And on, we continue, with my coverage of the monsters in Volo's Guide to Monsters, almost all of which were reprinted in Monsters of the Multiverse for 5th Edition 2024, or as I call it, 5.5th Edition.
Again, I would really like to highlight just how much I adore Volo's Guide to Monsters and its stance on making itself an 'expansion pack' to the original Monster Manual. Huge chunks of lore added to nine of the most iconic monsters in D&D, multiple more 'monstrous' races (Aasimar and Goliath, gloriously, became popular enough that they were elevated to core races in 2024's Player Handbook) and even monster groups that didn't exactly get a writeup like Demons, Yugoloths and the Fey in general get a fair bit of expansion in Volo's.
The original version of these reviews had me talk about every single monster variant... and other than those that are significantly alien and different enough from the versions we see in the Monster Manual (which are just the Mind Flayers, Yuan-ti and the Hags) I am not going to cover the statblocks that are just there for the sake of being a stat blocks. So no 'giants, but with extra weapons' and 'Hobgoblins and Kobolds, but they remember to bring their equipment'. I have a personal policy to talk about every single stat block eventually, so I'll cover them... whenever I talk about the appendix for Monsters of the Multiverse, combining both the appendices for Volo's and Mordenkainen's together.
I don't think I'll get to that appendix in a timely manner, because I'm far more interested in talking about newer books or streamlining the monsters in the adventures, though.
- Click here for the first part of Volo's
- Click here for the second part of Volo's
- Click here for the index.
[Originally published in April 2020, revised in February 2026]
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Deep Scion
- 5.5E/5E: Medium Humanoid (5E), Monstrosity (5.5E); Neutral Evil; CR 3
A new monster to Dungeons & Dragons is the Deep Scion, and alongside the Sea Spawn also introduced in the same book, interestingly played out as a pair of monsters that tied to a Lovecraftian, Shadow Over Innsmouth style setting. D&D hasn't really shied away from having shout-outs to ol' Cthulhu, like Aboleths and Kuo-toa, but the Deep Scion specifically plays on the trope of humanoids that were changed, similar to the community infiltrated by the Deep Ones in Shadow Over Innsmouth. A couple of years later, these undersea monsters would have their own collection of adventures, the excellent Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
The Deep Scions began as regular people who were drowning, and are saved and given a bargain by a powerful undersea power, like a Kraken, an Aboleth, an underwater god, or a being similar to the iconic Davy Jones of Pirates of the Caribbean. It doesn't have to be anyone particularly powerful, because the ritual to create Deep Scions are 'widespread among evil aquatic creatures', so theoretically a villain's Sahuagin minions could be the one offering the deal. The ritual is painful, and transforms the luckless drowned people into Deep Scions, who are shape-shifting infiltrators whose mind has been warped to serve its new master.
And these Deep Scions re-enter society, either using its old identity or adapting a new one, but they are sent for some kind of mission. They can act, but they have no longer any empathy left for those they are sent to spy on. As family, a friend, or a lover, the Deep Scion's loyalty is twisted into thinking that it's just infiltrating on behalf of its undersea patron. Ironically, Deep Scions that are killed revert to their true non-aquatic forms, revealing that they are the ones most deceived after all.
What a cool design, too. I am always a fan of undersea-themed monsters, and a Deep Scion's piscine form has fins jutting out of their forearms, hair that trails off like squid tentacles, but most distinctive to me are those extra mouthparts that open up like a flower to reveal the monstrous fish-maw within. The original Volo's statblock classifies the Deep Scion as a 'Humanoid (Shapechanger)', and the Multiverse reprint has it as a 'Monstrosity'. While the latter is a bit more accurate, having the quality of the former would actually allow the Deep Scion better infiltration purposes since there are spells like 'Hold Person' that distinguishes humanoids.
Standing at a CR 3, the Deep Scion isn't really that impressive of an actual combatant, with its special abilities being its natural ability to breathe underwater, and a 'psychic screech' that stuns those around it. In the ocean, this screech can also send a message to its master regardless of distance. Which really does show that similar to Doppelgangers, Deep Scions are meant to play up the role of an infiltrating enemy.
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Demons - Babau
- 5.5E/5E: Medium Fiend - Demon; Chaotic Evil; CR 4
The cast of fiends in Dungeons & Dragons is always quite large, and the Demons tend to get the vast majority of these new additions. With how the Tanar'ri and Baatezu's lores are presented to us, it is a lot easier for designers to insert a brand new type of Demon without having to stop and think where it fits in the Devils' diabolical hierarchy. (This was, by the way, particularly exacerbated when 4E lumped Yugoloths and Demons together). But the Monster Manual is pretty good at just showing us mostly the 'original' set Demons and Devils presented in 1st Edition.
Even though the fiends would have to wait until Mordenkainen's to get a huge lore drop, it's not a surprise to me that Volo's gave us a handful of new fiends, particularly at the lower end of the power spectrum. The Babau, at a CR 4, fits in a nice niche below the Vrocks and Hezrous of the Monster Manual. Its abilities are a bit more spellcasting focused, with a weakening gaze and a bunch of spells like Darkness, Fear and Heat Metal.
The appearance of the Babau is also a bit more 'traditionally' demonic compared to the more animalistic Demons in the Monster Manual, with the Babau being a nice combination of a flayed man and a Xenomorph. It's got an impressively cruel-looking skull face, jagged spinal nubs leading to a tail, and monstrous clawed limbs. The Babau's distinguishing feature is the single horn that curls upward from the top of its skull. I really do like the Babau's design as a weaker, more common demon, looking simultaneously cool enough but also weak enough as a 'footsoldier' of the Abyss.
Volo's gives us some lore for the Babau, noting that they are created during a clash between the arch-devil Glasya and the demon lord Graz'zt, with the Babau being born out of Graz'zt's spilled blood. This is all backstory you can ignore for your setting, but it does explain the Babau's high intelligence for its relatively low hierarchy in hell. This origin somehow bestowed the Babau with the cunning deviousness of a devil. As much as this raises a whole can of worms on what this means for fiendish... 'reproduction', it does make the Babau fit nicely into the role of a more intelligent lesser Demon.
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Demons - Maw Demon
- 5.5E/5E: Medium Fiend - Demon; Chaotic Evil; CR 1
Also known as 'Abyssal Maws' in their first appearance in 3E, the Maw Demon is one of the few D&D fiends to not have a fancy made-up name. These guys are just huge walking mouths, with three misshapen eyes, three arms and three legs. They just look malformed and hastily put together, and they are just one of the weakest and dumbest demons in the Abyss, noted even by some older editions to be just 'Abyssal wildlife'. At CR 1 in 5th Edition, Maw Demons are quite weak, only being able to bite and either having a last-ditch attack action (in Volo's) or a vomiting area attack (in Multiverse).
5th Edition ties in the Maw Demons to the demon lord Yeenoghu, worshipped by the gnolls. Volo's spotlights the gnolls significantly, and this new lore notes that Maw Demons can be summoned as part of ritual offerings of freshly slain victims made to Yeenoghu. The Maw Demons aren't exactly obedient, but just run around after the gnoll war bands, feasting whatever the gnolls kill.
Yeenoghu as a demon lord is associated with savage gluttony, cannibalism and blood sacrifices, and so it makes sense that he would create these dedicated demons that run around and exist only to eat. After a Maw Demon rests for 8 hours, apparently anything it devours gets transported into Yeenoghu's gullet, which is interesting? Monsters of the Multiverse's reprint adds a table of potential contents of a slain Maw Demon, which in retrospect is a foreshadowing to the statblock style of the 2024/5.5E Monster Manual.
I don't have much to say about the Maw Demons other than they're neat little buggers, so I'm going to just note that the Babau and Maw Demon actually just straight-up reuse artwork from 4th Edition. Not a problem, since they are gorgeous pieces of monster art, I just wanted to acknowledge the lack of 'previous monster appearances'.
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Demons - Shoosuva
- 5.5E/5E: Large Fiend - Demon; Chaotic Evil; CR 8
Shoosuva is our last demon for Volo's Guide to Monsters, and it's another tie-in to the gnolls. I've always loved the artwork for the Shoosuva in 5th Edition, starting off with a hyena but making it look as unnatural as possible. The ragged corpse-like body showing patches of flesh and bone below, the unnatural red eyes and the yellow glow in the ribcage, the massive set of horns running down the spine... and of course, the gigantic demonic scorpion tail. It is also in the 'large' size category, making it the size of a bear.
Shoosuvas are again associated with Yeenoghu, and are gifted to particularly powerful gnoll leaders or spellcasters after a great victory. A particularly victorious gnoll warband that pleases Yeenoghu will have him send one of these abyssal beasts through a cloud of fetid smoke, obeying one of the leading members of the gnoll tribe (a 'Fang of Yeenoghu' from the Monster Manual). Each Shoosuva is bound to its respective Fang, and the arrival of a Shoosuva tends to elevate said Fang to a leadership position.
Combat-wise, as you'd expect, Shoosuvas are just simple battle-monsters, biting and immobilizing prey with its stinger tail, and being able to rampage as a last-ditch effort. It's not much more complex than that, but I appreciate the simplicity. Again, the Demons are meant to be the slavering, always-chaotic-evil flavour of fiends, and while I appreciate the competent schemers and commanders, it's also nice to have several other options to pad out the slavering, brutish hordes of the Abyss.
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Devourer
- 5.5E/5E: Large Fiend (5E), Undead (5.5E); Chaotic Evil; CR 13
Of all the more over-the-top designs from 4th Edition, one out of the creatures of the 4E Monster Manual always stood out to me: the Soulspike Devourer. Devourers were a bit more obscure in older editions, being yet another lich-lite undead sorcerer, with the gimmick that they had souls trapped within their ribcages that they used as fuel for their evil sorceries. The Soulspike Devourer has bone growths where souls were impaled on them, screaming until the monstrous undead needs to use them. This image stuck out to me, and while 5E would scale back down on the more over-the-top, Warhammer-esque zanier designs... this one always stuck with me.
5E's Devourer keeps the massive bulk of the 4E design, but is a bit more subdued compared to that. I do like that the core concept of the monster is kept, though. A giant unnatural skeletal creature with a ghoulish head, bone spurs across its unnatural arm, and a massive ribcage that serves as... well, a literal cage for the poor elf trapped within. That is indeed the gimmick of the Devourer, where they can teleport a creature into its cage, and either burn it up to fuel its 'Soul Rend' blast (mechanically, reducing the cooldown) or to just regurgitate them as new undead. Depending on the power of the creature taken, it will either be a zombie, a ghoul or a wight.
Again, I find this absolutely cool. The idea of a 'lesser undead factory' is always something that stuck with me since my Warcraft III days, and the Devourer looks quite intimidating enough, while the 'ribcage as a prison' gimmick is easy enough to instantly 'get' what it is doing.
5E's lore ties the Devourer more closely to the demon prince of undeath, Orcus. Orcus transforms his demon minions into Devourers, and the prose notes that Orcus even gets a different lesser demon as sort of a 'starter kit' for these newly-created Devourers, shoving one into their ribcages just to make sure the new Devourers have something to work with. That's adorable. Devourers are noted to be rarely unleashed on the Material Plane, but when they do, they attract other undead to it, while the Devourer itself continues to create more and more undead. Again, a pretty cool setpiece for an encounter, and one that I really do like a lot. 'Gimmick' monsters are a bit more of a hit-and-miss for me, but this one is cool.
Note that the Devourer was classified as a fiend in Volo's Guide to Monsters, a decision that I noted in my original review to be rather unintuitive. It started off as a demon, yes, but every other thing tied to it has been undead. Multiverse agrees with me, and retcons the Devourer into being an undead in the reprint. Neat!
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Draegloth
- 5.5E/5E: Large Fiend - Demon; Chaotic Evil; CR 7
The Draegloth is classified as a 'demon' fiend, but isn't technically a true demon, unlike the Babau or the Shoosuva above. And this is mostly due to its origin. The Draegloth is a tie-in not just to the fiends, but to the Drow. You really do get the sense that the writers of Volo's Guide to Monsters really wanted to do the Drow, but were told to save it to the next book, huh? A Draegloth is a half-Drow and half-Glabrezu... with the original writing for Volo's noting that it is "born of a drow high priestess in an unholy, dangerous ritual". The ritual rarely succeeds, as Volo's mentions. I mean, yes, the implication is quite... depraved, and I can totally see why the, uh, ritual is dangerous for the drow in question. Older editions were a bit more blatant with telling us how this happens. Multiverse caught on to this and censors it to still involve an elf priest and a Glabrezu, but without the specific wording.
What a cool design, isn't it? It's basically the general concept of the Glabrezu but ironically, without the goofiness of its demonic parent. I do love the Glabrezu, goofiness and all, but I also have to admit just how cool the Draegloth looks like. Two pairs of massive arms that end in claws, reverse-bent legs, that badass mane of white hair, and a wolfish face? And it's gray-skinned? I must confess that the 3E Draegloth's lankier, almost skeletal build is cooler to me, but 5E's more muscular Draegloth is cool too. (4E, in contrast, gives us a generic humanoid drow).
It is quite interesting that it's the Glabrezu that is chosen here, since Lolth is traditionally associated with Yochlol and some other types of spider-demons from the Demonweb Pits, but oh well. The Draegloth is loyal to its mother, a powerful trump cards in the politicking that Drow houses do against each other. Even without counting the Draegloth's considerable might, the sign that the Draegloth ritual even succeeds in the first place tends to be interpreted as a sign of Lolth's favour. Perhaps the more interesting aspect, however, is that the birth of a Draegloth ends up causing the Draegloth's house to always mobilize to craft a plan to crush its rivals in a way that incorporates the Draegloth... which is a detail that seems to be an interesting plot hook.
Beyond this plot hook, the Draegloth lives an odd station in the very caste-based Drow culture. While it plays an important part in its house's takeover, a Draegloth cannot rise above the status of favoured slave or consort. Most Draegloth take this frustration out on their enemy, and some even abandon their house in response. It's an interesting bit that could be twisted for either treachery-related drama, or perhaps even a sympathetic demon.
Combat-wise, the Draegloth is mostly an asset due to its strength and resistances, and its high stealthiness in spite of its ogre size. It also has a batch of spells that sows confusion, such as Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire and Darkness, because it is noted that Draegloths are a bit too impatient to bother with complicated tactics... but a few learn more destructive magic, which means that you could believably run a slightly more powerful Draegloth that has picked up a couple of magical spells under its proverbial belt.
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Firenewt
- 5.5E/5E: Medium Humanoid (5E), Elemental (5.5E); Neutral Evil; CR 1/2 (Warrior), 1 (Warlock of Imix)
Firenewts are rather cute little humanoid newt that appear to be made up of solid lava or magma. Classified as humanoids in 5th Edition and retconned into Elementals in Multiverse, the Firenewts are essentially weaker versions of the Salamanders from the Monster Manual, a weaker set of sentient, intelligent enemies for a Fire Elemental campaign. I do like the artwork seeming to show the nerves of the Firenewt being visible through the skin, and how its newt fingers and arms seem to be slowly sloughing off, with how he's holding his sword and how the shield is attached to his arm.
Firenewts originate from the Elemental Plane of Fire, and live in a 'militaristic theocracy' that reveres Elemental Fire. They worship Imix, the personification of the Elemental Fire, which leads their society to be wrathful, aggressive and cruel. Their physiology is an exaggeration of a real amphibian's cold-bloodedness, meaning that they need heat or they will become sluggish both physically and mentally. They need specifically 'moist heat'... which implies lava, but could also mean hot springs or boiling mud. It does imply the existence of rather charming fire-themed villages with little irrigation channels for whatever natural source of hot fluids they can find.
Regular Firenewts use a combination of alchemy and a sulfur paste to have the ability to spit fire, so you have this fun image of a gaggle of Firenewts constantly chewing on what appears to be tobacco, only to launch them like balls of fire. Stronger Firenewt Warriors are also often paired with Giant Striders, which is a type of animal that we'll discuss below.
More powerful Warlocks of Imix are those that are 'touched by the Fire Lord', gaining a mass of spells, a proper 'Fire Ray' attack, the ability to continue fighting briefly after a near death, and the ability to see even through magical darkness. The Warlocks of Imix lead the other Firenewts to go on raids to bring back treasure and captives, burning the most valuable in Imix's honour. Volo's notes that Firenewts consume the flesh of their captives, and enslaving the most useful. All these details about slavery and cannibalism are completely cut out of the Multiverse reprint.
I've never really cared all too much about the Firenewt, to be honest, with or without the slaver 'hook'. I suppose there is some dark comedy that goofy-looking salamander monsters turn out to be pretty brutal man-eaters, but there's just not really enough to get me particularly interested other than maybe the description of how they always need heat.
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Flail Snail
Flail Snail
- 5.5E/5E: Large Elemental; Unaligned; CR 3
The Flail Snail, despite is appearance, is actually a creature of the Elemental Earth, a fact I always forget. I keep thinking this is a monstrosity! One of the weirder monsters to be introduced in the famous 1st Edition's Fiend Folio, the Flail Snail often gets to be mentioned whenever someone does a ranking of 'stupid monsters from old D&D'. Thus, the Flail Snail was never truly updated until 5th Edition... where it looks quite glorious! It is still goofy, of course, you can't have a Flail Snail that isn't goofy, but I like how 'natural' those tentacle-flails looks like now. I also like the little mouthparts that the Flail Snail has.
The flavour text in Volo's notes how the Flail Snail looks like a 'ponderous, seemingly nonhostile creature', a nice little acknowledgement of its sheer weirdness and absurdity. However, if a creature comes close enough, the Flail Snail unleashes a flash of scintillating light from its shell (which blinds foes, or at the very least gives them disadvantage on attacks), before attempting to bludgeon enemies to death with its flail-antennae. The Flail Snail is also unexpectedly able to retaliate against magic. The anti-magic properties of a Flail Snail's shell allows it to convert spells cast against it into concussive energy. I actually do like this twist, that the Flail Snail's signature flail-antennae aren't actually the threatening feature of this creature, but it's rather its shell and the myriad tricks that it can pull off with it.
Flail Snails will move across the ground and slowly consume everything (including rocks and soil; it is an earth elemental after all) and processing them, leaving behind a trail of... not slime, but glass. Some humanoids make a living following (or maybe farming?) these snails to gather the glass. The Flail Snail's shell is also described as an item, being noted as a rare, magical source of shield material that could be used to make anti-magic shields; or into robes of scintillating colours.
As a whole, it does feel like a more distinctive version of the Cave Fisher in terms of being a 'loot monster'. The Flail Snail is more weird and more likely to surprise your players than actually pose as a serious threat to them, but I do really like the reinvention that keeps the goofy charm of the original creature, but also gives it a nice ecological niche in a modernized setting. There are other better, funnier 'joke' monsters, but the Flail Snail has a place near and dear to my heart.
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Froghemoth
- 5.5E/5E: Huge Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 10
Speaking of weirdos, behold the Froghemoth! The Froghemoth debuted in one of original D&D's more iconic stories: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which features, no joke, characters from a fantasy setting essentially trying to explore a fallen UFO carrying alien specimens. The Froghemoth is one of these specimens. Barrier Peaks was updated in 2024 in Quests from the Infinite Staircase, which updates a lot of older D&D adventures for 5th Edition, giving us that excellent 'Froghemoth Elder', a truly massive creature. Check out the regular Froghemoth riding on its shoulder!
But what is a Froghemoth? Well, it's a giant frog alien, around the size of an elephant. Its resemblance to a frog is mostly superficial, though, mostly involving its green colour, the shape of its mouth, and the fact that it has a long, prehensile tongue. The Froghemoth's feet are weird sucker-tipped stubby affairs, however. Its tongue is tipped with unnatural barbs. Its front limbs are two pairs of octopi-like tentacles. And instead of eyes, it's got a 'periscope' ending with three eyes, often the deceptively small thing peeking out of a pond before it bursts out in its full size and glory.
It is interesting that despite more modern D&D liking to slap the term 'aberration' on any strange, alien being, the Froghemoth is still considered a monstrosity. 5th Edition emphasizes that these Froghemoths are creatures not of this world, with strange rumours of them being released by strange, cylindrical metal pillars buried deep underground where these things appeared out of.
It appears that at least by the time 5th Edition rolls around, Froghemoths have became commonplace, with them being able to lay eggs without mating. Froghemoths live in swampy terrain, preying on other creatures with ambush tactics, keeping only its strange eyestalk above the water surface before ambushing them, grappling them with its tongue and tentacles, and swallowing them. In combat, Froghemoths are essentially grapplers and swallowers, although it has the strange trait of being stunned and temporarily weakened by lightning attacks.
In a cute little addition that lets the Froghemoth have a bit more of a lore alongside other monsters, Bullywugs just worship Froghemoths, treating the big frog as a god and offering it tribute of food. The Froghemoth itself, being a giant confused animal, is happy with this arrangement, though this doesn't stop it from consuming a random Bullywug or two. That's cute, isn't it? The Froghemoth is most certainly an alien and not a frog, but the Bullywugs don't know that!
Like many 'sillier' monsters, the Froghemoth tends to only appear in side tie-in materials until 5th Edition, although I really do love the 2E and 3E artwork that the Froghemoth received, all of them nailing the idea of an alien monster that superficially resembles a tentacled frog quite well. I do like the look of the Froghemoth and how bizarre it is. It works just as well even if you ignore the 'actually an alien' origin story and just treat it as a particularly strange fantasy creature. And in Volo's spirit of having most of its statblocks be an 'expansion pack' for older monsters, the Froghemoth serves as an excellent one to the Bullywugs.
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Giant Strider
- 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity (5E), Elemental (5.5E); Neutral Evil; CR 1
Originally described as a footnote in the Firenewt entry, Multiverse separates the Giant Strider and gives it its own entry, which makes a bit more sense to me. We don't list horses and wargs in the statblocks of humans and orcs, after all! Giant Striders are giant 'half-bird, half-reptilian' creatures. They're basically dinosaurs... or chocobos, if you prefer to use a Final Fantasy term.
5E just has them as a weird animal (or, well, a weird monstrosity) but Multiverse explicitly notes them to be 'neither bird nor reptile', and are classified as elementals. Giant Striders are able to shoot flame out of their mouth, and this natural ability (as compared to a regular Firenewt needing alchemical reagents) causes them to view the Giant Striders as being a gift for Imix. Oh, they can also absorb fire, actually being healed by a fiery attack.
This leads to a neat little bit of lore where the Giant Striders are often found in many of the same locations that the Firenewts seek out, and are often domesticated by the Firenewts, who provide shelter and food for their fire-breathing, dinosaurian companions. It's a nice little flair that they gave the Firenewts, I suppose. Not a whole ton to say here for me.
Girallon
- 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity; Unaligned; CR 4
The Girallon has never been a monster that's particularly interesting to me, although I was perhaps a bit too harsh towards it in my initial review. As a statblock, even with the flavour text, the Girallon is just a big monkey with four arms. In a world where Giant Apes exist, it's really not that weird. Sure, it's got those orc fangs, and they emphasize on the albino white fur being uncommon, but other than? It's just a big angry monkey. (I do note that I don't like the randomly exposed ape-boobs, and much prefer its 4E artwork)
And that's okay. I do think that these kinds of monsters, the 'slightly weird animals' help to be a nice demarcation between the more boring 'just a real life animal' to something more weird (like, say, the Displacer Beast or the Grick) and the fully fantastical (like the Roper or Mimic). And, again, that's okay.
There is some attempt in making the Girallon interesting, with emphasis on the Girallon's stealthiness in spite of its size, and having foraging family units similar to gorillas. Perhaps the most interesting bit is that Girallons are drawn towards buildings and civilization, which isn't just there for you to do a homage to King Kong, but is given an actual in-universe logical reason: Girallons view a city's building as a particularly sturdy 'forest', or a jungle gym. In unnatural cities, the Girallon's climbing skills are paradoxically better. This quality has led mages to speculate that the Girallon used to be artificially created by a now-fallen ancient kingdom as guards... and indeed, some cultures like the Yuan-ti try and tame these great apes for these reason.
The game classifies the Girallon as a monstrosity, more for the fact that they want to limit what Druids can transform into. But having fantastical animals in the setting like Owlbears, Gryphons and Girallons, again, helps to make the world feel more 'naturally' magical, so to speak. The iconic D&D jungle adventure Tomb of Annihilation features a Zombie Girallon, for example, which would feel 'too much' if they applied these monster templates to more over-the-top monstrosities.
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