Racial hierarchies

Fantasy gaming has a fairly detailed racial hierarchy, but for this post I will break it down into its most simple. Humanoid races may be grouped by varying criteria, usually by how human-like or pretty they are.

Resolving the paradoxes afflicting elementals

The MM entry on "elementals" is riddled with contradictions and plot hooks that go nowhere. In this post, I will examine those mistakes and provide solutions.

Monster intelligence, part 1: beasts

As an exercise, I decided to look up and compare the intelligence scores of the monsters in the MM. I was aided in this by a brief analysis of what intelligence scores supposedly measure and a spreadsheet listing the ability scores of all the monsters in the MM (see the links below). Thus, I decided to make a series outlining my findings. For my first post, I decided to look at beasts.

Undead hunger

5e does not have any rules for undead hunger, but it is a neat concept. I decided to use a twist on the idea: All undead are subject to physical deterioration without a steady stream of animating power.

Multi-headed and -limbed giants

D&D has a bizarre fixation with making every possible anatomical configuration of giants into a distinct race. For example, every two-headed giant is an "ettin," every three-armed giant is an "athach," every three-headed three-armed three-legged giant is an "ubue," every two-headed cyclops is a "biclops," every two-headed troll is a "two-headed troll" (at this point the writer gave up on trying to devise a new name, what a surprise!), etc.

This became so pervasive that Octavirate Presents: Lethal Lexicon Vol 1 parodies the two-headed cyclops by introducing its own "biclops": a cyclops with two eyes, oriented vertically, that give it better depth perception.

Retyping monstrosities

The inconsistent world building and rules in D&D drives me insane. I finally sat down and took a look at the fifty monstrosities in the MM and changed their type to something that is not literally a miscellaneous category. I included a commentary explaining my decision and, where applicable, the monsters' type in 4e D&D.

Magic and technology, or why I dislike Starfinder

Starfinder is a spin-off of Pathfinder which takes place in outer space. As with typical modernist fantasy, like its predecessor Dragonstar, it treats magic and technology as separate. In Starfinder specially, the use of magic is on the decline as its role is being taken over by the convenience of technology.

I consider this convention, in a word, stupid.