Early Fiend Factory
Spinescale
★★★☆☆
Technically predating the Fiend Factory column proper, the spinescale is the first custom monster in a dedicated new monsters column in White Dwarf, as well as being a creation of Fiend Folio alum and Games Workshop founder Ian Livingstone. I am mostly featuring it here for its incredible illustration, so nasty and mean; the description is otherwise pretty basic! Spinescales are mutated frogs created by magical chemical runoff from an evil wizard that I assume was a named character in Ian Livingstone's campaign, with scaly leathery backs, needle teeth, venomous fangs on the hard palate of the mouth (???), and a tendency to lie in wait for humans who cross the water to tear off their legs. Its a classic ambush predator, and a pretty fun one! I do always just have a soft spot for amphibians though, especially ones that are the D&D equivalent of a toxic waste mutant. There's a note about them being 1 HD out of water for combat purposes due to their clumsiness which is pretty good, as well as a note about their vulnerable spots (underside and eyes).
Droll
★★☆☆☆
In a subsequent issue of White Dwarf, a new column appeared that would come to be the predecessor to the Fiend Factory: "Monsters Mild and Malign." The Fiend Folio ended up using a remix on this for its subtitle, "Monsters Malevolent and Benign." I'm spending so much time talking about the publication history here because the Droll is an incredibly simple creature. Nothing much is written about its behaviors, nor is it complicated mechanically, just being a 6 HD AC 9 melee monster with 3 claw attacks (from its two feet and one central clawed arm) and 1 bite attack per turn. Definitely nasty, but not that interesting mechanically. BUT LOOK AT THIS THING!!! I can't not love something that looks this messed up. If this creature was just a bit more evocative of anything at all it'd be great. As it stands, its just a cool drawing with 4 attacks per combat round.
Goldeater
★★★★☆
The goldeater is the last monster ever printed in the "Monsters Mild and Malign" column, before it became Fiend Factory, and its actually so sick. Don Turnbull felt the need to insert the (very spooky) illustration into the middle of the text, so for the curious reader you can read the whole description in the image above. I love the image of grasping greedy hands searching for gold, slurping whole coins up through the palms like a literal pickpocket. I'd be much less into the hand flying, but the bleeding wrist stump in the illustration makes it SO much better, leaving a trail of spattered blood as it hurtles through the dungeon. I want to use these already!! ...And you'd think, being a severed hand and all, that the goldeater would be undead, but its not??? Not only can they be charmed (which undead can't), they reproduce by mitosis when they have enough gold. That's INSANE! I love these things so much.
Silly Gimmick Monsters
Withra
★★☆☆☆
A prominent category in the Fiend Factory column are silly gimmick monsters, often built around a mechanic that someone really wants to squeeze in or a name pun on some other monster. Some of these actually genuinely work as monsters in my opinion, and since they're such a prominent part of the column I figured they deserve at least some mention! The withra is a creation is Fiend Factory editor Don Turnbull, and, as its name implies, it is a remix on the infamous wraith, the most powerful of the "lower" order of undead in OD&D (for more on that, check out Dungeon of Signs, or my own post on wights and wraiths from last Halloween). The main difference here, however, is that the withra is bad at its job. The only physical difference between a withra and a wraith is that the former has the word "REJECTED" stamped on the back of its neck (this is silly but the idea of a factory that turns out monsters could be compelling), that the withra is terrible in combat (-4 to attack rolls), and that the hit of a withra raises the target's level by 1. This is the first monster I've ever seen that has the opposite of level drain! From Turnbull's comments after the description, this seems to be mostly done as a gotcha monster by mixing a withra with a group of wraiths, so the players let their guard down and are brought low by the wraiths with real level drain. But I just can't not love this bit here: "Perhaps a trio of Wraiths could be showing a Withra around, trying to tell him how to behave in normal Wraith-like manner, when the party bumps into them?" Isn't that just darling?
Stinwicodech
★★☆☆☆
This is another one centered on one weird gimmick mechanic. The stinwicodech is a frog-headed hairy humanoid with a long frog-tongue attack that can raise a randomly determined ability score on the target by 1 (giving the creature its name: the first two letters of each of the six ability scores). However, if the same target is attacked again, and the same ability score is rolled again, then the tongue attack deals 1d6 damage directly to the ability score. This cycle repeats with each attack, until any ability score reaches 0, upon which point the victim dies. What a cumbersome system! The way this works, it's basically impossible for someone to be killed by a stinowicodech. They are encountered in small enough numbers and have low enough HD and such a low chance of making any given score reach 0 that it feels a bit moot. BUT I just love the look of this guy. This would be a silly 1 star monster I'd never use if it weren't also a frog-headed bigfoot. Reminds me a lot of my favorite guy, Ro-Man, from the 1953 movie The Robot Monster! Maybe make a version of this that just targets one ability score (or maybe a swarm of frog-things where each individual frog targets the same ability score each time?) and then it'd be better, but still not great.
Stair Stalker
★★★★☆
HEAR ME OUT!!! The stair stalker is a hairy humanoid that lingers on a particular staircase, silently ascending and descending the stairs incessantly, only attacking if somehow stopped or if someone barges past them. Yes, this is silly, even Don Turnbull says so in his commentary below the creature's description, but I think that this is such a surreal image that I can't help but love it, and I strongly believe that there is a version of the stair stalker that could be really effective. Its basically a boogeyman type monster, right? Just like how there's monsters under beds and in closets, so too are there monsters on staircases! Most of the time that's in the form of monsters that can grab at your feet when you're walking up one of those staircases with gaps between the steps (I hated those as a kid). Leaning in that direction (namely by just putting the stair stalker on the underside of the staircase) would make it a very effective horror monster. Otherwise, it serves as a good living obstacle to a dungeon crawl, since a stair stalker could very easily block a crucial passageway through the dungeon, or even a staircase between dungeon levels. Make it an NPC you can interact with! One with an obsession with this particular stairwell, a paranoia around all other parts of the dungeon! That's a compelling character! Maybe it isn't hairy because its a non-human creature adapted to the staircase, but because it's an adventurer who became traumatically stuck on the stairs and has degenerated into a wildman of sorts? IDK! There just really is something good here I swear!
Dahdi
★☆☆☆☆
This one is a stupid pun monster that I'm sharing entirely just to highlight how bad these can get. Half of the "Dahdi's" description is just a bunch of boomer-tier jokes about marriage, while the other half is just a description of how the Dahdi is the opposite of the mummy in every way (i.e. it is immune to magical weapons but takes damage from mundane weapons, any fire launched at it will be sent back at the players, high-level clerics are worse at turning it, etc). Any alcohol given to the dahdi increases its HP though which is admittedly kinda funny. Otherwise, this sucks!!!
Russian Doll Monster
★★★☆☆
A turducken of a monster, the Russian Doll Monster at first looks like a stone giant, complete with all the powers and statistics of a stone giant, but as you damage it its skin peels off to reveal progressively weaker and weaker monsters. Under the stone giant there's a hill giant, and under that an ogre, under the ogre is a bugbear, then a gnoll, a hobgoblin, an orc, a goblin, a kobold, and finally a leprechaun, which has been operating (???) the whole thing like a mecha pilot. Once revealed, the leprechaun turns invisible, nabs the closest most valuable item, and then does its best to skedaddle. Once again, just like the stair stalker, I think there's a kernel of an interesting idea here. A monster that peels back layers to reveal new forms as it takes damage is such a good idea, and tying that to D&D's humanoid stack is interesting even if that's not my favorite thing. It's just the natural endpoint of D&D having a hierarchy of increasingly stronger and stronger humanoids. I think I'd love this more if it was animals instead, and with something stranger than a leprechaun operating it. Imagine an onion of dinosaurs, elephants, and livestock operated by a teeny tiny grey alien...
Nasnas
★☆☆☆☆
Wait a minute... where have I seen this monster before... I reviewed this version of the nasnas, an Islamicate folkloric creature that is the product of the union of a human and a jinni, at the bottom of my own rendition of the monster. If I do say so myself, I vastly prefer the more legendarily inspired version I wrote up. Roger Musson's nasnas is a silly gimmick monster that has half hit dice but hits as a higher hit-dice monster and deals 6d6+1 damage, except you only count the 1s on the dice roll. Nothing is mentioned of its weird metaphysical stuff. Mentioning it here only for completeness, since the nasnas has come up before!
Just a Bunch of Monsters I Like
Turung
★★★☆☆
The turung is another one that's very mechanically simple. These are huge (7 feet tall and 4 feet wide) hairy humanoids that can cast the spells Web and anti-Magic Shell. Their fur is bright red and sheds constantly, leaving obvious hints at their presence in areas they haunt (a very very good detail to include!! Love a monster that comes with an obvious "spoor"/hint for the players!), and they tend to prefer not attacking whole groups of people, preferring ambushing isolated victims, otherwise being reluctant to fight. There's no physical description other than the fur and dimensions, so the illustrator that decided to make the turung eyeless except for two thrashing tentacles was truly inspired. Don Turnbull comments on this too and assumes the turung has displacer beast tentacles, which I genuinely don't know where he got from. Tentacle-eyed constantly-shedding hairy giants are so good.
Whipper
★★★★☆
For the most part, the whipper is just a mobile carnivorous plant (admittedly a personal favorite type of monster), complete with a central toothy maw and two whiplike vines it uses to ensnare prey. It has separate AC and HD for the tendrils and main body, since the latter is harder to hit, but if the main body is killed first then the whip-like vines thrash about uncontrollably for one melee round, slashing at all around. That's so sick!!! A monster with a final almost self-destructive adaptation like that makes a lot of sense with a sort of dungeon ecology, and the imagery of the whips flapping around like a dying snake or fish is just too sickly and weird to pass up.
Gurgotch
★★★★★
The gurgotch, or DEMON ELEPHANT, is one of the sickest monsters put on print in the Fiend Factory column. It's an evil elephant from hell summoned to do the bidding of darkness in the world, and appears as a dark-hued elephant with huge bright saucer eyes, a trident tail, long tusks, a prehensile trunk, and a "funnel-like" tongue from which it can release a nerve gas that paralyses those caught in its blast who fail a save (it also deals ability score damage, whether you fail the save or not). Interestingly, the description here leans a lot on saving throws against ability scores, which I have seen in other contexts (its briefly implied in a few places in OD&D but is more common in later editions), but which was evidently rare enough that Don Turnbull takes a paragraph to explain it here. I love this thing's whole vibe. It feels like something out of a gothic 90s JRPG. The nerve gas attack is delightfully awful, and the combination of that with typical trampling and tusk attacks that you'd expect an elephant to have makes for a nasty combo. There should totally be more fiendish versions of regular animals... devil giraffe next?? Don Turnbull, in his blurb at the bottom, says this is best suited as a wilderness encounter, but that encountering it in a tight dungeon would make for an interesting challenge, and I say PLEASE put a giant black evil elephant in your dungeon. More huge monsters in tight spaces!!
Wrecker
★★☆☆☆
The wrecker (great name) is essentially a D&D-ified guard robot, a "specialized iron golem" with a super fanciful and elaborate exterior that guards a specific spot, warns interlopers not to approach, and (if ignored) engages in combat with two fists that deal 1d20 damage and a 1d8 bite attack (the idea of this robot biting is kinda crazy tbh). It can also levitate and use detect invisible. Pretty basic, but having a guard robot statted up is pretty good to have! I kinda wish it was more overtly sci-fi. The levitate is basically small thrusters that can lift it up, and maybe detect invisible are infrared sensors. Don Turnbull doubts some inconsistencies, like the wrecker being listed as unintelligent but being able to speak to warn interlopers, and says that it could be a prerecorded message but that that would stretch the credulity even of D&D (literally why???). This is a 2 because its a bit too simple and not sci-fi enough, but its got a great illustration :)
Heat Skeleton
★★★☆☆
This is just a souped up skeleton (higher HD, stronger attacks, turned as a spectre) that has the ability to heat metal per the spell effect of the same name. Normally I don't really love these like, "low-level monster but tougher" monsters but IDK why this one works for me. I think the image of these bones (maybe blackened by the heat coursing through their bony tips) boiling a plate-clad fighter is just too striking to not love. Sometimes combining evocative enough incongruities makes for really interesting critters!
Removed for Copyright Reasons
Plantman★★★★★Although not specifically called out in the text (Don Turnbull's commentary just says it will be immediately recognizable to fans of fantasy), this is a monster pulled straight from the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom novels! It's actually not from the final Fiend Factory entry that deals entirely with copyrighted monsters, but it fits this category nonetheless. Described as "plant/human mutations," this is one of the most inventive takes on a humanoid plant monster I've ever seen. Rather than appearing like any recognizable plant, the plantman is a huge looming humanoid stalk with sinuous limbs tipped with razor-fanged mouths, a single large ever-staring eye, and a mob of writhing worm-like hairs (!!!) on top of its head. ERB really deserves the credit for the look of the thing, but it really is such a perfect D&D weirdo! Mechanically, the plantman here is pretty simple! A combative vegetarian humanoid monster with two hand-mouth attacks that have a chance to suck bodily fluids on a hit, thus also dealing damage to Constitution. They will avoid attacking clerics and never attack druids; the latter is so stereotypical for any vegetable creature, but the idea of these half-mindless stalks revering clerics is very interesting. Love this guy! 
Spice Worm
★★★★☆
★★★★☆
This is just straight up the sand worm from Dune! Notably, however, these are specifically the slightly smaller, young stage in the life of the sandworm, not as small as the larval worms mentioned in Herbert's novel but not so gargantuan and mature as the ones that the Fremen ride around. Every successful attack of a spice worm results in the swallowing whole of the victim, leading to their death inside the worm within 2 melee rounds (although until then, the victim is able to attack from within the worm) (this is a pretty simple yet effective worm ability IMO!). They are attracted to vibration and avoid water, just like the Dune worms. Where this gets interesting, however, is in how Dave Tant, the creator of this D&D-ified version, integrates the titular spice melange into his spice worm. There are four glands at the tail end of the spice worm, which are destroyed by critical hits (rolls of 20 on the to-hit roll), fireballs, etc., but which contain "one draught of a Potion of Inescapable Location," which allows the drinker to "proceed unerringly to any location or to any object or person the location of which may be unknown." That's such a good, simple D&D-y way to implement the special Navigator powers that the spice provides in Dune! On top of that, if the drinker continues to imbibe this potion (twice in one day, thrice in one week, or four times ever) then they go blind and develop permanent clairvoyance. It misses some of the weird ubiquity of the spice melange in Dune, but it gets the salient points across in a genuinely effective and interesting way! Plus, I just love a monster with a very particular and weird sort of built-in treasure!
Phung
★★★★★
The phung is a creature from Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series, namely the book City of the Chasch. As the description states, these mantis-headed insectile humanoids are "by human standards, insane." I just love that phrasing. This is an intelligent race of universally mad mischief-makers who love to torture and terrorize passersby and innocents. "Nothing gives a phung greater pleasure than to terrify its prey," as Simon Tilbrook's description puts it. I'm personally much less familiar with Vance's Planet of Adventure than I am with either Barsoom or Arrakis, but this is such an evocative combination of features (and paired with a very nasty naughty scheming illustration, hunched over and on its haunches!) that I can't help but love it. Don Turnbull, in his commentary, notes that this would not be every DM's monster; they are light on specific powers, don't use magic, and lean more on trickery and toying with the players, complete with thief and monk skills, so they're maybe more of the "thinking DM's" creature. I don't know if I personally would always be the best at running that, but aspirationally its very much my thing.
Couerl
★★★☆☆
The displacer beast is already itself based on the couerl, the strange black feline intelligence from A.E. Van Vogt's short story "Black Destroyer." This description even calls attention to that fact in the first line, noting its "visual similarity to the displacer beast." And yet, this is a notably different enough take on the monster that it doesn't feel totally redundant. I have unfortunately not read "Black Destroyer" (I really oughta) so I can't comment on which version is closer to the original, but seeing this as an alternate take with different emphases is such an interesting thought experiment. Where the displacer beast has two long rasping tentacles, this take on the couerl has a mane of short prehensile tentacles with which it can use technological devices and manipulate doors and latches. Where the displacer beast has its visual distortion power, this take on the couerl instead has electricity/energy manipulation powers, with which it completely weakens fireballs, magical swords, any sort of sci-fi technology, magic missiles, etc.; this varies from lowering the damage dealt, to a 50% change for a given effect to just not work. Otherwise, this is a strong intelligent big cat that kills a bit too well, by draining "a chemical crucial to life," which renders attempts to revive its victims futile. Pretty good! IDK if I'd rather use it over a displacer beast, but I do like it.
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And with that, this appendix to the Goin' Through the Fiend Folio series is done! This might not end up being the last time we dive into the Fiend Factory (some of the later monsters, after the release of the Fiend Folio, are genuinely interesting in their own right), but as a look into what went in, and what didn't make it, into the Fiend Folio, the series is now doubly complete!
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