Curse of lycanthropy, version 2

In an earlier post on lycanthropy in D&D, I divided the condition into three types. However, this was a mistake on my part as I forgot to include the first and second edition iterations. In this post, I present an expanded and revised version of my previous taxonomy.

All iterations of lycanthropy in D&D may be categorized along three common axes. These axes are: whether the condition is acquired or inherited and how, whether the lycanthrope is a natural at self-control or afflicted without it, and whether the lycanthrope is infectious or not.

This results in roughly four broad types of lycanthropy, or alternately therianthropy, and several subtypes. Here a lycanthrope, or therianthrope, is defined broadly as a humanoid who can transform into an animal. This taxonomy is closely based on that presented in the D&D 2e Monstrous Manual.

• Type 1 lycanthropy is a disease as seen in horror movies. It is transmitted by the natural attacks (and potentially body fluids) of type 1 lycanthropes. Type 1 lycanthropes have no control over or mental faculties during the transformation, but may train themselves otherwise.
• Type 1b lycanthropy is identical to type 1 lycanthropy except that type 1b lycanthropes cannot transmit lycanthropy.
• Type 2 lycanthropy is hereditary. Type 2 lycanthropes carry and transmit type 1 lycanthropy, but display full control over and mental faculties during the transformation.
• Type 2b lycanthropes are identical to type 2 lycanthropes except that they transmit type 1b lycanthropy.
• Type 2c lycanthropes are identical to type 2 lycanthropes except that they do not transmit lycanthropy. They may transmit other diseases, however.
• Type 3 lycanthropes use a magic token to transform, such as a swan maiden’s cloak, a selkie’s sealskin, or a ring of Hircine. They retain full self-control and cannot transmit lycanthropy.
• Type 4 lycanthropy is contracted as a result of a curse, such as the spell curse of lycanthropy. Type 4 lycanthropes are otherwise identical to type 1b lycanthropes.
• Type 4b lycanthropy is identical to type 4 lycanthropy except that they may transmit type 4b lycanthropy.

Obviously this taxonomy is arbitrary and lycanthropy may be categorized in other ways. For example, the most recent fifth edition of D&D restricts the usage of the term lycanthropy to contagious lycanthropy and not human-to-animal transformation in general. For the purposes of popular recognition, I will use lycanthropy to refer only to those conditions caused by curses and diseases, such as werewolves and wereboars. I will refer to human-to-animal transformation and vice versa collectively as therianthropes. I will otherwise refer to type 2c lycanthropes, as defined here, as zoanthropes. I will refer to animal-to-human transformations, such as jackalweres and wolfweres, as antherians.

OGL substitutes for changelings, shifters and warforged

The changelings, shifters and warforged are races from the Eberron campaign setting that proved quite popular. However, they are not open game content and thus 3pp cannot reference them. Not to worry, there are substitutes under the OGL out there.

It was quite easy to find substitutes for the warforged. For whatever reason, there are many construct races out there. There are too many to list here, so you’ll probably need to search on your own until you find one you like.

I could only find one substitute for the changeling: the doppel race from the Dragonstar campaign setting. Their backstory and traits are essentially identical. Doppels are the descendants  of humans and doppelganger, displaying limited shapeshifting suitable for disguise as a result.

I could only find a couple substitutes for the shifter: the wereblooded race in the Bite Me! supplements by Misfit Studios and the skinwalker race in the Blood of the Moon supplement by Paizo. Their backstory and traits are essentially identical. Skinwalkers and wereblooded are the descendants of humans and lycanthropes, displaying limited shapeshifting into partial animal features as a result.

Obvious these are written for specific rulesets, but they should serve well enough as inspiration.

Beast lords and shapechangers

Since I've decided to make the beast lords a basic part of my setting's theology, that means I have to tie them with beasts and various related monsters. That includes beastmen, beastfolk, lycanthropes, therianthropes, and more.

The distinction between beastmen and beastfolk is arbitrary and the terms are often used interchangeably. When one does wish to make a distinction, it generally boils down to this: beastmen are chimerical combinations of human and animals features (e.g. centaurs, harpies, satyrs, etc), whereas beastfolk are anthropomorphic animals (e.g. catfolk, ratfolk, lizardfolk, sea devils, gnolls, etc).

Lycanthropes are humans or other humanoids suffering the affliction or blessing of lycanthropy. In my setting all diseases whether mundane or magical are caused by disease spirits a la Glorantha, a variation of which applies here. The disease spirits that cause lycanthropy are lycanthropic spirits and they behave a bit differently from other disease spirits, not the least of which being that they cause transformation into animal forms.

Antherians (from "antherion," a compound of an- + therian meaning "not animal") are intelligent beasts that may assume humanoid form as a racial trait, typically to infiltrate humanoid societies. (This concept appears quite a few times in real world folklore, such as the stories of fox fairies in China, Korea and Japan, the goblin spiders and raccoon dogs of Japan, hyena men in some African countries, deer women in some indigenous American cultures, and so forth.) Antherians cannot contract, carry or transmit lycanthropy; their innate animal spirit repels the lycanthropic spirit.

Therianthrope is an ambiguous term referring to 1) all shape changers that switch between beast and humanoid forms, or 2) antherians specifically (a usage originating from the 3pp Tome of Horrors, which introduced them under the OGL).

Zoanthrope is a synonym for therianthrope, referring to a man that assumes the form of an animal. For purposes of game setting world building, I will use the term to refer to humanoids that assume the forms of animals as a racial (or class) trait but are neither lycanthropes nor antherians. An example would be the Mhuinntir race from Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races, the Skinwalker race from Blood of the Moon, or the Weretouched archetype for the Shifter class in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Wilderness. Like antherians, they cannot contract, carry or transmit lycanthropy.

Vermin hosts (introduced in Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie under the OGL) are shape changers whose animal aspect are vermin like leeches, rats, roaches, and spiders. Although appearing similar to lycanthropes due to their assumed forms and ability to infect others, physically vermin hosts are actually swarms of vermin with a shared mind. I will treat them as a type of lycanthropy.

In the setting itself, most people are unaware of these distinctions and treat as shape changers as interchangeable.

All of these therianthropes may trace their origins to specific patrons among the beast lords, such as the lord of lycanthropes, the lord of vermin, etc.

In future posts I hope to explore the distinctions and ramifications further.

History of gorgons IV: medusa in gaming

In past posts I went over the myth of the gorgon sisters, the catoblepas and how they were conflated within D&D. In this post I will focus on the evolution and usage of the medusa within fantasy gaming. D&D has a long history of taking singular monsters from world mythology and turning them into an entire race of monsters, typically mangling the background and properties of the original monster in the process.

Possible life cycles of the intellect devourer

Here are some more of my musings on the intellect devourer. In earlier posts I explored some possibilities for life cycles and morphs. These are some more attempts to speculate and maybe reconcile wildly different conceptions.

The brain collectors apparently employ an alchemical process that transforms harvested brains into intellect devourers, ethereal assassins, brain golems and other animate brain monsters. The phrenic scourges employ this process, although it isn’t clear who developed it first.

The phrenic scourges clearly intended the devourers to be slaves, but brain collectors may create them as a method of reproduction if rumors of devourers molting into collectors are to be believed.

Intellect devourers are supposedly sterile due to lack of a reproductive system but, somehow, they seemed to have established self-sustaining populations. As I said in an earlier post, they don’t seem to have a fixed reproductive method. They have been observed reproducing by alchemically preparing harvested brains, spawning larvae in pools, growing devourers on stalks like fruit and, perhaps most disturbingly, using their host bodies to sire humanoid offspring that may molt their brains into new devourers upon reaching adulthood (or become sorcerers with an aberrant bloodline/origin).

Furthermore, there are multiple stages in the life of a devourer. Hound-like forms (the standard devourer), semi-humanoid forms (often called paretiophages), parasitic forms that always wear host bodies (often called mindolons), giant sessile brains, etc. There even seem to be multiple forms of larvae with different functions.

Some free-swimming larvae may mature into devourers, which may further molt into paretiophages.

Some devourers and paretiophages can inject larvae directly into the skulls of live prey, then force them to serve the parent through psychotropics secreted by the larvae or the threat of the larvae eating their brain. These larvae might be able to mature into devourers themselves, or they might just die after their purpose has been served.

The larvae of mindolons can only mature within the brains of already dead hosts, using the corpse as a protective shell for their own flimsy body, otherwise the new devourer would go insane as the two personalities war for control.

Minotaurs: sources and ideas

I first started my series on minotaurs a long time ago and my ideas have changed and matured a lot since then. My original posts were pretty rambling in nature. So this post will be where I condense my prior ideas to lay out a concrete path for myself.

There are a number of gaming resources I consulted to devise my picture of minotaurs. These included:

• Mazes & Minotaurs Creature Compendium
• Masters & Minions: Maze of the Minotaur
• Classic Play: The Book of the Planes
• Animal Races: Clan of the Ox
• Hack & Slash: "On the Ecology of the Minotaur"

In my conception, minotaurs have several key traits that set them apart:

• The king’s bull: in real life, the word minotaur translates to “king’s bull.” This is because the curse was evoked by the wicked king Minos the Younger. In a fantasy setting, there should be a reason for this name. So I would like to keep the Minos connection.
• The starry one: the Minotaur was named Asterion, a name that meant “starry one.” When the Greeks burrowed Etruscan myths, this is probably where the myth of the minotaur came from. Historically, Asterion was a king of Crete and may have been worshiped as the incarnation of a bull god. 
• Curse of the minotaur: there is a clear distinction between herdfolk (aka furries) and minotaurs. Minotaurs are not a true-breeding race, but a curse that transforms someone into a minotaur. If this curse is broken, then the minotaur transforms back into their race of birth. Herdfolk may be so cursed, but they aren't synonymous.
• Maze of the minotaur: all minotaurs are doomed to be trapped in a magical maze as part of their curse. This may occur immediately upon contracting the curse, even being the cause, or develop over some period of time.
• Gulf of azroi: the plane of mazes, all minotaurs' mazes, or more accurately between them. It is the domain of the azroi, abstract entities of order worshiped by minotaurs. The deities worshiped by minotaurs, such as Asterion, Baphomet, etc may be members of this race.
• Many societies: minotaurs don't have a fixed social structure. They have wicked cultists, noble mariners, tribal peoples, etc. Each maze may very well be its own realm. For example, some herds may be caste-based, such as that in Masters & Minions. Assuming that they aren't confused with herdfolk. Remember, minotaurs are king's bulls cursed with the maze.
• Many varieties: there are many varieties of minotaur, such as psychic albinotaur and fire-breathing pyrotaur. Not only that, but minotaurs have no fixed or default appearance. A bull-headed man is just as likely as a bull-centaur.
• Feminine suffix: If anyone needs a feminine form of the word minotaur, then I suggest minotrice, minotress or minotauress as possible examples.
• The golden minotaur: This is my attempt to tie in the myth of King Minos or Asterion with the fantasy minotaur. The golden minotaurs remnants of an ancient noble race (of herdfolk?) who lived on the island Crete. Their king (Minos and/or Asterion) called down the curse upon them, causing many to degenerate into the other varieties of minotaur through mutation and crossbreeding. Every gorgotaur (really ugly minotaur mutants with hooves for hands) was originally a proud golden minotaur whose curse consumed him.

In the future I hope to continue my series on minotaurs. Next up I'll either be dealing with minotaur societies or mutations.

That’s not a wendigo! Part deux

What characterizes specifically pre-modern wendigo stories is that the monster itself is typically a man-eating giant (known in anthropology and comparative mythology as an "ogre") that lives in the cold. Hence the generic name "ice cannibal" used in comparative mythology. Due to the overwhelming negative influence of Western colonialism, the modern wendigo stories told by Ojibwa re-purpose the motif as a Mammon figure.

As I have said before, this is completely absent in appropriations of the wendigo name by Euro-American popular culture. I already went over some Euro-American wendigo depictions and how accurate or inaccurate they were. Keep in mind that the wendigo stories have changed over time and any matter of authenticity is decided by the surviving Algonquin peoples, not some random ignorant morons on the internet.

So I assembled a list of monsters in popular culture that are called or compared to "wendigo" by commentators, but never referred to as such in the original work itself. Most of these have nothing in common with ice cannibal stories, and comparisons are only made because of that stupid moose skull meme.

• The Beast, Over the Garden Wall.
• The Pestilent God, Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block. 
• Jersey Devil, The Wolf Among Us.
• Leshen, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
• Moder, The Ritual. 
• Cleric Beast, Bloodborne. 
• Kandar the Destroyer, Ash vs Evil Dead.
• The Mordeo, CryptTV.

At least thematically, some of these monsters display similarity to certain aspects of some wendigo stories. But these are largely generic forest demons, giants and such. Some might eat souls, brutally butcher people or be transformed from humanity, but nothing of that is specific to wendigo. "The Girl in the Basement" probably has more in common with the wendigo thematically.

Cannibalism granting you power at the cost of your humanity only plays a role in the stories of "the Pestilent God" and "the Mordeo." Both creatures look like the generic creepypasta goatman, yet the authors chose not to call them "wendigo." (The creator of the Mordeo explicitly stated that it was based on the wendigo stories, although obviously very loosely.) I will give the authors credit for not engaging in cultural appropriation, and I admire the ease with which they did so. So many other authors are too lazy to just make up their own names and mythology.

Fun fact: mordeo is Latin for "I bite, nibble, gnaw." Quite apt, don't you think?

Something I didn't mention in prior posts was that the "wendigo" has taken a life of its own in the folklore of non-Algonquin Euro-American settlers. Sightings describe it as a tall, hairy creature with antlers. It is alternately considered an omen of death, or a territorial protector of the forest that punishes trespassers and those who disrespect nature. These stories seem intended to promote tourism (Nathan Robert Brown, The Mythology of Grimm: The Fairy Tale and Folklore Roots of the Popular TV Show).

Lions and ogres

While doing research on ogres in anthropology and world mythology, I found something interesting.

A Kabyle creation story, as recounted in “Female Monsters in Kabyle Myths and Folktales: their Nature and Functions” by Sabrina Zerar, describes a wild cannibal couple becoming the first lion (izem) and first ogress or witch (teryel). The pairing here is a bit odd because you would expect the latter to become the first lioness (tizemt). So I did some research into the Berber languages and discovered some interesting bits of etymology.

Etymology of teryel

I have seen various transliterations of the word: the T may be spelled as t, ţ, ts, tt, or ţţ; the Y as i or y. Berber is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, which derives words by affixing to a consonantal root. So I checked a dictionary to get my facts straight. The printed Dictionnaire kabyle-français by J.M. Dallet provides several roots for words meaning ogre or ogress: lɣul, lɣula from ƔL or ƔWL (probable cognate to Arabic ghoul); tteryel/ţţeryel from TRYL; awaɣzniw/waɣzen from WƔZN.

I could not trace the etymology further, but the initial t had me wondering. Berber languages generally indicate the feminine form of a word by adfixing t (e.g. t- + izem “lion” + -t produces tizemt “lioness”), so I checked if RYL was attested a valid root. The Dictionnaire kabyle-français only lists it as a type of currency, so no luck there.

The online Diccionari Amazic-Català lists three different roots written as RYL: RYL₁ “basket, coffin, cabbage”, RYL₂ “ogress, bad fairy; mandrake (mandragora autumnalis)”, and RYL₃ “ral (old currency); five cents coin”. Again, no luck.

The online Amawal - Le dictionnaire de la langue Amazighe lists two words, aryal and rayal, as synonyms for tiẓgi “forest.” (The printed Dictionnaire kabyle-français claims the latter derives from the root ZGW.) These two do seem inflections of a shared root RYL. Success!

Could teryel therefore be a compound of t- + aryal? I cannot confirm whether this is actually the correct etymology, but I think it makes sense. If the speaker was trying to indicate a woman who lived in the woods, then feminizing the word for forest seems logical.

Lion and lioness, ogre and ogress

Amawal lists several words and synonyms for ogres and ogresses: ameẓ (“to take, seize, hold; ogre”), amẓa (“ogre; ogress”), amẓiw (“monster; ogre”), hamẓa (“ogress”), lweḥc (“monster”), tamẓa (“ogress; spider”), tergu (“ogress”), waɣzen (“ogre”).

Such monsters a common feature of Berber fairytales as they are in European. Although man-eating is typically implied, it is not always the case. The Veil of Silence by Djura told a story in which an old woman, who went mad after the loss of her son, was referred to as a “sorceress” (tseryel) by the other villagers.

There are two things to take note of from this list. Firstly, that hamẓa and tamẓa are the feminine of amẓa. Secondly, that ameẓ, amẓa, and amẓiw all derive from the the root MẒ. Marijn van Putten’s “An Aujila Berber Vocabulary” ascribes additional meanings to amẓa “ogre; strong, smart person; (rare) lion.” So at some point in time, the root MẒ related to lions.

This perhaps descends from the Proto-Berber root *MZ “to seize, grasp, catch hold of, collect, impound,” according to G. Marcy’s "Notes linguistiques: autour du periple d'Hannon." It may ultimately descend from the Proto-Afroasiatic *ʔam- “to seize, grasp,” or it could be related to the Ancient Egyptian root mꜣj “lion.”

As stated above the Kabyle word is izem, which Dallet lists as an inflection of the root ZM. The Berber languages have multiple words for lion with distinct etymologies. Putten’s “Nouns of the CVC and CC type in Berber” explains that the root ZM is only attested in the northern Berber languages. In several other Berber languages, the words for “lion” seemingly descend from the Proto-Berber root *ꞵʔʀ.

Could izem and amẓa be related? It seems fairly plausible to me that MẒ and ZM both descend from the root *MZ. Perhaps ZM descends from *MZ through metathesis, the transposition of the two adjacent consonants. In an amusing coincidence, metathesis resulted in the words ogre and orc splitting from their root Orcus.

Alright, now I have found a possible explanation for why a man-eating witch was presented as the wife of a lion rather than a lioness. Perhaps the Kabyle tale substituted the words for lion and lioness with slightly different synonyms over time and thereby shifted the meaning. There could have been any number of pairs: lion and lioness, amẓa and tamẓa, izem and tizemt, waɣzen and teryel, ogre and ogress.

Gnolls, gnomes and trolls

The gnoll has undergone a dramatic evolution over the course of its appearances in fiction. It first appeared in the work of Lord Dunsany as a vaguely described gremlin or goblin. Next it appeared in early Dungeons & Dragons as a gnome/troll hybrid, perhaps derived from the way "gnoll" could be interpreted as a portmanteau name for the hybrid offspring of gnome father and troll mother. The writers soon thought this was too silly the changed the creature to a humanoid hyena, while retaining the non-indicative name. From there, the new gnolls eventually evolved from generic savage humanoids to hyenas mutated by demonic possession by the most recent or "fifth" edition of the game.

What is a gorgotaur?

While skimming books and searching the web I came across the invented word gorgotaur. Etymologically, it is a combination of the Ancient Greek gorgos ("terrible, fierce") and tauros ("bull"); thus, it literally translates as "terrible bull."

It could also be considered a combination with centaur instead, due to mistakenly assuming that taur means "a centaur-like creature" rather than a bull. Interestingly enough, some ancient art of Medusa depicts her as a centauress.

D&D made the weird choice of depicting a toxic iron bull as a "gorgon," despite more closely resembling the mythical catoblepas, so to avoid confusion I will use the unambiguous terms medusa and iron bull instead.

I have seen the word gorgotaur used rarely in a couple examples. In the roleplaying game Mazes & Minotaurs, the gorgotaur is a heavily mutated or primordial minotaur; among other features, it has hooves instead of hands (examples @ grieksegids.nl and clipart.com). In the supplements Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding and Monster Geographica Underground, a gorgotaur is a hybrid of minotaur and iron bull. Speaking of hybrids, Book of Templates Deluxe Edition 3.5 introduced a half-iron bull or "demigorgon" template.

The name may be analyzed in other ways besides the three mentioned above. Perhaps a combination of an iron bull and a centaur or bucentaur? Maybe a combination of minotaur, iron bull and (bu)centaur? Maybe a combination of a medusa (i.e. Greek gorgon) and a minotaur?

So that gives us about six varieties to start with: a centauress with snakes for hair who gazes turns onlookers to stone, a grotesque and bestial minotaur, a minotaur with iron hide and toxic breath, a centaur whose lower body is a bull with iron hide and exhales toxic fumes, the preceding with the head of a bull, and a minotaur with a mane of snakes whose gaze turns onlookers to stone.