An alphabetical listing of monsters found in ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures, including attacks, damage, special abilities, descriptions, and random encounter tables. A must for the serious AD&D game player. This manual contains all the new members, from Abishai to Zygom, including new creatures like the Deadly Pudding, Devas, and Valley Elves. And you’ll also have the advantage of the expanded lists of lycanthropes, giants, and other beasts.
That’s the description for 1983’s Monster Manual II, now available as both a PDF and — after a lot of consumer interest — a print-on-demand softcover from the Dungeon Masters Guild website.
Largely the work of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, the book was both a return to annual hardcover releases (1977-81) after a year’s pause and a return to writing for Gygax himself after being absorbed by TSR operations.
Though not currently available in hardcover from DMs Guild, Monster Manual II was notable for being the first AD&D hardcover to use the “orange spine” format that would be used for many AD&D reprints, according to DMs Guild historian Shannon Appelcline. Some other historical facts:
A compilation of monsters from many different sources, the book included the celestials, legendary creatures, genies, elves and fungi that Gygax created for his Dragon magazine column. Gygax’s adventure module S4: “The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth,” with a full 17 pages of monsters, also provided Monster Manual II with a lot of material. Many other monsters were created by various other authors: Frank Mentzer created the minimals and the pseudo-undead, while Francois Marcela-Froideval created the basis of the modrons, now known for their inclusion in the Planescape adventure campaign setting. Others had originally appeared in AD&D adventure modules from a variety of writers. And at least one other Dragon magazine author scored a contribution too, when Brian Jaeger’s faerie dragon from Dragon #62 (June 1982) was selected for the new book.
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