Planar Adventures for Dummies: August 2019

Monday, August 19, 2019

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.

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!

Sunday, August 18, 2019

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.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

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.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Mephits

Mephits are elemental imps, serving the same simple role of messengers and spies. They are one of those throwaway monsters that shows up in most monster manuals but nobody pays attention to and whose backstory is constantly changed by the writers.

In AD&D the mephits were imps summoned from the lower planes to animate elemental forms. Later they were tweaked so that they were created on the lower planes, and typically had a low life expectancy since they were often used to send insults.

Starting with 3e, mephits were no longer tied to the lower planes. This change did nothing to make anybody care about them more. Curiously, Necromancers of the Northwest gave them a detailed ecology as a web enhancement for The Traveler's Guide to the Elemental Plane of Fire. In this ecology, mephits may arise spontaneously on the ethereal plane, born to two mephit parents, or created by magic as servants. Mephits that are born or generated lack an elemental affinity, though they might be able to gain one later.

Derek Holland suggested a few new varieties of mephit, such as gilded mephits, number mephits, and shadow mephits. He further suggested a new disturbing origin for mephits: children cursed by magic and enslaved by villains. This creates a moral dilemma for our heroes.

Relevant links

Puppeteer parasites

Puppeteers are a monster based on the common scifi trope of the puppeteer parasite. Puppeteers were initially a blatant rip-off of the aliens from The Puppet Masters. When they first appeared in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, they were depicted as ray-like creatures capable of gliding short distances like the aliens in the story. In the d20 Modern rules, they were depicted as louse-like and fed on the blood of their hosts. In the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook, they lost their gliding ability and were depicted as slug-like instead. A variant known as the "flesh harrower" was introduced, which is a blatant rip-off of the aliens from Stephen King's Dreamcatcher.

Puppeteers were originally created by the mind flayers, but since the latter aren't OGL they were replaced with the phrenic scourges when Dreamscarred Press (the same authors who wrote the 3.5 psionics revision) wrote their own adventures and adapted psionics to Pathfinder. Dreamscarred Press provided further details on the puppeteers, such as the "hive brain" variant in the adventure Uncertain Futures.

Here are some in-character factoids about puppeteers to inspire your imagination:

Puppeteers were created by the phrenic scourges for the purposes of infiltration and subversion. They are not particularly intelligent and require the occasional oversight from their masters.
The species is divided into several specialized castes. The most common are puppeteer, flesh harrower and hive brain.
The hive brain is responsible for reproduction and communication.
The puppeteer comes in at least three body types for better camouflage: slug, louse and manta ray. The manta ray form is capable of gliding short distances.
Puppeteers subsist by siphoning harmless amounts of blood from their host. If multiple puppeteers attach to the same host, the blood loss will become harmful.
Some puppeteers act as brood mothers who asexually spawn immature larvae, provided they have a source of biomass on which to feed.
Some puppeteers may produce spores which grow into a red fungus known as byrum. If the byrum is consumed by a potential host, it will germinate within the digestive tract and fatally emerge as a flesh harrower. This has earned the moniker "shit weasel".
The most intelligent and psychically formidable puppeteers are the "mind maggots". Unlike their kin, mind maggots act on their own initiative and require no orders. Indeed, some have rebelled against the scourges in favor of working as arcane familiars. Their fatal flaw is arrogance: even as a familiar they will still nudge their host in the direction they believe is correct. (see statistics in Monster Encyclopaedia II)

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Monster evolution

A fascinating concept I encountered in some Japanese GameLit was monster evolution. The idea is that D&D monsters "evolve" (or more accurately metamorphose) into other monsters with increasing CR. This works similar to evolution in collectible monster games like Pokémon or Digimon. I suppose that technically this is metamorphosis, as evolution is a distinct scientific term.

The evolution is not necessarily a linear progression, but might branch into multiple different paths. The evolution might move in reverse, with higher CR monsters reverting to the form of lower CR monsters for whatever reason. Monsters might appear more or less humanoid as they evolve.

Evolution might form part of a life cycle a la metamorphosis, or it might be an independent indication of CR. Monsters might metamorphose into lower CR monsters as part of their life cycle, such as the tenebrous worm metamorphosing into the lower CR gloomwing.

GameLit seems to have plenty of examples. In That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, goblins evolve into hobgoblins, ogres evolve into ogre mages, and orcs evolve into high orcs. In Overlord, skeleton mages evolve into elder liches evolve into overlords. In The Rising of the Shield Hero, some animals evolve into cute monster girls.

There are examples in mythology of dragons coming into existence this way: Fafnir the dwarf became a dragon due to cursed treasure, a koi fish who spent a century trying to jump the Dragon's Gate waterfall became a dragon, and the Korean imugi became a dragon after a fallen star granted their wish.

I enjoy the opportunities opened by the concept of monster evolution, as much or even more than that opened by spontaneous generation. I hope to be able to detail some more ideas in the future.

Make dragons magical again!

The recent release of Pathfinder 2e has reinvigorated my interest in dragons, mostly because PF2 has doubled down on having a bazillion different kinds of dragons with their own pseudo-naturalistic ecologies. On the one hand, I'm perfectly fine with using random generation tables to create dragons. On the other hand, I'm pretty sick of dragons being reduced to glorified dinosaurs.

Dragons are found throughout world mythology. There are primordial chaos dragons like Apepi and Tiamat. There are many-headed dragons like Hydra. There are she-dragons like Echidna and Chimera. There are tons of weird magical features, too. A dragon's hoard might be cursed, causing misfortune to thieves or turning you into a dragon yourself. Dragons are often seen as omens of disaster, or conversely as benevolent gods who bring life-giving rain. Dragons are often invulnerable, except for some tiny weak spot the hero must find through wit. Alternately, they have regeneration that requires cleverness to overcome, such as the Greek Hydra or the British knuckers.

Dragon body parts may have a variety of effects. Consuming a dragon's heart grants knowledge of the language of the birds. Dragon's blood is a possible ingredient in the elixir of life. Bathing in dragon's blood confers invulnerability, assuming you survive the bath since dragon's blood is often toxic, corrosive, flammable, or all of the above. If it doesn't cause "dragon trees" or monsters like amphisbaena or scytale to sprout. Sowing a dragon's teeth like seeds might cause hoplites to sprout from the ground.

There are a few stories of dragon's having precious stones in or on their bodies that contain their power. The draconite stone is extracted from the head of a live dragon and has magical properties. The pearl of a Chinese dragon might have the power to generate food. In some Korean tales, falling stars contain wish-granting jewels (Korean yeouiju, from Sanskrit cintamani) that may grant a serpent's wish to become a dragon.

Mythology is full of weird stuff like that. It's a great way to make dragons feel magical again.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

tribes of the centaurs, part 6: the fused riders

During my research, I have come across mentions of centaurs which resemble a rider fused to his horse rather than a human torso replacing the horse's head. These include the Black Devil of Yucatan and Shoshone myth, the Nuckelavee of Orcadian myth, and the the todorac (plural todorci) of Slavic myth.

The Black Devil is described slightly differently by region: "A jet-black Centaur in the mythology of the Mayan Indians of the Yucatan" and "A jet-black stallion of Shoshone Indian myth. The Black Devil has fiery red eyes and sharp teeth. It is said to stalk and eat humans." I could not find any other references to the Black Devil in my research. I notice slight visual similarities to the cadejo of Central American folklore, which sometimes appears in forms resembling black horses.

The Nuckelavee is a grotesque monster resembling a fusion of horse and rider without skin. It has flippers instead of hooves, a single huge eye in the horse head, arms that reach to the ground, and its human head is huge and hangs off its neck. It causes all sorts of misfortune such as plagues and disasters, but as a sea monster it may be repelled with fresh water. It seems fairly well-known in English during my research. It appears in Pathfinder as a fey monster.

The todorac (Cyrillic: Тодорац, plural Тодорци) is a demonic horse/rider fusion that seems inexplicably associated with Saint Theodore Tyron's Day. I couldn't find much information on them in English, but they appear to have an article on the Serbian Wikipedia. They appear in a folk motif in which a girl in a mill or cemetery is threatened by one with having her organs wound on an iron reel.

Sources

Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose
The Black-man of Zinacantan by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
"Cult of the Saint in the Balkans" by Mirjana Detelic

Giants that aren't physically large?

In Norse mythology, a jötunn was not necessarily gigantic. They could be excessively beautiful or ugly. For that matter, they did not have to be humanoid. Norse mythology includes giants with multiple heads or the forms of freakish or giant animals like Sleipnir, Fenris, and Jormungandr. Other mythologies didn't limit themselves either. Greek giants had weird features like snakes for legs and the heads of lions, among other things. The size of single giants wasn't consistent either: they didn't change their size, it just never seemed to impede them.

I touched upon these topics in previous posts. In this post, I want to imagine some kind of comprehensible taxonomic distinctions for giants that accounts for all these diverse depictions. Groups referred to as "giants" or "titans" in world mythology include the Greek titans and gigantes, the Norse jotnar and vanir, the Hindu asuras, the Persian daevas, the Arabic jinn, and the Irish fomorians and firbholg. Generally, giants in world mythology are distinguished by great stature (literal or metaphorical), a primordial origin, and an enmity with the gods.

So the D&D definition is just needless pigeonholing, as D&D is wont. Instead, as I previously did with trolls, I propose a list of criteria that may be used to define giants. A giant will not necessarily have all the traits on this list, but they should have several of them to avoid excessive debates about what qualifies as a giant.

Great stature. Often literally referring to great (albeit inconsistent) size, but other times referring to incredible beauty or ugliness, or multiple such traits. Anything of great physical size will not necessarily be a mythical giant, even if that is otherwise the literal definition of the word giant.
Chaotic. Often, but not always, acted in opposition to the gods, as with the Norse jotunn, Hindu asuras, Irish fomorians, and Greek gigantes. Where the gods represent order and civilization, the giants/titans represent chaos and disaster. May be composed of or descended from a prior pantheon that was overthrown, even related to the current pantheon.
Primordial. Often the first race to come into existence or be spawned/created by the primordial gods, predating the world itself even. Thus, they are typically considered to have a divine lineage even if they are not otherwise considered gods (the definition of god is fuzzy in myth). For example, the jotuns were the first beings to arise in Norse myth, and the jinn were the first race created by God in Arabic folklore.
Elemental. An elemental affinity is common too. Giants in fantasy gaming almost always have some kind of association with an elemental environment like the clouds or the mountains. The Norse jotuns come in several varieties including frost giants and fire giants, and the Arabic jinn were created from "smokeless fire" and "scorching wind." Various thunder gods in some Native American cultures may also qualify under this criteria.
Not necessarily humanoid. Often have some humanoid features like the Greek gigantes having snakes for legs or the Norse Hel being literally half-alive and half-corpse, but other times appear in the forms of gigantic animals like the Norse's eight-legged horse Sleipnir, the giant wolf Fenris, the world-encircling serpent Jormungandr, and the giant eagle Hræsvelgr (the Villains Wiki labels them "Beast Jötunn" or beast giants), or wholly monstrous freaks like the Greek Typhon being an amalgamation of monstrous features. (Other monsters like the biblical Behemoth and Leviathan would also qualify under this criterion. Indeed, their names are used as improper nouns and synonymous with giant.) Addendum 9/27/2019: Also note the wechuge from Dane-zaa folklore.
Intelligent. This is just an addition I made myself to keep from including any and all kaiju under the giant umbrella. Giants are generally intelligent beings, or at least intelligent enough to speak and do various menial tasks on their own initiative. (This is unrelated to the D&D Intelligence score.) So the various other monsters of Greek mythology like Cerberus, Chimera and Hydra are not considered giants despite their size since they aren't intelligent: they're just vicious beasts with great destructive potential.
May (or may not) be dragons. There is a fair amount of conceptual overlap between giants and dragons. In world mythologies, they are both generally primordial beings of chaos that oppose the gods of order. They are generally considered distinct entities... except when they are not. The Greek she-dragons, even though depicted as nymph-dragon-centaurs, are not labeled giantesses. The Greek giant Typhon is not labeled a dragon despite possessing similar dragon features to the she-dragon. The Norse Jormungandr is labeled both a giant and a dragon, born to giant parents in the form of a dragon.

Of course since we are dealing with mythology and myths are notoriously fluid, I doubt these criteria are perfect. I fully acknowledge that, and I believe the real problem is that fantasy gaming tries to impose arbitrary taxonomies on fictitious concepts. However, having multiple criteria to select from should make it easier to justify labeling Hræsvelgr a giant but not all giant eagles: in that case, Hræsvelgr is still a primordial being of chaos whereas the giant eagles are not. Unlike a lot of gaming taxonomies I could name, that distinction does not feel wholly arbitrary. Although this ambiguity problem vanishes if you allow a monster to be labeled as multiple types. So Hræsvelgr would be [giant] type because of his lineage, size, and sky powers, and [beast] because of his form. Hence, beast giants!

Speaking of beast giants, I wonder how they contrast with the beast lords and elder beasts I mentioned in other posts. Would they be distinct, or different titles for the same beings? For example, the Norse Garm is considered the exemplar of canines, yet elsewhere the race of Moongarm's are labeled giants. In the interest of simplicity and reducing confusion, I would happily consider them synonymous.

Additional links

Addendum 10/29/2019

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Mythology demons and fantasy gaming

If you are a student of world mythology, then you might have noticed that the definition of a demon is fairly nebulous. In modern English it refers to evil spirits generically, particularly those who possess people or torment souls in Hell. Every religion has evil spirits, and aside from being "evil" (i.e. their whole shtick is to cause disaster, disease, or other unpleasant things), they don't have anything in common.

D&D's demons, or fiends if you want to use the game jargon (I won't), are closely based on medieval Christian conceptions of demons. That is, they live in Hell and torment the damned. They may or may not be fallen angels. They want to enter the mortal world to cause bad things, typically by possessing hapless victims or making pacts with wicked people.

Demons in world mythology are extremely diverse beyond this stereotype. The appellation of "demon" itself is more accurately a description of behavior than of origin. Although mythologies with underworlds and hells typically described them as being inhabited at least partly by demons, demons are by no means limited to living in hell. Plenty of demons inhabit the mortal world and have no connection to hells or the underworld. They simply exist.

This may be seen in the origin of the word "demon" itself. It comes from Ancient Greek, where it referred to the personified spirits or deities of the human condition and abstract concepts. There were generally two types, the benevolent eudemons and the malevolent cacodemons. Few of them appeared in myths, but in an amusing coincidence both types were often chthonic or underworld deities as well. In English, the word "demon" used without qualifier refers to the equivalent of cacodemons. This shift in meaning came about as a result of Christianization, which demonized all pre-Christian spirits when converting the pagans.

Although plenty of gods and spirits in mythology can cause great suffering, what distinguishes cacodemons specifically is that they cannot be placated. Many gods were amoral and their attitude toward you was proportional to your interactions with them. The Greek gods were psychopaths, rapists, and had insanely fragile egos, but their wrath could be placated by offerings and obedience. Even eudemons can inflict horrible punishments if you piss them off. Cacodemons cause suffering because they can and nothing will drive them away short of exorcists.

In ancient times, diseases were believed to be caused by demons. Then they were believed to be punishments inflicted by the gods for bad behavior. Then they were believed to be caused by imbalances of humors and miasma. Then germ theory cast away these superstitions and showed that diseases were caused by tiny invisible pathogens, not punishments or humors. Ironically, the ancient belief in demons had far more in common with germ theory than any belief that came between them. When you get right down to it, how much difference is there between a demon possessing your body to cause illness and a pathogen swimming in your bodily fluids to cause illness?

Despite their malevolence, cacodemons in mythology are sometimes known to serve protective roles. The wind demon Pazuzu had a rivalry with the miscarriage-causing she-demon Lamashtu, so amulets depicting his likeness were used to protect pregnant women and children from Lamashtu. The gorgons were so terrible that their visage turned onlookers to stone, but amulets depicting their likeness were used to protect the temples of oracles. The logic here being the ancient "fight fire with fire."

There some evidence that so-called demons were worshiped in addition to being feared. The distinction between demons and gods was itself sometimes fuzzy. Presumably this operated on the same logic as the psychopathic Greek gods: praise them to appease their wrath. (For example, statues of Pazuzu depict him with a phallus the size of a snake, or even literally a snake. This despite him never being associated with virility except in his supposed protection of pregnant women.)

Something I wanted to do was to adapt these diverse depictions of demons to fantasy gaming. Demons are not simply alien creatures from the lower planes, but personifications of the abstract. Diseases are caused by demonic possession, natural disasters are caused by demons of the skies and seas, the visages of certain demons may ward away their rivals, and Death itself is an ambivalent chthonic demon who reaps souls without judgment or malice.

My beef with magic in fantasy tabletop games

The magic system in D&D and its derivatives has problems. What follows are some of my rationales for why I don't like D&D magic systems. The articulation may be questionable, but I hope my readers find it understandable.

Distinguishing clerics, druids, and warlocks?

What is the difference between a druid and a cleric devoted to a god of nature or a warlock who made a pact with a god of nature? Aside from their game mechanics. What is the fluff and world building distinction?

The official D&D settings do not have satisfactory explanations. The world building of D&D settings in general falls apart upon inspection. So it falls to homebrew and 3pp to impose a sense of logic to the often bizarre rules of D&D and its derivatives.

Clerics, druids and warlocks are based on fantasy archetypes that predate the game itself. Clerics are originally based on vampire hunters. Druids are loosely based on the druids of the lost Celtic faith. Warlocks are originally based on witches as described in the Malleus Maleficarum. When they became classes in the game, their backstories and capabilities expanded and evolved over time.

Although their mechanics are distinct, their fluff overlaps. Perhaps the easiest way to solve this is to remove the overlap. Do not allow them to worship or make pacts with the same deity/patron (although fallen deities might be suitable as patrons). Instead of their being evil gods worshiped by clerics, there are not strictly speaking evil "gods" but archfiends and so forth. They are represented by warlocks, not clerics. (Although this requires actively defying the D&D convention of evil gods, which I don't have a problem with since I find the concept as it appears in fantasy gaming rather silly. Golarion, for example, has entire nation-states that openly worship evil gods and based their morality around being evil like the villain in a children's cartoon.)

Several campaign settings offer the explanation that clerics and druids worship the new and old gods, respectively. These settings include Scarred Lands, Kingdoms of Legend, and Points of Light. In these settings, there was an ancient war between gods loosely based on the Greek titanomachy. The druids venerate the primordial gods/spirits of the natural world, whereas the clerics venerate the new/orderly gods of mortal affairs.

As warlocks were not OGL until fifth edition, they are not integrated into most campaign settings. So no help can be found there. The existence of warlocks requires drawing a line between deities and patrons. What exactly is the cutoff point? What makes a god? The answer depends on the predilections of the world builder, so you can't simply use the one-size-fits-all approach of the rules.

An idea I had was to bring back the whole evil warlock shtick from medieval times. Gods, primal spirits, etc can freely hand out power for whatever reason. But fiends, fairies, or what have you are limited to pacts with warlocks for whatever reason. Perhaps they simply lack sufficient power, the freedom to channel power, whatever. (I suppose this sort of approach would fit better with a Eberron-esque agnostic approach to deities, which would better distinguish clerics and druids from warlocks. The logic being that deities are questionably definable whereas patrons are observably real entities, so their application as power sources would be different.)

Since demons/devils/fiends/whatever wouldn't have all that much power in the world because it has built-in defenses (you know, whatever prevents demons from just opening portals willy-nilly and invading the world), they need to rely on warlocks. They make pacts, buy the warlock's soul, grant bits of knowledge or power to allow the warlock to operate without wasting time on becoming a wizard. (There's conceptual overlap between the warlock and sorcerer due to their use of Charisma, but I'll ignore that for now.)

At this point, you'd need to world build your demons and other patrons. Again, I don't like the game's one-size-fits-all approach. For example, a lot of demons in mythology don't live in the underworld or hell; indeed, the mythological definition of demons is far less rigid than D&D's. I'd have to reserve that for another post, though.

Ability scores and magical traditions

D&D has traditionally assigned spell-casters reliance on different ability scores, typically lining up with their power source. Intelligence measures reasoning and memory. Wizards cast from Intelligence. Wisdom measures perception and insight. Clerics, Druids, and Rangers cast from Wisdom. Charisma measures force of personality. Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks cast from Charisma.

Why these ability scores in particular? I don't (entirely) care if the ability scores are highly questionable mechanics in and of themselves, I just care what the internal logic is behind them being assigned in this way. D&D itself provides no reasoning for the assignments, so I have to devise my own. My working rationale is that spell-casting ability determines how a caster casts their magic regardless of its power source: Intelligence indicates the study of magical theory, Charisma indicates forcing the magic to obey your will, and Wisdom indicates passively attuning to and channeling universal power like a Jedi knight. But these rationales don't seem to hold universally true in the class mechanics and fluff.

Wizards cast from Intelligence because wizardry studies and manipulates magic like a science. When you cast a spell, you are arranging the spell using your knowledge and understanding of magical theory. That makes perfect sense.

Paladins and sorcerers cast from Charisma because they shape magic through sheer force of personality. They don't understand magical theory like the wizard, they just brute force their way to the desired outcome. This makes sense, although it requires imagining Charisma as the spiritual equivalent of Strength and Dexterity, I guess?

Bards cast from Charisma because Charisma is used for the Performance skill. Since bards cast spells by performing magical music, it therefore follows that they would use the same ability score. This makes sense from a game mechanics perspective, but Charisma being used for Performance is questionable in reality. Just because someone can play an instrument doesn't mean they are a social butterfly. In fact, playing music is heavily linked to "verbal memory, spatial reasoning and literacy skills," so it makes just as much if not more sense for Performance (and by extension bard spells) to rely on Intelligence and/or Wisdom.

Wisdom is where I hit a brick wall. As it stands, Wisdom is a weird grab bag of perception, intuition, and bits stolen from Intelligence. For the life of me I cannot reason why Wisdom would determine the efficacy of divine spells, as opposed to a Jedi's Force powers. The caster is just channeling the power of their deity to cast the spell on the caster's behalf, so their own ability score should not matter. This would make sense if Wisdom was supposed to measure how "attuned" the caster is to their deity, like a Jedi is attuned to the Force, but the fluff for divine casters is diametrically opposed to that of Jedi. Jedi are vaguely pantheistic, whereas divine casters are generally henotheistic.

Warlocks are the second brick wall. The use of Charisma would suggest they brute force their way through magic like the paladin and sorcerer, but the fluff explains they rely on study of magic like wizards. The patron mechanic confuses things further by drawing a parallel with the divine casters. What exactly is the difference between a warlock patron and whatever empowers a cleric or druid? According to anecdotes, the Warlock cast from Intelligence during playtesting but players complained that it didn't cast from Charisma like it did in third edition. (A lot of the questionable class design decisions apparently resulted from players complaining that it didn't work like third edition, even when the proposed mechanics were clearly better balanced or more logical than third edition. Druid wild shape is another example.)

As it stands, I think the key flaw of the spell-casting ability mechanic (beyond the questionable definitions of the ability scores themselves) is that it shoehorns ability scores regardless of whether it makes sense from a fluff perspective. In addition, the mechanic forces every class to rely on a fixed spell-casting ability even if it would make sense to let players choose another to customize their character. For example: maybe there could be a divine wizard counterpart who studies divine lore and casts divine spells recorded in a prayer book (e.g. Heroes of Horror's archivist class), or a divine caster who casts from Charisma to indicate that they rely on divine power from within rather than attuning themselves to a deity (e.g. Pathfinder's oracle class).

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Relatives of the manticore

The manticore comes in many variants and there are many monsters visually similar to the manticore. Sometimes it may be difficult to tell the difference, but I will certainly try.

Similar creatures

The manticore is loosely similar to several other monsters including the chimera, leucrota, lamia, and sphinx. The manticore generally shares no common origin with such creatures, but may be easily confused by the unwary. What follows are some guidelines to distinguish the two.

Chimera: there are many different chimeras, but the one relevant here is the Lycian chimera, being a hybrid of goat, lion and dragon. Some chimeras may include manticores or parts of manticores as components, as they may any other creatures. (See my posts on the chimera for details.)
Lamia: Lamia are shapechangers that assume the forms of beautiful women to lure victims to eat, before assuming their true monstrous forms. Although some lamia may resemble lions with human faces or whole torsos, they are distinguished by their shapechanging. (See my posts on the lamia for details.)
Leucrota: Also called the crocotta or hyena. It has plates of bone (or a retractable beak inside a sheath) instead of teeth and mimics human speech. This lends itself to comparison with the manticore's triple rows of shark's teeth and trumpet-like voice, but the two look nothing alike. (See my post on the leucrota and hyena for details.)
Ball-tailed cats: These panthers of the Pacific Northwest have long tails ending in clubs, spikes or other features used to subdue prey, fight or defend themselves. These are often confused with manticores, but they lack humanoid faces and are unable to speak. I would also refer to them as "false manticores." (This refers to those depictions of manticores in artwork with leonine instead of human faces. The key characteristic of the manticore is its human face!)
Sphinx: Some sphinxes have human faces on lion bodies, inviting comparison to the manticore. The two have completely different ecologies: sphinxes are immortal guardians of scared places, while manticores are beasts of the wastes. Stories circulate (see 13th Age Bestiary) that the two are mortal enemies and that manticores are fallen shedu. (See my post on sphinxes for details.)

Examples

As I said in prior posts, manticores have wildly variable appearances in art and I would like to show this off in gaming. Since every such randomly generated manticore is essentially unique, I present a few named individuals based on medieval bestiaries and game supplements. Alternately, these could be named for recurring variants and subspecies. (Some of these have appeared before in my posts on art history.)

Asheeba has the body of a panther and the face of a woman. She enjoys taunting her prey while hunting them. (Appears in Mazes & Minotaurs.)

Baricos has the face of a man, the body of a lion and the stinger of a scorpion. (The standard mythological manticore.)

Emipusa has the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a goat, the tail of a wolf or horse, the face and breasts of a comely woman, a prodigious manhood, and flanks covered in scales. Mesmerizes men with its cleavage and then pounces. (The "lamia" as depicted by Topsell and Tudor heraldry.)

Lympago has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and the paws of a monkey. (Appears in heraldry.)

Manicora is a womanticore with a scaled body and a snake for a tail. (Appears in Monster Encyclopaedia II.)

Mantidrake is a manticore dragon hybrid. (See my posts on dragon-kin hybrids.)

Mantimera is perhaps a "chimerical manticore," or perhaps a terrifying monster with two heads, a mane of serpents and a gaping maw.

Phix has the body of a lion, the face and breasts of a woman, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of a serpent. (The Greek or Theban sphinx from the myth of Oedipus. The gynosphinx from 3e D&D.)

Satyral has the horned head of an elderly satyr, the body of a tiger, the tusks of a boar, and the paws of a dragon. (Appears in heraldry.)

Schimäre has the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a goat, the face and breasts of a woman, and a dragon-headed tail. (Appears in heraldry.)

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Planes and planets

Although space travel seems fairly unpopular in OGL fantasy gaming, it has appeared in surprisingly diverse forms.

Portal travel only. By default, most fantasy campaign settings limit themselves to a single planet. If multiple planets are introduced, then they will generally be reachable only through portal or by traveling through one of the transitive planes. (WarCraft is a popular example.) Spacecraft either don't exist or are so rare that the PCs won't be expected to ride inside one. This model seems to be the most common for settings that involve multiple worlds, such as Golarion's Distant Worlds supplement, presumably because space travel occupies a lot more conceptual space.

Science fantasy. When space travel gets involved as a standard fixture of the setting, the most common manifestation is what some label the "science fantasy" subgenre. (Star Wars is a popular example.) What I don't like about this model is that tabletop settings, like Dragonstar, Starfinder, or Starjammer, typically sloppily throw scifi and fantasy conventions into a blender with only the clumsiest attempts to integrate them. Magic and technology exist side-by-side, operating on completely different rules.

Magitech space fantasy. However, some settings don't lazily throw scifi tech into a standard fantasy setting and pretend it works. Instead, they might devise magitech spacecraft to match the fantasy setting. Campaign settings like Shadow of the Spider Moon, Aether & Flux, Aethera, and Necropunk are examples. They rely on technology powered by magic or alternate physical laws, sometimes having multiple competing methods.

Retro space fantasy. The science fantasy and space fantasy subgenres still assume that space operates like it does in reality: explosive decompression, empty vacuum, etc. However, some settings go even further with the fantastical elements, jettisoning real physics entirely. Spelljammer introduces breathing in space, crystal spheres, phlogiston, geocentric systems, and so forth. This model is recycled by some OSR settings like Voidspanners and Dark Dungeons.

Planes as planets. The models I mentioned so far still assume that space travel is limited to the "material plane" (as D&D calls it) and that planar travel operates by an entirely separate subsystem. However, that doesn't have to be the case either. 3pp like Classic Play: The Book of the Planes and Blood & Treasure suggest that the planes could be arranged in the same way as planets and visited through fantastical means of space travel. At this point, there is no distinction between space travel and planar travel.

ADDENDUM 11/19/2019: Honorable mentions to Aetherial Adventures and Cabbages & Kings: The Steampunk Renaissance.

Friday, August 9, 2019

Monster types in Pathfinder 2e

So the second edition Pathfinder rules have showed up on the online SRD sites. The formatting is terrible, but I was able to look past that.

Anyway, I wanted to address the monster types. Monster types are one of those rules that D&D and its derivatives have generally executed horribly. Pathfinder in particular had an atrocious type mechanic that was used to determine combat statistics. This new edition seems to have just adopted a similar mechanic as D&D5e, which has its own problems but I'll address those soon. So let's see how PF2 has revised its mechanics...

So the list of monster types is aberration, animal, astral, beast, celestial, construct, dragon, elemental, ethereal, fey, fiend, fungus, giant, humanoid, monitor, ooze, and undead. Let's not kid ourselves: this is a shameless copy of the 5e type mechanic with slight changes. Compared to 5e, PF2 subtracted the monstrosity type (good riddance!) and added the animal, astral, ethereal, fungus, and monitor types.

Unsurprisingly, PF2 hasn't learned from its mistakes so some of the types still have stupid arbitrary baggage rules attached, like elementals not needing to breathe. So an air elemental or fire elemental can survive just fine in the vacuum of space. That doesn't make any logical sense and it isn't thematic either.

PF2 divides 5e's beast type into animal and beast type, with the only distinction being that animals are limited to low intelligence. While this isn't an improvement over 5e's beast type (which covers all intelligence ranges), it is a massive improvement over PF1 which divided the same things into animals, magical beasts and vermin. Now animals may be ahistorical or have magical abilities: the ankheg and griffon are now typed as animals. Yay!

The PF2 beast type is unnecessary and nonsensical. Centaurs are typed as beasts, whereas medusae, merfolk, and minotaurs are typed as humanoids. Speaking of humanoids, the distinction between giants and humanoids is now fuzzier than ever. All giants are at least large size, but humanoids may be of at least large size too (e.g. minotaurs). So what gives?

The astral, ethereal, and monitor types were thrown in to cover corner cases. Astral creatures are from the astral plane, ethereal creatures from the ethereal plane, and monitors from the neutral planes. There isn't a type for creatures from the shadow plane or any other obscure planes, so it's up in the air what those will be typed.

So there are distinct types for good and evil (celestial and fiend), but chaotic, lawful and neutral are thrown into the monitor type. Because D&D and its clones use a stupid alignment system in which law and chaos play second fiddle to good and evil. I think that's stupid and vastly prefer 4e's origins tagging mechanic; if you need a type specifically for whatever aligned beings are supposed to be, then just add an immortal type or something.

The fungus type... dear God. Do we really need a fungus type of all things? Can it really not be covered by a tag applied to some plants and oozes?

In short, the new monster types mechanic is a marked improvement over PF1 but overall much worse than 5e. How difficult is it to devise a non-hierarchical tagging mechanic with separate tags for planar origin or whatever? 4e was vastly superior but these idiot writers keep ignoring its improvements because of stupid grognards complaining about it being too similar to MMOs.

Dear God. This isn't effing rocket science!

Fantastical animal husbandry

I posted my first post on the barnacle goose tree and vegetable lamb back in 2017. With two years to reflect, I decided to expand on my imagined ecology for this zoophyte with an emphasis on animal husbandry. The idea of farming fantastical animals has stayed in the back of my mind ever since I first read about Hagrid's exploits in the Harry Potter series two decades ago. The word zoophyte is a dated term for a plantlike animal, but it seems quite appropriate to use here.

The vegetable lamb and the cotton plant are the same species. The zoophyte alternates between vegetative asexual cotton plants and motile sexual vegetable sheep. The lambs grow from the plant like fruit, and graze on other nearby plants for sustenance and to reduce competition with their parent plant. There are a number of different species with different traits. After severing their umbilical cord, vegetable sheep can travel quite far and form herds. The ewe is able to asexually birth more lambs, but when impregnated by a ram she will lay seeds that grow into new cotton plants.

Some steppe tribes have adopted animal husbandry of the vegetable sheep. They raise the sheep for their cotton, meat and milk. Their cotton is sheared and used to make textile fiber and sewing thread. Their milk is comparable to almond milk and maple milk. Their blood tastes like sweet sap and may be used as a condiment. Their meat tastes much like fish. Several varieties have been bred to amplify desirable traits. The largest varieties are even used as beasts of burden (compare mutton busting in real life).

The barnacle goose, barnacle and barnacle goose tree are the same species. The zoophyte alternates between immobile asexual barnacle trees and motile sexual geese. The geese mate and lay eggs in water that hatch into barnacle larvae. The larvae attach themselves to surfaces where they can filter food from the water. The barnacles reproduce by budding or by releasing more aquatic larvae. Some barnacles further mature into trees, and these barnacle goose trees grow barnacle-like fruits that hatch into goslings. As with the vegetable lamb, there are many species with slightly different traits.

As with the vegetable lamb shepherds, some coastal settlements farm domesticated barnacles and selectively breed them. The geese are raised as livestock for their eggs and meat, while the barnacle trees are grown in orchards for their fruit. Again, the largest varieties may be used as beasts of burden (compare chocobos in Final Fantasy).

There is no limit for how far these ideas may go. I will try to explore more options for fantastical animal husbandry in future posts.

Thursday, August 8, 2019

Harpy ecology?

In fantasy roleplaying, harpies typically sing (due to confusion with the sirens) to lure male adventurers with the intent of copulating with and then eating them. Like a lot of all-female monsters, actually. How repulsive!

There have been plenty of attempts by others at dealing with the ecology of the harpy, so I won't try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, I only offer a few isolated suggestions.

Appearance and variants: Harpies have a diverse array of appearances in historical art and popular culture. Perhaps GMs might want to reflect this in the game.

Perhaps harpies have variable physical appearances, without altering their game statistics.
Perhaps harpies are shape changers who can tweak their appearance without changing their statistics.
Perhaps there are harpy variants with different statistics due to different physical features, like smaller size or scorpion tails or such. The supplements on harpies I listed in the prior post provide plenty of examples.

Reproduction: Fantasy games generally oscillate between harpies being all-female and raping male humanoids (again, like a lot of all-female monsters) or including both male and female members to reproduce normally (sometimes with males being uncommon and/or flightless). Here are a few examples and variations:

The Slayer's Guide to Harpies posits that harpies are asexual. They are notoriously bloodthirsty because they require humanoid blood to nourish their eggs, like mosquitoes.
Legendary Races: Harpy uses the all-female rapist version. It further posits that some harpies are born as sterile intersex individuals named "harpidite," who grow up to be oracles.
Creature Collection Revised uses the two-gendered version. It further specifies that male harpies are flightless and never leave their aeries.
Spanambula suggests calling male harpies "boreadors."

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Tribes of the centaurs, part 5: the horse-footed

Some medieval bestiaries described centaurs with only two legs instead of four, similar to satyrs.

Merrow

The mythological merrow are Irish versions of the common merfolk. Their only noteworthy features are that the males are hideous, provoking females to woo human sailors instead, and always wear a magic hood that works similarly to a selkie's skin. If you steal their hood, they cannot return to the waves and you can extort them to marry you or something. Since the tales are limited to men stealing the hoods of merrow maids, it is unclear if merrow men have hoods as well.

3e merrow are simply aquatic ogres. This portrayal was carried into Pathfinder, which introduced freshwater and saltwater variations.

5e merrow are evil counterparts of standard merfolk, similar to the merrow (aka murdhuacha) in Changeling: The Dreaming. Or the deep merfolk in Pathfinder.

Speaking of which, Changeling: The Dreaming distinguishes between merfolk and merrow on the basis that the former are part vertebrate and the latter part invertebrate. I burrowed this idea in order to condense the merfolk races, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

Anyway, I think there is room for both versions of merrow and more. They might need renaming, such as to "aquatic ogre" and "dark merfolk" or something along those lines.

Monday, August 5, 2019

Zoanthropes and weretouched

Previously I used the word "zoanthrope" to refer to humans that assume animal forms but are not lycanthropes. (Although technically it may be synonymous.) This may be the result of a racial trait as with the mhuinntir and skinwalker races, or might be the result of a class feature such as with the druid and shifter. Thus, zoanthropes are suitable as player characters.

The weretouched are individuals with any therianthrope ancestry, not necessarily lycanthropes, such as from a werewolf, jackalwere, or kitsune. This may grant them shapeshifting, ranging from the limited physical changes displayed by the wereblooded or skinwalker races all the way to the extreme therianthropy displayed by the weretouched archetype for the shifter class.

Keith Baker's hypothetical "pure lycanthrope" are another example of a zoanthrope.

Doppel/mimic life cycle speculations

The Complete Guide to Doppelgangers, The Hidden Truth of Doppelgangers, Dungeon Denizens Revisited, Darkness Without Form: Secrets of the Mimic, etc already go into a great deal of detail into the life cycle of the doppelgangers and mimics, so I won't try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, I will synthesis a mix of these. I will refer to these shapechangers as "metamorphs" collectively, and their individual names when specific.

Metamorphs may reproduce both sexually and asexually as circumstances permit. They may reproduce asexually through budding, fragmentation and releasing spores. The many stages or "morphs" of their life cycle are not linear. Individuals may pass through many different stages by maturing, reverting, merging, splitting, and so forth. They are comparable to plants, slime molds, sponges and the immortal jellyfish in those respects.

For example:

doppelganger → gestalt mimic → doppelstadt
hunter mimic → doppelganger → doppelstadt
spore → plasmoid → hunter mimic → lair-tyrant → metamorphic scholar → failed-apotheosis
mimicling swarm → hunter mimic → lair-tyrant → elder mimic

Their overall behavior and reproductive methods will generally depend on the organization of the local population. The material in Dungeon Denizens Revisited is based on observations of orphaned hunter mimics that are the equivalent of feral children, whereas The Complete Guide to Doppelgangers is based on observations of highly organized and mind-linked metamorphs. The Hidden Truth of Doppelgangers logically explains that the hunter mimics cannot mature into doppelgangers without telepathic nurturing, which explains the existence of failed-apotheosis mimics seen elsewhere.

Given their metamorphic nature, there are many variants adapted to different environments. Doppelgangers come in urban and rustic variants. Mimics develop alterations and mutations. Lair-tyrants develop psychic powers. Et cetera.

Doppelgangers may reproduce sexually not only with other metamorphs but with humanoids as well, owing to their perfect shapechanging. Such children form the doppels, suitable as PCs; doppels are not hybrids or humanoids with a doppelganger bloodline, but a stage of the metamorph life cycle (obviously this is obscured behind rumors and misinformation). Some remain doppels for their entire lives, a rare few perhaps becoming sorcerers with the shapechanger bloodline/origin, while others mature into doppelgangers. It it a common practice for a doppel born to doppelganger parents to be given up for adoption by humanoid societies.

The origin of the metamorphs is unknown, perhaps even to themselves. The aboleth make extensive use of mimic slaves and symbiotes, leading some to ascribe the mimic's origin to aboleth experiments. Given that the aboleth don't make similar use of doppelgangers (the parasitic lethid already serve that role), the veracity of this origin is questionable.

Mongrelfolk and chaotic planetouched

The mongrelmen were introduced in early editions of D&D. Their backstory was that they were the result of extreme interspecies miscegenation. In later editions their name and backstory was changed for the sake of political correctness. They were renamed mongrelfolk (not an improvement) and their backstory changed to them being the result of fusion experiments by a mad wizard (not original). They now inherited the genetics of creatures they ate a la kroot in Warhammer 40,000.

The Tome of Horrors recycled their old miscegenation origins and this was reprinted by Pathfinder through the OGL. Aside from that, homebrew typically devise new non-miscegenation origins. The Daily Bestiary mentions that mongrelfolk could easily fit any backstory the GM desires.

For the most part, mongrelfolk look like bizarre patchworks of body parts from other humanoid species. Reptilian, insectoid, piscine, mammalian, avian, etc. In 3e they briefly changed to looking like a generic demikind race that could pass for members of the demikind races, but this was never used again. Personally, I like the idea that mongrelfolk could exist on a continuum between both extremes, maybe with some social friction between the two kinds of mongrelfolk over how other humanoid races treat them.

It doesn't make any sense to me that "mongrelfolk" is their racial name, since it is clearly a racial slur. I imagine they probably have their own name for themselves, like "the people," "the race," or "human beings."

New ideas for backstories came to me after some thought. Maybe they could be patronized by a Beast Lord of Chimeras (as in chimerical creatures, not the Greek Chimera). Maybe they could be chaotic planetouched?

Here is a list of chaotic planetouched from third party products I perused:

Doathi, Frogfolk of Porphyra from Purple Duck Games
Eirling, Secrets of the Planes: Planar Races from Lion's Den Press
Ganzi, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Planar Adventures from Paizo Inc.
Warpling, Dark Roads & Golden Hells from Kobold Press
Xaoling, Planar Races: Chaos, The Xaolings from Purple Duck Games
Xiokin, Children of the Planes from Tangent Games

A recurring theme of chaotic planetouched is that they have chimerical features. The eirling take the cake because they used randomized tables to determine their body parts, just like the mongrelfolk in Tome of Horrors! Being planetouched doesn't necessarily mean that you had an aboleth, chaosiic, ogdoad, protean or whatever in your family tree. Planetouched may be the result of pacts, transfusions, mutations by planar radiation or wild magic, surviving attack by a chaos beast, infection with pan-demoniac corruption, etc. For that matter, the term planetouched may just as easily apply to mortal inhabitants of the planes. The latter is the premise of the supplement Secrets of the Planes: Planar Races.

Regarding the doathi in particular, I think they could be conflated with the deep ones, gillmen, and skum presented elsewhere in Pathfinder. I could easily link the aboleth and ogdoad.

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