Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition

by Wizards of the Coast

A bestiary of wondrous friends and foes for the world's greatest roleplaying game

Sparkling with the musings of the wizard Mordenkainen, this tome features a host of creatures for use in the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. Compiling and updating monsters that originally appeared in previous D&D fifth edition releases, these creatures represent some of the most benevolent and malevolent forces that D&D heroes might face.

The book also gathers together fantastical peoples from many different worlds. Each of these peoples represents a race option when you create your D&D character, expanding on the choices in the Player's Handbook.

- Includes more than 250 monsters--updates to the monsters include making spellcasters easier for Dungeon Masters to run, giving many monsters more damage and resilience, and improving the organization of the stat blocks themselves
- Includes more than 30 playable races--brings the game's setting-agnostic races into one book, complementing the races in the Player's Handbook
- A multiverse of lore--includes updates to monster lore that refocuses their stories on the D&D multiverse, rather than on any particular world

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Reference, Gaming, Fantasy, Games, Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the cover says, this is a compendium of creatures for use with the 5th Edition rules for Dungeons & Dragons, from Abishai to Zuggtmoy. If you're familiar with the Monster Manual, this is more of the same.

As one who learned D&D from the first edition rules, I'm impressed by how far the game seems to have come. Every creature gets a gorgeous, full color illustration. The Stat blocks have grown more sophisticated, and the descriptions more detailed. The first edition MM seemed more like a checklist of notches to carve in one's sword hilt. This book suggests stories and campaigns. It's well-organized and cross-referenced, with handy lists at the back that arrange everything by Challenge Rating and environment where the various creatures might be encountered.

There's also a section at the beginning offering suggestions for alternate races for player characters with all of necessary stats to make them work in game terms. It's a well thought out supplement that should add some flavor to your game. Recommended!

[Balázs Pataki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aside of my personal feelings of neutering the spellcasting NPCs, making them virtually useless outside of combat, this book has other weird decisions that I cannot understand why happened: the beastiary is an unorganized mess. While in previous monster books, big monster categories, like demons, devils, giants etc. had their own separate section, now they are just put them in alphabetical order next to other monsters. The NPC section is also gone, the NPCs are thrown into the alpabetical order as well, not separating them from the monsters at all.

I cannot understand why this was the decision that they go for, but it is a huge downgrade in the editing quality. It feels it was edited by someone who never see a 5th edition book before. I can only hope this won't become a trend in future books.

Buy Volo's Guide and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes instead of this book, you will be much better off with those.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another D&D 5e monster book. I mostly got it because I had rewards points to burn and because it has options for people to play as centaurs, githyanki, githzerai, or tortles. I'll have to see if there are any monsters in Volo's Guide that AREN'T in here. Otherwise, I might have to drop Volo at half price books next time I go. The art on the monsters is great and the book is organized well.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here you will find what you need to create your own Nott, the Brave, with her Fury of the Small and Dorian Storm, Air Genasi. Even my favorite, Fearne Calloway, the Reveler with a Mirthful Leap, is included. The race is listed as a Satyr but Fearne goes by Faun, maybe that’s the female version?

[Donald Dudley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The original way with all the lore was far superior.

[Claire T · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many intriguing character races brought up to pick from, even more monsters to add to your campaign. The organisation of this resource is great, and the artwork is pretty. The only downside for me, at least comparing it to some other resources, is that some things feel more vague (i.e. player race descriptions) then previous iterations of the material.

[Çınar Demir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Changing design and style mid-edition was a questionable choice. They need to hurry up on the 2024 edition (whatever name it’ll have) and provide parity between books.

I like the changes, don’t get me wrong.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some fun and dangerous monsters and NPCs to throw at the party. Some good new character races but the non-humanoid races are nerfed a bit. I like seeing abishai and shadar-kai included in the list. A very good resource.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great supplement book, I especially like the collection of PC races (many are toned down from previous versions/editions, but this is necessary for play balance). If you've heard mention of a playable race, it's in here. The bulk of the book is all monsters, most new but some old (rehashed or updated) or collected from other books such as the Demon Lords. Overall a great source book.

[Ogre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my god, what a horrible cash grab this piece of garbage is. And, to add insult to injury, they made this the official sourcebook for all the monsters from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Volo's Guide to Monsters! Gone is all the meticulous lore from those books; gone is any flavor to the monsters, and worse, playable races. In almost every case, WOTC simply leaves it up to the DM to decide the flavor of the monsters. How is this a sourcebook? Don't get me started on the awful changes to monster stats; if you though CR was unbalanced before, you're in for quite a ride with this piece of fewmet.

Do yourself a favor. Find used copies of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Volo's Guide to Monsters, and leave this pathetic reprint in the garbage where it belongs.

[Pádraic]

There's a bunch of stuff I could say about the design sensibilities of these updated monster statblocks and player race options (I think some of the changes are helpful streamlining, some are flattening and limiting, others are pointless changes for the sake of changes, and plenty are all three at once), but the short of it is, if you already have Volo's Guide to Monsters and/or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, you don't need this. If you don't have those books, this is a more efficient way of getting all those monsters, plus the race options from Volo's and more, minus a bunch of lore--although I never care much for the lore personally anyway.

[Etienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent bestiaires avec un premier chapitre sur les créatures fantastiques que les joeurs pourraient utiliser comme personnage, plutôt que les races plus classiques. Avec le manuel des joueurs et le guide du DM, cela complèete la trilogie des guides/manuels incontournales.

[Mike Bertrand · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of money if you've kept up with all the previous products.

[Benjamin]

I have very little to say about the contents of this book, since this is a combination of stuff that has gone before: mostly from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, along with a few other bits and pieces from here and there. The focus of this book is nice: it's a dozen monstrous races that the PCs can play, along with a lot of monsters.

What I want to focus on here is actually the layout, which is real nice for a book so jam-packed: every monster more-or-less gets a page, including stat block, image, and some info text; and when there's some entry (like wizard) that includes many sub-entries, they usually handle that over a few pages, with an intro page (with info text and a pic) and then pages that share at most two statblocks and images for each sub-entry. The text isn't big, but everything is super legible and, thanks to the pics, pretty engaging and exciting;

(It's just nice to see good work with the reader in mind, and I wanted to take this time to shout out the art direction and layout team on this book.)

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mordekainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse by the Wizards RPG Team is a step backward for any sort of D&D compendium for new, returning, or ongoing campaigns. Essentially billed as a mass collection of all playable races and monsters from the books that predate it, this compendium ends up being a butchered update to all of the above making it more worthwhile to hold onto your older books. Much of the lore from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is lost, along with the nice flavouring, interesting stat blocks and the complete nerf of spellcasting NPCs. The old books gave a good quick library of tools, but MP: MotM proves that sometimes the best resources aren't the official WoTC merchandise.

TL;DR: An unnecessary book that changes the foundation of many aspects of 5e rather than creating an entirely new system. Sometimes new is not always best.

[Francisco · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I can tell why this would be useful, as a sort of complementary Monster Manual, it is for the most part a rehash of previously printed material in other D&D source and adventure books. Collecting in particular character race options and monsters that were spread around several sources into one book.

This of course makes the book pretty underwhelming if you already had the other books it references, but as I said it works more as a utilitarian thing than as a source of new material. Unfortunately, while it does reprint much of what other books had already released, it does not reprint all. For example the majority of 2016's Volo's Guide to Monsters is here, but the first section which goes deep into the lore of some of the more famous beasties is absent. Oh well.

If you're just starting with 5e and need more monsters this might be a good buy, but if you have previous books covering the same subjects do not expect to find anything new here. A bit disappointing.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Monsters of the Multiverse is a DnD supplementary book, adding additional playable races and lots of new monster stat blocks.

I guess it's a decent enough book, but many of the monsters were so incredibly specific that I don't imagine I'll ever use more than a handful of the monsters from this book. The playable races are very cool, but the descriptions are very brief and again, I'm only ever going to use a few of them.
This is a good book to have for your DnD collection, but not a good book to read through. Which is what I did. 2 stars.

[Jayden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little bit of new content, helpful revisions, especially to some of the more broken player race balancing, new art,bnew methods of racial stats that let you play an orc wizard or a goblin duelist without mechanically neutering yourself, and most notably, combining the other monster books into one so that new players no longer need to spend 200 bucks to get all the content. A useful companion guide for those starting out or looking to re-organize.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, this book is a rehash and not at all worth it. In its own right, however, it is... okay. It feels like there were a lot of cool ideas without much focus on providing depth, and there are a lot of repetitive race/monster abilities.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love the new player options this book offers, which include orcs, new kinds of elves, humanoid animals, etc. There's also a good amount of monsters, and many of them come with a high challenge rating. I hear it includes a lot of reprinted material, but if you don't have any other D&D books, this is bloody fantastic.

[Diego · Rating 3 out of 5]

"O Multiverso é cheio de horrores, muitos dos quais são detalhados neste livro. Prepare sua risada e um punhado de boas magias. Se é para sermos devorados, é melhor enfrentar a escuridão com um sorriso." - Tasha

[Jules Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a weird choice to change so many things mid-edition. But if the changes where these small for a 5.5 edition or 6th I would be upset. DnD is a customisable games with many alternate rules, this is one of them.

[Amélie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I initially thought this combined the Monster Manual with another monsters book, but turns out it didn't (so I bought the Monster Manual separately). Still, it presents a variety of monsters and really fun races to play with, all accompanied by brilliant illustrations.

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great and overdue modernization of most fantastical races and a practical update to many a monster.
My only gripe would be that the book should have included the PHB options to further streamline everything.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Significant improvement on Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, presenting the monsters in a more setting-neutral way. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Luke Lindon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cover to cover. Getting an overview and general inspiration of nasties to put in games to come. Love the lords of the nine hells overview and the politics there in. I’m a big fan of the gnolls. This gives their god and creation. Cool stuff.

[Connor Hack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really the best racial and monster addition to the DnD universe — it’s got all the races from Volo’s plus a little extra, and it has all the monsters there too. It really is the premier monster and race additions to the players handbook and monster manual.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly recycled content unfortunately, but good to have things in one place.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monsters should still do more damage. It would be nice to have some monsters classified by type (Demons, devils, dinosaurs, etc.)

[Alacrity17 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really was no need to rewrite what was already done.