This book is a beast! No matter what campaign I'm running, there's something in here that is useful. E.g., the Sunken Ship and Ocean Voyage sections came in handy while prepping for this week's nautical campaign session. Just reading through the lists sparks many ideas and there are great details ready to be used to add depth to scenes that help draw players in.

This tome is massive! There are campaigns worth of material in here to use. Definitely recommend any GM for any game system.

Thingonomicon...and not just that, its Dread-ed! What's not to love about this enchiridion of all things numbered 20...literally. If you can't find a reason to crack this blunt literary instrument open at least a few times a session then you've obviously got issues;then again, you could have it all figured out, but I vote the former. Another fun function of this encyclopedic masterpiece...anybody gets out of hand you blast them upside their thinking skull with this thing(onomicon) and watch order get quickly restored. Download one of the free 20 things lists by Raging Swan Press and get a feel for what this thing(onomicon) has to offer; then, multiply that by around infinity and you have some idea of what this tome has to offer. Very handy, very robust, and very tentacular!!!

An enormous (for the old folks, phone book size) book filled with creative ideas and descriptions for lairs and locations, NPCs, monsters, loot, landmarks, events and more. Fantastic for fleshing out just about anything. The art is pretty good too, it's black and white but I'd rather than than pay for a colour print of a book that I mostly want for the text.

I've seen a few complaints/worries about the binding. It does look a little flimsy but they always do with Drivethru's POD options and thay have all been fine so far.

A fantastic tome that covers a stunning number of topics and content. The only complaint/disappointment I have is that the binding for the hardback looks to be pretty frail for a book of this size. I worry about how long it will hold together.

This compilation of truely wonderful aids is a true gift to any gamemaster. It is well put together with a very detailed index and will provide not only on the spot resources for DM's but also idea spawning fuel. Any DM would be proud to have this in his library of tools for their use. I highly recommend this for any DM starting out or old, gray and grizzily! Well worth the money as is other product from this author.

As a DM I am always looking for tools to reduce my preparation. I have never had a problem with the creative side of things but always dread filling out the minute details to polish off my creativity. The Dread Thingonomicon is an amazing tool for both helping me with inspiration to fill in these small details and providing good background materials. If you haven't used any of Raging Swan's booklets before I would recommend looking at a few of them to get an idea of how they are laid out. However, if you are a DM looking for ways to reduce your prep time to fill out your creations then I could not recommend these enough.

As a long time patreon subscriber of Raging Swan Press I might be biased but Creighton and his crew overdid themselves once again. Whatever you need as a DM you have now available in one BIG file or book depending on your preferences. I prefere the files as I find things much faster than in books nowadays and this despite being an Oldtimer (born 1965). So even if you have some, most or all of the material that is now collected in the Dread Thingonomicon it is still worth to buy. If you are not my opinion then please let me know what they could make better - I am more than eager to hear errr read it. Cheers!

I bought the hardcover, and am enjoying hefting it around as I skim sections and make room for it on my active game shelf. In recent years I've shifted to lots of pdf content enabled by DriveThruRPG/DM's Guild. However, after seeing past 20 Things content I decided to get this compendium in paper form. It's (heavily) full of handy at-a-glance descriptors to whet the interest of a suspicious adventuring party. I'm happy.

As a long time patreon subscriber of Raging Swan Press I might be biased but Creighton & the crew behind RSP have provided yet another top notch resource for time pressed DM's.

Need some quick NPCs? They're here. Need some help to provide your players an immersive description for your next encounter location? Covered.

Dread Thingonomicon is a rich font of descriptive material that you can dip into for a one-shot or build a thematic campaign on. Awesome DM inspiration.

I am a subscriber to Raging Swan Press's Patreon because I am consistently impressed with the quality of the supplements they put out. I especially enjoy the "20 Things" supplements, which provide thematic random tables for various fantasy RPG encounter settings (like a Necromancer's Lair or a Noisome Sewer). The "Dread Thingonomicon" collects all of Raging Swan's "20 Things" supplements into a single gigantic compilation, and is perfect both for enhancing homebrew RPG campaigns and also for rolling up "on-the-fly" dungeon dressing during a session. The tables are very eclectic and cover almost anything you can think of - from unique features for otherwise bland monsters (like the "1,000 Abnormal Wights" table at the beginning of the book) - to dungeon dressing like 20 "Notable Things Inside [a Noble's House]" - to potential adventure and plot hooks, like 20 "Borderland Landmarks".

The book offers a great deal of value, especially if you haven't purchased many of the 73 "20 Things" supplements that the compilation consists of. The production values are quite high, and the PDF version includes both a screen and a printable version.

[I received a free advance copy of the Dread Thingonomicon and am a Patreon subscriber for Raging Swan Press]

Comprehensive.

That’s the first word that comes to mind when perusing this nearly 500-page tome of random fantasy RPG tables. Sure, lots of supplements might tell you what you might find in a goblin’s lair, but this one has separate tables for “Things in a Goblin’s Pouch”, minor random encounters with goblins, descriptions of outside a goblin’s lair, the common room, AND the Chieftain’s room and a simple three-table system for creating a variety of unique goblin combatants.

But all this would be for nought if it weren’t good stuff and lo, it truly is. I can roll on some of these tables while preparing an adventure to save time and spur the imagination. As an example, my players are currently in a sewer and, unsurprisingly, there’s a whole section about sewers. I was able to take Saewyn, the human fighter who doesn’t yet realize she’s a wererat, directly into my campaign and watch my players amusingly bicker about whether they should trust her, help her, or kill her. During the game, a roll on the “Sewer Dressing” table had my players deciphering faded chalk sigils that I decided were from a demonic cult they were chasing.

And that’s the key thing with a resource like this: it allows the DM to add entertaining details and color that your players can explore and help connect them to your world, or completely ignore and it doesn’t matter because you didn’t spend much time on it. This allows you to follow their explorations and decisions but still seem like you anticipated their every move.

I do have one complaint and that is that although it is well-organized, it’s still unwieldy to use during the game. This is especially true of the digital copy. What I’m really saying is that I want someone to make a well-designed app making this excellent content more accessible and pleasant during a game where every moment counts.

Note: I am a Patreon supporter of Raging Swan and was given a digital copy in exchange for a fair review. I am so impressed I’m considering purchasing the physical copy just to be able to use it more easily.

Si vous êtes MJ, vous n’êtes pas sans savoir à quel point cette tâche est exigeante mais également gratifiante. Néanmoins, quand on prépare sa future séance, on a parfois besoin d’un petit coup de pouce pour nous apporter cette étincelle de créativité qui nous aidera à améliorer notre future séance. Et bien ce livre est un gigantesque condensé d’étincelles, qui vous permettra de puiser nombre d’idées susceptibles de rendre vos parties plus riches et plus passionnantes.

Sur plus de 450 pages, tout est susceptible d’être exploitable ! On y trouve des PNJ, des descriptions, des objets, des événements, des lieux, des accroches scénaristiques… Le contenu est absolument gigantesque ! ! (et c’est peu de le dire)

A savoir cependant : l’univers est clairement orienté Fantasy. Mais un MJ malin saura puiser des idées de ce livre pour les détourner dans un univers différent.

Au niveau du système de règle, on est dans un système neutre, ce qui permet de profiter du contenu quel que soit le moteur de jeu utilisé. Bien entendu, vous n’y trouverez pas de statblocks. Mais ce n’est pas là l’essentiel, car la majorité des MJ savent bien qu’une idée est plus importante que la partie purement ‘mécanique’ des règles.

Alors, certes, c’est en anglais… Mais si la langue de Shakespeare vous pose un réel problème, vous pouvez très facilement sélectionner des passages, faire un Copier/Coller et traduire le passage avec l’un des nombreux services gratuits disponibles en ligne. La traduction aura ses limites, mais elle vous permettra néanmoins de comprendre l’essentiel, pour pouvoir ainsi s’appuyer dessus et l’exploiter.

Vous l’aurez compris : je recommande ce produit à tout MJ qui veut gagner du temps pour la préparation de ses séances, et qui ne veut plus être tributaire d’une inspiration fugace ou capricieuse. Vos parties s’en trouveront amélioré pour le plus grand plaisir de vos joueurs… et du vôtre. [Par transparence, cet avis a été rédigé en contrepartie d’un envoi gratuit et précoce de l’article. Cela n’enlève rien à la sincérité de mon avis]

This supplement is full of anything imaginable for use in your games. A tome of epic magnificence for countless tables, charts, additions to a GM's world. The majority of products from this Author and Press are always a valauble addition to my world-building. Grab a copy and try it out.

Disclaimer: I cozened a pdf of this book from Raging Swan in return for this review. Being on a limited budget, it seemed like the cheapest way to get a copy.

Back when I was a young teenager, my brother loaned me his AD&D 1e books and I soon became lost in a wondrous, sometimes unnerving world of acolytes, sentient swords and wandering harlots. The Dread Thingonomicon (who doesn't want that spine visible on their bookshelf?) triggers the imagination in the same, though slightly more disturbed, way. Yes, you can totally use this to find new ways to mess with your players' heads...I mean, plan your game. Maybe the Thing you choose is just fluff. Maybe it suggests some mechanical twist, e.g. the vivid patch of white scales on the black dragon's belly might have some vulnerability that the characters can discover. Some Things suggest entire storylines of their own (why do the cultists have Seven sealed scrolls containing missives to seven different people?). At close to 500 pages, there's no shortage of ideas here.

On the other hand, here are some other uses for this book:

• Inspiration for every kind of creative endeavour. Hieronymus Bosch had a copy of the Dread Thingonomicon in his studio.
• Mindless...mindful colouring, if your tastes run to cobwebbed sepulchres and crazed liches. Fantastic (in both senses) black-and-white line art throughout. I love this stuff.
• Just read it, for fun and to savour the well-crafted prose. I am literally reading through the section entitled Dragon's Lair: Black Dragon with my 10-year-old daughter at bedtime (her choice of topic).

Practical notes:

• This book duplicates material from the earlier Thingonomicon and Thingonomicon II, not to mention the individual 20 Things booklets. If you already have those works, you need to decide whether it's worth having them all in one volume.
• There are some references to D&D-family mechanics but they can be easily abstracted if you play a different system.
• My daughter asked hopefully for a section on elven villages. Nothing, not even ruined ones. Elves, gnomes, fey, metallic dragons, etc. are much too 'shiny' for this book. Take note of the 'Dread' in the title.
• The various sections appear in alphabetical order. Hence the sequencing is a bit random -- from Abnormal Low-Level Undead to Alchemist's Laboratory to Ancient Necropolis, and so on. Also, you might not expect marshes and sewers to fall under 'N' for Noisome -- although, given the overall flavour of the book, maybe you should. The hyperlinked page numbers in the table of contents are very handy. So is the index that follows the TOC, collecting together similarly-themed sets of Things under more sensible headings like Swamps & Marshes and Urban. Unfortunately the index doesn't have page numbers, let alone hyperlinks, so once you've found a section of interest you need to go back to the main TOC to find the page you want. Something for Raging Swan to consider amending.

tl;dr version: Yeah, buy it.