Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (2018), is also in the mode of Volo’s book, except with the iconic Greyhawk archmage acting as our tour guide.

The first chunk sees Mordenkainen filling in some of the cosmic conflicts that plague the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse, after which he goes into detail on several topics. Two feel very good: the Blood War – the eternal war between the demons of the Abyss and the devils of the Nine Hells – and the ongoing hostilities between the Githyanki and the Githzerai. Both are long-time D&D staples, involve worthy foes for PCs and both have suitable epic trappings.

Other sections fare less well, I think. Mordekainen attempts to make a variety of Elven subtypes interesting – a tall order – and kind of sort of succeeds with a couple. The Feywild and Shadar-Kai elves at least approach something weird and alien, and the broad idea of an elven diaspora has some legs. The chapter on the war between Dwarves and Duergar is a bit dull. And then there is the chapter on Gnomes and Halflings, which seems entirely out of place in a book called Tome of Foes, but what do I know?

The monsters section is great. Lots of good, varied art here (dig that Zuggtmoy!) and a lot of attention is given to high powered extra planar baddies, including a solid selection of my faves, the Demon Lords and the Archdevils (Titivilus makes, I believe, his first appearance since 1E!).

I doubt that 5E will ever give me something I love as much as Planescape (for a variety of reasons), but Tome of Foes is a solid enough foundation that I have a good deal of hope I can hang on to.