List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters
This is the Index of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters, an important element of that role-playing game. This list only includes monsters from official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition supplements published by TSR, Inc. or Wizards of the Coast, not licensed or unlicensed third-party products such as video games or unlicensed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition manuals.
Monsters in the 1st edition of ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''
Encyclopedic cataloguing of monsters dates back to ancient times, for example Pliny's Natural History. However, 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was the first game to simulate monsters and magic. The "spread sheeting" of monsters in 1st edition was hugely influential not only for tabletop gaming, but computer games as well. Writing at the time of the 1st edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Ian Livingstone concluded in a comparison between contemporary role-playing games: "No other RPG has such a wide range of monsters, each clearly explained, as AD&D", from "humanoid creatures, and dragons and reptiles, right through to exotic and strange creatures." Chroniclers of the art of Dungeons & Dragons Michael Witwer et al. observed that the regular inclusion of images introduced in this edition "made the standard visualisation of monsters just as important as how they were specified and quantified". A.V. Club reviewer Nick Wanserski commented in 2016 on the depiction of monsters in this phase of the game that "pen and ink interior illustrations found in books like the original Fiend Folio weren't nearly as polished as the contemporary art, but had an earnest strangeness that I tend to get sentimental about."
TSR 2009 – ''Monster Manual'' (1977)
This was the initial monster book for the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, published in 1977. Gary Gygax wrote much of the work himself, having included and expanded most of the monsters from the previous D&D supplements. Also included are monsters originally printed in The Strategic Review, as well as some originally found in early issues of The Dragon, and other early game materials. This book also expanded on the original monster format, such as including the stat lines on the same page as the monsters' descriptions and introducing more stats, expanding the length of most monster descriptions, and featuring illustrations for most of the monsters, which "became the canonical representations of these fantastic creatures" for a significant period of D&D and an important influence on other games. The book features an alphabetical table of contents of all the monsters on pages 3–4, explanatory notes for the statistics lines on pages 5–6, descriptions of the monsters on pages 6–103, a treasure chart on page 105, and an index of major listings on pages 106–109.
While later editions gave monsters attributes similar to player characters, the 1st and 2nd editions listed intelligence only, as a characteristic important for creating challenging encounters in the game.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
TSR 2012 – ''Fiend Folio'' (1981)
The Fiend Folio: Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign was the second monster book for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1981. While the Monster Manual consisted primarily of monsters previously published in D&D books edited by Gary Gygax, the Fiend Folio consisted mostly of monsters submitted to White Dwarfs "Fiend Factory" column. Don Turnbull, later Managing Director of TSR UK, was the editor for the "Fiend Factory" column, as well as the Fiend Folio, which was billed as "the first major British contribution to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game system." The monsters in this book are presented in the same format as those in the previous Monster Manual work, and most featured illustrations of the monsters. Also, there are full-page black and white illustrations of various monsters throughout the book. The book contains a foreword on pages 3–4, an alphabetical table of contents on page 5, explanatory notes on pages 6–7, descriptions of the monsters on pages 8–97, a treasure chart on page 99, additional tables and charts for all the monsters in both the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio on pages 100–119, an index of major listings on pages 120–124, with an epilogue on page 124.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
Four sets of "monster cards" were released in 1982; each card contained the stats and description of a single monster. They were mostly reprints from the Monster Manual, but three monsters in each set were original, and were reprinted in the Monster Manual II the next year.
TSR8009 - Set 1
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
TSR8010 - Set 2
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
TSR8011 - Set 3
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
TSR8012 - Set 4
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
TSR 2016 – ''Monster Manual II'' (1983)
Monster Manual II was the third and final monster book for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1983, and has the largest page count of the three. As with the Monster Manual, this book was written primarily by Gary Gygax. While this book contains a number of monsters that previously appeared in limited circulation, unlike the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio a large amount of its contents was entirely new at publication. The monsters in this book are presented in the same format as the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio. The book contains a preface on page 4, a section entitled "How To Use This Book" on pages 5–7, descriptions of the monsters on pages 8–132, random encounter tables on pages 133–155, and an index of all the monsters in the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II on pages 156–160. Unlike the previous two books, this book does not contain an alphabetical listing of the monsters in the beginning of the book.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
The campaign setting hard-cover book Dragonlance Adventures contains a monster section called Creatures of Krynn.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
The campaign setting hard-cover book Greyhawk Adventures contains a section called Monsters of Greyhawk.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |
''Dragon'' magazine
The Dragon introduced many new monsters to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game.
| Creature | Other Appearances | Variants | Description |