Monsters of (sadly mythtaken) mythology

D&D and its derivatives have a history of taking monsters from mythology, folklore, fairy tales, cryptozoology, urban legends, etc. In the case of mythological monsters, originally singular monsters are expanded into an entire race. In the process, the properties of the original monsters and the (often warped) moral message of the original myth are reversed, twisted or lost entirely.



For example, the original minotaur was imprisoned within a maze whereas the D&D minotaur is easily able to navigate mazes. The original titans were the parents of the gods who were overthrown for their mismanagement, whereas the D&D titans are the destructive and undisciplined children of the gods. The peryton was originally a joke monster that D&D tried to (and failed, IMO) to make scary through art presentation.

Pathfinder also has a disturbing tendency to shoehorn rape whenever convenient. The adherer was originally a filler monster that could be mistaken for a mummy, but PF made them into a race of rapists. The jorogumo was originally a monster that ate people, and PF turned her into a rapist who fatally impregnates her johns. The deep ones were originally cougars (eighty thousand year old women) who had seemingly consensual relations with their human husbands (indoctrinated from birth in the cult of Cthulhu) as a metaphor for miscegenation, but PF turned them into rapists who abduct women like the outdated racist stereotypes they were metaphors for.

As part of my overall initiative for more holistic world building, I will be examining monsters taken from these original sources and providing alternative backstories that are more faithful to the original myth (or scrub away the tasteless rape quota). This is not a sure thing, as the sheer variety of original myths make it impossible to have a "correct" portrayal unless trying to present a specific moral message. Even so, authors like Bernard Evslin and Zelda C. Wong have managed to adapt myths in ways that don't mangle the original (unlike Hollywood, which turns Hades into a villain despite him being one of the few Greek gods who was not psychotic). Fiction like The Litany of Earth turns Lovecraft's racism on its head without whitewashing (pardon the pun, or don't) the racist horror of the original works.

Stay tuned for future posts about gods and monsters.