That's not a wendigo! It's the wild hunt!

As I recounted in my last post on the wendigo, modern popular culture has twisted the wendigo from a carnivorous demon of cold with highly variable physical features to what can only be described as a "zombie were-deer." This is not the first time that the wendigo myth has been mutilated by settlers, and it is possible to trace the changes over the years in the media.

Ghouls, Vampires and Zombies

Although originally fairly distinct in their original mythologies, these three creatures have been blurred in modern popular culture. The modern idea of the zombie as an infectious flesh-eater is actually due to conflation with ghouls and vampires.

The ghoul was originally a type of demon or genie that consumed corpses and could disguise themselves as human. Some stories depict disguised ghouls marrying humans and having children with them, before inevitably being discovered when their spouse investigates their unusual behavior.

The vampire was originally a reanimated corpse or ghost that predated on humans, stealing breath, consuming flesh, etc. They spread sickness and disease, including vampirism.

The zombie was originally a corpse reanimated by an evil sorcerer to use as slave labor. This was culturally relevant because these tales circulated during the height of the Colombian slave trade.

There is overlap between ghouls and vampires in some instances, such as if the vampire is actually a corpse possessed by a demon. Folklore is often vague, so it is difficult to tell when this is the case unless explicitly stated.

Tribes of the centaurs, part 3: the other centaurs

Although commonly depicted with equine halves, centaurs have since been expanded to cover a variety of animal halves. Some of these have precedent in mythology, while others are wholly modern inventions. These include the bull-centaur, fish-centaur, winged centaur and leonine-centaur, the subjects of this post. More below the break...

Tribes of the centaurs, part 2: the horse-centaurs

As I explained in part 1 of this series, Greek myth posited that the centaurs are divided into a number of tribes. The ixionidae are descended from Ixion: his son(s) the Centaur or centaurs sired the hippocentaurs (horse-centaurs) on the Magnesian mares. However, there were a few tribes of hippocentaurs without a common origin. More below the break...

Why can’t the physical elements have mental and spiritual counterparts?

The title of this post comes from "Limyaael's Rant #323: Elemental Magic". This is a very good question to ask. All too often elemental magic systems feel the need to introduce a fifth element for "spirit" or something along those lines. A number of writers for tabletop games have wondered this question and provided their own answers to it.

The Nephilim roleplaying game published by Chaosium, as well as the derivative sourcebook Enlightened Magic, posits a system of several elements including air, earth, fire, moon, sun, and water. These are explained as possessing both physical and spiritual aspects within both the environment and living things, to the degree that each directly corresponds to a gaming attribute: air to intelligence, earth to constitution, fire to strength, moon to charisma, sun to wisdom, and water to dexterity. Elemental magic uses any element to create effects on the environment and living things; the alchemy rules from the latter book specifically divide into three circles of physical, mental and spiritual effects that rely on any of the elements.

S. John Ross wrote "Elemental Magic for GURPS" which posited five elements of earth, water, air, fire and aether, each of which were divided into living and non-living aspects. As in the historical theory of the four humors, this system posits that living things are composed of a mixture of all the elements. Each of the elements manifests differently in living things: earth as flesh, water as soul, air as intellect, and fire as passion. Aether corresponds to the space and time in which living things exist, making it simultaneously physical and non-physical. This is both clever and simple, so I am surprised "space-time" is not used as an element by more writers.

The "Five Cities World" by Garblag Games uses an... interesting elemental magic system. I cannot make heads or tails of it.

Ecology of the Cyclops

The cyclops in fantasy gaming is fairly boring. It is just another giant monster that is out to kill you. This is in contrast to their place in Greek mythology, in which they were the allies of Zeus who forged his lightning bolt and helped him overthrow Cronus.

Why are giants distinct from humanoids?

One of the problems encountered by D&D is that it shoves a bunch of monsters from unrelated world mythologies and expects them to play nice. Giants are a perfect example. D&D arbitrarily limits creatures of the giant type to giant humanoids, ignoring the diversity of giants in myth. Furthermore, there isn't an actual distinction between giants and humanoids besides giants being humanoids of at least "large" size in the game rules. Why are they not a humanoid (giant) tag?

In mythology, giants were distinguished by having fairly clear origins. Norse giants were the children of Ymir and ranged from humanoids, to multi-headed humanoids, to giant animals like Fenris, Jormungand and Sleipnir. There wasn't a clear distinction between giants and half-giants, either. Greek giants were the children of Gaia, and similarly included non-humanoid monsters like Typhon and Leon. The Fomorians, who might have been giants but it's difficult to tell, had only vague origins in the wilderness. And so on.

D&D's giants don't have a clear reason to be giants. Even Trudvang has a better distinction by making them into elemental beings leftover from the creation of the world. (Which I am totally using, by the way.) So my idea for giving them a distinct origin, which justifies being their own type, is to treat them as the children of the primordial titans or primal creation or whatever the equivalent is and that is why they have an elemental affiliation too. Humanoids are either their degenerate descendants (a la Warcraft), created from weaker stock or such (e.g. in Sumerian myth humanity was made from the blood of Tiamat).

Monsters as manifestations of the elemental fields

One of my inspirations for reinventing elementals was the ancient roleplaying game Nephilim. Originally published in France from the early 90s for three editions before the publisher went under, it was briefly translated and adapted by Chaosium in the mid 90s. Nephilim operated on the conceit that the world was the result of the interactions of six elemental "aethyrs" generated by the sun, planets and moon. The sun released rays that reflected off the moon and the planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Thus produced the elements of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Moon and Sun.