Dungeon Masters and RPG enthusiasts the world over all experience the same three universal problems. Problem number one: How do you find enough players willing to depart the safety of their comfortable, humdrum lives to delve into the deep shadowy recesses of your dark and twisted imagination to fight goblins and wizards and pretend that they think it’s important? Problem number two: How do you ensure those players keep to a schedule of regular games, where they come prepared and ready to slay monsters, and not to chat about what happened in the latest unrelated television show. Yes, RuPaul’s Drag Race is amazing, but it won’t help you defeat this Beholder. Problem number three: There are never enough D&D monsters.
Two of these problems you’ll definitely have to deal with yourself. But for the third problem, there is an answer. Rejoice!
Monsters of the Guild is a collection of over 100 incredible D&D monsters all ready to be incorporated into your next Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition game. Available on the DMsGuild, it comes from over 40 of D&D’s most talented, innovative, and exciting creators and is a fantastic resource for expanding your DM arsenal. Monsters of the Guild contains beasts and aberrations ranging from the recognizable to the impossible and also comes with the feel-good factor of supporting independent creators. They don’t charge extra for that, either. The feel-good factor is free.
DMsGuild.com
Thanks to the Wizards of the Coast Open Gaming License, writers and developers across the world are able to share their D&D creations with the whole RPG community. One such way thousands of authors do this is via the official website the DMsGuild.com. The team behind Monsters of the Guild have curated this tome using the very best the guild has to offer. It also comes with a foreword by Chris Lindsay, Wizards of the Coast’s own Guildmaster, giving it the official WotC seal of approval.
Monsters of the Guild gives DMsGuild authors a chance to show off their work in a huge collaborative product and helps inject a little more monstrosity into your D&D games. It combines the brilliant minds of over 40 of the most well-known, as well as some less well known, DMsGuild authors.
What’s more, via sidebars on each monster’s page, you get to find out a little about the background to each one, whether this is their debut outing, and which nefarious author is behind their creation.
Top 5 Monsters
Monsters of the Guild comprises over 100 monsters ready to terrorize your 5th edition players. My personal favorite D&D monsters included here are:
Azers
Azer’s are like little angry elemental fire dwarves, and until now there had been little options for DMs wishing to use these D&D monsters in their 5th edition games except the single Azer stat block in the official Monster Manual. Now, however, DMs can add the Azer Acolyte and Azer Preist to their arsenal.
Ice Elemental
There are four elemental planes in the D&D universe, the planes of Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. These planes are represented in monstrous form by the four main types of elemental D&D monsters. I always thought this was quite limiting. Why not have lava, grass, or snow elementals, for instance? Seems I’m not the only one. While the Ice Elemental is closely linked to its water-based brothers, it is also the embodiment of winter and has some exciting snow and ice based effects and abilities that really set it apart from the classic water elemental.
Mindflayer Cenomorph
If Mindflayers weren’t terrifying enough already, let’s see what happens if we cross them with the facehuggers from Alien! My first NPC death came at the hands of a Mindflayer and my players have never really forgiven me. I think it might be time to remind them of that horror…
Scarecrow Crow Master
This is a great addition for anyone playing Curse of Strahd
Yantra
Constructs are always fun D&D monsters for players to fight because they are unflinching and purely logical. These floating, spherical, mechanical creations are reminiscent of security drones with a touch of the Beholder about them. The central eye and various eye rays combined with pack tactics and an explosive death burst make the prospect of fighting an army of these quite terrifying.
PDF, Print on Demand, Fantasy Grounds
Monsters of the Guild is available from the DMsGuild in both digital and hardcopy, and I heartily recommend considering the latter. I was really impressed with the quality of this luxurious tome, and it fits in perfectly alongside the rest of my D&D collection.
Monsters of the Guild is also available as a digital module for the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop site.
Overall
While it might not have the polished edges and immaculate attention to detail of a Wizards of the Coast publication, what Monsters of the Guild lacks in finesse it more than makes up for in creativity and fun. So whether you’re a DM looking for inspiration or a lover of all things related to D&D monsters, this book is sure to fill a gap in any beastly bestiary.
