Castles & Crusades - Full Review of Monsters & Treasures

[Mythmere1]

TLG won't ship overseas to you guys?

 

[Turanil]

TLG won't ship overseas to you guys?

My credit card has ceased to work oversea (when ordering online) and nobody (bank included) is able to do anything about it; plus I don't to pay 10$ of shipping costs for a book of 20$...

 

[serleran]

Nice review.

 

[MonsterMash]

Hmm... current amazon.co.uk price is £62.04... I think I'll wait awhile...

Orc's Nest now show it on their website at £12.99 - more reasonable methinks.

 

[radferth]

Monster origins

The frost worm is from an old not-Howard Conan story. In that story it was called a remorhaz. 1st ed AD&D (and maybe older) had a similar, heat-based creature called a remorhaz (which I always liked); so when they decided to do a very direct translation of the one from the Conan story they called it a frost worm.

The rubbery, regenerating troll is from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which is the source of the conceptions of many D&D monsters, not to mention the paladin.

Is the great ape a carnivorous/dire ape kind of thing, or just gorillas and such. Chimps, gorillas, and orangutangs are collectively refered to as the great apes, so the former would indicate and unfortunate choice of names.

 

[Mythmere1]

The frost worm is from an old not-Howard Conan story. In that story it was called a remorhaz. 1st ed AD&D (and maybe older) had a similar, heat-based creature called a remorhaz (which I always liked); so when they decided to do a very direct translation of the one from the Conan story they called it a frost worm.

The rubbery, regenerating troll is from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, which is the source of the conceptions of many D&D monsters, not to mention the paladin.

Is the great ape a carnivorous/dire ape kind of thing, or just gorillas and such. Chimps, gorillas, and orangutangs are collectively refered to as the great apes, so the former would indicate and unfortunate choice of names.

There's an actual remorhaz in the book - the frost worm as written is a cold-using worm, not a heat-using one. I don't recall seeing one before.

The great ape is just a great ape - gorilla, etc.

 

[spidertrag]

Do the drow & drider have any subtle changes or new tricks?

 

[Frostmarrow]

 

[Jerome Steelsides]

The frost worm is from an old not-Howard Conan story. In that story it was called a remorhaz. 1st ed AD&D (and maybe older) had a similar, heat-based creature called a remorhaz (which I always liked); so when they decided to do a very direct translation of the one from the Conan story they called it a frost worm.

I think it might go back further than that. Andrew Lang wrote a short story called "Prince Prigio" which had a remora in it (wasn't that the actual name of the thing?). The titular Prince made it fight a firedrake. Here's a link to the remora chapter.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repress/PrincePrigio/10.html

BTW, "Prince Prigio" also seems to be the source of the sword of sharpness and furthermore Castle Falkenstein.