Mordenkainens Tome of Foes (Dungeons Dragons, 5th Edition) by Wizards of the Coast

Mordenkainens Tome of Foes (Dungeons Dragons, 5th Edition) Reviews

• 
  Diz

  This is a solid supplement for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. The first half of the book contains in depth looks at several races including elves, drow, dwarfs, duregar, gith, halflings, gnomes, devils, and demons. These sections include information about the origins and mythology of these races, which can be quite helpful for setting up story ideas. The second half of the book covers about 100 monsters that can be included in campaigns. Overall, it is a really good collection of monsters, but not absolutely necessary to have unless you are planning on running a devil or demon heavy campaign.
• 
  Shadowdenizen

  Mid point review: Giff make everything better. Who doesn"t love sentient spacefaring hippos with guns? And about time they got demons/devils into 5E properly. (I do not count "Out of the Abyss".)
  ***
  4.5 stars.
  Wizards continues their trend of quality expansion books. While not as cruch-heavy as Xanathar's, this gives DM's some major tools to play with, including the return of the Blood Wars (first created for the 2E Planescape setting.)
• 
  Jasmine

  Aw yeah give me that delicious crunchy lore.
• 
  Timothy Boyd

  Incredible game book. The write ups are like short story entries in many cases. Very nice pictures and layouts. Just a fun read whether you are a gamer or not. Very recommended
• 
  John Stinebaugh

  I love it when rule books use story elements to add flavor instead of just presenting game statistics. My only wish would have been that this had become a full narrative of Mordenkainen on a journey with clues about the creatures and this overall story.
• 
  Drew

  This has been my favorite of the additional DM materials for 5th edition. Great new monsters with fun behaviors and origins that hint at fun encounters. Lots of great content about various races and planes and their squabbles with one another.
• 
  Steven van Ens

  The third supplement to D&D 5th edition, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is in general terms similar to the first one, Volo's Guide to Monsters, in that it mainly presents a new bestiary containing new monster stat blocks and several chapters on lore for some of D&D's most famous villains and monsters. In addition, there are some options for players in the form of character races like the Shadar-Kai, Sea Elves and Gith.
  
  Another great D&D supplement full of interesting information and many weird and awesome monsters that I am now excited to use in a campaign. It also includes the stats for a host of Demon and Devil lords, for the real high-end adventures. I've learned a great deal as well on the Gith and the Blood War, the dwarves and elves, and more; now onto the next one!
• 
  Dan Ray

  Nicely illustrated and I enjoy the additional monsters.
  The demons, devils and cults bits were the best. The rest of it felt like filler.
  
  Good to flesh out the world with some of the people who get less of the spotlight, but they're backgrounders for a reason. Gloming them all together in a long stretch of sourcebook made for a reading chore. Though I do get it that these sourcebooks are meant to be picked at, not read through. Still.
  
  
• 
  Kevin Leung

  Solid addition, though I enjoyed Volos guide more. The background on the elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes may help to flesh out those cultures for both players and dms. I thought the blood war segment was the weakest, but if you plan on using it, maybe that was the best part.
  
  I guess you should just look over the table of contents, and that should tell you if you should read it.
• 
  Kendra Lawrence

  Admittedly, I haven’t read through this book in its entirety. As an elf and gods found, I mainly focused on chapter 2, as I had been hearing rumors about lore changes, and I wanted to read it for myself. And I am coming away with mixed feelings. There are some significant lore changes that override a lot of previous lore. I realize this book is not Faerun-specific, but they still changed a lot. Yes, I am one of *those* people who care about the lore of the setting. To me, it isn’t just fluff you can use with mechanics. It’s an established, rich world with a history and flavor.
  
  One of the things I *did* like was that they made the elves springing from Corellon’s blood a fact, rather than a racial myth (though, considering its been part of the legend for so long, I kind of took it as fact, anyway). But the other Seldarine (including Lolth) also sprang from his blood, apparently. I found that part a little strange, and it gets rid of Araunshnee, but oh well. I’m also glad they used both male and female pronouns to describe Sehanine (and that they made her/him Corellon’s beloved again, rather than changing it to Angarradh like they did in 4e).
  Elven souls (or spirits, as they were called in earlier editions) have long been reincarnated, because they are creatures of the natural world. However, some remained eternally in Arvandor, and Arvandor has always been a reward for the elves who pass on. Now, it is still a reward, but they are barred from being their eternally because of the treachery of the primal elves. So, when elves reach old age, they undergo Transcendence, then pass onto Arvandor, where they may spend a decade or millennia, then are reincarnated again as an elf. This part isn’t too much of a change, but it is enough to make me notice. The true immortality of the soul, and how the elves can get glimpses of their past incarnations is poetic, but I don’t like that Arvandor has essentially become a pretty waystation or summer house between incarnations.
  
  And the fate of the soul of a half-elf is uncertain. This is a change, as before, your afterlife was determined either by your patron deity, or the god that is best aligned with their moral and ethical outlook. Now, it seems like the fate of half-elves and elves who don’t worship the Seldarine (this is rare, as most elves do, but some have been known to worship others, like Silvanus or Mielikki) is uncertain. What?
  
  They also got rid of the Descent—or rather, changed how it came about. There were no Crown Wars. Instead, the treachery happened before elves were mortal (when they were known as primal elves). They probably did this because MToF covers multiple settings, and they are trying to give the drow and elves of each setting the same origin story to simplify things, but it gets rid of some unique history. I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Descent, but it has been in the lore so long, I would rather they had started making changes, rather than getting rid of it completely. So, the Descent of the Drow would still be part of history, but, thanks to the work of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, things were beginning to change. But nope, that’s not the direction they took.
  
  Speaking of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, this is the change that bothers me the most: drow souls, as part of the curse due to the primal elves’ treachery, aren’t reincarnated, and it is not specified where they’re souls go. Do they not even go to Lolth, now? I suppose one could assume that, by default, the “other planes” implies the realm of whatever god they identify with, but why not be more specific? Are the drow essentially intelligent zombies now, and their souls just go “poof”? And the uncertainty of Eilistraee’s followers, too. Why not just go to Eilistraee’s realm, like they used to? And since when was Vhaeraun mute?
  
  I realize I’m probably overreacting, but I have been invested in this setting for years, and to see such a sudden, drastic change bothers me, and I’m tired of Vhaeraun and Eilistraee constantly being shoehorned into a corner and only dealt with when absolutely necessary.
  
• 
  James

  Some great background into the races of Faerun & Greyhawk. Some very interesting creature builds but no guidelines on customization.
• 
  Andy Olson

  I'm a little disappointed. Presumably much of the lore in this book is findable elsewhere in DnD texts and since it's mostly fluff with little mechanics updated for 5e, it seems unnecessary. The bestiary seems pretty good however.
• 
  Julian Meynell

  This is a pretty good expansion for D&D 5th, especially when taken with Volo's guide to Monsters which is the more essential of the two and I would recommend buying before this. It is split into two sections. The first has an in depth look at monster types. It includes the Blood War between Devils and Demons and the War between the Githyanki and the Githzerai, but the bulk of it fleshes out Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes and Halflings and is most useful for players and for adding fluff to campaigns for extra realism. It maintains the approach of 5th Edition where the fluff is more practical than in previous editions for running adventures and there is a heavy emphasis on the mythology, making the world a more fantastic one.
  
  The second half of the book in a bestiary that concentrates on more foes from the chapters in the book (new elves, Demons, Drow, etc) and also on high CR monsters. These monsters, like those in Volo's are on balance more story focused and less wandering critters that you fight and move on with.
  
  I like all of that. In particular the book is going to be useful to players with a standard race other than Human or Half Orc and to DM's looking for higher level story focused monsters. It's a good supplement but perhaps not a great one.
• 
  Taddow

  This was a great addition to the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition system. It offers additional background information on the Elves (including the Feywild's Eladrin and the Shadowfell's Shadar-Kai), Halflings, Gnomes, Dwarves (including the Duegar) and the Gith. Optional rules are also included for making characters from these races. The second part of the book includes additional monsters for use as allies or adversaries. It was good to see the inclusion of a lot of favorites from the AD&D 1st Ed. Monster Manuals and Fiend Folio, as well as some new concepts. I was especially excited to see rules for the Astral Dreadnought (big favorite of mine) and the Elder Elementals.
• 
  Nathan Albright

  One of the best things about this book is that it does a good job at explaining the eternal foes of various conflicts, why and how long they have fought, and what sort of ways characters can involve themselves in these conflicts if they so choose.  Even better, not all of the various parties involved here need to be enemies of the party.  Indeed, in reading this book I thought of a good hook to use to provide one of my Lizardmen characters with a powerful if somewhat chaotic ally for massive destruction as well as friendliness, which made this book all the more enjoyable to read for me.  Not everyone will find this book to be enjoyable, because even for those who enjoy D&D this book gets into some pretty unusual and troublesome areas, but if you want an examination of some of the more eternal conflicts in the game as it has been designed this book provides a great deal of insight.  I had some clear sympathies in some of the conflicts, but not in all of them, and thought that the book began in the way that is most likely to provide puzzlement for some readers though it gets much more clear as one continues to read.
  
  This book is about 250 pages long and is divided into six chapters with an appendix that provide detailed information on various eternal conflicts.  After a short preface the book begins with a discussion of the blood war between demons (who normally inhabit the abyss) and the devils of the nine hells (frequently referred to by people like Mark from Spectrum Pulse) that is fought in the way it is to avoid expanding the front to include other planes that are hostile to both (1).  After that the author talks about the division among the elves and not only comments about the hostility between elves and drow but also the way that elves in different areas (like sea elves) have their own eternal conflicts with enemies like the sahuagin (2).  After that there is a discussion of the guerrilla conflict between the much more numerous dwarves and their duergar kindred (3).  Then there is a somewhat brief chapter on the conflict between githyanki and githzerai (4) as well as a chapter on the much less conflict-ridden existence of the halflings and gnomes (5) before the final chapter, which takes up more than half of the book, gives a detailed bestiary organized in alphabetical order (6), after which an appendix provides monster lists.
  
  What sort of eternal conflicts does this book present?  While a contemporary book might look at India and Pakistan or Israel and Palestine or Protestants and Catholics as examples of long-running and seemingly insoluble conflicts in the contemporary world, this book of course deals with conflicts in a game.  That said, the conflict between demons and devils is one that at least has an analogue in the real world between the more chaotic and more authoritarian among the world of fallen angels, which means that the book does have real life insight that is worth considering.  Beyond that, the book provides some insight as to the experiences that led elves and drow to swear to eternal conflict, as well as dwarves and duergar and the two races of the gith, all of whom have their own eternal conflicts that have wrecked havoc on their own lives and which may even excite some compassion on the part of the player.  Be that as it may, it does not appear as if any of these conflicts are going to end any time soon, which makes this book of foes an aptly titled book that is surprisingly insightful about the way that the game of D&D has been constructed in a way to provide for constant conflict in various planes.
• 
  Keith Davis

  Mordenkainen's is a D&D supplement book organized into chapters based on pairs of related opposites. The idea here is that Modenkainen, who was a wizard character played by Gary Gygax himself, was not a champion of good or evil but rather of balance between the opposing forces of the multiverse. The book is very heavy on flavor text, which I like, and can be used to add depth to and inspire campaigns.
  
  The first chapter deals with Devils and Demons, which are very different things in the world of D&D, and the ongoing Blood War between the lawful and chaotic factions of evil. I love the idea that Hell exists as a barrier protecting the universe against something even worse. Second is a long chapter about Elves and their evil splinter group the Drow. My main takeaway from this was that Elves have a remarkably mellow pantheon of gods who ask very little of their followers and expect to be asked for very little in return. I could get behind a religion like this. Dwarves and their evil splinter group the Duergar come next, not much new here other than the authors seem to have some sympathy for the Duergar, Next comes the Githyanki and Githzerai, the opposed factions of the Gith that travel the multiverse fighting the Mindflayers and each other. My favorite detail about the Githzerai is that they live in a city built on the corpse of a dead god floating in the Astral plane. The last of the flavor chapters is about Halflings and Gnomes. Based on what had come before I was so hoping that a massive lore change was coming in which it would be revealed that Halflings and Gnomes split off from the same race and that an ancient war was fought between the two groups. Alas, it was not to be. It appears that the authors only put the two groups together in one chapter to match the structure of the rest of the book.
  
  The second half of the book is a bestiary with some new monsters and some updates. Shadar-kai are now a subgroup of Elves, which is a change I don't care for. Elves are Fey creatures and all Fey originate in the Feywild. Shadar-kai come from the Shadowfell. I liked them better as their own category of shadowy humanoids. The update to Trolls is interesting, with variants based on environmental mutation. The Sibriex is extremely gross and could be fun to use with its warp creature ability. Several commentators have made fun of the Giff, but I like these hippopotamus based humanoids with their sort of colonial era British military motif. I also enjoyed the look at the second tier dukes of Hell, like Bael, Hutijin, and Titivilus, and their psychological motivations.
  
  TL/DR: Probably the best 5th edition supplement to date.
• 
  Brian Wilkerson

  The supplement that is a treasure trove of lore! This book has been a fascinating read for me, as a reader of fantasy fiction and also as a Dungeon Master. I have written previously about its value as a lorebook, the inspiration it provides to a Dungeon Master. You can read that in my other post - The Value of Lorebooks. This post is more of an overview of the book itself.
  
  As stated, this is a lorebook. It is mostly about lore. Its frame narrative is that the grand mage Mordenkainen has been studying multi-versal conflicts in his pursuit of maintaining what he considers to be an ideal balance of the cosmos. This tome is a collection of his research. So it contains information about the Blood War, the origin of the feud between dwarves and duergar, why the Githyanki and Gizerazi hunt each other, and how the elves split into so many subspecies, with the drow among them. Then there is a chapter about the gnomes and halflings, who are explicitly not to have evil counterparts or even any major conflicts in their histories.
  
  A bestiary is included after these lore chapters. It contains more monster stat blocks, along with variants on the standard drow/duergar/etc. Reading them was fun because I can think about how they would function in a campaign, not optimizing but rather about roleplay; how would this particular creature act in a story given their stats and abilities? The sections for the demon lords and archdevils was particularly fun, because they are boss-level creatures and have certain scenario considerations that can make them tougher to fight or otherwise deal with.
  
  Between all this lore and the bestiary, this is mainly a book for Dungeon Masters. There are only a few thing for players, such as rules for playing as some of the races featured, like drow or duergar. It is still a fun book, so I imagine that players would still find it fun to read.
  
  The artwork continues to impress. The illustrations of the monsters range from magnificent to horrific, and the lore chapters include depictions of certain events, like the original Clan Duergar falling into the mindflayer's trap. Those are scary. The illustration of a happy dwarven family, by contrast, is heartwarming. A few sections even have full, two-page spreads. Those are impressive.
  
  Trickster Eric Novels gives "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" an A+
• 
  Douglas Berry

  If I needed one word to describe the sourcebooks coming out for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, that word would be "depth." Books like
  Volo's Guide to Monsters take D&D standards and make them people, with cultures, religions, and ways of life. But where Volo's focussed on tradition "monster" types, the Tome of Foes dives deep into the Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings, and Gnomes, as well as their darker counterparts like the Drow and Duergar. These chapters are a treasure for both Dungeon Masters and players looking to play one of these races with a deep history.
  
  But the book pays attention to threats as well! The opening chapter concerns demons and devils, the unending Blood War fought between the two sides and the structure and politics of both the Nine Hells and the Abyss. Again, they become living places for high-level adventures to explore and the DM knowing the various needs of the Princes of Hell and the Lords of the Abyss, you might find your characters bargaining for souls or sneaking into a library that stretches on for eternity.
  
  The Gith are also covered, both the eternally warring githyanki and the philosophical githzerai. These refugees from 1981's truely atrocious Fiend Folio are now two complete cultures, ready to be friends or foes.
  
  The second half of the book is a comprehensive bestiary. The nice thing is all the creatures make sense in the context of the material presented earlier. So, if your party is raiding Hell, there are plenty of infernal critters and devils listed.
  
  Really, really good resource for any DM and their players.
• 
  Michael

  This Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook is a great resource for Dungeon Masters who want to push their campaigns to levels beyond 10. Many of the creatures included in this do have a higher Challenge Rating (CR) than most other sourcebooks as they detail some of the bosses and demons in the Nine Hells, but some of these creatures could be swayed into the material plane by clever DM's that know how to manipulate the landscape. I'm even considering using a Nightwalker (CR 20) as the final form of the endgame boss in my campaign as it ties in directly with how the endgame boss is getting his power and could even illustrate an overuse of it.
  If you don't want to campaign to push beyond level 10, though, it still has some great uses as it details many different races and options for players who may wish to take a darker route. The two different Gith races are presented here with detailed backstory and culture to allow players to have a good source to research their background. Meanwhile, elf players will find the Drow and Shadar-Kai portions of the book are well-informed as well, giving origins and social hierarchy information to create proper backstories. There are also other good backstory information pockets here as well, talking about Dwarves, Gnomes, and other non-human races to give some different options for origin stories or personality quirks.
  Overall, a must have for any DM who doesn't want to be limited with the concept that the module is completed, but everyone still wants to continue onward or for those who love non-human races and want to have a good resource to construct a darker backstory for themselves.
• 
  Andrew Nguyen

  I tend to like source material that gives role playing inspiration and background flavor. MToF provides a good deal of both. I initially picked this up to better build out a paladin-warlock I was building. I just intended to read the first chapter on devils and demons, but the lore was so well written I couldn’t stop!
  
  The first half of MToF describes conflicts ranging from never ending wars between prime evils and smaller conflicts within races. These sections are really interesting framing. On one level, we are introduced to beings, their purest motivations, their societies and then the same for their hated counterparts. MToF’s conflicts also reach beyond the Material Plane, where most DnD campaigns will take place. This is a really basic placesetting for those (like me) who can’t make heads or tails of the Feywild, Astral Plane, Limbo, Nine Hells and everything in between.
  
  The second half is stat blocks for many of the beings in the first section. These are really nicely thought out with beautiful art. My only complaint is that I wanted to see the art and stat blocks for all nine archdevils since they are described in such a badass way.
  
  This book is highly recommend for DMs and players.
• 
  Ian Mathers

  This one definitely shares some virtues with Volo's Guide... the in-depth backgrounds continue to be very welcome whether I'm planning to use some, all, or none of them myself (and like a lot of 5E there's so much here that would help DMs new to the game or pen and paper RPGs in general get better at it in various ways, even just by pointing out the kinds of things you should be considering). But while the demons and devils (and the Blood War in general) and the two varieties of Gith get backgrounds, so do the main non-human traditional D&D races, which is a nice addition. And this time the monsters, in addition to giving you a ton of new demons and devils (including higher-up individuals) has a bit more of a focus on monsters that are new to me, at least, and definitely has a good crop of high-CR opponents that have a good level of variation in terms of what they can do and how they feel, story- and mechanics-wise. There are bunches of them, each of which you could easily craft a climactic encounter, short arc, or even something longer around.
• 
  Scott Frank

  This is a great book; it's a huge win for lovers of D&D lore, DMs seeking backstory for their campaigns, and anyone who has been needing some high-levels foes to spice up their lives (or deaths, depending on how it goes, I suppose).
  
  Just for background, I'm an old grognard - I've been playing D&D since 1982, before the editions were numbered. I know some of my cranky fellow grognards hate the 5e books, but I find them almost uniformly well-produced and worthwhile (almost, since some of the adventures and the early supplements left something to be desired). This book contributes to the stories we've been telling in D&D for decades, and for that I love it. Some of what's in here seems like retconning, but it's all in the name of better stories and cooler worldbuilding, so I'm totally down with that.
  
  A nice effort from the current publishers of the game, I hope they do more like it in the future.
• 
  Jeremy Blum

  Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is the other major 5e lore/bestiary book that managed to dodge all of the controversy that its brother (Volo's Guide to Monsters, see my review of that one) stirred up in 2020. It's about the same quality as Volo's, but with more of a focus on various conflicts around the D&D multiverse - for instance, the unending Blood War between devils versus demons in the Nine Hells, the longstanding animosity that dwarves share with duergar, the rift between the githyanki and the githzerai and...for some reason, a chapter devoted to gnomes and halflings, which doesn't make sense to me.
  
  Putting aside the questionable inclusion of the gnome/halfling chapter, this is a solid book for DMs working with a higher level group and hoping to bring interplanar conflicts to their gaming table.
• 
  Chris Jackson

  This book is very informative on the blood war and the Gith's endless war, as well as giving more insight into the lives and cultures of elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes, with information on the darker sides of the races that have them.
  
  It is also filled with over 100 pages of 'new' information and stats for monsters, as well as a few containing more concentrated versions of monster races such as the Drow Matron.
  
  Like all of the 5e information manuals I have read so far, this has been very informative and insightful as well as a wonderful read. I look forwards to the next WotC information manual, and cannot wait for their next adventure either.
• 
  Hazel

  This book is a compendium of lore, designed to help you get a better feeling for the races in dnd, as well as lore for some of the more monstrous races.
  
  I enjoyed the sections about the playable races the most. Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Etc. The lore about demons and devils and Gith, and such else just wasn't nearly as interesting to me.
  
  Of course this book isn't just lore. It also contains new monsters, and even playable races and subraces, and most of that is pretty cool. So overall a decent resource, though I think my least favorite out of all those that I have read.
• 
  Martin Maenza

  This 5E supplement is a nice compliment to the Monster Manual in that over half of this one includes monster stat blocks (almost 150 monsters total). The first one hundred pages is divided up into five smaller sections focusing on things like the Abyss and the Nine Hells, Elves, Dwarves and Duegar, the Gith, and Gnomes and Halflings. What is especially nice is there are helpful tips for creating player and NPC characters of a number of these races. Overall, I would then categorize this one in the next tier of books (right underneath the primary three of the DMG, the PH and the MM).
• 
  Akira Watts

  Parts are a bit hit or miss. Why even bother including eladrin and sea elves, if you only devote a few paragraphs? And the halfling/gnome chapter has some weird shit - Greyhawk halflings are covered with fur, apparently. The stats for the assorted fiends are deeply underwhelming, and missing all the interesting archdevils. But, as a source for role playing inspiration and stores, pretty damned good.