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Manuel des Monstres |
| 2021-10-26 |
Manuel des Monstres
I found my three books, the french edition with the Jeff Easley covers.
My favourite is the "Manuel des Monstres", it says 4th Edition, 1979 August, printed in France, the latest copyright is 1987. The "Lake Geneva" address was a bit confusing for the young Swiss that I was. In the page right after the cover the price is written with a pencil, CHF 43.50. According to the inflation calculator, that's CHF 62.44 now (USD 67.90). Switzerland is expensive.
For each of the monster, I wrote in pencil the XP formula. The Attrapeur here, has thus 2'850 + 16 × HP. That probably is revealing of our mindset at the time.
The name Gygax was interesting as well. The kid next to me the first year of elementary school was named Gygax. He was very fun, he had Masters of the Universe and Mazinger toys. It was incomprehensible for me, I had never seen such things.
The Monster Manual, although expensive (I had a small vacation job that paid for such things), had a very high Return On Inspiration, although I can't remember having built any scenario around a specific monster.
Now that I retrieved this book, I am wondering whether I could use it. Or is it the other way around? The book used me, is in me somehow (not in the sense "knowing it by heart"), it is the standard I use to evaluate all the bestiaries thrown at me.
I think I long for a tighter bestiary illustrated by a single artist, a bestiary with a few "extension points" to monsters.
