D&D Monsters: Succubi

The word "succubus" comes from Latin, referring to a type of demon that seduces men and slowly saps them of their vitality over a series of sexual encounters. This basic concept, however, long precedes even the Romans, with the general idea of  'evil demonic seductress' being fairly common across many cultures. It may, in part, be connected with the same sort of hypnogogic phenomenon that is responsible for the night hag myth - albeit interpreted in a more pleasurable manner. Indeed, succubi were not originally regarded as being attractive in their natural form - although, as with the D&D creature, they could shape-shift - the 'sexy' form only starting to become the standard in modern times.

DW Monsters: Peladon

The next story that we come to is The Curse of Peladon, which features no fewer than four different kinds of alien. Chief among them are the Ice Warriors, which I have already covered. Of the three new introductions, Arcturus’ abilities are more a product of the device he is using to move around, which must be customisable, so I’ll leave him out. That leaves Alpha Centauri and Aggedor.

Both reappear a couple of seasons later in The Monster of Peladon, and Alpha Centauri also has a cameo appearance (voiced by the same actress, no less) in the Twelfth Doctor story Empress of Mars. To date, Alpha Centauri has also appeared in five audios and one original novel, all set on Peladon, and the race has been referenced in a number of other novels. Aggedor is slightly less popular, appearing in two novels and one audio – although in their case, it’s different members of the same species rather than the same individual.

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: Shambling Mounds

The most obvious inspiration for the shambling mound is the DC horror character Swamp Thing, a plant-based monster popular enough to appear in a rather naff '80s film and a far superior '20s television mini-series. Swamp Thing first appeared in 1971, well before the shambling mound's debut in 0E, so the timing works, although that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a coincidence. Notably, for instance, the shambling mound is literally a mass of vegetation, which is a fair description of Swamp Thing... but only following the characters' reinvention by Alan Moore, five years after the Monster Manual. Since there isn't much further resemblance between the two, it seems likely that the shambling mound is an original creation, with no apparent antecedents in myth or legend.

DW Monsters: Ogrons

The remaining two stories of season 8 are:

•          The Colony in Space – apart from their leader, the aliens here do not seem very different from humans in their basic biology, although they do have specific skill sets
•          The Daemons – so far as we can tell, most, perhaps all, of the Daemons’ special abilities come from their near-magical technology, so I will pass on them

This brings us to season 9 and Day of the Daleks which, apart from including the obvious (albeit only briefly), introduces the Ogrons. These appear in two more stories during the Third Doctor’s era but have not been seen since then in the TV series. They have, however, often been mentioned or made brief appearances in other media, with significant roles in at least five novels and six audio plays to date. They mostly appear as mercenaries, but the audio Planet of the Ogrons does give us a brief look at their homeworld and native culture adding a little to what we already see in Frontier in Space.

Description and Biology

The Ogrons are tall and heavily muscled humanoid aliens with ape-like faces.  Given that they are alien, we don’t know how distinct they may be from humans biologically, although the implication would be “not by much”, at least to anyone that isn’t, say, trying to perform abdominal surgery on one. At least on TV, we haven’t seen any females of the species, so technically we don’t know that they’re mammalian, although they certainly seem to be and the likelihood is that here, too, they are little different from humans.

D&D Monsters: Treants

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 of ents, seems to be original to Tolkein. He took the name from a variant form of  "ettin", the original English word for what we now call a "giant", and not from any pre-existing tree-person. (Other giants exist in Tolkien's world, but they are very much bit players unlike, say, the giants of Narnia). D&D 0E included ents in its original rulebook, but legal problems led to them being renamed as "treants" from 1E onwards. For similar copyright reasons, it's this newer name that has stuck in fantasy games in general, even though, really, there isn't much difference between the D&D version and their entish inspiration.

D&D Monsters: Xorns

Xorns are an original creation of D&D, with no particularly obvious antecedents. The name was almost certainly chosen so that the 1E Monster Manual had at least one monster for every letter of the alphabet... the same is probably true of the quasit. Which, other than that it's a monster largely built around defence rather than offence, is about all one can say about the general concept.

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1E

The original xorn has a barrel-shaped body covered with scales that basically take the form of roof slates, and are likely made of a similar, if less fragile, material. It is notable for its (mostly) triradial symmetry, something that makes it look particularly alien. It has three legs, which seem to lack knees and are similarly covered in the armoured stone scales - if anything, it's a wonder it doesn't move even more slowly than it does. The arms look to be less heavily armoured, and are clearly more flexible; they're positioned above the spaces between the legs rather than directly above the hips.