A brief introduction to the Aboleth Incursion

A while ago I posted a couple of articles about mind flayer substitutes, such as the phrenic scourges, intellect devourers and aboleth. In this post I would like to briefly explain an expanded view of the aboleth (taking into account a variety of 3rd party products) and how they contrast with the phrenic scourges.

The aboleth depicted in the monster manuals is actually just one variety of this ancient, terrifying race. The aboleth are a sect within the greater Cult of Cthulhu. In contrast to the Phrenic Hegemony, who style themselves the star-spawn of Great Cthulhu, the aboleth are His shadow. Such was Cthulhu's power that even His shadow brushing against the mortal plane created a race of monsters bent on subjugating all life.

Dragon-kin and other draconic hybrids

D&D traditionally divides dragons into a variety of categories such as "true dragon," "false dragon," "greater dragon," "lesser dragon," "drake," "dragon-kin," and so forth. I prefer to ignore these distinctions because they are arbitrary and unhelpful. D&D, Pathfinder and other 3pp have devised a bazillion varieties of dragons that are impossible to keep track of, so I don't bother to try. A dragon is whatever the DM wants, and as such I will consider dragons on an individual basis.

In this post, I will concern myself with those monsters traditionally relegated to the bin of "dragon-kin" and/or "half-dragon" (whatever the distinction is by edition). Prior to 3e's introduction of the half-dragon template, earlier editions of D&D liked to introduced a bunch of monsters whose shtick was that they were half-dragon and half-another monster. Or otherwise some obscure branch on the dragon family tree. D&D gets weirdly obsessive over its nonsensical monster ecology.

Chimera and dracimera

The chimera was typed as a dragon (or "dragon-kin") by the Rules Cyclopedia, but 3e and 5e have not typed it as a dragon. In Greek mythology the chimera was considered a dragon. Given these data points, I will treat the chimera as a dragon.

Traditionally, D&D maintains that the standard chimera has the head of a red dragon that breathes fire. Chimeras with heads of other colors and breath weapons are arbitrarily segregated into a separate species called a dracimera (a portmanteau of draconic and chimera), which is the result of crossbreeding between a chimera and a chromatic dragon. Pathfinder discarded this distinction and allowed the standard chimera to have a dragon's head in any of the traditional five colors and corresponding breath weapons.

Chimeras are traditionally limited to the heads of chromatic dragons, but there's really no reason why they can't have the head of a metallic dragon. It's a simple matter of changing the breath weapon and, if necessary, alignment. (I personally think the chromatic versus metallic distinction, and all the other distinctions made over the decades, are silly and unnecessary.)

Dragonne

I can't recall which D&D books the dragonne appears in, but I know it appeared in the Tome of Horrors and a Pathfinder bestiary.

As I explained in my other post on the dragonne's etymology, it's a simple lion-dragon (or "dracolion" as the traditional D&D naming scheme for hybrids may suggest). That is, a possible crossbreed of a dragon (traditionally brass, but I suppose that's up in the air at this point) and a lion that like many monsters is inexplicably treated as its own species because publishers need something to fill the bestiaries.

The lion-dragon is two-thirds of a chimera. It appears in heraldry and lacks a mythological underpinning. Like a lot of the monsters, it was made up solely for the game. Unfortunately, it is really boring as far as monsters go unless your DM allows you to take it as a paladin's mount or something.

Octavirate Presents Vol #4: The Forgotten got the odd idea to invent a "half-dragonne" template as part of an overall "half-dragonkin" template initiative. Although it is a genuinely original albeit bizarre concept, I can't really imagine myself employing many crossbreeds of lion-dragons. I should probably make an attempt to fix that later.

Mantidrake

The mantidrake is a simple hybrid of manticore and dragon. As you may be starting to realize if you haven’t already, there’s a very good reason why 3e introduced a half-dragon template.

It varies whether the mantidrake is a hybrid, species of its own or both. Nonetheless, it isn’t any less boring than its constituents. It’s a random encounter, an evil wizard’s servant, whatever the DM needs.

What made the mythological manticore interesting was that it was hunted by men on elephant-back, its young were captured and their tails docked so that nobles could enjoy their singing voices. That, like so much else, is absent in D&D.

Wyvern and wyvern-drake

D&D has an inconsistent definition of "drake." Sometimes a drake is a synonym for or subcategory of dragonet (a category of small dragons including wyverns, the oddly named pseudodragon, elemental drakes, etc). Sometimes, as in mantidrake and wyvern-drake, a synonym for "true" dragon varieties.

Anyway, the wyvern falls into that arbitrary gamey category I mentioned of “false” versus “true” dragons. The wyvern-drake is a hybrid of wyvern and true dragon, or some kind of evolutionary throwback. The bestiaries get pretty weird after a while.

Again, it doesn’t really have anything going for it. It’s more monster manual filler.

Dracohydra

The hydra is considered a dragon by real bestiaries. The monster manual somehow disagrees. I’m labeling the hydra a dragon, damnit!

Anyway, some writer got the idea to combine the hydra with chromatic dragons. It’s either a literal crossbreed or the demented offspring of an evil dragon god. Again, nothing spectacular.

The exact statistics vary by edition. Generally a dracohydra has 2–5+ chromatic dragon heads, with the color (and thus breath weapon) of each individual head determined by rolling on a table (or arbitrary chosen by the DM). I suppose that makes it unpredictable and tactically challenging.

Dracolisk

Again, the basilisk is one of those monsters labeled a dragon by mythology textbooks but not by D&D monster manuals. Go figure.

The dracolisk is a hybrid of basilisk and chromatic dragon. It has a petrifying gaze and one of five breath weapons. It’s really unimaginative and Pathfinder even used it as their example half-dragon.

I did a post a while back that referenced 13th Age and other 3pp giving more variety to the basilisk and cockatrice with elemental-flavored attacks, so the dracolisk is now fairly redundant.

Dracotaur

The dracotaur is a simple dragon-themed centaur. 

Funny etymology trivia: dracotaur translates (more or less) to “dragon-bull,” not dragon-centaur. The “standard” centaur is technically a horse-centaur, so the technically correct term would be draco- or dragon-centaur.

I don’t recall offhand what the popular appearance is, but the humanoid upper body of a draco-centaur may either be a human or a humanoid dragon.

Warcraft calls them “dragon-spawn.”

Dracosphinx

The dracosphinx, as the name implies, is a hybrid of dragon and sphinx. In other words, a sphinx variant charaterized by a dragon’s head and wings on a sphinx’s body. (The difference compared to a dracolion is that the dracolion typically looks like a scaly lion or has a lion front side and dragon back side, whereas the dracosphinx has a scaly dragon front side and unscaled lion back side.)

How a dracosphinx comes to exist might vary immensely by edition. Prior to 5e, sphinxes reproduced and died of old age; in 5e, they’re sexless immortals that guard the gods’ stuff (although they do seem to have genders). Presumably, a 5e era dracosphinx is the result of a dragon cult summoning a sphinx.

Behir

The behir is based on the Scottish beithir, a serpentine dragon. The behir is a dragon. Get that through your thick skull, D&D!

Dragon turtle

The dragon turtle originates in Chinese mythology. Mercifully, D&D correctly labeled it a dragon. Although that’s probably because the name forced the writers to.

Pseudodragon

The pseudodragon is one of those “false” dragons placed under the dragonet umbrella that includes wyverns and elemental drakes. Although called false dragons (the name literally means that), in the game rules they’re dragons because D&D logic.

Dragonborn

Under this heading I will place all playable dragon races including half-dragons, dragontouched, dragonblooded, dragonwrought, or whatever the nomenclature is. Regardless of their name or various in-universe origins, playable humanoid dragons have been around since at least 2e. Because playing dragons is awesome, simple as that. Sadly, to date only FantasyCraft made playable dragons (as in quadrupedal winged dragons) playable in its core rules.

Half-dragonkin (3pp)

The third party supplement Octavirate Presents Vol #4: The Forgotten introduced a set of "half-dragonkin" templates, allowing GMs to create hybrids of dragonkin like the behir, chimera, dragon turtle, dragonne, jabberwock (new monster), pseudodragon and wyvern. Needless to say... oh what the heck, have fun with it!

Etymology of hinn and jann

There is an obscure Arabic folklore creature called a hinn. The exact meaning varies depending on which story you read.

• In the Alawi creation myth, the age of man was preceded by previous ages. These were the ages of beings called hinn, binn, timm, rimm, jann and jinn. Aside from being personifications of evil, no details are given about these beings.
• The Revelations of ʻAbdullah Al-Sayid Muhammad Habib present a model of four elemental beings similar to that proposed by Paracelsus. Earth is represented by humanity, fire by jinn, air by hinn and water by binn.
• The hinn and binn are extinct in that account. Ibn Kathir explained that they were exterminated by the jinn.
• According to Tabari, the hinn were created from "scorching fire" whereas the jinn were created from "smokeless flame." In this account, the hinn under Iblis supported the angels in a battle against the wicked jinn.
• In other folklore, hinn take the form of wild dogs. A hadith warns that should a wild dog (really a hinn) approach a muslim, he should throw food at it and chase it away.

The word jann is typically a variant spelling of the word jinn. However, sometimes it has a distinct meaning in obscure folklore.

• In some contexts, jinn refers to supernatural beings in general whereas jann refers to genies specifically.
• One account attributed to Mohamed (referenced in Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose) describes different types of jinn: those that inhabit the depths of the earth and manifest as monsters like serpents, those that manifest as monstrous black dogs, hofafa that fly with wings, so'la that devour humans, the nocturnal ghoul, the aquatic ghawwas, etc.
• The first genie created from "scorching fire," and father of all others, is named Jann. He may be identified with Iblis or Azazel.
• A primitive kind of genie, or genie that normally takes the form of animals, is called jann. (This is similar to the definition of hinn as transformed wild dogs.)
• According to Encyclopedia of Spirits and Ghosts in World Mythology by Theresa Bane, a jann is the weakest class of genie. They are a type of familiar spirit (compare qarin or hamzaad) and steal animals from farmers.
• According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, the genies raise their own livestock. (These may or may not be the same as the bestial hinn/jann.)

Chimera part 1: mythology and art history

This will be the first part in a series of posts regarding the Chimera, a monster taken from Greek myth. In this part, I will briefly recount the etymology, mythology and historical art concerning the chimera.