Bizarro World History 101: Monster Origins

[tsadkiel]

Balor: The balor is one of several creatures that Dungeons and Dragons has blatantly ripped off of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series (see also goblin, halfling, orc, treant, wight, worg). The concept of a massive, powerful demonic creature with shadowy wings and a sword and whip of flame is straight from the balrog. But Gygax and Arneson managed to avoid the wrath of Tolkien’s estate because of the name, claiming they had taken the concept from Irish legend.

I shall quibble with this one. Back in original, original D&D, these were indeed called Balrogs. In 1st edition, they are referred to merely as "Type VI Demons"; however, the 1E DMG included a table of various monsters in the back, and said table also listed the names of several individual examples of the typed demons. The first individual Type VI listed is Balor, while the first Type V listed is Maralith, and so on for all the rest.

Upon the publication of 2E, TSR ignored all the various demons and devils up until the publication of the Outer Planes Monstrous Compendium appendix, when they all put on funny hats and called themselves tanar'ri and Baatezu. (Like that fooled anyone!) Obviously, they couldn't be called Type X demons anymore, so TPTB took some of the personal names from the DMG appendix and used them as names for the assorted demonic types.

 

[tarchon]

There was also an old beastie from Norse myth called a wearg or a wyrg or something, IIRC.

<i>Vargr</i> is just the (late) Old Norse word for wolf. Originally, the term probably referred to a criminal or an outcast, which is roughly the sense of the Old English <i>wearg</i>. There is a term <i>vargulfr</i> (warg-wolf), along with cognates in other Gmc languages, that may or may not have referred to something like a werewolf. The two terms (wargwolf and werewolf) were likely confused and interchanged.

The leucrotta, which I think disappeared in the later editions, has kind of an odd history. It was ironically conceived by some to be the offspring of a lion and a hyena (connected to an entirely understandable belief that spotted hyenas only occur as males). The term is apparently originally from a Romance language, Portuguese being cited sometimes, from "leu" ("lion") plus "crotta," probably from the Latin <i>crocuta</i>. The <i>crocuta</i> is noted by Pliny and is thought to refer to a hyena, though pre-modern writers often hopelessly confused the leucrotta, crocuta, and hyena with various other real and legendary beasts, including the manticore.

 

[S'mon]

Good stuff

I have a couple of questions for the knowledgable;

Does anyone know where the ideas of trolls haivng super-fast healing came from? None of the Norse myth's I've read mention anything like this.

I believe the D&D troll comes from a Poul Anderson novel I haven't read (The Broken Sword?), not from Tolkien at all. Tolkien's trolls are much much closer to D&D ogres.

 

[Kapten]

Just some comments on the Norse part:

As already pointed out, varg is the word for wolf, at least in Swedish. I think Danes and Norwegian uses Ulv (which also exists in Swedish) but Im not sure.

The Scandinavian word for Dwarf is Dvärg (Dvaerg), which doesnt sound like Dwarrow at all. Maybe it sounds like that in Icelandish, but the Anglo- Saxian pronounciation of 'w' doesnt exist in the Scandinavian languages (or is at least very very rare).

And, the Fenris wolf is not refered to as the Chaos wolf in any of the (many) sources I have read on the subject. He was the son of Loke and a female giant.

Other than that, it was a good list of information you got there, Demiurge! Thanks for sharing it.

 

[S'mon]

And, the Fenris wolf is not refered to as the Chaos wolf in any of the (many) sources I have read on the subject. He was the son of Loke and a female giant.

According to my sources Loki was the _mother_ of Fenrir (and Jormungandr & Hel) - he got into a bit of a pickle while shapechanged into human form. I believe Sleipnir may have been involved also... (o tempora, o morales!)

 

[Bregh]

D&D's trolls owe far more to the works of Poul Anderson than they do Tolkien (Three Hearts and Three Lions, et al).

 

[Kapten]

About the Fenris wolf:
IIRC, Sleipner was conceived when a giant's horse mated with Loke who had turned himself into a mare. Sleipner was born as a result of that union.

I think the Fenris wolf and the Midgård snake (Jormungand) was the children a witch had with Loke; after burning the mother, the gods decided what to do with her children (I dont think they knew who the father was). The Midgård snake was so ugly that they threw him in the ocean at once, but the Fenris cub was so cute that the gods decided to keep him, which eventually costed Tyr his hand (gah, just thinking about the Scandinavian gods in a D&D- context brings up the horrible pictures in Deites and Demigods to my mind ^^).

 

[Ferret]

I did do an essay a while back, it was on lycanthropes. It was about 3 pages long. Quite detailed it was, It was lost from my computer, but it was never marked so I still have it. If you want I can write it up again but it's not going to be easy

 

[Magic Missile]

Part 2: Formorian - Nymph
According to German mining lore, the kobolds would steal all of the iron from mountains and replace it with their own bluish, weak metal.

Wow, I've just realised soemthing weird; the plot of the Baldur's Gate CRPG started with a group of kobolds tainting iron in the Nashkel mines so it became weak and brittle...

 

[Keith]

The D&D troll is exactly, in description and abilities, taken whole from "Three Hearts and Three Lions". While a neat enough creature, it is a little sad, I think, that the venerable and important folklore on trolls in the north of Europe was not drawn on more in the "standard version" of the troll.
This point applies to a great number of MM creatures, in my opinion; there are much richer and more interesting concepts that are associated in folklore with many of the names used than is reflected in the MM versions. Many of them are very shallow takes on great concepts.

Neat effort, Demiurge, and fun to read! There are some errors, which is why it is great to have it open here for people to contribute to.

Cheers