Monstrous Compendium MC1 (d20)
hat's a fantasy role-playing game without monsters?
At the heart of any good AD&D adventure¸ you'll find great monsters -- dragons¸ giants¸ trolls¸ killer oozes¸ shadows¸ and who knows what else!
This first Monstrous Compendiium gives DMs and players 144 pages of new and improved monsters¸ with all-new illustrations¸ expanded descriptions¸ and complete statistical data¸ all in an easy-to-read¸ easy to reference format. Players can organize the monsters in this pack¸ alphabetically¸ according to when they show up in an adventure¸ according to monster type¸ or any other way they see fit.
Product History
MC1: Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989) is the first monster manual for AD&D 2e. It was published in June 1989.
About the Module Code. The "MC" Monstrous Compendium module code doesn't actually appear on the Monstrous Compendium Volume One. In fact¸ it wouldn't show up in advertising until mid-1990 and its first cover appearance would be on MC11: Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix (1991)!
About the Title. Today¸ the term "Monster Manual" is synonymous with tomes of monstrous adversaries for the D&D game. However¸ that wasn't true back in 1989. Sure¸ there had been a Monster Manual (1977) and a Monster Manual II (1983)¸ but there'd also been a Fiend Folio (1981). Meanwhile¸ the monster book in the OD&D set (1974) had been called "Monsters & Treasures" while Basic D&D (1983) had a Creature Catalogue (1986) which later became a Creature Catalog (1993).
So¸ AD&D 2e's transformation of the AD&D 1e's Monster Manual into a Monstrous Compendium wasn't quite as earth-shattering as it might seem today … and the word "Compendium" could actually a better word for a collection of monsters than "Manual".
Moving Toward AD&D 2e. When AD&D 1e was published¸ the Monster Manual led the way and was only followed later by the game's actual rules. AD&D 2e reversed that trend. The Player's Handbook (1989) appeared in February¸ followed by the Dungeon Master's Guide (1989) in May¸ and finally the first Monstrous Compendium in June.
It seems like a long time to go without monsters¸ but the change from AD&D 1e to AD&D 2e was a relatively minor revision - especially to players who were brought up mixing together books from OD&D¸ AD&D¸ and Basic D&D. In other words: the old Monster Manuals still worked fine. In fact¸ TSR continued to reprint the 1e Monster Manual and Monster Manual II at least through July 1989¸ and maybe into 1990. Meanwhile¸ White Wolf Magazine continued to record the 1e Fiend Folio as a top RPG seller into 1992. It's a far cry from more recent edition updates¸ where the publisher of D&D was so afraid of old material not selling that they stopped publishing it a year or more before updating the game.
About the Binder. The first Monstrous Compendium was published in a rather unusual format. It came as a binder with 72 hole-punched sheets of paper (for 144 pages total) that had to be torn out of a perforated pad. Six full-color cardstock dividers could also be inserted into the binder.
What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Looseleaf Experiment. From early on¸ TSR talked about producing some of the AD&D 2e rules as looseleaf sheets that could be put in three-hole binders. The small press Hidden Kingdom (1983) RPG and Columbia Games' Encyclopedia Hârnicas (1984-1985) were rare examples of previous roleplaying books that had used the format. However¸