Dr Simon Reads...

  Issue 39 Phraarkilloorm (Inhuman Gods Part 1)   This is a something of a departure for the Fiend Factory, as over the next four issues it is given over entirely to Phil Masters and his Deities and Demigods style entries for the gods of the various non-human races published in the Fiend Factory and the Fiend Folio. One thing about Phil Masters is that his flavour text is always worth the price of entry, and so he’s a good choice for this particular column. It isn’t the first time that one author has had a whole Fiend Factory to himself. The very first monster listing, before the Fiend Factory was a thing, was entirely Ian Livingstone, but since then we’ve had Daniel Collerton’s Flymen, Allan E Paul’s Fey creatures, and Eric Hall’s Loculi. But until now, never a multi-part series. The entries are in alphabetical order for the creatures that worship the entities, and so it begins with the Aarakocra.   Although the current version of the Aarakocra are followers of...

Issue 38 The Leanan-Sidhe The Fiend Factory this week actually forms the middle instalment in a three-part series by Alan E Paull about the Land of Faerie. In Issue 37, Alan introduced the concept of adventures using the fey, and next issue there is a scenario; here, he gives us a bunch of fey creatures, mostly based on Celtic (Irish/Scottish) mythology, and some of which have seen, or will see, publication in the Fiend Folio and the Monster Manual II for 1 st Edition in a different variant. First up is the Gwyllion (and these creatures are repeated in a Fiend Factory mini-scenario much later on, well past the span of issues that I’m using). These are hermaphrodite figures that hang around in mountain passes, for … reasons. They’re not really “monsters” as such, more a mix of NPC and scenery, since their main function is to provide information in the form of riddles.   Remember the Bogy? Well, here we have Bogles , another route to the same concept. Here, Alan does what I...