What happened to the Creature Catalog?

[freyar]

In principle, we could just put the zip files in the EN World Downloads section. Shoot, I guess we could put individual monsters there (probably as PDFs, as I'm not sure html attachments/uploads are supported), but it would be a lot of work and not easily searchable.

 

[Cleon]

In principle, we could just put the zip files in the EN World Downloads section. Shoot, I guess we could put individual monsters there (probably as PDFs, as I'm not sure html attachments/uploads are supported), but it would be a lot of work and not easily searchable.

Shall we ask Morrus and/or Darjr about doing that then?

 

[freyar]

Shall we ask Morrus and/or Darjr about doing that then?

Let's instead be hopeful that darjr will have time to put up something more functional soon! Actually, see the new thread coming up!

 

[Cleon]

Let's instead be hopeful that darjr will have time to put up something more functional soon! Actually, see the new thread coming up!

Yes, we really need something we can add new monsters too and edit the old ones.

 

[Barachiel]

Also missing the Creature Catalog.

I thought ENWorld was hosting it? Why can't they?

The only way to access it is the Wayback Machine

 

[Barachiel]

I thought the Tome Archons were the Celestial Paragons of the Seven Heavens from BoED? After all, even in 2E, I believe there were only 7 in existence?

 

[Cleon]

I thought the Tome Archons were the Celestial Paragons of the Seven Heavens from BoED? After all, even in 2E, I believe there were only 7 in existence?

Yes, the Book of Exalted Deeds Celestial Hebdomad of seven Tome Archons is obviously the same concept as the seven Tome Archons in 2E AD&D's Outer Plane Appendix, Planes of Law and Warriors of Heaven. The fact their names are the same in both the 3E Book of Exalted Deeds and 2E Warriors of Heaven makes that quite clear (both sources list them as Barachiel, Domiel, Erathaol, Pistis Sophia, Raziel, Sealtiel and Zaphkiel).

Their appearance in the two editions is different, though. The original Tome Archons were hawk-headed winged humanoids, while the 3E BoED have humanoid heads.

However, the original 1E AD&D appearance of Tome Archons in the Manual of the Planes did not limit there number to seven and gave these creatures a No. Appearing of 1d3, so originally Tome Archons were a little more numerous.

As best as I can make out, the idea there are only 7 Tome Archons and they each rule one of the Seven Heavens as the Celestial Hebdomad was something introduced by Planescape.

 

[freyar]

Also missing the Creature Catalog.

I thought ENWorld was hosting it? Why can't they?

The only way to access it is the Wayback Machine

We now have a copy of the CC as it was before it crashed here on EN World. See The (Incremental) Return of the CC thread (also stickied at the top of General Monster Talk) for the links. Basically, the problem is that the server it was on crashed, and it was based on a rather kludged together database. The original programmer's not around, and EN World's one technical administrator doesn't have time to figure it out. He is working on setting up something for us to upload new monsters eventually, but at least we have the old ones back!

 

[Cleon]

We now have a copy of the CC as it was before it crashed here on EN World. See The (Incremental) Return of the CC thread (also stickied at the top of General Monster Talk) for the links. Basically, the problem is that the server it was on crashed, and it was based on a rather kludged together database. The original programmer's not around, and EN World's one technical administrator doesn't have time to figure it out. He is working on setting up something for us to upload new monsters eventually, but at least we have the old ones back!

What he said.

We've got most of the original CC's monsters in the new archive but the Creature Crypt is missing a few files. I reconstructed a few of the HTML files from the original CC database, but most were simply saved from the website while it was still running.

Most of the missing files are PDFs that have HTML versions (example: we have the Xvart as an HTML file but not a PDF). There's one reverse case, where we have the Doom Guard as a PDF but not an HTML.

It should be fairly straightforward to reconstruct the missing files from their alternative formats, but unfortunately I think the Modrons are gone for good unless someone out there has a copy of the CC originals they can send us.

 

[Cleon]

Most of the missing files are PDFs that have HTML versions (example: we have the Xvart as an HTML file but not a PDF). There's one reverse case, where we have the Doom Guard as a PDF but not an HTML.

Actually, this has motivated me to reconstruct the Doom Guard HTML since the text is identical to the PDF version.

I'll send Freyar and Darjr an updated version of the Crypt archive with the Doom Guard HTML added back in.