Reading Volo's Guide to Monsters: Introduction and Beholders

 

Volo's Guide to Monsters is a book designed to provide deeper insight into some common monsters beyond what is seen in the Monster Manual so that dungeon masters have more materials to draw from for players, and it is absolutely a mixed bag. There's some decent worldbuilding in there for the Forgotten Realms, but there's also some stuff that feels...

Let's not mince words here: sketch as hell.

We'll get to that.

Overall, I'd still consider this book worth the purchase, as sitting down on my bed under a weighted blanket and admiring the art, the humor, and those SEXY statblocks makes the soda-addicted imp that lives in my head do a happy dance, and I don't plan on spoiling the whole book, but I feel like using a blog to push me to actually read and reflect on it, as well as write down and share my thoughts, would be good for me.

I'll provide some pictures and snapshots here and there.

This preface introduces us to one of the most important, IMO, parts of the book: the in-universe authors, Volo and Elminister. Volo does most of the writing, naturally, while Elminister annotates his work with dripping sarcasm. It's a delightful back and forth that helps keep the text from feeling too dry. Furthermore, the book is heavily implied to be, in large part, bullshit, which is great! It's an encouragement to be fresh and creative with your worldbuilding! It's very much a "take what you think works and dismiss the rest" kind of deal, and that's great.

Because I may be dismissing whole chapters. That's just how it goes, y'know?

Now then, Chapter 1: Monster Lore

This book covers, in order, beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti, and oh boy are some of these going to be a trip. Let's begin with...

BEHOLDERS: BAD DREAMS COME TRUE

>To those who would seek to conquer beholders or merely understand them, nearly everything about their quarry is unfathomable. These bizarre creatures are possessed of alien intelligence, inhuman forms of perception, and the ability to shape reality through force of will-or even by their mere presence. Inside the comfortable confines of its subterranean lair, a beholder is nearly unassailable thanks to the combination of its peerless intellect and the brutal effects of its eye rays. 

Beholders are, moreso than anything else, the face of D&D. If you see a floating blob of eyes and eyestalks with a fanged maw, you know this is a world of nine hells, Vancian spellcasting, and half-devil bards on the side of good. 

Somewhat unfortunately, the book takes the position that they are "unfathomable," which is one of those words that I instinctively translate as "the writer is being lazy." Pretty much anything can be explained if you know how... which the book then goes on to do.

Beholders, they describe, are very powerful and intelligent, vastly moreso than humans, and capable of warping reality with their dreams like a Lovecraftian cosmic horror... but unlike such monsters, as a certain Jonathan Wojcik once said, "...they just have the personality of the actual H.P. Lovecraft." Despite their extreme intelligence,  all that goes through their mind is how much better they are than everyone else, assuming that everyone else must be SUPER JEALOUS of every aspect of them, and wasting precious mental energy fearing about how they're probably all out for their blood, as opposed to using that big ol' brain of theirs to actually try and learn more about their neighbors: the perfect image of a completely delusional, paranoid, narcissistic fascist.

In other words, a perfect monster.

They're described as having considered and planned a defense in the case of EVERY possible thing that could happen, and unlike Aesop's fox, who was torn apart by dogs before he finished considering which of his hundred plans to use to escape them, they're quick-witted enough to pick just the one and put it into action at a moment's notice with the efficiency of a CTRL+F press. Perhaps a bit goofy, but let's be real here: beholders are goofy, and there's nothing wrong with goofy.

Beholders "birth" new beholders in their sleep, not through a biological process, but through a magical, reality-warping one, and true to form, they usually end up starting a 1v1 death match the moment they wake up and realize there's competition for the title of Sexiest God Genius of the Multiverse, frequently ending with no net difference in the number of beholders in the world. Most of the variations in beholder types are either beholders who are SLIGHTLY less xenophobic than others or who were born through strange dreams of theirs, which is good! I'm a big fan of tight worldbuilding like that.

The random tables for generating your own beholders are incredibly darling, and the roleplaying section is pretty much point for point Narcissistic Control Freak 101. Further, the notes for how to best use their abilities in and out of combat are incredibly helpful.

In summary, our first entry of Volo's work was pretty great! It presents an incredibly fantastic creature in a very endearing, familiarly villainous manner reminiscent of greats like Snidely Whiplash or Invader Zim, and it both sells the monster as a threat and provides support to better utilize it in your games. I know I've fallen in love with them!

 In the next post of this nature, we'll be tackling giants.