Best Non-Core Monster Books

[GregoryOatmeal]

Everyone likes a good list post. Here's another one for you guys.

What are your favorite monster-encyclopedias? I'm talking monster manuals that are fun to peruse for ideas on a Tuesday night. Monster books that are just good fun reads on their own right. Any edition will do. I imagine there's probably even some good monster-books that aren't in the realm of gaming.

If it's D&D (or D&D style) lets stay away from the core books, as they're essentially almost all the same content. I'm looking for ideas beyond the usual orcs, goblins and zombies.

My list is (in no particular order)

1) Dark Sun 4E Creature Compendium - If you want to run 4E Dark Sun put your original MM in the closet because this is all you need. Using monsters from any other source (except maybe scorpions and gnolls and a few others) would just dilute the distinct flavor of the campaign setting. Personally I found the 4E books gave me a better grasp of the setting than the 2E books. It was easier for me to "get" what the art was portraying and translate the stat blocks into fleshed out creatures. YMMV of course.

2) Planescape Monstrous Compendiums (all 3) - TSR populated the planes with interesting creatures - these books are just overflowing with creativity and originality. Unlike other monster manuals it feels like many of the creatures are designed for player-interaction rather than combat. Since their functionality seems geared towards populating the planes rather than filling combat sessions I find these books to be incredibly useful when not playing AD&D 2E. The distinct and simple art style really does justice to all their wild ideas.

3) Pathfinder Bestiary 2 - In terms of production values, quantity and quality of monsters this is a huge step up from any second Monster Manual WOTC/TSR ever produced (no disrespect to the original AD&D MM2). WOTC seems to be treading water with variants of trolls and reprints of existing monsters from previous editions like Myconids. Meanwhile Paizo is filling big, beautiful books with original monsters. Great value.

Post as many as you feel merit a place here.

 

[Aeolius]

This gets as much use as any Monster Manual, for my game:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-American-Museum-Natural-History/dp/B0058M63HE/ref=pd_sim_b_2"]OCEAN[/ame]

 

[IronWolf]

The Tome of Horrors: Complete

 

[DMH]

Both Iron Kingdom Monsternomicons, Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, Creature Weekly series, the Monstrous Manual, both Dark Sun MCs, both Spelljammer MCs and the Mystara MC.

For non D&D/d20, Mechanical Dream's Wilderness Bestiary and GURPS Space (the alien design section).

For non game books, After Man, The New Dinosaurs, Man After Man, The Snouters, The World of Kong and Wildlife of Star Wars.

 

[frankthedm]

Here is a book I would recommend for a non game monster book.

The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island: A must read for any Game Master planning on sending the players to a lost world.

"The World Of Kong: A Natural History Of Skull Island is an art book filled with design and concept work from the people at Weta Workshop for Peter Jackson's film King Kong. Presented as if Skull Island really existed, the book shows dozens of animals created for the Skull Island sequences, few of which actually appeared in the final film. Each creature has a name (usually given in Latin), a translation of its name, a general size listing, and a few paragraphs of descriptive text. Material perfect for adaptation into the game system of your choice!"

Quote taken from this website. It converted the critters to the Hero system. Creatures from The World of Kong

 

[Ed_Laprade]

The All The World's Monsters series. Rather outdated perhaps, but full of weird goodies.

 

[Shemeska]

1) All three Planescape Monstrous Compendiums. So many classic, awesome, and downright bizarre monsters came out of these books it's scary. Some of TSR's best material there, including the first entries on the eladrin (the CG celestials, not the 4e elves), the guardinals, the rilmani, and all the inner planes stuff illustrated by Jeff Miracola in the PSMC3. Great stuff.

2) Paranormal Animals of North America (Shadowrun). By Nigel Findley. Need I say more? His two volumes in the Van Richten's Guides series for 2e Ravenloft were also top notch. I'm a fan.

3) Paizo's various monster volumes in the X Revisited books. Classic Monsters, Classic Horrors, Dungeon Denizens, Undead, Mythical Monsters, Giants, etc. I might be biased since I've worked on a pair of books in the line, but the first one cashed in at the Ennies and has gotten a metric ton of positive comments online. I love the format they've got going there, and they've routinely put fresh, sometimes wierd twists on the various monsters. They made the old 1e Dire Corbie awesome for crying out loud

 

[Hand of Evil]

Iron Kingdoms: Monsternomicon - great monster book

 

[Desdichado]

If it's D&D (or D&D style) lets stay away from the core books, as they're essentially almost all the same content. I'm looking for ideas beyond the usual orcs, goblins and zombies.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by core. That word became a bit of a loaded word when 4e declared that everything was core. By the same token, is an older edition (or Pathfinder) basic Monster Manual or Bestiary 1 core but 2 (or higher) not? I think that's a problematic designation.

Personally, I get the most use out of the SRD. Even though I prefer to use d20 Past as my rulebase rather than 3.5, I turn to the 3.5 SRD (or Monster Manual) more often than I turn to the d20 Modern or Menace Manual books.

Most used aside, my favorite monster books are the two Monsternomicons by Privateer Press. There are a few guys in there that are Iron Kingdoms specific, but not many. And frankly, even those that are are really cool. I find these books incredibly fun just to read, and I think their take on the concept of some of the humanoids is just plain better than anything D&D has done officially. In fact, I've pretty much decided a long time ago that the description of the Skorne empire is what hobgoblins should be, and for that matter, I'm really starting to lean towards using either the tharn or the trollkin (or both) as what the concept of orcs should be. I also completely love the idea of dragons in the Monsternomicons.

For those of the rest of you who are fans; I never updated my first Monsternomicon from the 3e version to the 3.5 version. Is there any value in me doing so, or does it just change a few stats and CRs and otherwise provide all the same content? I don't have any problem using them as is, though. I can convert skill on the fly, and I only ever used CR as a very rough gauge of challenge anyway.

Paizo's various monster volumes in the X Revisited books. Classic Monsters, Classic Horrors, Dungeon Denizens, Undead, Mythical Monsters, Giants, etc. I might be biased since I've worked on a pair of books in the line, but the first one cashed in at the Ennies and has gotten a metric ton of positive comments online. I love the format they've got going there, and they've routinely put fresh, sometimes wierd twists on the various monsters. They made the old 1e Dire Corbie awesome for crying out loud

That's curious. I found that they mostly further entrenched the already pretty bog-standard D&D interpretation of the monsters and rarely put fresh or weird twists on much of anything. In fact, I had hoped that they would put more of a fresh twist on these monsters, thus justifying the "revisited" notion implied by the title, but was rather disappointed to find them rarely actually revisisted and rather simply restated and reprinted in mostly the same format and conception that we've always had. Not that they're not a decent series of books, but it really wasn't what it was advertised to be, at least not in my opinion. The best of the bunch, IMO, is Classic Horrors Revisited, but that may be because I just like horror tropes quite a bit. The classic horrors were presented very classically--not exactly revisisted.

Other monster books that I've really enjoyed reading weren't the typical monster catalog books; stuff like the 3.5 era Drow of the Underdark or Lords of Madness. The Draconomicon was quite good, but sadly always makes me wish that it was as cool as the relatively much briefer description of dragons in Monsternomicon. Liber Mortis, on the other hand, I found quite disappointing. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss was probably my favorite of this series. Brilliant and classic at the same time. The other Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells had some interesting material, but the extended in-joke or metaphor (I'm not sure which) of hell as fantasy Office Space didn't really work for me after a while.

The monster book after that which is most likely to be used and read here and there in my house is Green Ronin's Book of Fiends. There's a lot of really nasty critters in there, and a lot of stuff that's just kind of fun to read about and then cackle while petting my cat in an evil GM Overlord kind of fashion.

 

[kitsune9]

Iron Kingdoms: Monsternomicon - great monster book

I'll have to second this. I really loved the Monsternomicon I and II books. IK is about my favorite setting out there.