Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Dragon 337 has a great article this month on Zuggtmoy, the Demoness of Fungi. The cover painting and description, however, gave me pause -- they describe the upper torso of a monstrous woman with a lower torso of a coiling pillar of fibrous tendrils. This is the same visual given in the Temple of Elemental Evil computer game, which I assumed the Troika game designers created for extra "cool factor".
Oddly, however, the Zuggtmoy described in the original ToEE module is a giant puffball fungus with a mushroom-like head and three elephantine feet; she has an alternate form of an old crone. The magazine article describes this mushroom-like form as that of an Aspect of Zuggtmoy and makes no mention of an alternate human-like form.
So which is it? Leaving aside that the two sources aren't necessarily contradictory (since the original module could describe an aspect while Zuggtmoy's true form is described here), is there some source between the 1985 ToEE module and this month's Dragon that introduced the current form of Zuggtmoy, or do we have a computer game to thank for the current demoness revision?
Aside: what's up with advertising the PHB at the back of this month's issues of Dungeon and Dragon? Given that both are now exclusively D&D magazines, surely there aren't that many gamers getting started by picking up a copy of the magazine that it's worthwhile to advertise the PHB therein, compared to the return on advertising the latest supplement.
Oddly, however, the Zuggtmoy described in the original ToEE module is a giant puffball fungus with a mushroom-like head and three elephantine feet; she has an alternate form of an old crone. The magazine article describes this mushroom-like form as that of an Aspect of Zuggtmoy and makes no mention of an alternate human-like form.
So which is it? Leaving aside that the two sources aren't necessarily contradictory (since the original module could describe an aspect while Zuggtmoy's true form is described here), is there some source between the 1985 ToEE module and this month's Dragon that introduced the current form of Zuggtmoy, or do we have a computer game to thank for the current demoness revision?
Aside: what's up with advertising the PHB at the back of this month's issues of Dungeon and Dragon? Given that both are now exclusively D&D magazines, surely there aren't that many gamers getting started by picking up a copy of the magazine that it's worthwhile to advertise the PHB therein, compared to the return on advertising the latest supplement.
