Planar Adventures for Dummies: March 2019

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Ecology of the unicorn

The unicorn has been represented in a variety of ways in folklore and fiction, so it doesn't have a consistent or orthodox ecology. Unicorns generally fall into one of four archetypes, paralleling the development of the unicorn myth in popular culture. These correspond to the monster types beast, celestial, fey, and fiend.

As a [beast], the unicorn may be identical to a common rhinocerous or possess at least minor supernatural traits. At the very least, its horn ("alicorn") is a universal antidote to poison. It may or may not be pacified by the presence of a virgin.
As a [celestial], the unicorn is a messenger of God and a potential paladin's steed. Its powers would focus on fighting evil, as with other angels. It may overlap with the pegasus, having flight in the form of wings or levitation.
As a [fey], the unicorn is a woodland deity that defends its forest from interlopers.
As a [fiend]... well, just look at the nightmare.

The standard D&D unicorn straddles between the first three archetypes. It is classified as a [celestial] as of 5e, essentially a forest version of the sphinx, but in the lore is associated with the [fey]. I feel this is bad world building because the line between clerics' and druids' spheres of influence should be fairly clear. Earlier editions of the game devised over a dozen more variants, so this conflation is doubly strange.

A number of unicorn variants have been published in third-party products: Monster Encyclopaedia Volume I introduces the platinum unicorn, Monster Geographica: Forest introduces the savage unicorn, Exotic Encounters: Unicorns introduces the sylvan guardian unicorn, storm unicorn and purifier unicorn, Tome of Beasts introduces the shadhavar, Monsters of Feyland introduces the black unicorn and red unicorn, etc.

100% anatomically accurate unicorn

In popular culture

Fantasy fiction ascribes the unicorn with all manner of miraculous traits that they notably lack in combat-focused Dungeons & Dragons. What follows is a small and not remotely exhaustive list:

Early accounts of the unicorn or “monocerous” in medieval bestiaries described it as a vicious beast, since it was based on misunderstood accounts of the rhinocerous. Some accounts added the myth that it could be pacified by a virgin, which hunters exploited to trap it. Inspired by these tales of unicorn entrapment, medieval bestiaries came to associate the unicorn with Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. The unicorn acquired connotations of purity, and its horn ("alicorn") was reputed to purify poison. In medieval bestiaries, the alicorn neutralizes poison even after being severed.

Harry Potter depicts the unicorn as essentially an animal with magical properties. Their blood can extend life indefinitely, but such a life is “cursed.”

In Peter S. Beagle's 1968 novel The Last Unicorn, the unicorns are depicted more like the Fair Folk. They are immortal and amoral, with mysterious powers that are largely unexplained. In Holly Black's The Spiderwick Chronicles, unicorns are explicitly listed as a type of fairy.

In Ridley Scott’s Legend, the unicorns guard the light of the universe. Their horns have unexplained magical powers, even after being severed. In the Beastmaster television series, a severed alicorn is used to gut a man then immediately heal him.

Fantasy fiction and games have introduced an evil counterpart to the unicorn, typically styled as a "black unicorn" or a "bicorn." This appears primarily in Japanese media, such as Megami Tensei and Overlord. It is the moral opposite of the unicorn: for example, it rejects virgins.

Other monsters have been referred to as unicorns in popular culture, such as the Arabic mi’raj, Persian karkadann, and Chinese qilin.

Research links

Gaming links

Bicorn links

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

New monster's types for 5e

The type mechanic is nonsensical. I ranted about this numerous types. But now I am going to throw caution to the wind and introduce new types to D&D 5e because I can. I care not for how it disrupts the rules as written, because one of the guiding principles of this new edition is that the GM can arbitrate whatever they want to rather than relying on the rules to make the decisions for them.

I would introduce a few new types: biomechanoid, immortal, manifestation, sphinx, and spirit.

The biomechanoid type is adopted from Infernum. Biomechanoids are Giger-esque creatures that straddle the boundaries between constructs and living creatures in the creepiest way possible. In the lower planes, biomechanoids are used instead of conventional machinery and they are fueled by the tears of the damned.

The immortal type is adopted from the immortal origin in D&D 4e. Immortals are... not mortal. It is used for the many corner cases that wouldn't fit into the aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend and undead types, but should be in a comparable type rather than shoehorned into construct or monstrosity.

The manifestation type is adopted from Relics & Rituals: Excalibur. A manifestation is a creature whose physical existence is caused by a powerful emotion, strong desire, etc.

The sphinx type is adopted from the Nefret campaign setting. The logic goes that: if dragon is a type, then so should sphinx. It generally includes creatures with the forequarters of one animal and the hindquarters of another: sphinx, naga, manticore, hippocampus, pegasus, peryton... even lamia and centaur, I suppose.

The spirit type is adopted from a number of sources: Encyclopaedia Divine: Shamans, Relics & Rituals: Excalibur, and OGL reprints thereof. The concept of spirits is universal in world mythology, so I shouldn't need to explain it.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Ecology of gargoyles

Gargoyles are a standard D&D monster. Their key oddity, however, is that the lore across editions has been unable to agree on their actual nature. Sometimes they are stone statues animated by evil spirits, other times they are living creatures capable of reproduction.

Beast lords and associates

The beast lords are a group of deities from the Stormbringer universe that were copied by Dungeons & Dragons. The beast lords have appeared in official Dungeons & Dragons supplements and a number of third party publications.

Theriocephalus race concept

The theriocephalus (from therio- + -cephalus) is a human with the head of an animal. He is not anthropomorphic: his body is entirely human without fur or feathers or scales, while only his head is that of an animal.

Theriocephaluses come in at least three flavors: the animan, the verman and anumus.

The animan (plural animen) is an animal-headed aasimar descended from immigrants from the upper plane ruled by the beast lords. They have the heads of terrestrial vertebrates (i.e. mammals, reptiles, avians and amphibians). An animan is a humanoid with the aasimar tag.
The verman (plural vermen) is a vermin-headed tiefling descended from the forgotten creations of a demon lord. They have the heads of terrestrial invertebrates (e.g. arthropods and gastropods). A verman is a humanoid with the tiefling tag.
The anumus (plural anumi) are created from beasts given a special potion made from the mystical anumi plant. They may have the heads of any terrestrial animal that is given the anumi potion. An anumus is a humanoid with the beastfolk tag.

Sources: The anumus is from Remarkable Races: The Anumus by Alluria Publishing. The animan and verman are from Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races by Fantasy Flight Games.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Indo-European planes

A Proto-Indo-European (PIE) campaign setting would have a much simpler cosmology compared to D&D’s typical bazillion planes. The PIE planes would consist of only a handful of planes, if they can even be called planes at all. We have the primordial cosmos that existed before the world, the world itself, and the underworld. There’s no heaven or hell, that’s a Christian thing. There’s no elemental planes, because it’s unnecessary.

The primordial cosmos has few to no details associated with it, but it’s probably where creatures of chaos come from.

The world consists of the sky, the earth, and the ocean. The earth is a flat disc bordered by the ocean. The sky is a dome upon which the celestial bodies travel. This is where the adventures happen.

The underworld exists below the earth. It’s inhabited by the shades of the dead and possibly by monsters of various stripes.

These cannot necessarily be said to be planes, since you can potentially travel between them by walking. Plane shifting spells or transitive planes aren’t needed.

Nagas and water weirds

An interesting coincidence I noticed were some similarities between the d20 monsters nagas and weirds.

The d20 naga are magical human-headed serpentine immortals loosely based on the naga in Vedic myth. They have a number of different variants in different d20 books, including 3pp like Creature Collection, Rokugan, and Monsters of the Mind. I have no idea what their fluff is, but apparently they associate with astrology.

The weirds are a family of generally serpentine elementals whose capabilities have varied widely across the d20 editions. Originally introduced in pre-d20 as the water weird, they were expanded under the d20 era through Monster Manual II, Dragon magazine and Tome of Horrors. The expansions included additional elemental variants and semi-humanoid oracles (playing off the etymology of weird).

Is there a connection between the naga’s astrology and the weird’s weirdness? I think a lot of d20 have a general problem with blandness, so condensing monster families to make a more interesting result always strikes me as a good thing.

I’ll probably post a more detailed ecology in the future.

Classifying undead: the dread lords

The "undead lords", also known by many other names like "dread undead", are the upper tier of undead monsters. They are often legendary monsters, more powerful variations of the more generic undead monsters.

Non-humanoid giants

In mythology, there is typically little or no distinction between giants and giant monsters.

Screech owls are creepy

In a number of languages across the world separated by time and space, the names for screech owls have independently gained negative supernatural connotations.

Proto-Indo-European mythology

For the most part my posts have been setting agnostic, though I have been slowly trying to build my own setting that addresses my pet peeves with typical fantasy world building. My pet peeves for the most part stem from the needless overcomplexity of D&Disms such as alignment, cosmology, taxonomy and haphazard kitchen sink fantasy. Now I decided specifically to use Proto-Indo-European mythology as the basis for my current world building. Indo-European includes the Baltic, Celtic, Greek, Iranian, Norse, Roman, Slavic, Teutonic and Vedic cultures, among others. I chose this because D&D takes the majority of its inspiration from Indo-European mythologies (and possibly influenced by earlier mythologies if the Vanir hypothesis holds weight). That makes easier the fitting of existing classes and monsters into the new framework, since most of the groundwork is already laid.

There isn’t enough scholarly resources for me to study the mythologies of other proto-cultures. I would like to, though.

Monday, March 11, 2019

The Nazgûl’s influence on fantasy gaming

Tolkien’s Nazgûl have influenced several fantasy monsters. That is undeniable.

The wraith in the monster manual takes cues from the ring-wraiths. The web show Standard Action even parodies this by depicting wraiths as wearing rings of power.
The death knight, and to some degree the lich mage, channels the same idea as the ring-wraiths. Just substitute ring of power for whatever their soul jar is.
Orcus has servants known as “demonic knights,” of which there are rumored to be nine. Obviously a reference to Sauron’s Nazgûl.
Pathfinder introduces a grim reaper monster at some point, in at least three different variants. There are rumored to be nine of them, another clear reference to the ring-wraiths.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Orcs and hobgoblins: what’s the diff?

As 1d4chan points out, there isn’t really that much of a difference between hobgoblins and orcs. There’s any number of ways you could world build a more convincing explanation in my opinion.

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