Reviewing 5E D&D Monsters - Volo's Guide to Monsters, Banderhobb to Froghemoth

We'll be taking a brief break from M:TG monster reviews to go back to D&D!

So in what's an interesting break from the previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition doesn't quite have a bunch of numbered Monster Manuals, and while it did mean that it took me a while of googling the right book to buy in order to find the one with all the cool new monsters, I feel like it does help to give each subsequent bestiary-style books a lot more freedom on what content they have, and also to not overwhelm newer players on going "oh god, there are five parts of the Monster Manual?"

Volo's Guide to Monsters is a collection of several monsters published in some other 5th Edition adventures and modules, as well as several new ones. We've covered a couple of the classic updates to some old-time favourites and some forgotten classics in my review of the 1E Monster Manual -- namely the Morkoth, the Slithering Tracker, the Rot Grub Swarm, the Catoblepas, the Leucrotta and the Kirin. Likewise, instead of merely being a bestiary listing some 200+ odd monsters, Volo's actually ends up detailing a bunch of new-for-5E player character races (which we also covered separately), and had aroud half of its pagecount devoted to detailing the societies of some of the more intelligent classic D&D monsters, like Beholders, Kobolds, Gnolls, Orcs, Goblins, Kenku, Drow and Yuan-Ti. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the lore segments for these -- some of them I've worked into the segments when I reviewed the creatures originally as I went through the Monster Manual, but I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest, whether I'll go through them in a brief addendum later, or if I'll just retroactively add the flavour bits to the segments in previous review series. We'll see.

For now, I'll just go through a chunk of the bestiary that forms the second half of Volo's Guide to Monsters!

• Click here for the previous part, covering the back-end of the Monster Manual, as well as player races from Volo's.
• Click here for the second part of Volo's, covering Girallons to Neothelids.
• Click here for the index.

Banderhobb
D&D loves their frog-men, huh? We've covered the Bullywug, the Slaadi and the Hezrou; the Kuo-toa had frog-like qualities in older editions; the Grung are new additions in 5E... and here's the Banderhobb, a relatively newer enemy that first appeared in 4th edition. It's decidedly more toad-like in it 5E artwork, and part of it might be because I mistook the human arm dangling out of his massive toad-mouth as a tongue. the 4E artwork, with the lack of the massive frog lower-jaw sack (and being comparatively a lot smaller compared to the ogre-sized 5E Banderhobb), ends up looking far more like a hideous demonic creature straight out of a traditional cautionary tale. 4E characterizes them as creatures from the realm of the Upside-Down Shadowfell, appearing to spirit things and people away.

The 5E lore notes that the Banderhobb is created by evil hags (and other evil magic-users who learned how to do so) "from shadow and flesh", and serves its creator as either a thug, thief or kidnapper. A lot of the monsters in Volo's are actually obvious additional minions for some of the highlighted star villains in the book -- hags in this case -- but they do a pretty great job at making sure that each monster still has its own identity that allows them to be used without being tied to said 'star' monster. Despite the frog-like appearance, though, the Banderhobb only shares a single quality with its animal-like inspiration, which is a long tongue and the ability to use said tongue to wrap up and swallow its prey. It's not unintelligent, but it's driven by a drive to track down whoever that its creator has asked it to kill and/or kidnap, going by some very classic flavourful "it only needs a lock of hair to track a prey" deal going on. The prose notes just how surprising the Banderhobb actually is, having great strength despite having spindly arms, and being stealthy despite being a huge frog-ogre thing.


Barghest
One of my favourite creatures from older editions, the Barghest first appeared in 3E, and I initially just dismissed it because it just looked like a slightly mutated feral wolf. Cool artwork, sure, but with all of the other weird stuff in the 3.5E Monster Manual, I skipped over the Barghest to look at the other far weirder monsters in the book. And when I came back and reread the Barghest entry, it's certainly not just a wolf with a monstrous face. Turns out they're fiends from the Lower Planes that can shapeshift between a goblinoid form and a wolf form, essentially being a unique sort of goblin-wolf creature... and in 3.5E, they had the Mega Man style power of gaining the power of those that they consume, eventually evolving into Greater Barghests. Also, they get banished back to hell when it comes into contact with any body of flame greater than its body, which is kind of an unconventional weakness, but also the sort of unconventional weakness that a fantasy monster would have.

5E gave us another interesting wrinkle by telling us the origin of the Barghest, where they were the result of a deal that went sour between the goblin god Maglubiyet and the General of Gehenna, leader of the mercenary Yugoloth fiends. The result of the spat was the creation of the soul-devouring Barghest, created to deny Maglubiyet of souls. See, Barghests are born to goblin parents, just like any goblin children, but will end up reverting to its true form, which is the goblin-faced wolf demon thing, each Barghest driven by an impulse to consume 17 goblin souls (specifically 17 as a reference to some detail in the Maglubiyet/General deal) to deny Maglubiyet said souls in his immortal army. The Barghest is picky about who they kill, picking leaders, and they will often hide and pretend to be a goblin before attacking their prey as opportunity rises. Goblins being goblins, when they discover a Barghest in their tribe, instead of rage they react with basically one-upping each other with "oh no I'm a loser don't eat me". Also, it seems that Barghests can actually devour non-goblinoid souls as long as they are humanoid, and if they do so it's a race against time before the soul is permanently consumed and digested by the barghest. There's a lot of things going on here, for something that could've easily been just "werewolf, but goblin", but I do appreciate them taking the time to essentially craft a unique monster. A huge fan.


Beholder: Death Kiss
The 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual was responsible for including a massive sequence devoted to Beholder and "Beholderkin", and in all editions, the creators clearly recognize the sheer popularity of the good ol' Beholder, and we've got a whole lot of brand-new variants.(That 2E artwork, by the way, shows off a Beholder, a Death Kiss, an Eye of the Deep, a Gauth, a Spectator and a Death Tyrant).  5E gives us the way that a Beholder reproduces (which I think is new?) and notes that Beholders are such bizarre reality-warpers that sometimes, when they dream, that dream manifests in reality and causes a second Beholder to manifest and be produced. And sometimes you get other kinds. The MM covers the Death Tyrant already, and Volo's adds three subsequent Beholder variants, in addition to a whole lot of description on just how insanely paranoid and intelligent Beholders are, detailing both solitary Beholders as well as beholders that live in 'hives' (they have to be identical duplicates) or beholders that somehow manage to infiltrate society.

The Death Kiss, the first Beholderkin we cover, is easily one of the most striking Beholder variant, simply having a single red eye, no mouths, and no eyes atop any of its other tentacles. Its tentacles are also far, far more squid-like (although they end in mouths), and the combination of pale white and blood red does make for a very pleasing colour scheme. The Death Kiss is noted to come into being when a Beholder has a nightmare about losing blood, and it's basically a crazy, blood-drinking version of the Beholder. It's obsessed with the dream that spawned it -- losing blood -- and it basically goes around and continues to hoard as much blood as possible, even from little creatures, with its tentacle-mouths. It's intelligent enough to pretend to be a big scary beholder, but ultimately nowhere as much of a paranoid chessmaster as its more iconic cousins. Overall, the Death Kiss is a pretty neat variation, actually feeling so much more like a related variant instead of "Beholder, but weaker". Between the striking visual appearance and the blood-themed flavour, I do like the Death Kiss a lot.

Beholder: Gauth
Next up is the Gauth, which initially just seems to be not super different from the Beholder. Six tentacles instead of 8, but the Gauth has a couple of extra tentacles without eyeballs, actually giving the Gauth the ability to grasp things. Sometimes, but not always, its central eye has a ring of tiny eyes dotting around it, which we can see in the 5E artwork. The Gauth basically feeds on magic, eating them and basically being shunted back to wherever its home plane is. Gauths are apparently tied to the Spectator, in that they arrive as a side-effect whenever the Spectator-summoning ritual goes wrong, and takes advantage of the sheer variety of Beholderkin by sometimes pretending to be one. Not the most interesting of Beholder variants, if we're being honest.


Beholder: Gazer

The Gazer wouldn't be interesting either if not for that fabulous 5th Edition artwork. Between the bizarre, almost frog-like eyeballs, to the massive underbite, and the general scowling expression on its face, the Gazer has easily the best-looking mug out of all of the beholder-kin. It just looks so irritated, y'know? The description of the Gazer isn't super interesting, noting that it's a 'devoted, aggressive puppy' that mimics whatever it hears in a high-pitched voice. They're essentially just a bunch of weaker, far-more-beast-like versions of the Beholder, and are apparently born out of a Beholder's dreams.

Interestingly, Volo's also includes rules for Gazer familiars, and honestly, Gazers are probably far more useful (and hilarious!) than like a raven or a rat or something.


Bodak
Hailing all the way from 1E, the Bodak's forms have evolved significantly, going from just a gangle, emancipated ghoul-like creature with glowing eyes in 1E-2E, to a bizarre alien-like creature in 3E, to eventually this stretched-out-moaning-face creature in rags. Bodaks are undead, and in 5E, they are the remnants of Orcus's servants, who sometimes do crazy necromantic cult shit as they self-mutilate, transforming them into a Bodak -- an undead that sucks in all life energy near it. Bodaks also retains vague impressions of its past life, but instead of reminiscing or being conflicted, they are so corrupted that they'll try and destroy everything connected to its past life. Except, I presume, anything connected to the Cult of Orcus. That would be very counter-productive.

Also, the regular Bodak might be a mere CR 6, but apparently Orcus has a small army of lieutenants, the very first Bodaks to be created that are called the Hierophants of Annihilation, which had the power to raise any corpse it sees into a Bodak. They're also very special to Orcus, who can apparently see and hear and even speak through every single Bodak. It's noted that it's such an unnatural thing that nature itself rejects Bodaks, and that's why the sun burns it and why its mere presence chills everything around it. A neat little explanation for what would otherwise be a generic "evil creature are weak to sunlight" quality.


Boggle, a.k.a. Bogey
Boggles are, surprisingly enough, one of the mainstays of D&D. They never show up in any of the 'core' books, but always made an appearance in some of the first supplementary materials. And hey, remember how I complained a bit about how there aren't quite enough fey varieties? Here's a fey for you. A monstrous little gremlin-creature whose appearance varies from edition to edition, I've always felt like the 5th Edition's huge-head and almost innocent, ugly look contrasted with the skull next to it is my favourite, as opposed to the gangly naked goblin-man of the previous editions. The Boggles are also known as Bogeys or Bogeymen, and when they appear outside the Feywild they tend to appear under beds and inside closets, born out of feelings of loneliness, and are attracted to lonely people. And then they do pranks to try and "pal around" (read: disturb) the lonely person that conjured them up, making them an interesting combination of an imaginary friend and a trickster fey. One could also make an argument that they're perhaps the manifestation of a lonely person acting out to get attention. Of course, the Boggle doesn't quite realize that making scary noises in the attic or smashing the person's kitchen utensils is far more malicious than mischievous. The Boggles also have a weird oil-secreting power to either slip or stick their enemies, and they also have access to dimensional magic -- but can only do so next to a space defined by a frame (like a door or window), which is a pretty neat fairy-like limitation. A pretty neat, nasty little critter!


Catoblepas
Another classic creature based on Greek/Roman myths, the mythical Catoblepas was described to be a monstrous buffalo (sometimes with a boar's head) from Ethiopia, whose name literally meant "to look down", because when this beast looks up, its mere breath will kill anyone who looks at it. D&D has had Catoblepas show up in basically every single edition, remaining relatively unchanged, although some editions -- like that 4E artwork up there -- is a genuinely haunting, wretched beast with an almost human-like head and the combination of mood lighting and the strings of hair that run down its scraggly neck really does make for a surprisingly chilling creature.

5E's Catoblepas, goes back to basics, being a buffalo-like creature with a long neck and a boar's head, and it's noted to be a combination of, and I quote, "bloated buffalo, dinosaur, warthog and hippopotamus", created by a god of pestilence and rot. I'm not sure which part of this creature is a dinosaur, but okay. I guess it's that Ankylosaur-esque tail? And, just like most editions, the Catoblepas's stinky breath is highlighted, as is its necrotic gaze. The Catoblepas blights the land aroud it, but it's noted to not be openly hostile, just territorial... but the fact that it warps the lands around it so badly probably means that your adventuring party will, more likely than not, be asked to murder this beast. Also, apparently hags herd Catoblepas like cattle and drink their milk. Ooookay. We get a lot of description in most editions about how the Catoblepas is noted to be a harbinger of misfortune and bad omens, but 5E's wordings note just how unconfirmed and ambiguous these are. For what it's worth, despite the Catoblepas's effects and buddies mostly being evil creatures, it's always classified as a neutral or unaligned creature in all five editions. A pretty interesting beast, actually, and one that I've tended to overlook for just being a stinky weird cow.

Cave Fisher
Some of the more modern artwork have portrayed the Cave Fisher into a far more 'just a weird spider-lobster thing', making it feel pretty mundane, sort of like a giant version of the albino cave crayfishes or albino cave crabs that exist in real life. The original Cave Fisher artwork from the Fiend Folio gives us a pretty interesting beast with bug-like eyes, a massive maw and an elephant-like trunk, in addition to the base crab/lobster body. 5th Edition goes for a slightly different version of monstrous, still keeping a lot of the crustacean qualities intact, but giving it a set of bizarrely-bent claws and an utterly nasty looking bug face that ends in a very straw-like proboscis. Another one that's abandoned and never revisited post-2E (Volo's has a lot of these creatures), the Cave Fisher is a giant arachnid that lives in caves, crawls around ceilings and platforms, and uses its spider silk to 'fish' for silly cave-beasts that are unfortunate enough to run into it. They're apparently smart enough to realize humans and humanoids don't make for a good meal, but a swarm might be tempted to attack a single scout or a straggler. Apparently, their blood is alcoholic and is used in the creation of dwarven liquor. Okay! Volo's notes that they're kind of afraid of fire, and chitines and hobgoblins like to train them as guard animals.


Chitine
The Drow are popular, and it's quickly clear that there's only so many "Drow [insert fantasy class here]" enemies they can print. So over the years, we've got a growing menagerie of evil Drow-Spider mutants in addition to Driders for a Drow-heavy campaign to utilize. And the Chitine are... well, they're accidentally created by the Drow!. I do love just how wildly the Chitines have evolved over the years, while all of them still keep to the four-armed-spider-man look. 2E's Chitine has a heavy-set body and looks more like a scrappy warrior with massive spider-fangs and weapons. 3E's Chitine looks just so kooky and crazy, with an amazing art piece full of personality (that face!)( and I absolutely love the way those arms are bent. 5E leans more towards the horror, particularly with that bony face and glowing demon eyes, but makes its version of the Chitine a lot more lankier.

The Chitines were created out of drow experimentation on captured elves, transforming them into humanoid-spider mutants, and they had intended to create slaves that are dedicated to themselves and Lolth, but apparently Lolth herself found this completely unacceptable. Not because of the fact that human (well, elven) experimentation was being done, but how dare they not dedicate that to Lolth herself. So Lolth ended up twisting the rituals so that the Chitines now serve her, and because Lolth's kind of a dick, she tends to have the Chitines fight the Drow. It's a fun spider-creature! One of the monster races that get a spotlight in Volo's is the Drow, and the Chitines are there to give the Drow some extra, interesting muscle-power because sometimes, Drow still create Chitines and those that aren't exposed to the Choldrith are still relatively obedient.


Choldrith
3.5E expanded upon the Chitine society in the Underdark sourcebook, and one of the new monsters they introduced was the Choldrith, a related species that's essentially a giant spider with humanoid front arms and a grinning, happy face. Look at that 3.5E Choldrith, she just looks so happy to be clapping and singing the joys of Lolth! 5E's Choldrith, in comparison, looks so much more dour with its six eyes, low-set face, and the way those arms are posed. The Choldrith were essentially the racial leaders of the Chitine, and in 5E were the first sign that Lolth didn't approve of the Chitine-making process. The Choldrith can lay eggs that can hatch into more Chitines, and, rarely, a Choldrith. All the Choldrith revere and worship Lolth as fanatics, and they were the ones that ended up inciting a rebellion of the Chitines against their Drow masters. The Choldrith view them and their Chitine brethren as the true chosen children of Lolth instead of the Drow, and the two societies basically have a huge rivalry. They're also basically described to function like social insects, with the Choldrith being the 'queen' and 'officers', and the Chitines being the soldiers. Overall, a pretty neat set of spider-creatures.


Cranium Rat
"They're rats, but you can see their brains, and they also have psychic powers". Okay, Cranium Rats, you got me. Sometimes I do love the more novel monster ideas that try to look as unnatural as possible. Sometimes you get absolutely fun goobers like these fuckers who are psychic rats with visible brains. Of course they're created by the Mind Flayers. Mind Flayers have a real hard-on for brains. Noted to be just a weird rat when they are separated and are individuals, an entire swarm ends up being linked by their psychic powers, retaining a high intelligence as long as the swarm exists, and, collectively, have enough psionic powers to rival humanoid psions. Of course, they refer to themselves as 'we' and 'us'. They're creepy fuckers like that. Elder Brains and Mind Flayers use Cranium Rats as a way to spy on the upper world, and might actually be a neat little sequel hook for your adventurers. Maybe investigating the strange rat infestation and the strange series of unexplained confusion and unease among the populace leads to them finding a bizarre rat with an exposed brain, leading to something far, far worse as your adventuring party ends up delving deeper and deeper...


Darkling (Dark Ones)
The Dark Ones have been a mainstay in D&D for a while, initially being introduced as two monsters (the Dark Stalker and Dark Creeper) in the Fiend Folio. They appeared in 2E throughout 4E and were eventually given the name the Dark Ones, a race of underground-dwelling humanoids sometimes associated with the Shadowfell. The Stalkers were always shorter, and the Creepers were human-sized. The Dark Ones, despite showing up a lot, really didn't have a whole ton of actual lore beyond being intelligent rogue-like creatures that are afraid of the light, but are essentially super-rogues. Their origin was noted to be super-duper mysterious.

And then Volo's Guide to Monsters had "Darkling" as one of the new monsters, a term that's never been used before... and I would've ignored it if the artwork didn't reuse the 3E artwork for the Dark Ones verbatim. The difference, of course, is that the Darklings are now explicitly fey creatures, the descendants of Dubh Catha, a seelie fey who betrayed the archfey Summer Queen, and all of his descendants were forever cursed and transformed into the Darklings, transforming their entire race into assassins. It's the Summer Queen's curse that causes them to be wounded and age rapidly under sunlight, and if they die due to absorbing too much sunlight, they fucking blow up. Darklings also love to hoard art and jewels. The short, stubbish Darklings can undergo a ritual with tattoos to channel the sunlight stored into their body to transform themselves into the Darkling Elder, a form that looks far more like an elf. Ultimately... the Darklings are pretty much a neat revamp of the Dark Ones, although given a lot more backstory, although I'm not quite sure why the rename was necessary. Regardless, Darklings and Dark Ones are pretty neat, if not the most interesting enemies. But, hey, more fey adversaries! These are far more straightforward enemies for fey, mind you, just stabbing you in the chest instead of playing tricks or polymorphing you or whatever.

Deep Scion
The Deep Scion is technically a humanoid, but man does it really look like it belongs in the aberration category. A monster original to 5th Edition, the Deep Scion really gives me a huge Shadow Over Innsmouth vibe, and I really do love the way this dude's mouth opens wide like a flower (I don't think it's actually based on any real deep-sea creature, although I could be wrong), as do the tentacle-whip ponytails and the fins on its arms. The Deep Scions were created in a pretty Lovecraftian way, too, where they were people who drowned from sinking ships, and were offered by a terrible bargain by something deep underwater. Cthulhu? Davy Jones? N'Zoth? You decide. Volo's suggests the kraken as a possible patron, but also notes that it might be a different ancient being of the deep, so, yeah, feel free to have these things serve your Cthulhu expy of your choice. Whatever the case, they were reborn into this new, creepy, fishy forms. The Deep Scions are shapechangers, though, and they are able to shapeshift into their original human forms to infiltrate society and undergo whatever task its aquatic master wants it to. They infiltrate society and worm themselves in with a specific purpose, giving the outward appearance of a hero returning alive from where he or she drowned, or to generally just charm and beguile their way into society to carry out its master commands, having been stripped of empathy or any attachment to its former life by the transformation into a Scion. Deep Scions are actually not particularly powerful in combat, so they are clearly meant to be an enemy that the DM is meant to use in a more insidious, 'uncover the NPC's plots' way.


Demons: Babau
We don't get a whole lot of demon lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters, but anyone who's flipped through D&D bestiaries know that the creative team really loves adding extra demons and devils in any new Bestiary. 5th Edition actually resisted putting too many fiends in this one (Mordekainen's Tome of Foes is the Fiend-heavy one), but we do get a couple of classics. Taking its name from the Mediterranean name for the Bogeyman, the Babau shows up as a minor demon in 1st Edition's Monster Manual II, before making appearances in all other editions. The Babaus were apparently created during a battle between the demon lord Graz'zt and the arch-devil Glasya, and the Babau were born out of Graz'zt blood that was spilled during that battle. The Babau is noted to be as cunning as a devil and as bloodthirsty as a demon, something that I've felt is something that isn't super-unique at this point. They're humanoid dudes that look pretty generically demonic. Gangly arms, sharp claws, skeletal body, and a distinctive curved horn out of the back of its skull. Honestly, I do find them a bit boring, but I also acknowledge that sometimes we do kind of need a couple of traditionally humanoid-looking demons and devils; if nothing else as minions of stronger demons. I really do enjoy the 5E artwork for the Babau, I find it really cool despite it being otherwise a pretty basic demon creature.


Demons: Maw Demon
No fancy unique name for this one, they're just known as Maw Demons. Originally introduced as the "Abyssal Maw" in 3E, they showed up in 4E and 5E, and they're... well, they're pretty neat! They're just a massive, vertical maw of sharp teeth with multiple arm-legs jutting out of it, and an asymmetrical set of glowing orange eyes, two on one side of the mouth and one on the other. They're a pretty awesome-looking design, but ultimately, it's one which isn't super-duper impressive. The Maw Demons are essentially manifestations of the demon lord Yeenoghu's hunger, and whatever they eat ends up in Yeenoghu's gullet. They are noted to be summoned by gnolls paying homage to their demon lord as part of a dark blood ritual, and while they don't obey the gnolls per se, they sort of follow the gnolls around like crazy little yammering pets and help chomp and bite upon anything they come upon. A pretty great design, honestly! I'm a fan.


Demons: Shoosuva
Shoosuvas first appeared in an issue of Dragon magazine in 1E as an emancipated wolf-headed humanoid demon, shows up in 3E as this hideous mutant dire-beast demon creature, and now they're hyena demons devoted to Yeenoghu. I really love the 5E artwork's decision to make the Shoosuva basically literally just a bunch of tattered skin, and the effect of the barely-clinging on flesh above that glowing ribcage is pretty dang cool. Which is pretty neat -- a lot of demon lords tended to have minions associated with them, and poor ol' Yeenoghu just has his gnoll children in the material plane. With the Shoosuva being reinvented for 5E and the Maw Demon now being associated with Yeenoghu, he's got his own toys! That's a pretty awesome, grisly artwork for the Shoosuva, too, with the barbed, knobbled scorpion tail and the dagger-like spines being pretty cool, and I love the withered looking skin. A pretty cool and beastly design all around. Shoosuvas are noted to emerge from portals to the Abyss when a powerful gnoll worshiper of Yeenoghu have successfully led its war band to a great victory, essentially becoming the companion of the Fang of Yeenoghu or whichever great gnoll leader has bonded to it. Another one that's ultimately just a savage, destructive beast, but as I mentioned before, we've had a couple too many "this is a demon, but it's smart, manipulative and not actually destructive" demons in the 5E Monster Manual, so seeing a couple more that are actually just rampaging fighto-fighto monsters is pretty neat.


Devourer
The Devourers are fiends (but not demons, however that works -- I guess they just don't respawn in the Abyss when they die?) associated with Orcus, the lord of undead, and I mostly remember them from the utterly metal-looking Soulspike Devourer in that 4th Edition artwork, a giant creature that essentially rips out the souls of whoever it kills, then stabs their souls, still creaming onto the giant bony spikes that protrudes out of its body. 5th Edition's Devourer is one that's based more on the original concept of the 2E Devourer, a giant undead ghoulish creature that stuffs people inside its rib cage. Being, y'know, named a rib cage, it's pretty natural for a setting that heavily features undead monsters to sooner-or-later create an undead creature or just a feature where a rib cage also doubles as a literal cage. Their origins differ from edition to edition, and in 5E, Orcus transforms his favourite demons into Devourers, becoming a desiccated humanoid with a hollow ribcage, and they tend to just wander the outer planes in search of souls... but sometimes they are sent into the Material Plane, where they create, control and lead massive plagues of undead beasts that really into the presence of a Devourer. Devourers will bring humanoids it fights to the brink of death, then trap the near-dead dude in its own rib-cage, where they are telepathically tortured by the Devourer until they eventually die, and get transformed into an undead servitor. This includes player characters, giving Devourer encounters an extra sense of urgency if someone ends up being put near the brink of death and gets assimilated into a Devourer's rib cage. Ultimately, a pretty neat grisly undead monster, and a pretty neat 'boss' for undead hordes.

Draegloth (4E)

Draegloth
What do you get when you take a Drow and the Glabrezu, one of my favourite demons, and you lump them together in an unholy fusion? You get the Draegloth, one of the favourite things for me in this book. Originally introduced in 3E in the same book that introduced the Chitine and the Choldrith, the Draegloth's artwork is amazingly grisly-looking, with a mane of shaggy white hair, a demonic face, four long arms with long claws, reversed knees and a pretty awesome look all around. 5E's Draegloth is essentially the same creature after a haircut and like five straight months in the gym to build some muscle definition and bulk, and I do like both versions of the Draegloth. 4E's Draegloth, meanwhile, is barely more monstrous than a regular Drow, just being a regular Drow lady with an extra set of arms who's fused with a spider on her head. Boring. Both the 3E and 5E artwork really does make for a far more interesting monster, and, shit, they're definitely a far more imposing sight than the Glabrezu!

Anyway, the Draegloth's pretty damn awesome, and it's noted to be "born of a drow high priestess in an unholy, dangerous ritual" (it's basically Demon Sex but I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to say that outright), and it's always loyal to its mother and her House. The four arms it has allow it to essentially be either rampaging around with the massive claws and muscles of its larger ones, or to do finer things with its Drow-sized arms. Which basically means, yes, it's a powerful melee fighter that can also cast magic. Also, despite being the size of an ogre, the Draegloth is very sneaky. The birth of a Draegloth is noted to be a sign that Lolth has blessed their House, and are essentially noted to be what amounts to a tool to them. They're treated with respect, yes, but they don't really have any sort of standing in their House, and all Draegloths are indoctrinated to accept its role as more of a favoured tool and never to challenge authority. Being, y'know, half-demon half-drow, Drageloths invariably resent this, and this would lead to them going off and being independent sometimes. It's actually a pretty interesting concept -- the Draegloths (and by extension the Glabrezu) does play into the Drow's spider theme by having multiple limbs, but this doesn't really get a whole lot of attention by the prose. Ultimately, a pretty damn awesome spider-demon-creature.


Firenewt
I have to admit that through my first couple of forays through Volo's Guide to Monsters, I sort of skipped through the Firenewt entry. I love my lizard-people, but we've got Kobolds, Lizardfolk, Troglodytes, Yuan-ti, Saurials, and dragon-related humanoid races like Dragonborn and Half-Dragons. Just having a race that's just a humanoid goopy-newt with fire powers isn't the most interesting thing out there, although I love just how the 5th Edition artwork for the Firenewt looks, with the adorably awkward-looking fingers, arms and face. They are one of the many creatures introduced in the 1E's Fiend Folio, and have appeared on and off throughout all but the fourth edition of D&D in some capacity, even becoming a player character race in a 3E supplementary book. But for whatever reason, I just never really paid much attention to them. Firenewts are actually pretty neat! They're a tribe of newt-men that live in areas that are simultaneously hot-and-wet, which are hot springs or volcanic craters, and they worship the elemental flame. Specifically moist heat, and they will actually shut down and go into hibernation if removed from heat for too long. They go around carrying a little emergency bottle of hot mud or something, which, in a pinch, allows them to breathe fire for an attack. Despite being goofy newt-people, they worship the elemental prince of fire, Imix, and so the Firenewt race and culture as a whole are violent and aggressive, and when these newt-men go to war, they want to burn everything to the ground. Not what you'd expect from a bunch of dudes that are literally walking newts.



Giant Strider
Basically added as an afterthought in the Firenewt segment; the Firenewts ride around on Giant Striders, a group of fire-breathing creatures that are sort of a hybrid between a dinosaur and an ostrich. which have been associated with them since their first appearance. Ultimately... I still think they're kinda boring, but actually would serve well as a low-stakes antagonist that looks visibly distinct. And you really can't get any more distinct than a lava newt-man in armour riding a giant Chocobo. Older editions gave them a much more 'plucked chicken' vibe.


Flail Snail
The Flail Snail is one of the many weird-ass monsters to come out of the original Fiend Folio, showed up in 2E briefly, and would probably end up languishing in the annals of history as one of the many forgotten weird critters out of that tome if not for the hilariously bizarre look it has. The damn thing probably owes its existence to the fact that 'flail' and 'snail' rhymes, and was utterly ignored by D&D products until 5th Edition. Hell, the Flail Snail is the handful of creatures that ended up showing up in Pathfinder's "Misfit Monsters Redeemed" book, judged to be one of those creatures that are so silly and dumb-looking that surely no one would be able to take them seriously. And while I tend to defend the quirkier monsters in D&D, a snail who's traded in its eyestalks for a bunch of organic maces is admittedly one of the silliest. Snails really don't rate that highly on 'small invertebrates that would be scary if they're gigantic' the same way that spiders or centipedes or ants do, y'know? Also, its shell is highly valuable.

5th Edition revamps the Flail Snail as an earth elemental, which is... an interesting direction to take it, I suppose. It's notes to be able to have a batch of tricks beyond just being a snail with flail-tentacles, and has the ability to unleash displays of bright light to stun the enemy, its shell can deflect magic (giving a new meaning to the classic D&D spell 'anti-magic shell') and it consumes everything as it moves path the surface, eating dirt and rocks and leaving behind a trail of glass. Ultimately, while not the most interesting monster, it's just so goofy and such a bizarre creature that I can't help but be a fan of this utterly bizarre creature.


Froghemoth
The original 1E Froghemoth was, actually, a space alien! No, really. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks has your D&D heroes investigate a crashed alien spaceship, and the Froghemoth debuted in that adventure originally before being reprinted in the original Monster Manual II, one of the few creatures from that adventure to survive being integrated to the far, far more fantasy-leaning D&D. It was introduced in one of the later 2E books, but was relegated to a small column in the Dragon magazine in 3E until it finally makes its proper return in 5E! And it's actually pretty neat that the Froghemoth remained relatively unchanged throughout all three major appearances. A hulking frog-like creature with whip-like tentacles for arms, a long whip-like tongue, a set of three eyes jutting out of the top of its head (they work as a periscope while the Froghemoth hides the rest of its body underwater), and two snail-like mini-eyes on its snout. 5E's artwork drops the secondary set of eyes, but ultimately kept most of the details the same. I feel like my favourite design out of the three is the 2E Froghemoth, mostly due to how clustered the tentacles look and how wacky those eyeballs on the massive stalk looks. Overall, not the most creative-looking creature, but still horrid enough to be a neat abomination of a monster.

The 5th Edition lore just has the Froghemoth as an aberration-type creature, being a massive predator the size of an elephant. Surprisingly enough, 5E even keeps the sci-fi origin story of the Froghemoth, and its prose notes how a mad wizard found them in 'strange, cylindrical chambers of metal' in some underground cave from which the Froghemoths came, and the only real thing that stops them from being outright frog-octopus aliens is that the wizard who gave this report is noted to be mad, and no subsequent editions found the UFO-cave. It's a neat, sneaky and ambiguous enough nod to the origins of the Froghemoth, while the reference to the futuristic cylinders will very well go over the heads of anyone who doesn't quite know about the origins of these creatures in D&D. The Froghemoths are also apparently worshiped by the dumb Bullywugs, although the attempt to appease a Froghemoth might lead to multiple Bullywugs being chowed down as a result.


And here are the other creatures whose 'base' versions we've sort of talked about before in the MM. (Yes, I know gnolls come after girallons, but I'm swapping the order of things up a bit)

Dinosaur

While going through the Monster Manual, I did note how hard it is sometimes to try to give representation to all of the real-world animals and beasts, when not all of them necessarily make for a good D&D encounter. One of the biggest exceptions, of course, are dinosaurs in general, which are essentially the closest we can come to dragons in real life. While the 5E MM does give us a decent selection of dinosaurs (and assorted beasts; I know the pterosaurs and dimetrodons and aquatic saurids aren't dinosaurs if we're being pedantic but whatever), we do get a couple new stats here. The Deinonychus and Velociraptor are obviously popular thanks to Jurassic Park, and I do like that D&D acknowledges that the real-world Velociraptor aren't much bigger than chickens. In addition to just being pretty cool, they also make for particularly badass ranger companions. The Stegosaurus is a classic dinosaur, and another neat one to have around. (I think 4E calls it the "Bloodspike Behemoth", because 4E is too cool for dinosaurs or some shit) The Quetzalcoatlus is essentially just a giant version of a Pteranodon, the Dimetrodon is just a giant lizard with a sail on its back, and the Hadrosaurus is a peaceful grazing herbivore, and the three are probably a bit more boring than the other dinosaurs in D&D terms... but I definitely appreciate them getting stats. Not much to say here, otherwise.  

Gnolls

Flesh Gnawer

Most of the monsters that got a spotlight in the first half of Volo's get an extra couple of monster variants in the second half. The gnolls get three! I tend to skip over some of the monster variants that are a bit more... mechanical in nature, but two of the four Gnoll variants are technically racial variants. So. The first variant is the Flind, a variant that shows up from 1E through 3E in differing amounts of prominence -- sometimes, it gets its own stat block, and sometimes it's just a little side-bar note in the gnoll entry. Flinds are essentially stronger and smarter gnolls (or a cousin-race of the gnolls in some editions), and tended to look a bit different. 3E depicted them as a lot more chunky and stocky, whereas 5E goes for the opposite direction and made them a lot more bestial and gangly, and they're equipped with a crazy whip with skulls at the end. 5E's Flinds are noted to be basically a special gnoll that's transformed and 'blessed' by Yeenoghu to become a warband's leader in both battle and spiritual guidance (as much as Yeenoghu can give, anyway), and any gnoll that claims the flind's magic flail will be magically transformed into a Flind themselves.

The second sub-type here is the Witherling, which is... well, an undead skeleton gnoll. Look at that gloriously grisly artwork! Witherlings are noted to be created when a gnoll band ends up being so hungry after a lack of prey that they turn on each other, and the losers whose flesh are consumed will have their bones collected and transformed by a gnoll's pack lord or flind leader into, well, Witherlings. Two other new variants are also noted here, the Gnoll Flesh Gnawer and the Gnoll Hunter, but they're basically gnolls who are more experienced at ranged weapons, stealth (the hunter) and dashing around (flesh gnawer). Generally 'race variants enemy' like these are kind of a necessary evil -- having a huge gnoll/goblin/lizardfolk/orc war camp but only having the same base "Gnoll" stat block for every enemy you face will get boring pretty quickly, and having enemies with varying abilities does liven things up a lot, and allows your DM to have quick elite enemies to throw at your party without having to go through the more tiresome conversion of, like, adding PC classes and whatnot. They just don't make for interesting conversation or discussion material. I do appreciate that we don't quite get as overboard as 4E's sentient monster variants do, though.

Giants:

All six of the classic giants get a 'buffed' leader version in Volo's, in addition to a whole load of lore about their creation and religion. I tended to, for the most part, shrug off these sort of variants when going through 3E and 4E's numerous bestiaries, the ones introduced here are actually pretty fun! Essentially taking the place of the "Titan" sub-type of giants in 4th Edition, these dudes are transformed into a more powerful state because of a godlike favour, or, like good ol' adventurers, they've gone off to seek other avenues of power.


The first one we're talking about is the Cloud Giant Smiling One, which has a pretty simple but absolutely memorable artwork. It must be that theatre mask, which is kind of a somewhat easy way to instantly make a character design both cool and slightly unsettling, but it works, y'know? The Smiling Ones' lore is that they basically are social deviants for actually going through with their trickster god Memnor's craftiness and deceit, as opposed to the mostly 'tolerant of religion' cloud giant race as a whole. A pretty interesting variant, and based on the description of the mask, it seems that these Smiling Ones aren't happy that the Cloud Giants are second-best in the Ordning. Which might be interesting to play out in a giant-heavy campaign.

The Fire Giant Dreadnought is... she's just awesome, yeah? Full armour, two massive spiky shields, and generally looking like one hell of a literal tank. There's not much lore to her other than she basically embodies the two core parts of fire giant society -- war and forge-craft -- and it's a position that even the dumb-but-strong members among the fire giants can aspire to be. The freaking giant walking-wall shields actually have a mechanism that allows the fire giant to pour hot coal through them, making them a spiky fire shield. Absolutely metal. I actually liked the little blurb talking about the multi-purpose crazy plow-shield, which also has uses outside of combat to help shove around coal in forges and whatnot.

The Frost Giant Everlasting One is a worshiper of a god called Vaprak, who is a crazy troll god that giant religion frown upon. Those that embrace these crazy dreams become the frost giants' equivalent of warlocks, ending up going on a vision quest to meet and consume one of Vaprak's trolls, gaining the troll's regenerative ability at the price of being hobbled and cursed if they do not offer enough blood in Vaprak's name. At which point, all the other frost giants will exile or kill the Everlasting One. It's got a very awesome-looking artwork, too, with the frost giant lady's clothing being around 60% random disembodied heads. I didn't notice until a while and looking at the actual stat block that those heads on her shoulders are actually straight-up extra heads that grew out after Vaprak's blessing ended up mutating the frost giant. That's actually cool.


Hill giants are easily the most boring among the giantkin, and their 'super' mode, the Mouth of Grolantor, is... a sick hill giant that is exiled from their tribes, because, well, hill giants are supposed to be able to digest and eat anything. A hill giant that's sick and keeps vomiting? Clearly cursed. Although in a bizarre paradox, they also simultaneously become an embodiment of the hill giant god Grolantor's endless hunger. Okay...? And after being exiled, these Mouths of Grolantor end up being crazy and essentially is just a crazed, hungry big dude. A+ for whoever wrote the prose, but it's still easily still the most boring giant in this book. The Stone Giant Dreamwalker, likewise, isn't the most interesting one out there, although I do appreciate them taking more time in talking about the stone giants' "anything outside of mountains is a dream" bizarre mentality. These Dreamwalkers are either those who walk through 'dreams' (a.k.a. the outside world) in search for inspiration, visions, or simply exiled. And then they go mad and confused since the world is alien, and they sort of think that their actions have no real consequences. Okay? It's a neat variant of the base stone giant lore, but not especially interesting.

Last here is the Storm Giant Quintessent, who are storm giants who try to forestall their own deaths, essentially merging with storms and becoming a permanent, semi-conscious ball of stormy weather, although they can manifest their 'core' body somewhere within them. It's definitely an interesting, somewhat lich-like way, but one that feels uniquely tied into the Storm Giant's weather-related culture. Actually a pretty cool concept, if we're being honest, and certainly far cooler than the Hill and Stone Giants here.

The 5E stats for these creatures as they appear in Volo's Guide to Monsters.

• Banderhobb: Large monstrosity; neutral evil; CR 5
• Barghest: Large fiend - shapechanger; neutral evil; CR 4
• Death Kiss: Large aberration; neutral evil; CR 10
• Gauth: Medium aberration; lawful evil; CR 6
• Gazer: Tiny aberration; neutral evil; CR 1/2
• Bodak: Medium undead; chaotic evil; CR 6
• Boggle: Small fey; chaotic neutral; CR 1/8
• Catoblepas: Large monstrosity; unaligned; CR 5
• Cave Fisher: Medium monstrosity; unaligned; CR 3
• Chitine: Small monstrosity; chaotic evil; CR 1/2
• Choldrith: Medium monstrosity; chaotic evil; CR 3
• Cranium Rat: Tiny beast; lawful evil; CR 0
• Swarm of Cranium Rats: Medium swarm of tiny beasts; lawful evil; CR 5
• Darkling: Small fey; chaotic neutral; CR 1/2
• Darkling Elder: Medium fey; chaotic neutral; CR 2
• Deep Scion: Medium humanoid - shapechanger; neutral evil; CR 3
• Babau: Medium fiend - demon; chaotic evil; CR 4
• Maw Demon: Medium fiend - demon; chaotic evil; CR 1
• Shoosuva: Medium fiend - demon; chaotic evil; CR 8
• Devourer: Large fiend; chaotic evil; CR 13
• Dimetrodon: Medium beast; unaligned; CR 1/4
• Brontosaurus: Gargantuan beast; unaligned; CR 5
• Deinonychus: Medium beast; unaligned; CR 1
• Hadrosaurus: Large beast; unaligned; CR 1/4
• Quetzalcoatlus: Huge beast; unaligned; CR 2
• Stegosaurus: Huge beast; unaligned; CR 4
• Velociraptor: Tiny beast; unaligned; CR 1/4
• Draegloth: Large fiend - demon; chaotic evil; CR 7
• Firenewt Warrior: Medium humanoid - Firenewt; neutral evil; CR 1/2
• Giant Strider: Large monstrosity; neutral evil; CR 1
• Firenewt Warlock of Imix: Medium humanoid - Firenewt; neutral evil; CR 1
• Flail Snail: Large elemental; unaligned; CR 3
• Froghemoth: Huge monstrosity; unaligned; CR 10
• Cloud Giant Smiling One: Huge giant - cloud giant; chaotic neutral; CR 11
• Fire Giant Dreadnought: Huge giant - fire giant; lawful evil; CR 14
• Frost Giant Everlasting One: Huge giant - frost giant; chaotic evil; CR 12
• Mouth of Grolantor: Huge giant - hill giant; chaotic evil; CR 6
• Stone Giant Dreamwalker: Huge giant - stone giant; chaotic neutral; CR 10
• Storm Giant Quintessent: Huge giant - storm giant; chaotic good; CR 16
• Flind: Medium humanoid - gnoll; chaotic evil; CR 9
• Gnoll Flesh Carver: Medium humanoid - gnoll; chaotic evil; CR 1
• Gnoll Hunter: Medium humanoid - gnoll; chaotic evil; CR 1/2
• Gnoll Witherling: Medium undead; chaotic evil; CR 1/4