While leafing through my copy, making lists of creatures suitable for my Planet Algol campaign, I noticed that there are a disproportionate amount of monsters in this book that implant eggs in their victims, each with different specific rules regarding incubation periods, symptoms, larva, hit point loss, death, cures, etc. Combined with the raw, leprous, great artwork in this tome, and the cyclopian orcs of their version of the Games Worshop edition of Basic D&D, I really get the impression that the oldschool UK D&D crowd were a weird bunch, in a totally awesome way.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
A Quick Observation Regarding the AD&D Fiend Folio
While leafing through my copy, making lists of creatures suitable for my Planet Algol campaign, I noticed that there are a disproportionate amount of monsters in this book that implant eggs in their victims, each with different specific rules regarding incubation periods, symptoms, larva, hit point loss, death, cures, etc. Combined with the raw, leprous, great artwork in this tome, and the cyclopian orcs of their version of the Games Worshop edition of Basic D&D, I really get the impression that the oldschool UK D&D crowd were a weird bunch, in a totally awesome way.
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Well, bear in mind that Alien had come out only a couple of years before the first of these articles appeared in White Dwarf.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Charles Stross, the science fiction writer, has some work in the Fiend Folio.
ReplyDeleteGith* are Charlie's, IIRC.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember egg-laying flesh-eaters. I remember eighteen different kinds of skeleton variants, and of course everyone's favorite Lawful Good (the only monster of that alignment in FF!), the Flumph.
Man, Flumphs kick ass.
Stross created the Slaad, and possibly the Death Knight?
ReplyDeleteSlaad!
Sadly the fearsome Slaad are 'product identity' and not part of the open gaming license. Fortunately, the daals are strangely similar.
ReplyDeleteSort of off topic, but in his novel Accelerando there is a sentient pyramid scheme. I've always thought that could make for a very confusing NPC in a science fantasy game.
While the Fiend Folio has a large number of minor freaks, I would incorporate the Githyanki and Githzerai into your game. A civil war between a split race, both sides hiring mercenaries and raiders of every stripe, that just adds to the stew.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed your fondness for the "astral" race ancinetvaults. I like the conception of the gith races not getting their hands dirty, just hiring mercenaries to kill each other...
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the gith races, both githyanki and githzerai and I find them to be one of the best races for gonzo (A)D&D. Psychotic, tortured souls that you almost cannot blame for being evil (githyanki) or just weird (the githzerai are monks that live in Limbo?).
ReplyDeleteYears back I converted them to RIFTS for all out fun and I enjoyed the 3.5 Incursion adventure.
The two sorcerers bind the synthetic prostitute and hide Gan-ron's body in a brass trunk.
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