Irreverent Reading – 5E D&D Monster Manual Deep Dive – Full Series

Welcome to the Series “Post of Posts” for Irreverent Reading, my epic Monster Manual read-aloud with my son Xander. During the first half of 2020 we read every word of the 5E Monster Manual and recorded our thoughts.

It was quite a journey.

My boy Xander made a custom piece of art for every post. (He was more motivated to do some than others, but don’t we all struggle with that sometimes!)

Only late in the game did I discover the wealth of D&D groups on social media to share these posts in. If this is new to you, welcome! Also, thanks for stopping by if you’ve only seen the last handful of posts. If this “collection” is for anyone, it’s you.

I got better at writing these along the way, and started to specialize more in scenario/plot seeds, but I still think the earlier posts have value. You might consider working your way backwards through the list, if you want to see the “refined” version of Irreverent Reading… or go in the normal order to see its evolution.

Either way, thanks for stopping by.

Fun facts. It took us five months to complete this. (Longer than many campaigns.) And we spent about 58 hours on the read-aloud portion of the project… not to mention my writing time, Xander’s drawing time, or my wife’s editing time. I’m not your guy if you want to put a deck on the back of your house, but I’ve assembled a good blog building team!

What Xander learned. Oh, man, Xander absorbed so much of this. Here’s an example: We’ve got a side D&D game going on in my weekly group, and I just got my new Paladin to second level. I was looking through the spell lists with Xander. I got to Purify Food and Drink, which I think of as semi-useless, and Xander was like, no you need that!

Me: Why?
Xander: In case you run into a Mummy!
Me: Oh, right, they have that Lair effect where they ruin your food.
Xander: Dad, no, it’s a REGIONAL effect, remember?

I would say he’s going to be an awesome gamer when he grows up, but he already is!

Xander’s reading also just took off during this. It was beautiful. He went from struggling with little bits of the stat blocks, to reading whole listings by the end. Gaming books are a great, great way to engage kids with reading.

Let’s talk monsters…

Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from A to B – Banshees can kill anything…
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from C to Demon – The problem with eating Halfling is you’re just hungry again an hour later…
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Devil to Dragon (Black) – Fear the Beard!!!
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Dragon (Blue) to Dragon (White) – All the Chromatics
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Dragon (Brass) to Dragon (Silver) – The Macroeconomics of Treasure Eating
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Dragon (Turtle) to Ettin – The Drow Problem
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Faerie Dragon to Fungi – F is for Funky
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Galeb Duhr to Gith
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual from Gnolls to Grimlock – “Mean Little Fools…”
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – The Letter H – Home of the Tiny Construct
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – Letters I, J, K, & L – All the Mind Flayers’ Men
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – The Letter M – “Daddy, what does Gnoll sex look like?”
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – The Letters N & O – It’s not if you Owlbear, but how.
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – The Letters P,Q,R – The pointy-point killer from Point Town
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – The Letter S – Am I living with a serial killer?
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual – Letters T,U,V – Its lair is the world, and existing is its action. Or, 3 Ways of Looking at a Tarrasque.
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual, Letters W,X,Y & Z – The Killer DM’s Nasty Little Helper
Irreverent Reading: 5E Monster Manual, Appendix A: Miscellaneous Creatures – D&D’s Forgotten Box of Toys
Irreverent Reading: D&D 5E Monster Manual, Appendix B: The Littlest Rogues Gallery

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If you’ve gotten to know the series, then you’ll recognize Bitey! He’s the unofficial mascot of our monster posts. Sometimes I’m tempted to make some Bitey swag, but at this point that seems a little premature.

In any case, it won’t be too long before you see Bitey again. Xander has me on another deep dive, this time of Green Ronin’s Fantasy AGE Bestiary. And if we’re talking monsters, you can be sure our sharp-toothed buddy will be along for the ride…