A (Very) Brief Pictorial History of Beholders

The creation of Terry Kuntz, brother of Rob Kuntz, the beholder first appeared in Supplement I to OD&D, Greyhawk in 1975. Since then, the eye tyrant (as it is sometimes known) has become a very strong contender for title of Most Iconic Monster of Dungeons & Dragons. It's also one of my favorite monsters in the game. The first illustration of a beholder appeared on the cover to Greyhawk and was drawn by Greg Bell. As you'll see from the artwork that follows, Bell's version of the beholder is quite distinctive, having a smooth body, a sleepy-looking central eye, and a comparatively small mouth.

Tom Wham, in the AD&D Monster Manual (1977), takes a slightly different tack. His beholder looks to be armor plated. Its central eye is large and bulbous, while its mouth is huge. This is the first version of the monster I ever saw, so it's my default image of it.

A couple of years later, in 1979, The Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album was published by Troubador Press. The book contained this image of the beholder by Greg Irons. In general, I'd say it looks closer to Wham's illustration than Bell's.  

The next year, 1980, was when the first official AD&D miniatures appeared. Here's a beholder as painted by Ray Rubin, from the box art of the "Dwellers Below" set. Its appearance is quite close to that of Wham's illustration.

The actual beholder miniature from the set looks like this:

Issue #76 of Dragon (August 1983) includes the article, "The Ecology of the Beholder" by Ed Greenwood and Roger E. Moore. Accompanying it is this illustration of a beholder by Roger Raupp. Take note of its eye stalks, which looks a bit like the legs of a crab or spider.

A month later, in September 1983, the second episode of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series featured a beholder. Its eye stalks are snaky or wormy in appearance, while its mouth has the largest teeth of any version yet.

Citadel acquired the AD&D miniatures license in 1985 and produced a beholder figure. I don't know the precise year in which it was released. Though it's somewhat hard to tell from this image, the miniature looks pretty close to the Monster Manual depiction, right down to the plated body.

Also released in 1985 were the Dungeons & Dragons Master Rules, which included this picture of a beholder, as imagined by Jeff Easley. This illustration is interesting for its half-lidded appearance, something that's not really present in previous versions.

Toward the end of the 1e period, TSR released Waterdeep and the North (1987) for use with the Forgotten Realms setting. Its cover includes a beholder by Keith Parkinson. His version not only includes segmented eyestalks like Roger Raupp's but also upper and lower eye lids.

The cover to the Monstrous Compendium (1989) features a beholder by Jeff Easley. The armor plates are not present. Instead, the beholder appears to be very fleshy in appearance.

Meanwhile, the MC's interior gives us this illustration by Jim Holloway. The armor plates are back, as are the broad proportions of Wham's Monster Manual illustration (though the eye stalks look unique).

The Monstrous Manual (1993) gives us this very odd illustration by Tony DiTerlizzi, which may have the largest central eye-to-body proportions of any version of the beholder. 

I have intentionally excluded all the artwork of beholders found in the Spelljammer boxed sets and modules, both because there's so much of it and because it's intentionally varied in keeping with its idiosyncratic interpretation of beholders. Consequently, I'm not certain the extent to which they're at all representative of depictions of these monsters during the TSR era of D&D. On the other hand, it's quite possible these depictions were influential on those that followed in the '90s and into the 21st century. If anyone has any thoughts on this particular point, I'd be interested in hearing them.

As usual, I've no doubt left out a lot of illustrations, focusing primarily on those I either remembered clearly from my youth or those appearing in products to which I have ready access. If you feel like there are notable ones I've forgotten, I'd be interested in learning about those, too. 

A (Very) Brief Pictorial History of Mind Flayers

The people have spoken, which means I shall continue this series for a while longer. In reviewing the suggestions offered by readers, one of the more popular ones was the mind flayer. Since this tentacled monstrosity is also my favorite Dungeons & Dragons monster, I thought it'd make sense to kick off the next round of these posts with a look at mind flayers (or illithids, as they were called in Descent into the Depths of the Earth). 

Though the mind flayer first appears in issue #1 of The Strategic Review (Spring 1975), the first illustration of it does not appear until a year later, in Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry (1976), as drawn by Tracy Lesch. Despite how early it is, this is clearly recognizable as the monster of later depictions – a rare instance when someone other than Dave Sutherland laid the esthetic foundations upon which later artists would build.

Speaking of Dave Sutherland, here's his take on the mind flayer from the Monster Manual (1977). You can see that he was riffing off Lesch's original conception, right down to having four facial tentacles and a preference for high-collared robes of the sort favored by Ming the Merciless.

Like the kobold, the mind flayer gets two illustrations in the Monster Manual. However, this second illustration is not by Sutherland but rather by Tom Wham. Though humorous in tone, Wham's art shows a mind flayer that looks very close to its predecessors. He even includes the skull on the monster's belt. (Also of interest is that one of the illithid's victims is a halfling.)

The aforementioned Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1978) not only gives us the name illithid but also this terrific illustration (by an uncredited artist that I nevertheless think is Dave Trampier). Again, note the similarities to its predecessors.

1980 gave us several different illustrations of mind flayers, starting with this one from The Rogues Gallery by Erol Otus:

We get another, from Jeff Dee this time, in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. It's one of my favorites of all time, probably because it's different. Rather than showing the illithid in a high-collared robe like every previous artist, Dee puts him in a sci-fi uniform, wielding technological devices – and it feel right. I can't be certain, but I suspect this illustration is the origin of the widely held notion that mind flayer are from another world (or even the future).

1980 also brought us the first mind flayer miniature from Grenadier Models. By most standards, it's pretty goofy looking, but you can see, if you look carefully, that it's heavily inspired by Sutherland's Monster Manual illustration. For example, the mini has similar sleeve decoration and he's wearing the same strange harness seen in the MM.

The next year, in 1981, AD&D modules D1 and D2 were combined together under a single cover, with the addition of some new art. One of those pieces of art appeared on the back cover of the module. Drawn by Bill Willingham, this is the first time we've seen a mind flayer in color.

In October 1983, in issue #78 of Dragon, Roger E. Moore's "The Ecology of the Mind Flayer" appeared, accompanied by a Roger Raupp illustration. What's notable about this illustration is that the illithid is not wearing a high-collared robe, but he is wearing that harness seen in previous illustration.

Citadel Miniatures briefly held the license for AD&D miniatures and produced several mind flayers in 1985, such as the one below. The high-collared robe returns once more.

By 1987, the license passed to Ral Partha. The company held the license for almost a decade and, during that time, they produced this mind flayer miniature:

I don't know precisely when this mini was produced, so, if anyone knows, please let me know in the comments. This is important for a reason that will become apparent shortly.

For the 1989 Second Edition Monstrous Compendium, we get an illustration from James Holloway. Though some of the details are different – notice the brain you can see inside the mind flayer's head – but it's still not far from what we've seen many times before, including the high-collared robe.

Finally, there's 1993's Monstrous Manual whose depiction was done by Tony DiTerlizzi.

The illustration looks just like the Ral Partha mini above – unless it's the other way around. That's why I'm curious about when the miniature was released. My suspicion is that the DiTerlizzi illustration came first, but I cannot prove it.

With that, we come to the end of my brief look at mind flayer artwork from the TSR era of Dungeons & Dragons. I know I've probably overlooked a lot of illithid illustrations from Second Edition, like the one on the cover of Spelljammer, but I've already presented enough, I think, to give a good sense of how these monsters were presented during the first two decades of D&D. However, if you can recall any illustrations of mind flayers you think are especially worthy of comment, let me know. 

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Gnolls

There's no use in fighting it. You'll be seeing more entries in what has inadvertently become a series for a few more weeks at least, perhaps longer. After last week's post on bugbears, which are a uniquely D&D monstrous humanoid, I knew I'd have to turn to gnolls this week, as they, too, are unique to the game. Perhaps I should clarify that a little. There is no precedent, mythological or literary, for the spelling "gnoll." However, the spelling "gnole" appears in "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles" from Lord Dunsany's 1912 short story collection, The Book of Wonder (as well as in Margaret St. Clair's "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles"). 

There can be no doubt that Dunsany's story served as the seeds for the gnolls of D&D. In their description in Book 1 of OD&D, gnolls are described as "a cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany [sic] did not really make it all that clear." The original short story contains no description of the titular creature, leaving Gygax to advance his theory of gnolls being a weird hybrid monster. Artist Greg Bell interprets them thusly:

Sometime in the three years between their first appearance in OD&D (1974) and the publication of the Monster Manual (1977), someone at TSR decided that gnolls were, in fact, "low intelligence beings like hyena-men." That's how they're described in J. Eric Holmes's Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where I first encountered them, courtesy of this delightful illustration by Tom Wham:

Meanwhile, the Monster Manual itself, published the same year, gives us this illustration by Dave Sutherland.

The Monster Manual also includes another Sutherland gnoll-related piece, this time of Yeenoghu, the demon lord of gnolls. To my eyes, Yeenoghu looks a lot more hyena-like than does the illustration above, but, even so, they're still broadly similar.

Speaking of Yeenoghu, he reappears in the pages of Deities & Demigods, this time depicted by Dave LaForce. I've always found this version of the demon lord a bit goofy. I'm not sure if it's his grin or the strangeness of the arm that holds his infamous triple flail. 

The AD&D Monster Cards sets are a good source of unusual takes on many monsters and that's especially so in the case of gnolls. Artist Harry Quinn depicts them in a way that, to my eyes, looks decidedly feline. To anyone familiar with the weird phylogenetics of hyenas, that's inappropriate, but it still feels off somehow. Perhaps it's simply the weight of all the previous depictions that makes me think so. In any case, Quinn's version of the gnoll is quite distinctive.

The 2e Monstrous Compendium features what is probably the most hyena-like of all versions of the gnoll, courtesy of James Holloway.

Tony DiTerlizzi provides an even more hyena-like version of the gnoll in the Monstrous Manual, right down the spots on its fur. 

I feel like I have probably overlooked some illustrations of gnolls from the TSR era of D&D, but, if so, they must be fairly obscure, as these are the only ones I could easily find in my collection. What's most notable about the ones I did find is how closely they hew to the post-OD&D notion that gnolls are hyena-men. I'd chalk up most of the differences to artist skill and choice rather than a fundamental disagreement about this fact. In this respect, they're quite similar to bugbears, another distinctly D&D monster whose look stayed largely the same during TSR's stewardship of Dungeons & Dragons.

Polyhedron: Issue #29

Issue #29 of Polyhedron is another April Fool's Day issue, though it actually appeared in May of 1986. The issue features a cover by Tom Wham, which is always a delight. I wish the same could be said of its content. I readily admit that I'm not an ideal audience for issues like this, but that's not because I lack a sense of humor. Rather, I simply dislike forced humor and this issue is full of it. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy re-reading this one. Apologies in advance if my frustration gets the better of me.

"Notes from HQ" is typically ephemeral and focused on RPGA matters. The only genuinely interesting thing in it is the announcement of the Gamers' Choice Awards. "Unlike other gaming industry awards, for which the winners are chosen by manufacturers and special panels, these awards are given to those companies whose products are judged the best by the most qualified judges of all – the gamers themselves." I must be old, because I don't recall ever hearing of these awards before. On the other hand, I was never much of a con goer, so that might explain my ignorance. 

Skip Williams gives us "The Lighter Side of Encounters II," a sequel to his article in the previous year's April Fool's Day issue. Like its predecessor, what makes the article interesting is not so much its content as the origin of the content, namely AD&D campaigns run by the Lake Geneva staff of TSR, in this case Williams himself and Frank Mentzer. Williams presents two different encounters, one involving a mad dash through a dungeon and another about trying to prevent a pit fiend from regenerating, that aren't exactly humorous in context, but that seem so when presented in isolation. They're the kinds of things that happen in any RPG campaign played with friends and I love them for that reason. This article is probably the best in the issue and it's because it's the most "serious."

"The Camel's Nose" by Mike Selinker is an AD&D adventure that takes up 16 pages – half of the issue. It's a humorous scenario for six pregenerated player characters, all of whom are valley elves with ridiculous names like "Tattieboggle Spauldrocky" or "Arglebargle Collieshangle." These characters are tasked with protecting a talking camel (a cleric of the Camel Lord, Camelopardus), on his journey across the Burning Desert to a shrine of his deity. He brings with him a sacred rock called the Camel's Nose and ... well, I think you can probably guess where this is going. The adventure is filled with puns and humorous allusions and general silliness, like the Camels Oasis shopping center. I'm sure someone might find it funny, but that someone is not me.

Selinker returns with "The Ecology of Tiamat," which is a rambling dialog between Feargall the All-Noxious and Greenhorn the dim as they "humorously" discuss Feargall's many encounters with Tiamat. It's strange, self-referential, and fourth wall-breaking and, again, I just found it tedious. Your mileage may vary. "Fractured Spells" by Rick Reid is a collection of goofy spells for all magic-using classes, from neutralize person to detect chum to continual lice and more. As you can see, they're all based on puns or misreadings of pre-existing spells. I'll give the author points for cleverness, but not much else.

"The Gods of the Gamma World Game" by James M. Ward is a very strange article. Ward presents five larger-than-life characters from the setting of Gamma World, each of which represents "a different ideal." For example, Ren – there's that name again – is the archetypal scientist, while Tobor the Unstoppable is the archetypal robot. If I squint, I can sort of see what Ward's getting at with these characters. They're more akin to "tall tales" like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill than "gods" in the usual sense. That's kind of interesting. However, Ward saddles them all with absurd Gamma World game stats akin to what you'd find in Deities & Demigods and serendipitously provide additional insight for my recent post about that very book and the drawbacks of its presentation.

The issue ends with Roger E. Moore's "Savage Sword of Lugnut the Barbarian," another "humorous" story, this time about a mighty-thewed barbarian and his quest to save a princess from Skuzzdrool the Ultra-Necromancer. It's not very funny, even as a parody of Conan, but's thankfully short, which is more than can be said of "The Camel's Nose." I still cannot understand why half the issue was devoted to that adventure ...

Oh well. One more issue to go before this series ends, which is probably for the best. My patience is wearing thin, especially after this issue.

Polyhedron: Issue #23

April Fool's issues were a staple of my youth, but they're very difficult to pull off. Partly, that's because humor can be very subjective and, partly, that's because most attempts at humor, especially in writing, are simply not very good. Consequently, I greeted the arrival of issue #23 of Polyhedron (April 1985) with some trepidation, despite its delightful cover by Tom Wham (take note of the bolotomus and snits in the bottom lefthand corner). However, I'm happy to say that this particular April Fool's Day issue is (mostly) pretty good. In fact, there are a couple of articles that I still find rather amusing even now – not laugh-out-loud funny, but intellectually droll, if that distinction means anything.

The issue begins with another installment of "News from HQ" that explains the nature of this issue: 

If this is your first issue of the POLYHEDRON Newszine, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the RPGA Network, and let you in on the gag. Five out of the six issues you will receive with each year of membership will bring you club news, informative articles on your favorite game systems, and a chance to make a serious contribution to the hobby by sharing your ideas with other members. This is not one of those five.

That's the kind of humor I'm talking about. The editorial goes on to explain that this issue was "conceived in madness and dedicated to the proposition that there is room for levity in gaming." I wholeheartedly agree, as anyone who's ever played in one of my campaigns will tell you. Yes, even the ones occasionally featuring unpleasant stuff. Games are supposed to be fun, after all, and it's important not to lose sight of that.

Much less funny is "An Official Policy Statement," whose entire shtick is using $64 words to say silly things about, in this case, "the sex lives of monsters." As I said above, humor writing isn't easy.

Fortunately, Gary Gygax gifts us with "Ultimists," a new character class for AD&D. Described as "fighting wizard-priests," Ultimists combine the abilities of clerics, magic-users, and monks. While their ability scores are rolled using only 3d6, the result of that roll is made by recourse to a chart, with most rolls resulting in scores of 15 or higher. This section of the class description pokes fun, as Gygax makes clear, those "enthusiasts" who objected to his system for rolling up the abilities of the then-new barbarian class. Ultimists also make use of spell points, because "memorizing spells is tedious, and the selection requires reasoning and intelligence applied to the game." Ouch. I can't really blame Gygax for using the article as an opportunity to vent about critics of AD&D. I imagine he was quite fed up with them by this point in his life.

"Why Gargoyles Don't Have Wings (But Should) (An Alternative Viewpoint) by David Collins is an attempt to explain away Gary Gygax's concerns about the illustration of the gargoyle in the Monster Manual through a variety of vaguely humorous means. It's fine for what it is, but nothing special. A bit more interesting is Skip Williams's "The Lighter Side of Encounters" in which he presents a couple of humorous encounters from Frank Mentzer's Aquaria campaign as a way of demonstrating how humor sometimes finds its way into otherwise "serious" RPG campaigns. The encounters are all based on things that actually happened in Menzter's campaign, which is fascinating in its own right. Speaking of Mentzer – or, rather, Knarf Reztnem – his "Punishments to Fit the Crime" offer a pair of humorous stories whose conclusions depend on puns. They're basically Dad jokes in written form. Make of that what you will.

Frank Mentzer reappears with "New Magic Items," which offers up some fun (and funny) magic items from his Aquaria campaign, like the canister of condiments and the sweet tooth. Then, he reappears yet again – the man was a machine back in the day – with "Excerpts from the Book of Mischievous Magic," a spoof of his The Book of Marvelous Magic. This second article many amusing magical items like the awl of the above, cool hand lute, stocking of elf summoning, and practical yoke. It's all very silly, of course, but done with some real cleverness and an understanding that a good joke magic item isn't just a joke, but should also have some potential utility in a game. Mentzer clearly understood this.

Part 2 of David Cook's "In the Black Hours" AD&D adventure (Part 1 appeared in the previous issue) is the sole piece of "serious" material in the entire issue and thus feels very much out of place. Like its predecessor, it looks fun, reminding me a bit of something in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Conan, while working as a thief, might have become involved. "Dungeonsongs" is back to form, with a trio of humorous, RPG-themed songs set to well-known tunes, like "I'll Be a Wererat in the Morning" and "Green Slime." "Dispel Confusion" answers numerous important questions for D&D, AD&D, and Top Secret, like this one:

Bruce Heard pens "Zee Chef," another new character class for use with AD&D. A chef is designed specifically for NPCs "devoted to the culinary arts and learning more about native delicacies." It's a spellcasting class, with a host of new spells, including my favorite, edible glamour. Concluding the issue is "The Male of the Species" by – you guessed it – Frank Mentzer, which describes "emezons," the male counterparts to the amazons presented by Gary Gygax in issue #22. Some emezons are members of the new chef NPC class, while others are "exceptionally skilled at child raising, interior decorating, and hair styling." Hey, it was a different time.

All in all, not bad. Even someone as humor-impaired as myself chuckled a couple of times, which is quite a feat in itself. I'd still rather have had a "normal" issue of Polyhedron, but I can't deny the staff did a good job with their assignment. Well done!

Monsoon Season

Tom Wham is underappreciated in my opinion. Here's his "Gamesmanship" comic from issue #81 (September/October 1977) of Campaign magazine.

Polyhedron: Issue #2

Issue #2 of the soon-to-be named RPGA Newsletter (Autumn 1981) features a cover illustration by Stephen D. Sullivan, depicting an unfortunate encounter with a bathing nymph. Sullivan tends to be forgotten as a TSR artist, probably because his contemporaries, like Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, and Bill Willingham, all loom larger in our collective memories of the late '70s and early 1980s. Consequently, I always enjoy seeing his artwork and being reminded that, yes, TSR did in fact employ other illustrators at that time.

"Dispel Confusion" continues, though this time all the questions pertain to AD&D and are answered by Gary Gygax. Whenever I read columns like this, I'm always struck by just how different my own early experiences of roleplaying games must have been compared to those of others. Undoubtedly my friends and I were doing it wrong, but we rarely focused on the minutiae of rules interpretation and, on those occasions when we did, we never even considered the possibility of asking TSR for an "official" clarification. I've always played RPGs in a rather fast and loose fashion, trusting in common sense and on-the-fly judgment to fill in any gaps. Call me weird.

Speaking of Gygax, the second part of the interview begun in the previous issue appears here. As with the previous installment, this one is quite interesting, particularly for those of us interested in the history of the hobby. For example, Gygax talks a little bit about his work on AD&D module T2, which, of course, he never finished himself, handing it over instead to Frank Mentzer. He also mentions "the plane modules I want to do. I want to do the elemental planes, para-elemental planes, demi-planes and semi-planes, and demi-semi-planes, et cetera ..." Of all the D&D products that never were, my own thoughts drift most often toward Gygax's planar modules and supplements. I would have loved to see what he'd have done with the concept, since, from other statements he made over the years, it's clear he saw the planes as the playground of high-level characters in AD&D and that sounds terrific.

Mike Carr's "Dawn Patrol™ Preview" focuses on the creation of pilots for use with the upcoming game of World War I aerial combat. It's basically a two-page excerpt from the soon-to-be-published game, hoping to generate interest in it. Much more interesting is "How to Create Monsters for D&D® Basic and Expert Games" by Jean Wells. Wells explains that, because D&D, unlike AD&D, has comparatively few monsters, referees are likely to want to create new ones, but there's a lot to consider when doing so. She then devotes a nearly two-page article discussing various aspects of D&D monster design as she creates a new monster step-by-step. I like articles that balance the theoretical with the practical and this one does that nicely. It's also a reminder that Jean Wells was a much better designer and writer than she's often given credit for.

"Turnbull Talking" is a reprint of a short article by Don Turnbull, head of TSR UK at the time, in which he talks – rambles is perhaps more accurate – about the growth and development of the larger hobby. It's really a space filler rather than a substantial article. On the other hand, "Mutants: A Representative Sample of the Weak Ones" by James M. Ward is quite meaty. Ward presents a variety of new opponents for use with Gamma World. Despite the title, not all of these opponents are mutants, nor are they in any sense "weak." All, however, are imaginative and make me wish that, during his time at TSR, Ward had produced more support material for Gamma World. It is a mystery to me why he did not.

Also included in the issue is a RPGA Gift Catalog, featuring many of the items listed here. To this day, I wish I'd bought the "fighters wheel" gadget. "Notes for the Dungeon Master" includes more tricks and traps for use by the referee in his dungeons, as submitted by Polyhedron readers. It's amazing to me how many of these tricks are intended to foil or frustrate mapping – a reminder, I think, of just how important good cartography was in the early days of D&D. "Top Secret Transmissions" by Allen Hammack talks a bit about the popularity of "commando raid" missions for Top Secret, in part because of how much players enjoy loading their characters up with lots of weaponry. What Hammack says is true in my own experience and may go some way toward explaining why espionage RPGs have never been as popular as the books and movies that inspired them.

This issue's installment of "Rocksnoz" by Tom Wham is not a comic but rather a bit of background about the setting of the comic itself. Wham explains that, "in this very universe, before the last big bang, there was a world very similar to ours." This world, called Nidd, was inhabited by intelligent beings called "huemans." Despite its similarity to Earth, on Nidd "no chemicals combine to make gunpowder, and nuclear weapons are impossible. To make up for this deficiency, the denizens of Nidd have turned to magic." It's an odd little article but a strangely fascinating one, if only to see into the mind of Wham and his conception of fantasy. Finally, there's "The RPGA Scoring System," which lays out recent changes to the way that the RPGA evaluates players and DMs in its tournaments. Since I'm unfamiliar with the original system, I can't say this article held much interest for me, but it's probably of interest to those looking into the history of organized play.

Issue #2 of Polyhedron predates the years when I subscribed to it, so much of what's in it is new to me. What's most notable about it is its roughness. Were it not published by TSR and filled with articles by its staff, it'd be hard to tell it apart from a high-end fanzine of the same era. I think that's what's most appealing about it and why I look forward to exploring it over the coming months.

More Fear and Death

Last month, I shared some illustrations from the AD&D Monster Manual to draw attention to how many of them depicted scenes in which a monster menaced, injured, or even killed an adventurer. There were so many illustrations of this sort that I couldn't include them all – and that's a shame. With that in mind, here are a few more of my favorites.

I wanted to start with this page of the MM, since three out of the four monster illustrations on it show off their dangers. I've always been particularly fond of the gas spore piece, though the giant gar is far more terrifying.

Speaking of terrifying fish, how about this giant pike? Did Gary Gygax like to fish?  I can't help but wonder if his experiences with carnivorous fish might have influenced his decision to include them in the Monster Manual.

Treants are not monsters that, in my experience, get much respect. Part of it, I imagine, is that they're Chaotic Good in alignment and few players ever worry about running afoul of them. Still, as this illustration shows, they're not to be trifled with (having upwards of 12 Hit Dice will do that).

Here's a jackalwere (presumably) killing an adventurer. This piece is one of the most immediately gruesome in the whole book.

Here's another favorite. I absolutely love Tom Wham's take on the illithid using his mind blast to attack a trio of rather hapless adventurers. I also dig the funky, abstract art he's got on the wall of his lair, with what appears to be an incense brazier alight beneath it. Who knew mind flayers were so chic?

I'll conclude this post with another piece that's long fascinated me: Dave Trampier's depiction of a bugbear giving a fighter a whack in the face with a mace or some similar bludgeoning weapon. That's going to leave a mark!

Manual of Fear and Death

The first AD&D book I ever owned was the Monster Manual. I bought it with money my grandmother had given me for Christmas 1979, ordering it through the Sears catalog. Once my copy arrived, sometime in early January 1980, I spent untold hours poring over its contents. Though I, of course, loved all the descriptive material contained in the book's 112 pages, it was the illustrations that truly seized my imagination – so much so that, to this day, it's difficult to conceive of many Dungeons & Dragons monsters in any way other than how Dave Sutherland, Dave Trampier, Tom Wham, and Jean Wells drew them. 

One aspect of the Monster Manual's artwork that grabbed my youthful attention was how often it depicted fear and death. Consider, for example, the piece accompanying the book's title page:

Here, we get three knights in historical armor facing off against a bulette. Beneath the landshark's front right claw, you can see the corpse of a horse (perhaps belonging to one of the two unmounted knights in the foreground). It's a small detail, seemingly unimportant, but it's the first example of a recurring motif in the Monster Manual's illustrations: facing off against monsters is perilous.

Again and again, you see this throughout the book: monsters frightening, harming, or killing those who dare to challenge them – often in unexpected places, like this one.

Those are giant ants and look how they use their large numbers to overwhelm their opponents, as do stirges in another memorable illustration.

Of course, not all low-level monsters rely solely on numbers to get the better of their enemies. Take a look at this pixie.

Being surprised by a lurking monster is another common element of Monster Manual illustrations, like the classic mimic preparing to punch the unfortunate thief attempting to open a "chest."

But there are many others in this style as well.

I could offer many more examples from the book and I'm sure readers will remember some of their own favorites. I adored these kinds of illustrations as a younger person, in large part because they emphasized the danger posed by monsters, even things as seemingly innocuous as giraffes.

Everything in the Monster Manual was a potential threat to life and limb and I can't tell how exciting that was to me as a budding Dungeon Master. While I was never a killer DM, I nevertheless did revel in seeing the looks of horror on players' faces as they realized what their characters were up against. Descending into a dungeon or wandering off into the wilderness is supposed to be frightening to some degree. A big part of the appeal of games like D&D, especially for young people, is being able to face those frights vicariously. That's part of why horror movies continue to be so popular, I imagine, particularly as the real world becomes ever safer and more sanitized. Something in our nature atavistically craves, maybe even needs fear and danger. Monsters in fantasy roleplaying games should give us a chance to experience both.