I'm publishing Andy Ravenscroft's 1980 megadungeon "The Tower of Mrannor" (256 locations over 24 levels/sub-levels/areas). Although it was never intended for publication it was fairly well developed, and Level 5 of the dungeon was later turned into the scenario "The Devil's Quagmire" published in The Beholder# 16 (June 1980).

It includes 24 monsters from fanzines, so I want to include details (and attributions) for the monsters. After a *lot* of scouring through fanzines I've tracked down 22 of the monsters and have just 2 remaining to be found! Has anyone seen in an old fanzine either "Men-Bats" or "Giant Orc"?

The ones located so far come from White Dwarf, Underworld Oracle, Trollcrusher, The Dungeoneer, The Beholder, News from Bree, and Shire Talk.

The full list, if you're interested is:

Bonesnapper        White Dwarf 6†
Death Dogs        Underworld Oracle 3†
Freaclons        Trollcrusher 8
Gremlins        The Dungeoneer 1*
Shade        Underworld Oracle 2
Shadow Giant        The Dungeoneer 9
Spikeheads        Underworld Oracle 3
Skullcrackers        The Beholder 11
Soul Suckers        Underworld Oracle 5
Tarrahook Bat        The Dungeoneer 6*
Shooters        Underworld Oracle 5
Smoke Demon        News fom Bree 21‡
Smoke Creatures        The Dungeoneer 3*
Spectral Soldiers        The Dungeoneer 6*
Black Monk        News fom Bree 21‡
Black Orc        News from Bree 20‡
Rhinotype Rider        Trollcrusher 6
Grom        Shire Talk 3
Water Salamander        Shire Talk 3
Mountain Ogre        Shire Talk 7
Marsh Hag        The Beholder 14
Amphisbaena        Underworld Oracle 3
Man-Bat        Unknown
Giant Orc        Unknown

If you've looked at all issues available from the 'zines mentioned, maybe Alarums & Excursions and The Wild Hunt are potential possibilities, too.

grodog wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:Neither immediately rings bells, Joe.

Do you have complete runs of the zines that the monsters have come from thus far?

Allan.

We have checked the issues of these zines that Andy had, except for Shire Talk which Andy checked.

But as some are contained in scenarios or where the print is poor I spotted some only on the second check through.

dbartman wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:If you've looked at all issues available from the 'zines mentioned, maybe Alarums & Excursions and The Wild Hunt are potential possibilities, too.

I don't think Andy had either of these, so they'd be unlikely to come from there. This is fortunate as there are a *lot* of A&Es over that period and they are very long and often poor printing, and I've never even seen a copy of The Wild hunt!

mbassoc2003 wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:Other than The Dungeoneer, those sources are all UK sources aren't they? And The Dungeoneer was available in Games Workshop when JG was around.
If that is the case, the odds are the other two came from UK 'zines. I am assuming Imagine has been checked, so possibly other more obscure 'zines.
There was Tortured Souls (the fanzine before the magazine) back in the day. It ran to two editions. What other UK 'zones were there that few people have copies of?
Lastly, were there any small press items that may have contained monsters? I'm thinking of things like Starstone etc. I'm sure there were smaller, rougher things put out and sold in the small ads.

Yes it's most likely UK fanzines, but I think people had The Apprentice and A&E as well (A&E has UK contributors and I think I saw a review of The Apprentice in a UK fanzine).

For the fanzines I've also looked at Illusionist's Vision, Demonsblood, and Spellbound (issue 3 only), The Apprentice (2-4 only) and Tortured Souls. It could Dragonlords as I think the earliest issues were 1980 and I think they had that sort of thing in the early issues.

Possibly they are in something small press, but it has to be early 1980 at the latest so that narrows it down a lot (e.g. Starstone is out).

I've checked White Dwarf and Judges Guild Journal - Imagine and Tortured Souls (magazine) and the other UK mags are all too late.

dbartman wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:Do you think they could have been from a small-press UK adventure?

Possibly... I was going to look through all the 70s adventures but there's a lot in the first half of 1980 I don't have / know about.

dbartman wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:Which ones do you know of that you don't have access to?  Perhaps Acaeum members can help.

I've been thinking about what there might be...

The Storm Lord #1-#7 (I know Andy had at least one copy of The Stormlord as he sent me pictures of its scenario)
Trollcrusher #1-#2 (I don't think Andy had these but he might have seen someone else's copy)
Shire Talk (Andy's own fanzine. He has checked his copies but I've not got copies of these to double check)
Dragonlords Early issues were 1980 and had monsters apparently.

I think the main thing from '80 I know about but don't own and haven't seen is Tombs of Valla. I have now collected copies of almost all the small press scenarios from the 70s (Judges Guild / Arduin / Keridav / Notnaidag / Kandroc Keep / Solo Dungeon / Calthonwey / Wee Wariors) - though a couple like Arduin are still "as seen on the internet". There is a lot of non-scenario stuff I don't have, e.g. "All the World's Monsters", but they are in the main easily checkable (the contents pages of those are online).

It's taking a long time to collect all this stuff (and I'm running out of space!) - when you finally see it you have to take care - avoiding some of the eye watering "buy it now" ebay or shop prices, avoiding getting sucked into a ludicrous bidding war (so you can feel smug when you pick it up the next week for half the price), or paying silly prices for something that's been chewed by a dog, water damaged, and covered in mold  - but I have some slightly easier targets to collect, so now I'm finally the proud owner of a complete run of Tortured Souls! (Though Golden Spire remains elusive...)

dbartman wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:I had The Tombs of Valla readily available.  I did not see the Man-Bat and Giant Orc.  There are plenty of unique creatures, though!

Thanks for checking :-)

I thought I'd check Owl & Weasel so was searching the internet for the blog I'd seen which had some photos of the issues, and found some Games Workshop fan has put the lot up on the internet. Great read - but no Men-Bats or Giant Orcs...

Cool!

AZMountaineer wrote in Tracking down obscure monsters:Joe

I was traveling away from home base for the past 5 weeks.  Are you still interested in these 2 monsters?  If so, I can carve out some time to look through my fanzine collection.  I've noted the ones you mentioned you already looked through so I can skip those and focus on things you did not yet look at that would be earlier that TBH #16.

Glad to help,
Ryan

That would be great Ryan, thanks. Of course it may be that they're just some unpublished home monster of Andy's, but looking through old fanzines is fun anyway!