Complete D&D Monster Index (June 2008)

[Alzrius]

Thanks very much Alzrius, I'll get hold of these issues and add those creatures to the next index update.

I'm happy to help.

Out of curiosity, are the articles with only fluff information about the KoK versions of generic D&D monsters (for CArc and MM3) even worth listing in the Index?

Similarly, I'm not sure if the "monsters" in issue #125 are worth much, since they're just advanced HD listing for horses (since horses, oddly, have no advancement listing in the SRD).

 

[Big Mac]

Out of curiosity, are the articles with only fluff information about the KoK versions of generic D&D monsters (for CArc and MM3) even worth listing in the Index?

That is a very good question.

Is it a monster? I'd say yes.

Is it D&D. I'd say yes.

So it is a very good candidate to get included, even though the fluff text is just a spin on the original fluff text.

But then again, I suppose it would be very easy to stick six dozen D&D human groups into the CD&DMI.

Maybe comparing it to stuff in the Creature Catalogue could help. The conversions all have fluff text in them, so perhaps fluff text can count as part of the conversion.

Or maybe you could just give it the benifit of the doubt and throw it in.

BTW: Does this thing look like something we could convert from one version of D&D to another version?

Similarly, I'm not sure if the "monsters" in issue #125 are worth much, since they're just advanced HD listing for horses (since horses, oddly, have no advancement listing in the SRD).

Half a monster is still a monster in my books. Take something like a drow, for example. It is basically: "start with an elf and then do X, Y and Z". Advanced horse rules take a horse from SRD to SRD+, so might be useful for some people.

Didn't the FR 3.0 - 3.5 monster update get in there? This is a very similar concept.

 

[Echohawk]

Out of curiosity, are the articles with only fluff information about the KoK versions of generic D&D monsters (for CArc and MM3) even worth listing in the Index?

So it is a very good candidate to get included, even though the fluff text is just a spin on the original fluff text.

Most of the time, the criteria for inclusion in the index is "is there some sort of numerical/statistical information in the monster description?". So, for example, the entry for "Chicken" in Dangerous Denizens: The Monsters of Tellene is included in the index, because although it is 99% fluff, the description says "An average chicken has 1 hit point"*.

Where a monster is mentioned without any sort of stats, it usually doesn't get indexed. I decided on that criteria up front simply to keep the scope of the indexing project vaguely manageable. I think if I had tried to index all the monster fluff in D&D history, I'd have abandoned the project years ago.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this general rule. All of the Ecology articles from Dragon magazine are indexed, even though many of them don't contain any stat blocks or number -- it just seemed wrong not to include all of those. And occasionally, I decided that a stats-free monster entry warranted a listing under the "Variation" category.

Based on that, and your descriptions Alzrius, the fluff articles about CArc and MM3 monsters in KoK probably won't get included, but the advanced horses probably will.

*Total aside: We keep chickens, specifically a breed that has historically been used for cock fighting, although we keep them only as pets (rather spoiled pets too!). I've had to separate boisterous young cockerels on many occasions, and I think that modeling a chicken as a creature with no attacks and just one hit point woefully underestimates how fierce an angry chicken can be!

Didn't the FR 3.0 - 3.5 monster update get in there? This is a very similar concept.

Yes, because the updates contain crunchy goodness.

Creatures that got 3.5 updates appear twice in the index. The aarakocra, for example, is listed once as a 3.0 creature with "Monsters of Faerûn" as the source, and again as a 3.5 creature with "Monsters of Faerûn + Monster Update (A Web Enhancement for the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide to Faerûn Accessory)" as the source.

 

[Alzrius]

Based on that, and your descriptions Alzrius, the fluff articles about CArc and MM3 monsters in KoK probably won't get included, but the advanced horses probably will.

Sounds good! You might want to go over them yourself, just to be certain, though. It's been a while since I sat down and really read those articles through, so there might be a tiny bit of crunch that slipped by me.

 

[Big Mac]

Thanks for the heads-up on the indexing process. Now I know how to tell if something that isn't here is missing or not.

 

[Big Mac]

Possible Missing Monster: Inaii - SJQ1 Heart of the Enemy

Thanks for the heads-up on the indexing process. Now I know how to tell if something that isn't here is missing or not.

I just found what might count as an additional missing monster (as it has crunch in the description). It is called the inaii and is a type of flying horse. It is mostly similar to the pegasi. However there are some differences (including stats).

It is on pages 69 and 70 of SJQ1 Heart of the Enemy. I can give you to full text if you need it. Here is the crunchy bit:

About the Inaii

The inaii are intelligent winged horses resembling pegasi. They are Myyn's dominant race, with a total population of about 70,000. Inaii differ from normal pegasi, which are described in the Monsterous Compendium, in the following ways:

• Most inaii aren't as smart as normal pegasi, with Intellegence ratings averaging about 7.
• The alignment of inaii is Lawful Neutral.
• Inaii can't be tamed, nor do they serve persons of Good (or any other) alignment.
• Inaii eggs have no special value.
• Inaii can neither detect good nor detect evil.
• Inaii feed only on chollo plants (see the Map Key for details).

There is more stuff, that would need looking at if these were converted, but there should be enough here to work out if you want to include them in your index.

 

[Echohawk]

I just found what might count as an additional missing monster (as it has crunch in the description). It is called the inaii and is a type of flying horse.

Well spotted! I've added the inaii to my working copy of the index as a variation of the pegasus, and they'll will appear in the next update

 

[Big Mac]

Well spotted! I've added the inaii to my working copy of the index as a variation of the pegasus, and they'll will appear in the next update

It is blind luck that I found it while looking for some SJ related stuff about a god creating a crystal sphere. And I wouldn't have expected to find a monster embedded into the middle of a chapter (when most things have them at the end). I suppose the chicken was also hidden somewhere similar.

 

[Shade]

Great! Finding a "missing" monster is probably akin to the thrill of a successful archeological dig.

 

[Big Mac]

Great! Finding a "missing" monster is probably akin to the thrill of a successful archeological dig.

I would say "I feel like Tony Robinson", but with this being an international forum, nobody would know what I meant.

Good job I didn't say it, isn't it!

Actually, the big thrill is knowing that the 3rd edition version will be a full treatment and not just a "we can't be bothered to finish it, so bolt this new head on an existing monster" kind-of-thing. 2nd edition AD&D was very lazy sometimes.