Look, I know I’ve touched on this a bit before (in my Crawfordsville Monster articles, those are the first ones that come to mind), but I’m gonna say it again so we’re clear- I love Monster Manuals. Doesn’t matter what theme they might be, what game they’re for, if I even understand what the numbers mean. I just love flipping through Monster Manuals. I even own a copy of the fourth edition MM 1, such is my love of creature stats. And I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you probably already pieced this together on your own, but the one they released for Modern- the Menace Manual- is probably my favorite one.
There are some good ones- 3.5’s MM2 had some cool monsters, that book The Encountered for the game Alpha Omega that The Mysterious Dr. X reviewed some time back has some legitimately great artwork in it. 5E’s MM is also really sweet as well. The third edition of Mutants & Masterminds released a book called Threat Report that is an incredibly useful resource for M&M players. And, for my money, I would say that- after the Menace Manual, of course- probably my favorite monster index-style book is called The Book Of Unremitting Horror, released in 2007 by Pelgrane Press. It’s designed for the GUMSHOE system, an investigation-heavy game system created for use for two similar, overlapping games- Fear Itself and The Esoterrorists.
If you haven’t put it together by now, they’re both horror games. I personally got it for use with Fear Itself, but it works equally well with either game. But anyway- this book. Seriously, this damn book. It is legitimately disturbing in a way very few things are. They really, just… they really hit the nail on the head when they decided to make “book with lots of messed up stuff” in it. I highly recommend it if you want to read things that will stay with you for a while. I can’t say for sure I’ve ever gotten all the way through it.
Which, in retrospect, I find to be a very interesting way to phrase that thought, since that’s the reason I like creature stats so much- I can just sit down and read them like novels. Which brings me to my original point- the Menace Manual.
So many cool monsters, dude. I’m tellin’ ya. They cleverly got all the classic monsters- zombies, gnolls, ogres, Meepo- out of the way for the mini-Menace Manual inside the core rulebook itself, which meant they had plenty of room to think up all kinds of crazy new monsters for the Menace Manual that don’t really have any D&D analog. And let me tell you, some of them are pretty great.
The first one that comes to mind is, of course, the Crawfordsville Monster. It is, was, and will be my favorite monster that ever appeared in Modern. It’s great, and I’m not gonna say any more, since I wrote a two-part article all about them. If you wanna now more, go check the articles out. Next up, the rogue tulpa. Now, the thematic style of the monster- rampaging beast created from latent psychic energy- could reasonably appear in any game, but what makes it especially appropriate for Modern is the long-standing real life tradition of natives practicing tulpa creation. It feels like the kind of monster that doesn’t quite belong in fantasy, since it’s too closely tied to real events, people, and places that actually exist- thereby making it perfect for a Modern game.
Another great monster is the sand slave. Like the rogue tulpa, sand slaves don’t have any similar (even superficially) comparison to a creature from fantasy. The closest resemblance I can think of is the umber hulk- not because of any remote similarity between powers, or appearance, or even purpose. But because umber hulks are the slave race of the neogi, and sand slaves are the slave race to the etoile. Etoile are a race of intelligent machines that vaguely resemble ornate Christmas tree ornaments (which is the analogy they use in the book, one I find incredibly apt), and have a special nanite injection ability (they spell it “nannite” in the book, and I just can’t accept that spelling) that turns the infected into cybernetic spies (thew aforementioned sand slaves). Cool, cool stuff.
I’ve also always been a fan of Montauk Monsters as well (apparently, I’m just a big fan of creatures with the word “monster” in their name). Basically, imagine really big, all-blue humans with no head and super long arms. Oh, and they’re invisible. Oh, and they’re basically made of electricity. And bringing them up reminds me of something else that I’ve always liked so much about Modern- they really went out of there way to make even the monsters feel like they belong. And I don’t mean like how they depicted Meepo as a soldier, or the gnoll as a pimp. I mean that they really turned to creatures that are uniquely recognizable to current players. Monsters like the rogue tulpa, whose existence is tied to the worshipping practices of natives. Chemical golems, litter brutes, and toxic sludge, which are monsters that could only exist in a situation like ours, the question of what to do with all this trash and toxic waste still lingering.
But then, they bust out my favorite category of monster- of which my favorite monster is a part- the urban legend. Crawfordsville Monsters. Montauk Monsters. Mothfolk. Mongolian Death Worms. Sasquatches. Fraal (which is what they call grey aliens). Yetis (which are NOT sasquatches). Man-o’-wars. All of these (and I’m sure there are more I didn’t immediately recognize) are monsters we’re familiar with, since they actually exist in real life as urban legends. An all that does is make it more exciting, since in almost every case, the monster has been changed or otherwise modified a meaningful way that will make us unsure of its capabilities, even if we’re familiar with the story it’s originally from.
And on top of all that, here come some more classics, right out of the Monster Manual. As if the ones from the core book just weren’t enough, they toss out neothelids. Hags. Intellect devourers. Harpies. Grimlocks. Ghouls. All these and more are iconic monsters from D&D that have successfully been transplanted into Modern. Some of them are basically identical (megalodon), while others (looking at you, bodak) took the name and the look and completely overhauled them. Then there’s the ones in between- fiends, for instance. They were definitely around before, but the ones in Modern are a mix of transplants from fantasy and brand-new creations. All cool ways of doing it, and it just plain works.
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The Chief (and I never even got into things like the madman, or revenants, or bogeymen. Wizards’ template game really stepped it up a notch with Modern)
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