Fiend Folio

Fiend Folio is any of three products published for successive editions of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). All three are collections of monsters, making each Fiend Folio a sequel to that edition's version of the Monster Manual.

The bulk of the material in the first edition came from the British gaming magazine White Dwarf, rather than being authored by Gary Gygax, the game's co-creator. Readers and gamers had submitted creatures to the "Fiend Factory" department of the magazine, and the most highly regarded of those appearing in the first ten issues were selected to be in the publication.

Publication history

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition

Games Workshop, with Don Turnbull editing the project, originally intended to produce and publish the Fiend Folio tome (ISBN 0-935696-21-0) in late 1979. The Fiend Folio was intended to be the second volume of the Monster Manual, and would be officially recognized by TSR as an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons product, with the monsters mostly taken from submissions to White Dwarf's "Fiend Factory" column. At the time, Games Workshop was the holder of the license to publish D&D game products in the United Kingdom. Although the manuscript was completed on time by editor Don Turnbull, a business dispute between Games Workshop and TSR Hobbies delayed publication of the book for nearly two years. The Fiend Folio was finally published in August 1981 by TSR itself, who used the product to launch its UK division.