Gygaxian Monsters

[Col_Pladoh]

With regards to the sahuagin, how are they not the Sea Devils from Dr Who?

That is a question for Steve Marsh, the one that devised those critters as I recall. I know it was not my creation

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Thanks a lot Gary for dropping in and giving us some insightful answers.

In OD&D there is a monster table listing a "Thoul" with 7 hit dice but no description until the Basic D&D set (Moldavay version IIRC). Was the Thoul a typo? Or a monster that got cut from the original rules?

Happy to oblige

The thoul was a troll ghoul, and as I recall not of 7 HD but more in the 4 +3 HD range in my campaign. They attacked with two clawed hands (2-5 damage per) and any hit meant the target subject had to save vs. paralysis or go still and immobile. Any save meant immunity to the effect for the duration of combat. They are likely to appear in the Castle Zagyg dungeons.

They regenerate at 1 HP per round.

They turn as do spectres due to the troll basis.

Considering their potency, they are equal to most 7 HD monsters for sure.

Cheerio,
Gary

P.S. I forgot to mention that I somehow neglected to include their description in the D&D rules, so never made them a regular;y appearing monster save in my own dungeons.

 

[Tewligan]

Hey Gary, do I recall correctly that in (I think) Basic D&D, the gnoll is described as a cross between a gnome and a troll? How the heck did that become the gnoll that we know and love today?!

 

[rossik]

Hey Gary, do I recall correctly that in (I think) Basic D&D, the gnoll is described as a cross between a gnome and a troll? How the heck did that become the gnoll that we know and love today?!

in Basic set, gnolls still human-like hyenas..maybe its another set :/

oops, sorry, i found it:

GNOLLS: A cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany did
not really make it all that clear) with +2 morale.

 

[Thurbane]

The Creature From the Black Lagoon seems to be superficially quite similar to the Sahuagin and Locathah in appearance...

Also, is the name Gnoll derived from Lord Dunsany's Gnole?

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

oops, sorry, i found it:

GNOLLS: A cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany did
not really make it all that clear) with +2 morale.

"Lord Sunsany" sure looks like a typo of Lord Dunsany, to me. (For those who don't know, the quote is from Volume 2 of the three OD&D booklets, Monsters & Treasure.)

 

[RFisher]

"How Nuth would have Practised his Art upon the Gnoles" is from Lord Dunsany's The Book of Wonder.

Edit: Removed extraneous R from "Lorrd".

 

[T. Foster]

Geek trivia: the "Lord Sunsany" typo in the gnoll monster description was introduced in the 5th printing of D&D (when the books were reset in a different font). If you look in a 4th (and, presumably, though I've never actually seen one, earlier) printing copy, the reference is correctly made to Lord Dunsany.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I must qualify somethng I wrote earlier:

"All of the monsters in question are unique to AD&D, and as I wrote virtually all of their stats and descriptions they are in fact my creative products, not the IP of WotC. That's a FWIW."

I left out the "morally" after "in fact" in the above statement. :egally, the monsters are indeed the IP of WotC.

That clarifies things nicely.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hey Gary, do I recall correctly that in (I think) Basic D&D, the gnoll is described as a cross between a gnome and a troll? How the heck did that become the gnoll that we know and love today?!

Ah, well...

The original gnoll was a strange critter in a (rather bad) novel that I wrote and was in part run in Dragon magazine's early numbers. I didn't find that creature a suitable humanoid for the D&D game, so I revised gnoll into a hyena-like humanoid. (I find hyenas most unappealing in all respects, including their stench )

As another poster noted, "Sunsany" is a typo, and it is Dunsany.

Cheers,
Gary