Monster Manual II Art Gallery!

[Urbanmech]

*drools*

What a great collection of creatures! I love the inclusion of the Spelljammer and Dark Sun critters.

Waiting is hard.

 

[Aaron L]

Seeing all the Athasian creatures is cool.

 

[Nightfall]

Re: Monsters From Beyond

I don't know if I'm at liberty to say which ones did/did not get picked up (Its a Saturday, and I'm just in the office working on yet another deadline). Besides, speculation is so much more fun. I can speak to the Ragewind and Famine Spirit only because they are my contributions (I did a lot of nasty undead for this volume).

Jeff G.

Alright Jeff. I understand. I was just hoping the NDA on this didn't exclude you from telling us that. That said, I'll keep speculating. At least until I get the book and compare it and the Creature Collections ones.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi all!

I must say the book looks great, but I am a little chagrinned at WotC releasing the artwork for these books; both before its release and in its entirety*. It sort of takes away from the antcipation of opening the book the first time.

*Or almost all? (I didn't notice an illustration for the Effigy monster)

However, personally I am very happy with the artwork (Wayne Reynolds seems to have contributed at least 10%) - lots of great illustrations in there from a number of artists though.

It will be interesting to see how they detail the Malebranche (Horned Devil) - since that technically became the Cornugon. Also of note is that it looks to be wearing a saddle in the illustration...?

 

[Tiefling]

I can barely stand even 10% Wayne Reynolds. The other stuff is pretty good, though.

 

[thundershot]

Sylph!! YES!! Neogi!

The only thing I'm really really disappointed with is the lack of Giff. Just because gunpowder isn't a normal part of D&D shouldn't mean they get excluded. I mean, sure, it's an option, but so are all of the monsters... I can only hope that Giff get included in a D&D Age of Steam type book...

As for reprinting creatures from other sources. This is one of the BEST things, IMO, even though I own most of the books they're from. I HATE having to look through umpteen books to find a monster. Having them collected makes it easier. I really miss the old Monster Annuals... but I'm sure I'm in the minority.


Whee!

Chris

 

[ReignofGeekaos]

Is it just me or does there seem to be a large amount of Chainmail creatures in the book?

 

[rounser]

The contents of this book looks a lot more "AD&D" than the original MM (which felt just plain "wrong" to me with monsters such as chuul, ravid, krenshar, digester, ethereal filcher, delver, choker, athach, rast, destrachan, howler, gray render, yrthak, tojanida....mmmm, I think the cthulhu/planescape aesthetic bias of the core designers was showing through there to the detriment of the game's classic D&D feel). Between this and the ToH, 3E is finally catching up with it's predecessors in the monster stakes in book form.

Ahhh....

 

[kenjib]

Hmm...that "water elemental weird" is not a water weird. It's not slated for the Tome of Horros either. Ah well, you can't win 'em all. I think my favorite picture is the one of the Cloud Ray. I don't think I'd ever use a creature like that but I like the picture alot.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I thought it was the Malbranche that became the Cornugon eventually. Looks like I'm correct on that. That leaves the Krocrachon (a cockroach like Devil that works as a torturer and surgeon) the only Baatezu Devil from previous editions that hasn't been converted yet, now that we finally have the Amnizu/Styx Devil.