Incredible amount of work and well-worth the price. Indexed and easy to find a certain level of creature or a certain type. Although I've been a player for 15 years in a regular RLoft campaign, I've only DM'd it for a couple years (on and off) so this was a tremendous benefit having only recently switched to 5e.

Content-wise, this book is easily worth the ten dollars! Plenty of cool, spooky monsters to flesh out your campaign. Some monsters go in new directions lore-wise, and your mileage may vary on whether this is cool and creative or just kind of odd (for example: goblin vampires are healed by damage and damaged by healing. They're Nilbogs, basically), but some entries are genuinely super spooky, and I look forward to the nightmares my DM is going to inflict on us (who thought of the backwards man? Who is responsible for my upcoming terror? Thank you, you absolute mad lad). I could not contain my delight when I saw there were both spooky dogs AND spooky cats I could befriend.

My two biggest complaints are in the organization of the book and the inclusion of the Vistani. Organization-wise, I would have liked for the monsters to be sorted by dread-plane, rather than all lumped together. It was a minor hassle reading through the entry of a cool monster and realizing that it was from a completely different plane. There are also, as people have mentioned, some typos here and there, but those are easy enough to puzzle through.

The biggest issue really is the fact that the Vistani-- a people based directly on a real ethnic group that has a history of opression and dehumanization-- are included in a BESTIARY. Yes, other sapient races are included in the book, such as were-creatures, but they all have some sort of odd, fantastic, definitely-non-human trait to them, and aren't based off of any real world minorities. I don't think the writer's intent was malicious, they probably just wanted to write some cool Vistani lore-- and the lore itself IS interesting!-- but it's still kind of a gross move, regardless.

3/5 stars. The monster ideas in the book are hit-or-miss, but the hits are genuinely really cool. Organization could be better, but readable. Inclusion of the Vistani is a Big Yike, I really wish they had left them out and saved the lore for another supplement. "Guide to the People of the Dread Planes," maybe? "Guide to the Vistani?" Something NOT explicitly lumping them in with literal monsters and beasts.

The monster designs are pretty good with lots of story text to provide inspiration and background. My main concern is the lack of editing: the text is plagued with typos, distracting mistakes (e.g. all Turn Resistance descriptions refer to the creature as a "lich"), and grammatical errors. Looking forward to deploying some of these monsters in my Gothic (non-Ravenloft) campaign!

A perfect addition to my Curse of Strahd campaign. This provided a wealth of beasts and other nasties to enhance the player experience in the Ravenloft realm. I look forward to using it as I take my players to 10th level and beyond.

The Ravenloft Bestiary is elegant in its simplicity. But a lot of work must have gone into converting and publishing all these monsters. This creature collection fits perfectly the style and mood of Ravenloft. Being familiar with the setting since its origins, I was surprised at how dark and scary many of these monsters are. One of the best things with the Bestiary is that it is very inspiring and gives you plenty of ideas - not just for simple encounters but for whole adventures.

A small thing I found negative was a number of grammatical / language errors that could easily be edited out, but this was no big deal as the text was always understandable and clear enough. Another thing that could further improve the book would be more illustrations, as there are hardly any - and illustrations are normally key for monster descriptions. On the other hand, this means your mind will paint its own images when you read the descriptions... This is better than having ugly or inappropriate illustrations, if you ask me.

All in all, this is a great supplement and a must have for any DM wishing to run 5E Ravenloft adventures. The book can breathe horror into adventures for years to come... I can highly recommend it.

I am about to run some updated 2nd Edition content, and I wish I had purchased this sooner. It is saving me a ton of serious headache in converting the numerous monsters not found in the Monster Manual, Volo's, etc. While I haven't playtested it yet, this bestiary appears to have solid conversions of many classic Ravenloft monsters (not a small feat despite assurances that 2e to 5e conversions should be "simple").

My gripes are only about this book's polish. The layout can be confusing, with monster descriptions being separarted from the appropriate stat block by another monster's stat block. I also really wish this bestiary included some art. I am sure pulling in the old artwork is impossible, but some original art or artwork similar to the original TSR depictions would really make this a terrific offering. I do hope that the author considers a 2.0 update that takes it to the next level. I'd happily pay again for it.

So I highly recommend purchasing this if you plan to spend time in the demiplane of dread or a similar horror setting. This bestiary is indispensible if you plan to go revisit the 2e trove of Ravenloft content.

I don't normally write reviews, but I honestly believe that this is worth much more than the $10 I paid for this, purly based off of the quality of the content. As a DM, I have tried to create a monster before, and it never turned out well, so I have nothing but respect for the few hundred that are in here. Not only that, the monsters in here are well designed and genuinly creepy, and at times, horrifying. Simply reading through what is in here has given me so many good ideas for adventures and campaigns. All in all, an excellent product.