Different models for fantasy space travel

After some thought, I decided to put together some ideas for space fantasy campaigns. To that end, I would present several different models for space travel physics as distinct campaign setting cosmologies.

Aristotelia, the setting of celestial spheres

This setting is based on Blood & Treasure, Dark Dungeons, and Voidspanners.

In Aristotelia, the physics of space travel are very different from reality. The night sky is actually the surface of a massive "celestial sphere" that encompasses the solar system. Outside of the sphere is the "luminiferous aether" and access to other celestial spheres in the universe.

Celestial spheres are not all made the same, but may have different local physics. One sphere might be heliocentric while another is geocentric. One sphere might be filled with an airless "void" (astronauts carry their own air supply without needing suits), while another is full of a breathable "ether." One sphere might have its inner and outer planes as inner and outer planets inside the sphere, while another has its inner planes inside the sphere and its outer planes outside the sphere.

Propulsion systems include:

• Sails of Skysailing are a magical effect that allow ships to fly through the air, void, and luminiferous aether. These are made from the silk of phase spiders and may be attached to conventional sailing ships.
• Void engines are magical items that propel vessels through the void. These need to be activated by a power source, such as a wand, a wizard, or a sacrificial victim.
• Ether sails are magical sails that ride the ether winds. These do not need a power source, but they are only effective in ether currents.
• Tree ships are rare vessels created by elfin druids.

Alhazenia, the setting of outer space

This setting is based on all those settings in which astronomy and outer space operates as it does in real life.

In Alhazenia, star systems and outer space functions as it does in reality. This makes it easy for a player familiar with modern astronomy to enter the setting. There are multiple competing methods for space travel, not one universal method used across the universe. These include fantasy magic, science fiction technology, and more based on a variety of different power sources.

Power sources harnessed for applications as propulsion systems include:

• Magic. Wizards can cast spells or create magic items that allow space travel.
• FTL drive. Seen in Dragonstar, Starfinder, and many other settings. These are taken straight out of scifi, so read scifi for details. I dislike this approach as I find it lazy and bland.
• Flux culler. Seen in Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse. These non-magical devices generate the electrical force known as "flux," which provides propulsion by interacting repulsively with the "aether" suffusing the universe.
• Aetherdrive. Seen in Aethera Campaign Setting. These are "magic-technology hybrids" powered by "highly toxic crystals" with "naturally telekinetic properties."

Fitting the planes of existence into Alhazenia requires more work. I should save that for a future post.

Monsters that mimic objects and terrain

D&D has so many monsters whose shtick can be summarized as a simple formula:

1. Pick a taxonomic category like gastropod, cephalopod, manta ray, slime mold, etc.
2. Pick a piece of terrain, architecture, clothing, furniture, surface, etc
3. Create a monster out of category #1 that pretends to be object of category #2.
4. Voila!

This formula is so silly and overused that there have been numerous articles over the years mocking it. Such monsters are often called "obnoxious" or "stupid."

While some writers like to invent new ecologies for these trick monsters, I personally found it easier to treat them all as variations on the mimic. Eventually I might decide to explore ecologies for mimic snails, mimic squids, mimic rays, etc. But it seems a bit silly, no?

Dragon spiders and spider dragons?

A concept I found while googling are the dragon spiders aka spider dragons. Dragons with arachnid (or other arthropod) traits, arachnids with draconic traits, or some horrible hybrid of the two? Who knows! They’re just plain creepy and I like it that way.

Spidragon © 2016 Crowsrock

Some examples of spider dragons include:

• The arachnidrake from Book of Drakes. It is a winged dragon with arachnid features, and has a swarm of spiders living on its skin.
• The draconid from Tome of Horrors. It is a giant arachnid with two dragon heads on serpentine necks. No relation to the similar looking slassans below, but you could always posit a connection.
• The slassan from Arcana Evolved. It is a giant arachnid with a dragon head on a serpentine neck; it is an intelligent creature with mystical abilities. In The Diamond Throne campaign setting, the slassan and mojh were hybrid descendants of the dramojh (fiendish dragons). 
• Reprinted as aqrabuamelu in Monsters of Porphyra 2. "Aqrabuamelu" is another name for the scorpion-men spawned by Tiamat in Mesopotamian myth. In addition to OGL constraints, the new name was presumably used because girtablilu was already taken by Pathfinder Bestiary.

I haven't really worked out any kind of background or theology for it, but I wanted to indulge in some brief world building ideas. I'm thinking that Tiamat, the primordial dragon of chaos and salt water, spawned a number of aberrant dragons. When they entered the mortal world, they appeared in the forms of spiders (a la Ungoliant) but their dragon nature showed through their new forms. And that's where the spider dragons come from.

I had ideas for other connections too. I was thinking of substituting Arcana Evolved's dramojh, slassan, and mojh with the manalishi from OSRIC, aqrabuamelu from MoP, and dragonborn from SRD 5. No firm idea of their relationship yet, maybe in later posts after I defined what the heck a dragon even is supposed to be.

Links

• https://wanderingmoonsword.tumblr.com/post/153494310794/draconid
• https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/184120
• http://fav.me/d98ysed
• http://5e.d20srd.org/srd/races.htm#Dragonborn
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/draconid-tohc/
• https://koboldpress.com/arachnidrake/
• https://dragon-story.fandom.com/wiki/Spider_Dragon
• http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=7664

The vouivre, a weird wyvern/woman thing

The vouivre is a she-dragon from French folklore. The name derives from the Latin for "viper," and refers to the wyvern of heraldry or a mythical dragon inhabiting Lorraine, Jura, and other regions of France. In English, I suppose the idiomatic translation would be viperess or wyverness.

The following two pages from the comic book Vouivre: Thunder of Fury helpfully summarize the tales of this particular dragon:

The dragon is described as fond of bathing in her private cave and capable of assuming human form. This invites comparison to another French dragon, Melusine. Melusine became a dragon once a week and at this time bathed alone in her private quarters. A Book of Creatures calls the vouivres her spiritual descendants stripped of human form, with later accounts conflating the two to give the vouivre her womanly qualities where originally she lacked such attributes entirely.

Various regions of France and neighboring countries put their own spins on the myth. Traits include appearing as animals or balls of fire, greedily guarding treasure, dependence on magic gems (compare draconite from other folklore), and so forth. Your typical weird folklore stuff.

Modern sources put further spins on the monster:

1. When she was imported to the video game Megami Tensei, the vouivre appeared as a demon with features of both woman and dragon. Indeed, the left half of her body appears human but the right half appears monstrous!
2. When she was imported to the tabletop game Pathfinder, perhaps influenced by Megami Tensei, the vouivre became a bizarre creature resembling an amphisbaena with one end of the body appearing as a lovely woman. One wonders what was going through the writer's head, but I find it delightfully weird!

I like all these ideas so much. If I wanted to have the monster appear in all these forms, then I would use a simple explanation: the viperess' is a shape changer. Her power is flawed, however, and always reveals some obvious hint of her true nature. For example, the right or lower half of her body still appearing as a dragon, or she is followed by an entourage of vipers, or even that she sheds her dragon skin to bathe and is at the mercy of whoever steals it (echoing tales of the mermaid wife).

Research links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guivre
• https://www.blackdrago.com/species/vouivre.htm
• http://www.blackdrago.com/fame/melusine.htm
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vouivre
• https://abookofcreatures.com/2015/12/11/vouivre/
• https://www.wordnik.com/words/viperess
• https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type4080.html

Gaming and popular culture links

• https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Vouivre
• http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2014/02/vouivre.html
• https://shop.gempakstarz.com/clay/LM-XV-S03-ENG

Random generation tables for the basilisk and cockatrice

Since I made random generation tables for the manticore, I decided I might as well do tables for the basilisk and cockatrice. I wrote these tables to reflect the sheer variety of basilisk and cockatrice depictions in medieval and modern art and literature. Such as the inset image:

"Eating Chips and Salsa" @BlueBroxton

I counted all the different depictions I could remember together, so these tables should provide results that were never depicted before. Even so, I doubt I accounted for every possibility so you should feel free to change these tables up at your leisure.

I didn't include any specific mechanical effects because I don't know what rules you'd be using, so any mechanical effects are suggestions only. Feel free to introduce your own mechanics or treat the results as purely cosmetic. If nothing else, then it might come in handy if you are drawing.

These tables are organized by head, body, tail, and special attack.

Head features

Species. Roll 1d5 to determine general species of the head

1. Rooster
2. Lizard
3. Snake
4. Dinosaur
5. Multiple heads. Roll 1d4 to determine species, then roll 1d3 to determine number of heads.

Crown. Roll 1d6 to determine the appearance of the crown.*

1. Diamond pattern
2. Feathery plume. Bonus to first impression.
3. Rooster's comb. Charisma bonus against hens.
4. Antlers or horns. Gains gore attack.
5. Vestigial wings. Gains wing buffet attack.
6. Literal crown. This crown counts as treasure, possibly even magic (GM's discretion).
7. Roll 1d6 twice, ignore nonsensical results.
8. Roll 1d6 thrice, ignore nonsensical results.

Tongue. Roll 1d4 to determine the appearance of the tongue.*

1. Normal pointed
2. Forked like snake. Gains scent ability.
3. Spade ended. Bonus to bite damage.
4. Has two tongues, one forked and one spade.

Neck. Roll 1d8 to determine the appearance of the neck.*

1. Smooth scales
2. Rooster waddle. Charisma bonus against hens.
3. Feathery mane. Bonus to cuteness.
4. Movable frill. Bonus to intimidation when unfurled and hissing.
5. Patterned cobra hood. Bonus to intimidation.
6. Long serpentine neck
7. Roll 1d6 twice, ignore nonsensical results.
8. Roll 1d6 thrice, ignore nonsensical results.

*Roll once for each head, if more than one.

Body features

Size. Roll 1d3 to determine the monster's size.

1. Small
2. Medium
3. Large

Body covering. Roll 1d5 to determine the appearance of the skin.

1. All scaled like snake or lizard. Charisma bonus against reptiles.
2. Feathered body with scaly legs like rooster. Charisma bonus against birds.
3. Smooth pinkish skin like a plucked turkey. Charisma penalty against everyone.
4. Patchy mix of scales, skin and feathers
5. Roll 1d4, and this time it is covered in eyes. Cannot be flanked. The eyes sleep in shifts, so it can't be surprised that way.

Movement. Roll 1d3 to determine stance and locomotion.

1. Serpentine slithering without legs. Cannot be tripped.
2. Walking on two or more pairs of legs*
3. Serpentine slithering, with two or more pairs of legs*

*Roll 1d4 to determine the number of pairs of legs, if any. Each leg past the first pair boosts resistance to tripping.

Limbs. Roll 1d4 to determine appearance of the legs and feet, if any.

1. Scaly like lizard
2. Talons and spurs like rooster. Gains claw/stab attack.
3. Feathered like second pair of wings. Gains bonus to flight rolls.
4. Vestigial legs. Relies on serpentine slithering anyway.

Wings. Roll 1d8 to determine the presence and appearance of wings

1. Wingless
2. Bird wings
3. Bird wings with talons. Gains claw attack. Allows climbing.
4. Bat wings. Allow hopping and climbing.
5. Feathery bat wings
6. Pterodactyl wings. Allow walking and climbing.
7. Feathery pterodactyl wings
8. Flightless fan-like fins. Allow swimming.

Tail features

Length. Roll 1d6 to determine the length and appearance of the tail.

1. Long reptilian tail
2. Long reptilian tail covered in feathers. Gains tickle attack.
3. Long colorful pheasant tail feathers. Gains bonus to first impression.
4. Long reptilian tail covered in fan-like feather. Gains bonus to flight.
5. Short feathered fan tail. Do not roll for tail's tip.
6. Vestigial or absent reptilian tail. Do not roll for tail's tip.

Tip. Roll 1d6 to determine the appearance of the tail's tip, if any.

1. No special tip
2. Spaded tip. Gains stab attack.
3. Feathered plume. Gains bonus to first impression.
4. Snake's head. Gains venomous bite attack.
5. Cockatrice's head. Gains petrifying bite attack.
6. Basilisk's head. Gains petrifying gaze attack.

Special attacks

Type. Roll 1d3 to determine the general nature of the special attack. Roll once for each head, if any.

1. Gaze attack
2. Bite attack
3. Breath weapon (same dimensions as a gorgon's breath)

Effect. Roll 2d4−1 to determine the effect of the attack and the monster's coloration.

1. Petrify. Black coloration.
2. Immolate. Red, yellow, and orange coloration.
3. Liquefy. Sea green coloration.
4. Evaporate. White coloration.
5. Freeze. Blue coloration.
6. Hemorrhage. Blood-red coloration.
7. Poison. Forest green coloration.

Celestial spheres cosmology, part 2

I previously mentioned the Aristotelian/Dantean cosmology of celestial spheres. The OD&D game took inspiration from the concept when it developed its Mystaraspace cosmology, which would go on to inform the cosmology of Spelljammer. This cosmology was also adopted (or adapted) by retroclones including Blood & Treasure, Dark Dungeons, and Voidspanners. The specifics and jargon vary between settings, so I'll be using Dark Dungeons as my primary reference here.

The basics

In contrast to the Aristotelian/Dantean cosmology, the celestial spheres are much simplified in this model and take further inspiration from the obsolete scientific theory of ether and modern astronomy; it is unique as far as cosmography models go. The solar system generally behaves much as its does in reality, with the planets orbiting the sun (although some systems may be geocentric or weirder). However, Aristotle's firmament of the fixed stars remains as the sole celestial sphere ("crystal sphere" in D&D jargon). The interplanetary space inside the sphere is an empty "void"; unlike real physics, living creatures have sufficient personal gravity to carry a small supply of air and aren't in any danger of a zero pressure environment. The space and planets within the celestial sphere is mirrored in each of the adjacent inner planes (air, earth, fire, water, ether), which are called "inner planes" because they all exist within the sphere. Outside of the sphere is the luminiferous aether, which is the equivalent of interstellar space. Other celestial spheres containing their own planetary systems exist throughout the luminiferous aether.

Space travel is generally accomplished using spacecraft that are powered by magitech or exploit quirks of the fantasy physics, such as through engines, sails, or other means of propulsion. These vessels are generally modeled after sailing ships, and may even be capable of doubling as sea ships and/or airships.

The OD&D and AD&D games differ greatly when it comes to depicting the outer planes. In the original celestial spheres cosmology, outer planes aka demiplanes were artificial spheres created by the immortals (mortals ascended to divinity) that were anchored to a celestial sphere. In AD&D's Manual of the Planes, the outer planes became independent of the celestial spheres cosmology entirely; when it was retrofitted later as Spelljammer, redundancies were introduced such as the distinction between the "phlogiston" (luminiferous aether) and the deep ethereal plane.

One wonders whether Disney's Treasure Planet was influenced by the game.

Simple variations

Blood & Treasure and Voidspanners put their own spins on this basic model. Both settings are closer to the original Aristotelian Universe in that their universe does not extend beyond the firmament, as opposed to having multiple such spheres emulating real star systems. Both settings diverge when it comes to the nature of the planets, however.

In Voidspanners, the system is heliocentric and the planets may be visited and traded with as per the Dark Dungeons model. Furthermore, the void is full of breathable ether; although prolonged exposure may still be harmful. Overall, the differences from the standard model are minor. As a supplement for Basic Fantasy, no rules for the other planes' geography are included.

In Blood & Treasure, the celestial sphere model is combined with the "orrery" or "solar system" model mentioned in the guides for designing your own planar cosmology. Here the planetary system ("Land of Nod") is geocentric and the transitive, inner and outer planes are presented as concentric spheres and associated planets: the ethereal plane corresponds to the lunar orbit, the astral plane corresponds to the space beyond, the inner planes correspond to the inner planets and the outer planes correspond to the outer planets. Taking a further page from Dante, Hell is located inside the earth and Heaven corresponds to the surface of the firmament.

Since these settings are limited to single systems, it is possible for them to be integrated into the basic model by presenting them simply as quirky spheres floating within the luminiferous aether. IIRC, the D&D canon cosmology uses similar logic to explain the cosmological differences between the different official campaign settings: each celestial sphere may have its own set of planes that aren't necessarily the same as those of other spheres.

On another note, the surface of the celestial sphere is comparable to the outer plane "The Vault of Stars" from 3pp Classic Play: The Book of the Planes. If you want to have adventures on the literal night sky, then I highly recommend using that book (not that I found any alternatives, mind you).

Hellhounds and other fantastic canines

In this post, I will direct my attention briefly to the numerous varieties of fantastic canines in fantasy gaming.

Variations of the great wheel

I haven't posted a planar post in a while so I thought I should get on that.

The "wheel" or "great wheel" cosmology is the default cosmology for the D&D status quo. Originally presented in the Manual of the Planes, it has since received a bunch of different variations. Years ago I tried my hand at reinventing the wheel (pun intended), but I don't recall ever giving a comparison of this cosmology with its several variations. So here we go!

Canonical

Below are the two generally accepted versions of the Great Wheel. The Great Wheel has generally remained the same across the various editions in which it appeared, with only minor changes. The most obvious between 2e and 5e would be the condensing of the lesser elemental planes into the elemental chaos and the addition of the shadowfell and feywild to the inner planes.

Great Wheel circa 2e

Great Wheel circa 5e

The Great Wheel is also called the Planescape cosmology. The prime material plane also has crystal spheres, but those are another can of worms also called the Spelljammer cosmology. When the two are used in tandem, the fandom jargon for the setting is "Planejammer."

Apocrypha

Plenty of GMs have adopted the Great Wheel wholesale with little or no change, such as Anethemalon.

Anethemalon Planes of Existence

The Planescape fans have since added tons of other planes to the wheel. These additions include extra elemental planes, extra outer planes, and extra transitive planes.

Elemental Planes by Sapiento

More inclusive Outlands

Other wheels

Since the Great Wheel isn't OGL, third-party publishers have resorted to creating their own wheels if necessary. For example, both Mongoose's Classic Play: The Book of the Planes and Paizo's Pathfinder present simplified wheels in which the outer planes have been reduced to nine (one for each alignment). Mongoose simply called this the "wheel" cosmology; Paizo called theirs the "Great Beyond."

A generic wheel cosmogram

The Great Beyond

Personally, I prefer simplified cosmologies like the omniverse or world axis because I think all the extra paraplanes and quasiplanes get silly and redundant after a while. But that's for other posts.

Some thoughts on the lusca (sharktopus)

The lusca is a cryptid reputed to swim the waters of the Caribbean, variously described as part shark, dragon, and octopus. In modern popular culture, like Pathfinder Bestiary, it is often depicted as a "sharktopus."

Ideas for catfolk

Catfolk are one of the standard beastfolk races in fantasy and scifi that features beastfolk.

There isn't really much I can say that hasn't already been said by the innumerable catfolk writeups in various fantasy supplements. Instead, I decided to put together some traits from various different catfolk in scifi and fantasy. I had this in my head for a couple years but somehow haven't posted until now.

My primary influences are: khajiit from The Elder Scrolls, artathi from Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races, and c'tarl-c'tarl from Outlaw Star.

From the khajiit: I take the concept of astrological birth signs determining the degree of anthropomorphism. Based on their birth sign, a catfolk may range in size from a talking housecat to a horse-sized panther and range in appearance from an intelligent feline to a human/elf with slight feline features.

From the artathi: I take the concept of a caste system based on their feline species aspect. These castes would include lion, tiger, puma, lynx, cheetah, leopard, jaguar, and snow leopard. As with other caste systems, each is pigeonholed into particular social and economic roles. Mixed-race individuals would be considered outcasts.

From the c'tarl-c'tarl: I take the concept of a shapeshifter who can change shape from nearly human to giant cat and everything in between. This would be considered a distinct birth sign.

Miscellaneous links

• https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CatFolk
• https://gamingeveryman.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/so-sick-of-catgirls/
• https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/133161/Animal-Races-Clan-of-the-Cat
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Catfolk

On the naming of demons

Demons (and other fiends, I don’t distinguish here) in fantasy gaming have undergone a few naming schemes over the last forty-odd years.

Originally they were named with numerals, but that quickly became unwieldy once they got to "Type V demon"/"Type 6 demon"/"Sixth-category demon" and beyond. Although the Dante’s Inferno-inspired supplements by Judges Guild and Spellbook Games apparently expanded this scheme by adding Latin letters, such as a "Type 3B devil". Similar numerical expansions are apparently used in other OSR products.

In later editions of D&D the demons got gibberish names (apparently meant to be demon language) by species like balor, marilith, and glabrezu. This also quickly becomes unwieldy because these names don't mean anything in English. There are a bazillion demons and those names aren't memorable.

Many writers across many 3rd-party publishers opted to use simple descriptions of the demon’s obvious shtick, such as ice devil, fly demon, two-faced demon, jester demon, etc. Pathfinder 2e takes this approach: balor becomes "fire demon", glabrezu becomes "treachery demon," marilith becomes "pride demon," shemhazian becomes "mutilation demon," succubus becomes "lust demon," vrock becomes "wrath demon", etc.

I see nothing inherently wrong with all of these approaches. I think it makes sense for all demons to have numerical indexes, names in the demon tongue, and descriptive names in English.

The arbitrariness of beastfolk

Fantasy gaming has many races variously known as “beastmen” or “beastfolk.” Catfolk, ratfolk, mongrelfolk, etc. I have alluded to these in past posts but didn't address them directly until now.

The basic premise of my world building attempt is that the beastfolk are worshipers of the beast lords, one of the groups of primal spirits or nature deities alongside the plant lords and elemental lords (a la Stormbringer, which D&D liberally copies). The beast lords are responsible for creating them, and each race is associated with a specific lord (or lords, as the case may be).

There are multiple ways to create beastfolk, not just heredity. This is because there are an arbitrary number of possible beastfolk and I don’t want to waste time on a bazillion entries for each race. Some may receive more attention than others, if only because fantasy gaming has focused more on them. For example, beastmen could be transformed humans, uplifted animals, or wholly original.

Here are some examples I thought of how a beastman’s animal aspect might be determined. I'm sure you can think of countless others.

• When an animal is uplifted to a beastman, its aspect is determined by the animal it used to be.
• This aspect may be changed through various means, such as the blessing of another patron, transmutation spells, etc.
• Beastmen are born in an ambiguous humanoid form and gain their aspect later in life. (Alternately, their animal aspect is not fixed until later in life. Like the daemons in His Dark Materials, their animal aspects shift based on their emotions.)
• A beastboy goes on a rite of passage to find his spirit animal or totem. After succeeding, he gains his animal aspect and is considered a man.
• A beastboy receives magical tattoos that determine his animal aspect, a la Lunars in Exalted.
• The animal aspect is determined by their faith or the blessing of their patron totem. Changing their faith (i.e. Beast Lord worshiped) changes their animal aspect.
• The animal aspect is determined by hereditary bloodline. This may be general (mammalian beastfolk has mammalian children of any specific aspect) or highly specific (wolfmen are only born to wolfmen parents).
• How quick is the transformation from one aspect to another?
• As a beastboy matures into a beastman, his human visage steadily becomes more beastly until he is fully therianthropomorphic.
• The transformation occurs more or less instantly upon the aspect being determined or changed.
• A beastboy's animal aspect is present from birth. He may become more or less human as he matures or grows in power, similar to anime character power ups.
• Beastmen appear as varying combinations of human and animal, determined by genetics, magical practices, or random chance.

Here are some examples of specific races that seem to show up fairly regularly (and not so regularly) in fantasy:

• The reptilefolk are the descendants of the Atlantean saurian race (aka dramojh, sarruk, sli’ess, samat, etc). The saurian race selectively bred themselves into a caste system, each caste resembling different reptiles like serpents, chameleons and tortoises. This obscured the unstable nature of their bloodlines, and by modern times many display bizarre mutations. The serpentfolk engaged in crossbreeding experiments with freakish results. (Based on Slavelords of Cydonia, He-Man, Warhammer Fantasy, Robert E. Howard, etc.) They would be patronized by, depending on whether you care for real taxonomy, the Beast Lord of Dragons, Reptiles, Dinosaurs, and/or Birds.
• The catfolk have highly varying degrees of anthropomorphism, ranging from nearly human to bipedal panthers. These are known as birth-signs since it is determined by astrology at their birth. Although they look identical at birth, close to humans in fact, as they age their appearance develops into that decided by their birth-sign. (Based on Outlaw Star, The Elder Scrolls, anime catgirls, etc.)
• The ratfolk always look like anthropomorphic rats, although they range in size from halflings to ogres. They come in many different cultures, ranging from peaceful monastic orders, to alien biker gangs, to vicious hordes of mad cultists. (Based on Ptolus, Scarred Lands, Warhammer Fantasy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice From Mars, etc.) They would be patronized by the Beast Lord of Rodents and/or Muroids.
• The mongrelfolk are the chimerical beastmen. I already wrote a post about them in which I posited they are the planetouched by the planes of discord and chaos. As beastmen, they would be patronized by the Beast Lord of Chimeras; s/he may well be a naturalized aberration or other demon of chaos.

In the future I would like to give more detail to various beastmen races. Perhaps expand the beast lords into a full-fledged feudal system to account for the messiness of real taxonomy.

Miscellaneous links

• http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/2010/04/bx-beastmaster.html
• http://joyfulsitting.blogspot.com/2016/03/beast-men-from-d.html
• https://screamingstoryteller.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-sankarjin-furry-race.html
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Beastmen
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Beastfolk
• http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism
• http://www.dmsguild.com/product/188081/Beastfolk-an-Original-Race-for-DD-5e
• https://gate-thus-the-jsdf-fought-there.fandom.com/wiki/Humanoid#Part-Animals
• https://overlordmaruyama.fandom.com/wiki/Beastman
• https://tensura.fandom.com/wiki/Beastman

Celestial spheres cosmology

The “celestial spheres” are an outdated model of the solar system dating back to Aristotle.

The Aristotelian universe consisted of the world in the center (composed of the four elements air, earth, fire, and water), the celestial spheres above (composed of the fifth element ether), and the spherical firmament of the fixed stars surrounding all.

A modern interpretation of the Aristotelian Universe, with the earth in the center, the elements above, then the celestial spheres, and finally the firmament.

People actually believed this was how the universe worked. It supplanted earlier models in which the world was flat, the heavens or “firmament” was a literal dome which separated the world from the “waters” of primordial chaos, and the underworld was another dome under the flat Earth which complemented the heavens. (A model I mentioned in past posts. It roughly informs the omniverse and world axis cosmologies.)

This model influenced some retroclone writers. The Pathfinder cosmology (specifically the Golarion campaign setting) based the organization its elemental planes on Aristotle’s. The Blood & Treasure cosmology (specifically the Nod campaign setting) adopts Aristotle’s cosmology wholesale, and combines it with that of Dante’s Inferno too. As I mentioned in a previous post, Nod’s cosmology goes even further and makes each of the planets an outer plane. ADDEDUM 11/21/2019: The Voidspanners setting also uses a variation of the Aristotelian celestial spheres. Unlike Nod, these are mundane planets and not outer planes as planets.

Why is this remotely relevant? It occurred to me that I was going about campaign cosmology all wrong. This should be common sense! There is no reason why the multiverse cannot contain multiple universes with different cosmologies. A flat world, celestial spheres, solar systems, etc.

In future posts I should like to describe a multiverse consisting of multiple universes with different cosmologies.

Walking dead and spectral dead intellect

An oddity I noticed in the distribution of undead intelligence scores is that the incorporeal undead are almost always of average intelligence. Of those in the MM, only the shadow has INT lower than 10.

I don’t understand why this would be the case. In general I would have expected the specter, will-o’-wisp, and wraith to have lower intelligence. I would’ve expected at least some spectral dead with comparable intelligence to zombies and skeletons.

Or perhaps, more likely, the writers didn’t give much thought to what effect intelligence had on the fluff. 

In real life, the voodoo religion tells of “astral zombies” as the spectral counterparts of regular zombies. These spirits are enslaved by bokors and used to perform various tasks.

In a future post, I plan on dedicating thought to a more thoughtful ecology of the spectral dead. With influence from The Lord of the Rings too.

We don’t need so many reptilian races

One of many oddities of D&D is that it has a bazillion reptilian races. As with goblinoids and orcs, I think it makes the most sense to treat all these chike/gatorfolk, kobolds, lizardfolk, serpentfolk/naga/ophiduan/inphidian, lernaeati/dorvae/manalishi, troglodytes/xulgath, dinosaurfolk, etc as members of the same monster family. For example, the reptilian races could be distinguished by categories like subrace, caste, size, tribe, degree of anthropomorphism, etc a la Warhammer Fantasy lizardmen.

Way back I briefly recapped the saurian race from Slavelords of Cydonia, which had several castes representing different reptile varieties like gators, chameleons, and turtles. I said back then that it made sense too, but this moment I wanted to add something else.

The reptilian races should be explicitly linked with dragons, dragonborn/dragonkin/dragonspawn, and so forth. In D&D-inspired media, this is already seen to a degree like the “dragonewt” race.

Furthermore, I think this family should (vaguely) include what amphibian races exist. A herptilefolk family? I alluded to this a while back when I discussed the Ogdoad of Ancient Egypt, a paired set of primordial deities in the forms of snakes and frogs. (Which are the parents of basilisks. Patterns are fun!)

In a future post I intend to explain about how I would define dragons based on comparative mythology rather than the idiosyncratic D&D norms.

A brief list of aboleth variants

Many different aboleth variants have been published in third part products. Here is a listing of some of them. (Servitor races are not listed here.)

These are simple additions to the aboleth family:

• The behemoth, engulfer, manipulator, livyathan, protoaboleth, and larval aboleth swarm appear in Monster Menagerie: Horrors of the Aboleth.
• The nihilith appears in Tome of Beasts.
• The veiled master appears in Pirate Campaign Compendium.

These additions presume that the core aboleth is a member of a family called the [lethid] (invented by Grim Tales). Many lethid are parasitic.

• The mohldaleth, nihileth, rgleth, shibboleth, and true aboleth appear in Slavelords of Cydonia.
• The possessor appears in Possessors: Children of the Outer Gods and reprinted in Forgotten Foes. Not originally a member of the aboleth family, but the lethid are based on its rules.

These additions presume that the core aboleth is a member of a family called the [alghollthu] (invented by Pathfinder).

• The omnipath and veiled master appear in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 6.
• The uldraaghu appears in Pathfinder Adventure Path #121: The Lost Outpost.
• The enisysian appears in Pathfinder Adventure Path #124: City in the Deep.
• The plizeazoth appears in Pathfinder Adventure Path #125: Tower of the Drowned Dead.

As I mentioned in prior posts on aboleth, I decided to use all of these together. I love variety in monster families.

Larry Fessenden's deer-headed wendigo... was not actually deer-headed!

As Emily Zarka, Ph.D., helpfully informed us, the image of the windigo as a hideous satyr originates from the 2001 film Wendigo directed by Larry Fessenden. Fessenden also curated the book Sudden Storm: A Wendigo Reader, now sadly out-of-print.

(Technically, it was Matt Fox who seemingly invented the satyr motif in the 50s with an illustration of one for a printing of Blackwood’s story in a magazine. However, Fessenden seems to be responsible for popularizing the satyr motif outside the pages of that magazine.)

Although Fessenden popularized the satyr motif that now dominates Euro-American popular culture, his movie describes the windigo in an ironic manner. Take a gander:

Man: “A Wendigo is a mighty, powerful spirit. (...) It can take on many forms. Part wind, part tree, part man, part beast. Shapeshifting between them. (...) It can fly at you like a sudden storm, without warning, from nowhere and devour you – consume you with its ferocious appetite. (...) The Wendigo is hungry – always hungry. And its hunger is never satisfied. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. And the bigger it gets, the hungrier it gets. And we are hopeless in the face of it. We are devoured.”
Miles: “Is the Wendigo bad?”
Man: “Nothing between the earth and sky is bad. But there are spirits that should be feared, (...) that are angry. (...) Do you believe me? ”
Miles: “I guess.”
Man: “Go ahead and take it. Nobody believes in spirits anymore. Doesn’t mean they’re not there. He who hears the cry of the Wendigo is never the same again.”

The script is unambiguous. The windigo depicted therein was a shapeshifter. When it appeared as a satyr, that merely one of the countless forms it could assume. (It probably assumed that particular form since the cast was hunting a deer at the time.) It was never a satyr in truth, insofar as truth applies to trickster demons, but assuming the shape of one!

According to the back-of-the-book advertising blurb for Sudden Storm:

Between Algonquin mythology and field-noted cryptozoological points of view, the Wendigo is portrayed as a ferocious yeti-like monster, a half man-half stag creature, a troll, or even just the wind itself.

See that? Fessenden himself acknowledges that the windigo isn't really a satyr, but that stories depict however the storytellers please. Considering all the online chuckleheads who claim the satyr is the only "correct" depiction, it is the height of comedic irony that the guy who invented the satyr motif actually wrote the windigo as a shapeshifter.

Inspiration for the abyssal larvae

In an older post, I wrote a bit on the origins and appearances of the monster called "abyssal larva." I briefly alluded to their mythological inspiration in the larvae or ghosts from Greek mythology. However, I suspect that the abyssal larva may draw from Biblical imagery as well.

In Mark 9:44-48, Jesus says that "their [sinners'] worm does not die," referring to the Greek larvae. In Christian philosophy, pangs of conscience or envy are metaphorically described as a "gnawing worm" on the soul. Sinners and sin itself are often conceptualized as worms.

As I mentioned in my prior post, some depictions of the fantasy larvae may add that it matures into a locust demon. Such locust demons are described in the Book of Revelations, with disturbing features like human faces and scorpion stingers whose venom causes agony but never death.

Eschatology never ceases to amaze.

Was Argus Panoptes a cyclops?

While reading about Greek mythology, I noticed something interesting. One of the elder cyclopes was named Arges. Another hundred-eyed giant was named Argus. Both of these names seemingly derive from an Ancient Greek root ἀργός meaning "bright, quick."

This leads me to suspect that these two may be multiplications of the same figure. Mythology, owing to its nature as orally-passed storytelling, grows and changes over time like kudzu. Multiplications of the same character or monster are just one example of the divergences that accumulate.

Previously I wrote posts speculating about the relationship between the cyclopean giants with variable numbers of eyes drawn from Greek mythology: monoclopes, biclopes, triclopes, megaclopes. (Of course, the naming scheme is nonsensical since cyclops itself is a combination of cycle and ops.) I find it highly amusing and ironic that mythology might have gotten the same idea millennia before me.

Research links

• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἀργός#Ancient_Greek
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Κύκλωψ#Ancient_Greek
• https://www.theoi.com/Gigante/GiganteArgosPanoptes.html
• https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Kyklopes.html

The many names of the sea-dog

While researching heraldry and monsters, I was surprised to learn that creatures like the alphyn, enfield, and sea-dog (or water-dog) were actually variations on the same thing.

The onchú (literally "water-dog," probably from on "water" + cú "hound") appears to be either an otter or a mythologized version thereof. Through assimilation with the heraldic sea-dog and phonetic mutation into the alphyn and enfield, it acquired features like a fishy mane and avian talons.

• The sea-dog is a canine beast with fishy features including scales and fins.
• The alphyn is a vaguely lupine beast with avian talons and a long knotted tail.
• The enfield is a vulpine beast with avian talons.

Research links:

• https://abookofcreatures.com/2017/04/03/onchu/
• http://mistholme.com/dictionary/alphyn/
• http://mistholme.com/dictionary/enfield/
• http://mistholme.com/dictionary/sea-monsters/
• https://www.sacred-texts.com/lcr/fsca/fsca73.htm
• https://www.sarahsawyer.com/2012/03/mythic-creature-the-alphyn/

Faun, incubus, and satyr?

According to the Malleus Maleficarum, the faun, incubus, pan, and satyr are different names for the same demon. Medieval Christianity demonized the image of the rustic god Pan, which inspired the popular depiction of the devil with goat features. In fantasy gaming, the incubus and satyr are depicted distinctly (the faun is rarely depicted separately from the satyr, and the pan is nonexistent).

I think a way to represent this in fantasy gaming would be if the incubus monster was created from the faun or satyr by some means. Perhaps a faun or satyr who turns evil becomes an incubus, or vice versa? There are any number of ways to represent this transformation.

Adaro: ghost, merman, and sprite of the Pacific islands

The adaro is a malevolent ghost in the folklore of the Melanesian. When a person dies, their better half or aunga passes on whereas their worse half or adaro remains behind. The adaro becomes a malevolent ghost that assumes the form of a shark-like monster. They travel across rainbows and waterspouts, and kill men by throwing fish (often described as flying and venomous).

According to Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore by Theresa Bane, they lived on the sun but visited earth by riding rainbows and waterspouts during sun showers. They could be friendly, visiting people in dreams to teach song and dance. They were often malicious, knocking people unconscious and only waking them if placated with an offering of a flying fox. Their chief was Ngorieru, who haunted the shore of San Cristobal.

Like a lot of folkloric monsters, their traits varied wildly by region. Students of comparative mythology may note superficial similarities to the hún and pò of Chinese folk religion.

In Pathfinder, they became malevolent merfolk with shark features. 3.x statistics emulating the folklore were posted at The Worlds of Mankind.

I find the original Melanesian monster way more interesting than a generic shark-themed merman, mostly because it doesn't pretend to have a pseudo-naturalistic ecology by virtue of being a ghost and its habits of crossing rainbows, riding ocean tornadoes, and throwing venomous flying fish sounds pretty cool. Finding a flying fox to cure an unconscious victim sounds like a pretty quick plot hook.

"Adaro/Anguiliian" by Azel/Atolm

What do you call a mermaid with an octopus half?

Years ago I wrote a post about how the neologism "cecaelia" commonly used for octopus-mermaids on the internet is actually meaningless gibberish. I still believe that, but in this post I wanted to play with folk etymology.

The girl's name Celia is a short form of both Caelia ("heavenly") and Cecilia ("blind, dim-sighted"). The otherwise gibberish name "cecaelia" sounds like it might be a play on these names.

Caelius ("heavenly") and Caecilius ("blind; invisible") were both Roman family names. Perhaps the name of the species is actually something like cilophyte (see my old post for an etymology analysis), but some families of cilophytes have surnames like Caelius or Caecilius. After some confusion while talking with fishermen, the surnames end up being mangled and mistakenly refer to the entire species.

Or perhaps the name derives from a phrase like "Ecce Caelia!" meaning "Look Caelia!" (where Caelia is the person being addressed) or "Here is Caelia."

Or it might be derived from caelo ("I carve") + -ia (abstract suffix), meaning something like "carvery."

Of ogres and orknies

Ogres and orcs are standard monsters in fantasy gaming, drawing from their depictions in Tolkien's Middle Earth and European fairy tales. The etymology of orc and ogre is a bit more complicated than that, however.

Orcus

The words ogre and orc descend from the word Orcus. Orcus was a Greco-Etruscan god of the underworld, whose name literally translates to "oath." He punished perjurers and accompanied the goddess Dike ("justice"). His appearance changed dramatically over time.

In D&D, the name Orcus is applied to a demon prince of the undead. Not only is he infamous for employing the undead, he is even rumored to have created them in the first place.

Orcs and orknies

The word orc, as used by Tolkien, descends from Old English compounds orcþyrs and orcneas (plural). The  morpheme þyrs means "monster, demon, giant," and the morpheme -neas means "corpse." The morpheme orc has additionally been speculated related to orca, thus meaning "sea monster."

However, nobody is sure of the exact meanings. The orcneas have been various translated as "evil spirits," "demon corpses," "devil corpses," etc. I suppose that, if you were making a pun on the various etymologies, it could be translated as "sea devil" or "sea corpse."

C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe mentions "orknies" (singular is apparently “orkny”) as one of the monstrous races that joins the White Witch's army. This is clearly an Anglicization of orcneas! This should not be surprisingly, as Lewis and Tolkien were friends.

Ogres and orchi

Another descendant of Orcus is the Italian orco (plural orchi), translating to "ogre, orc." The orchi of fairy tales were hairy beasts, quite unlike the ugly human portrayals of ogres. It is here that the two general archetypes of "brute" and "lord" appear. Strange as it may seem, the enchanted prince in Beauty and the Beast is an example of the latter.

©2008 EricCanete

The word ogre has several derivatives created by adding suffixes. An ogress is "a female ogre," an ogret or ogrillon is "a young or small ogre," ogrette is a synonym for ogress or ogret, ogrish or ogry means "resembling or pertaining to an ogre," ogrishly means "like an ogre," and ogrism means "the character or manners of an ogre."

You might notice that D&D used the name ogrillon for a hybrid of orc and ogre. It is actually a loanword from French that refers to the child of an ogre. So I suppose that the D&D monster's context would be true if taken literally.

Comparative mythology

In anthropology and comparative mythology circles, the word "ogre" is used to refer to any man-eating giant in folklore. It includes European ogres, Arabic ghouls, Persian divs, Algonquin baykok and wendigo, Japanese oni, Indian rakshasa, etc. This is completely different from the D&D usage, obviously.

I noticed a few interesting parallels between different ogre myths:

• Orcus is a god of the underworld. The orknies are (potentially) demonic corpses. The Athabaskan wechuge and Japanese oni are demons of the underworld that visit Earth to eat humans. The oni are subjects of Enma, the great king of hell.
• Orcus is a god of oaths who punishes perjurers, yet his namesake refers to cannibal giants. The Algonquin wendigo sometimes arises as a result of someone being cursed for breaking the taboo against cannibalism.

I feel inspired to devise my own mythos that references all of these. Maybe something like Pellatarran orcs? Eh, I can always figure it out later!

Genies of the lamp

In Arabic folklore, genies were incredibly powerful beings. They had incredible riches and magical powers. King Solomon bound a number of them into objects like rings and lamps. If the binding was permanent, then the genie would be forced to serve whoever held the prison. This was typically phrased as granting their master's wishes, i.e. orders.

At some point, popular culture forgot that genies were powerful in their own right and started depicting them as being given arbitrary wish granting by their imprisonment itself. It became a common convention for a master to be limited to three wishes before the genie's lamp magically whisks itself away to find a new master (or, less commonly, releases the genie). In many cases the genies were no longer depicted as a race but as human beings who were magically imprisoned and empowered.

Even D&D fell prey to this, as it employs a bizarre compromise between these two diametric opposed approaches. D&D genies are powerful magical beings in their own right, but they also have the limited ability to cast the wish spell on behalf of mortals. The part about being imprisoned in lamps, rings or other small objects is completely ignored for whatever reason, because D&D always warps its inspirations like that. Tradition!

This is ultimately a re-skinning of the Grimms' fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife." In that tale, a prince was inexplicably cursed into the form of a talking fish with the ability to arbitrarily grant wishes. People bound into lamps and thereby granted arbitrary wish granting are the same formula. So many stories have put their own variations on this formula so I can't make too many generalizations. The "wish granted by demon in exchange for your soul" is a common variation, for example.

While the tropes of "powerful being forced into servitude" and "arbitrary wish granting" are sufficient on their own, I feel that combining them waters down the whole concept. It raises the question of why these powerful D&D genies can arbitrarily grant wishes in the first place and why they don't seem to exploit that for their own benefit. Arbitrary wish granting only makes sense if you want a monster to be much weaker than it would be if it could arbitrarily warp reality, or if the source of the wish isn't important to the story. If the monster is already a high level monster and some kind of absurdly rich sovereign, like the noble class genies who grant wishes in the rules, then the wish granting becomes a bit superfluous.

Anyhow, I'm surprised that the "human cursed into wish-granting genie trapped in lamp" trope doesn't seem to show up in fantasy gaming. It sounds like a really good plot hook. What about having both in the same story? On one hand you have powerful genies who are imprisoned and forced to serve whoever holds their prison. On the other you have wish-granting lamps that enslave some hapless mortal as a glorified user interface. How do you suppose they would feel about one another?

Demons of the katardi family

So I had an idea for a monster. The premise of this idea is that the "wendigo" mentioned in Stephen King's Pet Sematary (the novel and both movies) was not a wendigo. Instead, I posit that this cemetery demon was the same sort of demon as seen in the Evil Dead movies.

Jud is the one to imply the the soured ground is haunted by a wendigo. Given that he is not Mi'kmaq and probably heard distorted versions of the folklore, he could have easily been wrong about the nature of the demon. Just like Blackwood and King themselves!

The cemetery demon displays none of the characteristics of a wendigo as it appears in Algonquin stories. It is not limited to acting during the winter, but acts year round. It is not motivated by greed or gluttony, but by more generic malevolence. It does not go around killing and eating people, nor possessing victims to do the same. Instead, it torments its victims with misfortunes, psychological manipulation and (as of the 2019 movie adaption of Pet Sematary) vivid hallucinations a la The Shining or Poltergeist. It possesses and reanimates the dead, using them to terrify and torment the living a la The Evil Dead or The Exorcist.

Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon featured a "god of the lost" who fans conflate with the cemetery demon from Pet Sematary, but there is no evidence of this in the story itself. Both demons appear and behave completely different. In the novel, the god of the lost appears as a wasp-faced demon that torments lost travelers with paranormal SFX until they die of exposure. Perhaps more importantly, the supernatural events of the novel are ambiguous and could have been entirely imagined by the protagonist. Only the 2019 movie adaption of Pet Sematary suggests any similarity when it adds hallucinations to the demon's repertoire. Addendum 10/4/2019: The "god of the lost" is similar to "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible," an imaginary demon that Rachel conceived to represent the influence of evil, the specter of death, and the bad luck inflicted upon the family by the presence haunting the cemetery.

In the Evil Dead movies, the "kandarian demon" possesses both the living, the dead, inanimate objects and trees as "deadites" in order to torment and kill people. Much like the cemetery demon needs victims to bury bodies on its burial ground before it can reanimate, the kandarian demon needs to be invoked by spells from the Sumerian Book of the Dead before it can possess victims.

There is a funny coincidence that I have to share! In the script for Within the Woods, a short film intended to pitch The Evil Dead to studios, the kandarian demon was called "Tinga." It was described as an spirit that protected the Native American burial ground (as if we did not see that trope a bazillion times). When the protagonists violated the grave of a medicine man, it killed and possessed victims as deadites.

Sound familiar?

Thus, I was inspired to make a connection between the cemetery demon and the kandarian demon. The reanimated dead in Pet Sematary are not wendigo zombies, but deadites!

Which brings me to another idea...

In an early draft of the script for The Evil Dead, the demons are described as members of the katardi family. The katardi inhabit forests and, while dangerous and omnipresent, cannot possess victims unless invoked or resurrected by reciting spells from a six-volume book of the dead. Only the high priests of the Ca'n Dar tribe were allowed to have these books, because they alone could control the demons.

Forest demons named katardi, huh? The common thread between the cemetery demon, the god of the lost, and the kandarian demons is that they inhabit forests, display crazy SFX, and have arbitrary prohibitions. In Minnesota, tales told to tourists describe the "wendigo" as a protector of forests. Is that a solid basis for imagining a new family of demons? Seems good enough to me!

Addendum 11/6/2019: YSDC CthulhuWiki has a page on deadites. It made the same connections.

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.

Black spirit, basket ogress, and wechuge

During my research I came across bestiary entries for an ogre named Black Tamanous ("black spirit"), sometimes shortened to simply Tamanous ("spirit"). The name refers also to a supposed cannibal cult patronized by that ogre and to an annual winter ceremony or potlach held by them.

According to Encyclopedia of Giants and Humanoids in Myth, Legend and Folklore by Theresa Bane:

Black Tamanous (tah-mah-no-us)
Variations: Dzunkwa, Tsonokwa, Tsonoqoa
A cannibalistic monster from the mythology of the the Pacific Northwest Indians of North America, the terrifying Black Tamanous ("black spirit") would hunt for humans in the wilderness. When the Great Transformer cleansed the earth of all the evil GIANTS he somehow managed to miss Black Tamanous, leaving him to continue to plague the people.
Source: Rose, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons, 51; Underhill, Indians of the Pacific Northwest, 189

According to The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews:

Among the peoples of the North Pacific coast of America, Black Tamanous was the cannibal spirit who was overlooked when the Great Transformer rid the Earth of all the gigantic primordial beings which were responsible for bringing evil. Black Tamanous continued to stalk the Earth, bringing terror as it sought to gobble up people. He was the leader of the Cannibal Society among the Kwakiutl tribe. They met every year during the winter season to observe the ceremonial eating of human flesh.

This story seems simple enough, but further research revealed that it was far more complicated than it seemed. I could find few sources and none that I can confirm are firsthand accounts, so the information I have is sparse and suspect at best. The black spirit appears indelibly marked with a terrible history of racism, colonialism, appropriation, and blood libel.

The "cannibal society" was named Black Tamanous or Hamatsa (sometimes translated as "dog eaters" and "cannibal dancers") and the sources I consulted claimed that these were real, at least during the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was a secret society or fraternity among some Pacific Northwest tribes (the Black Tamanous being Klallam and the Hamatsa being Kwakiutl). It required high dues and feasts, so it was only joined by rich men’s sons. They were reputed to hold black masses where they blackened their faces and ate dogs alive in an orgy of cannibalism. Supposedly they performed such rites in order to influence demons against their foes. (Compare the hellfire clubs seen in Victorian England.) Given the tribes' unwillingness to discuss this issue with outsiders, and the history of colonial governments banning them from practicing their own religions, the veracity of these statements is questionable and it sounds like a case of blood libel. (Compare the "wendigo psychosis" historically used to oppress Algonquin tribes.)

Other more recent sources explain that the Kwakiutl Hamatsa or “cannibal dance” was far more benign in nature. Meat is Murder! by Mikita Brottman explains that the cannibal dance was intended to sublimate such harmful urges, not release them! The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, by Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye, explains that the cannibal dances were purely symbolic. The masked dancers would play-act the ogre Baxbakwalanuxsiae (“man eater at the mouth of the River”, often shortened to Man Eater), a monster comprised of gnawing mouths, and its raptor-masked companions as they decapitated victim roles and consumed carved heads and trophy skulls. This is comparable to, for example, the masked morality plays of the Korè cult of the Bambara people in Mali that were intended to scare viewers into good behavior by displaying the reviled habits of hyenas.

Some tabletop role-playing games took the cannibal cult idea seriously and ran with it. Shadowrun depicts the Tamanous as a human trafficking organization run by supernatural cannibals like ghouls. Chill depicts both the black spirit and the cult it patronizes, and invents additional details not found in the original myth: the black spirit may assume human form, leaves black tarry footprints, and specifically eats cannibals. Given the paucity of information on the myths, online gaming sites have produced increasingly distorted depictions while mistakenly assuming this is true to the original myths.

Possible descent?

The word tamanous (or cognates thereof) apparently appears in the languages of several Pacific Northwest tribes, including the Chinook, Klallam, and Kwakiutl. When transliterated into the Latin alphabet, spelling variations (or possibly conjugations) include tamahnous, taman’awas, tamanamus, tamánawas, and tamanoüs. It is typically translated as "spirit," but its exact meaning is broader due to the various contexts in which it appears. It is used as a noun for spiritual beings (including totems, guardian angels, and demons) and spiritual workings (spiritual power, divine medicine, healing acts), an adjective for objects that house spirits and medicine men who deal with spirits, and a verb for the act of influencing spirits. It may refer to various religious practices such as sacred rites, hobbies, dances, potlatch, and winter ceremonials. The most disturbing context in which I found the word was in accounts of the Pacific Northwest tribes being banned from practicing their own religions, although I suppose I should not be surprised.

Basket ogress

The names Dzunkwa Tsonokwa, and Tsonoqoa seem to be a conflation with another Pacific Northwest monster, the basket ogress. She is an ogress who carries a basket in which she places children she captures, and serves a similar role to the fairy tale hags in European stories. Such stories of cannibal women are found among many tribes along the Northwest Coast. (Cannibal hags appear to be a really old trope, like 30,000 years old!)

The sources I consulted did not explain if this reference was a mistake made by anthropologists or if the basket ogress and the black spirit are indeed the same. I personally suspect that "black tamanous" refers to any evil spirit and anthropologists simply confused this usage.

Compare Wechuge

The sparse origin of the black spirit as a survivor of the transition from primordial to historical times is similar to that of the wechuge found in Athabaskan stories. According to Dunne-za legend, in ancient times the world was the domain of giant animals that preyed upon humans. A hero arose and, with the help of watchful gods, he drove the monsters away into the underworld. However, he proved negligent and some of the monsters managed to escape the purge. They survived in a greatly reduced form, but no less evil and hungry for human flesh. They hide in the underworld just next to humanity, awaiting any opportunity to wreak havoc.

If I did not know any better, I would think these were different accounts of the same story. Given that both tales of the black spirit and the wechuge originate from the Pacific Northwest, I cannot help but wonder if the two tales share some common inspiration. If "black spirit" was simply a generic term as I suspect it is, then it makes sense that the wechuge would be referred to one. Given the lack of firsthand accounts, I strongly suspect that the sources I consulted conflated stories from different tribes that were not related.

(On another note, this backstory loosely resembles that of the Great Old Ones in the Lovecraft mythos. This backstory loosely resembles the beast giants of Norse myth too, which inspired Tolkien's Shadowfax and ultimately Moorcock's beast lords. I just thought that was interesting trivia to note.)

The Athabaskan peoples live in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps had contact with the Algonquin peoples in proximity, so wechuge may be a cognate of wendigo. Because of course it would be! Why would I expect otherwise? When discussing depictions of First Nations culture in Euro-American popular culture, you cannot walk two feet without hitting the wendigo.

Contrast Wendigo

Obviously, the cannibalism aspect has invited comparison to the wendigo of Algonquin belief. The two stories come from different tribes and are not related. The First Nations people were not a homogeneous monolith, so depicting cannibal demons from different tribes (or invented wholesale) together and as enemies risks promoting false stereotypes about real living cultures. In my opinion, if you are going to take a monster from another culture and mutilate it until it is no longer recognizable, then you should change the name to something else and not pretend it is related to the culture that inspired you. Especially not if the original story is blood libel, as it is with the black tamanous and wendigo psychosis.

Did we learn nothing from Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling? (Please do not cheat by keeping the name but sanitizing all connection to the original culture, such as by setting the story in a D&D campaign setting unrelated to Earth. Looking at you, Paizo.)

Conclusion

While my research leaves much to be desired, I think I was able to get the gist of things. The black spirit and its cult appears to be an amalgamation of stories from different tribes, blood libel against tribal practices, and the inventions of game writers. While I do not see myself reproducing these details in full, the idea of a satanic cult that worships an ancient cannibal monster and is opposed by a troupe of exorcists does have its appeal. Even before I heard of the black spirits, I was familiar with the idea from watching Butcher's Block and Mordeo.

On a related note, the mythic Pacific Northwest does sound like a nice setting for a game campaign. There are many different ways you can play around with devouring spirits without needlessly mutilating the original stories or conflating tribes as a monolith.