Review: The Book of Fiends

Today we’ll be discussing one of my favorite bestiaries, and one of the earliest books I acquired for 5e. The Book of Fiends, from Green Ronin Publishing. Written by Robert Schwalb, in collaboration with Aaron Loeb, Erik Mona, and Chris Pramas. The original Book of Fiends was published for 3e, and contains much of the same lore, but this review will focus on the most recent version of the book.

Content Warning: Please note that this product is for mature readers and deals with themes including death, violence, and other topics that may not be comfortable or appropriate for all readers.

Coming from the same author who designed the roleplaying game Shadow of the Demon Lord, this tome features vivid description, interesting stories, and beautiful—but at times gruesome or genuinely disturbing artwork. For those who choose to read it, the book offers a variety of fiends, beings of true evil from the lower planes where true evil lives. Beyond just the monsters, the are dozens of fiends of legend, such as demon or devil lords, each of which has its own description that include information on their cultists and their evil portfolio. Each of these entities could almost be spun out into their own campaign, or if you are looking at an adventure with plenty of intrigue about evil cults and their struggles to bring about their own apocalyptic vision of the future (like in Night of Dissolution) each of these could be used as a distinct cult to be investigated and fought.

One of the amazing things about this book is that the monster stat blocks in its second chapter and the rules in the third chapter (the character options) are designated as open content under the OGL. 

Now for a few warts, like some of the creatures within. One major criticism I have is the organization of the Book of Fiends. It has three chapter, which makes sense. The first chapter outlines the three major lower planes. It outlines them in alphabetical order: first the Abyss, then Gehenna, and finally the Hells. Then chapter two orders its topics alphabetically by type of fiend, with daemons, demon, and devils last. Perhaps this is a personal thing,  but I found it extremely confusing on my first read through that the locales were not presented in the same order as their denizens. If I were to offer advice, I’d say to nest the monsters under the location descriptions for easier reference and better flow.

Overall though, I highly recommend checking out the Book of Fiends if it sounds interesting and you can fit it in the budget. It is an outstanding resource for 5e monsters, along with plot points you could tie into any TTRPG campaign.