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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9061023" data-attributes="member: 8461">Our next MC is one that tries to resolve a paradox which goes to the heart of its campaign world: what's special and unique about a setting whose claim to fame is that it typifies the default (or dare I say, generic) characteristics of the game it's made for?Yes, it's time to take a look at <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17409/MC5-Monstrous-Compendium-Greyhawk-Adventures-Appendix-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">MC5 Monstrous Compendium Greyhawk Appendix</a>.Greyhawk was one of those settings which, looking back now, I think I admired more than I actually liked. Or at least, that was how I felt at the time; now that I have a much greater knowledge of – and respect for – the game's history, I'd like to say that I have a much greater appreciation of the setting. But at the time, most of what I knew of it was its vaunted history as the first campaign world (learning much later that Blackmoor would contest that claim, making it rather pointed how Greyhawk subsumed Blackmoor into its setting), and that it was the home world of those many mages whose names were among the spells in the PHB, such as tenser's transformation and bigby's interposing hand.I was impressed by that, and I recall spending quite a few years trying to find a copy of <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17399/From-the-Ashes-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">From the Ashes</a> that was both complete and affordable. But in my early years with D&D, it wasn't really enough to match how taken I was with the brutal savagery of Athas, the expansive weirdness of Planescape (which had just come out), and the misty horrors of Ravenloft. As it is, I suspect that I bought this mostly because I was already aware that the unified AD&D multiverse meant that creatures in one world could appear in another (I've mentioned it before, but I'll reiterate how back then, I felt that buying supplements for a particular setting was like buying tires before purchasing the car; thankfully, I made myself get over that fast, though I suspect that the whole "multiverse" angle helped with that).So what can be said specifically about the monsters of MC5?Well, at the risk of turning this into a common refrain for these look-backs, there are quite a few duds here. Though to be fair, there are apparently quite a few generic monsters from AD&D 1E being shuffled in here. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely like crypt things (these guys split the party whether the characters want to or not!), hook horrors (maybe it's just me, but they've always felt like the sort of weird monsters the Underdark should have), grells (freaking brain-tentacle-beak monsters that seem properly Lovecraftian without being cosmic or existentialist), scarecrows (though having them be constructs never sat quite right with me; those things should either be undead or some kind of wicked fey), and a bunch of others that are in this volume, but they're just not Greyhawk in feel.The problem is that, as noted before, "Greyhawk in feel" isn't really distinct from "D&D in feel."And yet, this book does manage to have several monsters that evoke this particular campaign world. I mean, just look at the Greyhawk dragon; it's practically a living billboard for the setting (although I seem to recall it was later said to be the "steel dragon" on other worlds). There are grugach elves and valley elves, both unique to Oerth, and while it wouldn't happen for decades, the Son of Kyuss eventually built up to its own adventure path in Dungeon magazine (which was nominally set on Oerth, even if it was technically generic, which is actually appropriate since that monster came from the AD&D MM2). The crystalmist has an entire mountain range named after it (or vice versa, I confess I'm not entirely clear which came first). And of course, slow shadows (which always made me snicker; I know that they were named for how they hit you with an effect like a slow spell, but it still always made me think that these were the shadows who had to repeat their freshman year) are from <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17393/WG5-Mordenkainens-Fantastic-Adventure-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">MG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure</a>, of which my copy bearing Gary's autograph still sits proudly on my shelves.But make no mistake, there are still a lot of monsters here which made no impression either on me personally or on the game as a whole. Like, does anyone remember the igundi? It's basically a lizardman who wraps themselves in an illusion of the person you most desire, and uses that to lure you in and eat you, which is rather lame; at least the succubus actually put out. Spriggans always felt like they wanted to be to gnomes what drow are to elves, but they never quite pulled it off (probably because gnomes were never that cool to anyone, hence why they were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqFPujRZWo" target="_blank">made into a monster</a> in 4E); also why are they called out as being "giant-kin" here? Beastmen are basically cavemen except furry and highly magic-resistant. The horgar seems like a poor man's purple worm. The death watch beetle is a TPK waiting to happen (everyone within thirty feet, save vs. death magic or die; at least it can only do it once every couple of hours). Even the gremlins are just "meh."To a large extent, I think that a lot of this is symptomatic of Greyhawk itself. The setting's footprint has always been more meta-contextual (i.e. been more about the history of TSR, Gygax, and D&D) than in-character. While virtually all of the game's most classic adventures have been set there, they told us very little about the setting as a setting. Sure, we all picked up bits from modules such as <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17068/T14-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil</a> and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17066/S4-The-Lost-Caverns-of-Tsojcanth-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth</a>, among others, but they always felt like very tiny pieces of a puzzle that wasn't ever really put together.And that was much truer at the beginning of the 90s than it is today. Sure, the <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17392/World-of-Greyhawk-Fantasy-Game-Setting-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">World of Greyhawk</a> had been released twice (once as a folio, then as a boxed set) in the early 80s, and AD&D 2E saw the fairly quick release of <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17407/Greyhawk-Adventures-1e-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Greyhawk Adventures</a> (which was sort of a hybrid 1E/2E book), <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224789/The-City-of-Greyhawk-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">The City of Greyhawk</a>, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17400/Greyhawk-Wars-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Greyhawk Wars</a>, and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17399/From-the-Ashes-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">From the Ashes</a> (the latter of which would kick off Carl Sargent's run of the setting, which today remains my favorite take on it)...but while each of these fleshed out the setting more, it all seemed to come too late and detail too little. The <a href="https://greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Flanaess" target="_blank">Flanaess</a> is a single sub-continent where all the action happens; it's like presenting a "World of Earth" setting that's stubbornly focused on India; at some point, the single sub-continent starts to feel provincial.To be fair, 3E tried to fix that with its Chainmail skirmish game (no relation to Gygax's fantasy rulebook of the same name from a few decades prior) in the early days of 3E, but by then it was already too late.All of which is to say that MC5 does manage to encapsulate the spirit of Greyhawk, but does so in a way that highlights the setting's deficiencies more than its strengths. In a way, this book is the perfect microcosm of the tragedy of Greyhawk, in that it has several highlights which ultimately aren't enough to carry it to lasting glory. Shadow dragons and swordwraiths can't stand up to page after page of bookas, grungs, needlemen, and yet more giant versions of normal creatures: iguanas, turtles, crows, dragonflies, etc. It all just-...wait, this is the product that gave us AD&D 2E stats for the grippli? Quite possibly the cutest little monster in all of D&D?<img src="http://dedpihto.narod.ru/games/Monsters1/grippli.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Oh my gosh, he's so adorable! Look at him with that tiny little sword and his "grr, I'm fierce!" expression! Even his name sounds like something Mister Rogers came up with!Forget what I said before: MC5 is indispensible to your AD&D 2E game.Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</blockquote>

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