Fiend Folio
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Fiend Folio is the title shared by three products published for different editions of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. All three products are collections of monsters, making each Fiend Folio a sequel to its game's version of the Monster Manual.
It was unusual in that the bulk of the material in the initial First Edition release came from the English gaming magazine White Dwarf rather than being authored by Gary Gygax, the games' creator.
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[edit] 1st edition era
The Fiend Folio Tome (ISBN 0-935696-21-0) was originally scheduled to be published in 1979 by Games Workshop, then the holder of the license to publish Dungeons & Dragons game products in the United Kingdom.(Turnbull 1979) Although the manuscript was completed on time by editor Don Turnbull, a business dispute between Games Workshop and TSR Hobbies delayed publication of the book for nearly two years. The Fiend Folio was finally published in August 1981 by TSR itself, who used the product to launch its UK division.[1][2]
The 128-page hardcover Fiend Folio owes much of its content to "Fiend Factory", at the time a regular column appearing in Games Workshop's magazine White Dwarf. Material from the first ten issues of the magazine was drawn from. Also edited by Turnbull, "Fiend Factory" also featured new AD&D monsters, many of them created by gamers who read the magazine.[3] Turnbull included several previously-published "Fiend Factory" monsters in the Fiend Folio, but included even more creatures that had been submitted to (but not published in) White Dwarf. The Folio also included a few monsters (such as the Drow) that had previously been published in TSR products. See the list of AD&D 1st ed. monsters for details.
(The publication of "Fiend Factory" monsters had one unintended side-effect for Citadel Miniatures, who had the contract to produce gaming miniatures based on White Dwarf features. As a condition of including "Factory" monsters in the Folio, Games Workshop transferred the copyright on those monsters to TSR, who already had an exclusive contract with Grenadier Models. This forced Citadel to discontinue miniatures depicting "Factory" monsters that appeared in the Folio. [1])
Public reaction to the Fiend Folio was mixed, at best, with many gamers criticizing the new monsters as strange or useless. (The flumph is often mentioned as both.) After two mostly-negative reviews were submitted to TSR's Dragon magazine (Greenwood 1981[4], Zumait 1981[5]), the magazine's editors took the unusual step of allowing Turnbull to write a rebuttal (Turnbull 1981[6]). AD&D creator Gary Gygax even criticized the book's random encounter tables (Gygax 1982). Decades after the book's publication, D&D players continue to debate the book's merits (i.e. [2], [3], [4]). As could be expected the Fiend Folio was better reviewed by White Dwarf.[7]
In 1983, TSR used the Monster Manual II to introduce a new "orange spine" cover design for hardcover AD&D manuals. The Fiend Folio was the only AD&D hardcover that did not have its cover redesigned to match the new style; instead, TSR let the Folio go out of print. Despite the early withdrawal from the market, "more than 190,000 copies" of the Fiend Folio were sold (TSR Inc. 1991). Gygax eventually announced his intention to incorporate material from the Fiend Folio into a revised Monster Manual (Gygax 1985), but left TSR before he could do so (Gygax 1987).
[edit] 2nd edition era
The Fiend Folio Monstrous Compendium (ISBN 1-56076-428-7) was published by TSR, Inc. in April 1992, for use with the 2nd Edition AD&D rules. It is the fourteenth volume of the Monstrous Compendium series, consisting of a cardboard cover, 64 loose-leaf pages, and four divider pages. Also known as the Fiend Folio Appendix, it contains over sixty monsters created or updated by members of the RPGA, including revised versions of many monsters introduced in the original Folio (TSR Inc. 1991).
[edit] 3rd edition era
The third Fiend Folio (ISBN 0-7869-2780-1) was published in April 2003 for use with the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. The 224-page hardcover manual included only a few monsters from the original, but added many new creatures, with an emphasis on monsters with extraplanar origins. [5]
This edition introduced many new elements to the game, including the following:
- Grafts
- Symbionts
- Swarms
It also includes three prestige classes:
- Fiend of Blasphemy
- Fiend of Corruption
- Fiend of Possession
The Fiend Folio also introduced two demons more powerful than balors: kluritchirs and myrmyxicus. It also introduced a devil more powerful than pit fiends: paeliryon.
Many of the creatures from the 1st Edition Fiend Folio were updated to the d20 rules by Necromancer Games in their (ENnie award winning[8]) Tome of Horrors[9].
[edit] References
- ^ Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-653-5.
- ^ Later AD&D Manuals. Acaeum.
- ^ Turnbull, Don (April/May 1979). "Fiend Factory" (feature). White Dwarf (Issue 12): 8-10. Games Workshop.
- ^ Greenwood, Ed (Nov 1981). "Flat taste didn't go away" (review). Dragon (Issue 55): 6-7,9. TSR.
- ^ Zumwait, Alan (Nov 1981). "Observations of a semi-satisfied customer" (review). Dragon (Issue 55): 8,10. TSR.
- ^ Turnbull, Don (Nov 1981). "Apologies -- and arguments" (Editorial). Dragon (Issue 55): 12. TSR.
- ^ Thomson, Jamie (Dec/Jan 1981/1982). "Open Box" (review). White Dwarf (Issue 28): 14. Games Workshop.
- ^ ENnie Awards-2003. Retrieved on 2008-01-02.
- ^ Greene, Scott (2002). Tome of Horrors. Necromancer Games, 328. ISBN 1-58846-112-2.
- Gygax, Gary 1982. "New spells for illusionists", Dragon 66:22-28 (Oct 1982).
- Gygax, Gary 1985. "The future of the game", Dragon 103:8,10 (Nov 1985).
- Gygax, Gary 1987. "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", Dragon 122:40 (Jun 1987).
- Ryan, Michael 2003. Personality Spotlight: Fiend Folio designers, retrieved June 2, 2006.
- TSR, Inc. 1991. 1992 (TSR, Inc.)
- The Acaeum: Later AD&D Manuals, retrieved June 2, 2006.
- Dragonsfoot Forums: Fiend Folio - Underrated?, retrieved June 7, 2006
- EN World Forum: How stellar was the old Fiend Folio!, retrieved June 7, 2006
- Google Groups: rec.games.frp Fiend Folio, retrieved June 7, 2006
- Stuff of Legends: Fiend Factory, retrieved June 7, 2006
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