Black Gate

There’s a paradox in the nature of a dictionary of monsters. The medieval bestiaries at least claimed to be compendia of actual knowledge. But books like Jorge Luis Borges and Margarita Guerrero’s Book of Imaginary Beings (Manual de zoología fantástica) and perhaps even Katharine Briggs’ Dictionary of Fairies are only superficially rational collections of information. Though alphabetised and cross-referenced, the logical framework’s a way of presenting wild fantasy and dream: basilisks and baldanders, brownies and banshees, sylphs and sphinxes. The Monster Manual, and the role-playing handbooks it inspired, take this contradiction to a new level — detailed statistics for each creature described along with the avowed intent of inspiring new stories featuring the legendary or imaginary entities. Quantified, numerically precise, the monsters in these enchiridia still crack open the inside of the head, driving readers to imagine worlds big enough to hold dungeon-dwellers and dragons. Rupert Bottenberg’s Fourscore Phantasmagores is the newest volume of these wonders for gamers and monster-lovers of all stripes, presenting, as it says on the cover, “A Gathering of Grotequeries for Gapejaws and Gamemasters.” And, conscious of its predecessors, the book’s a rich source of inspiration; a grimoire seeding new myths.

Published by ChiZine Publications’ imprint ChiGraphic, Phantasmagores mixes words and pictures, all from Bottenberg, into 80 different monstrous imaginings. (In the interests of full disclosure I’ll note that I know Bottenberg through his work as director of the animation section at the Fantasia International Film Festival; well enough that I wouldn’t normally call him by his last name, but such are the conventions of criticism.) A foreword by Ian C. Esselmont and introduction by Bottenberg help establish the precedents and aim of the book: this is explicitly a collection of creatures for use in role-playing games, even though it can be read as illustrated prose poetry. Each of the monsters gets a full-page full-colour image; brief and often ironic notes on its type, size, habitat, traits, and attacks; and a paragraph of allusive descriptive text. There are virtually no numbers, and nothing system-specific, but enough information to get the essence of each creature across. Which is to say: there’s enough detail to work with, enough that individual gamemasters can work up stats and campaign-related specifics as needed. The book’s success lies not just in the cleverness and craft of its language and art, but in the precision with which it implies more than it says, spurring readers to imagine even more. You don’t need to be a gamer to enjoy this book — but you’ll get practical use out of it if you are.

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