I've been running a Tales of the Valiant game for about a year, and it's been a lot of fun. I've thrown all kinds of surprises at the group, and they've certainly surprised me in return. As many of my RPG campaigns are, this one has been a highly unfocused one, with most of my hints at a plot going wholly ignored for spontaneous side quests and general aimless meandering. The thing about a meandering patchwork campaign is that you never know what you're going to need from week to week, especially when it comes to monsters. Luckily the game had started out as a Princes of the Apocalpyse campaign, which has a good variety of biomes in it, so I had planned on needing monsters from diverse environments. You never can have too many options when it comes to monsters, so when I discovered that Frog God Games had published the Enemies of the Valiant bestiary, I immediately bought a hardcover copy. This is my review of the book.
Verdict: This is a good monster book, with a wide variety of threats ranging from CR ⅛ up. If you're looking for more monsters for your 5e or Tales of the Valiant game, this is a great resource.
What makes it a great resource as opposed to just another book of monsters? At least 5 things.
On the first few pages is a very complete table of contents, listing each monster in each chapter. Super fast reference.
Then on page 1, the tables begin. There's a table listing each monster by Challenge and Type, a table sorting all monsters by Challenge, another table sorting monsters by subjective category (horrific, aquatic, flying.)
It's literally too good. Somebody go stop Frog God Games, they're being too good to us, and it's 2025. They must know this kind of sensible book design was never meant to be achieved in this timeline.
This is a little controversial, but this book presents its monsters in chapters categorized by type. Chapter 1 is people, chapter 2 is aberrations, chapter 3 is beasts, and so on. I love it, but I recognise that it comes at the expense of strict alphabetization, and also that it could have been implented a little better than it is.
On almost every RPG book I have, I draw coloured boxes on the edge of the pages with a Sharpie so I have some idea of where each chapter begins. It's my homespun method of creating a quick reference for myself, and it has served me well over the years.
Some books, like the Pathfinder 2 core rulebook, mercifully tabulate its chapters visually for me. Not many do.
Each page in a chapter of Enemies of the Valiant has a colour strip down the outer margin. When you close the book, you see hints of those colour strips. If you memorise the colour, or how many bars down, a chapter is, then you have a quick way to get close to the chapter you want. It's brilliant.
In terms of what kind of material it publishes, Frog God Games has a style all its own. I don't think it's blatant enough to identify after reading just 1 or 2 books, but after you get to know Frog God Games I think you start to pick up on it. I'm not even sure I can pin it down, myself, but it's something weird, and I mean that in a good way.
Obviously this is a book of monsters. These are threats to player characters. These aren't meant to be pleasant. And they're not. In fact, there's something a little extra grimy about Frog God monsters, a little extra off-putting. It's not quite Lovecraftian, but also not quite high fantasy. Maybe it's old school, or maybe it's just that Frog God is very good at what it does.
These are monsters that aren't going to inspire wonder and awe, these are monsters that are make players uneasy, and player characters run.
There are some very big threats in this book. Certainly the bulk of monsters are at a mid-range challenge rating, but there are 2 monsters at CR 21, 2 monsters at CR 24, and one at CR 30.
My gaming group is already talking about what they want to do once they reach level 20, so I'm already planning how to encourage their characters to retire! This book is helping.
I said there were at least 5 reasons to get this book, but actually I meant there were over 300 reasons. The monsters in this book are new, and they're good, and they're really fun. They're all compatible with 5e systems of any variety, so whether you're actually running Tales of the Valiant or 2014 5e or some other variant, this is a book to have on your shelf.