch as projectiles. Created when a Raise Dead goes wrong on a body lying amongst pine needles, but is not undead. They have survived all the way into 5e, where they are re-fluffed as Needle Blights.
Throat Leech: A leech that lives in water and swims down the gullets of drinkers to suck blood from inside their throat, suffocating them.
Mite: A really small, nasty, goblin like creature. Fiend Folio will recognise the redundancy with the jermlaine and relate the two explicitly, along with the snyad. 2e will make them all gremlins.
Bonesnapper: A small (5ft tall) carnivorous dinosaur that loves to gnaw on bones, and which collects human jawbones as a status symbol.
Fiend: A strange fiendish-looking creature descended from a "fallen angel" and "the evil god Pan". Normally evil, but may temporarily switch alignment due to guilt when it kills somebody. This was reinvented in the Fiend Folio as the Forlarren.
Disenchanter: A spindly blue dromedary camel with an elephantine snout that feeds on magic.
Nilbog: A "reverse goblin" that is harmed by healing effects and healed by attacks. Unfortunately White Dwarf found this to be a jolly good larf and will repeat this juvenile OPPOSITE DAY theme again... and again... and again, despite being told by their own readers to knock it off.
White Dwarf #7
Necrophidius / Death Worm: Simon Tilbrook's bone golem variant constructed in the image of a naga.
Rover: An expy of the guardian "monster" from the 70s suspense TV show, The Prisoner.
Living Wall: A relative of the Gelatinous Cube that pretends to be a stone wall. Was renamed the Stunjelly in the Fiend Folio. Not to be confused with Ravenloft's Living Wall.
Volt: A strangely shaped flying beastie that attacks with a whiplike tail that delivers electric shocks.
Gluey: A strange creature that resembles a mummy, but covered in sticky glue, which it can use to trap weapons. Was renamed the Adherer.
Squonk: An ugly vole-like creature that sits around all the time weeping at its own ugliness.
Eye Killer: A strange fiendish creature that resembles a bat-snake hybrid with a lethal gaze attack.
Witherweed: Predatory ground-covering vines that emit poisonous smoke when burned.
Withra: A "comedic" spin on the Wraith to create a defective version that is immune to magical weapons but harmed by normal ones, can't be turned, and on the off-chance it does hit, will instantly dissipate but also give the victim +1 level (assuming they survive the d6 damage it inflicted). The readers hated this one but it will inspire the "Dahdi" later on. Uh. Hooray?
White Dwarf #8
Tween: A strange wraith-like being that bonds with a "host" and grants them increased luck... by draining it from their traveling companions.
Chaoticus Symbioticus: A slime that bonds symbiotically with powerful predators, using illusions (fake treasure + making its "host" look less powerful) to lure adventurers into fatal confrontations. Was renamed the Symbiotic Jelly in the Fiend Folio.
Stinwicodech: A bizarre frog-headed ape-thing whose tongue attack will first boost a random ability score by +1d6, but then will decrease it by -1d6 if it hits a second time.
Whirler: A malicious air elemental in the guise of a miniature whirlwind that seeks to envelop victims so it can tear them apart.
Carbuncle: A malicious, armadillo-like monster that uses the valuable gem it grows to wheedle its way into groups, where it then sows discord.
Coffer Corpse: A spiteful undead created from somebody whose funerary rites were never completed, and who now fights to keep from being sent on.
Rock Beast: A malevolent earth elemental in the form of a living boulder that seeks to crush organic creatures that come within range.
Turung: A strange hairy malicious thing that can cast Web and Anti-Magic Shell. Outright called out by the editor as one of the worst monsters submitted to Fiend Factory by that point and, even by then, that was saying something. Note that the Turung won't even make the bottom five in the up-to-issue-#15 poll. (But the Stinwicodech will!)
White Dwarf #9
They start listing Intelligence in this issue. About time we saw some of that around here.
Svart: Blue-skinned, orange-eyed humanoids. They're Norse "Svart Alfar" like drow - so public-domain as far as the mere name goes; but instead of taking the drow route, these come by way of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. Supposedly they act as "the mediary between goblins and kobolds" but face it, it's a naughty smurf. Root-stock for the later Xvart, which still sucks.
Dokon: An intelligent talking ape that will not attack unless it is attacked or robbed first, in which case it will fight to avenge itself or recover its treasure. If it wasn't for the fact that this came out in Oct/Nov 1978, one might think that this was a Donkey Kong reference.
Imorph: A strange slime that slowly shapes itself into a duplicant of the individual it's fighting.
Stair Stalker: A green hairy thing always found obsessively walking up and down a staircase.
Whipper: A mobile plant that attacks with two deadly flailing vines.
Flying Fish: A giant lungfish that levitates through internal sacs of hydrogen.
Urchin: Flying pincushion with projectile pins.
Umpleby: A dimwitted, shaggy humanoid that uses static electricity to defend itself.
Nasnas: A bizarre monster that looks like a human somehow cleaved in half down the middle. From a weird bit of Arabian folklore.
White Dwarf #10
Blink Skeleton: What it says it is: a skeleton that can teleport around at random.
Inverse Monster: The Nilbog's "temporal inversion" applied to any other monster. So that'll be the last we have to see of it... right? .... riiiight?
Mimble: A strange, insane little monster that is both possessed of incredible regenerative powers that make it indestructible and a hard-core masochist.
Familiar: A variant familiar in the form of a black cat that guards a wizard's chest of magical items. It has nine lives, and each time it is killed before the 9th is expended, it returns to life stronger than it was before. Was given the clearer name of Guardian Familiar in the Fiend Folio.
Sandman: An elemental of sand who can put victims to sleep.
Eastern Skeleton: A skeleton with the fighting skills of a monk.
Warlock Cat: A "demon-familiar" in the form of an ethereal tiger that is a powerful combatant, but demands a daily human or demihuman meal and will eat its "master" if they don't pick somebody. Was reworked into the Hellcat in the Fiend Folio, which was a little less stupidly useless as a familiar, but still not worth it, since it still demanded a weekly meal and could only serve for a year and a day.
Bragger: An obnoxious nigh-invulnerable imp-like creature that incessantly talks about how great and terrible it is.
Dahdi: Similar to the Withra, this is a comically "defective" mummy whose bandages can be used to heal wounds. This remained the most divisive monster up to issue #15, as the reader poll would reveal.
White Dwarf #11
Lauren: A three-headed, three-armed, three-legged humanoid with Gender and Authority Issues; anagram of "unreal". Jean Wells in 1981 brought this stupidity to Palace of the Silver Princess, as the Ubue: here, the two outer heads are always the opposite from the inner, and the outer heads determine gender. After that module got laughed off the face of Mystara, Fiend Folio instead brought the Tirapheg: its mouth is in the abdomen, with tentacles above it. The two side-heads are featureless and the middlehead hermaphroditic. The Tirapheg is an unpredictable creature but somehow is listed Neutral rather than Chaotic. There was no place for the Tirapheg until the Spelljammer line.
Spook: A generic winding-sheet type ghost... with the plower to instantly convert a player into another Spook upon hit.
Witherstench: A stinkier-than-normal skunk.
Tribe of the Stone: A race of reptilian humanoids from the Underdark that abduct humans to turn them into more of their own race. Precursors to the Meenlocks in the Fiend Folio, only those are more insectoid.
Berbalang: A winged goblinoid with the power to astrally project itself.
Sheet Phantom: A haunted cloth that strangles victims to death and then animates their body as a Sheet Ghoul.
Lapidan: A mass of killer rope.
Devil Dog: A white-furred, blue-eyed dog that stalks cold regions for food.
White Dwarf #12
Assassin Bug: 2ft tall fly-like bug-men that use living humanoids as incubators for their young. Like Fiend Folio's Xill.
Iron Pig: An attempt at making a cheaper version of the iron golem. As a pig. A pig-shaped iron golem also appears in the 2e adventure "The Jade Monkey" in Polyhedron Magazine #62. It's unknown if this was inspired by the Fiend Factory version.
Grell: A tentacled giant brain with a beak that eats people.
Hook Horror: A humanoid with a vulture head and hooks for hands.
Githyanki: Charles Stross' race of humanoid warrior-wizards liberated from George Martin's Dying Of The Light slavery by the illithids, gone evil.
Giant Bloodworm: An overgrown leech.
Desert Raider: A desert-dwelling race of humans with solid blue eyes that wear water-recycling body-suits, known to use Purple Worm teeth as daggers. Clearly a knock-off of the Fremen from Dune, and was even submitted as the "Fremen". The editor said they had to change the name to "Desert Raider" for legal reasons.
Three-Headed Skrat: A skeletal-looking serpent that pops out of fissures and uses illusions to make itself look like it has three heads.
White Dwarf #13
Doombat: An undead bat with a whipping barbed tail that carries a ghoul-like paralytic touch.
Terithran: A magic-hating humanoid from the Ethereal Plane that seeks to destroy magic.
Imps: Four new elemental versions of imps; Fire, Smoke, Steam and Molten (Lava). Possibly the ancestors of the Mephit.
Shadow Demon: A fiend trapped in the form of a living shadow.
(Thus endeth Fiend Folio.)
White Dwarf #14
Gurgotch: A demonic black elephant. Possible rootstock for the Maelephant of the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix and then Planescape.
Mindweb: An ephemeral entity that enslaves groups of other monsters and forcibly links them into a singular hive mind.
Energy Cyclone: A whirling vortex of glowing light.
Ice Maiden: An elemental of ice in the form of a beautiful naked woman with icy hair, pale skin and blue eyes that possess a Flesh to Ice gaze attack, essentially an icy variant of the medusa.
Gazer: "A strange relative of the Beholder": a floaty sphere with a mouth, a central eye, a ring of 10 small eyes around the central eye, four eyes around the mouth, and skin patterned so that it looks to be covered in eyes. Give Stross (previously seen expy'ing Martin for the 'yankis) credit, again, for acknowledging his source; if not for originality.
White Dwarf #15
Heat Monster: A metal sphere that radiates intense heat and sporadically throws fireballs at its enemies.
Tacharanid: A shapeshifting monster that adopts new forms to compensate for weaknesses of its previous forms.
Dragon Dog: A firebreathing dog, basically an upscaled Hellhound.
Russian Doll Monster: A hulking humanoid beast that has the size and stats of a Stone Giant, but only has 10 HP. Each time those are depleted, it disintegrates to reveal a smaller monster, with stats akin to a progressively weaker monster. In turn, it fights as a Hill Giant (10HP), Ogre (10 hp), Bugbear (9HP), Gnoll (8 HP), Hobgoblin (7 HP), Orc (6 HP), Goblin (5 HP) and finally a Kobold (4 HP). The whole thing is an elaborate nested construct (or perhaps illusion) being controlled from its core by a Leprechaun, which upon being exposed will turn invisible, grab the nearest bit of loot, and then flee for its life.
Time Freezer: Peaceful, shaggy, ape-like humanoid with the ability to put others into temporal stasis, which it uses to escape danger.
Pebble Gnome: Dour, timid, diminutive gnome characterized by its total immunity to all magic, malign or beneficial.
White Dwarf #16
Tenser Beast: A self-propelled Tenser's Floating Disk turned into a weapon by its creator, making it into a flying blade.
Manscorpion: A race of centaur style scorpion-human hybrids that serve as agents of a God of Neutrality.
Ogress: A female half-ogre that uses magical trinkets to disguise itself as a human woman.
Wrecker: A super-powered Iron Golem created to guard a powerful magical artifact.
Plantman: A hideous-looking humanoid plant with a single dead-white eye and long tentacles that end in lamprey-like mouths for arms. They are based on the plantmen from the Barsoom series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
White Dwarf #17
Night Rider: Malevolent, light-averse humans who seek to conquer with armies of men, orcs and trolls.
Spice Worms: Giant worms, complete with Swallow Whole attack, that produce a spice that grants clairvoyant abilities. A shameless pastiche of Dune.
Heat Skeleton: A more powerful skeleton that can Heat Metal at will.
Bodach: A strange, ugly little humanoid, like a goblin with clawed bird's feet. Nothing to do with Tsojcanth's Bodak which was awesome.
Green Worm: A giant worm (but not as big as a Purple Worm) with a deadly poisonous sting.
Goom: A species of slime most notable for its tar-like adhesiveness.
White Dwarf #18
Mandrake People: Humanoid plants who inhabit the forests, and who hate humans for harvesting their unborn babies - mandrakes - as aphrodisiacs.
Hound of Kerenos: A variant Hellhound that is tied to Ice rather than Fire. Taken from Michael Moorcock's The Bull and the Spear.
Phung: An insane mantis-headed humanoid that loves to scare people to death, taken from Jack Vance's City of the Chasch novel.
Couerl: A monstrous cat with a mane of tentacles straight out of A.E. van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" (1939). Explicitly ("distantly") related to the Displacer Beast and (therefore) to Fiend Folio's Kamadan.
By the way this April/May 1980 issue is the one wherein the editors posted the Top Ten (and Bottom Five) from a reader poll presumably mooted up to #15 (because the Russian Doll is in it). The Ten got republished in Best of White Dwarf Articles.
Top 10
1. Necrophidius
2. Russian Doll Monster
3. Svart (?)
4. Needleman
5. Hook Horror
6. Githyanki
7. Imps
8. Volt
9. Urchin
10. Dahdi (?!)
Bottom 5 (worst up top)
1. Nas Nas
2. Dahdi (again)
3. Withra
4. Stinwicodech
5. Pebble Gnome
To each their own, we suppose.
White Dwarf #19
Empipath: Small furry creatures that drive people into fits of emotion-driven madness.
Stormbiter: A lesser elemental of sand that only emerges when sandstorms drive them wild.
Undead Horse: Skeleton and zombie versions of the common horse.
Werefox: A kitsune-inspired therianthrope characterized by always being female and absolutely hating religion, seeking only to dupe or kill priests and burn down temples. It has extremely powerful affinity for the illusionist arts.
Darkhawk: A rotting undead falcon with a deadly gaze attack.
White Dwarf #20
Creeper: A shambling slimy monster with tentacles for arms that feeds on blood.
Water Leaper: Annoying aquatic predators that resemble fin-winged snakes with the heads of frogs.
Slime Beast: A mass of malevolent mud that can either sludge about like a slime or assume a crudely humanoid form.
Frog-Folk: Evil, brutish, cannibalistic humanoid frogs - but by then, Fiend Folio had already come out with bullywugs. Possibly an earlier draft of grungs.
Melodemon: A fiend resembling a giant snake with a stinger on its tail and the head of an anthropomorphic alligator.
Cauldron-Born: Unique undead always created in batches; as one batch-member falls, the remainder get stronger. From the Mabinogion, brought to 1980s attention through Lloyd Alexander's YA books.
White Dwarf #21
Sigh, no more calligraphy.
Brothers of the Pine: Forest dwelling undead that create more of themselves by killing their victims and replacing their blood with pine sap. An edgier Needleman, then.
Chthon: An intelligent rock formation that can telepathically control plants and animals.
Enslaver: An intelligent blob that can dominate the mind of another intelligent being upon physical contact - like in Futurama. This might foreshadow the Ustilagor. It certainly foreshadows the (better) Brain Sucker in #25.
Micemen: What do you get when an evil wizard performs crossbreeding experiments between orcs and brownies? Vicious little micemen.
Dragon Warriors: Warriors that are created by smashing a dragon's teeth (one for each) while speaking the dragon's name. The warriors can be commanded to fight until slain or dispelled, and they gain immunities based on those of their parent dragon. From the Theban legend of Kadmos.
Grey Sqaargs: Stone humanoids created by the dwarves to serve as guardians of caves and mines. Games Workshop (intentionally or not) brought the same theme to Warhammer in the rune golems. And then there are those gargoyles of Warlords of the Accordlands.
Cyclops: Similar to the traditional cyclops from Greek myth, a large evil humanoid with a single eye that it uses to hypnotize its victims.
White Dwarf #22
The Epic, Plot-Device theme here. If your ability to write a plot is shit.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Four powerful undead lords who serve the demon prince Orcus.
Ungoliant, Queen of the Spiders: A demon who takes the form of a giant monstrous spider, based on the character Ungoliant from the legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Capricorn: A rare and powerful water elemental of good alignment. They have the head, torso, and forelegs of a white goat while their lower body is a blue-green fishtail. They have long sharp horns, are extremely intelligent, and serve as loremasters of the sea.
Crystal Golem: As the name implies, a golem made of crystal.
White Dwarf #23
Flymen: Tiny humanoid beings with the heads and wings of houseflies. They are organized into societal groups called hives, and are made up of various "classes" including the warrior, drone, artisan, flyguard, and flymage. This was the only monster featured in this Fiend Factory installment.
White Dwarf #24
Keep in mind going forward that this is an April Fool's Day issue, so consider yourself doubly warned.
Bonacon: A species of cattle that defends itself against attackers by employing weaponized flatulence with deadly poisonous effect. A few rare bonacons are capable of winged flight, using their powerful farts as rocket assisted takeoff. Amazingly, this is from actual medieval folklore (well, not the flying version).
Llort: A troll that is afflicted with nilbogism. Like the nilbog it is healed when struck, but instead of a troll's normal regeneration ability, the llort suffers degeneration. Three rounds after first being hit, the llort loses three hit points per round until it reaches zero and dies, though it may be brought back to life by damaging it, at which point it will start degenerating again. It sucks to be a llort.
Todal: A creature sent by a demon or devil to punish evildoers for not being evil enough. Inscrutable bordering on unfathomable, the todal looks like a blob of glup, sounds like screaming rabbits, smells like old unopened rooms, moves around like monkeys and shadows, and kills by gleeping. Even the flumph is like wtf. From a pretty cool fairy tale by James Thurber, The 13 Clocks.
Tali Monster: A giant, obese humanoid that is so morbidly fat that it cannot move on its own, but must be carried from beneath by a team of 35 goblins. It can attack by means of its fists and noxious breath.
Dungeon Master: A nasty humanoid that hates all forms of life. It enjoys following adventurers around and telling them what they can and cannot do, but will take bribes of at least 500 gold pieces.
White Dwarf #25
Dream Demon: A demon whose natural form is that of a small black skeleton with large, beautiful butterfly wings. Besides other magical abilities, it can use a powerful illusion to appear as any creature of less than human size. A dream demon may sometimes be given to a high level chaotic evil illusionist as a familiar.
Incubus: The male counterpart to the succubus.
Brain Sucker: A brain trailing a spinal cord that attempts to take over the mind of a victim and feeds on its Intelligence. One of the few post-Folio / issue #13 critters to get any traction, here as the Intellect Devourer.
Guardian: This generically named variant of the necrophidius (issue #7) is used to guard its creator's property. The guardian's spirit is able to leave its body and animate its petrified victims, one at a time, and can regenerate while in its own body.
White Dwarf #26
Shadow Goblins: Small black-skinned humanoids thought to be a cross between drow and kobolds. They live underground and can use both weapons and spells.
Asrai: Beautiful female water spirits.
Forest Giant: A forest dwelling giant that can use druid spells.
Winter Kobolds: Kobolds that live in the cold northern wastes, more powerful than normal kobolds and immune to cold-based attacks. Amitoka may be the Dragon Magazine riposte.
White Dwarf #27
Spikehead: A brutish apelike beast with a big horn sticking out of its forehead that it uses to gore opponents. Likely inspired either by the Orangopoid from Flash Gordon or the Mugato from Star Trek.
Wirrn: A huge maggotlike creature that attempts to insert its tailspike in a victim and lay eggs inside its body. Yes, like the Assassin Bug and a good number of other Fiend Folio monsters.
Greenmen: Based on the Tharks from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series, the Greenmen are large, green-skinned warriors with four arms. They are a tribal society and skilled in the use of weapons.
White Ape: Based on the White Apes also created by Burroughs, these hairless, white-skinned, four-armed simian beasts have brute strength and low intelligence, and a taste for human flesh. The White Apes and Greenmen often clash over territory as they both prefer to lair in ruined cities.
Cold Beast: A feline creature resembling a lion with white fur that can unleash a cone of cold from its gemstone eyes.
White Dwarf #28
The woodland issue.
Whispering Tongues: Plants found in forests that serve as the eyes and ears of other woodland denizens. They telepathically alert their owners to the presence of intruders within the forest, though the plants themselves do not engage in combat.
Driver Ants: Normal ants that form an "army" and go on the march for food. A typical column consists of about 20 million ants and are treated as a single monster. These ants are easily avoidable by most creatures, but pose a serious threat if attacked or if a creature is unable to move out of their way.
Birch Spirit: The banshee of a murdered dryad rather than of ex-elf.
Chameliads: Forest dwelling tribal humanoids that can alter their colour to match their surroundings, making them harder to detect.
Black Unicorn: A jet black unicorn that can paralyze opponents with its horn and is immune to all magical attacks. Black unicorns are of good alignment despite their sinister appearance.
White Dwarf #29
Giant Sandcrab: A giant crab that dwells in sandy deserts. It is an ambush predator that captures prey by hiding beneath the sand along caravan routes or near cities.
Anubi: Desert dwelling canine humanoids with heads resembling those of jackals. They are highly intelligent and may be good or evil, while some can even use magic.
Shim-Shari: Headless humanoids made entirely of sand. They can be created in a manner similar to golems and can be ordered to follow basic instructions such as attacking or guarding.
Argorian Wormkin: Small wormlike creatures measuring a foot in length. They attack with a venomous bite that temporarily incapacitates a victim with violent, retching nausea. Wounding a wormkin without killing it will cause it to split into two fully formed wormkins.
White Dwarf #30
Stirge Demon: A demon that drains blood by penetrating a victim's flesh with its talons, and can also summon a horde of stirges.
Weresnake: A lycanthrope that can transform into a hybrid creature having the torso, arms and head of a scaled and fanged human with the lower body of a serpent.
Muryans: A subterranean insectoid race that resemble human-sized ants that walk upright and can wield weapons.
Sprite Knight: A sprite warrior who serves as a defender of his people and their forest realm.
Vampire Wolf: The undead spirit of a worg that was killed by a vampire, often serving the vampire as a pet.
Minidrag: A small draconic scavenger found in the company of predatory beasts, feeding on the scraps they leave behind. It can fly and use a breath weapon of lethal poison.
White Dwarf #31
Daoine Sidhe: A race of magical fey beings similar to elves but are taller, have unearthly beauty, and are inherently psionic.
Leanan-Sidhe: Female vampires belonging to the fey race, thus they are not undead, cannot be turned by clerics, and are unaffected by sunlight.
Lorelei Willow: A carnivorous willow tree that lures its victims by imitating the speech of intelligent beings.
Dendridi: A race of forest gnomes having a close affinity with plantlife.
White Dwarf #32
Greater Raven: An intelligent raven that can speak additional languages and will often work as a spy or messenger in return for gold or gems.
Nightlings: Tiny reptilian humanoids that live in caves. They come out at night to carry out raids using giant bats as aerial mounts.
Qothe: A blob of white protoplasm with three eyes, a mouth, and a set of four pincers. They move about by bouncing, and though they prefer to eat fish and crustaceans, they will attack "anything that bleeds".
Wyrmlet: A coin-shaped creature with a round flat body, a pair of arms and legs, a rudimentary face on each side, and a ring of suckers around the rim of its body. They use these suckers to attach themselves to other wyrmlets to form a "wyrmling".
Mara: An evil race of small, winged humanoids that live in subterranean caves.
White Dwarf #33
The theme of the month is Psionics and, accordingly, reading any of this nonsense will damage your brain.
Psitan: A race of physically weak but psionically powerful humanoids, the result of genetic experimentation performed by mind flayers on humans with the unsuccessful goal of creating a race of thralls.
Psi-Mule: A mule. With psionic ability. It also has a taste for human flesh because of course it does.
Giant Mole: Not just a mole, a giant mole. It also has psionic ability, because why not.
Zytra (Lord of the Mind Flayers): The demon prince of illithids.
Grimp: A small winged creature resembling a cross between an imp and a gargoyle that can use weapons and (sigh) psionics.
White Dwarf #34
The dead rise agaaaiiin! ... or not. Excepting the Rusalka who'll rise up in the game Quest for Glory IV and (a decade later) 3.x. Thank Wolfgang Baur for that, that central European mad lad.
Morbe: A vampiric human that drains Constitution. It is not truly undead but exists in a kind of zombified state, thought to be the result of a rare incurable disease. Probably inspired by Marvel Comics' Morbius the Living Vampire.
The Unborn: The souls of young children who died under evil circumstances and have become unwilling servants of darkness, tasked by the demonic powers to send other departed souls to the Abyss.
Rusalka: The undead spirit of a chaotic evil female mage who died by drowning. It attacks using claws, a kiss of death, or by grappling swimmers and drowning them.
Wraith-Warrior: An undead warrior that radiates a zone of weakness and can inject a cold venom when it strikes with its sword. When this venom reaches the victim's brain he will die and rise again as a wraith-warrior.
Goldfinger: A zombie with gold plates on its fingertips that inflict electric shock damage. These undead are created through the combined effort of a mage and an alchemist.
White Dwarf #35
Spidron: A shapeless green liquid of genius intelligence and evil alignment, motivated by a love of wealth and the need to dominate others. It can maintain a humanoid shape by periodically returning to a special magical cabinet that it keeps hidden, much like a vampire and its coffin. While in such a form it wears a hooded robe to conceal its true nature. This monster was inspired by the villain Spidron from the 1970s science-fiction television series The Tomorrow People.
Beggar-Louse: An insect that attacks using pincers and a ranged acid spit.
Dark Bat: A bat that radiates darkness.
Undead Rats: Animated skeletal and zombie rats.
White Dwarf #36
Loculi: A race of intelligent reptilians that resemble ankylosaurs with six limbs (four legs and two arms that can wield weapons). This was the only monster featured in this Fiend Factory installment.
White Dwarf #37
Weed-Delvers: A race of intelligent cephalopods (octopus and squid family).
Crestcat: A large, intelligent, tigerlike feline that can alter its skin like a chameleon, making it harder to detect when attacking. They have a warrior ethos and consider it a noble goal to die in battle against a worthy opponent. Their name is derived from the purple crest of fur around their necks.
Javukchari: A race of vulture-men.
Antmen: As the name implies, a race of humanoids with the heads of ants.
White Dwarf #38
It's Celtic fey time. With four (4) overlaps against the contemporaneous (1983) Monster Manual II. Chances of coincidence are very very slim indeed.
Gwyllion: Fey beings who inhabit lonely mountains. If spoken to they will impart information in the form of riddles.
Bogle: A small humanoid related to the goblin. Although they are evil they prefer inflicting harm on liars and murderers with vicious claw attacks.
Redcap: A large ogrish humanoid that is impervious to normal weapons. They inhabit ruined castles, wield pikes and halberds in combat, and have the habit of soaking their caps in human blood. Legends say these creatures were created by wizards to serve as guards.
Bean-Nighe: The undead spirits of women who died in childbirth. They haunt lonely streams and serve as death portents by washing the bloodstained garments of those about to die.
Fay Stirge: A female fey vampire, basically a variant of the Leanan-Sidhe from issue #31. They can polymorph from a beautiful woman into a human-sized stirge and may be turned by clerics.
Spriggan: A small goblinlike humanoid that can grow up to ten feet tall with a corresponding increase in damage per attack. Yes this is the same guy as in Dragon 59 twelve months earlier, but with different stats which TSR will be ignoring.
Duergar: Evil dwarves that can cast powerful illusion spells. Once more, not Gygax's.
Phooka: A mischievous shapeshifting creature that can take a variety of animal forms. It will entice a victim to get on its back and ride it, at which point the phooka will take off on a wild gallop, eventually dumping the unfortunate rider in an inconvenient place of its own choosing.
Black Annis: A cannibalistic, magic-using hag that serves the Goddess of Winter. Sigh.
White Dwarf #39
Part 1 of a 4-part series featuring deities of various nonhuman races. These races are drawn from the Fiend Folio except where reference is made to an issue of White Dwarf. Watch and learn as every suggestion here is totally ignored in TSR canon.
K'ooriall: God of the aarakocra.
Dar-Marn-Camac: God of the bodachs (from issue #17).
Ggorulluzg: God of the bullywugs.
T'Ka-Boolk'na: God of the crabmen.
Muadaar Ul-Shaha: God of the desert raiders (from issue #12).
Phraarkilloorm: God of the dire corbies.
White Dwarf #40
Part 2 of a 4-part series featuring deities of various nonhuman races. These races are drawn from the Fiend Folio except where reference is made to an issue of White Dwarf.
Hrussiall'k: God of the firenewts.
Ssrrpt'ck: God of the flymen (from issue #23).
Swulljagoor: God of the frog folk (from issue #20).
White Dwarf #41
Part 3 of a 4-part series featuring deities of various nonhuman races. These races are drawn from the Fiend Folio except where reference is made to an issue of White Dwarf.
Kraada: God of the frostmen.
Zrunta Mountainheart: God of the Mountain Giants.
Carratriatuh: God of the greenmen (from issue #27).
Klagg: God of the grimlocks.
Halnass and Quorggg (sic): Gods of the lava children.
White Dwarf #42
Part 4 of a 4-part series featuring deities of various nonhuman races. These races are drawn from the Fiend Folio except where reference is made to an issue of White Dwarf.
Firffuffl'nnb: God of the norkers, after the writer sneezed out a quarter kilo of cocaine.
Ullathimon: God of the skulks.
Ranssass Rockshaper: Gnomish god of mines, caves and underground exploration worshipped by Svirfneblins.
Kr'tollomc: God of the winter kobolds (from issue #26). Generally believed to be an aspect or spawn of Kurtulmak.
A'Gallamiull: God of the svartxvarts. Nice try! Gygax, again, ignored the WD bid to wrest the canon back, raising up Raxivort for this race instead in his Greyhawk box.
White Dwarf #43
Bug-Riders: Humans with insect traits that train and ride giant bugs of various kinds.
Lich-King: An ultra-powerful Lich that rides around on a nightmare.
Vanith-Vadiren: Celestial elves who live in Bytopia and serve as its defenders.
White Dwarf #44
Redundant and derivative humanoids here.
Wodennian: Lizardfolk with big swollen brains.
Blackling: Evil halflings with pitch black skin that live in the Underdark. Drowlings, then.
Wohk: Three foot tall humanoids with four arms and a single eye that emanates light. Non-reflective black objects are invisible to them.
Yelg: Orcs that are afraid of water and become sluggish and passive at temperatures below freezing. Taken from Norman Powell's The Forgotten Kingdom.
White Dwarf #45
This race is already run
Get off your horse, get on this train
Hey-a, hey-a, oh -- Tears for Fears, Elemental
Sand Demon: Elemental from the Plane of Dust.
Fire Tongue: Lesser fire elemental.
Servant of the Flame: Monkey-like fire elemental.
Dust Elemental
Heat Elemental
Ice Elemental
Vapour Elemental
White Dwarf #46
The arboreal issue.
Ivyix: Humanoid plant creatures made from poison ivy.
Crimson Carpet: Red moss that makes people suffer from deadly illusions.
Acrophid: Mobile carnivorous plants that communicate to each other through rattling noises.
Puffball Plant: A fungus that looks like a boulder and explodes in a cloud of poisonous spores.
Vily: Female wood spirit with invisible wings.
Dame Verte: Ethereal female elves dedicated to protecting woodlands.
White Dwarf #47
Diabolo: Relatives of kobolds that are natural magic-users.
Trollkin: Cross between a brownie and a troll.
Trist: Floating heads with tree roots for hair that feed on evil and hatred.
Krowk: Crow demons.
Gromit: weird three-legged ball-shaped thing.
White Dwarf #48
This issue converts Runequest demons from White Dwarf #44-46 to AD&D.
Gremlin
Sraim
B'krath
Rult
Storm Demon
Stalker
Porphyr
Amorph
Pazuzu
Akresh: The demon lord of invincibility.
White Dwarf #49
Skullcatcher: Spider that drops onto its prey from above.
Giant Praying Mantis: Exactly what it says on the tin.
Drainwing: Butterflies that are immune to magic and drain experience points.
Giant Moth: Has an ultrasonic screech. Attacks light sources.
Golden Beetle: Big shaggy crab-like creature that secretes a soporific pheromone. Taken from John Norman's The Priest Kings of Gor.
White Dwarf #50
This april fools issue gave AD&D and Runequest stats to various mascots and comic protagonists of White Dwarf.
The White Dwarf: The front page mascot first added in issue #39.
Gobbledigook: The goblin/snotling protagonist of a comic introduced in issue #47.
Ian Livingstone: Then editor-in-chief of White Dwarf.
Thrud the Barbarian: Another comic protagonist.
Griselda and Wolfhead: NPCs from The Big Rubble, a Runequest scenario pack.
Agaroth the Unwashed: A filthy Half-Orc Fighter with a lack of hygiene and a taste for infants who appeared in advertisements for Games Workshop mail orders.
Ugbash Facesplitter: Chaos warrior who advertised GW mail orders.
White Dwarf #51
This issue features creatures from Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile book series
Firvulag
Tanu
Howler
White Dwarf #52
Spider Dragon: A two-foot tall dragon with chameleon skin and acid breath.
Whippersnapper: A goblin with razor-sharp teeth and tentacles for arms.
Marsh-Wiggle: Swamp-dwelling humanoids with duck feet. From C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair. The Creature Catalog will propose its own marshwiggle, the Sind swamphobbit.
Grey Dominator: Evil grey-skinned humans who love to enslave and torture others.
White Dwarf #53
Wood Skeleton: The undead form of Mandrake People (from WD #18).
Plentyn Nos: Bald, grey-skinned, humanoid cave-dwellers who love silver.
Zwergind: A cross-breed of dwarf and kobold.
Gremkin: Imp-like creatures that come in Black, Red and Green varieties.
White Dwarf #54
Surrogate: An invisible, incorporeal golem that can only interact with the world by inhabiting a suit of armor.
Shapeling: A race of invisible humans with a 50% chance for nonmagic attacks to phase right through them.
White Dwarf #55
This issue introduces the Procreators of Eternity, a pantheon of gods worshipped by the Shapelings from last issue.
The Prime Technician: God of knowledge, science and craftwork.
The Champion: God of courage, battle and martial skill.
The High Overlord: Leader of the Procreators and arbitrator of destiny.
The All-Loving: Goddess of benevolence.
White Dwarf #56
Rok-or: Beefy earth elemental that can phase through rock, is immune to fire and can destroy armor and shields with its claws. Any type of rock that is thrown at it is absorbed into its body and gives it more HP. It can also regen by phasing into rock and staying there.
Magmite: Arthropodic fire elemental. Immune to all spells, nonmagic weapons and poison. Cold spells slow them down but don't hurt them. Their heat is so intense that anyone in a five foot radius has -2 to hit and take 1 damage every two rounds. Any nonmagic armor or weapons melt upon touching it.
Ice Mephit: Has a chill aura that drains strength.
Mind Shadow: Bat-like fiends that possess both living and dead creatures.
White Dwarf #57
All the creatures in this issue are from Robert Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles book series.
Sea Dragon
Forest-Brethren
Metamorph
Skandar
Vroon
Hjort
Ghayrog
White Dwarf #58
These creatures come from Jack Vance's short story Liane the Wayfarer.
Archveult
Pelgrane
Deodand
Chun
White Dwarf #59
Reaver: Six Reavers were created by Orcus by putting the souls of his most devout human clerics in bodies wrought from the material of the Negative Energy Plane. Their job is to hunt down and destroy the Death Knights of his enemy Demogorgon.
White Dwarf #60
Bush Cat: A magical predatory cat with a particular taste for the flesh of small humanoids such as gnomes, goblins, halflings and kobolds.
Tunnel Crawler: A peaceful race of Underdark-dwelling bibliophiliac creatures that look like a lamia growing out of the neck-slot of a giant turtle, centaur style.
Blood Spore: A parasitic fungus that disguises itself as a gemstone to attract prey.
Helghost: The lich-like wraith spawned from the spirit of a truly evil wizard.
White Dwarf #61
BUGS BUGS BUGS! YAAGGH
Armbane Bug: A 2-inch long black bug with pincers that spreads disease with its bite
Buzzbug: Makes a very annoying buzzing sound that only the person closest to it can hear. Distracted victims can only attack the bug and other opponent's attacks against them are +4 and ignore dex and shield AC bonuses.
Stinger: Injects poison that knocks you unconscious, then burrows its way through your body, dealing 1 damage per turn, until you die Then it lays its eggs inside you.
Milead Bug: Harmless bioluminescent bugs that are easily mistaken for lanterns or Will-o-Wisps.
Gnaw Bug: Eats through equipment made of cloth and leather.
Giant Mosquito: Almost identical to the armbane bug.
Igni Beetle: It eats ashes and moves towards the nearest source of heat. Its underbelly acts as a strike-anywhere match which it uses to ignite flammable materials.
Flame Beetle: Beetles that reproduce by setting themselves on fire.
Caraxe: (plural Caraxi) 2-foot long bugs that spray a skunk-like scent that attracts wandering monsters.
White Dwarf #62
These monsters are presented as creations of an archdruid living on a river island in the middle of a pine forest.
Nyim O Caber: Pine tree spirits that are weak to fire and regenerate. They regenerate more quickly if they are touching a pine tree.
Sodger O Caber: A stronger form of Nyim on horseback.
Mandryna, Quean O Caber: The leader of the pine spirits after the death of the archdruid.
White Dwarf #63
The White Hart: A nature spirit in the form of a white stag that appears when a herd of red deer is being preyed upon by humanoids. It is immune to spells and wears a golden collar gifted to it by Silvanus, the Celtic god of nature.
Gwillion: 4-foot tall humanoids who can transform into goats. Resistant to silver but weak to cold iron. Because the editors hadn't read issue #38 in their own magazine.
Cramesha: 7-foot tall hairy three-armed primitive humanoids. They must sacrifice a human female to their god every full moon.
Zirosownee: A giant two-headed eagle that can control the weather within 50 miles of its lair.
White Dwarf #64
The desert issue.
Sand Golem: Yeah we already had the Shim-Shari but this one's creators remembered to add a head. It creates a sandstorm to ambush opponents and is immune to nonmagic weapons.
Desert Orc: The biggest difference from regular orcs is that they can cast confuse twice per day.
Cactus Cat: Ocelot-sized cat with bony spurs on on its forearms that it uses to cut through the skin of cacti to drink their water.
Sand Sniper: Also known as the Buras. A giant squid that hides beneath the sand to ambush prey.
White Dwarf #65
Noegyth Nibin: The petty-dwarves mentioned in Tolkien's Silmarillion. Stats are given for nine Noegyth Nibin NPCs for use in an encounter.
White Dwarf #66
Gachragar: (plural Gachragi) freshwater snake with a ray of enfeeblement gaze attack.
Strong Toad: Big toad with a turtle shell. It constantly radiates a dazzling light, and can shoot tractor beams from its eyes.
Green Salamander: Amphibious lizardfolk that secrete acid through their skin pores.
Swamp Lurker: Males are humanoid; Females are snake-like. Their claws have a paralyzing poison.
Silent hater: Ugly impish monster that sucks blood and can cast silence at will.
White Dwarf #67
Vivimancer: The archenemy of necromancers who are created from dead high level characters who have a patron deity in Elysium.
White Dwarf #69
The Fiend Factory in this issue was a tie-in to the now-lost superhero game "Golden Heroes", a Games Workshop-published game from the early 80s, and specifically presented a team of characters intended for the official Golden Heroes competition at Games Day of that year. The team was the Starlight Pact, a band of mostly dark-themed but non-evil supers.
Balthazael: A half-fiend who fights to reject the fiendish side of his heritage, battling evil to suppress the evil within himself.
Grimalkin: A former witch/psion with telekinetic abilities forcibly turned into a catgirl by a rival coven that merged her with her familiar, reducing her psionic powers to force bolts and shields but giving her feline physical abilities.
Moonblade: A magical warrior from a lost civilization before the ice age, forcibly cursed with immortality by the dark sorcerer-scientists of Mu, then released into the modern era.
Ex-Man: Once an average man, until he died in a freak accident. Then his corpse was stolen by a mad scientist who rebuilt him as a zombie cyborg.
Paragon: A down-and-out daydreamer who discovered he had limited reality warping powers that turned him into a flying brick type hero.
White Dwarf #71
The Fiend Factory in this article contained no new monsters, aside from an improved reprint of the Psychic Vampire from a scenario in issue #61, but instead advised players on how to best design monsters for submission to the article series.
Ironically, this was the second to last of the Fiend Factory articles to be produced.
White Dwarf #73
For whatever reason, this was the last Fiend Factory article to appear in White Dwarf, perhaps due to the game's migration to 2nd edition. It was themed around rainforest monsters.
Army Wasp: Heard of Army Ants? These are the flying, stinging version.
Vampire Bats: The standard blood-sucking bat.
Quetzl: A brilliantly colored bird with some minor magical abilities.
Aphrodite's Nemesis: A tree whose hyper-nourishing fruit acts as a powerful aphrodisiac, but which turns copulating couples into new AN trees.
