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Monstrous Compendium Appendix
This MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM appendix includes a broad spectrum of monsters from the Inner, Outer, Astral, and Ethereal Planes - all geared to provide hours of adventure in the PLANESCAPE campaign setting. Replacing the original Outer Planes Appendix, this new and enlarged compendium includes full-color illustrations, reintroducing many of the best mulitplanar monsters from a wide variety of out-of-print sources.
128 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
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About the author
Allen Varney
60 books15 followersWriter and game designer based for many years in Austin, Texas, USA; currently in Ithaca, upstate New York. Designer of the 2004 edition of the classic science fiction roleplaying game PARANOIA. I operate the Bundle of Holding ( bundleofholding.com ), which presents time-limited offers of tabletop roleplaying game ebooks.
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October 14, 20223/30 Planescape and the first of three Monstrous Compendiums for the campaign setting.
This one, well, let's start out with the good: a lot of Tony DiTerlizzi art gives this a real coherent view, along with the continuation of the Planescape jargon and info on how these monsters fit into the world.
The less good here is that the monsters are all mainstays and not very exciting. Like: this book was printed in '94, but it's largely (and acknowledged as) a revision of the '91 Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planes Appendix, which itself was the 2nd edition revision of a bunch of monsters from 1e, from all the way back to the original Monster Manual. For instance, Planescape/2nd edition has this concept of "Baatezu" and "Tanar'ri", which are the two evil forces which you might call devils and demons -- except that's what they were called in 1e and that led to the Satanic panic. So it's nice to have all these monsters updated to 2e and updated to Planescape, but this is all pretty ordinary stuff: angels, devils, a lot of elemental creatures for the Elemental Planes, githyanki and githzerai (from back in the Fiend Folio days), etc. All stuff you probably need for adventures, but nothing that makes me sit up.
This one, well, let's start out with the good: a lot of Tony DiTerlizzi art gives this a real coherent view, along with the continuation of the Planescape jargon and info on how these monsters fit into the world.
The less good here is that the monsters are all mainstays and not very exciting. Like: this book was printed in '94, but it's largely (and acknowledged as) a revision of the '91 Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planes Appendix, which itself was the 2nd edition revision of a bunch of monsters from 1e, from all the way back to the original Monster Manual. For instance, Planescape/2nd edition has this concept of "Baatezu" and "Tanar'ri", which are the two evil forces which you might call devils and demons -- except that's what they were called in 1e and that led to the Satanic panic. So it's nice to have all these monsters updated to 2e and updated to Planescape, but this is all pretty ordinary stuff: angels, devils, a lot of elemental creatures for the Elemental Planes, githyanki and githzerai (from back in the Fiend Folio days), etc. All stuff you probably need for adventures, but nothing that makes me sit up.
January 19, 2012
I'm giving this book a 5 star rating because of the fantastic art. DiTerlizzi's art is amazing. I never played in the Planescape setting. But I've kept this book through the years to revisit and enjoy the art.
February 23, 2014
A quintessential book for Planescape, beautifully illustrated by DiTerlizzi (and perhaps one of his finest works).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews