A Month-Long Survey of Bestiaries

The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House has a fondness for bestiaries. The publication of A Bestiary of East Tennessee in 2015 was the culmination of a lifelong desire to produce our own book of monsters.

There are, however, numerous bestiaries that line the halls of the Poison Pie Publishing House, each more illustrious than the next. In the month of June, 2016, the staff has decided to highlight a different bestiary for each day of the month. In the gallery below, we present the cover of the book, and portions of a sample entry, most of which include some illustration of the creature as well as an excerpt of the accompanying description. We hope you enjoy perusing this month-long survey of bestiaries as much as we enjoyed compiling it.

Update: This survey was eventually included in what came to be known as A Survey of One Hundred Bestiaries.

 

June 1, 2016
A Bestiary of East Tennessee
authors: The Keffer Family
publisher: The Poison Pie Publishing House
publication date: 2015
cover: softcover
number of pages: 62
ISBN: 978-1516965366
description: A Bestiary of East Tennessee presents an encyclopedia of the creatures, mundane and exotic, dwelling in East Tennessee and other proximate locations. Illustrated in felt by the Keffer family, the book begins in reality and ends in fantasy.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the mushroom man.

June 2, 2016
The Book of Imaginary Beings
authors: Jorge Luis Borges with Margaritta Guerro
publisher: Discus Books
publication date: 1969
original title: El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios
original publisher: Editorial Kier, S. A., Buenos Aires
original publication date: 1967
translator: Norman Thomas di Giovanni
cover: softcover
number of pages: 256
ISBN: none
description: This bestiary draws on historical and literary sources from around the world. It begins with the A Bao A Qu, as recorded by C.C. Iturvuru in his treatise, On Malay Witchcraft (1937), and ends with the Zaratan, a creature from the Book of Animals by al-Jahiz, the ninth-century Moslem zoologist. This bestiary is not illustrated.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the Lamed Wufniks.

There are on earth, and always were, thirty-six righteous men whose mission is to justify the world before God. They are the Lamed Wufniks. They do not know each other and are very poor. If a man comes to the knowledge that he is a Lamed Wufnik, he immediately dies and somebody else, perhaps in another part of the world, takes his place. Lamed Wufniks are, without knowing it, the secret pillars of the universe. Were it nor for them, God would annihilate the whole of mankind. Unawares, they are our saviors...

June 3, 2016
Planescape Campaign Setting Monstrous Supplement
designer: David "Zeb" Cook
interior artist: Tony DiTerlizzi
cover artist: Robh Ruppel
publisher: TSR
publication date: 1994
cover: softcover
number of pages: 32
ISBN: 978-1560768340
description: This bestiary is included in the original Planescape Campaign Setting box. It is a 32 page pamphlet with no cover, containing descriptions of twelve creatures. Planescape is a multiplanar campaign setting defining the cosmology of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the modron.

What's a mortal to make of the modrons, those strange creatures of absolute order who whir and click on the plane of Mechanus? ... It is only logical, as it is with all things modron, that they are native to the orderly plane of Mechanus. The two, the plane and modrons, probably could not exist without each other--modron society defines the plane, just as the plane shapes them. To understand the modrons, a being must stop thinking like a person, like an individual. Only then can anyone hope to comprehend the patterns of modron life.

June 4, 2016
Monster Manual, 1st edition
author: Gary Gygax
interior artists: David C. Sutherland III et al.
cover artist: Jeff Easley
publisher: TSR
publication date: 1977
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 112
ISBN: 978-0880380522
description: This bestiary is the original Monster Manual for the 1st edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game. The cover shown here is for the 1985 reprint.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the owlbear.

The horrible owlbear is probably the result of genetic experimentation by some insane wizard. These creatures inhabit the tangled forest regions of every temperate clime, as well as subterranean labyrinths. They are ravenous eaters, aggressive hunters, and evil tempered at all times. They attack prey on sight and will fight to the death.

June 5, 2016
Monstrous Manual, 2nd edition
author: various
interior artists: Tony DiTerlizzi et al.
cover artist: Jeff Easley
publisher: TSR
publication date: 1993
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 384
ISBN: 978-1560766193
description: This bestiary is the Monster Manual for the 2nd edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the beholder.

The beholder is the stuff of nightmares. This creature, also called the sphere of many eyes or the eye tyrant, appears as a large orb dominated by a central eye and a large toothy maw, has 10 smaller eyes on stalks sprouting from the top of the orb. Among adventurers, beholders are known as deadly adversaries...The globular body of the beholder and its kin is supported by levitation, allowing it to float slowly about as it wills...Each of the beholder's eyes, including the central one has a different function. The central eye produces an anti-magic ray with a 140-yard range, which covers a 90 degree arc before the creature. The standard smaller eyes of a beholder are as follows:

  1. Charm person
  2. Charm monster
  3. Sleep
  4. Telekinesis
  5. Flesh to stone
  6. Disintegrate
  7. Fear
  8. Slow
  9. Cause serious wounds
  10. Death ray

June 6, 2016
Monster Manual, 3rd edition
authors: Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet & Monte Cook
interior artists: Michael Kaluta et al.
cover artist: Henry Higgenbotham
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: October, 2000
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0786915521
description: This bestiary is the Monster Manual for the 3rd edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the xorn.

Xorn are scavengers from the Elemental Plane of Earth. The wide body of a xorn is made of a pebbly, stonelike material. It has a large, powerful mouth on top of its head, surrounded by three long arms, tipped with sharp talons, symmetrically positioned around it. Between the arms are large, stone-lidded eyes that see in all directions. At its base are three thick, short legs, each directly beneath an eye. The whole body is designed for burrowing, mouth first.

June 7, 2016
Monster Manual, 3.5th edition
authors: Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet & Monte Cook
interior artists: Tom Baxa et al.
cover artist: Henry Higgenbotham
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: July, 2003
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 319
ISBN: 978-0786928934
description: This bestiary is the Monster Manual for the 3.5th edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the gibbering mouther.

A gibbering mouther is a horrible creature seemingly drawn from a lunatic's nightmares. Although not evil, it thirsts after bodily fluids and seems to prefer the blood of intelligent creatures. Sometimes the arrangement of eyes and mouths on a gibbering mouther's body resembles a face, but just as often they have no relationship to one another...Gibbering mouthers can speak common, but seldom say anythign other than gibberish. A gibbering mouther attacks by shooting out strings of protoplasmic flesh, each ending in one or more eyes and a mouth that bites at the enemy.

June 8, 2016
Monster Manual, 4th edition
authors: Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert & James Wyatt
interior artists: Michael Komarck et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: June, 2008
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 287
ISBN: 978-0786948529
description: This bestiary is the Monster Manual for the 4th edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the githyanki.

Born out of slavery, the githyanki are fierce psychic warriors that ply the Astral Sea and fight with silver swords. The githyanki and the githzerai were once a single race--the gith--enslaved by mind flayers, but they split into two races after winning their freedom. Whereas the githzerai fled to the Elemental Chaos and became introspective and monastic, the githyanki fled to the Astral Sea and became xenophobic and militaristic. They built citadels and armies and from there they set out to conquer everything in their path.

June 9, 2016
Monster Manual, 5th edition
author: Christopher Perkins
interior artists: various
cover artist: Raymond Swanland
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: September, 2014
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 352
ISBN: 978-0786965618
description: This bestiary is the Monster Manual for the 5th edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the kuo-toa.

Kuo-toa are degenerate fishlike humanoids that once inhabited the shores and islands of the surface world. Long ago humans and their ilk drove the kuo-toa underground, where they dwell in madness and everlasting night. Kuo-toa can no longer abide daylight. At the the height of the illithid empire, the mind flayers captured kuo-toa by the thousands and forced them into bondage. The kuo-toa were simple creatures, never meant to endure the oppressive mental force the illithids unleashed against them. By the time the mind flayers abandoned them, the prolonged psychic subjugation endured by the kuo-toa had driven them mad. Their minds shattered beyond repair, the kuo-toa adopted a religious fervor, inventing gods to protect them against threats. Most notable of these threats are the drow, which have slain kuo-toa on sight since the days when the two races first met. Kuo-toa worship gods of their own creation, but if enough kuo-toa believe that a god is real, the energy of their collective subconscious can cause that god to manifest as a physical entity...One of the most revered gods of the kuo-toa is Blibdoolpoolp the Sea Mother, who takes the form of a female human with a crayfish head, a crayfish's claws and an articulated shell covering her shoulders.

June 10, 2016
Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
authors: Richard Baker, James Jacobs & Steve Winter
interior artists: Jim Nelson et al.
cover artists: Wayne England & Ed Cox
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: April, 2005
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0786936571
description: This bestiary focuses on aberrations. It is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the illithid, or mindflayer.

Few monsters inspire as much horror or terror as the illithids. They are rightly feared by everyone and everything. Few can match them in undiluted evil, cruelty or cunning. Their origins are cloaked in mystery, their plans are enigmatic, and their culture and thought processes are utterly alien. Illithids are better known by their common name of mind flayers, and it is an apt title. A mind flayer's attack strikes into a victim's most vulnerable spot. It can psychically peel back a target's personality the way a surgeon draws back swollen flesh. Tentacles slick with slime writhe across ravaged edges of bone to caress gray, glittering coils of brain before drawing them from the conscious, screaming prey.

June 11, 2016
The Tome of Horrors Complete
authors: Scott Greene & Erica Balsley
interior artists: Eric Lofgren et al.
cover artists: Charles A. Wright & Mike Chaney
publisher: Frog God Games
publication date: 2011
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 800
ISBN: none
description: This massive bestiary runs 800 pages and collects the Tome of Horrors Volumes One, Two and Three. It updates them for compatability with the Pathfinder RPG.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the corpse orgy.

A corpse orgy is truly a disgusting creature easily mistaken for a pile of rotten corpses. In truth, the creature is a conglomeration of creatures it has killed and absorbed into its body. As parts of the corpse orgy rot away, it replaces them with freshly slain prey...It often uses its various arms to grapple an opponent, holding it tightly while hammering it with its fists.

June 12, 2016
Eric Carle's Dragons Dragons & Other Creatures That Never Were
text: Nancy Van Laan et al.
interior artist: Eric Carle
cover artist: Eric Carle
publisher: Puffin Books
publication date: 1991
cover: softcover
number of pages: 70
ISBN: 978-0590457569
description: This all-ages bestiary includes mythical creatures from numerous cultures and literary sources.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the rainbow crow.

I will go. I will stop the snow.

Aiya, aiya, aiya, aiya,
Rain, Rainbow Crow,
Stop the snow, Crow.
Fly to the sky high,
Rain, Rainbow Crow,
Aiya, aiya, aiya, aiya.

June 13, 2016
Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix
authors: David "Zeb" Cook, Dori Hein & David Wise
interior artist: Tony DiTerlizzi
cover artist: Jeff Easley
publisher: TSR
publication date: 1994
cover: softcover
number of pages: 128
ISBN: 978-1560768623
description: This bestiary is the first monstrous compendium associated with Planescape, a multi-realm campaign setting from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the tiefling, the offspring formed by the union of a human and a devil, or another denizen of the lower planes.

Tieflings are the offspring of the planes, as varied as the places they call home. Superficially human, their appearance always betrays them: some sport small horns, others have pointed ears, scales, a cloven hoof, or just a wicked gleam in their eye that never leaves. What they all have in common is a quick temper and a chip on their shoulder. Tiefling have no true society of their own; they are the outcasts of the planes, cast out of the Lower Planes, not trusted in the Upper Planes...Their fickleness in affairs of the heart is legendary, and seems closely bound to their reputation as tricksters, liars and frauds...When meat is unavailable, they can live for short periods on ashes, coal and other mineral matter.

June 14, 2016
Pathfinder Bestiary
author: Jason Bulmahn
interior artists: Andrew Hou et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: September, 2009
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1601251831
description: This bestiary is the first general monstrous compendium associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the goblin.

Goblins prefer to dwell in caves, amid large and dense thickets of thistles and brambles, or in structures built and then abandoned by others. Very few goblins have the drive to build structures of their own. Coastlines are favored, as goblins are quite fond of sifting through junk and flotsam in an unending quest to find treasures among the refuse of more civilized races. Goblin hatred runs deep, and few things inspire their wrath more than gnomes (who have long fought against goblins), horses (who frighten goblins tremendously) and regular dogs (whom goblins regard as pale imitations of goblin dogs).

June 15, 2016
Pathfinder Bestiary 2
authors: Jason Bulmahn et al.
interior artists: Anna Christenson et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: December, 2010
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1601252685
description: This bestiary is the second general monstrous compendium associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the grig.

Grigs are tiny fey with the upper bodies of elf-like sprites and cricket bodies below. Their humanoid features vary wildly in appearance, but they usually wear their brown, silver or green hair long and uncombed. In most cases, grig's skin bears gold or green stripes or markings, and their legs are brightly colored. They prefer to eschew clothes entirely, wearing clothing only when such apparel has desirable magical effects. Grigs stand 1 1/2 feet tall, and weigh just under 10 pounds...Grigs are capable of rubbing their legs together like a cricket to create a surprisingly pleasant sound not unlike that of a tiny fiddle...A grig can create a catchy tune that compels any creature within a 20-foot spread to dance and caper...Despite their tiny size, grigs are eager to confront evil and vanquish ugliness--as a result grigs often find themselves in trouble.

June 16, 2016
Pathfinder Bestiary 3
authors: Jason Bulmahn et al.
interior artists: Andrew Hou et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: December, 2011
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1601253781
description: This bestiary is the third general monstrous compendium associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the leaf leshy.

Leaf leshys tend to the well-being of trees, whether natural stands or cultivated orchards. In appearance, they have soft, pulpy-looking bodies and wear clothing made of dozens of leaves. Larger leaves cover their shoulders, often giving them the appearance of wearing cloaks, and most adorn their relatively featureless heads with helmets made from pine cones, nuts, or fruit rinds...Leaf leshys are usually grown under the shade of fruit or nut trees. To grow a leaf leshy, the maker plants an acorn and pine cone together, then mounds up leaves, sticks and needles around them.

June 17, 2016
Pathfinder Bestiary 4
authors: Jason Bulmahn et al.
interior artists: David Melvin et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: October, 2013
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1601255754
description: This bestiary is the fourth general monstrous compendium associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the Great Old One, Cthulhu.

Known to some as the Dreamer in the Deep, Great Cthulhu is the mightiest of the Great Old Ones. Cthulhu is represented often in artwork--particularly in sculpture, painting and poetry, for his influence is particularly strong among such sensitive and creative minds. In these eldritch works of art, he is depicted or described as having a vaguely humanoid frame, but with immense draconic wings and an octopus-shaped head...It is fortunate indeed that Cthulhu is currently imprisoned on a distant planet within a sunken city of R'lyeh. There, the Great Old One slumbers away the eons in a state neither quite dead nor living, held in stasis by ancient magic and the potency of the Elder Sign, yet at times the city rises from the sea and the doors to his tomb open, granting Cthulhu limited mobility before he must return to his tomb.

June 18, 2016
Pathfinder Bestiary 5
authors: Jason Bulmahn et al.
interior artists: David Melvin et al.
cover artist: Wayne Reynolds
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: November, 2015
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-1601257925
description: This bestiary is the fifth general monstrous compendium associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the moon dog.

Moon dogs are extraplanar hounds that live in nomadic packs on Elysium, traveling and hunting planar menaces where they please. Often their hunts will take them to the Astral Plane or the Ethereal Plane, and sometimes to the remote wildernesses of the Material Plane. More often than not, they enter the Material Plane to combat irruptions of evil outsiders plaguing innocent mortals. When they do so, they often ally with powerful celestials, serving amid their forays as scouts and wise council...When in dim light, a moon dog can create dappled shadows and pale luminous patterns in a 60 foot radius emanation. This effect causes evil creatures to become fascinated.

June 19, 2016
Monster Vault
authors: Rodney Thompson, Logan Bonner & Matthew Sernett
interior artists: Anne Stokes et al.
cover artist: uncredited
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: 2010
cover: softcover
number of pages: 320
ISBN: 978-0-7869-5631-9
description: This bestiary took creatures from the 4th edition Monster Manual and repackaged them in the Dungeons and Dragons Essentials subline. The book came with a set of representative discs and maps for incorporating spatial elements into combat.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the drider.

Foul creatures of the Underdark, driders are half drow and half spider. They are devoted servants of the dark goddess Lolth, who elevated from drow and gave them new physical forms to resemble her own.

June 20, 2016
Creature Collection
authors: Andrew Bates et al.
interior artists: Jeff Holt et al.
cover artist: Matt Milberger
publisher: Sword & Sorcery Studios/White Wolf Publishing
publication date: 2000
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 224
ISBN: 978-1565044876
description: This bestiary focuses on creatures outside the standard Monster Manual. It is compatible with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the fatling.

After the Divine War, the gods may have buried Gaurak the Gorger beneath the earth, never to escape, but that doesn't mean his vile influence can't still be felt on the Scarred Lands. The highest priests and most favored of Gaurak's servants (all of whom worship the titan in secret, often at hidden shrines or in refuse pits) are blessed by their buried lord. Gaurak's favor is clear to those who know what to look for: a patch of jaundiced, greasy melons grow up somewhere near the followers' shrines. Eating these repulsives fruits transforms an intended individual into a reflection of the Ravenous One himself. The servant becomes a fatling, a grotesquely obese monstrosity around whom other adherents to the Titan gather to perform their disgusting rituals, in hopes of currynig the Titan's favor. Repugnant as a fatling might be, followers of Gaurak who honor the creature would give their very lives to protect the Titan's chosen.

June 21, 2016
On Beyond Zebra
author: Dr. Seuss
interior artist: Dr. Seuss
cover artist: Dr. Seuss
publisher: Random House
publication date: 1955
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 64
ISBN: 978-0394800844
description: This all-ages bestiary consists of creatures whose names begin with letters occuring in the alphabet after the letter Z.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the humpf-humpf-a-dumpfer.

I ramble, I scramble through swampf and through swumpf
Where the letters get better. Like letters like HUMPF.
There's a real handy letter.
What's handy about it ...?
You just can't spell Humpf-Humpf-a-Dumpfer without it.

June 22, 2016
Drow of the Underdark
authors: Ari Marmell, Anthony Pryor, Robert J. Schwalb & Greg A. Vaughan
interior artists: Francis Tsai et al.
cover artist: Francis Tsai
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: May, 2007
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0786941513
description: This bestiary focuses on the drow, dark elves from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the Lady Thandysha, Matron of House Xaniqos.

Lady Thandysha is the matriarch of the up-and-coming House Xaniqos, whose fortunes have exploded in Erelhei-Cinlu with a meteoric rise. Ambitious and impetuous, Lady Thandysha is riding the ascendance of her house to what she believes will be eventual domination of the Vault of the Drow. She personally oversaw the execution of the last of the members of House Everhate, and her lust for power and taste for blood threaten to consume her. She believes that House Xaniqos rises by the divine mandate of Lolth.

June 23, 2016
Munchkin Monster Manual
author: John W. Mangrum
interior artist: John Kovalic
cover artist: John Kovalic
publisher: Steve Jackson Games
publication date: April, 2003
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 48
ISBN: 978-1556346699
description: This bestiary takes a light-hearted look at the 3rd edition Monster Manual from the Munchkin universe.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the net troll.

Net trolls are bulging, sedentary creatures, their bodies covered in thick rolls of rubbery green flesh and thinning hair. They spend their entire lives sitting in dark, dank lairs on the Material Plane, using their magical crystal cubes to monitor the Astral Plane--specifically, the networks of planar conduits through which teleporting creatures zip from place to place and divination spells pass between clerics and their gods. No one knows why net trolls monitor the conduit network; the certainly don't serve any purpose, nor can they be called "enlightened" without snickering. In fact, all net trolls really do know is that a lot of munchkins in the multiverse have nifty powers that they don't share. This really ticks them off.

June 24, 2016
Draconomicon, 3rd edition
authors: Andy Collins, Skip Williams & James Wyatt
interior artists: Jeremy Jarvis et al.
cover artist: Todd Lockwood
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: November, 2003
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 288
ISBN: 978-0786928842
description: As the name implies, this bestiary focuses exclusively on dragons. It is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the pyroclastic dragon.

Pyroclastic dragons are creatures of elemental fury, embodying the forces of fire, earth and rumbling thunder that move earth and shape continents. They are native to the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, an infinite plane of volcanic earthbergs and infernal lava...Pyroclastic dragons enjoy swimming through magma, but they make their lairs in caves carved out of volcanic rock. When they venture to the Material Plane, they live only in volcanic regions. These dragons enjoy the taste of meat but can also subsist on a purely mineral diet.

June 25, 2016
Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons, 4th edition
authors: Bruce R. Cordell, Ari Marmell & Robert J. Schwalb
interior artists: Jeremy Jarvis et al.
cover artist: Todd Lockwood
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: November, 2008
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 256
ISBN: 978-2357830134
description: As the name implies, this bestiary focuses exclusively on chromatic dragons, typically identified by color and of an evil disposition. It is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the purple dragon.

Consummate hunters and born manipulators, purple dragons delight in exploration more than any other wyrm, especially if that exploration leads farther into the earth. They love discovering places below the roots of mountains never before trod by sentient creatures, and they dream about the wonders undiscovered caverns might hold. For these reasons, purple dragons are sometimes referred to as deep dragons.

*The staff at the Poison Pie Publishing House have a particular fondness for this entry on the purple dragon. It was this entry upon which Ms. Ruth Marie Keffer based her design of her own purple dragon, rendered as a felt finger puppet, and featured on both broadsides and in the bestiary, The Faerienomicon, published by the Poison Pie Publishing House. This is one of countless examples of how the various bestiaries in this survey are connected to each other.

June 26, 2016
Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons, 4th edition
authors: Richard Baker & Ari Marmell
interior artists: Zoltan Boros et al.
cover artist: Todd Lockwood
publisher: Wizards of the Coast
publication date: November, 2009
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 224
ISBN: 978-0786952489
description: As the name implies, this bestiary focuses exclusively on metallic dragons, typically identified by metal and of a good disposition. It is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the mercury dragon.

Skilled scouts, emissaries and assassins, mercury dragons are capable of shapechanging tricks that other dragons can't match. The breath of a mercury dragon poisons the body and the mind, rendering its victims unable to see the mercury dragon escape or come around for the killing blow. A mercury dragon uses quicksilver form either to escape or to move to advantageous terrain, such as a place its adversaries cannot reach. Then it resumes its normal form and alternates between its breath weapon and draconic fury attacks.

June 27, 2016
Pathfinder Chronicles: Dragons Revisited
author: Mike McArtor
interior artists: various
cover artist: Daren Bader
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: March, 2009
cover: softcover
number of pages: 64
ISBN: 978-1601251657
description: This bestiary is devoted to dragons associated with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the blue dragon.

Neurotically, almost obsessively tidy, neat and careful, blue dragons manage every aspect of their lives to a minute level. This desire to control manifests from the moment of their hatching and is not limited to external forces, actions and creatures. Blue dragons also strive to remain stridently in control of themselves--their own actions, thoughts, and even their own feelings and emotions. Unfortunately for the blues, they lack the natural predilection for discipline possessed by their green brethren. Most blue dragons find this deficiency of self-control an exhilarating challenge for them to micromanage out of existence. When they become so tightly wound as to snap, rather than launch into self-destructive rampages, blue dragons seethe in their thrones and mobilize their armies.

June 28, 2016
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dragons Unleashed
authors: Savannah Broadway et al.
interior artists: various
cover artist: Ralph Horsley
publisher: Paizo Publishing
publication date: June, 2013
cover: softcover
number of pages: 64
ISBN: 978-1601255259
description: This bestiary is devoted to the personalities and lairs of fifteen specific dragons from the Pathfinder Role Playing Game.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the umbral dragon, Fahrauth.

Fahrauth is an arrogant, jealous and petty umbral dragon who wants nothing more than to worshiped as a god--or at least feared as a force to be reckoned with. As lazy as he is cruel, and as vain as he is vicious, the dragon skulks in his hijacked lair of shadows. He is attended by his minions, enjoys tributes from the derros, and plots to make a name for himself on the surface kingdoms of Golarion.

June 29, 2016
Numenéra: The Ninth World Bestiary
authors: Monte Cook & Bruce R. Cordell
interior artists: Kieran Yanner et al.
cover artist: Kieran Yanner
publisher: Monte Cook Games
publication date: 2014
cover: hardcover
number of pages: 160
ISBN: 978-1939979094
description: This bestiary is associated with the Numenéra RPG.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the minnern.

Minnern are scavengers. They eat what they can find, and they use what they can find. However, as intelligent beings with a fairly good understanding of numenera, their diet includes cyphers and artifacts. Minnern are strange beings of amorphous flesh and squirming tendrils, but they encase these soft fluid forms in pyramidal structures of metal and synth and equip them with weapons, defenses, and other additions from their scavenging.

June 30, 2016
Monsters and Treasure
authors: Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
interior artists: Dave Arneson, Keenan Powell, Greg Bell, C. Corey, T. Keogh, and David C. Sutherland III
cover artist: uncredited
publisher: Tactical Studies Rules (TSR)
publication date: 1974
cover: softcover
number of pages: 40
ISBN: none
description: This bestiary was the second of three booklets in the first offering of Dungeons and Dragons.

Our featured entry from this bestiary is the purple worm.

These huge and hungry monsters lurk nearly everywhere just beneath the surface of the land. Some reach a length of 50 feet and a girth of nearly 10 feet diameter. There is a poisonous sting at its tail, but its mouth is the more fearsome weapon, for it is so large as to be able to swallow up to ogre-sized opponents in one gulp.

Continue to the entries for the month of July.