Reviewing Monsters: The Legend of Zelda - Skyward Sword, Part 1

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Yeah, this was the game that I was playing in the back-end of 2021. I missed Skyward Sword when it came out for the first time because I didn't own a Wii-U! While I'm aware of the story and basically spoiled myself reading the synopsis about how it's essentially the Zelda game that ties all Zelda games, past and future, together, it's different reading about a game's story and actually playing it, yeah? And in 2021, Skyward Sword HD was released for the Nintendo Switch. Never having played this game before, I eschewed buying the remakes of two other older games like Link's Awakening and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. And I enjoyed myself playing through it!

I also... took my time playing through it, because, well, sometimes you just have to enjoy a game a bit slowly. Which is why this review popped up way later since I started playing the game. 

I'll try not to spoil any of the plot for any of you who haven't played the game, but some locations and dungeons are definitely going to get a bit spoiled. This monster review will be talking about the monsters up to the end of the Eldin region. 

Keese: New 3D games always means new incarnations of familiar faces, and the very first enemies that you encounter in this game are the Keese. Basically ubiquitous in the hub area of Skyloft wherever it's dark, the Keese are way more bat-like. And a lot more cartoony compared to their immediate predecessors from Twilight Princess. I like it! I like how manic the Keese's expression looks, especially those concentric eyes. As with all other incarnations of the Keese, Skyward Sword's Keese is basically just an enemy you can quickly beat up and kill. 

There are a fair amount of enemy variants in this game, and some of them appear in the volcano-based Eldin region, which has Fire Keese. They behave identically to regular Keese, except they're literally on fire, setting Link and any wooden shields he has on fire. 

Green Chuchu / Red Chuchu: Oh, okay, interesting! Chuchus are probably one of the enemies in the Zelda franchise to keep changing what it means to be a 'slime blob' monster, going from the sad, gross slug-like ones in Majora's Mask to the adorable bobbleheads in Wind Waker to being shapeless, eyeless rods in Twilight Princess into... this guy! It's a goop with a gross, 90's cartoon slime mouth, with two adorable little eyeballs. There's almost a Breath of the Wild Chuchu going on here if you remove the mouth, too. 

Interestingly, the Chuchu in Skyward Sword have more of a resemblance to Gels and Zols from previous games, with their primary gimmick being that a single Chuchu splits into two smaller Chuchus, and you need to quickly slash and kill one of the smalls in order to stop the two from merging back together. According to our sword-spirit buddy Fi (she provides data about all the monsters) this is actually the Chuchu's method of reproduction. 

The Red Chuchu is a variant we meet in the volcano-based Eldin region, and basically behaves the same as the green Chuchu except it's on fire. 

Remlit: A new enemy, and... a bit of an interesting one? On the day, remlits are cute weird lemur-cats that make adorable mewing sounds and follow you around. But when night falls, they transform, their teeth and claws grow longer, their ears and tail become sharp, and they basically go full werewolf. Or, well, rabid, I guess? It's an interesting little twist, and adds a bit of an oomph to the fact that Skyloft only has monsters roaming its streets at night. Becuase the Remlits are people's pets, though, you don't actually get to kill them -- after beating them twice with your sword they just run away mewling like a sad kitty. 

Sky Octorok: The main 'hub world' also has its own equivalent of Hyrule Field, a large expanse that you can roam around before you enter the different zones with their own terrain, puzzles, themes and dungeons. I have a lot to say about how much less interesting 'the Sky' is compared to any version of Hyrule Field, but we're here to talk monsters and not the game itself. Anyway, the enemies in the sky are mostly these guys -- Sky Octoroks! They resemble regular Octoroks, but look much more adorable, have little Peahat-esque plant-helicopters and shoot rocks at you. It's not obvious when you play the game, but try to get close to them and you realize how big they are. They kinda have to be, for you to spot them from a distance, but still!

Deku Baba: Another absolute classic, the Deku Baba return in the first 'surface' area we get to explore, the Faron Woods. The main gimmick of this game is motion controls and how our controller's movements will influence the direction that Link swings his sword. So the Deku Baba show up in two variations -- one has its mouth split horizontally and the other has its mouth split vertically. A very simple yet very fun variation! And, of course, when the Deku Baba has its mouth closed, you can't tell which way the Baba's mouth is going to open. Very cool! 

Quadro Baba: Of course, there's also the yellow Quadro Baba, a variant that only makes sense thanks to this gimmick. The Quadro Baba's jaw is split into four halves, and it can open its four-part mouth either vertically or horizontally, making it a fair bit tougher to deal with. It's not quite as epic as the Deku Baba variants in Twilight Princess, but I do really like it. There's really not a whole ton for me to say otherwise, but the Babas still remain one of my all-time favourite enemies .

As with most Zelda games, the Quadro Baba would later be trivialized by an item you get -- the bomb. The Quadro Baba will happily gobble up bomb flowers and get blown to smithereens. 

Red Bokoblin / Green Bokoblin: The world of the surface is filled with other races that aren't human (or hylian), but the most hostile one is the Bokoblin, who look like... ogre-goblin bulldog pig-men? I find it kind of interesting just how different the Bokoblins are from game to game -- these are probably going to be one of the more memorable ones, though. They behave like any humanoid enemy would, except thanks to, again, the motion-control gimmick, it's a bit harder to fight them since they can and will block sword strikes from different directions. 

The default version of the Bokoblin holds giant cleavers, but the ones in the Eldin region wield clubs with thorny vines wrapped around them, which fits the terrain. The ones with bandanas are the leaders, and they have a horn with which they can infinitely call reinforcements. According to Fi, the Bokoblins have a 'mysterious obsession with fashionable undergarments'. Okay. The Green Bokoblin are a variant whose skin has changed because they've lived in dark caves, which affected their skin pigmentation. It has a Flintstone caveman hammer! 

Grass Octorok: Yet another Zelda classic, the Grass Octorok actually resemble another 3D Zelda classic enemy -- the Deku Scrub! It hides underground with a giant shrub above its head, and spits rocks at Link. It's kind of a combination of the 'pop in and out' Ocarina of Time Octoroks and the terrestrial 2D Octoroks. Interestingly, Fi notes that these Octoroks "descended from oceanic molluscs", so realistically, there's a common ancestor behind these land-dwelling Octoroks we see in 2D Zelda games, Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild; and the aquatic Octoroks in Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. 

As you'd expect, Octoroks are annoying when you have to bounce back the rocks they shoot at them, but become kind of trivial after you get ranged weaponry. 

Deku Hornet: More of a hazard than an enemy, we've got these mean-looking hornets that hang around their nests! Link can drop the hornet nests onto Bokoblins once he gets ahold of the Slingshot item. Not much else to say about them, I think you can catch them for the bug-catching minigame as well. 

Guay: Another "just an animal" enemy, the Guays are crows with particularly large beaks that fly around the Faron Woods. They're not explicitly harmful, but they will literally shit on Link and their droppings will drain Link's stamina. Quoting Fi's entry on them: "It is unclear if this is due to a carefree attitude or pure malice. Should its droppings land on you, I calculate the probability of your intense aggravation at 100%." I like Zelda partners that give us flavour text

Walltula: The first dungeon, Skyview Temple, is kinda-sorta a spider dungeon? It's not quite a dedicated spider dungeon, but most of the enemies are spiders. We've got good ol' Walltulas, and I like what's going on here. The way that skull motif is stretched over the abdomen, the glowing yellow eyes, the lavender eyes arranged like a fan, and those massively threatening pedipalps... as per their previous incarnations, the Walltulas stick on walls and vines and attack Link when he's climbing the vines. 

Skulltula: A very cool take on a classic Zelda enemy! I love just how jagged and dangerous-looking those legs are, and the spider's head look as menacing as ever. But what really gets me is how oddly different Skyward Sword's Skulltula's skull-abdomen is. Instead of a giant bony skull growth or just patterns that resemble a skull, this one kind of takes the middle ground? Those eyeballs look like ridges, and I love how the eyes look kind of... googly-eyed, while the 'mouth' of the skull looks like it's melting. Coupled with the more realistic-scary spider head and the spiky protrusions on the joints of the legs, this might be one of the coolest Skulltulas.

The Skulltulas' abdomens are still invulnerable, and Link needs to hit their underbellies which have a glowing purple orb. This gets extra-problematic if they actually fall off their spinneret-threads and scuttle around on the ground, since you need to flick it over. I don't remember if any previous Skulltulas are able to do this, but Skyward Sword's Skulltula is able to essentially use the Pokemon move String Shot, shooting a mass of string from its mouth to bind Link in place.

Stalfos: The miniboss of Skyview Temple is a good ol' Stalfos. They're pretty large in this incarnation, and look extra-threatening with those massive fangs on their jaws! The Stalfos dual-wields two large murder-swords, and... and this might probably be my favourite version of the Stalfos, non-stop. Due to the Stalfos constantly and easily blocking Link's attacks with his large blades and their longer reach, you need to sometimes shield-bash them which cause their arms to comically fall off, and that leaves that ribcage to be vulnerable to some good old-fashioned smashing.

Staldra: An interesting creature! It's a hydra, sort-of. It's got three heads, and Link needs to slice all three heads off in a single blow otherwise they keep regenerating. A great twist on the 'cut off one head, two more will take its place' gimmick that hydras have. Interestingly, as its name and appearance suggests, the Staldra is actually an undead version of its original being, and a closer look shows that its main serpentine body is actually wrapped in mummy bandages. Really like the detail going on with those skulls -- the single glowing eye and the split lower jaw, and the extra eyeholes. 

Interestingly, Fi describes the creature as a 'snake monster from before the dawn of time', and that it has survived beyond death because of its thirst to cause pain. Wonder what it looks like in life? 

Demon Lord Ghirahim: The first boss in Skyview Temple is, tragically, neither a giant Stal-monster or a giant Skulltula, but this guy, Ghirahim. I already know of Ghirahim from Hyrule Warriors and I like him and his hammy antics. His animations -- teleporting with those fun diamond-shaped light effects, or his very boss 'block a sword with two fingers, then steal the sword' attack, are pretty well done! Huge fan of Ghirahim as a character, and he actually serves as a pretty great 'overwhelming first  encounter with the main villain' encounter here. Not too much to say about the monster design. 

Pyrup: We're off to the Eldin region, and we've seen some of the enemies above -- the Fire Keese, the Red Chuchu, and some Red Bokoblins with differing weapons. And now we've got a newcomer to the Zelda franchise, this odd dude called a Pyrup! A... seal? A seal with the head of a fish? A goby fish, from the looks of it, complete with the fish's tail jutting out from the back of the skull. And a giant anglerfish lure. The Pyrup will look for a place to hide -- be it crevasses on the sides of the caves, or underneath the indestructible skulls that they utilize similar to hermit crabs. And they breathe fire. It's just an amalgamation of a bunch of animals that live in the ocean, except it lives in a lava environment. ..I mean, okay, sure. 

The only way to defeat the Pyrup is to properly toss or roll a bomb into where they're hiding. It mostly involves rolling the bombs into their hideouts, but some of the animal skulls have an opening only at the top. 

Magma Spume: Taking the place of the Toadpolis and the OoT Octoroks are the Spumes, which are this fun cross between a giant pufferfish and a toad. The Magma Spumes live in magma, and I love their design! They've got cute frog limbs, a huge set of lips, and weird slug-eyes. They poke their eyes out of magma and spit lava towards you -- after 'storing and processing the gas produced by magma'. The Magma Spumes are near-impossible to kill until you get bombs, or until you access a part of the Eldin region's Earth Temple's puzzle where you can squish them with a giant boulder. 

Lizalfos: Technically the miniboss of the Earth Temple, the Lizalfos show up a lot as a common enemy there too. I'll always have a soft spot for how the Lizalfos looked in the 'classic' Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, and I love how dorky the chameleon-based Lizalfosi looked in Breath of the Wild... but Skyward Sword's Lizalfos is pretty damn great! That angry almost snake-like head, the suckers on the tips of their fingers, the giant mace on the tip of their tail... and best of all, that giant rock gauntlet. Like the Deku Babas, the Lizalfos can spawn with either their right or left arm with this giant indestructible shield-arm. 

Absolutely fun to fight as they will keep trying to block your attacks while they spin around and try to sweep you off with their club-legs. 

Pyroclastic Fiend - Scaldera: The boss of the Earth Temple, Scaldera, isn't particularly memorable visually, if I'm being honest. A giant Pac-man rock monster with a single eyeball and a bunch of spidery magma legs? Eh. Its boss fight is even kind of a rehash of the iconic Dodongo boss fight from Ocarina of Time. It's neat to have another 'elemental' monster, so to speak, but I've seen more creative versions of the trope even in Zelda. 

But the buildup to Scaldera was great! So much of the puzzles in the Earth Temple revolves on giant rocks, and in the last leg you have to outrun a giant Indiana Jones rolling boulder. So when you slowly walk up towards the grand final battle chamber, with a steep incline, Ghirahim shows up and starts ranting about his 'scalding anger', and he transforms the boulder into Scaldera. And it's such a fun fight! Scaldera keeps trying to climb up the giant slide that you meet him in, and you have to keep tossing bombs to cause him to roll back down. Only at the bottom of the slide that he'll do an inhaling attack that causes the bombs to blow up his rocky armour. As you strip him of his rock armour and damage his eye, though, he gets increasingly faster and faster. I like him more than I thought I would!

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Overall, pretty fun bestiary (and game) so far. I'm around halfway through the Lanayru dungeon at the moment, and I think part 2 will involve the massive Lanayru region. 

Reviewing D&D Monsters - 3.5E Monster Manual I

The other huge bestiary that I had as a kid were the first two Monster Manuals for 3.5E, which is... a pretty interesting system, let's put it that way, due to the sheer volume of books that they pumped out for 3E and 3.5E. The system became pretty dang robust, but also pretty damn intimidating for anyone who wanted to get in. I basically took one look at the rules and said "nope, I'm not going to try to understand this" back in the day, and just focused mostly on the monsters and setting books. ...which, honestly, isn't that much different from how I treated 5E, but with 5E at least I made an effort to actually play the game. 

Anyway, 3.5E is pretty fun because, as I mentioned, there's a lot of content in this edition and with that insane amount of content is also a large amount of monsters for me to talk about! I'm going to talk in-depth about all the monsters that are completely brand-new to my 'reviewing D&D' series in this blog, i.e. I haven't covered them in 5E, although I'll talk about any notable differences or observations at the end after a break. 

Yeah, just like my coverage of 4E's Monster Manual, I'm going to put a bit of a disclaimer in saying that while I own the actual physical books, I did have to go online and download some pdf's in order to crop the images for the entries. 

Also, since these basic Monster Manuals tend to repeat a lot of monsters over the editions, I'm going to skip through a lot of the monsters I've covered in my coverage of 5th Edition's Monster Manual (for an index of all my 5E coverage, click here) because when I did that, I tried to talk about the history of the monsters over the multiple editions of D&D. I will add a little addendum near the end to talk about the monsters I've covered before if the 4E versions are significantly different or weird enough, but otherwise we'll be focusing on the monsters that are new to this blog or ones that haven't been adapted for 5E. This will probably be the last D&D review that I do in this way -- I'm not going to change the 1E, 3.5E and 4E Monster Manual reviews since they're already up, but in the (near) future, expect pre-5E D&D material to be formatted closer to a 'readthrough' where I'll briefly go through most of the monsters there.

(I've also gone back and tried my best to fix most of the broken images in the previous D&D articles over the past month... haven't been too much of a writing mood, but editing, I can do)

Without further ado...

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Achaierai

Again, a lot of the monsters that we associate with D&D still show up here, so we still have a lot of classics like Aboleths, Allips, Angels and the like open up the book. And, well, we also have the Achaierai. This guys shows up from all the way back in 1E's Fiend Folio! And I loved just how stupid this thing looks. It's a bird, but with four legs! And the body of this bird is so colourful and feathery and looks so much like a parakeet! ...and it's classified as "Large Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar, Lawful)". Yep, not only are these giant monster-birds creatures that arrive from outside of the material plane, they are also intelligent enough to be lawful evil, and are explicitly noted to have 'a distinct taste for torture'. And in addition to being a giant intelligent four-legged bird, Achaierais can also unleash a black toxic fog that causes insanity. It might sound that I'm mocking this monster, but I'm not. I really actually love just how goofy this thing is, and how it's also still described as a pretty terrifying monster nonetheless.

I guess I'll talk about the 3.5E books in general? 3.5E has often been both praised and lambasted for having a bit too many numbers and stats, and while that's certainly true (the tables! So many tables!) I also think that they actually devote enough to describe just enough of these weird monsters that I actually feel like with a couple of paragraphs, they manage to tell me just enough about what the basics of these weirdo creatures really are. Not all the creatures get the same amount of care, but for the most part, I do appreciate that they try to give us a fair amount of lore to go with the numbers. 

Aranea:

We've got Ettercaps, Driders and just regular straight-up giant spiders, but 3.5E has the need to give us yet another race of monster spider-people. The Aranea in its natural form is just a giant spider... but it's got two 'humanlike arms' below its mandibles, and the front half of its cephalothorax looks like a deformed human head and torso. But it's also able to transform into a humanoid form to fool and interact with adventurers -- though it's also noted that there are slight irregularities like fangs and spinnerets on their anatomy. I actually like this monster a fair bit, and not just because they're giant spiders either -- I like that in addition to being an intelligent giant monster spider, the Aranea also has a little something extra, even if it's just shapeshifting. 

Archon:
Right, these guys! These guys are just 'unconventional angels', but hey, it's nice to know that the heaven-equivalent planes ("Celestia" in this edition) aren't just filled with nothing but angels. I know, I know, the basis of these fantasy worlds is to go out and fight evil beasts and demons and orcs and dragons, but I really do appreciate it when they end up introducing races that are nominally aligned with law and goodness. While most archons are lawful good in 3.5E, I think the idea is that the archons embody the 'lawful' side more heavily while angels embody the 'goodness' side. 

We've got three different Archons shown here. Lantern Archons are probably my favourite mostly because, well, angels are supposed to be weird in most religions that they show up in, but all D&D ever does is to make them chiseled statue-people with wings. And Lantern Archons? They're just happy little globes of gaseous light that speak in musical voices, and try and aid champions of lawful good. So... Na'vi? But angelic? Hound Archons are doggy-headed musclemen with red skin, while Trumpet Archons are bald green-skinned elves with wings. And they have giant trumpets. None of them get too much in terms of elaboration, though, which is kind of a shame. 

Arrowhawk

Wait, is this Pain's bird? From Naruto? Probably not. But I've always enjoyed the visual of a bird with a bit more wings and legs than a bird is supposed to have. The Arrowhawk in particular, I've always liked for looking like a bird with two extra wings... and ends up looking like some sort of bizarre beast. It's called an 'arrow', and I guess the four wings are supposed to represent the fletching of an arrow? I also love how the Monster Manual emphasizes that its body is 'snakelike', and I love the rugged texture of the Arrowhawk's beak. Just to add into the beast's "this creature has weird anatomy" vibe, the Arrowhawk has two tongues and two pairs of eyes -- one for each beak. There literally is no up and down for this creature! It's a creature from the Elemental Plane of Air, and considering that plane literally has no ground, well, I can kind of see why. The creature hatches from eggs that can levitate, and lives from birth to death without ever touching ground. Actually a very cool creature when I really sit down to think about this one. 

Athach

Mmm, yeah, I don't really like this one. Maybe it's because I never really thought too much about the many ogres, giants and trollkin in D&D, but... we kind of have a lot of them already, y'know? The Athach is just an ogre with an extra arm growing out of his chest. The Monser Manual lists a bunch of extra deformities, like its asymmetrical ears; and it likes jewelry and adorns itself with a lot of them, but otherwise? Yeah, I guess it's there just to be weird, but I felt like they could've gone a lot weirder to make this guy feel like a unique monster instead of a mutated ogre. 

Basilisk: Abyssal Greater

Normally I don't talk about the variant monsters in these reviews, particularly outside of 5E, but here, have the Abyssal Greater Basilisk; basilisks native to the Abyss. They're pets of demons and they have giant porcupine quills and a particularly cool-looking skull head. 

Belker
Okay, huh, this one is a weirdo. And honestly, kind of disturbing. Look at that face! The rest of the Belker is just a foggy ghost-creature with wings, but that flayed-flesh face and creepy knobbly hands attached to what would otherwise be a pretty comical body? Yeah. The Belker is a monstrous air elemental comprised of smoke. We don't actually learn anything much about the Belker, unfortunately, other than it's "undeniably evil" but is so reclusive that they "have no interest in the affairs of others". Okay, then, so it's... lazy? 

Celestial Creature, Fiendish Creature, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiend
These guys don't get any pictures, but hey, I guess we can talk about them a bit? Celestial Creatures are basically any creature that dwell on the upper planes, and are essentially similar to their counterparts on the material plane, but they shine with metallic colours. Not to be confused with Half-Celestials, though, which are the creation of... well, interbreeding between a Celestial and a Mortal. Fiendish creatures are, of course, the same thing, but for the lower planes. Again, also not meant to be confused with Half-Fiends. Kind of redundant, IMO, and I kind of appreciate that subsequent editions sort of tone it down. I think there's a joke-strip somewhere where depending on the parentage your character could be half-Celestial, half-Demonic, half-Draconic, a lycanthrope, a vampire, and not to mention all the other classes you have. 

Chaos Beast

It's a Shoggoth! Or something! I just like monsters that are like this, always undulating and having no real set form. This particular one shown in the artwork resembles something vaguely octopus-like, but those eyes peering out of the folds of flesh, or the disturbing mass of teeth and fingers that are reaching to the unfortunate bloke's head, or the spiky thorn-teeth on the inner side of the tentacles... pretty cool. The prose notes that this bulbous form is just one of its many, many forms, and it 'constantly melts and reforms, drawing each shape from every nightmare that has ever plagued humankind', and how it can shift from a mass of hooks and veins, into a tentacle monster, into a muscle monster. The only constant is apparently the ability to melt enemies into goo upon touch. Hilariously, though, the Monster Manual lampshades that for all of its fearsome appearances, the Chaos Beast isn't all that powerful aside from its goo-touch, because its constant transmutation prevent the coordination needed to do more complex attacks. 

Delver
Oh, I love this thing. I love how stupid it looks. It's like a massive slab of rock shaped like a train, with a grumpy look, a little flip-up smaller mouth that also resembles an eye, and giant hands in the shape of construction shovels or something. People point at something like the Digester, the Destrachan (who shows up here, too, and we covered it in 4E) or the Xorn for 'most stupid looking monster'. No, the Delver wins that prize for me, but all in the best ways ever. I love how silly this thing looks. This giant aberration just spends its time burrowing through rock by exuding corrosive slime, going around eating earth elementals and is described as 'shy'. Its real mouth is below its body, so it's like some sort of giant rock-slug, dissolving rocks with its corrosive slime then mopping up the remnants. It's also intelligent enough to strike a conversation, and the Monster Manual notes that adventurers can get information or assistance by bribing it with metal or tasty minerals like gemstones... but giving a Delver metal will turn it into essentially an addict that will hunt down other adventurers and miners that carry metal. That's kinda funny, actually. What a goober. I like this guy. 

Demons: Bebilith
Demons demons demons! Surprisingly, we've covered through a lot of the demons and devils, though many of them showed up in 5E's supplementary books like Volo's and Mordekaninen's. Some of the artwork are pretty cool, though, like metal band cover Mariliths and the surprisingly hulking Hezrou. Here are a few of the ones we haven't covered yet, starting off with a personal favourite, the Bebilith! Mostly because it's a giant demon spider. Bebiliths are actually already mentioned in 5E as the basis of the demonic Retriever. And... and just look at the Bebilith! Giant demonic spider with a prawn-head and giant spiky claws and a little wasp stinger! Yeah, I definitely appreciate that it's not just a giant spider, but one that's pretty damn monstrous. Its original 2E artwork even gives it a pretty cool skull-mouth below a mass of spidery eyes and a crown. The Bebilith's whole deal is that it's so brutal that it favours hunting other demons. 

Devils: Hellcat/Bezekira

The only devil here we haven't talked about is the Hellcat, or the Bezekira. I actually can understand why this one was cut out, since it's... not super interesting. It's just a glowing lion made out of light and sparks, and are just asshole devil cats. And I guess hellish cats just aren't quite as trope-y as hellhounds? I actually don't have a whole ton to say here, it sure is a fiendish lion.

Digester
Ah, here we go. Here we go with one of the more ridiculous entries here, and one that's very near and dear to my heart. When someone says "3.5E bestiary", this is probably one of the first images that pops up in my head. I love this thing. It's like, this malformed Velociraptor-looking creature with extra-spindly legs. It's got no arms, and instead of a regular dinosaur head, it's got an extended Jar Jar Binks snout, wiggly tentacle beards under that snout, and an eyeball-like opening that is actually a tube that shoots out corrosive acid at its enemy. And next to the acid-blowhole it's got two smaller slug-like eyes. What a goober. I absolutely love this thing. This is just a creature that exists because we needed something to spit acid at you. So we get this mutant acid-spitting dinosaur that looks like it belongs in an old-school platformer video game. Tragically we don't actually get any backstory to the Digester, so we don't really learn why it's made by whatever crazy mad wizard that did it. I love the description, too, where it's apparently a swift predator that can lurk anywhere from jungles to deserts, and can just reduce any human to 'a pool of glop' in seconds. And, again, even moreso than the Delver, I unironically really love this thing. It's so weird!

Dire Animal
Oh, right, this book has a segment for making Dire Animals. So if Dire Wolves, Dire Boars, Dire Bears and the like aren't enough for you, you can make Dire Katydids, Dire Macaws and Dire Wobbegongs. Not too much to say here, I actually enjoy the idea of just making giant versions of regular animals to attack you. 

Ethereal Filcher
Look at this weird motherfucker. Probably more at home in the set of Star Wars than D&D, I still like this utter weirdo. Classified as an aberration, this thing is... how do you even describe it? It's a big fat body with four arms with way-too-long fingers. Its one leg seems to be another arm with knobbly fingers. It's got a weird fish-like face on the tip of its neck with exactly one chin-tentacle, but also has an angry muppet face on its 'torso' with four eyes. As their name implies, their whole deal is that they are pickpockets, going in and out of the ethereal and material planes to steal things with their super-long arms. Despite their bizarre look, they live in the Material Plane and only use their ethereal phasing to stalk their marks. I actually like just how bizarre this thing looks; I don't think it would be too out-of-place for something like this to show up in like a Final Fantasy game or something. 

Ethereal Marauder:
I like this guy too! Identified as an extraplanar magical beast, the Ethereal Marauders are actually native to the Ethereal Plane, and it's like... it's another weird dinosaur-looking monster with two legs, but its triangle-shaped maw is actually a pretty fun and distinctive physical feature. Also love the massive claws at the tips of its large maw. The artwork doesn't make it particularly explicit, but the book identifies that each side of the triangle-shaped maw has an eyeball. Neat! I don't remember too much about the lore of the Ethereal Plane in 3.5E, but I do like the idea that these monsters just teleport into our dimension and just attack us as bizarre creatures from another bizarre plane.

Formian

Oh, hey, cool, ant-people! I like bugs, and I like ants, so therefore I like ant-people. Presumably named after the wood ant genus Formica, the Formians are... native to Mechanus? That is not what I expected from a race of centaur ant-men with helmets. But I guess in a sense, it makes sense, since Mechanus is like, a plane of lawful industry or something. I guess not everything in Mechanus is mechanical? That's an interesting spin of things. Formians are a massive hive that just want to colonize everything they see and incorporate every living thing in the world into Formian workers, essentially being expansionists. So like real-life army ants! Okay, I actually do like this idea, especially since in real life, there are some types of ants that actually capture broods of other ant species to enslave them. I also like the little detail that they don't actually enjoy enslaving non-Formians, but see it as a necessary cause to rid the world of all irrationality. Design-wise I like the centaur body shape, which keeps a lot of the ant's anatomy intact while also making it look somewhat humanoid. Most importantly, I think, is keeping the ant's buggy face intact. The book describes several classes of Formians -- Workers, Warriors, Taskmasters, Myrmarchs and Queens. As usual with these bug-hive monsters, the queen ant is bloated and stationary in the center of her hive, and communicates with her minions telepathically. I actually do like their concept. Not just the ant-person thing because I'm pretty much guaranteed to like bug-people, but the idea that they run around stamping out chaos in an attempt to bring every race into Formian order. 

Janni

We get the typical batch of genies -- the two most prominent ones, the Djinni and Efreeti. And then we also get the Janni. I think we never actually covered this guy in 5E or 4E? D&D's Janni are the weakest of the elemental genies because it's formed out of all four elements. It's kind of interesting because usually the trope is that those that are formed of all the elements are more powerful, but I guess the idea is that the elements sort of reject each other? The Janni also live together in small tribes of nomads... I guess the idea of 'lesser genies' are retooled into Genasi in subsequent editions, then? Not too interesting. 

Guardinal
Another race of Celestials, these guys are native to Elysium and are... well, furry angels. The idea  for them this time around is that they're very peaceful and happy in their home plane, but outside of Elysium they become no-nonsense evil-hunting warriors. They basically become the Punisher, roaming the planes for evil to confront. We've got two kinds of Guardinals here -- the Avoral, who is the bird-man, and the Leonal, who is the lion-man. I actually kind of like the face of the Avoral here, where it's still humanoid, but the shape of the head, with the very bird-like eyes and the cowl of feathers, really mark it as something different. Kind of a shame that the description doesn't actually tell us what makes the Guardinals so unique compared to Angels and Archons, though... we get a lot of description on the demon/devil/yugoloth differences, but the lawful good races are just kinda there. 

Inevitable

At least Mechanus's inhabitants get a whole lot more role! The Inevitable actually showed up in one of the 5E books we covered before in the Marut (the right side of this picture), but I do like the rather long bit here that describes the Inevitables. They are mechanical constructs whose sole aim is to enforce the natural laws of the universe... a bit of a tall order, honestly, considering how monumentally fucked-up the average D&D world tends to be. The Inevitables are created for a specific mission, and they hunt down those who transgress and mete out punishment. Being robots, they are single-minded in hunting down their prey, like a Terminator angel. It's honestly very interesting when you think about it -- not just as part of a D&D campaign, but as a monster concept in general. Being lawful neutral, they actually make it out of their way to minimize civilian casualties, though accomplices to crime are fair game.

The red-robed one in the middle is the Kolyarut, who are described as 'the ultimate enforcement clause in a contract', and will mete out judgment to whose who break oaths and bargains. So anything from unscrupulous merchants to army deserters, though they're smart enough to not hunt down those who break oaths against their will, accidentally, or oaths that are clearly not that serious. They also act as a bit of a lawyer, studying and willing to discuss the terms of the oath to understand it. This is actually the flavour used for 5E's Maruts. Maruts (right the one with a helm) in 3.5E are the Inevitable of Death, and specifically hunt down those who break the rule of death, so like, liches and stuff. The Zelekhut is the coolest visually, looking like a JoJo Stand with that face and those details. It's a bit hard to see since the Kolyarut blocks a part of it, but the Zelekhut is a centaur with massive golden wings, and I love the exposed inner workings of its body. Oh, and it's got two deployable spiky chains, as if it needs to be even more badass. The Zelekhut's perhaps the least interesting in terms of its cause, though; it just hunts those who flee justice. 

Krenshar
Huh, okay, didn't expect to see a weirdo-animal so soon. The Krenshar is noted to be a combination of a wolf and hyena, but I don't think any wolf or hyena has that frankly pretty gruesome flayed-dog-skull face. This, by the way, is not always the case -- the Krenshar has 'extremely flexible skin' on its face, and while hunting prey, it can pull back the skin to expose its inner muscles while screeching like a demon. Sort of like a far, far more grotesque frilled lizard or something. Kind of underwhelming compared to something like the Howler or Death Dog or Jaculi, honestly, I kinda wished that there's something more to this creature. 

Lillend
I actually thought that the Lillend shows up a bit more often, but I guess that's just because I owned the 3.5E Monster Manual first and I just thought that a lot of the monsters here are staples in D&D. The Lillend is a sky-mermaid, basically, having the upper body of a human, giant colourful bird-wings and the lower body of a snake. Or, well, a couatl, probably. Native chaotic-good extraplanar visitors, Lillends are essentially angels that focus on artistic expression, loving music and art and valuing them above everything else. Despite being artists, Lillends are apparently infamous for holding grudges, particularly against those who treat artists poorly. Again, kind of fun -- it's these sort of good or neutral extraplanar beings with a theme that's beyond just 'I enforce justice'. The Lillends can still behave as a pretty fun ally or antagonist depending on your story, but the fact that it's got a certain gimmick -- its love for artwork and beauty (including natural beauty, so you can make them a dryad stand-in) means that monsters like the Lillend or the Inevitables end up feeling so much more unique. 

Mohrg
One thing I particularly like about 3.5E is how ridiculous the sheer amount of random undead variants are. We've got a lot more (and some that are over-the-top in how ridiculously gruesome they are) in the side-books that I may or may not cover here, but the Mohrg here is a creature I like. It's just a skeleton, but with a mass of purple writhing viscera. It's not intestines or organs, though, which was my first thought, but some sort of bizarre worm-like colony of sorts. Most notable are the barbed worm-heads that you can see on its arms and mouth. There's no real explanation to what this mass of purple worms are other than it's part of the Mohrg, and the Mohrg itself has the origin of 'animated corpses of mass murderers who didn't atone for their crimes'. I guess it's just a mutated zombie, then? In addition to having worm-tentacles, Mohrgs can make those they kill into zombie minions. 

Nightshade: Nightcrawler & Nightwing
we covered the Nightwalker in one of the 5E books, but in 3.5E's Monster Manual, the Nightwalker is just one of various kinds of a species of powerful undead called the Nightshade. Nightshades are noted to be particularly powerful undead that has an aura of death around them, and have an aversion to sunlight. In an addition to the humanoid Nightwalker, 3.5E describes two additional variants. The Nightcrawler, who is a giant purple worm shaped shadow, and the Nightwing, who is a giant bat. Not too much to talk about, actually, their entries mostly describe their combat capabilities. 

Phantom Fungus

Okay, when I first saw 'Phantom Fungus', I thought we'd get a giant mushroom monster. Or a ghostly carpet of mould. Or something. I didn't expect... well, this. It's very cool, though! I like that it's an angry eyeless fang supported on four pillar-like mushy legs, and then bordering its maw are several sets of... I'm not even sure what those are, I guess something like tube fungi? I don't think they grow arranged in cylinders, though. And they each have these creepy tongues that end in hooks! Pretty bizarre. The description is honestly pretty interesting, too. Like its name implies, the Phantom Fungus is invisible. That's right, this weird four-legged thing that looks like the Otyugh's far cousin is invisible, and I love the description of how its prey can hear its squelching footsteps and the mouldy odour, but can't see the creature until it's dead. An odd but very welcome mushroom mosnter. 

 

Phasm
Huh! This aberration     here is... okay, it's basically just a giant amoeba, isn't it? Like, an amorphous blob with little organelle-looking things inside? D&D has never been a stranger to blob monsters, but I think this is the most explicit that creature inspired by a unicellular organism. It's actually sentient, and I quote, "usually leads a life of exploration, hedonism or philosophical contemplation". Okay, Phasm, that wasn't what I expected from a giant amoeba! It's also a shapeshifter that has no real material needs, and is extremely unpredictable on whether it will parley, attack or try to befriend you. I like this creature a lot more now. I like that it's not just an amoeba, but a philosophical amoeba. 

Rast

Another extraplanar creature, the Rast here is native to the elemental plane of fire. And I really like that 3.5E's elemental plane creatures are just so weird. I'm still not entirely sure what's going on here. It's got the head of a goblin-esque monster with a massive underbite, it tapers down into a chicken-like body, and it's got around a dozen wacky spider-like legs. It's not really arranged like a spider or a crab, though, and looks a lot more haphazard. It's just a massive glutton, apparently, and the Monster Manual notes that despite looking like a hideous organic monster of sorts, it's actually a creature of ash and cinder. Bizarre! I like him. 

Ravid
Yet another extraplanar creature, the Ravids hail from the Positive Energy Plane, this one is kinda weird. It's just a floating serpentine-dragon creature, but it's got just one clawed hand jutting out from his spine. I'm not sure why it's so weird, it's just a slightly weird arrangement of anatomy, but... it kinda feels kinda weird. Being a creature of Positive Energy, the Ravids move around and cause the animation of objects around them. I kinda feel like they could've explained a bit more about its behaviour or anatomy, but the idea of this weird hovering snake that roams around leaving a trail of living shoes and trashcans that dance around behind it is kinda neat. 

Shocker Lizard
A surprisingly mundane name, and one with a simple concept. The Shocker Lizard is a lizard that shocks people! It doesn't actually look like any real-life lizard or dinosaur, but more of a random combination of features. And I like it. It's got a theropod-esque body arrangement, but that head looks almost like a fanged frog. And, of course, it's got a pair of horns. I like it! It's cute. Apparently those horns and the rigid tail are where it generates electricity. It's kinda cute! I like this guy, it's like a Pokemon. I could totally see this being like just a regular creature that runs around in forests or as a wizard's familiar or something. 

Spider Eater

Oh okay what is this? This is cool! It's not really just a giant hornet or anything, but more like the most monstrous, nightmarish insect you could think of. The body is bulbous and looks almost tumorous, the head looks like an entire spider's head grafted onto a chitinous, armour-like plate, the mandibles are pretty long... the more you look at this guy, the weirder he is. giant fish-fin-like wings? And the Spider Eater's only got a single pair of legs, jutting out of his thorax with bird-like talons. That rear 'leg' is actually its stinger, but it's jointed like a bug leg. Bizarre! Oh, and as its name implies, the Spider Eater lays eggs parasitically in giant spiders -- except it's way, way grosser looking compared to real-life parasitic wasps. The Spider Eater is noted to be valued especially as flying steeds. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be? You could ride around on gyphons or giant bats, or you can ride around on this hornet-wasp-bat chimera. Very cool! 

Grig & Nixie

Sprites in 3.5E are a type of tiny reclusive fey that includes Grigs, Nixies and Pixies. Both Sprites and Pixies are different creatures in 5E and 4E, so we'll talk about Grigs and Nixies now. Grigs are seen here on the bottom left, where they are cricket-centaur fairies. I love how silly this is! The Grig has long antennae out of his hair, and he plays off the whole idea that little fairies are like insect-people... except instead of just tiny people with wings, they've got more bug anatomy. Neat! They're mischievous and apparently like to prank larger humanoids. Nixies, meanwhile, are slightly larger than Grigs and Pixies (pixies are similar to 5E Sprites, I think) and they hang out and inhabit lakes, essentially being tiny nymphs. 

Tendriculos

I approve of giant weird plant monsters, and Tendriculos here is a giant tendril monster! It's just a mass of leaves, branches and other detritus, arranged vaguely into a giant body with a maw and two whip-like arms. I like the little thin vines that seem to be supporting this thing. I really don't have much to say here other than I appreciate that between Battlebriars, Phantom Fungi and Tendriculos, we've got a bunch of weird plant-based monsters that aren't humanoid in shape. This guy's gimmick is that it can regenerate its plant-matter body very quickly,.. but only after it eats a whole bunch of meat. Okay!

Thoqqua

One of the fun additions from the original 1986 Fiend Folio (I really need to cover that book someday) is the Thoqqua, reimagined here with a head that's a glowing molten-metal spear head. I like that it's got a bunch of eyes around the molten-lava flesh. The Thoqqua is a burrowing worm that moves quickly through rock and is native to the Fire Plane and Earth Panes, and it just moves through the rock looking for minerals to eat. Nothing too impressive, but I do like the idea. 

Tojanida

AND THEN THERE IS THIS GUY. I remember this guy! Look at him. Look at this creature. Look at this mutant turtle monster and appreciate it. Instead of flippers, it has wings. Instead of a regular head and tail, it's head pops out of his dorsal plate and the mouth runs down its spine vertically like a venus fly-trap, and it's got little slug eyes. One claw juts out from the bottom-front end of its body, and one claw juts up from the rear-top end of its body. Looks at this bizarre mutant turtle. This one is a creature that comes from the Elemental Plane of Water, and it can swap around its limbs by retracting it and poking it out of any hole. It's also sentient, described as 'loquacious' about food. Actually not one I like particularly much, but still, what a bizarre monster!

Yrthak
Our last monster in the 3.5E bestiary that we haven't covered before is the Yrthak. I remember fighting one of these and it's such a weirdo! It's like, a pterodactyl but with a weird back-fin... and then you look at its head and realize that in addition to being jagged and stuff, it's got a giant drill-shaped unicorn horn and no eyes. The Yrthak's whole deal is that it's basically an apex predator that hunts with echolocation from its tongue... and can also unleash sonic-boom attacks from its horn. That's it, that's all the Yrthak is. It's a blind bat but also a dinosaur. I like this guy. 

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Well... that's the 3.5E Monster Manual I. It's been fun, actually, it's just kind of a shame that sometimes you get huge paragraphs of talking about the lore and behaviour of these creatures, and sometimes it's just a description of their abilities. Still, if I remember thing about 3.5E it's that there's a huge variety of monsters spread across its many, many sourcebooks. And honestly I really do enjoy looking through this Monster Manual the most for the simple fact that there's a lot of creatures here. 

Anyway, with the 4E and 3.5E base Monster Manuals done (and it was fast, since 90% of both books were covered in various 5E books), next up will be a series of articles on the Fiend Folio, where I'll finally sit down and dissect the original Fiend Folio and its large, large amount of bizarreness within!