Following the release of Fifth Edition’s core books, Wizards of the Coast was in a weird place. The development staff had been gutted during the last few years—layoffs have been a perennial problem at the company almost regardless of the success of its products—and as a result most of what was soon published was primarily written elsewhere, with the two Tyranny of Dragons modules being designed by Kobold Press, Princes of the Apocalypse by Sasquatch Game Studio, Out of the Abyss by Green Ronin Publishing, and then Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide back to Kobold again. The result of all of this outsourcing was a lack of consistency. These adventures are generally well-regarded, if sometimes a bit weirdly unbalanced, but their formats are wildly different from each other, as are their overall vibes. And although following this Wizards would take full control of their mass market publications, they showed an openness to collaboration with other companies that resulted in releases like the Goodman Games Original Adventures Reincarnated line, the Beadle & Grimm super deluxe editions you can’t possibly afford line, and of course the variously sourced Adventurers League modules—many of these we’ll be covering in the future, though not so much the Beadle & Grimm releases because I literally cannot afford to do so. 

Perhaps because of said outsourcing, Fifth Edition at first felt tentative and uncertain. One thing it’s impossible not to notice when looking at Fifth Edition’s releases as a whole is just how many homages and remakes it includes, practically none of which have been as good as their originals. Eventually we will get to some legitimately new ideas in books like Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel or Keys from the Golden Vault, but that’s a long ways off, and in the meantime we’re inundated with a remake of Temple of Elemental Evil, a remake of Ravenloft, a remake of Tomb of Horrors, etc. Returning to an earlier status quo for the game was a good thing in many regards, but it also meant that the sort of surprising and inventive era we’d occasionally seen in earlier editions of the game was nowhere to be found, including within the planes. 

Which is not to say that the multiverse outside of the Prime was neglected entirely. Before we get to the main topic, let’s quickly mention that Princes of the Apocalypse would return genasi to D&D… sort of. One of the oddities of later day D&D remains its love of using the same words to mean different things, although the genasi of Fifth Edition resemble the ones from earlier closer than, say, tieflings or bladelings or many other races do. Genasi originated in The Planewalker’s Handbook, where they are “the descendants of a union of a human and an elemental creature (often a djinni, hence the name genasi).” The version in Princes are always the offspring of genies, except when, umm, they’re not and instead “result from exposure to a surge of elemental power.” Fortunately, each type of genasi have their own specific abilities and description, and though these are shorter and a bit less informative than what we had before, they do a good job of translating the overall concept, and what’s more they do so while allowing for differentiation between individuals of these races rather than the flattening we saw with tieflings. Plus, they removed the storm genasi from Fourth Edition, a good choice that has been applauded by all (let’s not even get into the idiocy of genasi lore during that edition…). For a more thorough history of how genasi developed through the editions, check out this piece by Dumpstat. 

The other bit of real planar lore comes from Out of the Abyss. This adventure concerns a group of full-fledged demon lords rampaging through the Underdark, largely because for ridiculous reasons they’re for once able to. Which demon lords? Try practically all of the original ones: Orcus, Baphomet, Demogorgon, Fraz-Urb’luu, Graz’zt, Juiblex, and Zuggtmoy. I’m not talking about their avatars or aspects either, these are the real deal with challenge levels in the 20s in a game where players are capped at level 20 and in the adventure itself tops out at level 15. And let’s be honest, featuring all of these demon lords is the main hook for this adventure, to the point that I’m sure some bought it just for the appendix at the back of the book featuring their updated Fifth Edition statblocks. Is the lore contained here the same as before? More or less, yes. You might notice a few changes, such as Orcus moving his base from Everlost and Oblivion’s End back to Naratyr or Graz’zt’s realm being renamed from Azzagrat to Azzatar (why?), but nothing feels particularly definitive and the changes are minor enough to be overlooked. Only a weirdo like me is going to notice these at all.

This leads us to the main event, one of very few Fifth Edition D&D books that’s already out of print: Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Unlike with a typical monster manual, this is an oddly chimeric work, essentially three supplements duct-taped together to form a surprisingly cohesive and useful whole. It’s hard to guess exactly why this approach was taken, but it might have something to do with responding to the generic, numerical approach to books that was used in Fourth Edition. The success of Volo‘s would lead to all of Fifth Edition’s future supplements including a different narrative voice with each release, and although these voices aren’t overwhelming like you’d find with the Dragonlance version The Bestiary from 1998 (where the game mechanics often felt like an afterthought to the lore), there’s a sense with the book of trying new things. That doesn’t pan out much as far as content is concerned, but is nonetheless appreciated. From here on, supplements to D&D would be more exciting than adventures in almost all cases, as they were the place where it felt like designers had the freedom to stretch D&D into what they wanted the game to become.

The first part of Volo‘s was what most excited me, though I’m guessing it’s by far the least read or referred to. Titled “Monster Lore,” it devotes 10+ pages to beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti. Most of these creatures are hardly planar in nature—hell, it’s arguable none of them are, such that I originally didn’t have this book included in my series outline—but exploding their lore like this means that we end up with interesting material nonetheless due to subspecies and religious beliefs receiving more than just an afterthought of space. Fifth Edition trickled out slowly, and one thing that was rarely clear was how much its multiverse really resembled earlier ones. Yes, it featured the Great Wheel, but how much of that was retained from earlier editions? Those questions remain weirdly unanswered as a whole, but at least hints of this began to leak through here, with old golds and creatures from throughout the planes getting mentioned in the game again, sometimes in passing and sometimes more fully, and frequently for the first time in decades. 

First, a plethora of old beholderkin are back in full force. While we already had spectators hailing from some unnamed plane, added to this are gauth, who

 …hail from the same plane as spectators, or one that overlaps it enough that they can take advantage of a flawed attempt to summon a spectator. Although true beholders can be found on a spectator’s or gauth’s home plane, the creatures’ actual place of origin is unknown (whether another plane, a world beyond the stars, or some stranger location), and spectators and gauths aren’t believed to originate from dreams as other beholders do. 

This barely matters in the greater scheme of things, but is still wonderful to see returned to the game. With Volo’s, you do get a sense that all of those old monster appendices from Second Edition are once again legitimate, and though the lore isn’t always a one-to-one match, that this is all supposed to be taken with a grain of salt given the source (Volo has always been intentionally an idiot) means that it’s even easier to consider this a full-on return to the game’s earlier canon.

One thing that this section does beg the question of is how useful any of this information would be to the type of old school fan who cares about, say, this series of articles, and here my excitement is a bit tempered. Volo’s is good about beholders, giants, etc. In many cases, this is the lengthiest and most detailed descriptions of these creatures ever officially released for Fifth Edition. However, they still often pale in comparison with what existed in earlier editions. While it’s not at all surprising that this section isn’t as detailed as the 100-page I, Tyrant from the Monstrous Arcana series, it also isn’t nearly as thorough as Lords of Madness‘ section on beholders in the semi-compatible Edition 3.5. In most cases, you can find more thorough and worthwhile information about these monsters elsewhere with pretty minimal effort. I like that the information in Volo’s exists for Fifth Edition players, especially those who only just started playing the game, but the amount of actual new information here is minimal at best. This particular version of D&D is being filled in, but rarely in a way that actually adds to what we already knew before. In essence, Volo’s is a repackaging and updating of old material, and your reception of it is going to hinge on how valuable you find that to be.

The only planar information in the “Giants: World Shakers” section concerns its backstory and deities, though there is a lot to unpack here. Information about the pantheon and its lore in Faerun is largely pulled from second edition AD&D‘s Giantcraft supplement, although what’s contained in there is largely an expansion of material from Monster Mythology (and to a lesser extent the original Deities & Demigods). What came as a surprise is just how much of this old, obscure pantheon ends up covered. Each giant race has its own patron deity, and all of them have been seen previously, though sometimes they’re not taken quite from where you’d expect. For instance, Surtur is quite obviously a misspelled version of the Norse god Surtr, likewise with Thrym, though this time with spellcheck on. But the rest of the deities, from the pantheon’s patron Annam downward, are old TSR inventions. It’s an odd conglomeration that doesn’t exactly mesh with older versions of the giant pantheon, but is close enough to at least appease weirdos like myself. The odder (i.e. worse) decision was to ignore all of the female giant deities entirely, as Diancastra, Hiatea, Iallanis, and Karontor go entirely unmentioned. While at first I thought that this meant they were no longer part of the game, having been removed silently and haphazardly like so many others during these edition swaps, listening to the official D&D podcast Dragon Talk made it clear that while they’re not yet mentioned, they haven’t been completely forgotten. Matthew Sernett talks a bit about them in the July 7, 2016 episode, and they seem just as canonical to this edition as the rest, they’re just not as warlike or evil so they weren’t relevant for mentioning in Volo‘s (and likewise didn’t appear in Storm King’s Thunder, which this whole giant section is more or less an addendum of). And, well, fair enough, I suppose—it’ll be interesting to see how this is depicted in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants a few years down the road. 

The gnolls section includes quite a bit about Yeenoghu, as expected. Completely forgetting about Gorellik also came as little surprise, but at the same time Volo‘s brings the equally obscure—and far more dead—Maanzecorian back into the game’s mythology. This is included with an odd explanation about how the mind flayers don’t really worship either Maanzecorian or Ilsensine, which isn’t too far off from their older depiction, though as ever it makes their source of power unclear and wonky to me. Oh, and before moving on, mind flayer nautiloids are no longer spelljamming vessels, they’re now “able to move through the Astral Plane.” We first saw spelljamming and the Astral Plane slam together awkwardly way back in Third Edition, but here’s our first real glimpse of it since then (ignoring whatever the fuck was going on in Fourth Edition, as that was so different as to hardly be relevant). Your mileage on all of this may vary, though my general point of view is that it should radically reshape the power structures of the multiverse in a lot of dumb ways. I’m already dreading Fifth Edition’s Spelljammer set and expecting it to leave my bookshelf soon after I finish reading it….

While Volo’s covers the goblin pantheon in a confusing manner, it is largely restored to its former glory. Most importantly, Maglubiyet is no longer just a half-assed lieutenant of Gruumsh as he was in Fourth Edition, and what’s more he’s given a meta-plot that does a good job of explaining the otherwise baffling conglomeration of goblin types. New to this book is the idea that Maglubiyet in fact conquered the rest of the goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear pantheons and took them over, essentially taking these people into his own through force of will. This makes them into a Roman-esque type of conquerors, and with this does a great job of differentiating goblins from kobolds, orcs, gnolls, et al. who in earlier editions were essentially the same creatures just with minutely different stat blocks. Suddenly, the goblin pantheon is interesting for the first time, and in a way with relevant physical and metaphysical ramifications. 

There are, like with the giants, a handful of old gods who go unmentioned, in this case Skiggaret, Stalker, and most relevantly Meriadar, the lawful neutral (bordering on good) god of non-evil goblins. It makes little sense that Fifth Edition put so much effort into trying to complexify groups like goblins and giants and then excised the deities who did so much to make them multi-dimensional in earlier editions. Maybe we’ll see more about this pantheon’s internecine struggles in the future, though without a dedicated book for goblins on the horizon I end up really doubting it.

Before moving on, there is one very entertaining addition to the goblin pantheon, though they go unnamed. As described later in the book:

When Maglubiyet conquered the goblin gods, he intended to leave only Khurgorbaeyag alive as a harsh overseer who would keep the goblins under heel. But the goblins’ pantheon included a trickster deity who was determined to get the last laugh. Although its essence was shattered by Maglubiyet, this trickster god survives in splintered form as a possessing spirit that arises when goblinoids form a host, causing disorder in the ranks unless it is appeased. Goblins have no name for this deity and dare not give it one, lest Maglubiyet use its name to ensnare and crush it as he did their other deities. They call the possessing spirit, and the goblin possessed by it, a nilbog (“goblin” spelled backward), and they revel in the fear that a nilbog sows among the ranks of the bugbears and hobgoblins in the host.

It’s a wonderful and weird concept that riffs on the first edition AD&D Fiend Folio monster and does something interesting with what had been a kind of stupid idea to begin with. 

The only planar monster covered in depth by Volo‘s are hags, and given that the plane in question is the Feywild that distinction is a pretty new development. Also an issue is that hags are for the most part a weird, misogynistic trope in the first place, and very little from either this supplement or elsewhere is going to do anything but reinforce that general ugliness. So despite the relevance to this series, it was one of the least enjoyable parts of this entire book to read, and something I’d generally recommend skipping. Unfortunately, this applies to night hags as well as any of the other subtypes. The small amount of information included here meshes very poorly with their wonderful Planescape lore from “Pox of the Planes” by Ed Bonny, such that larvae and yugoloths never even get mentioned. There’s also this sad little sidebar about the Rule of Three:

They say that things come in threes. Good things. Bad things. Strange things. Hags and purveyors of witchcraft embrace the Rule of Three, as it is called: a coven has three members, they believe that good or evil magic returns upon its source threefold, and the casting of many spells requires the same words chanted three times.

Long ago, planar travelers came to recognize that many of the realms and layers of the multiverse are configured in multiples of three. It is possible that plane-traveling hags learned of this planar-based superstition and adapted it to their own uses, although some among the oldest hags claim to have invented the concept or at least named it.

Remember when kobolds were dog-faced, or essentially goblins by a different name? Well those days are so long gone that they now believe they were created by Tiamat and “willingly serve chromatic dragons and worship them as if they were demigods-mighty beings of divine descent.” Which raises the question of why kobolds worship Kurtulmak, which is never really explained or justified, instead being simply elided with “Although kobolds usually don’t worship Tiamat directly, they recognize her as the dragon-goddess of all chromatic dragons, and as the master of their racial god, Kurtulmak.” Likewise, Kurtulmak is retconned into being a former (?) vassal of Tiamat. All of this makes the kobolds somehow feel even weaker than before, which wasn’t really what they needed, but these changes are essentially a question of taste. Fortunately, the animosity between Kurtulmak and Garl Glittergold has been retained, but the other two kobold gods are missing, not like this is a particularly big deal considering that most people have never heard of urds and wouldn’t remember them if they did. As with the hags, their section felt disappointingly rote.

Every single orc god returns and they all seem essentially the same as ever. Plus, all of that fourth edition war with Bane nonsense has been excised completely, thank fucking christ. In general, orcs are boring and I have little else to say about them—Fifth Edition just makes goblins and their kin a far more interesting group to hang out with.

The last monster to receive a whole section of coverage are the yuan-ti. I’ve never used them in an adventure, nor have I come across them as a PC, probably because their entire conception is part of that colonial “dark continent” fantasia of racism. As a result, I had to do some homework to see what had changed, and for the most part it’s just a slight expansion of what existed before. Dendar was more vague and not directly involved with the yuan-ti until now (Sseth had some weird involvement before, but that was it). The lore about Merrshaulk and Sseth is essentially just an abbreviated version of what was there earlier, and the whole “Serpent Gods” section was mostly just confusing. If you were into vaguely racist snake people before, you’re probably just as into them in Fifth Edition.

“Chapter 2: Character Races” pretty much does what it says, offering options for PCs to play as aasimar, firbolgs, goliaths, kenku, lizardfolk, tabaxi, tritons, or some of those monsters from earlier in the book (i.e. goblins and orcs). The only one of these that’s planar is aasimar, who like their counterpart are no longer “touched” (what a creepy way of saying descended from) by celestials, instead they’re touched specifically by denizens of Mount Celestia. As a result, they have the same lawful tinge as tieflings, though more differentiation in terms of appearance. I mean, I think? The only guide for their appearance at all is that, “They are a people of otherworldly visages, with luminous features that reveal their celestial heritage.” Which means, approximately, nothing. I don’t really mind this compared with what was done with tieflings, but a little bit of guidance is expected here, and essentially aasimar are left up for individual DMs and PCs to figure out on their own.

Onto “Chapter 3: Bestiary,” which takes up most of the rest of the book and is essentially what you’d expect. I’m going to take a stroll through its contents in my usual half-assed way, noting down planar creatures and a pithy sentence or two about how they’re depicted.

• Banderhobb – Maybe not exactly planar, but since hags make them and they’re fey then presumably they’re mostly found on the Feywild? In any case, they’re toad-like one-time-use golems with a hilarious name. Apparently in Fourth Edition they were just spontaneously popping up in the Shadowfell for no reason, and this is obliquely referenced in their description. Kinda prefer this version, as that edition’s reason for their existence was crazy stupid.
• Barghest – Even with a subsection on goblins, I didn’t expect to see these planar dudes return to the game. They’re given a totally new backstory, which is a retcon I appreciate as they were kinda boring even in Planescape. 
  
  “Long ago, Maglubiyet, master of the goblinoid gods, bargained with the General of Gehenna for aid. The General provided yugoloths that died to serve the cause of the goblin god. Yet when the time came to honor his part of the compact, Maglubiyet reneged on the deal. As an act of vengeance, the General of Gehenna created the soul-devouring barghests to devour goblinoid souls and deprive Maglubiyet of troops for his army in the afterlife.”
  
  Barghests in old school AD&D used to be essentially a weird planar goblin ally, bigger and tougher and shape change-ier than basic goblins, but still part of that general group. Now, they’re cuckoos, murdering the goblin groups they come from as revenge for an ancient betrayal. It’s wonderful, and though it doesn’t mesh perfectly with the old lore, it’s so much better that I don’t really care. Once again, great goblin work, Fifth Edition.
• Gauth – I covered this earlier and have nothing really to add. Kinda want a real explanation for their existence, but if that didn’t happen in Second Edition it almost certainly won’t now.
• Bodak – That rare case of a creature no longer being planar, but given their past I still wanted to note them here. The lore is now so different from earlier that it’s essentially a new monster that happens to share this name and also a death gaze. To me, a huge misfire in lore and part of a general tendency to make everything revolve around a handful of the game’s entities (i.e. Orcus, Vecna, Asmodeus) instead of letting things just be part of the multiverse.
• Boggle – A part of the game since first edition, but not one I’ve ever seen in play. Them being Feywild folks makes sense and otherwise they seem about the same as ever. 

• Cranium Rats – Who doesn’t love cranium rats? I wish they were given more depth, with a scaling of abilities for the number of rats, but the gist of them is still there—over-simplification is kinda what Fifth Edition is all about, so it’s hard to complain. Their relationship with mind flayers is also now explicit, but that wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret. I’d probably rewrite them a bit for actual use, but this is for the most part good enough.
• Darklings – Want to get real confused about poor editorial choices? The artwork for Darklings is the same as what was originally used in the Third Edition Fiend Folio art for another creature entirely, the Dark One. Despite this, they are very different creatures, with dark ones dating back from first edition AD&D and hailing from the underdark (and later the Shadowfell), whereas darklings are cursed fey with a highly forgettable backstory. Has anyone ever actually used these or seen them again? Probably not. 
• Demons 
  • Babau – I confess, I didn’t realize they weren’t in the game until now. They didn’t need a dumb backstory, but I guess that’s a leftover from Fourth Edition.
  • Maw Demon – Not technically new to the game, but I’d sure forgotten about them until now. Likewise about their backstory—demons are far cooler when they’re not linked with the lords. 
  • Shoosuva – Now we’re getting obscure. This monster originated in a random Dragon article and had been largely forgotten until now. They actually make sense to be tied with Yeenoghu.
• Devourer – I really loathe the decision to link devourers with Orcus and far prefer the Planescape originals. The new art is also pretty damn try-hard. Bleh.

• Flail Snail – Gotta love any creature that exists for the purpose of a really dumb rhyme. Your guess is as good as mine why these earth elementals were returned to the game.
• Ki-rin – I always rather liked ki-rin, and also appreciate Fifth Edition’s commitment to covering monsters who aren’t there just for fights. They have legendary actions and described lairs. Nothing surprising crops up, they’re just good dudes.
• Korred – I’m sorry, but I have nothing to say about them. I just can’t force myself to care about all of the random types of fey, even ones who’ve been around in D&D since before I was born.
• Meenlock – Everything I just said about the korred applies here as well, except at least these are dudes you can have fun beating up. I guess I could also add that I particularly hate creatures that spontaneously appear for no reason, this being a particularly lazy way of creating even a fantasy world.

• Morkoth – Morkoths are by no means a new part of D&D, having originated with original Monster Manual in 1977. However, that conception as squid-faced “morloks” bears practically no relationship with the version in Volo’s:
  
  Spawned by a God. Long ago, a deity of greed and strife perished in the battles among the immortals. Its body drifted through the Astral Plane, eventually becoming a petrified husk. This corpse floated up against a pearlescent remnant of celestial matter imbued with life and life-giving magic. The collision shattered both objects and released a storm of chaotic energy. Countless islands of mixed matter spun away into the silvery void. Within some of them, a vein of pearl-like material held a bit of the deity’s rejuvenated supernatural vitality, which spontaneously created a habitable environment. On those same islands, bits of the god’s petrified flesh came back to life, in the form of tentacled monstrosities brimming with malice and greed. Ever since that time, each morkoth has had an extraplanar island to call home.
  The pearly matter inside an island enables it to glide on planar currents, maintains the island’s environment, and keeps the place safe from harmful external effects. A morkoth’s island might be found anywhere from the bottom of the ocean to the void of the Astral Plane. One could float in the skies of Avernus in the Nine Hells without being destroyed and without causing harm to its residents. Whatever is on or within a certain distance of a morkoth’s isle travels with it in its journey through the planes. Thus, people from lost civilizations and creatures or objects from bygone ages might be found within a morkoth’s dominion.
  
  This version of morkoths as interplanar weirdos (sometimes viewed “as a ruler or a god”) is Lovecraftian and more something I’d expect to see from Planebreaker than D&D. Their lairs (and lair action) are also described, and in general they seem like a fun “new” monster for the planes. I hope to see them used in the future, even though I’m doubtful it will actually happen given how specific and strange they are.
• Quickling – Lorum ipsum fey are boring.
• Redcap – Like the quickling, just slower and with a stupider hat. And spawning from a stupid reason, too, now that I think of it. What a tiresome fucking plane.
• Shadow Mastiff  – Did you know that these shadow doggies have been in every edition of D&D? Never can tell what people will latch onto.
• Vargouille – Another obscure oldie—the number of truly new monsters in this book is semi-nonexistent (sorry, subtypes don’t count), but they sure did an interesting job of raiding the archives. Vargouilles now originate from the Abyss rather than just the Lower Planes in general, but this is a minor change. More importantly, they retain their creepy kiss-curse that was really what gave them an identity. 
• Yeth Hound – Feywild doggies, they’re far less interesting than the Planescape version in that they’re now created somehow by the Queen of Air and Darkness and then just, I dunno, dogging about. This isn’t reflected well by their abilities, as their sunlight banishment thing just doesn’t feel very Feywild at all, perhaps because this predated the existence of that plane. I mostly just dislike anytime creatures can just be waved into being (can she wave an infinite number into existence?), and more than that this version took a threat to the fey and transformed it into their servant. 

In all, Volo’s ends up being my favorite monster supplement since Third Edition’s Fiend Folio. That isn’t to say that it’s a very original, deep, or expansive work, as it’s in fact none of these. But as a first monster supplement for Fifth Edition D&D it lays an excellent groundwork for the game, stretching its lore intelligently without ever feeling like it’s doing anything particularly noteworthy. It is an excellent B-student work that does many things well and pretty much nothing exceptionally. I didn’t feel like I needed to go round up a copy for my shelves, but I also didn’t regret reading through it, except for maybe the parts focused on hags and orcs. It basically achieved what it was trying to, and I can’t fault it for any of that, even if it hardly left me feeling inspired the way certain monster manuals and appendices did in the deep past.