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Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition
Volo's Guide to Monsters
Immerse yourself in monster lore in this supplement for the world's greatest roleplaying game
This is NOT just another Monster Manual! Volo's Guide to Monsters provides something exciting for players and Dungeon Masters everywhere.
- A deep dive into the lore behind some of D&D's most popular and iconic monsters
- Dozens of monsters new to the fifth edition to include in your epic adventures
- New playable races to allow you to build characters to fit nearly any type of story in your D&D game.
The esteemed loremaster Volothamp Geddarm is back and he's written a fantastical dissertation, covering some of the most iconic monsters in the Forgotten Realms. Unfortunately, the Sage of Shadowdale himself, Elminster, doesn't believe Volo gets some of the important details quite right. Don't miss out as Volo and Elminster square off (academically speaking of course) to illuminate the uninitiated on creatures both common and obscure. Uncover the machinations of the mysterious Kraken Society, what is the origin of the bizarre froghemoth, or how to avoid participating in the ghastly reproductive cycle of the grotesque vargouille. Dungeon Masters and players will get some much-needed guidance as you plan your next venture, traipsing about some dusty old ruin in search of treasure, lore, and let's not forget ... dangerous creatures whose horns, claws, fangs, heads, or even hides might comfortably adorn the walls of your trophy room. If you survive.
Research has never been so dangerous!
This is NOT just another Monster Manual! Volo's Guide to Monsters provides something exciting for players and Dungeon Masters everywhere.
- A deep dive into the lore behind some of D&D's most popular and iconic monsters
- Dozens of monsters new to the fifth edition to include in your epic adventures
- New playable races to allow you to build characters to fit nearly any type of story in your D&D game.
The esteemed loremaster Volothamp Geddarm is back and he's written a fantastical dissertation, covering some of the most iconic monsters in the Forgotten Realms. Unfortunately, the Sage of Shadowdale himself, Elminster, doesn't believe Volo gets some of the important details quite right. Don't miss out as Volo and Elminster square off (academically speaking of course) to illuminate the uninitiated on creatures both common and obscure. Uncover the machinations of the mysterious Kraken Society, what is the origin of the bizarre froghemoth, or how to avoid participating in the ghastly reproductive cycle of the grotesque vargouille. Dungeon Masters and players will get some much-needed guidance as you plan your next venture, traipsing about some dusty old ruin in search of treasure, lore, and let's not forget ... dangerous creatures whose horns, claws, fangs, heads, or even hides might comfortably adorn the walls of your trophy room. If you survive.
Research has never been so dangerous!
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 2016
89 people are currently reading
1273 people want to read
About the author
Wizards of the Coast
432 books435 followersWizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
December 28, 2016
A really nice supplement to the 5th Edition Monster Manual. It provides a deeper look at some selected cultures (goblinoid, Mindflayers, etc) that offer a lot of good ideas for DMs (Dungeon Masters) to work with. I know I got a much better understanding of the humble, lowly Kobold and a greater appreciation for how Orcs organize their societies (much more complex than you would think). The nice thing about D&D is that nothing is set, so a DM can pick and choose what aspects of a culture they want to incorporate into their adventuring world.
I think this is where this book really shines because it offers such an in depth look at a wide variety of creature cultures it is easy for a DM to mix and match different cultural facets. The addition of more monsters to draw upon is also welcomed, since you can never have too many monster options, as was the inclusion of specialized monsters that flesh out a given race's culture (like specialized Orcs or Kobolds that fill particular societal niches).
This book wasn't quite as impressive as the Monster Manual in terms of the witty asides that pop up throughout the reading and some of the monsters added seemed like the junior varsity team that didn't make the cut in the first Monster Manual. Still, overall, this is an excellent resource to add to a D&D campaign.
I think this is where this book really shines because it offers such an in depth look at a wide variety of creature cultures it is easy for a DM to mix and match different cultural facets. The addition of more monsters to draw upon is also welcomed, since you can never have too many monster options, as was the inclusion of specialized monsters that flesh out a given race's culture (like specialized Orcs or Kobolds that fill particular societal niches).
This book wasn't quite as impressive as the Monster Manual in terms of the witty asides that pop up throughout the reading and some of the monsters added seemed like the junior varsity team that didn't make the cut in the first Monster Manual. Still, overall, this is an excellent resource to add to a D&D campaign.
December 28, 2022
I spent a couple hours flipping through this last night. Monsters, monsters, monsters. Some popular monster species are put under the microscope, like Mind Flayers, Beholders, and various goblinoid races. Some new non-human player character races are introduces, like the Goliath, Firbolg, and Tabaxi. Other than that, it's page after page of monsters. My wife occasionally looked up from her phone game to marvel at the Flail Snail and other monsters and is pretty jazzed about playing a Tabaxi so the book did it's job. Seriously, who doesn't need more monsters in their game?
April 17, 2017
I went into this book with high expectations, as it was the first new book of monsters for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Shockingly, it might have managed to exceed them. Volo's Guide to Monsters is one of my favorite D&D monster books ever, and I speak as someone who's read a lot of D&D monster books.
The book starts with the conceit of being a guide written by Volothamp Geddarm (aka "Marco Volo") about the monsters of the Forgotten Realms, with some commentary from the wizard Elminster. Unfortunately, this only results in some sidebar comments throughout the book (I would have loved something in the style of the Van Richten's Guides from the 1990s), although it still provides amusement here and there.
Let's go through the rest section by section.
Overall, this is a must-have item for anyone running the 5th Edition D&D game. Tons of great options, lots of inspiring ideas, and even the few minuses are a matter of opinion. Even if you don't play D&D, you will probably find the Monster Lore sections interesting. Very strongly recommended. (A+)
The book starts with the conceit of being a guide written by Volothamp Geddarm (aka "Marco Volo") about the monsters of the Forgotten Realms, with some commentary from the wizard Elminster. Unfortunately, this only results in some sidebar comments throughout the book (I would have loved something in the style of the Van Richten's Guides from the 1990s), although it still provides amusement here and there.
Let's go through the rest section by section.
Overall, this is a must-have item for anyone running the 5th Edition D&D game. Tons of great options, lots of inspiring ideas, and even the few minuses are a matter of opinion. Even if you don't play D&D, you will probably find the Monster Lore sections interesting. Very strongly recommended. (A+)
January 18, 2018
This is a great book for both players and DMs. There are three sections. The first section provides in depth information on the most iconic monster types in D&D. This includes information about the culture and lairs, and it also provides information on role playing those monsters for DMs. The second section provides new races for player characters, including some monstrous player races. The final section provides new monsters to supplement the ones found in the Monster Manual. In general, I enjoy reading Monster Manual type books like this because it's fun to learn about the kinds of creatures that appear in the world of D&D. If you play D&D or just enjoy monsters in general, this is worth picking up.
March 18, 2017
Re-read: This is a phenomenal addition to any Dungeon Master's collection. Fantastic organization compared to other 5E books, too.
New player character classes, a boost to the available NPC rosters, more than 100 new monsters, and--the best part-- an amazing deep dive into a handful of select monsters to understand how they think, how they strategize, where they live and their lore.
New player character classes, a boost to the available NPC rosters, more than 100 new monsters, and--the best part-- an amazing deep dive into a handful of select monsters to understand how they think, how they strategize, where they live and their lore.
November 14, 2016
Hands down, Volo's Guide to Monsters is the best D&D 5e guidebook Wizards has released. Indeed, other than The Book of Vile Deeds, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better D&D companion. An absolute essential for DMs.
June 14, 2017
I don't think I have ever given a game book a 5 star rating but this is IT! Many of the longer race entries read like short stories. Tons of good information and ideas on every entry. A very enjoyable read overall even though it is meant to be a game reference book. Highly recommended
January 24, 2017
I love all the in-depth monster lore on several archetypal monster types in the first chapter. I got several ideas for new campaigns just from reading that. (Of course, I will never have the time to run all the campaigns I have ideas for...)
The chapter on new PC races was pretty cool, and I'm sure I'll see some of those options in future games. A few I wish were in there weren't, but that's not a huge deal.
The final chapter -- stat blocks for a bunch of new monsters -- had some fun new things, as well as the return of some older monsters that I'm not a particular fan of, but no one's going to make me use them. :-)
All in all, a great addition to the 5E source material.
The chapter on new PC races was pretty cool, and I'm sure I'll see some of those options in future games. A few I wish were in there weren't, but that's not a huge deal.
The final chapter -- stat blocks for a bunch of new monsters -- had some fun new things, as well as the return of some older monsters that I'm not a particular fan of, but no one's going to make me use them. :-)
All in all, a great addition to the 5E source material.
January 28, 2017
It's just wonderful. Everything about it.
It has 3 parts:
1. In-depth sections on various iconic monsters - Beholders, Kobolds, etc. - each enough for an adventure or a campaign around it. If you like reading about fantastic creatures, and if you're considering Volo's, you are, you'll have fun just reading it. For me, just this part was worth the entire book.
2. Character races. Feel like you had enough of the standard ones? You'll find something to spark your interest here.
3. Monsters - including NPCs which are basically bare-metal PCs like a warlock with a certain path.
It has 3 parts:
1. In-depth sections on various iconic monsters - Beholders, Kobolds, etc. - each enough for an adventure or a campaign around it. If you like reading about fantastic creatures, and if you're considering Volo's, you are, you'll have fun just reading it. For me, just this part was worth the entire book.
2. Character races. Feel like you had enough of the standard ones? You'll find something to spark your interest here.
3. Monsters - including NPCs which are basically bare-metal PCs like a warlock with a certain path.
January 2, 2017
I wasn't enamored with Sword Coast or any of the modules 5E is peddling, but Volo's guide makes me look forward to upcoming 5E splat.
The in-depth fluff for monster mythology is great and it clarifies or corrects mythology from previous editions.
The in-depth fluff for monster mythology is great and it clarifies or corrects mythology from previous editions.
September 5, 2022
Volo's Guide to Monsters was the first supplementary book for 5th edition D&D. As such, it is a little outdated now, as it predates the changes following BLM and the revisited rules on alignments. Despite this, more recent editions of this particular book do include these changes, but I happen to own the older version.
The book is a supplement mainly to the Monster Manual core rulebook. As such, it contains stat blocks for many monsters, both old favourites, new creations and different versions of monster from the MM. It also includes very expansive lore for six monsters central to many D&D adventures, including Orcs, Goblins, Hags, Kobolds, Mind Flayers and the elusive Yuan-ti. This lore is generalized and usable in any setting, though there are occasional references to the Forgotten Realms setting. On top of that, a small chapter is dedicated to new monstrous races for players to use in their character creation.
The book is a fun and interesting read, although it must be said that the races and (possibly all) monster stat blocks now also appear in the recently published Monsters of the Multiverse. Despite this, the lore chapter still contains much information on these monsters, and is a good read for DMs.
The book is a supplement mainly to the Monster Manual core rulebook. As such, it contains stat blocks for many monsters, both old favourites, new creations and different versions of monster from the MM. It also includes very expansive lore for six monsters central to many D&D adventures, including Orcs, Goblins, Hags, Kobolds, Mind Flayers and the elusive Yuan-ti. This lore is generalized and usable in any setting, though there are occasional references to the Forgotten Realms setting. On top of that, a small chapter is dedicated to new monstrous races for players to use in their character creation.
The book is a fun and interesting read, although it must be said that the races and (possibly all) monster stat blocks now also appear in the recently published Monsters of the Multiverse. Despite this, the lore chapter still contains much information on these monsters, and is a good read for DMs.
October 28, 2023
A lot of fun new NPC stats to add to your campaings! And a good bit of in-game history for different groups of playable and non-playable characters. But the best part is easily stats for new playable kinds of characters, like kenku and goliaths. Worthy addition to my DMing!
November 24, 2022
A great expansion/supplement. I use it all the time.
January 29, 2026
Short Version: It will be very helpful for any DM to own, but this book won't change your life or anything like that.
The Good
This book is broken up into three chapters:
Monster Lore: We get huge amounts of information on classic D&D monsters.
Character Races: You can now make aasimar, firbolgs, tabaxi, orcs and more.
Monsters: Tons of new monsters and variations on existing monsters.
New Ideas
This book takes the previous lore from old editions and adds to it. I love that. Here's some of the stuff I liked the most:
Beholder Dreams: They took a weird turn with the beholders. Beholders now dream other beholders into existence. In other editions, they barfed up an egg to make new beholders. This is fine with me, but it feels a little vague. I would have liked a few more examples of how it works.
Goblin Society: I love the goblin caste system and I think people could really expand on it and do some fun things.
Here are the goblin castes:
Lashers: Trained in battle
Hunters: Wolf riders
Gatherers: Get berries
Pariahs: Do hard labor, cleaning, menial tasks. Oversee slaves, if there are any.
Mind Flayer Thralls: I loved the section discussing how mind flayers create thralls and how you can "de-program" a thrall. It involves a lot of very high-powered spells.
They also did a fantastic job of giving an overall view of how mind flayers live. They serve their Elder Brain and each of them is a repository of knowledge that the Elder Brain can draw from.
Raxivort, God of the Xvarts: They update/revise the story of Raxivort. In 2e, Raxivort is the god of the Xvarts who tried to steal from Graz'zt. He was hiding in Graz'zt's city of Zelatar.
Now we learn this stuff:
He stole the Infinity Spindle from Graz'zt, which made Raxivort a god.
Raxivort created a realm in Pandemonium called The Black Sewers.
Graz'zt got revenge by telling many dangerous creatures that Raxivort had the spindle.
Raxivort created Xvarts - doubles of himself - so he could hide among them.
He wandered the planes, spawning more xvarts.
That's really great.
Full of Fun Details
If you dig through the book, there are all sorts of fun things that can add to your games, especially on the monster-making charts.
Here are some of my favorites:
Gnoll with a vestigial twin embedded on its back.
Bugbears form gangs. Their god will enchant severed heads of mighty slain foes.
Some hags turn into other types of hags over the years.
Mind Flayer Flaw: "I have a memory that is not mine."
Orcs don't have romantic relationships. "Mating is a mundane necessity of life."
The Hierophants of Annihilation: 7 bodaks who serve Orcus.
Spellcaster Stats: I love that they made stats for wizard specialists. There's an abjurer, a conjurer, an enchanter, etc. That is really clever and incredibly useful.
The Cow of Doom: Check out page 207. We get cow stats. I know they are meant to be stats for bison, rothe and etc., but you know a lot of people are going to use these stats for regular milking cows, too.
A cow has 15 hit points, +6 to hit and 7 damage! There are going to be quite a few level one characters who will be killed by a cow. That just cracks me up. +6 to hit! When they charge, they do an extra +7 damage!
DMs the world over will entice the heroes with a drunken bar bet involving cow tipping that goes horribly, horribly wrong.
Nods to Other Settings
Mind Flayer Nautiloid
The book has a lot of fun little easter eggs and mentions.
Tzunk, the guy who had the codex of the infinite planes and attacked the city of brass, has a quote in this book.
Spelljammer: There are repeated spelljammer mentions. There is a lot of discussion about nautiloids, which are mind flayer ships right out of the Spelljammer boxed set. There's also talk of Neogi mindspiders, the neogi ships. That is greatly appreciated!
The neogi are really underused, in my opinion. Way back when, I played in a Spelljammer campaign where there was a recurring villain who was a neogi. I love how they have umber hulk bodyguards and they're slavers - they are easy bad guys that anyone would love to hate.
Planescape: We even get cranium rat stats, who are heavily associated with Planescape. I would have liked one more stat block for a massive horde of cranium rats, but this was a really awesome surprise.
Linking Monsters to Major NPCs
In this book, they go out of their way to link most monsters to a certain deity or demon lord. I think that's cool because it helps people get familiar with the different D&D entities and it gives the monster another dimension that makes them more interesting.
Some examples:
The kenku once served a powerful entity, possibly Graz'zt or the Wind Dukes of Aaqa.
Orcus is linked to bodaks and devourers.
Babau sprang up from the blood of Graz'zt when he fought the archdevil Glasya.
Lairs
Maybe the best thing of all about this book is that in chapter one, there are a bunch of sample lairs. The lair maps by Jared Blando are really, really detailed. I liked them so much that I bought two of them. You have a complete mind flayer settlement in this book all ready to be used.
As always with 5e, you are going to have to dig through this book to populate and detail your mind flayer lair, but the map is great and the monsters seem really cool. Elder Brains really don't get a lot of attention in D&D. I guess it's because they are a very high level threat.
The Bad
I don't have too many major beefs with this book. It's more of an overall "eh" feeling in regards to some of the content.
The Races
I didn't really care for the character races. There's only two that are interesting to me: The aasimar and the goliath. It's so weird, this feels like an end-of-the-edition pile of character races. In 4e they really rolled out crops of cool races in clumps.
Bottom line, I don't know too many people who want to play a triton.
The Art
I think a lot of people will disagree with me on this. A lot of the art is professional, but it doesn't grab me, if that makes sense. In any other edition of D&D, there would be a few artists that would really stop you in your tracks. In this edition, there's not.
I do like some of the art. The yuan-ti abomination and broodguard are really good creations. The abomination here looks a million times better than that abomination that had a 4e mini with the cobra hood.
The mind flayer art is good, the gnoll art is good and I love the gnoll witherling.
Whoever did the Shoosuva worked a miracle. I never liked the shoosuva but that picture is awesome.
I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the monsters in this book are goofy looking, so it's hard to get a cool picture out of them.
Poor Monster Selection
This book is full of what I consider to be goofball monsters. Nilbogs, boggles, redcaps, catoblepas, grung, flail snail, etc. I decided to sit down and look through older monster manuals to make a list of monsters that I'd have preferred to be in this book.
11/22/16: Somehow in my slavering frenzy, I missed this note right on page 5:
"You might be wondering why certain monsters were chosen above theirs. Where are dragons and githyanki? What, no fiends or undead? We hope to tackle other monsters in other products over time."
While doing so, I realized something. This book has:
Very few undead.
No dragons.
No devils.
Just a couple of demons.
Very few planar creatures.
The more I thought about it, I decided there is a good chance that those monsters are being "saved" for their own books. If you remember, in 4e, that's what they did and it seemed to work really well. In 4e, we got:
Open Grave: Book of undead, awesome book.
Draconomicon: Two books! One full of chromatic dragons, the other metallic. There are a million types of dragons in D&D worth putting in a 5e book.
Demonomicon: A book full of demons. Fantastic book, there is so much demon stuff out there that they could have made three more Demonomicons and they would all be awesome.
Plane Above & Plane Below: Two great planar books full of planar monsters.
Devils? As for devils, they always get the short end of the stick. They are really cool, but demons are a little more fun. That said, the 3e Fiendish Codex II (which has nothing but devils) is IMO one of the best 3e books ever made.
Devils are awesome and they are perfect villains. It is entirely possible we'll see a devil book at some point. The city of Dis alone could fill a book.
So, after having all of those thoughts tenderizing my brain, I realized that if you take all those monster types out, it is really hard to fill a second monster manual.
The monsters that I came up with after you take out demons, devils, dragons, etc. is a very underwhelming list. Here's what I got:
Spellweavers
Umber hulk variants
More drow stuff
Oozes - This is a big one. They should have done a whole section on oozes in this book.
More golems - There are a million types of cool golems in previous editions worth updating.
Eldritch giants and other giant types.
Other hydra types - If you're not going to have dragons in the book, why not some hydras?
Gargoyle variants - Runic gargoyles, Obsidian gargoyles, etc.
After close examination, if they held off on certain monster types for future products, then I think they did the best they could with the crop that was left over.
Overall
Volo's Guide to Monsters is a decent book that I think will help DMs, especially those who run homebrew stuff. You can take those dungeon maps in chapter one and go nuts. In general there's just a ton of material that you can inject into your game.
This book is definitely worth getting. If you keep in mind that there are not any dragons in this thing, then I think you'll be satisfied.
The Good
This book is broken up into three chapters:
Monster Lore: We get huge amounts of information on classic D&D monsters.
Character Races: You can now make aasimar, firbolgs, tabaxi, orcs and more.
Monsters: Tons of new monsters and variations on existing monsters.
New Ideas
This book takes the previous lore from old editions and adds to it. I love that. Here's some of the stuff I liked the most:
Beholder Dreams: They took a weird turn with the beholders. Beholders now dream other beholders into existence. In other editions, they barfed up an egg to make new beholders. This is fine with me, but it feels a little vague. I would have liked a few more examples of how it works.
Goblin Society: I love the goblin caste system and I think people could really expand on it and do some fun things.
Here are the goblin castes:
Lashers: Trained in battle
Hunters: Wolf riders
Gatherers: Get berries
Pariahs: Do hard labor, cleaning, menial tasks. Oversee slaves, if there are any.
Mind Flayer Thralls: I loved the section discussing how mind flayers create thralls and how you can "de-program" a thrall. It involves a lot of very high-powered spells.
They also did a fantastic job of giving an overall view of how mind flayers live. They serve their Elder Brain and each of them is a repository of knowledge that the Elder Brain can draw from.
Raxivort, God of the Xvarts: They update/revise the story of Raxivort. In 2e, Raxivort is the god of the Xvarts who tried to steal from Graz'zt. He was hiding in Graz'zt's city of Zelatar.
Now we learn this stuff:
He stole the Infinity Spindle from Graz'zt, which made Raxivort a god.
Raxivort created a realm in Pandemonium called The Black Sewers.
Graz'zt got revenge by telling many dangerous creatures that Raxivort had the spindle.
Raxivort created Xvarts - doubles of himself - so he could hide among them.
He wandered the planes, spawning more xvarts.
That's really great.
Full of Fun Details
If you dig through the book, there are all sorts of fun things that can add to your games, especially on the monster-making charts.
Here are some of my favorites:
Gnoll with a vestigial twin embedded on its back.
Bugbears form gangs. Their god will enchant severed heads of mighty slain foes.
Some hags turn into other types of hags over the years.
Mind Flayer Flaw: "I have a memory that is not mine."
Orcs don't have romantic relationships. "Mating is a mundane necessity of life."
The Hierophants of Annihilation: 7 bodaks who serve Orcus.
Spellcaster Stats: I love that they made stats for wizard specialists. There's an abjurer, a conjurer, an enchanter, etc. That is really clever and incredibly useful.
The Cow of Doom: Check out page 207. We get cow stats. I know they are meant to be stats for bison, rothe and etc., but you know a lot of people are going to use these stats for regular milking cows, too.
A cow has 15 hit points, +6 to hit and 7 damage! There are going to be quite a few level one characters who will be killed by a cow. That just cracks me up. +6 to hit! When they charge, they do an extra +7 damage!
DMs the world over will entice the heroes with a drunken bar bet involving cow tipping that goes horribly, horribly wrong.
Nods to Other Settings
Mind Flayer Nautiloid
The book has a lot of fun little easter eggs and mentions.
Tzunk, the guy who had the codex of the infinite planes and attacked the city of brass, has a quote in this book.
Spelljammer: There are repeated spelljammer mentions. There is a lot of discussion about nautiloids, which are mind flayer ships right out of the Spelljammer boxed set. There's also talk of Neogi mindspiders, the neogi ships. That is greatly appreciated!
The neogi are really underused, in my opinion. Way back when, I played in a Spelljammer campaign where there was a recurring villain who was a neogi. I love how they have umber hulk bodyguards and they're slavers - they are easy bad guys that anyone would love to hate.
Planescape: We even get cranium rat stats, who are heavily associated with Planescape. I would have liked one more stat block for a massive horde of cranium rats, but this was a really awesome surprise.
Linking Monsters to Major NPCs
In this book, they go out of their way to link most monsters to a certain deity or demon lord. I think that's cool because it helps people get familiar with the different D&D entities and it gives the monster another dimension that makes them more interesting.
Some examples:
The kenku once served a powerful entity, possibly Graz'zt or the Wind Dukes of Aaqa.
Orcus is linked to bodaks and devourers.
Babau sprang up from the blood of Graz'zt when he fought the archdevil Glasya.
Lairs
Maybe the best thing of all about this book is that in chapter one, there are a bunch of sample lairs. The lair maps by Jared Blando are really, really detailed. I liked them so much that I bought two of them. You have a complete mind flayer settlement in this book all ready to be used.
As always with 5e, you are going to have to dig through this book to populate and detail your mind flayer lair, but the map is great and the monsters seem really cool. Elder Brains really don't get a lot of attention in D&D. I guess it's because they are a very high level threat.
The Bad
I don't have too many major beefs with this book. It's more of an overall "eh" feeling in regards to some of the content.
The Races
I didn't really care for the character races. There's only two that are interesting to me: The aasimar and the goliath. It's so weird, this feels like an end-of-the-edition pile of character races. In 4e they really rolled out crops of cool races in clumps.
Bottom line, I don't know too many people who want to play a triton.
The Art
I think a lot of people will disagree with me on this. A lot of the art is professional, but it doesn't grab me, if that makes sense. In any other edition of D&D, there would be a few artists that would really stop you in your tracks. In this edition, there's not.
I do like some of the art. The yuan-ti abomination and broodguard are really good creations. The abomination here looks a million times better than that abomination that had a 4e mini with the cobra hood.
The mind flayer art is good, the gnoll art is good and I love the gnoll witherling.
Whoever did the Shoosuva worked a miracle. I never liked the shoosuva but that picture is awesome.
I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the monsters in this book are goofy looking, so it's hard to get a cool picture out of them.
Poor Monster Selection
This book is full of what I consider to be goofball monsters. Nilbogs, boggles, redcaps, catoblepas, grung, flail snail, etc. I decided to sit down and look through older monster manuals to make a list of monsters that I'd have preferred to be in this book.
11/22/16: Somehow in my slavering frenzy, I missed this note right on page 5:
"You might be wondering why certain monsters were chosen above theirs. Where are dragons and githyanki? What, no fiends or undead? We hope to tackle other monsters in other products over time."
While doing so, I realized something. This book has:
Very few undead.
No dragons.
No devils.
Just a couple of demons.
Very few planar creatures.
The more I thought about it, I decided there is a good chance that those monsters are being "saved" for their own books. If you remember, in 4e, that's what they did and it seemed to work really well. In 4e, we got:
Open Grave: Book of undead, awesome book.
Draconomicon: Two books! One full of chromatic dragons, the other metallic. There are a million types of dragons in D&D worth putting in a 5e book.
Demonomicon: A book full of demons. Fantastic book, there is so much demon stuff out there that they could have made three more Demonomicons and they would all be awesome.
Plane Above & Plane Below: Two great planar books full of planar monsters.
Devils? As for devils, they always get the short end of the stick. They are really cool, but demons are a little more fun. That said, the 3e Fiendish Codex II (which has nothing but devils) is IMO one of the best 3e books ever made.
Devils are awesome and they are perfect villains. It is entirely possible we'll see a devil book at some point. The city of Dis alone could fill a book.
So, after having all of those thoughts tenderizing my brain, I realized that if you take all those monster types out, it is really hard to fill a second monster manual.
The monsters that I came up with after you take out demons, devils, dragons, etc. is a very underwhelming list. Here's what I got:
Spellweavers
Umber hulk variants
More drow stuff
Oozes - This is a big one. They should have done a whole section on oozes in this book.
More golems - There are a million types of cool golems in previous editions worth updating.
Eldritch giants and other giant types.
Other hydra types - If you're not going to have dragons in the book, why not some hydras?
Gargoyle variants - Runic gargoyles, Obsidian gargoyles, etc.
After close examination, if they held off on certain monster types for future products, then I think they did the best they could with the crop that was left over.
Overall
Volo's Guide to Monsters is a decent book that I think will help DMs, especially those who run homebrew stuff. You can take those dungeon maps in chapter one and go nuts. In general there's just a ton of material that you can inject into your game.
This book is definitely worth getting. If you keep in mind that there are not any dragons in this thing, then I think you'll be satisfied.
May 25, 2018
As an adopter of 5th edition in our gaming crew, I'm really enjoying all the new takes on old things. They're reimagining how things can be, without ruining how they were.
To be honest, I wasn't impressed with this initially; the heavy-handed cultural approach to the monsters was meh for me. Lots of deity and god talk, etc etc. Neat if you're going all-in on an Orc campaign and want tons of motivation though.
I was very impressed with the PC races and the rules for adapting monstrous races into PC roles. Those will come up in the campaigns we have, no doubt. I was also very happy with the monstrous additions, as I thought the Monster Manual left a lot out.
Overall, a terrific addition to the 5th ed lineup.
To be honest, I wasn't impressed with this initially; the heavy-handed cultural approach to the monsters was meh for me. Lots of deity and god talk, etc etc. Neat if you're going all-in on an Orc campaign and want tons of motivation though.
I was very impressed with the PC races and the rules for adapting monstrous races into PC roles. Those will come up in the campaigns we have, no doubt. I was also very happy with the monstrous additions, as I thought the Monster Manual left a lot out.
Overall, a terrific addition to the 5th ed lineup.
January 20, 2018
A superhero is only as interesting as the villain they are opposed to. Batman on his own isn't really all that interesting- just beating up nameless villains. Batman vs the Joker, on the other hand, really makes Batman a compelling character. And what makes a good villain? A good villain isn't just a caricature, but has deep, understandable motivations. This book explains the lore and motivations of monsters so well that I will never fight a lowly Kobold again without a tinge of sympathy.
I picked up Volo's Guide to Monsters to help with some role-playing for a half-orc bard I am currently roleplaying. The details of orc life are so deep that the guide even delves into an orc's pre-bedtime superstitions.
The first major-chunk of the book is Volo, the adventurer, going in to depth about the structure and life of nine common monsters: beholders, giants, gnolls, goblonoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers (my favorite chapter), orcs and yuan-ti. And man, Volo hath seen some shit.
In the introduction of each monster, a clear motivation is set out: worship of a destructive god, the desire to emulate their dragon ancestors or merely survival. Every part of the monster's society flows from this motivation. A detailed look at the progenation of the species, social structure, physical characteristics, battle tactics, creative variants of the main monster, layout of the monster lair, treasures the monster might collect and minions that might accompany the monster are laid out in every monster chapter. For dungeon masters, there are role-playing ideas, lair maps, and instructions for constructing a band of kobolds, orcs, mind-flayers, etc.
The first part of the book makes the purchase worth it alone. As a kid, I really enjoyed reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from the Harry Potter series. Volo's guide has a very similar feel, as if narrated by Sir David Attenborough himself. What makes this guide fun, is that someday my character could actually encounter a mind-flayer in the wild!
Following with the theme of monsters, the guide also introduces a cast of new playable races with a beast-esque feel to them. None of these are likely to be as widely memorable as the elf, dwarf or any of the races in the core manual but they are all as equally well thought out. This chapter even includes bare-bones statistics for building a monster adventurer if you ever had a reason to play a bugbear or a full orc.
What follows that chapter is a menagerie of new monsters. The most interesting monsters are described in the first chapters and are special variations of kobolds, yuan-ti, et al. The rest of the monsters, I feel much like the character classes; the monsters are fine but nothing to really write home about.
One other bonus is the addition of NPC stats. This is really nice if you're building up a town to defend from an orc raid without building out a full cast of NPCs from scratch.
The really tight focus on monsters and inspired lore make this is the best non-core book for DnD 5e.
I picked up Volo's Guide to Monsters to help with some role-playing for a half-orc bard I am currently roleplaying. The details of orc life are so deep that the guide even delves into an orc's pre-bedtime superstitions.
The first major-chunk of the book is Volo, the adventurer, going in to depth about the structure and life of nine common monsters: beholders, giants, gnolls, goblonoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers (my favorite chapter), orcs and yuan-ti. And man, Volo hath seen some shit.
In the introduction of each monster, a clear motivation is set out: worship of a destructive god, the desire to emulate their dragon ancestors or merely survival. Every part of the monster's society flows from this motivation. A detailed look at the progenation of the species, social structure, physical characteristics, battle tactics, creative variants of the main monster, layout of the monster lair, treasures the monster might collect and minions that might accompany the monster are laid out in every monster chapter. For dungeon masters, there are role-playing ideas, lair maps, and instructions for constructing a band of kobolds, orcs, mind-flayers, etc.
The first part of the book makes the purchase worth it alone. As a kid, I really enjoyed reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from the Harry Potter series. Volo's guide has a very similar feel, as if narrated by Sir David Attenborough himself. What makes this guide fun, is that someday my character could actually encounter a mind-flayer in the wild!
Following with the theme of monsters, the guide also introduces a cast of new playable races with a beast-esque feel to them. None of these are likely to be as widely memorable as the elf, dwarf or any of the races in the core manual but they are all as equally well thought out. This chapter even includes bare-bones statistics for building a monster adventurer if you ever had a reason to play a bugbear or a full orc.
What follows that chapter is a menagerie of new monsters. The most interesting monsters are described in the first chapters and are special variations of kobolds, yuan-ti, et al. The rest of the monsters, I feel much like the character classes; the monsters are fine but nothing to really write home about.
One other bonus is the addition of NPC stats. This is really nice if you're building up a town to defend from an orc raid without building out a full cast of NPCs from scratch.
The really tight focus on monsters and inspired lore make this is the best non-core book for DnD 5e.
January 13, 2017
Excellent resource and full of good ideas for players and DMs.
March 19, 2017
A really excellent supplement. So many things in here gave me awesome ideas for campaigns and encounters. I hope the new dungeon themed supplement is as good as this is.
May 3, 2020
Volo’s Guide to Monsters follows the same format as the DM expansion books, with half the book being in-depth lore of some part of the D&D worlds, including new character options, and the second half of the book being a bestiary of new creatures, most of which relate to the lore from the first half of the book.
This book adds lots of lore about some iconic D&D monsters like beholders, giants, goblinoids, etc. It covers their behaviors, abilities, how to role play them, and even provides fully-realized example lairs for these creatures. While this is super interesting and allows a DM to add depth to encounters, it’s also a LOT of information that would be hard to remember in the moment. Might just be me though.
Here’s something I’m beginning to realize with these books: in general, lore like this is fun for its own sake, but only for the DM, with few exceptions. On the other hand, lore that lends itself to spontaneous discovery, especially via player interaction, is absolute gold in an RPG.
For example, everything I learned about beholders is cool, but the only way I could share that with the players would be to expound on the lore myself, to info dump on the players if they ask. In contrast, there is a creature in this book that adds a throwaway detail in its description that is, in my opinion, the best thing in the book. The creature is called a cave fisher, a 5-foot-long pure white lobstrosity that secretes sticky filament to entangle prey. Not a high chance characters would ever see one, especially if the adventure takes place far from their favored lairs.
But when a cave fisher is killed, their alcoholic blood is harvested as a powerful spirit. Their blood is literally powerful booze. This is an opportunity to add detail to the world that is interactive: the players could wander into a tavern and see a bottle of dark red booze behind the bar, labeled Cave Fisher Blood. A picture of a strange giant lobster is on the label (maybe with a warning on the label to take it easy with this stuff). Players will have questions, and the barkeep could provide answers—right before they buy a round of shots and you have them roll CON saving throws.
It’s the difference between lecturing and discovering. Passive vs active. Expanding on the world should be possible through the everyday, not just via the crazy shit adventurers experience in faraway lands.
Overall, a pretty cool book. I felt that it was an oversight to leave out player options to be a mindflayer. Given the lore in this book, it’s perfectly possible to be an adventuring ithillid, with built-in backstory to boot.
This book adds lots of lore about some iconic D&D monsters like beholders, giants, goblinoids, etc. It covers their behaviors, abilities, how to role play them, and even provides fully-realized example lairs for these creatures. While this is super interesting and allows a DM to add depth to encounters, it’s also a LOT of information that would be hard to remember in the moment. Might just be me though.
Here’s something I’m beginning to realize with these books: in general, lore like this is fun for its own sake, but only for the DM, with few exceptions. On the other hand, lore that lends itself to spontaneous discovery, especially via player interaction, is absolute gold in an RPG.
For example, everything I learned about beholders is cool, but the only way I could share that with the players would be to expound on the lore myself, to info dump on the players if they ask. In contrast, there is a creature in this book that adds a throwaway detail in its description that is, in my opinion, the best thing in the book. The creature is called a cave fisher, a 5-foot-long pure white lobstrosity that secretes sticky filament to entangle prey. Not a high chance characters would ever see one, especially if the adventure takes place far from their favored lairs.
But when a cave fisher is killed, their alcoholic blood is harvested as a powerful spirit. Their blood is literally powerful booze. This is an opportunity to add detail to the world that is interactive: the players could wander into a tavern and see a bottle of dark red booze behind the bar, labeled Cave Fisher Blood. A picture of a strange giant lobster is on the label (maybe with a warning on the label to take it easy with this stuff). Players will have questions, and the barkeep could provide answers—right before they buy a round of shots and you have them roll CON saving throws.
It’s the difference between lecturing and discovering. Passive vs active. Expanding on the world should be possible through the everyday, not just via the crazy shit adventurers experience in faraway lands.
Overall, a pretty cool book. I felt that it was an oversight to leave out player options to be a mindflayer. Given the lore in this book, it’s perfectly possible to be an adventuring ithillid, with built-in backstory to boot.
August 11, 2019
The Lore section was easily my favorite part of the book. Even a “small” encounter with a hag can have new depth and life just by adding a few small details found here. I love it. I’m doing (very) advance prep for running the Storm King’s Thunder adventure, which is about giants, so that extra info on giants and their world will only help me flesh my world out.
I have almost no use for the new player races at this point in my DM life, but down the road, they might be of more use. Still, something for players and not just DMs is a nice addition.
As far as the Bestiary? Well, who doesn’t like more baddies to throw at the players?! And some of these look super fun.
There’s not much to complain about here…but there is a bit to complain about, and that has to do with value. Volo’s clocks in at 224 pages, but it has the same $49.95 MSRP that the Monster Manual has—and that clocks in at 352 pages. So I feel like they could have easily included more monster lore, and more monsters. This is especially true since there are some monsters I expected to see here, and just aren’t there. Dragons, for instance. Or trolls. Or elementals. I have a hard time swallowing paying $50 for a book that has 125 fewer pages than others that cost the same. If you’re going to keep that page count, at least drop the MSRP.
You should also know that almost all of the monsters here are level 10 or below, so if you’re looking for higher-level foes, look elsewhere.
Volo’s Guide to Monsters is great. It’s not a must-have, but it’s the sort of addition that can truly increase the feeling that your world is alive and real—even the parts of the world where the players don’t happen to be. A key to world-building is convincing people that things happened before the events that you’re describing, and that things will happen after these adventurers are long dead. Volo’s helps with that. It’s an excellent resource.
I have almost no use for the new player races at this point in my DM life, but down the road, they might be of more use. Still, something for players and not just DMs is a nice addition.
As far as the Bestiary? Well, who doesn’t like more baddies to throw at the players?! And some of these look super fun.
There’s not much to complain about here…but there is a bit to complain about, and that has to do with value. Volo’s clocks in at 224 pages, but it has the same $49.95 MSRP that the Monster Manual has—and that clocks in at 352 pages. So I feel like they could have easily included more monster lore, and more monsters. This is especially true since there are some monsters I expected to see here, and just aren’t there. Dragons, for instance. Or trolls. Or elementals. I have a hard time swallowing paying $50 for a book that has 125 fewer pages than others that cost the same. If you’re going to keep that page count, at least drop the MSRP.
You should also know that almost all of the monsters here are level 10 or below, so if you’re looking for higher-level foes, look elsewhere.
Volo’s Guide to Monsters is great. It’s not a must-have, but it’s the sort of addition that can truly increase the feeling that your world is alive and real—even the parts of the world where the players don’t happen to be. A key to world-building is convincing people that things happened before the events that you’re describing, and that things will happen after these adventurers are long dead. Volo’s helps with that. It’s an excellent resource.
November 16, 2025
Although this book is considered "legacy" content nowadays, I still personally found it really fun to flip through and provided more in depth information for various playable races and monsters than some other resources. My personal favourite section of the book is the Yuan-Ti Purebloods section; Volo really brings the snake-people's twisted (in his eyes) civilization to life.
September 14, 2022
Interesante manual sobre todo en su primera parte, que permite conocer el modo de actuar, pensar y ser de monstruos clásicos, así como algunas razas nuevas muu interesantes que añadir a las clases básicas del manual del jugador. Recomendable.
May 9, 2017
I've been duly impressed by the job Wizards of the Coast has done on 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. By this time in the evolution of every previous edition of D&D—and certainly 3rd/3.5 and 4th edition, which were the first editions for which I experienced their original release—Wizards of the Coast had released any number of additional sourcebooks (and even more-or-less essential core manuals) with additional rules and inclusions for gameplay that, while not exactly vital to effective roleplaying, were sufficiently important that it was somewhat better to use the books than not. Compare this phenomenon with 5th edition's Volo's Guide to Monsters: Not only is it the first book with major new rules material for 5th edition—roughly 2½ years after the initial release of 5th edition!—but the rules it presents are either not essential for rich gaming, or, if they are, presented elsewhere as needed. Volo's Guide to Monsters thus wins on most counts.
Written primarily by WotC workhorses Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford (and credited to the "Wizards RPG Team"), Volo's Guide to Monsters is just that—a valuable exploration, wider than in the Monster Manual, of the plethora of beasties available to DMs and PCs in 5th edition D&D. Why PCs? Because one of the best parts of Volo's Guide is its options for PCs who want to play monster characters such as goblinoids, orcs, or even a few other harder-to-play monster races. (Volo's Guide also provides extensive details for playing a few additional, "new" races [one or two of them already presented in later 4th edition books], but more on that below.) Given that goblin or orc PCs are among the classic "advanced" (no pun intended) options for D&D roleplaying, this aspect of Volo's Guide is a very nice addition to the rules. And the parts of the book that appeal most to DMs—the highly detailed ecologies of some of the iconic monsters in D&D, as well as stat boxes for dozens of others—are well-thought out enhancements as well.
It may be a quibble, but the stats for playing some of the more . . . exotic races specific to PCs (tritons, goliaths, and—my favorite—tabaxi) make them somewhat overly powerful for a properly balanced game, or at least too quirky for a run-of-the-mill adventure. That being said, that just may be the point: Wizards of the Coast seems very much to want to limit primary gameplay to what can be derived from the three core rulebooks, and the semi-subtle hint from Volo's Guide is essentially a "well, you asked for it . . .". The new information for PCs contained in the book is designed both for advanced PCs and for advanced DMs, and that's the beauty of Volo's Guide.
Indeed, one of the key points that makes this sourcebook so good is that it leaves enough unsaid for a skilled DM to make hay of the material within. (In fact, I've already used a couple tabaxi for notable color as NPCs. I make no assessment of my skill as a DM, though.) A DM can use the ecology of mind flayers, kobolds, and yuan-ti as written and then build this information into their own campaign in whatever form it may take. A good D&D sourcebook offers guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules, and Volo's Guide offers this in spades. I highly recommend it to D&D enthusiasts.
Written primarily by WotC workhorses Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford (and credited to the "Wizards RPG Team"), Volo's Guide to Monsters is just that—a valuable exploration, wider than in the Monster Manual, of the plethora of beasties available to DMs and PCs in 5th edition D&D. Why PCs? Because one of the best parts of Volo's Guide is its options for PCs who want to play monster characters such as goblinoids, orcs, or even a few other harder-to-play monster races. (Volo's Guide also provides extensive details for playing a few additional, "new" races [one or two of them already presented in later 4th edition books], but more on that below.) Given that goblin or orc PCs are among the classic "advanced" (no pun intended) options for D&D roleplaying, this aspect of Volo's Guide is a very nice addition to the rules. And the parts of the book that appeal most to DMs—the highly detailed ecologies of some of the iconic monsters in D&D, as well as stat boxes for dozens of others—are well-thought out enhancements as well.
It may be a quibble, but the stats for playing some of the more . . . exotic races specific to PCs (tritons, goliaths, and—my favorite—tabaxi) make them somewhat overly powerful for a properly balanced game, or at least too quirky for a run-of-the-mill adventure. That being said, that just may be the point: Wizards of the Coast seems very much to want to limit primary gameplay to what can be derived from the three core rulebooks, and the semi-subtle hint from Volo's Guide is essentially a "well, you asked for it . . .". The new information for PCs contained in the book is designed both for advanced PCs and for advanced DMs, and that's the beauty of Volo's Guide.
Indeed, one of the key points that makes this sourcebook so good is that it leaves enough unsaid for a skilled DM to make hay of the material within. (In fact, I've already used a couple tabaxi for notable color as NPCs. I make no assessment of my skill as a DM, though.) A DM can use the ecology of mind flayers, kobolds, and yuan-ti as written and then build this information into their own campaign in whatever form it may take. A good D&D sourcebook offers guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules, and Volo's Guide offers this in spades. I highly recommend it to D&D enthusiasts.
April 1, 2018
I love the additions. The new monsters and ideas, the new player races, etc.
July 2, 2023
If I were to judge this book when it came out in 2016 I would have certainly a different opinion than I do judging it today, this is due to no fault of this book, but the fact that much that is in it has been recently republished in Mordenkeinen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022).
That book republishes over half of what is in this, both the new character races and the bestiary section. So, the question that we have to debate with now is if it is worth buying Volo's Guide or if you should just buy Monsters of the Multiverse. I'd say it depends on what you are into. If you want in depth analysis and lore of a select group of 9 important monsters in D&D (Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind-Flayers, Orcs and Yuan-Ti) it's definitely worth buying. The first 100 pages of the book cover these 9 types to great extent and that's definitely a highlight of the book.
However, if you are solely into mechanical information and game options, like the player races and the new monsters and do not care for lore, and if you already have Monsters of the Multiverse, it's hard to recommend this.Fortunately I'm firmly in the group of Lore-hounds, so I'll take this over Monsters of the Multiverse any day.
That book republishes over half of what is in this, both the new character races and the bestiary section. So, the question that we have to debate with now is if it is worth buying Volo's Guide or if you should just buy Monsters of the Multiverse. I'd say it depends on what you are into. If you want in depth analysis and lore of a select group of 9 important monsters in D&D (Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind-Flayers, Orcs and Yuan-Ti) it's definitely worth buying. The first 100 pages of the book cover these 9 types to great extent and that's definitely a highlight of the book.
However, if you are solely into mechanical information and game options, like the player races and the new monsters and do not care for lore, and if you already have Monsters of the Multiverse, it's hard to recommend this.Fortunately I'm firmly in the group of Lore-hounds, so I'll take this over Monsters of the Multiverse any day.
November 13, 2017
An excellent resource to help you flesh out monsters a little more. I've started a whole campaign based solely on the content in this book.
The descriptions of the monster races are really the most valuable part. The additional pc races and monster stat blocks are cool, but the monster lore is really the most useful tool in this guide.
The only thing that I don't really like about this guide is the inclusion of the Goliaths as a player race. It seems a little cheap to include them in this book, when they already have them in Elemental Evil for free.
The descriptions of the monster races are really the most valuable part. The additional pc races and monster stat blocks are cool, but the monster lore is really the most useful tool in this guide.
The only thing that I don't really like about this guide is the inclusion of the Goliaths as a player race. It seems a little cheap to include them in this book, when they already have them in Elemental Evil for free.
January 14, 2018
If you ever wondered how beholders are born and what drives and motivates them this is the book to go for. Not just that but the book gives a rich description of goblinoid, orc, gnoll, kobold, giant, mindflayer societies among many others. Spectacularly imaginative and thrilling to read it is a resource that any dnd enthusiast will appreciate.
January 10, 2018
This has a lot of material to improve your gameplay with many monster races. Some of the best fleshing out of monstrous society that I've seen in a long time. Many of the outlines can be applied to any edition of D&D.
May 26, 2017
A stunningly quick read. Hopefully I can ask around about making an aasimar monk who follows way of the sun soul.
May 31, 2017
Fun, fresh take on a monster manual, with insightful lore on some of D&D's standard creatures. This will get your world-building muscles moving.
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