D&D (2024) Which Creature Type Would You Most Like a Fizban's/Bigby's Style Book About?

[Hexmage-EN]

I'm a big fan of the recent monster type lore books, Bigby's Glory of the Giants in particular. I really enjoy how the books go into detail on the type of creature and offer a lot of DM tools and inspiration. That said, which monster type that hasn't had a dedicated book would you like to see get the treatment next?

My vote is for Elementals; I want to see more lore for them and their home planes, info on the various genies and their civilizations, and some stats for weirder elementals and more powerful ones would be welcome, too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Beasts! I want to see actual fantasy animals that are like... animals instead of monstrosities for no good reason.

 

[Gorck]

Man, I wish multiple votes were allowed for this poll!

 

[DrJawaPhD]

This is a great question! My first answer is that I'd love to see any category listed but handled more from a Combat Tactics / Monster Hunting / Component Harvesting perspective than what I think you're asking in terms of handling the Lore. Answering from the perspective of similarity to Fizban's/Bigby's books which focus more on lore, I'd go with:

Beast, Construct, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead all just don't really work for me because they are too varied and don't share any common lore. So I'd rule these out.

Fiend would easily have the most interesting content, but between Devils and Demons there is already so much lore out there that anyone familiar with pre-5e content would likely be disappointed (either due to repetition or retconning).

For me the best options are Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, or Fey. I think any of these could be awesome, but my vote will go for Aberrations if they elaborate more on what the Far Realm entails and how it interacts with the Inner/Outer planes

 

[Parmandur]

Well, first all of them...but particularly Fey. I love the Fizban/Bigby approach, and Fey stuff is really underdeveloped.

 

[Kurotowa]

I winnowed it down via a process of elimination. What creature types have an actual society? That's stuff like construct and plant out. What creature types might be good fodder for character backgrounds and adventure hooks? Goodbye beasts. What creature types haven't already been repeatedly covered? So long, fiends.

What I was left with in the end was aberrations and fey, and fey won the tie breaker just because it would be mostly new ground.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wait. Don't inevitables and warforged have a kind of society?

Also mycanoids and dryads?

And how are beasts not good for hooks and backgrounds? Did I fall into the world where Moby Dick and the Ghost and the Darkness don't exist?

 

[Parmandur]

Undead all just don't really work for me because they are too varied and don't share any common lore. So I'd rule these out.

I agree with you on the other types (Bigby included a bunch of Beasts, so I could see the...less specific...Types get spread around), but Undead I think do have a unifying theme through the Shadowfell: developing song deep lore about the various kinds of undead and how they relate to the Shadowfell, develop the Raven Queen and the Shadar-Kai, get deep cut Undead from throughout D&D history and lore.. there is a book to be had there.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Wait. Don't inevitables and warforged have a kind of society?

I'd LOVE a book on Mechanus lore, that's an instant buy for me. Warforged are interesting to me as well but aren't they completely unrelated? Might be an excellent book possibility to compile various Construct lore into one volume.

And how are beasts not good for hooks and backgrounds? Did I fall into the world where Moby Dick and the Ghost and the Darkness don't exist?

I just don't see much potential for lore about Beasts, but back to my initial answer I could see it fitting really well into a book more focused on Monster Hunting and Harvesting. On second thought though, if WotC had ideas for fleshing out the Beastlands plane and how that relates to beasts (and humanoids?) on the prime material plane, that actually could be near the top of my wishlist

I agree with you on the other types (Bigby included a bunch of Beasts, so I could see the...less specific...Types get spread around), but Undead I think do have a unifying theme through the Shadowfell: developing song deep lore about the various kinds of undead and how they relate to the Shadowfell, develop the Raven Queen and the Shadar-Kai, get deep cut Undead from throughout D&D history and lore.. there is a book to be had there.

I was on the fence about including Undead creatures / Shadowfell plane as the flipside to Fey creatures / Feywild plane, but was thinking that it seems like DnD Undead go well beyond Raven Queen / Shadowfell. They could probably make an awesome book from exploring Feywild + Shadowfell together, updating from 4e lore.

 

[Kurotowa]

Wait. Don't inevitables and warforged have a kind of society?

Also mycanoids and dryads?

And how are beasts not good for hooks and backgrounds? Did I fall into the world where Moby Dick and the Ghost and the Darkness don't exist?

Dryads are fey and go in a fey book. Inevitables were de-facto celestials, and have lost their seat back to the modrons in 5e anyway. And I don't think you can make an entire book on warforged or myconids, especially when warforged are still pretty Eberron specific.

That last point goes for beasts as well. There's a difference between "Can use an up-statted beast as a threat against a low level party" and "Can sell an entire book to players based on offering expanded lore and player options centered on beasts".