Planar Adventures for Dummies: unicorns

Showing posts with label unicorns. Show all posts

Saturday, August 17, 2019

The sa'ir, a forgotten monster

The sa'ir is a weird monster that appeared only briefly in 2e as part of the lamia’s ridiculously convoluted ecology (ridiculously convoluted ecologies were extremely common in the days of AD&D). It is a lion with a goat's hooves and horns. It was never referenced again, and 3e seemingly introduced male lamia which rendered its existence superfluous. That has not stopped conversions to 5e, however.

The name immediately stood out to me because I recognized it as probably derived from the biblical sa`iyr (also sâʻîyr, sâʻir). As an adjective the word means "shaggy," as a noun "he-goat." By analogy, the word is translated as "faun" or "satyr."

In Isaiah 34:14, the sa'ir ("wild goat") is mentioned alongside the lilith ("screech owl") as one of the many beasts inhabiting the desert and night. As Lilith is the name of a night-haunting demon in Mesopotamian myths that fulfills the same archetype as the lamia of Greek myth, I suspect this is where the game's writer got the idea to introduce the sa'ir as a monster related to the lamia/lilith.

Otherwise, the sa'ir appears to be an invention of the game's writer, derived from the biblical verse plus the lamia as described by Topsell and depicted in Tudor heraldry. However, there are a couple of heraldic and artistic monsters that loosely resemble it and might have influenced its design:

The chatloup (French for "cat-wolf") is a fantastic beast with the face of a cat, the body of a wolf, and the horns of an antelope.
The theow (also thoye, thos) is a fantastic beast with the body of a mastiff or wolf, cloven hooves and a bovine muzzle and tail. Dragonlore #71 speculates that it was the result of careless copying transforming depictions of normal wolves into bovine beasts.
The homeric Chimera was described as having the body of a goat, the head of a lion, and the tail of a dragon/snake. Further variations on this design might add horns to the lion's head.

I do not really see a reason to revive it as a relative of the lamia. At least in my campaign setting, the lamia are the transformed souls of scorned lovers in loose accordance with their mythological origins and not a self-reproducing race that arbitrarily serves a demon lord. Even in the biblical verse, it was only intended as one of the creatures inhabiting the same environment as the she-demons, not a relative.

I can imagine reviving it in other capacities, however. Maybe it is a mad wizard's experiment, as lazy game's writers are wont to resort to for explanation? Maybe it is a variant of the aberrant beasts spawned by the chimera? Maybe it is the male counterpart to the female chimera? Maybe it is a liocorno related to the bicorn and unicorn? Maybe it is related to the chatloup and theow, just another fantastic beast that is natural to fantasyland? Maybe, as its name suggests, it is a relative of the satyrs?

There are any number of possibilities.

Friday, July 12, 2019

Lepus cornutus and other paraleporids

In cryptozoology and folklore, there are a number of different paraleporids. That is, hares and rabbits that display unusual features like antlers and feathers. Hence the name lepus cornutus, Latin for "horned hare," for many varieties.

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

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Ecology of blink beasts

Blink beasts are so named because they employ an unusual mode of travel, or “blinking.” The simplest application of blinking is short range teleportation, as in the MM entry. More advanced applications replicate the effects of conjuration and transmutation spells relating to planar travel like blink, dimension door, etherealness, plane shift, and teleport.

Famous examples of blink beasts include the blink bunny, blink dog, and blink mammoth.

So what do you call a winged unicorn or a horned lion?

A recent addition to our cultures' repertoire of fantastic beasts is the winged unicorn or horned pegasus, a hybrid of pegasus and unicorn. There is no standardized name for this fantastic beast, so what exactly do you call it? (Beyond the obvious, of course!)

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