Monstrous Compendium
series of tabletop role-playing game supplements
The Monstrous Compendium is a series of accessories for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game released from 1989 to 1998. The title was then used for a series of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons supplements released on D&D Beyond.
Volumes
MC1 Monstrous Compendium, Volume One was published by TSR in 1989. It was written by the TSR staff, with a cover by Jeff Easley, and interior illustrations by Jim Holloway, and came boxed with 144 loose-leaf pages and eight color cardstock dividers (each with a color painting on it) in a three-ring binder. This supplement was presented as the base monster supplement intended to containing all the enemies required for most campaigns using 2nd edition AD&D rules. Each monster has both a description and an illustration on a page separate from the other monsters, allowing for easy removal and retention of alphabetical order when other monsters are added to it.
MC2 Monstrous Compendium, Volume Two was published by TSR in 1989. It was written by the TSR staff, with a cover by Jeff Easley and interior illustrations by Jim Holloway and Daniel Horne, and was published as 144 loose-leaf pages of more monsters, with eight color cardstock dividers.
MC3 Monstrous Compendium, Volume Three, Forgotten Realms Appendix was published by TSR in 1989. It was written by the TSR staff, with a cover by Jeff Easley, and was published as 64 loose-leaf pages and four color cardstock dividers.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15975223. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Monstrous Compendium” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.