Demetrios1453
Legend
So, having spent a few hours holding VgtM lovingly in my hands, having scanned the entire book and read a fair amount of it, here are my impressions so far:
The limited edition cover is very nice. I went into my FLGS a bit conflicted on which of the covers I would get - but they took the choice away from me by only having the limited edition cover! Also, they had apparently sold loads of them over the course of the day and I was told I was lucky to even get one as they only had three left when I got there (which is excellent news if D&D books can sell like hotcakes!). Having read the introduction to Chapter 1, which basically states they plan to publish more books in this format, I'm assuming that we'll see more "Volo's Guide to..." books in the future, presumably with special covers as well so this one won't stand out so much on the shelf...
For those of you worried about the "voice" of the book, that it will be too much done in the jokey banter style of the introduction, don't worry. While there are periodic amusing side notes by Volo and Elminster, they are pretty unobtrusive, no more so than the little notes that were in the Monster Manual. The main text of the book is pretty much in your typical sober narrative voice. Also, it's not excessively Forgotten Realms oriented. There are bits here and there which refer to the setting, but most of those are in sidebars. The biggest bit in the actual text that is FR-centric would be the discussion of the ancient giant empire of Ostoria and its fall, but, again, a sidebar explains how to adapt the story to any game world. In fact, the language is so setting-neutral that the yuan-ti section that gives the history of the race doesn't name any names and only vaguely resembles the history of the yuan-ti in Chult region of Faerun (and, although FR-specific gods are mentioned for the yuan-ti, a sidebar gives alternatives for deities in other settings).
Chapter 1 covers nine types of monsters in depth: beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti. Now, since I own books all the way back to 2nd Edition in my collection, some of what was said had been brought up before, but several sections (most notably the hags and goblinoids) were virtually all new stuff even to an long-term gamer like myself. And all the sections had substantial amounts of new ideas and spins on old ideas that I hadn't seen before. I really can't praise the hag section enough - it took a group of monsters I had never really done much with or even thought much about and made them feel fresh and alive, enough so that I really want to put them into my games now.
Obviously, given that I haven't read through everything yet, I can't go into to much detail on everything, but here are a few things I did notice in the chapter:
Beholder reproduction has been changed - offspring used to bud off parent beholders, but now they simply come into existence next to their parents while the latter are dreaming (Volo being an unreliable narrator, or the fact that beholder reproduction probably wasn't a subject that had been studied up close and personal before, can explain the discrepancy).
Spelljamming is described in all but name in the mind flayer section, and later in the neogi entry in Chapter 3. Both races are described as having ships that can fly through the air, between different worlds, and even between planes. This is interesting fluff for new players, but any long term player will read the descriptions and nod sagely at what is actually being described.
The various sections go into quite some detail on the monstrous deities for the various races, often in more detail than has been seen since 2e's Monster Mythology, and in some cases even moreso. The goblinoid pantheon especially has a lot of interesting new information on it (Maglubiyet subdued all three separate goblinoid racial pantheons? Hruggek and Grankhul are brothers?). Both mind flayer deities (Ilsensine and Maanzecorian) are mentioned, although they are seen more as powerful entities than actual worshiped deities. Also - apparently Maanzecorian got better after being killed by Orcus (this isn't stated in the book, but the deity is apparently alive and well now). The orc and giant pantheons are fully fleshed out, although they have had fairly full coverage in previous editions. Oddly missing is mention of the beholder deities and the hag deity Cegilune, and of course poor Gorellik goes unmentioned due to the 5e reimaging of gnolls.
The lair maps are all very nicely done, and could be dropped into just about any campaign. Gnolls are the only featured race not to get one, as they aren't the settling type.
There is a chart, if you want to be particularly evil towards your players, giving variant beholder eye abilities, with variations for each eye.
Beholder Personality Trait #8 "I sometimes fear I am a flawed abomination"
As player races seem to have drawn the most attention of the contents of the book so far, there isn't much in Chapter 2 that hasn't already been talked about. As there hasn't been much discussion on tabaxi or tritons so far, here are a few tidbits:
Tabaxi have charts for players to roll obsessions and quirks for their characters. In the Forgotten Realms, they also canonically come from Maztica, which I believe is the first time the region has been mentioned in 5e (there are, apparently, rumors of "strange happenings" going on there), and worship the Cat Lord (who is presumably the same as in previous editions, one of the Animal Lords of the Beastlands in the Outer Planes).
Tritons are portrayed as somewhat arrogant and clueless when it comes to the surface world. They've been so isolated fighting the evils of the deeps for so long that even merfolk and sea elves don't encounter them often, so they have little idea of the niceties of the cultures and politics of the surface world, all the while being mildly upset that no one gives them credit for (or even knows about) their millennia-long battles to keep the world safe...
Chapter 3 has all sorts of goodies when it comes to new or variant monsters, most of which I heartily approve of including. First of all, the most important bit of knowledge from that chapter is this: Quickling speed for 5e is 120 feet a round. I was extremely surprised and pleased to see xvarts updated (as would be most people, I suspect, who had to endure the screaming little smurfs in the Baldur's Gate CRPG), and their entry was even more of a delight - detailing how the race came to be and the history of their deity Raxivort (who was a hugely obscure deity in previous editions). As I have said elsewhere, the dinosaurs updated here filled every niche missing from MM entry, and even allows for some Jurassic Park styled rangers, should you want a velociraptor as your pet! The three kobold variants are perfect (fighter, trickster, and sorcerer); they will make any entry-level kobold-themed dungeon memorable. The orc variants are excellent and varied as well. And the NPC list in Appendix B is quite exhaustive, allowing for a lot of variety for just about all but the very highest-level games.
Conversely, I do have a few minor niggles for Chapter 3. I'm not sure that the grungs were the best use of the limited space for the book - they are very obscure monsters and their niche as low-level amphibious monsters might have been better used by giving us some bullywug variants, or even using the space for something entirely different. While most of the giant variants are fine, I would have liked to see a "ruler"-type variant for each race. While the variants for cloud, frost, and stone fit that description (or, in the case of frost, be reskinned with no real changes to do so), the hill, fire, and storm variants won't work in that manner (although, I have to say the fire giant dreadnought is pretty awesome, given all the flak given it when the art was revealed). Having SKT I can just work with NPCs from that book if I need some giant leader types, but it would have nice to have had them officially statted out. And, while there are some CR 10+ monsters, there aren't a lot - I was surprised that the NPCs top out at CR 12, which is also the CR of the Elder Brain (that's a serious drop from previous editions!). But for the most part I was very pleased with what was updated in Chapter 3, and the greatest disappointment is simply that there wasn't more! But, coming around full circle, given the statement in Chapter 1 that they plan to have more books like this, I'm not too unhappy about that since it's likely will have more updated monsters in the future. And if a book leaves you wanting more, that's certainly a good thing!
So, in conclusion, basically, if you like monsters, yes, buy this book!
The limited edition cover is very nice. I went into my FLGS a bit conflicted on which of the covers I would get - but they took the choice away from me by only having the limited edition cover! Also, they had apparently sold loads of them over the course of the day and I was told I was lucky to even get one as they only had three left when I got there (which is excellent news if D&D books can sell like hotcakes!). Having read the introduction to Chapter 1, which basically states they plan to publish more books in this format, I'm assuming that we'll see more "Volo's Guide to..." books in the future, presumably with special covers as well so this one won't stand out so much on the shelf...
For those of you worried about the "voice" of the book, that it will be too much done in the jokey banter style of the introduction, don't worry. While there are periodic amusing side notes by Volo and Elminster, they are pretty unobtrusive, no more so than the little notes that were in the Monster Manual. The main text of the book is pretty much in your typical sober narrative voice. Also, it's not excessively Forgotten Realms oriented. There are bits here and there which refer to the setting, but most of those are in sidebars. The biggest bit in the actual text that is FR-centric would be the discussion of the ancient giant empire of Ostoria and its fall, but, again, a sidebar explains how to adapt the story to any game world. In fact, the language is so setting-neutral that the yuan-ti section that gives the history of the race doesn't name any names and only vaguely resembles the history of the yuan-ti in Chult region of Faerun (and, although FR-specific gods are mentioned for the yuan-ti, a sidebar gives alternatives for deities in other settings).
Chapter 1 covers nine types of monsters in depth: beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti. Now, since I own books all the way back to 2nd Edition in my collection, some of what was said had been brought up before, but several sections (most notably the hags and goblinoids) were virtually all new stuff even to an long-term gamer like myself. And all the sections had substantial amounts of new ideas and spins on old ideas that I hadn't seen before. I really can't praise the hag section enough - it took a group of monsters I had never really done much with or even thought much about and made them feel fresh and alive, enough so that I really want to put them into my games now.
Obviously, given that I haven't read through everything yet, I can't go into to much detail on everything, but here are a few things I did notice in the chapter:
Beholder reproduction has been changed - offspring used to bud off parent beholders, but now they simply come into existence next to their parents while the latter are dreaming (Volo being an unreliable narrator, or the fact that beholder reproduction probably wasn't a subject that had been studied up close and personal before, can explain the discrepancy).
Spelljamming is described in all but name in the mind flayer section, and later in the neogi entry in Chapter 3. Both races are described as having ships that can fly through the air, between different worlds, and even between planes. This is interesting fluff for new players, but any long term player will read the descriptions and nod sagely at what is actually being described.
The various sections go into quite some detail on the monstrous deities for the various races, often in more detail than has been seen since 2e's Monster Mythology, and in some cases even moreso. The goblinoid pantheon especially has a lot of interesting new information on it (Maglubiyet subdued all three separate goblinoid racial pantheons? Hruggek and Grankhul are brothers?). Both mind flayer deities (Ilsensine and Maanzecorian) are mentioned, although they are seen more as powerful entities than actual worshiped deities. Also - apparently Maanzecorian got better after being killed by Orcus (this isn't stated in the book, but the deity is apparently alive and well now). The orc and giant pantheons are fully fleshed out, although they have had fairly full coverage in previous editions. Oddly missing is mention of the beholder deities and the hag deity Cegilune, and of course poor Gorellik goes unmentioned due to the 5e reimaging of gnolls.
The lair maps are all very nicely done, and could be dropped into just about any campaign. Gnolls are the only featured race not to get one, as they aren't the settling type.
There is a chart, if you want to be particularly evil towards your players, giving variant beholder eye abilities, with variations for each eye.
Beholder Personality Trait #8 "I sometimes fear I am a flawed abomination"
As player races seem to have drawn the most attention of the contents of the book so far, there isn't much in Chapter 2 that hasn't already been talked about. As there hasn't been much discussion on tabaxi or tritons so far, here are a few tidbits:
Tabaxi have charts for players to roll obsessions and quirks for their characters. In the Forgotten Realms, they also canonically come from Maztica, which I believe is the first time the region has been mentioned in 5e (there are, apparently, rumors of "strange happenings" going on there), and worship the Cat Lord (who is presumably the same as in previous editions, one of the Animal Lords of the Beastlands in the Outer Planes).
Tritons are portrayed as somewhat arrogant and clueless when it comes to the surface world. They've been so isolated fighting the evils of the deeps for so long that even merfolk and sea elves don't encounter them often, so they have little idea of the niceties of the cultures and politics of the surface world, all the while being mildly upset that no one gives them credit for (or even knows about) their millennia-long battles to keep the world safe...
Chapter 3 has all sorts of goodies when it comes to new or variant monsters, most of which I heartily approve of including. First of all, the most important bit of knowledge from that chapter is this: Quickling speed for 5e is 120 feet a round. I was extremely surprised and pleased to see xvarts updated (as would be most people, I suspect, who had to endure the screaming little smurfs in the Baldur's Gate CRPG), and their entry was even more of a delight - detailing how the race came to be and the history of their deity Raxivort (who was a hugely obscure deity in previous editions). As I have said elsewhere, the dinosaurs updated here filled every niche missing from MM entry, and even allows for some Jurassic Park styled rangers, should you want a velociraptor as your pet! The three kobold variants are perfect (fighter, trickster, and sorcerer); they will make any entry-level kobold-themed dungeon memorable. The orc variants are excellent and varied as well. And the NPC list in Appendix B is quite exhaustive, allowing for a lot of variety for just about all but the very highest-level games.
Conversely, I do have a few minor niggles for Chapter 3. I'm not sure that the grungs were the best use of the limited space for the book - they are very obscure monsters and their niche as low-level amphibious monsters might have been better used by giving us some bullywug variants, or even using the space for something entirely different. While most of the giant variants are fine, I would have liked to see a "ruler"-type variant for each race. While the variants for cloud, frost, and stone fit that description (or, in the case of frost, be reskinned with no real changes to do so), the hill, fire, and storm variants won't work in that manner (although, I have to say the fire giant dreadnought is pretty awesome, given all the flak given it when the art was revealed). Having SKT I can just work with NPCs from that book if I need some giant leader types, but it would have nice to have had them officially statted out. And, while there are some CR 10+ monsters, there aren't a lot - I was surprised that the NPCs top out at CR 12, which is also the CR of the Elder Brain (that's a serious drop from previous editions!). But for the most part I was very pleased with what was updated in Chapter 3, and the greatest disappointment is simply that there wasn't more! But, coming around full circle, given the statement in Chapter 1 that they plan to have more books like this, I'm not too unhappy about that since it's likely will have more updated monsters in the future. And if a book leaves you wanting more, that's certainly a good thing!
So, in conclusion, basically, if you like monsters, yes, buy this book!
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