D&D Monsters: Mimics

The 1E Monster Manual includes several monsters that are essentially animate traps of one kind or another - floors that try to eat you, ceilings that try to eat you, stalactites that try to eat you, and so on. All of them with bland descriptive names rather than even an attempt at something atmospheric. The only one of these to remain consistently in the core rulebooks, however, is the mimic. Which is essentially a treasure chest that tries to eat you. It's certainly a contender for "silliest monster in D&D" (although it has some pretty stiff opposition) and it should come as no surprise that it's original to the game. Indeed, it's tailor-made for the "dungeon crawl" genre that D&D basically invented, since it makes even less sense in any other context than it does in that one.

So... yup, time for the mimic.

D&D Monsters: Couatls

The couatl has its basis in Mesoamerican mythology, although it's arguable how much it resembles the original. The name is apparently inspired by that of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl the "feathered serpent". In reality, coatl simply means "snake" so it doesn't refer to any specific mythic creature taken on its own. Having said that, snakes were important to the Mesoamerican people, and associated with many of their gods. In particular, several of them were feathered, magically merging the features of a flying creature with one that crawls along the ground. They seem to have been regarded as divine beings, which fits with the original 1E description of their habitat and relationship with humans.

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1E

As originally seen, the couatl has a head and body that closely resemble those of a regular snake. While the presence of an extra set of teeth between the fangs is unusual, in other respects, the arrangement of the teeth resembles those of snakes such as cobras, kraits, and mambas, rather than say, rattlesnakes or boomslangs. While the head is at least partially covered with scales like that of a normal snake, the couatl's body is feathered, with longer feathers along the back and what appear to be softer, downy, ones on the underside. 

D&D Monsters: Ropers

The roper is another of the "does what it says on the tin" monsters that are original to D&D. Alongside such creatures as trappers and piercers, it's clearly intended to disguise itself as part of the background and attack unexpectedly but does have a more distinctive look and an unusual method of attack that make it more memorable than they are, with the result that it consistently appears in the core Monster Manual books of each edition.

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1E

In the original Monster Manual, the roper is a tapered pillar-like creature with a single large eye above the mouth near the top of the body - there are no apparent nostrils or ears. The eye has an odd brow-like structure that seems to partially cover the upper surface; this might be a ridge to protect it from falling debris, since it lives in caves and there's plausibly a lid that flips down from it as well. The mouth opens horizontally and has pointed isodont teeth in both jaws, although it seems unlikely that the creature has much of an internal skeleton to attach them to. The base is limbless and flat to the ground, while a vertically arranged row of three apparent tentacles arise from each side.

D&D Monsters: Umber Hulks

The origins of the D&D umber hulk are not clear. It predates what we'd now call 1E, first appearing in the Greyhawk supplement, and it has been proposed that it may be based on one of the same set of plastic toys that inspired the owlbear, rust monster, and bulette. If so, it doesn't closely resemble any of them, while the other three are very clearly drawn to resemble the toys in the 1E Monster Manual. So, if it's inspired by them at all, the connection is still vague enough that, to all intents and purposes, it's an original creation. Certainly, its signature power is original, doubtless intended to be related to its unusual appearance and, while evil sorcerers might be able to do something similar in myth, the same is not generally true of monsters.

D&D Monsters: Bulettes

The bulette is a creature original to D&D. Like the owlbear, it's based on a plastic toy from Hong Kong, in its case probably meant to represent some sort of kaiju, although it's hard to know for sure. It's one of a minority of original monsters to have an actual name right from the start, rather than a descriptive term ('mind flayer', 'carrion crawler', 'trapper'). 

Incidentally, Gygax originally intended the word to be pronounced as "boo-lay", and official material from WoTC, and TSR before them, used to insist on this - and maybe still does. This raises a question, often seen in fantasy literature more generally, of "then why didn't you spell it that way?" In this case, I'll note that both the spelling and the supposed pronunciation appear vaguely French, which may be intentional - although, obviously, they don't match up with one another in that language either...

D&D Monsters: Stirges

The strige is a creature of Roman myth, derived from the earlier Greek strix. It was said to be a nocturnal bird, albeit one that hung upside down like a bat, which drank the blood of infants and possibly even ate the remains. The Greek version of the name has since been adopted as a scientific name for a genus of owl, and, blood-drinking aside, the general description does seem to match owls more than anything else that might exist in the real world. The name later also became associated with witches and with a more humanoid form of vampire, the strigoi. 

In D&D, of course, the name mutates again to the form "stirge". While it looks even less owl-like than the mythic creature, it's still clearly based on it... but is more inclined to attack adults than babies.

D&D Monsters: Griffons and Hippogriffs

The mythic origins of griffons lie in Ancient Greece, if not earlier - a combination of the king of the beasts and the king of the birds. The specific form of that combination was largely cemented by the late Middle Ages into the one we are currently familiar with, and griffons ('griffin' and 'gryphon' are equally valid spellings) are common features in modern fantasy, especially in RPGs. 

The hippogriff, however, is much more modern; it first appears in a poetic work of fiction written in 1516, where it is described as the offspring of a male griffon and a female horse (which, since griffons were thought to kill and eat horses on sight was intended as something miraculous). Although the existence of one may well imply the other, it's possibly more common than the griffon itself in fantasy fiction, with the most famous modern example being that in the Harry Potter books.

Some Thoughts on Gorgons

In Greek mythology, the gorgons were three monstrous sisters whose visage turned people to stone. Detailed descriptions vary, although they typically had snakes for hair. In D&D, however, these beings are known as "medusas", from the name of the specific gorgon slain by Perseus. The creature known as a gorgon in D&D is therefore, something else entirely, an essentially original creation, albeit still with the power of petrifaction, and perhaps partially inspired by the bronze bulls from the story of Jason and the Argonauts.

Some Thoughts on Displacer Beasts

Actually a photoshopped jaguar...

Like their supposed enemies, the blink dogs, displacer beasts have been present in every version of the Dungeon & Dragons game. Apparently based, at least in terms of their physical appearance, on an alien creature featuring in the works of early science fiction writer A.E. van Vogt, their signature power is nonetheless original to the game. They are among the few standard D&D creatures not to be included in the Open Game Licence, so that they are distinct to that game and not to any of its clones/adaptations, such as Pathfinder. But we're not restricted by that here, since we're just providing a review of the thing. So what can we say about them?

Some Thoughts on Blink Dogs

In Basic Edition, blink dogs were said to resemble dingos

Blink dogs are a relatively well-known creature for the D&D game, being entirely original to it, and having been present in every edition since the very beginning. Compared with some other signature creatures, though, there doesn't seem to be much written about them. So let's see what sort of a take I can make on them.

As always, let's begin by seeing what the primary source material has to say about the creatures, using an admittedly incomplete sampling of various editions:

Some Thoughts on Owlbears

No, I'm not very good with Photoshop...

Owlbears are arguably the most distinctive of the "mundane" animals of the standard D&D menagerie. Of course, that's taking a very broad definition of "mundane", referring solely to the fact that they possess no magical powers or particularly unusual abilities. To the people of the world they live in, they're presumably no stranger or more to be feared than tigers, alligators, or rhinoceroses are to us.

In our reality, though, they couldn't exist, since they mix and match mammalian and avian features in a way that doesn't happen in natural evolution. Even in the world of D&D they're usually said to be the creation of some long-dead wizard, rather than something natural - although it's worth noting that other hybrid creatures, such as griffons, aren't regarded in the same way. Still, it's at least interesting, for someone like me who writes a lot about real world animals, to consider how such a creature would work if, somehow, it really existed.

Some Thoughts on Dire Wolves

Yesterday, after watching some early episodes of season six of Game of Thrones, my thoughts turned to dire wolves. Clearly the dire wolves in that show are not the same as the animals of the same name portrayed in the classic RPG Dungeons & Dragons.

But this set me to wondering what the dire wolves of D&D would be like if they actually existed. It's an easier question to consider than what, say, a griffon might be like, since we do at least have real wolves to compare them to. A griffon, by contrast, may have radically different interpretations in different games, novels, or even real-world legends.

But even dire wolves, close though they are to real animals, vary noticeably between different interpretations. Those in GoT appear to be larger, slightly more intelligent versions of real wolves,which doesn't quite fit their depiction in D&D, despite the obviously similar source material. So what could we reasonably say about D&D-style dire wolves?

Let's begin by defining the animal we're talking about. I'll look at the versions in three different editions of the Monster Manual, not using other sources that may have expanded on them (of which there are doubtless many, official and otherwise).