The D&D Mordenkainen’s tome of foes is an accessories series for the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. The series is a part of the 5th edition of the game, and it was published in 2018.
D&D Mordenkainen’s Tome Of Foes
| Author(s) | Mike Mearls
Jeremy Crawford |
| Publisher(s) | Wizards of the Coast |
| Platform(s) | Table Top |
| Release date | 29 May 2018 |
The Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is a narration of the wizard Mordenkainen. This is a character that is created by Gary Gygax for his campaign in the World of Greyhawk. The Mordenkainen guides players through the gameplay of the campaign.
This book is based on the works of Greyhawk’s world-famous wizards and has been collected after a lifetime of research and research.
While traveling to other territories and classes of other creatures, he made many friends and endangered his life many times to accumulate knowledge. In addition to Morden Kainen’s meditation on endless wars in multiple universes, this book also contains game statistics for dozens of monsters. There are new and old demons, different types of elves and duelists, and many other creatures from the entire plane of existence.
The Chapters
The chapters of the book include the following;
- The Preface
- Chapter 1: The Blood War
- Chapter 2: Elves
- Chapter 3: Dwarves and Duergar
- Chapter 4: Gith and Their Endless War
- Chapter 5: Halflings and Gnomes
- Chapter 6: Bestiary
- The Appendix: Monster Lists
Chapter 1: Bloody War
The bloody war is a battle between the devil of the abyss and the nine hellish devils for supremacy in the universe, and this chapter presents the history of the conflict and details of all the sides in the conflict.
Chapter 2 Elves
After years of the race, the sons of Corellon were divided into elves, ties, Eladrin, and Shadar-kai. This chapter presents a long history and final differences. You can also learn more about all of the elf’s life stages, from infancy to older people.
Chapter 3: Dwarves and Duergar
Another of the ancient wars involved dwarves and tragic ethnic warriors enslaved by Mind Flayers. This chapter focuses on the conflicts and details that make up the various aspects. Take dwarves as an example.
Chapter 4: Gith and Their Endless War
After defeating the Princes of Mind flayers, Gith could not determine the type of company they wanted to start. To this day, they are each other’s enemies. As in the previous chapter, detailed information on both sides of the conflict is provided here. There are statistics on races and under races Githyanki and Githzerai and some tables that describe them in detail.
Chapter 5: Halflings and Gnomes
This chapter gets rid of the main struggle of the multidimensional universe in the previous chapter. This book examines the lifespan of semicircles and names. Both make them careful, avoid conflicts, and flourish without them. You can also use some tables to extract details about semicircles and call signs.
Chapter 6: Bestiary
Chapter 6 provides an animal fable that contains game statistics and the folklore of more than 140 monsters, representing more than half of the book’s pages. Many of the monsters contained in them are perfect for DMs to explain the major conflicts in the multidimensional universe described in the previous chapter.
The Races
Long-term DnD fans will recognize most of these races, including the Eladrin, Shadar-kai, and Duerger, all in Mordenkainen’s Book. However, this book introduces many of the races in the fifth edition of the game. Below are those races:
Tiefling Subrace
These are a humanoid race whose human ancestors had an agreement with the Nine Hell’s demon. Besides, the innate spells a Tiefling learns also depend on his subrace. Boys associated with Baalzebul and boys associated with Levistus. They use spells such as Frost Lights and Armor of Agathys.
Duergar
The duel beast is a dark dwarf, a tribe of dwarfs that have been looted by the demons of the heart and undergoing cruel experiments. When the duelists removed the chains (because the leader signed a treaty with a demon, the ruler of nine hells), they discovered that ordinary dwarves essentially called them heretics.
Sea Elf
The book does not cover the sea elf with too much detail, but the publication has its own subrace statistics. The Sea Elf’s physique is increased by +1, and Trident and Link weapons are skillfully used. They can also swim and breathe in the water and talk to fish and other creatures at their natural swimming speeds.
The Gith
The Gith were once were one faction, and the mind flayers enslaved them; however, they rebelled and eventually split into two. They became the two factions, which are the Githzerai and Githyanki.
Eladrin
The Eladrin is a kind of spirit elves that live in Feywild. They can change shape according to their mood. They can be reshaped to suit any of the four seasons, changing skin, hair, clothing color, mood, and skills.
Deep Gnomes
These are creatures that live in the Underdark. They not happy creatures, and they spend most of their time mining for precious minerals. They also have the Svirfneblin Magic trait because they have the ability to hide in the caves and other dark areas well.
Shadar-kai
Shadar-kai is an elf who lives in Shadowfell, and this is a plane of shadows dominated by Raven Queen. Formerly Shadar-kai was a normal elf, but its shape changed forever after years of living in the shadows. Due to their loyal connection to the Raven Queen, Shadar-kai is essentially immortal, but each time they return to Shadowfell, their bodies show extreme age.
Conclusion
For new players, this might not be the game series to start with because it is a bit complicated, and you need some familiarity with the DnD lore. For someone like me, who has a lot of familiarity with the game, I was mostly interested in the new monsters. I wanted to see if they were unique enough or if they were a retread of something that I had seen in the past. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised that the monsters and races were new and fresh, which makes the title worthwhile to play.