Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/02/monstrous-mondays-ad-2nd-ed-monstrous_21.html

I am continuing my dive into the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums. Today I want to talk about the next three that were important to me in terms of what I call the "core" of the AD&D 2nd Ed monsters.

It is a commonly held belief that during the AD&D 2nd Ed era that settings were at their height. The remaining Monstrous Compendiums focused on these settings. For me it was a perfect systems really. I could keep monsters in with my core rules, like I did with Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Mystara. Or keep them with my boxed sets of campaigns, like I did with all my Ravenloft stuff. So let's go with the ones I integrated (to the best I could) into my core set.

MC4 Monstrous Compendium Dragonlance Appendix

Ok, this one bugged me at first. I bought it and it said Draonlance Appendix on the front even though it was the second two-ring binder. I didn't play Dragonlance, I was doing Greyhawk and would soon be eyeballs deep in Ravenloft. My irritations were put to rest when I opened and the cover, while having the same art, just said Monstrous Compendium Vol. 2. For a while I used both alphabetically, vol 1 with A through M and vol 2 holding N to Z and the tables and blank forms. Today I use vol 1 for my core monsters and vol 2 for everything else.

Dragonlance falls into "everything else" for me. The monsters are good, and many that have made their way back into my core monsters.

The PDF from DriveThruRPG is 96 pages, 82 monsters and at a price of $4.99. The monsters range from "Anemone, Giant" to "Yeti-kin, Saqualaminoi." It covers all the various races of Krynn including the various types of dwarves, all the different kinds of elves, the kender and Dragonlance's lizard men and minotaurs. It was the first to include the Death Knight and Skeleton Warriors, though I always felt they belonged in Greyhawk. Certainly worth it for the Draconians and tips on Dragonlance's dragons which help redefine dragons in D&D in the first place.

The cover of the PDF is a little dark, but the pages inside are sharp and clear.