OSR Art Friday: Editing Batten (a long post with too many pictures at the end)

This post will be annoying to some of you in that you were probably expecting a pretty color picture. Instead you will be getting many black and white pictures.

And the featured artist of the day is not some 1970's luminary but well, me. Or rather, the featured artist is the brilliant John Dickson Batten, but the post is about what I did to him.

And if that doesn't irritate you enough, be warned, I will be doing some bragging (explained below).

The post is about how I edited the illustrations of Batten to better suit their inclusion in my four booklet game, Seven Voyages of Zylarthen. The bragging is not how about how great I am compared to you. I am not great compared to you. I expect that most of you reading this post are more experienced/adept/talented at editing illustrations than I am, and that many of you are familiar with illustrations programs that I haven't even heard of. No. I'm bragging because I did it. I did it. Knowing nothing about editing or graphic design, and being generally uncoordinated and not artistic, I nevertheless figured out (temporarily) how to (arguably) do a passable job at it. That's an accomplishment I want to brag about.

A few months ago I said this about Batten:

Finally, in regards to setting, I should mention the artwork of Zylarthen. There are close to a hundred pieces, all by the same artist--the turn of the century illustrator John Dickson Batten. I said elsewhere that once I had chosen the works of Batten, the art actually began to inform the setting and even the writing. Batten's works appeared in children's fairy-tale books. But appropriately enough they were also from a diversity of sources--English, Celtic, general European, Middle-Eastern and Indian. In my humble view, the art was not merely the best art I could find for free, but was in fact precisely right for what I was trying to do. I couldn't have paid for anything better. To the extent that Zylarthen as a visual or physical product succeeds it does so due to Batten. But equally importantly, to the extent the setting and tone are interesting or attractive is also I think due to Batten. Indeed, he deserves an entire post, and will get one soon.

In the review of Zylarthen on the Save or Die! podcast. DM Liz paid the product one of its finest compliments do date (I think). To paraphrase, despite the fact that the art was public domain from approximately a hundred years ago, each piece still seemed appropriate to the subject or the page. It enhanced the work rather than looking just tacked on to fill up space. (Then her husband emphasized the point by making a joke: "hey what's that 57' Chevy doing there?")

I think it worked for three reasons:

1. The art itself. Now, Batten didn't draw illustrations for dungeon expeditions, obviously. But the exotic, fairytale vibe was exactly right for what I was trying to do.
2. Having drawn hundreds of illustrations for nine books, there were enough of them so that I could make informed choices as to appropriate pieces to use.
3. I edited most of the illustrations. Obviously many of them worked on their own without any (or hardly any) touch ups. But I think if I hadn't edited the rest, they would have looked forced or slightly inappropriate. The editing was a crucial part of the process.

And some of the editing was for tone. Many of Batten's fairytale drawings were comical. I didn't want a severe tone, but I didn't wan't it silly either.

So part of this is bragging (see above). Again, not I'm so great, but, rather I did it. Most of it was just whiting stuff out, which is easy and actually almost cathartic.

I used the free program Gimp. I only learned 5% of it, but it was all I needed.

In a handful of cases I actually pasted a few images. In two instances, I actually drew small bits of my own. Once I actually sketched a foot.

But the main message is, it wasn't hard. If I could do it, you can. I suspect many of you could almost do it with your eyes closed.

So enough of these boring words. The rest of the post will feature a long line of actual examples. I think this sort of thing is interesting, but you are pardoned if you think it goes on for too long.

Before precedes After:

To me, the odd hand angle was reminiscent of the Judges Guild "Flying Turkey".

The Ducks were silly.

The original was too busy.

This was one of the only cases where I pasted something in (I duplicated the dagger). I don't know. I thought a second dagger might be more effective in combat than a mask.

Better just a corpse than a corpse with a silly man standing over him.

I love this monster. I think it's a Solian.

This was ironic in that I took a fantastical drawing and made it more mundane. The Boar went from two heads to one.

From silly to (hopefully) sinister.

The original was too well-known to leave as is.

Pure greed.

Dungeons don't have beds. Okay, maybe they don't have curtains either, but still...

The original was fine but the bird didn't fit.

This was my second choice for the magic cover. The first was a great drawing, but it just didn't seem to work on its own. I think this one works. I liked the contrast in that it was the only cover not featuring a person.

Away with that little man!

I'm not sure this totally works but people seem to like it.

These bottles were lifted from various places.

Okay, I'm proud of these drums (look on the top). Also, note that I removed the lute from the otherwise identical picture on the back cover of Volume 4 (see the blog heading picture). It just seemed too much. But that's probably just me.

I'm sort of proud of this. I edited out the arm and of course re-angled it. But the design in the center is obviously kind of screwed-up, especially if you look at it closely. I banked on readers not looking at it closely, mentally processing it as "oh, a rug", and then quickly moving on.  

Too many angels, or bird women or whatever.

I like this sullen creature.

Again, the original was too busy...

So there it is. Part of the method to my madness. Perhaps exposing the method was too much--oh dear, the magic is gone! But I figure we're all adults here and are enough interested in the craft of game design such that the above might be entertaining and useful.

It's not perfect. I know that. But we tried. This is part of how we tried...

The Setting of Seven Voyages of Zylarthen

A "colorized" version of the full-page Batten drawing in Vol. 1, p. 27

First, a digression:

In the Foreword to Seven Voyages of Zylarthen I called the game a "re-imagining" of the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

I want to first explain what I didn't mean by that. It's not OD&D updated with more modern rules or supplemented with my own house rules (though it does undeniably contain some of those). Nor is it a precise clone intended to mimic, say, the rules mechanics of the three little brown books or some other early edition of the game (that wouldn't really be a re-imagining). Nor is it an attempt to place the game in an alternative or more specific campaign setting.

In denying those approaches I don't mean to be critical of them. Indeed, part of why I ultimately rejected them is because they had all been done and done well before. And of course, the current existence of a diversity of great OSR efforts now coincides with the republication by Wizards of the Coast of most of the original rules sets--either in "deluxe" hard copy editions or PDFs.

So I decided to look at things from the inside out, so to speak. It's now forty years since the original "woodgrain box" became available, and we now have a great deal of hindsight. New school people would say we have learned how to do things better. Old school people would say we have learned how trying to do things better can often lead (unintentionally) to doing things worse. For my part, instead of identifying what was wrong with the original game, I wanted to identify what was right about it, and then, so to speak, double down (or even triple down!) on what was right about it in a way that, without the benefit of any hindsight, the original game didn't and of course couldn't do.

I admit that in the process I did want to fix a few things. As much as I love the three little brown books, there are a few rules or parts of them that are odd or perhaps even broken. But the idea was not to jettison those things, but rather to make them work, if possible by harnessing the numerous design principles of the original game that did work.

Caveats and comments before proceeding further:

1. It might be objected that in replacing Clerics with Thieves, I did indeed jettison one of the fundamental parts of the original  game. I don't see it quite that way, but the "no-Clerics" thing is best left for another post.

2. What I think works (or doesn't work) is informed very much by an old school perspective. So, for example, I like random non-naturalistic tables. I think they work. Indeed I think they they work in a big way. So I included more of them. As an example of how I used them to fix what was to me a somewhat broken mechanic--the issue of languages--what languages characters or monsters might speak was given a determination mechanism that parallels the OD&D Treasure Table with its various lettered "Treasure Types".

3. Do I think Zylarthen is better than the original game? Well, in part or in some ways I like certain things better. That's true almost by definition, as there would have been no point in writing it otherwise. But overall I'm not so egotistical (or stupid or silly) as to say that it's a better game. Of course it's not. The original edition of Dungeons & Dragons must remain the unchallenged King of all such games  More importantly, if there is anything in Zylarthen that is good, it is good derivatively--good precisely because of what Gygax and Arneson originally created. 

Now, to turn finally to the subject of the post--the setting of the game. In the Foreword I identified what I took to be one of the wisest aspects of the original Dungeons & Dragons:

It invoked many sources—King Arthur, the Crusades, Middle-earth, the Arabian Nights, pulp fantasy, fairy tales, even science fiction. Its breadth of tone was a virtue, offering to the players a multiplicity of delights.

Spell Casters in Men & Magic--European, Indian and Egyptian (?)

The game explicitly claimed to be "medieval". But of course it wasn't. Critics might say that Gygax and Arneson threw in everything but the kitchen sink into the setting. Some are annoyed by that. And indeed one direction taken by contemporary OSR efforts as well as of course by the progression of the various official editions and expansions, is to try to place things in a more "consistent" or "authentic" setting. So, for example, we have seen 16th Century, quasi-historical Middle-Ages and Middle-Eastern themed efforts, each selecting one or two strands of the original and expanding on it, while jettisoning or reducing in importance the other strands. Again, I'm not being critical of those attempts. There is a place for them. And again, one of the reasons I chose not to go down that path is because, paradoxically perhaps, there wasn't that much room to be original. So many things had already been done and done well.

Most importantly, however, if I were to "re-imagine" the original game in a way that took account of all of its strengths, I couldn't go down that path.

Interestingly, that's not how I originally thought of things. Indeed, I only came to that view fairly late in the game. But I was lucky I did. My writing of Zylarthen, or the game that would become Zylarthen, meandered for perhaps two years before that insight made it suddenly take off.

"...16th Century, quasi-historical Middle-Ages and Middle-Eastern themed efforts…"

I chose those examples because they express the actual evolution of the setting for my own game. First it was More Things in Heaven and Earth, with an Elizabethan or late Tudor setting. It had a pseudo-Catholic tinge, so I suppose it would have been somewhat different. But creating an entire OD&D neo-clone around it would have been, well, boring (though I still reserve the right to put it into a short Zylarthen supplement).

Then, in considering art for the game I came across the wonderful children's illustrations that Howard Pyle did for Otto of the Silver Hand, Robin Hood and other works. The drawings were fun but also sort of dark and gritty. For a short period, I thought of titling the game Coat of Mail.

A wonderful illustration by Howard Pyle-not used in Zylarthen

Finally, after much of Zylarthen had been written and the final title (with its obvious allusion to Sinbad) had been chosen, I thought of making the game more explicitly Middle-Eastern. So, for example, many of the weapons on the list were given Persian names such as "Tabarzin" for battle-axe. Again, luckily, I soon realized that this would have been a mistake.

For the final effort, rather than emphasizing one of the strands at the expense of the others, I decided to add to all of them!

This is I think most apparent in the "new"* monsters: King Arthur, the Crusades and actual history get a nod with the addition of Vikings and Turcopoles. Middle-Earth is referenced with the re-introduction of True Wraiths. Classical myth and history is represented by the named Titans (and Titanesses) as well as barbarians and soldier types (including Amazons) based on Classical, Byzantine and early Persian categories. The Arabian Nights flavor is represented in the title and much (though not all by any means) of the art. The Witch is based on the standard fairy-tale version. Burroughs' Martians make an appearance in force, and most of the "alternate" (for legal reasons) monster takes are science fictional entities.

*Of course, none of the "new" monsters were truly new, but appeared in one form or another in either the three little brown books or early official supplementary materials.

I suppose one could reasonably say that the overall setting of Zylarthen might be slightly more middle-eastern or at least "southern" than that of the three little brown books, though I'm not sure I'd agree even with that. Again, I think the inclusion of "medieval" in the subtitle of the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons throws people off.

In Zylarthen, proper names for places and persons, and explicit history were generally avoided, with a few exceptions. Earth, Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are named. "The Ancient Wars between Law and Chaos", apparently instigated by a trouble-maker named Mendax (aka The Liberator) is described. And there are a few Christian references, something as a Christian I felt important to include in what was after all a game set in an otherwise very Pagan world. But in my view none of these are essentially determinative of any particular time and place.

Finally, in regards to setting, I should mention the artwork of Zylarthen. There are close to a hundred pieces, all by the same artist--the turn of the century illustrator John Dickson Batten. I said elsewhere that once I had chosen the works of Batten, the art actually began to inform the setting and even the writing. Batten's works appeared in children's fairy-tale books. But appropriately enough they were also from a diversity of sources--English, Celtic, general European, Middle-Eastern and Indian. In my humble view, the art was not merely the best art I could find for free, but was in fact precisely right for what I was trying to do. I couldn't have paid for anything better. To the extent that Zylarthen as a visual or physical product succeeds it does so due to Batten. But equally importantly, to the extent the setting and tone are interesting or attractive is also I think due to Batten. Indeed, he deserves an entire post, and will get one soon.

The Monsters of Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, Part II

Author’s note: I’m writing a series of posts on Zylarthen not so much to plug it, nor merely because I like talking about my work. Rather, I think of Zylarthen as sort of a love letter to early OD&D. Thus, I hope that the design issues I grappled with and the eventual choices I made might be of interest to those who enjoy “thinking about Original Dungeons & Dragons”, whether or not they have read, played, or have any intention of reading or playing my attempted “re-imagining” of it.

In this post I break down the precise sources for the various Zylarthen monsters.

In a previous post I wrote that I decided to include all and only those monsters appearing (in whatever form) in “official” D&D sources through the fall of 1975—those three sources being the original 1974 edition of the game (henceforth the three little brown books or 3 LBB’s), the first supplement—Greyhawk—and the first four issues of The Strategic Review. Interestingly, this cut-off point yielded roughly two hundred distinct creatures, even excluding most of the various “man-types”—leveled non-player characters, hirelings, soldiers and the rest—almost triple the initial number of monsters described and “statted” in the first part of Monsters & Treasure. The place to begin, though, is with those monsters:

Note: in the following lists, re-imagined creatures, my own extrapolations and extrapolations based on later sources will generally be denoted by italics.

THE MONSTERS from Monsters & Treasure, pp. 3-20

Bandits, Basilisks, Berserkers, Black Pudding, Buccaneers, Cavemen, Centaurs, Chimerae, Cockatrices, Dervishes, Djinn, Black Dragons, Blue Dragons, Golden Dragons, Green Dragons, Red Dragons, White Dragons, Dryads, Dwarves, Efreet, Air Elementals, Earth Elementals, Fire Elementals, Water Elementals, Elves, Gargoyles, Ghouls, Cloud Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, Hill Giants, Stone Giants, Goblins, Gnoles, Gnomes, Gorgons, Gray Ooze, Green Slime, Griffins, Hippogriffs, Horses, Mules, Camels, Hydras, Fire Breathing Hydras, Kobolds, Werebears, Wereboars, Weretigers, Werewolves, Manticoras, Medusae, Mermen, Minotaurs, Mummies, Nixies, Nomads, Ochre Jelly, Ogres, Orcs, Pegasi, Pixies, Purple Worms, Rocs, Sea Monsters, Skeletons, Spectres, Treants, Trolls, Unicorns, Vampires, Lesser Vampires, Wights, Wraiths, Wyverns, Yellow Mold, Zombies

Number of Monsters: 77.

Notes: These should obviously make up the core of any OD&D monster list. As it happens, none of them are non-SRD. A few are extrapolations. So, for example, I felt that Camels should be added to Horses and Mules, and that Lesser Vampires (the victims of the Stokeresque Vampires) should be added to Vampires. I fiddled with Gnomes to make them genuinely strange (as opposed to being merely more whimsical Dwarves). And I preserved the spelling of “Gnole” from the original Dunsany story as well as ignoring both the initial description of these monsters—“A cross between Gnomes and Trolls…otherwise they are similar to Hobgoblins”—and the description that would come a few years later in the Monster Manual—“There is a great resemblance between Gnolls and Hyenas”—in favor of leaving them explicitly undescribed, as they are in the story.

OTHER MONSTERS from Monsters & Treasure, pp. 20-22

Androids, Cyclopes, Gelatinous Cubes, Flesh Golems, Iron Golems, Stone Golems, Juggernauts, Living Statues, Robots, Salamanders, Titans

Number of Monsters: 11.

Notes: Some of these—Gelatinous Cubes, Golems, Salamanders and Titans—would later be more fully described in Greyhawk. For the fun of it I named all twelve of the Titans.

MONSTER LEVEL TABLES and WILDERNESS WANDERING MONSTERS from The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pp. 10-11 and 18-19

Apes, Boars, Lions, Snakes, Spiders, Giant Ants, Giant Beetles, Fire Beetles, Centipedes, Giant Hogs, Giant Lizards, Giant Rats, Giant Scorpions, Giant Poisonous Snakes, Giant Spitting Snakes, Huge Spiders, Large Spiders, Water Spiders, Giant Toads, Giant Weasels, Cave Bears, Dire Wolves, Mammoths, Mastodons, Saber-Toothed Cats, Spotted Lions, Titanotheres, Wooly Rhinoceroses, Brontosaurus, Pterodactyls, Stegosaurs, Triceratopses, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Cyborgs, Doppelgangers, Invisible Stalkers, Shadows, Thoblins, Apts, Banths, Calots, Darseen, Black Martians, Green Martians, Red Martians, Ancients, Therns, Holy Therns, Lotharians, Yellow Martians, Orluks, Sith, Tharks, Thoats, White Apes

Number of Monsters: 55.

Notes: So, counting the Zylarthen extrapolations, the number of these “missing monsters” almost equals the fully described monsters in Monsters & Treasure. The attentive reader will notice the cases where I consulted Blackmoor or even the Monster Manual. But some monsters such as Giant Ants were intentionally re-imagined. (For the Ants, think those creepy bugs from that great Outer Limits episode, “The Zanti Misfits”.) Of course the four varieties of White Martians are extrapolations based on the actual Burroughs stories. For all Martians, I learned much from David Bruce Bozarth’s A Barsoom Glossary as well as from the original Warriors of Mars and the OD&D version by “Doc”.

NAVAL COMBAT in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pp. 28-35

Giant Crabs, Crocodiles, Giant Crocodiles, Dragon Turtles, Giant Fish, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Giant Sea Snakes, Giant Squids

Number of Monsters: 9.

Notes: Some of these appeared in the earlier encounter tables, and all them (I think) reappeared in the aquatic-fixated Blackmoor.

Other Monsters from “The Three Little Brown Books”

Amazons, Assassins, Barbarians, Bats, Huge Bats, Bears, Elephants, Halflings, Prisoners, Rats, Tigers, Vikings, Witches, Wolves

Number of Monsters: 14.

Notes: This is perhaps the most interesting group. There are illustrations of Amazons, Barbarians and Witches in Men & Magic, yet these beings were never described in that source or in any other early source (1974-75) nor have they been included in any of the retro-clones, as far as I am aware. Witches would seem to be almost paradigmatic in terms of being staples of fantasy stories as well as being featured in the classic explanation of the charisma ability score in Men & Magic. Vikings (or “Viking” things) are actually mentioned four times in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures but they fell out in later editions I assume because they were too “historical”. Ditto for Amazons. For Amazons I jettisoned the sexist (though intriguing!) interpretation that they fought without clothing (I kept that for Barbarians, and there is historical justification for that) but kept the fun (for me at least) assumptions concerning body modification and the rumor that Amazons would temporarily take captured males as lovers. I took some of the inspiration for Barbarians from the description of them in that great Avalon Hill wargame Caesar at Alesia, though inexplicably I forgot to cite it in my otherwise relatively long Sources section. There’s a fair amount of reference to “prisoners” in the Treasure Tables of Monsters & Treasure so I decided to expand on that.

Gods and Goddesses

Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Balder the Beautiful, Girra the Fire God, Ishtar, Isis, Kali, Lakshmi, Manannan the Sea God, Math the Great Wizard, Odin the One-Eyed, Pan, Set Lord of Shadows, Silvanus, The Spider God, Thor, Thoth the Terrible, Tsathoggus, Untamo God of Sleep and Dreams

Number of Monsters: 20.

Notes: As I wrote in the first post, it seemed a no-brainer to include gods and goddesses alongside the “regular” monsters. But I also thought the wide-open spirit of the original game dictated including beings from a diversity of sources—Classical, Egyptian, Norse, Middle-Eastern, Celtic, Finnish and of course Hyborian. Though most appeared in the 1976 Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes or its later 1980 incarnation, Deities  & Demigods, the descriptive content was almost entirely taken from original sources. Unlike for the other monsters, I did not give statistics to these immortals, believing that that would be a waste of space as well as sending the wrong message. Any god or goddess could easily defeat a character of any level if he or she had a mind to, so what’s the point of saying so and so has 300 hit points? But for each god or goddess, I did try to provide meaningful and useful information on how to actually include him or her (or his or her followers) in a campaign or adventure, if and when the occasion arose.

Giant Flyers

Bumblebees, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Eagles, Flies, Hornets, Locusts, Moths

Number of Monsters: 8.

Notes: Giant Eagles are mentioned in Chainmail, but the others are extrapolations based on the mention of “Large Insects” or “Giant Insects” in the rules on Aerial Combat in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. It was another way to be “original” without completely departing from the sources. I thought these winged critters rounded out the list of standard giant creatures in a way that was both fun and added to the diversity of things.

Evil Men

Brawlers, Ruffians, Duellists, Black Knights, Rakehells, Villains, Bravos, Interfectors, Evil Lords, Malefics, Praecantors, Diabolists, Demonurgists, Black Magicians, Hecatontarchs, Haruspices, Evocators, Incantators, Necromants, Wizards, Lifters, Snatchers, Fingerers, Harpaces, Sicarians, Phansigars, Thugs, Evil Thieves, Evil Master Thieves, Evil High Priests or Priestesses, Evil Priests

Number of Monsters: 31.

Lawful Men

Fighters, Pavisers, Thanes, Knights, Guardians, Defenders, Protectors, Vindicators, Lords, Famuli, Chirosophists, Tregetours, Pellars, Theurges, Thaumaturges, Talismanists, Solonists, Mirabilists, Magi, Archimagi, Borrowers, Mousers, Gilters, Dodgers, Coursers, Rescuers, Targeteers, Swordmen, Thieves, Master Thieves, High Priests or Priestesses, Priests

Number of Monsters: 31.

Notes: I loved the evocative level titles of the early version of the original game—another thing that would gradually fall out over the editions. One thing that virtually everyone has noticed about Zylarthen is the (mostly) new level titles for both the Lawful and Evil members of the three main classes. This was done for legal reasons but also for the sheer fun of it. It’s true that Gygax chose some silly titles, but he also laid claim to some of the better and more obvious ones, so I can’t say the enterprise was quick or easy. A number of specialized dictionaries as well as the OED came in handy here. Zylarthen assumes that player-characters (even Thieves) are basically good-guys, so titles with sinister, dark or particularly violent connotations were reserved for the Evil list. Particular effort was taken to clearly distinguish practitioners of “white magic” from, say, the “Wizards” of the Old Testament and other historical sources. I think most people appreciated the new titles, but everyone (including me, secretly) has their choice for one or two they don’t like. Note that Priests and Evil Priests only have one level. Since in Zylarthen, priests and evil priests become non-player characters, I didn’t see a need fuss things up with a full list of levels. Evil High Priests and High Priests have many of the most powerful Cleric spells that were not collapsed into the list for Magic-Users (including Finger of Death for Evil High Priests) but Evil Priests and Priests simply have a sort of aura, or whatever, around them that helps their friends and harms their enemies.

Monsters from Greyhawk

Aerial Servants, Blink Dogs, Bugbears, Cave Creepers, Brass Dragons, Bronze Dragons, Copper Dragons, Silver Dragons, The Dragon Queen, The Dragon King, Druids, Storm Giants, False Gnomes, Half-Elves, Harpies, Hell Hounds, Hobgoblins, Homunculi, Lammasu, Liches, Lizard Men, Wererats, Ogre Magi, Owl Bears, Paladins, Phase Spiders, Phaetonians, Rust Monsters, Sea Horses, Shift Panthers, Giant Slugs, Stirges, Giant Ticks, Tritons, Will O’Wisps

Number of Monsters: 35.

Notes: Even though these are relatively few in number, there are many canonical ones—so many that some don’t realize they didn’t exist in the original edition. This is why including Greyhawk was a must. A few of these as well some from the next two categories were non-SRD creations that I decided to modify into “science-fictional” or alien creatures. While I initially thought the issue annoying, I ended up with something I actually preferred, as the Androids, Cyborgs, Robots and Martians of the 3 LBB’s were now joined by entities hailing from Jupiter and the surface of the Sun.

Monsters from The Strategic Review

Clay Golems, Ghosts, Leprechauns, Lurkers Above, Guardian Nagas, Spirit Nagas, Water Nagas, Piercers, Rangers, Ropers, Shambling Mounds, Shriekers, Tentacle Men, Wind Walkers, Yeti

Number of Monsters: 14.

Notes: More canonical monsters. I liked what I did with Ghosts. Note that Zylarthen does include Rangers and Paladins (see Greyhawk, above), but only as non-player characters. I’m sure this was disappointing to many.

Monsters from Chainmail

Faeries, Solians, True Wraiths

Number of Monsters: 3.

Notes: Well, the last two fell out of the original for obvious copyright reasons (though the middle one would reappear in an inferior form). I decided to resurrect them.

Soldiers

From Men & Magic: Archers, Armored Foot, Barbarians, Crossbowmen, Heavy Foot, Heavy Horse, Horse Archers, Horsed Crossbowmen, Light Foot, Light Horse Bowmen, Light Horse Lancers, Mailed Bowmen (Medium Horse Bowmen), Mailed Crossbowmen (Heavy Crossbowmen), Medium Horse, Turcopoles

From Chainmail: Knights (Oddly, the term “Knight” appears nowhere in the 3 LBB’s), Javelineers

Extrapolations: Cataphracts, Cheirosiphoneers, Dwarf Guards, Elf Legionnaires, Halfling Slingers, Hoplites, Irregulars, Koursors, Peltasts, Pikemen, Mobs, Savages, Slingers, Varangians

Number of Monsters: 31.

Notes: I thought the original edition was simply begging for a clear and comprehensive list of soldier variations. And I thought it would be fun to include a table for the place of origin (native or foreign) and disposition of the soldiers upon encountering them. You probably don’t want to run into “friendlies” directly after they just got trounced in battle.

The AD&D Monster Manual

Troglodytes

Number of Monsters: 1.

Notes: My one concession to post-1975 modernity. Can you fault me?

So that’s the full list, 340 “monsters” if you count them broadly. Virtually all of them also appear in both the “Monster Encounter Tables” and “Wilderness Encounter Tables” of Zylarthen’s fourth and final volume—The Campaign. As with the encounter tables of the first version of the original game, a large proportion—one-third—are “man-types” of one form or another.

All in all, I’d like to think there’s enough “new” material to peak even the most veteran OD&D player’s interest.

Notes on Illustrations:

1. This drawing doesn't appear in the Book of Monsters but rather in the Book of Magic, p. 21.  What is it? Perhaps a Homunculus small enough to conceal itself in its master's mouth. I suppose you need an additional spell for that. Cropped from an illustration from “The Vision Of Macconglinney,” in Jacobs, Joseph, More Celtic Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895, orig. 1894, p. 73.
2. A Pixie from Book of Monsters, p. 47. From “My Own Self,” in Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894, orig. 1893, p. 18.
3. A Witch from Book of Monsters, p. 62. From ”Morraha,” in More Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 87.
4. An Evil Man from Book of Monsters, p. 22. Cropped from The Magic Purse, from “The Three Soldiers,” in Jacobs, Europa’s Fairy Book, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1916, p. 73.
5. A Ghost, one of the nastiest monsters in any category, from Book of Monsters, p. 25. Taken from the chapter illustration for “The Golden Arm,” in Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892, orig. 1890, p. 143.