Neandertal's? 'dem dere's orcs!!!

[mythusmage]

I give you the same answer as before: I agree with your statement but not with your interpretation. Although hexapedal vertebrates are acceptable within the borders of medieval knowledge, this doesn't mean that the mongolian fossile theory is correct. The gryphon is much less a mythological monster than a heraldic symbol. Emblems with lions and eagles were very common, and they were simple symbols of power. A gryphon is just a combination of the two.

Was the gryphon only an heraldic animal, or did it draw on older sources?

 

[mythusmage]

For an example of the early descriptions of a new animal check out the history of the discovery of the platypus. We tend to describe strange animals in familiar terms. It's only later, when we've become familiarized with the beast, that more appropriate descriptions appear.

 

[Cheiromancer]

There is a sound that all mammals instinctively fear.

It is the sound of a predator's breathing (it had a funny shaped nasal cavity) as it hunted the shrew-like ancestor of all mammals.

Someone found the fossil of the predator (it is quite extinct) and made a tube from a cast of its nasal cavity and blew through it one radio.

People called in to say that hair was standing up on the backs of their necks, that their cats had fled the room, etc.

And of course there is the obvious (spiders and snakes).

My random blather too.

Very Interesting. I am curious about what this predator was. Is there any more information you might have - a name, a link? I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

I want to second the request to know more about this. Somewhere there must be a tape of the sound of the Ur-Predator... I want to hear it!

 

[Turjan]

Was the gryphon only an heraldic animal, or did it draw on older sources?

Wikipedia claims Herodotus as oldest source, with the griffin as Scythian ruse to keep nosy foreigners from plundering their gold and gems. Those griffins don't have bird talons, but lion feet. The talons are confined to heraldic griffins.

Edit: They also repeat the dinosaur theory, but with a qualifier. The problem here is that all original sources are lost, and the descriptions are somewhat vague. It's the typical case where you can basically claim whatever you want. Even if there were some dinosaur bones found, this does still not explain the image of the griffin. A lion body plus beak plus discernible wings does not fit any fossile descriptions.

 

[radferth]

OMG! The Fantasy Trip orcs! IFRC, the orcs in TFT were said to be descended from piltdown man. An odd choice, since piltdown man is a well-know hoax. No idea whether they were being ironic or careless with that choice. IMC, orcs are basically neanderthals with oversized bottom canines and darkvision. I'm sure the orcs IMC don't act much like traditional orcs or actual neaderthals, but they fit well with the rest of my world. They are also not uniformly evil, although a sizable majority is. I have other odd features, such as elves being originally sprung from the interbreeding of humans and sidhe/alfar. Oh, and I still have plenty of "ice-age" macrofauna running around (dragons gotta eat something, and mammoth-mouted ogre with some class levels and cav feats is a great foe).

To keep up the etemology thing, I do have at least one book that lists orco as an Italian term for ogre. I guess that is consistant with orc having originally just meant monster or demon.

 

[DanMcS]

For instance, Griffons (and many other ancient mythical beasts) may have their origins in vastly misinterpreted dinosaurs.

There was a very good history or discovery channel special on ancient greek myths. The greeks spoke of the griffons as hoarding or guarding gold, and for a very long time the appearance of a griffon was very static. The theory was that this would only have occurred if there were some external reference for what a griffon looked like.

They did a bunch of looking around, and long story short, found that ancient sources of gold included the Altai mountains in east-central asia, where to this day they pull out lots of dinosaur fossils, including protoceratops, which have skeletons that look quite a bit like depictions of griffons.

There was also something in there about how mammoth skulls and bones could have produced legends of giants and cyclops, since the trunk hole looks like a big central eye. Good stuff.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

OMG! The Fantasy Trip orcs! IFRC, the orcs in TFT were said to be descended from piltdown man. An odd choice, since piltdown man is a well-know hoax. No idea whether they were being ironic or careless with that choice.

Maybe neither, while the hoax was exposed in 1953 books were still being published into the 70's that included piltdown man with no reference to the hoax.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Crap. I forgot to tape that show. I really wanted to, too. Crap.

I've toyed with the idea of tossing out the archetypal races and using different human races in a game, each descended more or less from a direct line leading back to a particular early hominid. Home heidelbergensis make great bruisers, with the evidence indicating some individuals might have been over 6.5 feet tall.

 

[scadgrad]

Not to interrupt the fascinating discourse about Tolkien and his orcs...

To answer the original post, I've did away w/ Orcs IMC and replaced them to some degree w/ neanderthals and various goblinoid races. I use the orc and half orc stat line as the default for my "neanderthals" which I gave the celtic name of fomorii. I wanted to have a primitive subhuman race similar to REH's picts and the like. Of course most of my players see them as more like the wendel from Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (or more appropriately the film version The 13th Warrior) but that's fine.

As one of the earlier posts mentioned, I don't feel that they're a cookie-cutter substitution for the Orc due to alignment and the like, but that's not a problem either. I see my own Fomorii as being a neutral race w/ evil tendencies due to the Gods that they venerate. In a pinch, gobbos and hobgobbos can work in place of the Orc when my campaign-specific neanderthals will not.

In most instances, when I'm running a mod that contains Orcs, I either sub-in the fomorii (again my campaign name for neanderthals) or hobgoblins depending on the encounter, geography, etc.

 

[Sir Brennen]

A lot of random comments:

While I'm sure various ancient cultures that have encountered dinosaur bones came up with some pretty interesting explainations for them, isn't it more likely that creatures such as the griffon or pegasus were simply "tall tales" - made up for a more interesting story (though that doesn't mean the storytellers didn't believe in their creations.) A protoceretops skull, to me, would seem more likely to spawn tales of giant birds - like the roc - than part bird/part lion images.

The Fantasy Trip - being a frequent reader of Steve Jackson's site (author of TFT), I think it more likely that Piltdown man was chosen as a "fantasy" ancestor for orcs, since it is a fantasy world the orcs populated. I really don't see this hoax getting by the writer, as he is a very pro-science and fact kinda geek

IMC, many of the usual "antagonist" races are actually descended from some of the PC races. In mythical times, one of the world's moons crashed into it, punching a hole all the way to the infernal regions. The "fall-out" killed most creatures in the area, but many slowly mutated into new races, the taint of the infernal making them predisposed to an evil outlook. Humans became giants, elves became orcs and halflings mutated into the goblinoid races. This is also the genisis of many abberrations.