To give you all an idea of what the output is to look like, here is each item of the array.

• beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• death kiss beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• eye of the deep beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• gauth beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• spectator beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• undead beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 21)
• hive mother beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)
• director beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)
• examiner beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)
• lensman beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)
• overseer beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)
• watcher beholder (Monstrous Manual, pg 25)

I've reduce the size of the table for brevity.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $beholder_default = 'beholder';
my $param = get_param();

my %monster_lookup = (
  'beholder' => {
    book => 'Monstrous Manual',
    beholder => 1,
    page => 21,
  },
  'death kiss' => {
    book => 'Monstrous Manual',
    beholder => 0,
    page => 21,
  },
);

# this saves duplicating data in your code
my @monsters = keys %monster_lookup;


my $monster;
if ($param){
  $monster = $beholder_default;
}
else{
  my $rand = int rand @monsters;
  $monster = $monsters[$rand];
}

my $book     = $monster_lookup{$monster}{book};
my $page     = $monster_lookup{$monster}{page};
my $beholder = $monster_lookup{$monster}{beholder};

if (not $beholder){
  print "$monster ";
}
print "beholder ($book, pg $page)\n";

sub get_param {
  # get your input from somewhere
  my $param = 0;
  return $param;
}
[download]

Here is the hash as I would like it with the "default" book as a scalar, and used in the hash. I hope that works.

my $MM = "Monstrous Manual"
my %monster_lookup = (
'beholder' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 1,
  page => 21,
},
'death kiss' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 21,
},
'eye of the deep' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 21,
},
'gauth' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 21,
},
'spectator' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 21,
},
'undead' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 21,
},
'hive mother' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
'director' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
'examiner' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
'lensman' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
'overseer' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
'watcher' => {
  book => $MM,
  beholder => 0,
  page => 25,
},
);
[download]

Would Perl be okay with the following?

my $MM = "Monstrous Manual"
my %monster_lookup = (
'beholder' => {book => $MM,beholder => 1,page => 21,},
'death kiss' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 21,},
'eye of the deep' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 21,},
'gauth' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 21,},
'spectator' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 21,},
'undead' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 21,},
'hive mother' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
'director' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
'examiner' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
'lensman' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
'overseer' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
'watcher' => {book => $MM,beholder => 0,page => 25,},
);
[download]

What I really want with the book key is that if it is empty, then the default book, else what is in the book in the key.

The argument between using package or lexical variables can continue at a later time.

Corrections:

• quoting
• hash item without keys.
• copy/paste errors

Update

• 2nd bit of code without the whitespace