Not a Dead Communist

We reach the final post in this series with the monsters that are, anatomically speaking, the simplest of them all. The idea of monstrous sl...

The concept of ghosts or other restless spirits is an ancient one, found, in some form or another in pretty much every human culture. The de...

The word "succubus" comes from Latin, referring to a type of demon that seduces men and slowly saps them of their vitality over a ...

The 1E Monster Manual includes several monsters that are essentially animate traps of one kind or another - floors that try to eat you, cei...

The most obvious inspiration for the shambling mound is the DC horror character Swamp Thing, a plant-based monster popular enough to appear ...

Although the idea of magical and possibly animate trees does exist in mythology and folklore, the idea of a race of such beings, in the form...

Xorns are an original creation of D&D, with no particularly obvious antecedents. The name was almost certainly chosen so that the 1E Mon...

Salamanders are, of course, real creatures - long-tailed amphibians with a vaguely lizard-like appearance. The Ancient Greeks and Romans att...

Ifrit are a type of demon in Islamic folklore, associated with the jinn, and in some cases having similar powers (such as the ability to gra...

The djinn originate in Middle Eastern mythology; they are typically associated with Islamic beliefs today, but pre-date that religion. They ...

The golem is a creature of Jewish myth; a man formed of clay, as Adam was said to have been, and brought to life by a skilled rabbi. This us...

The flesh golem, as depicted in D&D, is quite clearly based on Frankenstein's Monster. This, of course, has its origin in Mary Shell...

Pixies are a form of fairy originally found in the folklore of southwest England, specifically Devon and Cornwall. They are typically more b...