The problems with psionics

Dungeons & Dragons has traditionally divided magic into three types: arcane magic, divine magic, and psionics. The third has always been something of a red-headed stepchild.

Monster mothers: moon woman

In some medieval bestiaries, a being translated into English as a "moon woman" is described. She is attributed to Herodotus and Aldrovandus, originally under the dubiously Latin name Selenetidae mulieres (shortened to Selenetides in later recounting) and variant spellings thereof. Very little information is provided about her, except a simple description: the moon woman laid and incubated eggs that hatched into giants (sometimes quantified as fifteen times to fifty times larger than men).

She was mentioned in a satire of the often lurid and false accounts of foreign lands given by explorers in the colonial era (such as John Mandeville). Here, she is described as an entire race of women native to the mythical land of "Selenetide." In another account, the moon-women are said to be "mothers of nature"; she is mother to the egg that hatched Helen of Troy, since it fell from the Moon.

The phrase "moon woman" is used to refer to the moon goddess of certain cultural myths, particularly the translated oral histories of First Nations peoples. I suspect this is a more or less literal translation of the original language, although I am sure something might have been lost in translation.

In fairy tales, giantesses appear fairly often as a motif. They appear as both solitary figures and the matrons of whole families of giants. (Some examples are recounted in a collection of Armenian fairy tales collected by A.G. Seklemian.) The moon woman may easily draw upon such traditions. Oddly enough, the moon woman never seems to be described as a giantess herself in the sources I consulted.

Etymology

The word mulierēs is the nominative plural of mulier "woman; wife; (Medieval Latin) adult virgin." The word selenetides is more difficult to discern. I suspect that it is a compound of Selenite ("inhabitant of the Moon") [itself from Selene ("moon") + -ites ("belonging to")] + -idae ("son of") or -ides ("resembling"). I suspect it may be patterned after the word titanides, referring to female titans. Oddly enough, Selenitidae is a family of gastropods.

Another possible translation into English would be Selenitess, from Selenite + -ess (feminine suffix).

Additional research links

• http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42508/42508-h/42508-h.htm
• http://es-kiz.ru/the-13-scariest-monsters-from-the-medieval-bestiary/
• https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/curious-and-terrifying-creatures-in-zoology-plus-one-obscure-christmas-gift-idea/
• https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-ravenna-the-manticora-more-11-somewhat-lesser-known-monsters
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Selenetidae_women_giving_birth_to_eggs._Wellcome_L0005356.jpg
• http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/other-births/
• https://warriorsofmyth.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Woman
• http://www.maicar.com/GML/Helen.html
• https://www.thereedfoundation.org/rism/chapman/moon-woman.htm
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Myths_and_Legends_of_British_North_America/11
• http://thewayofshawn.blogspot.com/2012/01/mother-of-chaos.html

Critique of D&D's schools of magic

Dungeons & Dragons traditionally divides magic into eight "schools." While seemingly well-defined, across editions spells have often changed schools. This reveals that the definitions of the schools are too often unclear and, ultimately, arbitrary.