Classic Monsters The Manual is now available for pre-order. We've launched the book on the Kickstarter website as it allows us much better organizational control for pre-orders. You want your game how you want your game and this site allows us to offer multiple formats without causing confusion in the TLG store front or on you end.

So hop over and have a gander at the pre-order offerings and come aboard!



Classic Monsters: The Manual
Product Type/Format & Price: Hardback; 180 pages; $25.99 (est)
Written By: Kim Hartsfield
Ordering Info: TLG 8125, ISBN: 978-1-936822-06-5

Monsters abound. They litter the halls of our collective games like so much debris; wandering monsters, laired beasts, plane walkers, horrid thoughts that linger upon the edge of our imagination. Monsters abound, but as any gamer of any stripe knows, you can never have too many creatures for these a the grist of the mill that is our game.

The early days of gaming saw some of the most classic and amazing creatures. Weird beasties derived from the minds of people influenced by a genre of fiction that was in its prime, when fantasy truly meant the fantastic. Castles & Crusades has touched upon them from time to time, but by and large they have remained in the background. Until Now.

Kim Hartsfield, long-time veteran of classic gaming, brings many of these monsters back to life. Anyone who games with Kim knows he runs a hard-knock game of classic dimensions and epic adventures. Kim revisits the old monster books, MM II and the Fiend Folio, plying their pages for all those classic monsters that mystified and horrified young gamers of every stripe.

I'm in for $25.00.

Who will be doing the actual printing? Walsworth? The Trolls themselves?

Woot yeah!!

Dr. Pepper and Bourbon to all!!!

Definitely in for $25. What a cool product idea!

There are some questions about this product and the SRD and such at Zach's blog. I figured one of the official Trolls might want to chime in: http://www.rpgblog2.com/2011/11/castles-crusades-classic-monsters.html

Thanks for chiming in over there, Frost!

I'm afraid the blog is pretty quiet these days, but this seemed too good a deal to not tell people about.

Hey folks,

Alright, as you know Classic Monsters was well on its way to completion when we launched the Kickstarter Project, well though I have updated the project over there, I thought a cross post would be a good thing.

Classic Monsters is laid out, we have three more hurdles before this goes to press. Peter has to finish the six color plates (as of this writing he is done with 3 of them and has started the other 3). These are inserted in the special deal Classic Monsters. The regular printing will have b/w pictures in their place. We are also waiting for Sarah Walker's pictures. She had 40 assigned to her and as of this writing she has completed 20 of them. And lastly we have to finish formatting the monster charts for the back of the book; these charts contain all the pertinent information about the monsters from all three major monster books.

So what does this mean. I suspect that by 1st week of January everything will be ready. We are hoping to have the full print run underway by January 10th. We'll do the special edition books first, get them signed, etc etc and start shipping as soon as we can.

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who joined in the pre-order bash! It was a smashing success! Thank you.

Steve

You forgot to add, "Heavy, heavy, serious, close-scrutiny editing, final editing, and final-final editing" to that list of tasks.

Is it unreasonable, then, to expect to see the goodies from the Kickstarter promo by Mid-January? (My b-day is the 18th and the books would make a nifty gift to me from me )

In any case, really looking forward to seeing the new book and getting the other HCs from the promo. Love your product and thanks for letting us in on the deal

Trying to [pre-]order the 'Classic Monsters: The Manual'...

It appears the Kickstarter project is (successfully) closed, and I don't see how to per-order on the TLG website as the link on http://www.trolllord.com/anvil/index.ht ... icmonsters takes me to the Kickstarter page.

Please advise, Thanks!

Only two more days!!

Status report, Number One?

I have no problem with buying more stuff when I have money - presuming it is available to buy...

I NEED another hardbound C&C book so bad right now...

And what's this from the latest TLG e-mail blast about stats for M&T and M&TofA in the Classic Monsters book? What is that all about?

~O

The quote in question:

"The book should be print ready by weeks end. Peter Bradley has finished the last of the color plates, the monsters stat charts are in the book (these include all monsters from the M&T, M&T of Aihrde and the Classic Monsters). We are going go over the book one more time and then off to print she goes."

I first read that as simply encounter tables, but you're right, it does say stats.

If we understand this correctly, that sounds awesome. If it's just encounter tables, cool. But if ALL stat blocks were in there... I think I might thundergaaaa.... nevermind.

Thanks for the quote Frost Man 9000.

~O

Yeah, when I re-read it, it sounds like at least some kind of stat block for the monsters. If so, release the Thunder-Kraken!

Lookin' forward to getting this book!!

Only because I'm DYING to get it, when is this shipping?
Or am I totally dense, and I missed the announcement?

When does it come out on PDF?

From the email they sent out to people who pre-ordered.



February 6th is gone, can we get an update?

This probably won't help but it's possible (probable?) that they found more than a couple little mistakes which delayed sending the book to the printers. Add to the fact that these all have to be formatted separately for the various electronic versions and it could go a long way explaining the extra delay.

Just conjecture but, having followed TLG's progress with other projects in the past, such hard dates are usually no more than suggestions.

I, like you, and keen on taking a look at it and eventually receiving all my loot when the stuff finally ships out!

M

Why Classic Monsters: the Manual Has Been Delayed

As speculated, a few errors were found in the galleys and are being corrected. These have included:

1. The cover title of "Classic Monsters" was misspelled as "Alice & Jerry Go to the Park."

2. Stats for the Veeblefetzer were incorrect.

3. Davis's name was misspelled as "David" again.

4. The box on the cover stating "Approved for Traveller" had to be removed.

5. All pages were printed on head cheese.

6. Illustrations of female warriors were wearing too many clothes.

7. Kobolds were listed as 24 HD monsters.

8. And trolls WEREN'T listed as 24 HD monsters.

9. Authors' names were misspelled as "Anita Blake" and "Kar Dashian."

Methinks someone has a few items from FASA, Judges Guild and/or Paranoia Press upon his shelves...

Whew! I'm glad they caught that one.

Actually, Steve spelled my name "Bobby McAwesomesausage". He sent an email saying that it had delayed publication and said, "Keep it. I like it better that way."

I pre-ordered this because I keep running into creatures that I am missing when I run modules from other systems. Well, that and I can't stand to not buy something new from TLG.

Sorry if this has been asked, but does this have all of the animals that might come up in play for summoned animals, companions, druid shape shifts, etc, at least those mentioned by name in PHB?

I do believe that it's undergoing further editing.