D&D Monsters: Medusae

While the exact details of the myth evolved over time, in the best-known version of the Greek original, Medusa was one of three monstrous sisters known as the gorgons. As the only one of the three who was mortal, she was eventually killed and her severed head used as a magical charm. As a consequence, she is far better known than her sisters, who have no independent myths. In D&D, for some reason, the word "gorgon" is used for an entirely different type of creature, and "medusa" becomes the generic term for the type of being, rather than a specific individual. This has since caught on in other fictional contexts.

(I am going to use the plural "medusae" here, because that was the way I learned it as a zoologist, so I find it more natural than the form usually used in fantasy games).

D&D Monsters: Minotaurs

Minotaurs are another creature with their origin in Greek myth. In the original, there was, of course, only one Minotaur, trapped in a labyrinth and slain by Theseus. Contemporary Greek illustrations show a male human with the head and tail of a bull, more obviously a hybrid than the D&D version, but at least broadly similar. However, some of the myths were vague as to exactly what the Minotaur was supposed to look like, and in the Middle Ages an alternative with a centaur-like form, albeit often with horns on the human-like head, started showing up in art. The latter form had some popularity (it was the first illustration of it I saw as a child) but has declined in modern depictions.

Given that crawling around in subterranean labyrinths is part of the point of the original D&D, it's unsurprising that the Minotaur would be included in the game. Here, of course, it becomes a race of beings and thereby loses its capital letter. (As an aside, both "mine-otaur" and "minn-otaur" are legitimate pronunciations in UK English, although the latter seems to be preferred in the US. In Ancient Greek, it was apparently "meen-otaur", so, hey...).

D&D Monsters: Harpies

Harpies are one of a number of D&D monsters that owe their origins to Greek myth. However, the story is not quite as simple as that, since they actually combine two different Greek monsters into a single being: the harpies themselves, and sirens. Both were said to be creatures that were part bird, part woman, but beyond that, there is little similarity between the two in the original sources.

Although very early descriptions of mythic harpies portray them as beautiful, the great majority show them as monstrous. As is often the case, there isn't complete consistency in the descriptions of which parts are avian and which parts humanoid, although something at least resembling the D&D form is the most common. Sirens were even more variable, and some early Greek artwork shows male examples as well as females. In essence, though, it is really only the signature attack - the siren call - that copies over to the D&D 'harpy', which in other respects, is more closely based on its namesake.

D&D Monsters: Centaurs

This series of posts doesn't exactly have a large audience, but I have nothing else to do this morning, so let's turn to a race that's a staple of fantasy in terms of its existence, but that, in my experience, is rarely seen in actual games: the centaur.

Centaurs, of course, originally appear in the myths of Ancient Greece, from whence they were borrowed by the Romans, and, later still, often seen in medieval bestiaries. (Similar creatures do appear in some other mythologies, but the true centaur that we're talking about here is the Greek one). They have regularly appeared in fantasy literature, with the Narnia and Harry Potter series being perhaps the best known examples. In the myths, they are sometimes wild and uncivilised hunters, and sometimes wise and noble teachers, reflecting their dual human/bestial form; novels have tended more towards the 'wise' version.

While the very earliest Greek depictions of centaurs varied somewhat in which bits were human and which bits horse, the classic look that we're familiar with today was already in place by about the 5th century BC, so it has a long pedigree, and unlike, say, goblins, there's strong agreement on what centaurs are supposed to look like. Both the human and horse parts are often said to be physically attractive for their species, and, while female centaurs appear only rarely in myth, they have been reasonably common in artwork even as far back as the Greek period.