So far, we've run into quite a few MCs that were totally or near-totally devoted to updating AD&D 1E monsters to the game's Second Edition. Now, with MC7 have a lineup of all-new monsters – courtesy of its being for Spelljammer, which originated with 2E – you might have thought that we were done with MCs devoted to conversions.
But there's one more to go, covering perhaps the single largest gap in monster coverage outside of the first two Monstrous Compendia. That's right, it's time for
M8 Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix. Or, as I like to call it, "Planescape Minus Planescape." (Yes, that's a
Garfield Minus Garfield joke.)
You'll notice that we once again have an MC appendix that's titled in such a way that it doesn't actually reference a campaign setting, instead focusing on an area of the game world (i.e. the Outer Planes) the same way MC6 did. That said, there's a bit of an asterisk to that, which is that this MC would be superseded entirely a couple years down the road when the Planescape setting came out. While it's not
quite the same in what it covers, the first Planescape MC is effectively the same as this one, except with a lot more Tony DiTerlizzi (and toned-down XP values).
In that regard, I can't help but look at this as being perhaps the single most superfluous MC, because even before the first Planescape monster book made this near-totally obsolete, a lot of its most notable monsters got reprinted in the
Monstrous Manual. Not all of them, by a longshot, but when I think of mariliths or pit fiends, what I picture are colorized versions of the Tom Baxa art, rather than DiTerlizzi's evocative illustrations.
As it was, I picked this one up several years ago as part of my push to finish collecting all of the AD&D 2E MCs in print. While I held out a lot of hope that there'd be a forgotten monster in here that was never reprinted anywhere else, from what I can tell that's not the case. While there are several creatures in here that didn't make it into any of the Planescape monstrous appendices, or even the
Monster Manual, I'm pretty certain that they all got reprinted somewhere (for instance, I seem to recall that the adamantite dragon saw new life in the
Planes of Conflict boxed set, while the zoveri was in
Planes of Law).
Of course, MC8 isn't exactly alone in that regard, as some of the
Monstrous Compendium Annual volumes will showcase when we get to them.
Okay, there's a
single exception, sort of: under the Animal Lord entry, the Cat Lord in this book is actually the predecessor of the Cat Lord found in the Planescape MC, the former being male and the latter being female. That would be something of a minor mystery that Planescape dangled in front of its fans, though I was never entirely certain what the answer was (I thought it had something to do with Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue stories, and I seem to recall something about the Egyptian goddess Bast being involved, but I never did put together all the pieces to that particular puzzle). But that is, so far as I'm aware, the only exception.
That said, Planescape didn't
quite steal all the thunder here, since this book – which predates it by three years – gets props for being the point of origin for a notable element that campaign would later build on. Sure, there's no Sigil, no Lady of Pain, and no one is calling anyone else "berk," but this is the first place you'll find mention of the Blood War, the eternal conflict between the
demons tanar'ri and
devils baatezu that eventually got
its own boxed set. The entire thing was a cool idea only somewhat undercut by the use of those alternative names for the classic agents of evil used to demonically bedevil PCs everywhere.
Now, leaving aside my coming up through the
Rules Cyclopedia era of BECMI, AD&D 2E was where I got started, and so when I saw those names in the
Monstrous Manual, I didn't know any better. Likewise, even when I eventually figured out what those names were placeholders for, it was after Planescape started batting around the idea of "sure,
mortals call them demons and devils, but this is what they call themselves. Berk." Given that I was eagerly taking in everything I could about the game's lore (2E being the golden era of lore, with its unified multiverse and voluminous product output), I accepted this without a second thought, and to this day don't really mind those alternative names...even if I can understand why a lot of people groan and roll their eyes when they hear them.
And while I suspect I'm revealing my own hypocrisy here, I can't really bring myself to care too much about the setting baggage attached to all of these planar monsters the way I did those in MC6. To my mind, that's because there's an important difference, which is that the planes are an omnipresent aspect of the setting's backdrop in a way that the Celestial Bureaucracy isn't. It doesn't really matter what campaign world you're from, the planes are out there
somewhere, which means that if a succubus or a nightmare appears, it's justified without necessarily altering the tone of your campaign the way an entirely new pantheon of gods (since gods are active and interventionist) would.
Of course, nowadays I'm a bit less sanguine to that idea, since there are tonal clashes with campaigns such as Dragonlance or Birthright, campaigns largely cut off from the planes such as Dark Sun or Ravenloft, and even people who might want to play under a different planar arrangement altogether. But even then, I can't help but think that the monsters here could still be squeezed in without much trouble at all; the idea of "monsters who dwell in the afterlife, but come cause trouble in the living world as well" strikes me as being universal in most fantasy games (even if the application varies widely).
So what can be said about the monsters here, specifically? Honestly, I'm not sure what I have to add that isn't readily apparent to any D&D aficionado.
Angels aasimon, baatezu, tanar'ri,
daemons yugoloths, and
demodands gehreleths are all fairly iconic creatures in D&D (even if not equally so). There are a lot of minor planar creatures that have considerably less prestige, but while they go to the general area of "the weirdness of the planes," I'm not sure how much they're notable even in that regard. I mean, don't get me wrong, the githyanki and githzerai are not to be overlooked lightly (I swear, the "Incursion" campaign in
Dragon/
Dungeon/
Polyhedron back at the beginning of 3.5 never got its due), but for the most part, no one misses the vaporighu or the moon dog.
Though I do still think the slaad are pretty cool...which reminds me, why did the modrons get the shaft, here? I mean, I'm glad Planescape put them right there in the
Planescape Campaign Setting, but they, the eladrin (before 4E redefined them as super-elves), and the guardinals all got passed over pretty hard...well, maybe not those last two, since I'm pretty sure they hadn't existed in AD&D 1E, but even so!
Overall, its a sad truth that MC8 is the monster book whose legacy is that it largely served as a stopgap measure. Released as a late update for monsters that were popular with gamers but abhorred by the "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons" crowd, its accomplishments were hijacked by Planescape a few years later, leaving it with no lasting legacy of its own besides introducing the Blood War.
Ultimately, the
Outer Planes Appendix got plane-shifted out of the spotlight, and never regained it.
Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.
