Monday, September 13, 2021

Monstrous Mondays: Bad Idea Dept. Fiend Folio II

Fiend Folio
I should be working on monsters. I have ones to do for my Basic Bestiary. I have ones to do the Night Companion (ok, those are basically done).  But this is my busy time at the day job so there has not been  a lot of time to work on monsters.

So why not add some more work on top of it all!

I was rereading the Fiend Folio the other day as inspiration for my books and it dawned on me that we never got, despite an abundance of monsters, a Fiend Folio II.

So I was looking over all my magazines and thought there could be enough monsters.  Between White Dwarf #2 and #75 there are about 380 total monsters.  Some of those are already part of the Fiend Folio's 188 monsters.  If I needed more I could even use Imagine Magazine's 50 or so monsters.

What is my awful idea?  

I'd like to put together my own Fiend Folio II.  

This is obviously not for publication or profit. Just so I can have it sitting on my desk. I keep my Lulu-made "orange spine" Fiend Folio on my desk as my "working" copy.  This would be the same.  I already used the cover depicted above for my Lulu pod. So I'd need something different by Jeff Easley.

Again. This would just be for my own benefit, but I would want to re-write it all to make it flow better. Much like Turnbull did with the FFI.  

It sounds like a really fun project.  More to the point it sounds like something fun to have.

I know there is a so-called "Fiend Folio II" to be found online. It just collects the various Fiend Factory articles into a single PDF.  Not really what I want. 

Trouble is, something like this will take some time to do, time that I could be using to get the Basic Bestiary out.  Unless of course doing this gives me better insight into how to do better monsters.

5 comments:

  1. This sounds like a cool idea, as well as a time consuming one. My biggest concern would be that Hasbro or some other litigious entity might get annoyed and shut down your hard work.

    Having said that, when I have a side project that I am dubious on the wisdon of doing, I set aside a budgeted amount of time to work on it every week. When I hit the budgeted time, I turn my attention back to those projects that are more responsible to do. :)

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  2. This would only be for my own benefit. I would likely never be seen beyond my own gaming table or with a couple people I'd share it with.

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  3. I was thinking that it'd be fun to do something like that. I've been looking through the Fiend Folio II and picking out some creatures that would be neat, or creatures that I think I could maybe work with a few tweaks. I really like the Fiend Folio, I'd have loved an official sequel.

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  4. I'd think there wouldn't be much viable content once you plucked out the Fiend Factory's copyright landmines (like the Fremen and sandworms) and the real stinkers. But I do think there is a niche where you can improve the rationale and presentation of the FF rejects from White Dwarf. Or look wider and pick the best of the best from White Dwarf, All the World's Monsters, Arduin, Dungeoneer, etc.

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  5. Reminder. This is NOT something I am going to publish. This is something just for my own benefit/shelves.

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