Blackjack Rants: Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Extra Player Character Races & MM Appendix

Happy new year to you all! This will actually be one of my last "Reviewing D&D Monsters" segment for a while. I have a lot of words written up for the monsters in Volo's and Mordekainen's, but I kind of want to take a brief step back from D&D for the next couple of months or so.

So in this segment of Reviewing D&D Monsters, I'm going to talk not just about the Appendix of the Monster Manual, but also a bunch of player races that are not included in either the Player's Handbook or the Monster Manual, but are elaborated on in-depth in Volo's Guide to Monsters and the Elemental Evil Player's Companion. And honestly, I've seen so many of these not-quite-classic-to-European-myth races show up in 5th Edition D&D campaigns, both ones I've participated in as well as ones I see online or whatever, that I completely forget that races like the Goliath and Aasimar aren't actually part of the 'basic' recommended core races. I understand why the basic Player's Handbook, it wants to make things as simple as possible without learning a lot of new words, just having a bunch of basic fantasy races, plus two outliers (dragonborn and tiefling) to not overwhelm anyone picking up D&D for the first time. Because I kind of consider them to more or less be 'core' because all of the games I've been in feature these races heavily, we'll cover them more here.

I didn't put in the Eberron or Ravnica guidebook player's races 'cause I don't own those books in 5E, so I'll probably only cover them later on.

So, yeah, here we are, discussing a bunch of pretty interesting player character's races! And with these dudes, they're a lot more... exotic and have a lot more lore tied to them, so there's a lot more for me to actually talk about.

As a brief side-note, Volo's Guide to Monsters also gives official stats and lore for playable versions of the lizardfolk, kobold, true orc, yuan-ti pureblood as well as all three goblinoid races (goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear). Elemental Evil, meanwhile, gives additional detail about the Aarakocra and Deep Gnome as playable races. We've talked about these races in relative depth in previous segments, so I'm not going to go through them again here. Depending on how I feel, we might go through some of their variants and lore when we get to Volo's. I'm still trying to figure out how to go through them.

Click here for the previous part, covering Treants to Zombies
Click here for a special bit, where we take a brief break from 5E to go through the 1E Monster Manual.
Click here for the first part of my coverage of Volo's Guide to Monsters.
Click here for the index.

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Aasimar
So first up is the opposite of the Tiefling, the Aasimar. Originally introduced specifically in 2E's Planescape setting, and being grouped together with the Tieflings and Genasi as part of the "Planetouched" sub-race of humanoids in 3E, the Aasimar are basically the opposite spectrum of the Tieflings, where they had celestial blood somewhere in their line, and the nature of this 'celestial blood' differs from setting to setting, with some actually having celestial copulation (Zeus style) and some simply having the 'touch of the gods' transform a child at some point in the bloodline. Like tieflings, the basic look of the Aasimar takes a human as a basis and adds a bunch of angelic qualities to them. Wings, perhaps, whether literal like that 4E artwork, or spectral wings of light in the 5E artwork (it's a bit hard to see since the background is white). 5E also shows that Aasimar has beautiful-but-unsettling features like pupil-less, glowing eyes, and skin tones that are not quite standardized, depending on which specific celestial your aasimar character can claim parentage of -- Volo's notes that it's the Deva Angels that often create Aasimar offspring, but if you can claim heritage from something like a Planetar or some other celestial entity, your features will change to match. Almost all aasimar appearances exclusively depict humans with angelic features, I believe, but from what I understand, I think as long as the race's vaguely humanoid, there's no stopping you from making a dwarf or orcish or elven aasimar, except maybe it just gets a bit annoying for your GM to maybe balance stats and whatnot to accommodate your super-special character. Volo's describes three main sub-types of Aasimar: the Protector Aasimar, which are the good, holy aasimars who follow their celestial parents and are essentially mortal angels that are great defenders of the weak. Scourge Aasimars are still relatively good-aligned, but far more warlike, and tend to go around in masks, taking them off to unleash some sweet, sweet divine retribution upon the damn demons of the world. And, of course, when you have angels, you gotta have Fallen Aasimar, who are corrupted by dark influences like demons or teenage-hood, where they channel dark, edgy shadow and have skeletal wings when they unleash the energy within themselves.

Deva-Aasimar (4E)

Aasimars often receive guidance and prophetic dreams from their celestial parents due to their heritage, often helping to guide them and moulding them into a sense of destiny and righteousness. Ideal paladin fodder? Ideal paladin fodder. Also ideal? Making this the reverse-equivalent of a typical Drow, where your Aasimar character might be someone who hates being the child of a celestial and wants nothing more than just be Jane Doe, regular adventurer. Volo's even encourages this, noting how some Aasimar might view the celestial dreams and constant "obey your destiny" stuff to be equivalent to brainwashing, and you can definitely play an evil Aasimar, just as you can play a good Tiefling. Again, just like roleplaying most other half-whatever race, it's definitely an interesting exercise trying to work out just what the relationship between your Aasimar and his/her celestial parent is. Is it reverence? Is it fanaticism? Does your Aasimar character even know that he/she is an Aasimar? Is it a healthy parent-child relationship? Is it an unhealthy one with lots of loathing and the half-angel equivalent of running away from home? Even good Aasimar might not be free from angst, because sometimes all they want to do is help the little people trampled by the Cult of Fraz-Urb'luu, but their celestial parent keeps egging them to destroy the cult first, and help the people later. Sort of like the angst that paladins or clerics could have, but with an extra player of predestination and parent/child drama to deal with. Throw in the little wrinkle that Aasimars often become the targets of fiends and other evil beings, and most Aasimars probably have an extra wrinkle to deal with. After all, being essentially half-angels, the really evil forces of the world want to seek them out for extra vengeance.

Overall, despite initially being pretty m'eh about the race, I've seen a lot of great Aasimar characters running around out there, and Volo's definitely gives a lot of interesting hooks for Aasimar characters, whether they are good-aligned or if they're one of those sweet sweet edgy fallen aasimars. Overall, while not a race I thought I'd like, they end up easily being one of my favourites to come out of Volo's, and, yes, definitely far more interesting than their plain angelic parents.

Genasi

Genasi (4E)

I'm not really going by any real order here. The Genasi are next up, with their inclusion showing up in Elemental Evil and the module Princes of the Apocalypse. Where the Tieflings had demon/devil blood and the Aasimar had angelic blood, the Genasi had elemental blood. Or, well, they have a genie at some point in their parentage, since imagining the logistics of a genie/humanoid pairing is a lot more plausible than a humanoid breeding with a fire elemental. Also... I'm not sure if any Sourcebook ever specifies that the Planetouched had to be part-human. The Genasi's entry talks about how a dwarven or gnomish genasi might look, which makes me wonder if the aasimar or tiefling 'template' could also be applied to non-human humanoid races. I mean, judging by the way that things are worded, there's really no stopping, say, a half-orc aasimar or a halfling tiefling, right? Or do the aasimar/tiefling genes 'overwrite' the other races, reverting them to the 'base', human-esque look? Genetics in D&D are weird. Anyway, genasi are created by the interbreeding of a mortal and a genie, two genasis, or just sometimes spontaneously exist thanks to some encounter with elemental power in the family ancestry, similar to sorcerers. They have differently coloured skin and tended to exhibit features correspionding to their element. 3E was a lot more drastic with it, 4E made the genasi look gloriously like anime characters, whereas 5E makes these elemental features a bit more subtle, bright skin colour aside... but there are always little hints of their not-quite-mundane nature. Air Genasi are accompanied with small breezes that cause their voice to echo. Earth Genasi can either be muddy, ruddy filthy hobos, or be as polished and sparkling like a gemstone. Fire Genasi straight up have Firestorm hair. Water Genasi's hair flow like they're underwater, and their skin are always glossy. How accepted a Genasi is in a culture depends, with some being respected (particularly in areas that worship elementals), some just craving a niche in a diverse, crowded city, and some being shunned and driven out for being a filthy mutie. Unlike the Aasimar and Tieflings, they genuinely have no care of their genie parents, with neither parent nor child really wanting anything to do with the other.

Of course, there being four elements means that they serve as the 'variant' sub-races. Air Genasi are proud, haughty and flamboyant, and often are caught by wanderlust and want to explore the plains and mountains of the world. Fire Genasi, naturally, have a temper, and tended to be arrogant like their air brethren... but where the Air Genasi is happy to just be self-contained in their haughtiness, Fire Genasi wants others to know of their superiority, often seeking ways to increase their standing. Earth Genasi are more withdrawn, and tended to prefer life outside of cities or even underground. They're powerful thanks to their bulk, and tend to make for stoic leaders. Water Genasi are also more withdrawn, tending to prefer solitude and quietness, but also loves travelling in ships and maritime vessels. Essentially, the Genasi tended to be capricious and more self-assured, and has access to a bunch of wacky elemental abilities without any of the angst and brooding that tieflings and aasimar have. I've always found them to be fun, if not the most exciting, but it's definitely damn well a lot more neat to play a wind genie-man than a regular old human, y'know what I'm saying?

Tabaxi
There's just something about cat-people that really makes them popular, probably because, well, cats are pretty popular as pets and companions in real life. The thing is, while the premier cat-people in 5E D&D is the Tabaxi (which, in practice, is essentially similar enough to Elder Scrolls' Khajiit), D&D has had a long, long history of playable cat-people that never really showed up in other versions. There's the original Catfolk from 3.5E's Races of the Wild. There is the Rakasta race from the Mystara setting. 4E had the Shifters. And that's not counting Weretigers, or other races like Rakshasas and Guardinals who have feline features. The Tabaxi sort of have had inconsistent portrayal throughout the 1E and 2E versions that they showed up in, although they eventually ended up being mostly reinvented as a race of cat-people from a distant land that really loves traveling and just wants to see all of the world's wonders and artifacts and loves to move from place to place. The Tabaxi believe that their deity, the Cat Lord, will touch some of the Tabaxi with a wanderlust, compelling them to wander the world and return to their clans and inform them of the world outside once they are older. They value knowledge and experiences, and don't really make too much of a fuss about material wealth... although good luck making your players really stick to that part of a race's backstory. Volo's also recommends that your Tabaxi character have some sort of obsession, whether it be a specific magical item, a lost civilization... or something utterly mundane. Like, oh, I dunno, yarn or spoons or something. And then once they have known all (or most) of what is to be known about a certain subject, they will readily discard or trade said object, since what they treasure most is the knowledge and experience that comes with it.

Overall, perhaps not the most exciting write-up, but the general look of a cat-person is definitely going to appeal to a pretty wide audience. Personally, I certainly don't mind -- the more unconventional player races out there, the better!

Tortle
And here's the Tortle playable race, which is a bit of a bonus here. The Tortle race was originally introduced as part of the Tortle Package, a 20-page 'expansion' for the Tomb of Annihilation adventure module. In addition to describing the culture of a small island called the Snout of Omgar, and introduces a somewhat-obscure race that had minor appearances in 2E, and not much else. And, well, the Tortles are a fun race of turtle-people, and I didn't really realize just how lovable these things could be. They're essentially a race that loves exploration and adventuring, due to the fact that Tortles apparently often lose their parents quickly after being hatched, because Tortle parents lay eggs near the end of their lives thanks to their... unique hormones, and they tended to quickly survive and become independent, going on as survivalists that are eager to explore the world and fend for themselves. After all, their 'homes' are on their backs, and they often move from place to place, and to them, settlements are more like a place for them to meet, trade and share information. They are isolated creatures, but they get excited when they can make close friendships with people of other races and cultures. They're like, super chill. It's a similar bit of a 'race filled with wanderlust' that's somewhat similar to the Tabaxi, I suppose, but with I guess the place where it differs is that Tortles don't have any sort of real goal or obsession other than just turtling along life.

Overall, a highly pleasant race, and, hey, who doesn't want to play as a mild-mannered, happy-to-be-friends-with-everyone turtle man?

Goliath

Goliaths are a race introduced in 3.5E, and, I must confess, I didn't particularly care for them back then, but that's because 3.5E had a lot of random new playable races and classes that it's sometimes really hard to keep track. 4E then had the Goliaths both as monsters and a playable race in the second Player's Handbook, and the Goliath shows up in 5E as part of both Volo's and Elemental Evil. Goliaths are essentially giants with an almost stony skin (the 3E artwork really makes it look like a marble statue), but they're not quite as large as their actual giants. They're essentially a race of might-makes-right barbarian tribes, with their bald heads, brute strength and pretty awesome tattoos all over their bodies. They basically treat life as a challenge, because they subscribe to a very heavy survival-of-the-fittest mentality. If a goliath can't fend or feed for itself, then it clearly is too weak and will be a burden for the tribe -- the only exception is sickness or injury, because that's not quite fair. They're also very competitive (but only when it's a fair fight), both against other members of their tribe, and to their own past achievements. Volo's notes that this can sometimes take a dark side, with a Goliath hero seeking to constantly outdo their previous achievements. Like, maybe one day they slay a wyvern, then they slay an adult dragon, then they slay an ancient dragon... and they will keep trying to outdo themselves until, of course, reality catches up to them. They are very practical, and really don't understand the concept of nobles-and-peasants, or gender-segregation, because to goliaths, clearly the most capable person for the task should do the task, right? Basically, like Spartans meets Vikings, except less about raiding and more about just being extreme nature-dwellers. The sourcebooks describe the Goliaths as essentially a tribe that leans more towards lawful as opposed to chaotic, which is pretty neat.

They're honestly a pretty simple race, and, like the Firbolg race below which exemplifies druids, honestly feel like the Barbarian class ends up getting a dedicated race to it. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, if we're being honest, but they have enough flavour, I suppose. Not my favourite thing on this page, but I've played a Goliath character before and it's pretty fun just having a dude who mostly just cares about 'who I smash' and is pretty socially inept about everything else that these silly non-goliath people do.

Firbolg
Based on the Fir Bolg people in Irish myhts, the Firbolgs have shown up in practically every single edition as the most civilized and intelligent of the giant-kin. The Firbolgs are a pretty interesting case, because throughout 1E all the way to 4E, they've been consistently been depicted as pretty generic giant-vikings, essentially. They're the most powerful of the 'lesser' giants outside of the Ordning, and had the ability to shrink down into a smaller size, with a highly shamanistic culture that respected animal deities and the usage of natural illusions (though the illusions bit were dropped in 3E). They're not evil per se, but they have no qualms in tricking silly humanoids from their treasure. 4E is different, because 4E always has to be different, and 4th Edition Firbolgs are essentially fey creatures that participated in the Wild Hunt.

4E Firbolgs

And we've got 5th Edition Firbolgs... which ends up going back to the earliest 1E Firbolg and essentially made it a lot more cuddly. They're basically similar to some tropes that tended to be associated to elves, druids and fey creatures, being gentle beings that live in harmony with nature, with, of course, the caveat that they're giants that can kick the ass of anyone fucking with said nature. They're the ultimate nature-dwelling people, taking what they need from nature and not really caring about wealth. Those that stray out of their natural homes are those whose clan were destroyed, or outcasts who was cast out due to some criminal act (like killing a beautiful beast or something). They also don't really have a concept of names and whatnot, and basically just goes along with what their buddies call them. Perhaps moreso than any other D&D playable race, though, the Firbolgs really flew under everyone's radar. It's cute, for sure, but it's just kind of... just a weird druid with a red nose. Anyone can sort of have a similar flavour with the Firbolg by just playing, y'know, a druid. Or the other giant-like race that shows up in both Volo's and Elemental Evil, the far more popular Goliath. Thankfully for the Firbolgs, they ended up receiving a surge of popularity thanks to the ever-awesome popular D&D web-show, Critical Role, which thanks to one of its PC's being Firbolgs, ended up skyrocketing the race's popularity if D&D Beyond stats are anything to go by. I honestly still think that they're ultimately still pretty boring, but it's actually neat that the otherwise pretty solid race concept ends up reaching out to a wider audience.

Triton
And here we have our last race, the aquatic fish-men, the Triton. Because, well, you can't bring the Merfolk out of the ocean and hope they can be useful with the lower body of a fish, can you? I actually do like the sheer bizarreness of 1E and 3E's Tritons, where they have a generally humanoid look... but instead of legs, they have two merfolk tails that function like legs. Such a bizarrely goofy looking appearance! 5E's Tritons are essentially just humanoids with a bunch of fishy features, like the Atlanteans depicted in DC and Marvel comics, or the Fishmen races from One Piece. Again, basically, the whole idea is to have a pretty cool Aquaman/Namor style character while also not having to figure out how to transport a fish-person on land. Aquatic campaigns have always been an iffy subject in D&D, but hey, if you want to run a setting where you primarily explored oceans and islands, Tritons can actually make for a pretty great addition to an adventuring party, being able to freely navigate through the ocean, be resistant to a lot of the natural horrors of the ocean, and even talk to fish.

Their lore is another one that's been relatively inconsistent over the years, with 3E even having them be outsiders from the elemental plane. 5E actually picks up from this, noting that the tritons arrived onto the material plane centuries ago in order to fight off against evil water elementals, hunting creatures like krakens and sahuagin who have escaped into the material plane. Being a responsible and good-aligned warrior race, the Tritons basically moved as a whole to spread across the world's oceans and end up basically being some kind of kaiju-watch-system as they prevent horrors from the Water Elemental Plane from causing too much havoc, standing vigil above trenches and undersea caves to stop darker creatures from the deep from rampaging. Their settlements are apparently so rare and reclusive that other races of the sea like the merfolk and sea elves seldom encounter them. While ultimately well-meaning, they are recluses and often accidentally come off as arrogant... but, hey, y'know, it's actually somewhat justified by them actually fighting back against unseen underwater threats? It's just that so many other races have no idea just what the Tritons fight on a daily basis that when the Triton waltzes up to them and go "give me your mighty Magic Stone of Plot Device right now, we need it to kill Uzomat the Great Kraken", with the expectation that these other folk (who doesn't even know what a 'triton' is) will be eternally thankful to them since the tritons are surely respected heroes and mentors, right? And, of course, just like goliaths, firbolgs and other isolated races, Tritons are utterly blissfully unaware of much of the upper world and could easily be duped.

Ultimately, that's a genuinely pretty interesting write-up. The Tritons are basically superheroes fighting an unseen, hidden battle from the rest of the world, but they think that the world knows it and owes them something. They're still ultimately good and will fearlessly jump in the way of an arrow to save their non-triton kin, but the culture clash's going to make actual negotiations pretty difficult.
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Monster Manual Appendix:

Wolves (4E)

And now, we return to our irregularly-scheduled Monster Manual coverage. Each Monster Manual since... 3rd Edition, I think? Has had an Appendix where a bunch of less-interesting creatures that are essentially just animals -- the bears, wolves, housecats, hyenas, sharks, snakes -- plus generic random human/humanoid NPC's like bandits, city guards, cult members basically have their stats listed. And it's pretty important to have these stats, y'know? Your GM might have the monster sensibilities like me, where every monster encounter has to be at least a bit weird. And sometimes there's nothing wrong with throwing a couple of dire wolves or giant bats at a party instead of ankhegs and stirges.

It's also still important to have all these stats ready so your playing experience doesn't come grinding into a halt when your druid goes "I would like to shapeshift into a parrot and fly over the city", and you have to scramble to think up of what stats a parrot would have. Just borrow the stats of a hawk and use it as a substitute. Or if your PC's decide to suddenly attack Philip the Potion Seller after a bargaining session ends up turning into a brawl -- just pull out the stats for 'Mage' in the Monster Manual.

Crocodile (5E)

Previous Monster Manuals have sort of had differing methods of dealing with these, with 4th Edition, I believe, trying its best in giving a lot of the more common large beasts like wolves, bats, crocodiles and bears entire pages devoted to themselves, justifying things by slapping dire or elemental variants to justify the entire page. 3rd Edition, meanwhile, put all their animals in the appendix, but had segments in the Manual itself detailing Dire Animals (the same creatures, but bigger and meaner), Giant Animals (the same creatures, but much bigger), Swarms (the same creatures, but a lot), half-whatever animals and other sort of templates. 5th Edition doesn't just stuff every single 'exists in the real world' animal other than the dinosaurs at the back of the appendix, but also sneaks in a bunch of extra old classics from older editions, too, which I'll cover here!

Awakened Plant

I can't say so with 100% certainty, but the first monsters we're talking about here, the Awakened Tree (and its smaller buddy Awakened Shrub) are, I think, newcomers to D&D. It's a reference to the spell Awaken, a druid spell that's been around for a while. The Awaken spell essentially gave intelligence to creatures or plants without intelligence, which... raises a whole lot of questions, admittedly, but in-game this basically means that the corresponding tree (or shrub) basically becomes a poor man's Treant. They have basic attacks, and doesn't really have much going on about them -- none of these things have any sort of writeup longer than a single sentence. The Awakened Tree would receive artwork, of sorts, in the module Storm King's Thunder, where an NPC called Lifferlas was an Awakaned Tree... essentially a patient old tree with a face. I would say that it would be maddening to have sentience and awakened intelligence but unable to really move around, but I suppose creatures like treants and dryads are relatively rooted to their spot, so... eh?

Triboar attack-5e

Axe Beak
The Axe Beak is essentially a mutated ostrich, but was among the monsters in the very original 1st Edition Monster Manual. It's basically an ostrich with a wedge, axe-like beak, and they haven't really shown up a whole lot, understandably, just being pretty much a big, slightly-weird birds, and they just attack with their axe-like beaks. They did show up off-handedly in a side-book in 3E, but ultimately it's just a weird-looking ostrich, y'know?. It's not until 5E that the Axe Beak actually even shows up at all, and even got an artwork in the module Storm King's Thunder, shown to be an orc's mount! 5E's Axe Beak even has a beak, that looks like an axe! Yeah, it's... it's honestly pretty boring, and while I'm happy it shows up in recent material, it's also not a huge surprise that it remained largely ignored.

Blink Dog
The Blink Dog is another classic creature from the 1st Edition Monster Manual, and unlike the Axe Beak, this teleporting dog has actually shown up in every single edition other than 4th Editio. They don't really ever had a backstory written for them, though, and they're ultimately just weird, mysterious and slightly weird-looking dogs that are able to blink -- essentially, a short-range teleportation. Apparently, they have a hatred of the cat-like (and far more interesting) displacer beast, and will attack them on sight. Blink Dogs are... they're neat, but the lack of any sort of real lore doesn't make them super interesting to talk about. They're Nightcrawler in big angry dog form.

Death Dog
The Death Dog was introduced in the 1E Fiend Folio, and was briefly mentioned in 2E among a long list of other 'monstrous dog' variants, but 5th Edition finally brings back this two-headed wolf monster with brand-new artwork. And... well, the Death Dog is the closest we're going to get in official D&D to the Grecian Cerberus or Orthus, I suppose, and I'm frankly surprised we never actually got D&D versions of those two. Death Dogs are apparently intelligent enough to have 'hatred and desire for humanoid flesh'. Ultimately, a lot of these creatures in the appendix are pretty much creatures that are barely more intricate than a basic 'wolf' entry, and mechanically are pretty simple and meant to harass lower-level adventurers, but are still visually neat enough to set them apart, y'know?

Flying Snake

Flying Snakes are not to be confused with real-life flying snakes, or with the far more prominent Couatls in D&D, which are also flying, winged snakes. The creatures identified as flying snakes are just regular, real-world snakes... but with bat-wings for some reason. They're original to 5E, and are noted to be native to remote jungles, and used by local tribes-people to deliver scrolls. They're like, the super hipster version of messenger pigeons, then? I bet the Yuan-ti love these things. They're all about that snake. Not super interesting, but the presence of creatures like flying snakes and axebeaks in the Monster Manual is definitely going to give your druids and rangers and even wizards looking for familiars a very neat and unconventional option to pick.

Giant Eagle
The reason why the Giant Eagle gets special mention here is because... it's actually a freaking sentient creature. Nestled within like a dozen other giant animals, it's easy to miss, but the giant eagles actually have their own language and can understand common, and has shown up in all editions other than 4E. Hell, in 3E, they were even considered 'magical beasts', instead of just beasts with a slightly above-average level of intelligence. They've never had particularly long writeups, but as an obvious homage to the giant eagles of Lord of the Rings fame, they end up showing up in every edition. Pretty neat, even if I've never actually seen giant eagles being used in a D&D campaign as an actual NPC or adversary -- most of their mileage is either as a transformation form for druids.

Giant Spider

Spider variants (4E)

Giant spiders are an awesome enemy, and I've always thought that the D&D team have always did a great job of picking and choosing different real-life spiders for the inspiration of their giant spider enemies. We've got the very children's book esque generic giant spider monster from the original 1E. We get the gangly, huntsman-spider inspired 2E creature with an inexplicable human face and a set of long pincers resembling whip-spiders. We've got the massive amount of variation in 4th Edition, with the artwork taken from the 4th Edition's Monster Manual 1 having a trio that's inspired by tarantulas, some by jumping spiders, and that big orb-weaver-like thing in the background. 4E being 4E, of course all of these spiders have bizarre powers, like the Blade Spider in the foreground. Which has blades for legs. 5th Edition's artwork goes for a look that I don't readily recognize -- the proportion and the length of the legs really don't look like any spider I can think up of, so maybe it's meant to be just a generic representation of a spider? Real-life spiders certainly can't raise their pedipalps in the air like a pair of daggers. The 5th Edition Monster Manual gives stats for two variants of Giant Spider, the regular Giant Spider that relies more on webs, and the Giant Wolf Spider (based on the real-life spider species, not a owlbear style fusion) who rushes out of burrows to hunt you down with speed and strength. Whether they're just a random encounter in the woods or caves, or if they're part of a side-quest, or if they're the pets or mounts of the drow, giant spiders are always pretty dang cool.

Giant arthropods in general are neat, and in addition to the giant spider, regular D&D mainstays giant wasp, giant fire beetle, giant scorpion and giant centipede also make a show in this Monster Manual.

Phase Spider
The giant spider and giant wolf spider aren't the only spiders in the monster manual, though -- making a reappearance in every Monster Manual since its debut in 3E is the Phase Spider, which is a giant spider with a wicked-looking white-and-blue colour scheme, and as its name implies, it's able to phase in and out of the ethereal plane, essentially becoming intangible as it shifts through into a different plane of existence temporarily, which has results similar to teleportation but the mechanics are different. Because what's scarier than a giant spider happy to web you up and digest you slowly is a giant spider that can also disappear and reappear at will. Absolutely love the bizarrely bent legs of the creature in the artwork, which adds just that extra layer of creepiness without going overboard. I think a lot of the 'Ethereal Plane' stuff got quietly dropped or reduced after 3E, but I do appreciate that the Phase Spider at least remained -- it's certainly a pretty fun boss at lower levels, and a relatively neat creature with an interesting gimmick -- phasing/ethereal stuff works completely differently than teleportation or invisibility, after all.

Quipper (also, Swarms)
No, they're not piranhas. They're a swarm of carnivorous fishes that look like piranhas, behave basically like piranhas, but they're called Quippers. I think the reason that what's essentially a representation of the common fiction trope of the exaggerated flesh-rending capabilities of a school of piranha ends up getting a brand-new name is so that the GM could have an excuse to move the quippers into the ocean, or arctic environments, or ecosystems that wouldn't be able to sustain a large population of piranha fish in real life. And, well, at least judging by that 1E artwork, I guess they were just originally meant to be "generic flesh-chomping fish". They're really only here because they have a unique name.

Winter Wolf
General wolves (or 'gray wolves') and dire wolves (which, by the way, is a real prehistoric animal and not just something D&D or Game of Thrones make up) always show up in every single D&D Monster Manual. There's just something about wolves that end up really having them be sort of typecast as the classic, go-to beast-like enemy. And then there's the Winter Wolf, which I was ready to dismiss as "dire wolf, but lives in the tundra". They're actually intelligent enough to understand common and giant, are basically the good doggo pets of frost giants, and they have an icy breath weapon. S'neat, although, again, not super interesting.

Worg
The Worgs in D&D are, of course, another thing that's a Tolkien fantasy element with some letters changed, this time the wargs, the giant monstrous wolf-like mounts of the orcs of Middle Earth. While we talked about how the giant eagles and winter wolves are intelligent, the worgs are worse than just being intelligent -- they are sadistic enough to hunt down and devour creatures weaker than itself, and are often utilized by orcs and goblins (exclusively goblinkind in 5E) as mounts. The worgs can speak in their own language and the goblins' own, and in some editions, I believe they were even classified as lesser fiends. In some editions, they were shunted as a segment of the 'wolf' entry, and didn't receive artwork until 3E, and they just looked like giant mangy wolves there. 4E gave them a bit of a less bestial and mangy look but gave the worg a bunch of neat spikes. 5E slaps a monstrous, almost fiendish face that really ends up making the worg look a lot more sinister than 'just a giant wolf'.

Larva

In the 17th century, "larva" was not just a term used to refer to immature insects, but also a disembodied ghost. Which is what, I assume, this usage of the term larva is meant to be. 1E details them as basically the most selfishly evil of all souls that sink to the lower planes, controlled by night hags, demons and devils, and basically end up being transformed into quasits, imps and other lesser devils. They're yellow tapeworms with screaming human faces, and they sort of form the 'soul currency' in the Abyss and Nine Hells, a role that's sort of filled by Manes and Lemures.

However, after decades of being ignored, they make a brief cameo as a stat block in the Dungeon Master's Guide -- because sometimes, if you take a rest in the Lower Planes, you might simply get transformed into the worm-like Larva, ending up reduced to nothing but a hideous screeching worm, a pale imitation of your soul. A pretty hellish punishment! They aren't listed in the Monster Manual, but here you go, because I have the DM Guide in my desk today.

The Avatar of Death

So one of the most popular and bizarre treasures in Dungeons and Dragons is the Deck of Many Things. It's meant to be a deck equivalent to a real-life tarot deck, except instead of merely telling your fate, the card you draw will cause a certain effect. It could be severely life-altering, like the Balance card, which straight-up flips your alignment to the opposite side of the spectrum; the Idiot card, causing you to permanently lose Intelligence stats, or the Fates card, which allows you to erase any one event in your past. It could be simple, like giving you money (Gem), an item (Key), a loyal minion (Knight), the Wish spell (Moon), gain XP (Jester) or lose XP (Fool). Of course, it might straight-up cause you to lose your character, like the Donjon card, shunting your character off to an extra-dimensional sphere and putting you in suspended animation, or the Ruin card, causing your character to lose every material possession both on-hand or stored elsewhere.

One of these cards is the Skull card, where the titular Avatar of Death shows up -- and, well, it's the typical Western depiction of an avatar of death. A skeleton in a black robe and swinging around a scythe. It's basically a powerful undead warrior, and thankfully not one that's super-duper powerful (its stats sort of scale to the dude that drew the card), and the guy that draws the card has to fight the Avatar of Death and win, otherwise you die and can't be restored to life by any means. The Avatar of Death warns the rest of your party to not intervene, but, well, if they do (this is D&D after all) they all get their personalized Avatars of Death showing up. How bizarre is that? That the literal grim reaper shows up because you drew the exact one tarot card, and he's there to essentially trial-by-combat you to see if you will die permanently and forever?
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Giant Fire Beetle

So, that's the 'special' D&D creatures done. This is where my little fake-OCD of listing all the brief stat blurbs for each of the D&D monsters end up being a bit useful, because now you can see just the sheer amount of animals that are listed at the back of the appendix. And, again, it's pretty dang useful. In D&D, your characters and the NPCs can and will interact with everything and everyone, and that's not counting druids or rangers or vampires or treants summoning local beasts. Or your party suddenly attempting to attack a local horse.

Personally, it's a pretty fun little list of creatures, and it also allows to spice up a D&D setting -- sometimes all the bizarre aberrations and undead and strange mythological beasts blur together, and your party needs a break and something simple, so, hey, throw a bunch of giant crabs at them. Or a couple of rabid bears, y'know? Perhaps my favourite random animal that they decided to slot among these collection of "things that adventurers might fight in the wild" and "things that are relevant to a fantasy setting" is the fact that regular ol' crabs and octopi have a stat block. Okay, then!

Some other notable mentions among the 'regular-and-giant' animals, I think, are the large list of giant animals. Some of them, I understand. Giant boars, giant snakes and giant hyenas are pretty much larger versions of regular beasts that probably would cease being a threat after your party levels up a little bit. Giant spiders, giant toads and giant centipedes makes normally non-threatening enemies into something that's both nightmarish and also actually a threat. But a Giant Elk? A Giant Goat? A Giant Sea Horse? I'm not even complaining, it's glorious that they decided that among the 'basic' animals like horses and wolves, somehow giant sea horses are thrown into the equation. As enemies, these Giant-X animals tended to still be relatively simple. A bear or tiger just mauls you, a wolf or hyena just bites you, the good ol' level-1-enemy giant rat bites you and spreads disease...

Notable mentions are prehistoric beasts like saber-toothed tigers and mammoths. Which, again, in the grand scheme of D&D adversaries end up being relatively mundane, but still pretty neat to point out.

Bandit Captain (5E)

Among the 'human' enemies, we've got a bunch of... well, it's a couple dozen and we don't go a bit too overboard. One of the things that always sort of made me glaze over some of the 'Human' stat blocks in previous editions was the sheer volume and repetitiveness, and I feel like this is a neat bunch of generic little jobs that you can toss onto essentially most unimportant NPC's in a given setting. Bandits, gladiators, assassins, the all-important guards... we've got a neat selection of generic NPC's, and, of course, your DM can always drum up a bunch of actual PC's with PC abilities to throw at your party. It's just that, well, keeping track of PC stats with all the feats and class/race abilities and whatnot would be way, way too troublesome for most DM's, particularly if it's just meant to be "oh you met a bunch of bandits in the forest" encounter. While there isn't a whole lot of stats for these, I do appreciate that we do get a neat combination of common humanoid-enemy tropes (bandits, several variants of cultists, thugs, assassins); several obvious-NPC stats (knight, city guard, nobleman, commoner, veteran), and a couple of general stats for a given class (mages, archmages, barbarians). Of course, depending on your NPC, you can freely customize any of these stats, throw in a couple of extra stats and skills. Like, you want a pirate enemy, just re-skin the Bandit statline and maybe buff them a bit for the Pirate Captain.

Oh, also, we don't get dire animals anymore, other than the dire wolf (which, as noted, is an actual real-life animal). Older editions had stats for things like dire [insert predatory animal here] and a couple of pages later, giant [insert predatory animal here], and I do appreciate them just doing away with a lot of them. Your GM's aren't stupid, they know how to easily add the numbers to make an animal giant, you don't have to waste four pages of the Monster Manual giving sample giant animals.

Some interesting omissions among the animals in the appendix, I suppose, could be briefly mentioned. Bulls (or 'herd animal', to borrow a term from the 1E MM) in general are a big one, and they quickly rectified it by including them in the next bestiary sourceboook, Volo's Guide to Monsters. Marine animals are also pretty lacking outside of orcas, sharks, crabs and octopi, and dolphins is another one they quickly statted up in Volo's. Also, considering them showing up a lot in previous editions, I'm surprised we don't get any leeches or maggots or worms of any sort, giant or swarm or otherwise. Neither do we get giant ants, which I remember had an entire segments of the 3E and 4E Monster Manuals devoted to them, but I suppose that falls under the category of 'swarm of insect'. And... and I guess that's about it. I'm not going to be the guy that complains 'why didn't they include a stat block for a starfish or a porcupine or a giant earwig?'

The 'special' D&D creatures.