Hobgoblins and bobgoblins

Dungeons & Dragons uses "hobgoblin" to refer to a bigger, meaner variety of goblin, but in the dictionary and folklore this is not the case. A hobgoblin, in the dictionary, is just a synonym of goblin, bugbear, bogeyman, etc. In English folklore, a hobgoblin is smaller, nicer variety of goblin; the exact opposite of the usage in fantasy gaming.

Why is this? It all goes back to Tolkien, who himself noted that the usage was incorrect. But Gygax and friends never got the memo, so now we got stuck with it.

The prefix "hob" has a number of possible etymologies. It may derive from the German halb meaning "half," a diminutive of the name Robin or Robert, a part of a fireplace, or a Welsh spirit of the hearth. The latter makes them similar to many heart spirits in a number of cultures and stories, such as the lares and penates of Roman myth and the character Calcifer in Howl's Moving Castle.

Somebody apparently went back to the original sources to give us the cartoon character Bobgoblin, a friendly goblin. Similarly friendly goblins may be found in a number of other cartoons, such as LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale.

Goblins, LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale

Ecology of Chaosiic aka Ei'risai

The ei'risai originally appeared in The Iconic Bestiary: Classics of Fantasy by Lion's Den Press as an open game content substitute for the slaad which are considered product identity of Wizards of the Coast. The name chaosiic was applied by their reprint in Forgotten Foes by Tricky Owlbear Publishing. This post will discuss the chaosiic in terms of Stormbringer's order and chaos conflict, not the Dungeons & Dragons alignment table as I consider the latter nonsensical.

The problem with para- and quasi-elements

The para- and quasi-elements have never been the most logical parts of planar geography. For example, steam is positively charged water and salt is negatively charged water, while ice is air plus water. Mimir.net went a step further and introduced quasi-para-elemental planes. Para-elements as logical mixtures of the elements was explored by Dark Sun. Air plus water made rain, air plus fire made sun, earth plus fire made magma, earth plus water made silt. The quasi-elements would be dramatically different depending on what logic is actually used, since they do not use the same logic.

• Ice, water and steam make sense as the phases of water.
• Radiance, fire and ash make sense as the stages of burning. You make sparks, sparks set the combustibles aflame, flame burns the combustibles to ash.
• Lightning, air and vacuum are not on the same spectrum.
• Mineral, earth and dust are not on the same spectrum either.

I have seen a few alternate versions of the para- and quasi-planes.

Pathguy suggests:

• Dust is between Air and Earth. "Negative Earth" is Grime.
• Steam is between Fire and Water. "Positive Water" is Rainbow.
• Mist is between Air and Water. "Negative Water" is Ice.

The 3e MotP suggests that the quasi-planes would follow the logic of positive border being dangerously dynamic and active, whereas the negative border would be drained of life and color.

• Air: the positive border would be storm, the negative vacuum.
• Earth: the positive border would be earthquake, and the negative would be slag.
• Fire: the positive border would be firestorm, the negative cinders.
• Water: the positive would be maelstrom, the negative stagnant.

In general I prefer some variation of the elemental chaos for the actual geography. While the para- and quasi-elementals themselves seem cool, as geography they are just silly. 

The plane of water: The sky of the plane of water is analogous to the plane of mist, rain or vapor. One example of its inhabitants is the niln or "vapor horror" from Tome of Horrors. The land of the plane of water is analogous to the plane of cold or ice, though it is not necessarily cold. The sea of the plane of water is the material plane sea, where the planes merge.

Supplements: Dark Dungeons, Slayers Guide to Elementals, Tome of Horrors Complete, Tome of Horrors 4

Links:

• http://smileylich.com/dnd/collective/Collective_Q15.html
• http://expeditiousretreat.blogspot.com/2015/05/enter-elemental-borderlands.html
• http://www.pathguy.com/inner.html
• https://mimir.net/mapinfinity/quasi.html
• http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?t=106
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/the-planes/
• https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DarkDungeonsSRD/Out_of_This_World#h5o-12
• http://blogofholding.com/?p=3908
• http://crushingskulls.blogspot.com/2011/04/quasi-elemental-planes.html

Undead rejuvenation

A number of undead monsters have a trait often named "rejuvenation." When re-killed, they will not stay dead but will instead rejuvenate after a period of time unless special conditions are met. This makes them particularly difficult to deal with...

The undead that typically rejuvenate in the SRD/PRD are the death knights/graveknights, ghosts/revenants, liches, mummy lords, and vampires. Death knights, liches, mummy lords and vampires are tied to particular anchors (e.g. panoply, phylactery, canopic jars, coffin) and typically will not stay dead until said anchor is destroyed. Ghosts and revenants will not stay down unless their unfinished business is solved.

This is further extended in various third party products. For example, the Unhallowed from Creature Collection Revised cannot be destroyed until confronted with their crimes on hallowed ground.

In Polyhedron #150, the Shadow Chasers mini-campaign setting extended this to all undead creatures. The example in the sample adventure were bog-standard skeletons that would keep rejuvenating unless coins were placed in their eye sockets. Mercifully, this was dropped when the setting was republished in d20 Modern.

Harpies versus sirens versus mermaids

Originally the harpies, sirens and mermaids were all clearly distinct. Sirens and mermaids were conflated in medieval bestiaries and fiction, with sirens acquiring fishy features and mermaids acquiring enchanting songs. Harpies and sirens remain distinct in popular culture, except in Dungeons & Dragons where harpies have gained the enchanting voices of sirens for no apparent reason.

Presentism and pseudo-medieval fantasy

Presentism is the projection of modern values and knowledge onto depictions of the past or of pre-industrial civilizations in fiction. It is frustratingly common for writers to write historical and fantasy fiction with the assumption that their characters hold modern values and scientific views. This is complete nonsense, of course.

Sources for Greek monsters

There were a number of third-party supplements exploring Greek mythology. These include the The New Argonauts, Relics & Rituals: Olympus, Mythic Vistas: The Trojan War, and Mazes & Minotaurs. They include races, classes and monsters from Greek mythology. I will be relying on these a lot for my posts on Greek monsters.

No, the plural of sleipnir is not sleipnirs

Paizo does it again: they multiplied Sleipnir into an entire race of eight-legged horses (a la Pegasus in Greek myth). And, of course, they are typed "magical beast" instead of giant (or half-giant?) even though Norse myth did not make a distinction. To add insult to injury (the latter is the injury, not the former, since they falsely claim to be accurate to myth), they applied the English plural suffix -s to make the plural sleipnirs. As you can probably guess, this does not match Old Norse noun declensions at all. As far as my research could determine, Sleipnir was a name (derived from a root for "slip", "slipper", and "slippery", referring to him slipping between the nine realms) and never had a plural form. If I had to guess from other nouns with the same ending, the plural would probably be sleipnar. These sleipnar would then be the descendants of Sleipnir. Speaking of which, Sleipnir never had a surname, but it probably would have been Lokason or Lokison.

Ecology of fire salamanders

Salamanders are the prototypical fire elemental, having been codified by Paracelsus in his writings on elementals. Contrary to the fairly limited depiction they get in D&D, I imagine salamander folks as being quite variable in appearance and lifestyle. Although commonly depicted as being serpentine centaurs, I think they should come in a variety of anatomical configurations including lizard centaurs, draconic centaurs and humanoids.

No, "gegenees" is not the singular form

Pathfinder, like its parent Dungeons & Dragons, likes to take monsters from real world mythology and mutilate them into bestiary entries. As Paizo produced more bestiaries, they quickly started scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Case in point: the gêgeneês (Greek γηγενεης), only briefly mentioned in the myth of the Argonauts, get an entry in Bestiary 5. For the most part they are barely changed from the myth, since there was not much to begin with, except that Paizo gives them tusks, blue skin, and mistakenly uses the plural of their name as the singular and plural forms.

Ecology of the minotaur, part 2: the curse of the maze

In my first post on minotaur ecology lore I promised to fit the diverse portrayals of the minotaur into a cohesive narrative but seemingly gave up halfway through. I will try to fulfill my promise starting in this post. More entries in the series will follow, hopefully...

ichneumon, or, “assassin's bane”

The ichneumon, meaning "tracker," is a fabulous account of the very real mongoose. The ichneumon is the enemy of reptiles, especially venomous predators like the basilisk, cockatrice and javelin snake. It hunts venomous serpents and crawls into the bellies of sleeping crocodiles to feast on their innards.

©1998 Jonathan Hunt

From here I’m going to speculate on possible uses in a gaming context. I take inspiration from the "assassin's bane" in Creature Collection Revised.

The ichneumon specializes in poison control because it is immune to poison and sniffs out nearby poisons. When it smells poison, even within a plant or animal, it becomes visibly agitated. The beast is quite popular among the nobility for this reason, much like drinking horns made from griffin talons, and is colloquially called the “assassin's bane.”

The ichneumon might be taken as a familiar or companion by druids, wizards and similar professions.

Links:

• http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast272.htm
• http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast541.htm
• http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/bestiary/civet.htm
• https://books.google.com/books?id=7PYWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=ichneumon
• http://warriorsofmyth.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dbs_Jonathan_Hunt_Bestiary_11_Ichneumon.jpg

Ecology of the ale rune wives, honey bee nymphs and mandrake roots

As we should all be well aware of by now, fantasy gaming takes monsters from myth and folklore and often twists them into something unrecognizable. Pathfinder is just as much of an offender as D&D, but the authors have the audacity to claim they are truer to the "source material" when they are not. In this post, I would like to focus on a trio of related monsters: the alraune, mandrake and thriae.

The titans are the parents of the gods

D&D and Pathfinder took the titans from Greek myth and mutilated them until they were unrecognizable. Apparently the titans are the children of the gods. When some titans rebelled for whatever reason, the gods smacked them down; this teaches no moral message that I may discern. Those titans ("empyrean titan" in the 5e MM) who did not rebel were allowed to pillage the land at whim; this teaches that the gods are dicks. Even if killed by a high-level party, their parent will resurrect them. Let's try something else, shall we?

Basilisk and cockatrice variants

In my previous post on basilisk and cockatrice ecology I mentioned that basilisks and cockatrices come in elemental variants, with the famous petrifying variants being the black scaled variety. In this post I will list and explore more variants beyond the elemental variety.

Aligned weapons

In the 3.x era, aligned weaponry raised some logical questions since it meant that when angels and demons fought their damage reduction did not work against each other, yet when demons and devils fought their damage reduction did work against each other.

5e has dropped 3.x's convoluted damage reduction mechanic in favor of a unified mechanic for damage vulnerability, resistance and immunity. Aligned damage no longer exists, although some effects deal damage to particular types: an arrow of dragon slaying deals extra damage to dragons and otherwise harmless holy water inflicts radiant damage to fiends and undead.

I feel that removing the concept of aligned damage was unnecessary if alignment's place in the rules has essentially been replaced by types, and some monsters like vampires and werewolves still resist non-silvered weapons. Furthermore, the mechanic of extra damage makes it easy to derive different degrees of harm to provide more granularity and avoid logic gaps.

For example: fiends might be resistant or immune to damage from mortal weapons but not fiendish weapons, whereas celestial weapons not only ignore their resistance or immunity but deal extra radiant damage. In practice, this means that a fight between demons and devils would deal damage normally to both, but a fight between angels and demons would result in even greater damage to both.

So you can both use your xibalban blade to cut an otherwise invulnerable demon as well as splash it with holy water or brush it with a blessed dagger to cause burns.

Disease as a spirit

I have been considering switching to Mythras and Classic Fantasy (a variant of RuneQuest) for some time, since I feel it is a better fit for my campaign setting than the idiosyncrasies of D&D. Among other things, Mythras is based on the premise that the fantasy world has fantasy physics as opposed to D&D operating on the premise that the fantasy world operates like modern science describes the real world with magic crudely tacked on. For example, Mythras treats disease as a spirit rather than a pathogen. More information below the break.

Poison as an element

D&D has a weird relationship with real science. The D&D world is based on the premise that it works like modern science describes the real world to work, and then tacks on magic to explain any deviations from real physics. The problem with this is that the rules get real physics wrong: for example, D&D portrays poison in a way contradictory to reality. More information below the break.

Obsolete scientific theories in fantasy physics

As part of my intention to design a fantasy setting where nature is part of magic, I looked to obsolete scientific theories in the real world. Over the course of history, people have believed in a lot of stuff that was later proved false. In the fantasy world, however, these make a great alternative to real science and should help make for a more consistent fantasy setting.

Fantastical languages

As part of the nature and magic dichotomy, fantasy roleplaying divides speech into mundane languages and spells which let you talk to animals and inanimate objects. As part of removing the magic/nature divide, languages will become more fantastical and interesting. Here are some examples of new magical languages.

My genies are different

D&D makes genies out to be some kind of competition for the gods, which I am going to throw out right now. In my setting, genies are just elemental humanoids and just like player races they can dramatically vary in power. This is taken from Arabic folklore on the subject, in which genies or "jinn" (depending on romanization scheme) are considered to be just another race created by Allah. Now I shall launch into a tirade on the subject and how it relates to D&D.