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What's the origin of the Nightmare?
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6466808" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>My vote is for classic Gygaxian pun. This is the same game that gave us "beholders" as basically eyes and a hungry maw. Nightmare. Evil horse. Womp womp.</p><p></p><p>Though the connection to horses in the actual entymology is interesting. And makes me think of the al-Buraq, which is a fun bit of hadith in Islam. There's a lot of horse-riding in dreams (or dream-like horse riding said to be real) in folklore. Possibly also connected to older shamanism and spirit-journeys.</p><p></p><p>If you go with that, the D&D nightmare might be the horse that brings your soul to Hell (or wherever) when you die. Adventure idea: A powerful evil cult leader dies...and a nightmare shows up as the body is disposed of, with an image of the cult leader upon it. The party is called in, as the worry is that the cult leader has somehow risen from the dead, but the party discovers that the horse is actually called up by a group of demons who are calling the soul of the cult leader to the abyss, to be granted status as a fiend (making him that much more powerful). The party must find their own magical horse, thwart the demons along the horses' route, and the nightmare itself.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6466808, member: 2067"] My vote is for classic Gygaxian pun. This is the same game that gave us "beholders" as basically eyes and a hungry maw. Nightmare. Evil horse. Womp womp. Though the connection to horses in the actual entymology is interesting. And makes me think of the al-Buraq, which is a fun bit of hadith in Islam. There's a lot of horse-riding in dreams (or dream-like horse riding said to be real) in folklore. Possibly also connected to older shamanism and spirit-journeys. If you go with that, the D&D nightmare might be the horse that brings your soul to Hell (or wherever) when you die. Adventure idea: A powerful evil cult leader dies...and a nightmare shows up as the body is disposed of, with an image of the cult leader upon it. The party is called in, as the worry is that the cult leader has somehow risen from the dead, but the party discovers that the horse is actually called up by a group of demons who are calling the soul of the cult leader to the abyss, to be granted status as a fiend (making him that much more powerful). The party must find their own magical horse, thwart the demons along the horses' route, and the nightmare itself. [/QUOTE]
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What's the origin of the Nightmare?
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