This is easily one of the better ideas floated by the company.

The ecologies section has been a mainstay of many DM's for a long time - with maybe the Bazaar of the Bizarre having a longer run. Many folks running games appreciate that someone else has already put in the work to flesh out these iconic mosters as this frees them up to put that work into action.

It also encourages readers to submit more material, in the hopes that their work might not only be published in the world famous pages of Dragon, but that it might also be up to snuff enough to be published in a book like this.

Bully for you & Congradutations, Paizo,

ChaosIndustries

I ordered this and am waiting with great anticipation. Just one question tho. When is it going to ship?

Paizo is loyal. Paizo is considerate. Paizo rocks!

So, is it actually a magazine or more a soft-cover book? Also, has a more specific release date been set?

- Chris Shadowens

So, is it actually a magazine or more a soft-cover book? Also, has a more specific release date been set?

The retail release date is May 23rd; paizo.com preorders will ship out shortly before that.

It's a softcover book, as it has no ads, and is printed on a higher-quality paper stock with heavier cover stock than the magazines.

Any hope of seeing an index so I know what critters are in it?

I've just added a ton of additional info to the product description.

I've just added a ton of additional info to the product description.

I...worded my wish wrong. That is tricky.

I'd meant if we could get an index here on these boards telling us what ecology articles were included in the book.

I truly can't wait for this book to come out- it's one of the things I loved reading the most in Dragon, and even when I wasn't too interested in the creature displayed, I was always sucked in by the way the ecology was presented.

I...worded my wish wrong. That is tricky.

I'd meant if we could get an index here on these boards telling us what ecology articles were included in the book.

Perhaps I'm confused by what you mean by "index." I added a list of the ecologies included:

"Dragon: Monster Ecologies contains ecologies of the choker, chuul, dracolich, draconian, ettercap, inevitable, kenku, kobold, kraken, lizardfolk, mooncalf, night hag, rakshasa, rust monster, shadar-kai, spawn of Kyuss, spell weaver, and will-o'-wisp. But that's not all...."

Perhaps I'm confused by what you mean by "index." I added a list of the ecologies included:

"Dragon: Monster Ecologies contains ecologies of the choker, chuul, dracolich, draconian, ettercap, inevitable, kenku, kobold, kraken, lizardfolk, mooncalf, night hag, rakshasa, rust monster, shadar-kai, spawn of Kyuss, spell weaver, and will-o'-wisp. But that's not all...."

Hrrmm...that is what I wanted. I wonder why I didn't see it when I went to look at the product page after your announcement.

Thanks.

Ooooh..."Monsters of Suck". Me likey.

Will that be about flumphs, tiraphegs, and the like...or is it something else entirely?

Ooooh..."Monsters of Suck". Me likey.

Will that be about flumphs, tiraphegs, and the like...or is it something else entirely?

Don't expect too much from "Monsters of Suck"—it's just a little one-page amusement at the end of the book—but it does include an illustration of the flumph, among others.

Well I received a couple of pre-hit-the-shelf comp copies of this due my minute quote about the Beholder's history being included therein and I must say that this is a *great product*. Very well presented with neat side treks as well into many of their histories in other product lines from TSR on up to present; and as well, Erik's "Monsters of Suck," had me laughing. :)

Way to go Paizo!

RJK

Is there any new material? Or is it just reprints from the articles?

Just got mine in the mail yesterday, and it looks great! The quality of the paper and binding makes it feel really solid, and I love the extra articles like Monstrous Evolution and Monsters of Suck.

Just got mine in the mail yesterday, and it looks great! The quality of the paper and binding makes it feel really solid, and I love the extra articles like Monstrous Evolution and Monsters of Suck.

I have two questions:

Does it have ecology of the Ogre Mage?
(Somebody I know said the original article had Psionic variant of the Ogre Mage, which sounds really nice variety to old favorite.)

Does it have ecology of the Kopru?
(I have heard this would come handy in campaign mixing Cthulhuesque elements with D&D.)

Is there any new material? Or is it just reprints from the articles?

There's a ton of new stuff. All of the older ecologies have been updated to the most current format of the series, so there's a lot of new stat blocks, sidebars, histories, new characters, adventure ideas, all new art, the works. There are also quotes from a ton of game designers and authors, like Peter Adkison, Gary Gygax, Margaret Weis, R.A. Salvatore, China Mieville, Monte Cook, Chris Pramas, Sean Reynolds, and lots more about their favorite monsters and monster-related experiences. But my favorite—and that's kind of saying a lot since this was the first book I've ever been editor-in-chief on—is the index of ecologies, which covers every ecology ever printed in the past or will be printed in the foreseeable future, all the way to the last issue of Dragon, #359.

Ooooh..."Monsters of Suck". Me likey.

Will that be about flumphs, tiraphegs, and the like...or is it something else entirely?

By far one of my other favorite parts, Erik introduces a feature that he and Sean put together back in their Polyhedron days. It's expanded from its original form to be a full-page on the worst monsters ever to appear in D&D, along with Erik and art director Sean Glenn's quips about several of them. I'm not going to give it all away, but the flumph is on there (in all his terrible first-edition glory) along with seven other friends.

On the less sucky monsters side, there's also several art galleries/time lines of some of the most popular monsters in D&D, like the beholder and the mind flayer. These Monstrous Evolutions show how the creatures have changed in the past 35 years, from early and often ugly line drawings (or even earlier) to the fully-painted masterpieces of the modern Monster Manual and beyond.

grrtigger wrote:

Just got mine in the mail yesterday, and it looks great! The quality of the paper and binding makes it feel really solid, and I love the extra articles like Monstrous Evolution and Monsters of Suck.

I have two questions:

Does it have ecology of the Ogre Mage?
(Somebody I know said the original article had Psionic variant of the Ogre Mage, which sounds really nice variety to old favorite.)

Does it have ecology of the Kopru?
(I have heard this would come handy in campaign mixing Cthulhuesque elements with D&D.)

Sadly it does not, the ogre mage just didn't make the cut and the kopru was too recent to make it into the book. However, if you want a touch of the Cthulhuesque, there's more than a little of that with the kraken cults, moon calves, and new night hag larvae.

Just got mine in the mail yesterday, and it looks great! The quality of the paper and binding makes it feel really solid, and I love the extra articles like Monstrous Evolution and Monsters of Suck.

As a side note, if you like how this feels, this is pretty close (not exactly, but close) to what Pathfinder's going to be like in terms of quality, paper stock, durability, and size.

As a side note, if you like how this feels, this is pretty close (not exactly, but close) to what Pathfinder's going to be like in terms of quality, paper stock, durability, and size.

I thought so. Too much of a coincidence in the format description, isn't it? ;-)

Still sad to see this quality of presentation and orginal D&D content vanish.

Greetings,
Günther

Sadly it does not, the ogre mage just didn't make the cut and the kopru was too recent to make it into the book. However, if you want a touch of the Cthulhuesque, there's more than a little of that with the kraken cults, moon calves, and new night hag larvae.

Well, I'll just have to pick those magazines up, I have already asked about local FLGS are they going to get Monster Ecologies to their selection.

Kraken cults just sound great.

Still sad to see this quality of presentation and orginal D&D content vanish.

Don't be too sure about that. Close one door and another opens. We've got a lot of plans for Pathfinder, and lovers of monsters and in-depth details about the lives and ways of monsters should not be disappointed.

As a side note, if you like how this feels, this is pretty close (not exactly, but close) to what Pathfinder's going to be like in terms of quality, paper stock, durability, and size.

Great! That was actually going to be my next question ;)

I have a question. What are the last few ecologies going to be for Dragon?

I have a question. What are the last few ecologies going to be for Dragon?

Dude. That's the secret. Buy the book. :P

Or, at least, go to your friendly local game store and dare the wrath of the store manager for peeking.

I just got mine! Even though I already have all the issues these ecologies are from, this is a great book!

I know Paizo can't, and I know they won't, but I wish ALL the ecologies could be collected in tomes like this!

AAAARRRRRGGGGG!!! I want this.

Got it Friday -- it's pretty good though it could have, I think, been significantly better with more total monsters at the cost of a page or two detail each. Averaging 7-1/2 pages per monster is a bit much considering there's only, what, 18 total (10 pages for the Kobold?). They could have done 2-4 pages each and added another 10 monsters -- still with good, well developed material.

And, OH MY GOD why did they include the Inevitable!?

But the articles by Gygax and Kuntz are quite nice and the comprehensive index of the Dragon ecologies, from the Catoblepas in #73 to the Tarrasque (coming) in 359 is very much appreciated.

The Rakshasa and Will-O-Wisp are perhaps the best entries.

-W. E. Ray

Got it Friday -- it's pretty good though it could have, I think, been significantly better with more total monsters at the cost of a page or two detail each. Averaging 7-1/2 pages per monster is a bit much considering there's only, what, 18 total (10 pages for the Kobold?). They could have done 2-4 pages each and added another 10 monsters -- still with good, well developed material.

Yeah, my original idea was to do a paragraph on each monster, try to fit four on a page, and get 512 creatures into the book. :P

As the book is meant to be a compilation of articles from Dragon, any changes we made to the originals are additions. That way, even if you have the issues where these ecologies first appeared, there's new rules, art, adventure ideas, characters, and other stuff expanding upon the originals—not truncating from them.

And, OH MY GOD why did they include the Inevitable!?

'Cause they're cool! David Noonan was especially good to recount his experience creating these guys, using the maurt from Planescape as a launching pad for an entire race. It's this sort of evolution, from a single creature in one ancillary book to an entire race in a core rulebook and numerous adventures of the following edition that I personally find fascinating. The whole marut lich-hunting thing and the creche-forges are also really neat ideas.

That and, being that there hasn't been much on inevitables in the way of details, they're exactly the kind of creatures I love to do ecologies on. Hopefully the article gives you a few ideas on how these creatures might play a part in your game, especially with their new plot hooks section that offers a few suggestions for inevitable-based adventures that don't need to take your players onto the planes.

But the articles by Gygax and Kuntz are quite nice and the comprehensive index of the Dragon ecologies, from the Catoblepas in #73 to the Tarrasque (coming) in 359 is very much appreciated.

SPOILER WARNING! But really, the authors are the big deal there. SO SHHHH! ^_~

(P.S. Darth Vader is Luke's father.)

The Rakshasa and Will-O-Wisp are perhaps the best entries.

Both Amber and Eric are great writers with some very clever takes on these old-school monsters (I especially love the art of the little half-fiend will-o-wisp and Ravenloft fans might recognize the new advanced rakshasa). Rich Pett's "Ecology of the Kraken" and Nicholas Hudson and Nicolas Logue's "Ecology of the Rust Monster" (complete with a picture of the plastic '70s toy that inspired the beast) also stand out a exceptional in my mind.

I'll definitely purchase it, too.

Thinking about the book, this was likely to be the last chance to portray monsters (c) WotC in such detail, wasn't it?

Too bad that beholder, mindflayer and the other copyrighted critters didn't make it into the book.

But even so the list of monsters included reads like a best of. :-)

Greetings,
Günther

Too bad that beholder, mindflayer and the other copyrighted critters didn't make it into the book.

While they didn't get articles about them, but there's a number of Monstrous Evolutions where famed designers and authors talk about some of these unique children of D&D along with an art gallery/timeline of how these creatures have evolved over the years. The beholder, mind flayer, and displacer beast are just three of the creatures to get this treatment. These progressions are really something that’s never been done in a roleplaying book before and its cool the game has such a history to draw off.

I bought the book, even though I have all the magazines that the Ecology Articles came from. It's nice to have them all together, plus the bonus material. I think I most liked see in the list of all Ecology articles starting with the Piercer (and yes, I bought that issue of Dragon when it came out so very long ago) and ended with the last one to be printed in the near future. Excellent choice for the finale, the last issue of Dragon will be the biggest ever!

And, OH MY GOD why did they include the Inevitable!?

It was inevitable!

I bought Monster Ecologies today.

1. I love the layout! If PF is supposed to be a combination of the looks of GMM and this one, then it will be great, indeed!

2. I felt slightly disappointed by the amount of new material. Also I realized that all articles stem from the 3.0/ 3.5 era. I had hoped that some of the old edition classics made it into the Ecologies.

Resume:
A nice book, 100%ly recommendable for those people who don't own the original articles yet. People who already own the articles should check it out first.

Greetings,
Günther

While I have most or all of the Dragon's involved in this product, having them all in one place has been invaluable over the past month. Though I have loved them as individual articles I never seem to take the trouble to use them. That said, I have had the book for about 30 days and have used 4 of the ecologies and advanced creatures that come with them in game already. Very nice!

I bought Monster Ecologies today.

1. I love the layout! If PF is supposed to be a combination of the looks of GMM and this one, then it will be great, indeed!

2. I felt slightly disappointed by the amount of new material. Also I realized that all articles stem from the 3.0/ 3.5 era. I had hoped that some of the old edition classics made it into the Ecologies.

Resume:
A nice book, 100%ly recommendable for those people who don't own the original articles yet. People who already own the articles should check it out first.

Greetings,
Günther

Is there a plan to do another release with the rest of all the Ecologies through the end of Paizo's Dragon?

Thanks,

Mark

i was also wondering if any of the ecologies were going to be released

We no longer have a license to do anything with that material. You'll have to ask Wizards of the Coast.

Any hope of seeing an index so I know what critters are in it?

It says right in the description:

Dragon: Monster Ecologies contains ecologies of the choker, chuul, dracolich, draconian, ettercap, inevitable, kenku, kobold, kraken, lizardfolk, mooncalf, night hag, rakshasa, rust monster, shadar-kai, spawn of Kyuss, spell weaver, and will-o'-wisp.

Plus some retrospectives about other monsters like the beholder and mind flayer.

i was also wondering if any of the ecologies were going to be released

Hi there,

you might be interested in having a closer look at Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Monsters Revisited. It is not the same as Ecologies, but it has its own merits and offers in my opinion even more information immediately usable for playing.

Of course inevitably the pointer to Wolfgang Baur's Kobold Quarterly , Dragon Magazine's spiritual successor. Ecology articles are a regular feature of this magazine.

Then there are the following products by other companies:
- The "Slayer's Guide" series by Mongoose Publishing
- The "Races of Renown" series by Green Ronin Publishing (rather concentrating on races, though)
- The "Complete Guide to..." series by Goodman Games

Btw. Goodman Games somehow managed to publish an official "Complete Guide to Beholders", even though this monster is not OGL and IP of WotC. Quality of the books in these series vary strongly, but having a look at reviews on other d20 review sites usually is a good starting point.

Cheers,
Günther

Hey, all of you who bought this book, take a close look at some of the books on the cover. ;)

Following the footsteps of a great Paizo book is a small but fierce Kobold book.

If you love ecologies, please take a look at Kobold Ecologies, right here on the Paizo store. It's quite a collection.