Malleus Monstrorum - Cthulhu Mythos Bestiary - Slipcase Set

Maybe it was the 4th and 5th editions of Call of Cthulhu that ring wonderful memories of high class productions(the green leatherette with gold embossed elder sign for the limited edition 5th edition was amazing.) Firstly, while I enjoy a few glossy picture pages, I really miss the hard style paper printings like in the 5th edition leatherette printing for example and even the matt paper finish of the previous editions. To have the entire volume in gloss has me nervous to go page flipping to hard as the gloss printing is like that of modern day magazines and easily crinkles if your not ultra careful. The hard cover is nice and the satin book mark is always a wonderful touch, but I just had to come clean about the 7th edition gloss paper printings. Now let's go to the content. It made perfect sense to have a Monsters volume and a Deities volume as the 2 are far removed in terms of abilities and power, however unless your a cultists they are all monsters to be feared for the humble investigator. Firstly the states and comparisons of size, abilities and powers was a much welcomed addition that will provide an excellent resource for planning your Call of Cthulhu adventures for sure. The content was well written and the descriptions adequate but then there's a massive problem. The artwork is simply to scarce. Now take the fabulous 7th edition main rule book. Each monster given a description has a picture, not so with these volumes and worst of all they even re-use artwork resulting in duplicate artwork between the 2 volumes. What was I expecting? Well I nicely laid out set of stats with a portrait picture for each monster for starters, however in my mind there was more. With previous editions of Call of Cthulhu, they used to use excellent tables, boarders and surround graphics to keep the data together. What I would have loved to have seen were some classic picture frame style surrounds for each of the monsters, with the stats next to the pictures. The large full colour monster spreads were lovely, but I would have gladly sacrificed these to make room for setting up each monster with a full picture say in 1/4 of a page size, next to that, a quarter for the stats and major points, then the other half of the pages for description data, perhaps 2 pages to allow for the data on the more illustrious monsters. Also a nice table surround for each of the stats. The picture frame and state table boarders could have been linked via using the same say 20's picture frame surround boarders and you could have used a couple of hundred of these(a different style for each monster.) The data on the monster could have been paragraphed into sections with headings that break the monsters into topics useful for adventures. For example: Geographic/Celestial location. Habits/Traits, Tolerance, Food/Energy source, Ideal Habitat, Weaknesses, Strengths etc. Am I glad this exists? Yes, but not even a picture for each monster, Call of Cthulhu has done this a lot better. To be honest these volumes will require you to have the main rule books(which is probably not going to be a problem as there required for play.) and even a copy of the excellent Sandy Petersens Guide To Lovecraftian Horrors(a really cool book but focusing on descriptions of the monsters, but hey every single monster featured has a nice picture to go with it's decription.) Without these books, your not going to have anything to show players what's attacking them because sadly with 2 volumes, the artwork was truly given a massive back seat. I hope if a 2nd edition is possible, Chaosium can hold off on publishing until they can complete the artwork for the volumes so every monster and deity has a picture no matter how small it might be and that the perfection that was found in previous editions of Call of Cthulhu can be used to assist in making these, well nicer in presentation. I'm giving this release a 3 out of 5 as it feels too hurried from what I've seen, but again, thanks to the writers for making this possible, it was about time and is gratefully received, I just expected a lot more polish for my hard earned dollars and expected more from Chaosium.

I honestly could not be more pleased with this product. Physically the books are sturdy and beautifully made, and the content is great. I love the ribbon bookmarks. Great slipcase too. Surprisingly the pdf version doesn't quite do these books justice, holding them in your hand they seem somehow more vibrant. Who knows, maybe they're... alive?

I'm just reviewing all my stuff from this store because I adore every purchase, these books are no exception. The objects themselves are high quality! Strong binding, hard cover, no book spine breaking without purposeful harm, and hard to rip paper that feels nice in your hands!! I have sensory issues regarding things that are too dry and grainy, so the high quality paper is a real blessing!! Never saw a single spelling mistake, obvious grammatical error, or misprint in these. It's something that is expected, yes, but it can also be appreciated! I am appreciating it! It's easy to follow, very consumable. I read it cover to cover because I have autism and like TTRPGs a lot and so it was very nice to not have to reread. I got through it quickly, easily comprehended, and was very excited to apply my knowledge to games! It only made me more passionate about the Mythos and only made me want to terrorize my players more <3 Still working on getting my DnD group into horror, but eh, we'll get there.

An superb two volume set that expands on the lore of the various Mythos creatures and gods (including possible "blessings" for characters who worship the Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, and Elder Gods). Was expecting some more artwork, but some the of the descriptions for the monsters are simplistic (such as blobs, formless entities, and regular animals corrupted in some way), so I can't in good conscious take away points for that. Pick up a copy to enhance your CoC campaigns or adventures.

The Slipcase set is really, really nice. The case itself is thick and sturdy, the books are high quality and each has a ribbon bookmark. The content is where it really shines though, very thorough background information and ideas how to use the Deities and minions in your campaigns. The amount effort to create these manuals must have been a labor of love. There is so much information it is really amazing. Well worth the cost and probably worth more than the asking price. Very happy with my purchase.

First of all: it's a great product and any Keeper who wants to come up with their own scenarios and adventures basically needs this. It's not so much about the stats but about the cults, the history and the detailed descriptions. It would be a 5+ star product if it just had more art work. I'm not expecting every single creature to be visualized, but there are many pages with barely anything except text. It's invaluable for its content, more art would make it perfect.

This is a lovely product. Chaosium's physical products are superior to every other company in the industry. Their books are solidly bound, the pages are heavy and pleasant to the touch, and the writing and artwork are excellent. The slipcase is collector's-item quality. I don't even have anyone to run a CoC game for, but I am glad to have this thing just as a collector and lover of RPGs.

This book is fantastic! Contains plenty of monsters with detailed descriptions and amazing artwork. I hope the same effort goes into a book detailing monsters of the dreamlands.

The books have chock-full of information. Vol 1 is on creatures. Vol 2 is on each Mythos Deity and their cults, a gold mine of info. The only drawback is most Monster Manuals have an illustration for each creature. This is not the case for this set of books. I'd say 1/3 to 1/2 of the entries have illustrations and most are in sepia tones, not full color. Some of the well-known creatures don't have illustrations and some illustrated in the Keeper Rulebook are not illustrated in this set. Even though the horror should be left to the imagination of Players, as a GM, I'd like an illustration to help me, so I can pick a detail that I can focus on or give as a hint. Some entries are not quite alphabetical, but based on their place of origin, for example: "Tindalos, Hounds of" or "Shub-Niggurath, Dark Young of." Overall, a great set of books in a handsome slipcase.