From the Foreword I can't believe you're reading this. So much has happened since I've begn working on the "Book of Beings". That's such an understatement. Where did it all begin? The summer of 1981! I was eleven, and discovered the joy of making my own monsters for a totally cool game called "Dungeons and Dragons". This book spans my whole life. Somehow, as a weird little artist, I had always been interested in the alphabet. I memorized it backwards. I made up my own fonts (I still do!). And when I first picked up the Monster Manual and saw what was basically an alphabet book of mostly-fictitious monsters, featuring the most amazing illustrations I'd ever see, I was hooked! I'd turn to theX page and read about the Xorn over and over, thinking, "This Gygax guy is just as messed up as I am!" I mean, finally, something that started with X other than Xylophone! So my first monster was "Xvex", an impossibly large, ridiculously powerful lizard thing. And my "Book of Beings" was born. Just about every creeping, crawling thing in this truly monstrous tome is based on an idea from the fiery, creative boom of my youth. Sometimes my brother Steve, or a childhood friend would make one, too. And while there's 109 original monsters in here, I've also got another 400 or so in my closet that you'd thank me for not choosing to share. I even made monster stats for Superman and Voltron. And I think there was one called "Barph". It's not pretty.