Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes has been released in some game stores and on D&D Beyond! Hooray!

This is a book that, like Volo’s Guide to Monsters, presents much information about the inhabitants of the D&D world. Its primary focus is on the conflicts between various factions:

• Demons and Devils – the Blood War
• Elves and Drow, and all the other elven subraces
• Dwarves and Duergar
• Githyanki and Githzerai and their war against the Mind Flayers
• Halflings and Gnomes, and how, unlike everyone else, they live peacefully

That last is a bit of an outlier, but the rest of the conflicts are important within the lore D&D has built up over the last 44 years.

Also, the book provides statistics for many monsters, including new variants of drow, duergar, githyanki and githzerai. The demon lords first presented in Out of the Abyss reappear here, and a selection of archdevils also appear, although not Asmodeus.

If you’re a player looking for new player mechanics, there’s not much on offer. You can find new varieties of tiefling, more playable elven subraces (eladrin, sea elf and shadar-kai), rules for playing duergar, githyanki, githzerai and deep gnomes, but that’s about it.

Instead, a player will likely find Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes more useful for inspiring the history and personality of their characters. The book has several additional tables for random personalities (flaws, bonds, ideals and traits), and the background lore is very well detailed and should help you ground your character in the history of the D&D world.

Dungeon Masters are likely to be more interested in this book.

The chapter on demons and devils impresses me. It describes the Blood War – the eternal conflict between the demons and the devils for control of the multiverse – and the various archdevils and demon princes. What makes this useful to me is how it describes how mortals are involved with the plans of each of these factions. It doesn’t just describe what Mammon is doing on the lower planes; the book also describes what he or his agents do on the Material Plane. Although there’s not a lot of detail for each archdevil or demon prince, the cumulative effect is that you have many seeds for adventure ideas.

The chapter on elves doesn’t impress me that much. There’s a lot of words on how elves see the world and how they’re different from men (and everyone else). The details of the drow are more interesting than those of regular elves, and I’m happy to see that driders confirmed in their status as outcasts, but overall my version of elves is very different than what’s presented here. I’m curious what other people think of this section; it’s possible it’s better than I think, especially since I liked the rest of the book more.

I wasn’t expecting much from the dwarven chapter, but I enjoyed its presentation of the conflict between the dwarves and the duergar and the personalities and lifestyles of both. This chapter is well done; I particularly appreciate the calling out of dwarves in Greyhawk and Dragonlance as opposed to the Forgotten Realms dwarven races. I would have appreciated such a section in the chapter on elves.

The chapter on the Gith, Githyanki and Githzerai, fills me with joy. Since Charles Stross created them and their introduction in the Fiend Folio, the gith have seen a slow rise to becoming one of the premiere monsters in D&D. This book does a fantastic job of describing the two races, providing much inspiration for the Dungeon Master, who can easily use them as antagonists, while also providing some player-facing material.

Halflings have had an interesting time in the D&D game. When first described, they drew heavily on the hobbits of Lord of the Rings. Slowly, as time has passed, they’ve become a more adventurous race. Weis and Hickman’s kender race, from the Dragonlance books, was probably the first attempt at presenting halflings that wanted to go on adventures; the modern halfling draws on the less problematic aspects of the kender and is no longer beholden to the Hobbit in personality.

Gnomes, as tinkerers and inventors, have always been much more a D&D invention, although again, the influence of Dragonlance can be seen in the modern gnome; the original gnome in AD&D was a smaller cousin of the dwarves that mined gems. The 3E books of 2000 reenvisioned the lore of both halfling and gnomes, and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes continues in that vein. It’s a middling chapter; some interesting information for role-playing, but not that much use for the Dungeon Master except for world-building details. There is a shout-out to the tinker gnome of Dragonlance, but – mercifully – no rules for constructing their unreliable inventions.

The new monster statistics range from Challenge 1/8 (Young Kruthik) to Challenge 26 (Demogorgon, Orcus and Zariel). There is a good spread of monsters throughout the levels. 59 monsters have a Challenge of 11 or higher, 77 have a Challenge of 10 or below – and nine are at CR 10. This helps provide foes for higher-level games, which were lacking from previous publications. The range is still limited, but at least you have more examples upon which you can base your designs.

I’m particularly happy to see the Bone Claw return; this was one of my favourite 3^rd edition monsters, although I note that the lore about them is new. I like the revised lore better, and it gave me an immediate idea for an adventure.

I don’t have much to say about the monsters yet; I’ll have to use a few in play. It looks like an excellent selection, updating some old favourites and including some new monsters as well. At least they’re new to me. I can’t wait to inflict the Rot Troll on my players!

Overall, despite my misgivings about the material on elves, I think this is a strong addition to the D&D line. Highly recommended!