demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
One of the most noticeable characteristics of the Dungeons and Dragons game is the vast amount of monsters contained within. Many of these were created solely for the game, but many of them are derived from mythology, literature and folklore. Some of them may be surprising.
Part 1: A - Flumph
Ahuizotl: The bizarre ahuizotl, who grabs sailors with a massive hand on its tail and consumes everything but the eyes, teeth and fingernails of its prey is not, surprisingly, an original creation. The ahuizotl comes from Central American lore. Both the Dungeons and Dragons and Aztec ahuizotl have the body of a monkey and the head of a dog, but the ahuizotl is missing hind limbs in many Aztec depictions.
Athach: In Dungeons and Dragons, the athach is a bizarre giant with three arms, one of which protrudes from its chest. The original athach is an infuriatingly vague monster; in Scottish Gaelic, the word translates directly as “monster”. Athach seems to have been a group of monsters rather than a single type; some of them were giants and some of them were dwarves, but all of them were characterized by odd numbers of limbs (often one arm and one leg) and a habit of waylaying and eating travelers along lochs and gorges.
Bahamut: More recognizable as a summonable creature in several Final Fantasy games, Bahamut is the Platinum Dragon in Dungeons and Dragons, a virtuous draconic creature of godly power. In Arabian mythology, incorporated into Islam lore, Bahamut is the being which supports on its backs the Hells and Heavens. Bahamut was said to be a massive fish with the head of an elephant, and was so big that no man could ever behold its entire majesty. Supposedly, Jesus was the only man to ever see all of Bahamut.
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.
The actual Irish legend of Balor, also known as Balor of the Baleful Eye, is rather different, at least. Balor was the king of the Fomorians (q.v.), a misshapen giant whose one eye could kill with a single glance, and whose eyelid was so heavy that it required four men to lift. Balor was killed by his grandson Lug the Long-Handed, who fired a sling into his eye before its killing gaze could take effect, piercing his brain and killing twenty-seven warriors behind him. It is rather obvious that the legend has little to do with the tanar’ri lord that now bears its name.
Banshee: Banshees were originally a part of Irish legend. The banshee was a fey spirit, each with a particular family they “guarded”. Whenever the banshee howled, a family member was destined to die in the near future. Other stories suggest that it is they cry of the banshee that kills the victim in the first place.
Barghest: These creatures, in Dungeons and Dragons, are infernal lupine fiends that can assume the form of a goblin or wolf. The original barghest, commonly spelled barguest, the creatures are a form of shapeshifting “black dog” (see hell hound et al) that can appear as a headless apparition. Like most black dogs, seeing a barguest was said to bring misery and ill fortune.
Basilisk: The basilisk is probably the mythological creature most changed in appearance since its origins. Originally, the basilisk was the King of Serpents, a rather unassuming snake that slithered erect and it had a crown-like protrusion on its head. It was said to be so poisonous that it could kill with a bite or a breath, its gaze could petrify, and flowers withered as it slithered by. These Greek tales may have been inspired by the Indian king cobra, which is very venomous, can raise a hood when threatened, and does slither upright.
The legend of the basilisk remained popular into medieval times, and several ingenious methods had been devised to kill or repel it. It was said that its gaze could be reflected in a mirror and used to petrify it, and weasels were said to be their natural enemy (again, probably inspired by the king cobra, which is occasionally preyed upon by mongooses). Also, the crow of a rooster was said to repel it. This was probably the reason it mutated in appearance into a creature with eight avian legs and the head of a cockerel in a famous engraving in Androvandi’s “Natural History of Serpents and Dragons”.
This mutation was taken further still, and eventually the basilisk was entirely subsumed by the cockatrice (q.v.). These two monsters are more properly separate entities, however. When Gary Gygax created Dungeons and Dragons, his knowledge of folklore was extensive enough that he separated the basilisk and cockatrice, and gave the basilisk more of its primal appearance, retaining a lizard-like body and eight legs but having a more reptilian head.
Bhut: The original name for the bhut was the bhuta (why this was changed, I don’t know). Both the bhut and the bhuta are malevolent spirits, but the bhuta possessed living people whereas the Dungeons and Dragons bhut limits itself to possessing corpses. Both spirits are found only in desolate and abandoned areas. The bhuta is unusual in its diet; it preferred to feed on excrement, milk and viscera, preferably human.
Bugbear: Bugbears, a large and savage goblinoid in Dungeons and Dragons, falls into the broad characterization of faeries. The faeries were notoriously diverse creatures, united only by a sense of mischief and an unnatural, human-like appearance. Since every village in Europe had their own faeries, there are literally hundreds of names for various fey creatures, several of them which made it into Dungeons and Dragons. The bugbear managed to outlast many of its fellow fey, and was adopted as the name of a bear-like boogeyman in England, who ate naughty children and was used by parents to scare their kids straight.
Bulette: The bulette, a burrowing, armor-plated “land shark” was an original Dungeons and Dragons creation, although its history is notable enough to warrant mention here. The bulette’s appearance is modeled after a small novelty toy, cheaply produced and stuck in bags of plastic dinosaurs and shipped to 10-cent stores across the United States. Presumably, the bulette was originally an impromptu miniature before it became the creature it is today.
Catoblepas: The long-necked hideous monstrosity that kills with a gaze in Dungeons and Dragons is an exaggeration of another exaggeration of a perfectly mundane animal: the wildebeest. When Hetrodotus, the first author of a travel guide and one of the greatest liars the world has ever known, heard of the wildebeest, he exaggerated it immensely. The thing’s head pointed constantly down, according to Hetrodotus, because the creature was so ugly that anything that saw its face would die instantly. See also Gorgon.
Centaur: The centaurs in Dungeons and Dragons are peaceful, nature loving creatures who avoid contact with other sentient life. However, the original Greek centaurs were not quite as benevolent. Although there were wise and sporting tribes of centaurs, most of the centaurs who have made their names known in mythology (such as Nessus and Eurytus) were boorish, rude, drunken and prone to fits of aggression and raping human women. Even kind centaurs were prone to similar behavior when under the influence of alcohol.
Chimera: The chimera has changed little in appearance between the Greek myths and Dungeons and Dragons; it was always, and will always be a hybrid of lion, goat and serpent (although the Dungeons and Dragons version takes into account the draconic nature of Greek serpents and gives the chimera a dragon head). The hybrid nature sometimes varies in Greek legend; sometimes it has the body of a goat, the head of a lion and the tail of a snake, and other times it has the heads of all three creatures (often with the serpent head on the end of its tail). The Chimera was one of the monstrous progeny of Typhon and Echidna (as was the Sphinx of Lydia, the Learnean Hydra, Cerebus and Ladon the dragon). It terrorized Turkey until Bellerophon, mounted on Pegasus (q.v.) choked it to death on his spear.
Cockatrice: Most of the discussion of the cockatrice’s history has been covered (under basilisk), it is worth noting that in Dungeons and Dragons, the cockatrice can only petrify with its touch, and not its gaze. Presumably, this is both in reference to the original basilisk’s venom and in order to avoid repetition of magical abilities.
Couatl: This feathered beneficent serpent in Dungeons and Dragons takes its name from the Aztec word for snake. The most likely inspiration for the couatl is Quetzocouatl, the Feathered Serpent god of birds, snakes, air and the planet Venus. He was a trickster god, and beloved of the people (predominately because he did not accept human sacrifice). After being defeated by his rival , he promised o return to his people in the form of a helmeted bearded man with pale skin. This prophecy turned out to be a pitfall for the Aztecs, as the conquistador Cortez fit this description, and was welcomed as a god before he began the looting and pillaging.
Derro: These malicious, insane subterranean dwarves were originally from the works of , a rather insane author of bizarre stories he purported as fact. In these stories, the Dero were a race of evil dwarves living in the center of what he believed was a hollow earth. They had enslaved their relatives, the peaceful Tero, and used powerful machines to attempt to come to the surface to conquer it.
Dire Animals: The dire animals of Dungeons and Dragons are uniformly large, ugly, powerful versions of their lesser kin, most of them ferocious. However, there actually was a dire wolf (Canis dirus), which lived in North America 10,000 years ago. These creatures were indeed larger then modern wolves, and had powerful jaws for cracking bones. Presumably, they served as carnivore/scavengers in a role similar to African hyenas. Large dire wolf deposits have been found at the La Brea Tar-pits in Los Angeles.
Displacer Beast: The displacer beast, a six-legged panther with tentacles that appears to be three feet from where it actually is, seems too ridiculous to have been anything other than a Dungeons and Dragons original. However, the displacer beast was originally from the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle, by A.E. van Vogt. Although the execution was different (the Vogt beast used psychic powers to appear in the minds of its prey to be elsewhere, whereas the Dungeons and Dragons one is shrouded in an illusion), the concept and appearance are almost identical.
Djinn: The djinni are relatively benevolent genie-folk in Dungeons and Dragons, but originally they were terrifying demonic figures in Arabian lore. They appear to be mostly humanoid, but vary in form from story to story; some are beautiful, some are ugly, and more still have bestial features and appendages. Most djinn were evil, malicious and enjoyed the taste of human flesh, but some of them were kind and even fathered superhuman children. Djinni were capable of granting wishes, and those who were kind to them often got marvelous things, whereas the wishes of cruel masters (or granted by cruel djinn) would be hideously warped to bring torment and death.
Doppelganger: The iconic shapechanger in Dungeons and Dragons, the original doppelganger was more of an exercise in creative thinking then anything else. Although the concept of changelings and alien creatures that assume human form is nearly universal, the doppelganger (German for “double-goer”) was the embodiment of the idea that everybody has a double. Supposedly, if the original and the doppelganger were to meet, both would be destroyed.
Drow: The word drow is derived from the Nordic dwarrow, the plural of dwarf. There were “dark elves” in Nordic tales, but unlike the evil spider-worshipping drow, were merely secretive and not malicious. These dark elves, the Svaltalfar, were masterful craftsmen rivaling the dwarves in ability, and were responsible for the creation of
Dryad: The dryads were originally nature spirits in Greek mythology, the female counterpart to satyrs. Unlike the Dungeons and Dragons dryad, dryads were not necessarily connected to any one tree; instead they were protectors of entire forests.
Dwarf: Although every culture has its own legends of “little people”, the dwarves of Dungeons and Dragons are direct descendents of the dwarrow of Nordic myth. Like those dwarrow, the dwarves are master craftsmen and skilled fighters of giants. In legend, the dwarrow forged the chain that holds Fenris the Chaos Wolf until Ragnarok, using impossible items (like the breath of a fish and the beard of a woman). Of course, the DnD dwarves owe much of their history to Tolkien’s dwarves as well, but Tolkien’s dwarves were adapted from the Nordic myths as well.
Efreet: This fiery, horned, hoofed evil genie from Dungeons and Dragons is not far from the original in either appearance or attitude. In Muslim lore, they are a particularly evil variety of djinn, who are so feared that even their name brings fear. Their name was also quite variable; they are known as afrit, afrite, efreet, ifrit and ifreet.
Elf: The word elf has come to mean any faerie (which is why Santa Claus has elves working for him), but the Dungeons and Dragons elf is the direct descendent of Tolkien. Tolkien’s elves were based primarily on the Alfar of Nordic myth, who were secretive, wise and immortal.
Ettin: The two-headed giant of Dungeons and Dragons is based on Red Etin, a three headed Irish giant in Scottish lore. Red Etin shares many traits with the DnD ettin; he is cannibalistic and monstrously strong. Unlike the ettin, he is also intelligent and riddles his victims like the Sphinx of Thebes before turning them into stone.
Flumph: The creative force behind the flumph was probably drugs. Ditto for the tirapheg.
Demiurge out.
Part 1: A - Flumph
Ahuizotl: The bizarre ahuizotl, who grabs sailors with a massive hand on its tail and consumes everything but the eyes, teeth and fingernails of its prey is not, surprisingly, an original creation. The ahuizotl comes from Central American lore. Both the Dungeons and Dragons and Aztec ahuizotl have the body of a monkey and the head of a dog, but the ahuizotl is missing hind limbs in many Aztec depictions.
Athach: In Dungeons and Dragons, the athach is a bizarre giant with three arms, one of which protrudes from its chest. The original athach is an infuriatingly vague monster; in Scottish Gaelic, the word translates directly as “monster”. Athach seems to have been a group of monsters rather than a single type; some of them were giants and some of them were dwarves, but all of them were characterized by odd numbers of limbs (often one arm and one leg) and a habit of waylaying and eating travelers along lochs and gorges.
Bahamut: More recognizable as a summonable creature in several Final Fantasy games, Bahamut is the Platinum Dragon in Dungeons and Dragons, a virtuous draconic creature of godly power. In Arabian mythology, incorporated into Islam lore, Bahamut is the being which supports on its backs the Hells and Heavens. Bahamut was said to be a massive fish with the head of an elephant, and was so big that no man could ever behold its entire majesty. Supposedly, Jesus was the only man to ever see all of Bahamut.
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.
The actual Irish legend of Balor, also known as Balor of the Baleful Eye, is rather different, at least. Balor was the king of the Fomorians (q.v.), a misshapen giant whose one eye could kill with a single glance, and whose eyelid was so heavy that it required four men to lift. Balor was killed by his grandson Lug the Long-Handed, who fired a sling into his eye before its killing gaze could take effect, piercing his brain and killing twenty-seven warriors behind him. It is rather obvious that the legend has little to do with the tanar’ri lord that now bears its name.
Banshee: Banshees were originally a part of Irish legend. The banshee was a fey spirit, each with a particular family they “guarded”. Whenever the banshee howled, a family member was destined to die in the near future. Other stories suggest that it is they cry of the banshee that kills the victim in the first place.
Barghest: These creatures, in Dungeons and Dragons, are infernal lupine fiends that can assume the form of a goblin or wolf. The original barghest, commonly spelled barguest, the creatures are a form of shapeshifting “black dog” (see hell hound et al) that can appear as a headless apparition. Like most black dogs, seeing a barguest was said to bring misery and ill fortune.
Basilisk: The basilisk is probably the mythological creature most changed in appearance since its origins. Originally, the basilisk was the King of Serpents, a rather unassuming snake that slithered erect and it had a crown-like protrusion on its head. It was said to be so poisonous that it could kill with a bite or a breath, its gaze could petrify, and flowers withered as it slithered by. These Greek tales may have been inspired by the Indian king cobra, which is very venomous, can raise a hood when threatened, and does slither upright.
The legend of the basilisk remained popular into medieval times, and several ingenious methods had been devised to kill or repel it. It was said that its gaze could be reflected in a mirror and used to petrify it, and weasels were said to be their natural enemy (again, probably inspired by the king cobra, which is occasionally preyed upon by mongooses). Also, the crow of a rooster was said to repel it. This was probably the reason it mutated in appearance into a creature with eight avian legs and the head of a cockerel in a famous engraving in Androvandi’s “Natural History of Serpents and Dragons”.
This mutation was taken further still, and eventually the basilisk was entirely subsumed by the cockatrice (q.v.). These two monsters are more properly separate entities, however. When Gary Gygax created Dungeons and Dragons, his knowledge of folklore was extensive enough that he separated the basilisk and cockatrice, and gave the basilisk more of its primal appearance, retaining a lizard-like body and eight legs but having a more reptilian head.
Bhut: The original name for the bhut was the bhuta (why this was changed, I don’t know). Both the bhut and the bhuta are malevolent spirits, but the bhuta possessed living people whereas the Dungeons and Dragons bhut limits itself to possessing corpses. Both spirits are found only in desolate and abandoned areas. The bhuta is unusual in its diet; it preferred to feed on excrement, milk and viscera, preferably human.
Bugbear: Bugbears, a large and savage goblinoid in Dungeons and Dragons, falls into the broad characterization of faeries. The faeries were notoriously diverse creatures, united only by a sense of mischief and an unnatural, human-like appearance. Since every village in Europe had their own faeries, there are literally hundreds of names for various fey creatures, several of them which made it into Dungeons and Dragons. The bugbear managed to outlast many of its fellow fey, and was adopted as the name of a bear-like boogeyman in England, who ate naughty children and was used by parents to scare their kids straight.
Bulette: The bulette, a burrowing, armor-plated “land shark” was an original Dungeons and Dragons creation, although its history is notable enough to warrant mention here. The bulette’s appearance is modeled after a small novelty toy, cheaply produced and stuck in bags of plastic dinosaurs and shipped to 10-cent stores across the United States. Presumably, the bulette was originally an impromptu miniature before it became the creature it is today.
Catoblepas: The long-necked hideous monstrosity that kills with a gaze in Dungeons and Dragons is an exaggeration of another exaggeration of a perfectly mundane animal: the wildebeest. When Hetrodotus, the first author of a travel guide and one of the greatest liars the world has ever known, heard of the wildebeest, he exaggerated it immensely. The thing’s head pointed constantly down, according to Hetrodotus, because the creature was so ugly that anything that saw its face would die instantly. See also Gorgon.
Centaur: The centaurs in Dungeons and Dragons are peaceful, nature loving creatures who avoid contact with other sentient life. However, the original Greek centaurs were not quite as benevolent. Although there were wise and sporting tribes of centaurs, most of the centaurs who have made their names known in mythology (such as Nessus and Eurytus) were boorish, rude, drunken and prone to fits of aggression and raping human women. Even kind centaurs were prone to similar behavior when under the influence of alcohol.
Chimera: The chimera has changed little in appearance between the Greek myths and Dungeons and Dragons; it was always, and will always be a hybrid of lion, goat and serpent (although the Dungeons and Dragons version takes into account the draconic nature of Greek serpents and gives the chimera a dragon head). The hybrid nature sometimes varies in Greek legend; sometimes it has the body of a goat, the head of a lion and the tail of a snake, and other times it has the heads of all three creatures (often with the serpent head on the end of its tail). The Chimera was one of the monstrous progeny of Typhon and Echidna (as was the Sphinx of Lydia, the Learnean Hydra, Cerebus and Ladon the dragon). It terrorized Turkey until Bellerophon, mounted on Pegasus (q.v.) choked it to death on his spear.
Cockatrice: Most of the discussion of the cockatrice’s history has been covered (under basilisk), it is worth noting that in Dungeons and Dragons, the cockatrice can only petrify with its touch, and not its gaze. Presumably, this is both in reference to the original basilisk’s venom and in order to avoid repetition of magical abilities.
Couatl: This feathered beneficent serpent in Dungeons and Dragons takes its name from the Aztec word for snake. The most likely inspiration for the couatl is Quetzocouatl, the Feathered Serpent god of birds, snakes, air and the planet Venus. He was a trickster god, and beloved of the people (predominately because he did not accept human sacrifice). After being defeated by his rival , he promised o return to his people in the form of a helmeted bearded man with pale skin. This prophecy turned out to be a pitfall for the Aztecs, as the conquistador Cortez fit this description, and was welcomed as a god before he began the looting and pillaging.
Derro: These malicious, insane subterranean dwarves were originally from the works of , a rather insane author of bizarre stories he purported as fact. In these stories, the Dero were a race of evil dwarves living in the center of what he believed was a hollow earth. They had enslaved their relatives, the peaceful Tero, and used powerful machines to attempt to come to the surface to conquer it.
Dire Animals: The dire animals of Dungeons and Dragons are uniformly large, ugly, powerful versions of their lesser kin, most of them ferocious. However, there actually was a dire wolf (Canis dirus), which lived in North America 10,000 years ago. These creatures were indeed larger then modern wolves, and had powerful jaws for cracking bones. Presumably, they served as carnivore/scavengers in a role similar to African hyenas. Large dire wolf deposits have been found at the La Brea Tar-pits in Los Angeles.
Displacer Beast: The displacer beast, a six-legged panther with tentacles that appears to be three feet from where it actually is, seems too ridiculous to have been anything other than a Dungeons and Dragons original. However, the displacer beast was originally from the novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle, by A.E. van Vogt. Although the execution was different (the Vogt beast used psychic powers to appear in the minds of its prey to be elsewhere, whereas the Dungeons and Dragons one is shrouded in an illusion), the concept and appearance are almost identical.
Djinn: The djinni are relatively benevolent genie-folk in Dungeons and Dragons, but originally they were terrifying demonic figures in Arabian lore. They appear to be mostly humanoid, but vary in form from story to story; some are beautiful, some are ugly, and more still have bestial features and appendages. Most djinn were evil, malicious and enjoyed the taste of human flesh, but some of them were kind and even fathered superhuman children. Djinni were capable of granting wishes, and those who were kind to them often got marvelous things, whereas the wishes of cruel masters (or granted by cruel djinn) would be hideously warped to bring torment and death.
Doppelganger: The iconic shapechanger in Dungeons and Dragons, the original doppelganger was more of an exercise in creative thinking then anything else. Although the concept of changelings and alien creatures that assume human form is nearly universal, the doppelganger (German for “double-goer”) was the embodiment of the idea that everybody has a double. Supposedly, if the original and the doppelganger were to meet, both would be destroyed.
Drow: The word drow is derived from the Nordic dwarrow, the plural of dwarf. There were “dark elves” in Nordic tales, but unlike the evil spider-worshipping drow, were merely secretive and not malicious. These dark elves, the Svaltalfar, were masterful craftsmen rivaling the dwarves in ability, and were responsible for the creation of
Dryad: The dryads were originally nature spirits in Greek mythology, the female counterpart to satyrs. Unlike the Dungeons and Dragons dryad, dryads were not necessarily connected to any one tree; instead they were protectors of entire forests.
Dwarf: Although every culture has its own legends of “little people”, the dwarves of Dungeons and Dragons are direct descendents of the dwarrow of Nordic myth. Like those dwarrow, the dwarves are master craftsmen and skilled fighters of giants. In legend, the dwarrow forged the chain that holds Fenris the Chaos Wolf until Ragnarok, using impossible items (like the breath of a fish and the beard of a woman). Of course, the DnD dwarves owe much of their history to Tolkien’s dwarves as well, but Tolkien’s dwarves were adapted from the Nordic myths as well.
Efreet: This fiery, horned, hoofed evil genie from Dungeons and Dragons is not far from the original in either appearance or attitude. In Muslim lore, they are a particularly evil variety of djinn, who are so feared that even their name brings fear. Their name was also quite variable; they are known as afrit, afrite, efreet, ifrit and ifreet.
Elf: The word elf has come to mean any faerie (which is why Santa Claus has elves working for him), but the Dungeons and Dragons elf is the direct descendent of Tolkien. Tolkien’s elves were based primarily on the Alfar of Nordic myth, who were secretive, wise and immortal.
Ettin: The two-headed giant of Dungeons and Dragons is based on Red Etin, a three headed Irish giant in Scottish lore. Red Etin shares many traits with the DnD ettin; he is cannibalistic and monstrously strong. Unlike the ettin, he is also intelligent and riddles his victims like the Sphinx of Thebes before turning them into stone.
Flumph: The creative force behind the flumph was probably drugs. Ditto for the tirapheg.
Demiurge out.
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