Outta my way Mr Peabody and Sherman. I am taking the way back machine on this post.

I recall doing this and I am sure you did this too. I went out and bought the Advanced D&D Monster manual. Cracking that book open and perusing those pages. Before long you had most if not all the monsters memorized. 

 

Then when the Fiend Folio came out we all did the same thing. Started reading the book over and over again, memorizing those monster's weaknesses and abilities. 

 

There are three Monster Manuals that were not as well known and I loved using them in my campaigns when I was running games in the 80s.

 These Monster Manuals were edited by Steve Perrin and Jeff Pimper. They are titled All The Worlds Monsters, Vol I, Vol II and Vol III respectively and were printed by Chaosium.

 

 

 

Most players did not own them and the meta gaming took place to a lesser degree. It also gave DM's so many more options in choosing creatures. These volumes have so many different monsters. Here are just a few creatures that are in these books

 Have you ever seen the movie The Deadly Mantis released in 1957? 

 

 Here is Giant Preying Mantis that would fill the bill to play the part in the movie.

 

I know that early printings of Deities & Demigods had creatures based on Melnibonéan Mythos created in the Elric series written by Michael Moorcock.

 

Not all the monsters were featured in the Fiend Folio. In the tale “To Rescue Tanelorn” a creature called the Olab was described. It is covered in these books.

 Are you a fan of  Lin Carter's "Warrior At World's End"? Here are stats for the Death Dwarf.

If you are a fan of the author Jack Vance as I am. My favorite Novel is “The Diridr” published in 1969 and by the way I highly recommend it. If you have read his novel “The Dragon Masters”?  The Fiend is in these books.

I could go on and on all the interesting creatures. There are stats for The Cockroach that Cincinnati based on the song by the same name. If you have never heard it, boy it is a real toe tapper.

How about creatures based on the Oz series by Frank L Baum? These books have them.  Have you ever wanted to use a Tarn ( A large Flying Mount) or maybe a Kaiila (A Carnivorous Mount) from the Gor series by John Norman.

 Even Rosemary's Baby from the movie by the same name is in these volumes.

  I could do on and on.  If you still play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or any of the new games such as Dungeon Crawl Classics or Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  Rosemary's Baby would fit right in with latter rule set.  

 

A little heads up, I am going to do a quick review of Lamentations of the Flame Princess as my next blog post.

I owned all three volumes, but I let someone borrow them back in the day and of course I never got them back. I did repurchased them in PDF and they are still available on Chaosium's Website.

https://www.chaosium.com/search.php?search_query=monsters

These are $5.00 dollars a pop and worth every cent.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and take care.

Mike G