D&D 5E Elementals - good start, can we get some more variety please

[RangerWickett]

Hm. Interesting idea, having the first Monster Manual lean toward low-level foes, with a few 'big bads' at the high end like giants.

Though I gotta say, if people are wary of having a lot of versions of the same monster type, why do we need unique entries for fire giants, frost giants, and such? Would you be okay having just a 'giant' entry, with culture notes for the various subtypes? One statblock for large giants, another for huge ones, and then you use templates or whatever to make them frosty or burny? Or for that matter, dragons? "All dragons generally have these base stats. For red dragons, add 'Fire Breath' and 'Fire Resistance,' and roleplay them as greedy. For blue dragons, add 'Lightning Breath' etc."

Would gamers rebel if the full cavalcade of demons weren't in the first Monster Manual? Would you put just young dragons in? What high-end monsters would you include as 'teasers' or 'boss fights'?

 

[Klaus]

Maybe something like the Giant Lizard entry from the latest playtest packet? Have a "basic" efreet and then list three or four traits and aactions that could be used to creat a flamewalker, a fiery sultan or a deceiver.

 

[steeldragons]

Hm. Interesting idea, having the first Monster Manual lean toward low-level foes, with a few 'big bads' at the high end like giants.

Thankee! Exactly what I'm suggesting. Maybe not even all giants. But a few. Such as...

Genies: Air Genie/Djinni & Fire Genie/Efreeti... So I sez to myself, I sez, "Oh Ok! There can be genies in the world. I get it."
Faye Creatures: Brownies, Dryads, Redcaps... So I sez to myself, I sez, "Oh Ok! There can be faeries in the world. I get it."
Giants: Hill, Stone, Frost....I think that's plenty for a love-to-mid level MM. So I sez to myself...I think you get it.

Though I gotta say, if people are wary of having a lot of versions of the same monster type, why do we need unique entries for fire giants, frost giants, and such? Would you be okay having just a 'giant' entry, with culture notes for the various subtypes? One statblock for large giants, another for huge ones, and then you use templates or whatever to make them frosty or burny? Or for that matter, dragons? "All dragons generally have these base stats. For red dragons, add 'Fire Breath' and 'Fire Resistance,' and roleplay them as greedy. For blue dragons, add 'Lightning Breath' etc."

Hmmm. Well, this is certainly one way that it could go. But then you have to take into account the importance of the "traditional" and whether a change like this in presentation is just "change for change's sake" [which automatically gets a big thumbs down from me, regardless of topic] or would be hailed as "innoVAAAAAAAtion."

Personally, I think the pedigree of "Hill giant, Frost giant, Storm giant" and "Red Dragon, Blue Dragon, Gold Dragon" as D&D tropes holds a little more weight (like, all of the aforementioned giants and dragons weighed together than the need for "slingy goblin, stabby goblin, chiefy goblin, bodyguard goblin, shaman goblin, etc..." or, back on the elemental topic (since that is what the thread is really for) "sultan efreet, deceiver efreet, not-so-firy efreet" etc... ESPECIALLY if we're going to have a slurry of those "individual critter" names! Gods I hate those. I know they are supposed to be evocative...but just...they're not.

Would gamers rebel if the full cavalcade of demons weren't in the first Monster Manual?

This gamer would not.

Would you put just young dragons in?

Oo! No. But then I've never really used "young dragons." If you find/encounter a dragon, it's a grown up and something to be vewwwwy careful around if not run away immediatey..at low levels.

What high-end monsters would you include as 'teasers' or 'boss fights'?

hmmm. Assuming an assumed cut off of 5-7th level for the PCs? (with a MM2 or "Advanced Besitary" or what have you to follow for levels 8+) Well, as mentioned above...

Giants: I think Hill, Stone and Frost giants are a good start. Or all 6 if you like (Fire, Cloud, Storm as well). But I think 3 or 4 would suffice.

Dragons, same. Either pick 3 or 4 to introduce and save the rest for later...but given that it is "Dungeons & Dragons" they seem to be the exception that gets the full treatment. With a heavy dosing of "These things are waaay bigger and badder than you can hope to be until middling-to-high levels. Handle with care."

Demons/Devils: Personally, I'd go with Type 1 & 2 (of demons and devils, so that'd be what? Barbed and Bone?) and the Succubus. Like I said, a Demogorgon (craaazy chaoz demon-eeeeevilllll!) and Orcus (craaaazy powerful undead-demon-eeeevillll) should suffice. The basic game doesn't need 15 different "Demon Lords". Throw in Dispater for the devil side of things (if the PCs are going to move any further than the 2nd level of Hell, before their damn powerful, then they deserve what they get).

Powerful Undead: Vampires should be plenty tough enough. Liches should be treated as the near demi-gods they should be and considered almost as "impossible to beat" as dragons or demon/devil lords. Spectres can certainly be in, but I've never used them much or found them to be great as a "big bad." Honestly, if you're going to have things like Wraiths and Shadows (to cover the incorporeal ground) then I'd hold off on spectres and banshees from the MM2.

Genies: if presented as the "Wish granting" types trapped in stuff with IMMENSE COZZZMIK POWERZZZZ teeny tiny living space...then they're fairly high end foes. As opposed to the elemental magical beings who can come and go as they please to the Prime Material...who would still be formidable, but unlikely to serve as an end game villain. Based on the description of the article that started all of this, I would use the run-of-the-mill genies and leave the immense cozmik power guys for the next/planar book...this, of course, means things like the ring of djinni summoning and efreeti bottle just cnojure these "regular joes."

Faeries: nothing that is powerful enough to be considered a "big bad" from what I'm thinking. MM2 can deal with things like "archfey"...or, introduce ONE if you must.

Traditional mythic: Medusae: always a solid choice for a very nice big bad. Minotaur, for that matter. Giv'em a lil' above-average-for-a-minotaur intelligence and off you go. Bestial warlord on the loose!

That's it off the top of my head. The rest are your standard, material plane monsters and humanoids and giant/fantastical animals.
--SD

 

[the Jester]

There are a coupole of avenues I would like to see here. One is that the game should be set up for the "starting/beginner" player, just as B/X-BECM covered.

I disagree here too.

The thing is, if 5e wants to cater to existing groups with no intention of starting their campaigns over, it has to be ready for high-level play on release.

If the intent is to talk me into converting my high-paragon group to 5e, there MUST be appropriate monsters. Otherwise, there is no way I would bother to do it. Likewise, the game really, really, REALLY shouldn't focus only on low-level play on release- there are a lot of us out there who have been playing or running the same campaign for years. If 5e is going to succeed in bringing us all in under one roof (so to speak), it CANNOT neglect those of us who have no intention of throwing away years (or, in some cases, decades) of play. This is one of those areas where 4e did a really poor job- right off the bat, it said, "If you're a gnome, barbarian, sorcerer, half-orc, etc, or if your game heavily features giant insects, hostile animals, good-aligned monsters... well, this isn't your game." And that is the exact opposite of what 5e ought to be doing (IMHO).

In summary, for 5e to succeed in being the "One Edition to Rule Them All", it CANNOT neglect longstanding campaigns in which the players and DM have invested years of play.

 

[RangerWickett]

Good point. I hadn't considered the 'conversion' aspect. I was coming from "We're trying to make a game that we can sell for several years."

So, barring an 800-page Monstrous Manual, what should be in the Monster Manual, to cover the mix of newbs and oldbs?

 

[Nellisir]

The problem is many, many times DnD has become the default, while relying on a minor telling from another source.

Within D&D, naturally D&D is the default. In many cases there are only "minor tellings" upon which to rely.

I was just wondering where the specifics of culture associated with the DnD versions came from.

The cultures came from the historical cultures that created the folklore. Arabic, Persian, etc, etc.

I want to make clear I was talking about the split between devils and demons.

Right. One is lawful, one is chaotic. It's about how organized they are. Devils alphabetize their sock drawer; demons occasionally shoplift clean socks. It's a totally false distinction that doesn't exist IRL.

With that said, DnD has gone to great lengths to further define those factions in the Blood War.

That was a very late thing. Justification after the fact. Has nothing to do with why they were originally split.

On top of that most of the defining of demon lords comes from mythology to one extent or another. Much of the defining of archdevils comes from myth too.

Broad strokes at best. Many of the historical fiends are actually different names for the same entity, or not names at all. Look up Baal/Ba'al, for instance.

How many DnD cosmologies have you seen that lump all fiends together?

Well, mine for one.

When that happens, I feel sorry at the loss of such great and rich history

Well, I see the Blood War as a simplistic and crude hack job that reduces the complexity of evil to two guys hitting each other while a third one picks their pockets, but that's just me.

First, imitating real folklore has pretty much defined almost all creatures used by WotC and TSR in DnD. We would never have encountered minotaurs, medusa, succubi, devils, demons, angels, dragons, faeries, elves, dwarves, dark elves (drow), hippogriffs, centaurs, sphynx, zombies, vampires, and countless others.

The game creators took the rough concepts of the creatures from folklore, just like they took the genies. In almost no case did they directly import or imitate the "culture" or "history" of the creature, because usually those things didn't exist. When they did exist, they were often ignored. D&D centaurs have zero connection, inside D&D, to greek mythology or centaurian culture & history as written by the Greeks, and that's one of the best detailed monsters in folklore. The culture of the drow is totally fictitious, and has nothing to do with folklore - it's just the idea of a "dark" elf. The Norse themselves were a little fuzzy about the line between dwarves and elves. Dragons....many, if not most, folkloric dragons in western Europe were wingless. More like D&D linnorms. Winged dragons a la D&D is an artifact of 19th & 20th Cen. fairy tales & their illustrators.

As far as the giants comments, that is another area where I don't see why they are getting more and more aligned with elementals.

In game terms, it's to give them a schtick. A hook. Tie them into a bigger storyline than "big thing hits little things".

I was just confused and sought explanations. If you don't want to provide them that is fine.

I've done the best I could, but you seem to want answers that only EGG can provide.

I don't have the name of it to hand, but there are two excellent books on mythological creatures (the name "Rose" is coming to mind in association with an author) that list just about every folkloric & mythological creature you've ever heard of. Have read through them extensively, the main thing that pops out is just how incredibly similar most of them are. It's actually really frickin' boring after awhile. Ghostly haunting ladies that herald death? Here's a dozen. Spirits that look like snakes? Here's three dozen. Noble trooping fey? Another dozen. Trickster spirits that look like little men? Scores. Given that, you either discard 80% of the creatures out there as too similar, or you take the name and give it a new or nearly new identity. So, a lot of monsters get reskinned. That's it. That's all there is to it.

Cheers

 

[GX.Sigma]

So, barring an 800-page Monstrous Manual, what should be in the Monster Manual, to cover the mix of newbs and oldbs?

The 3.5 Monster Manual was 320 pages, and it had a mind-blowing amount of content. Every iconic D&D monster, mundane and monstrous versions of animals, plus PC stats for any monster that could conceivably wear class levels.

It wasn't literally all-encompassing (it was missing Modrons, e.g.), but it didn't feel like it was holding anything back (it had all the giants, all the dragons, all the elementals, all the genies, etc.).

 

[the Jester]

Good point. I hadn't considered the 'conversion' aspect. I was coming from "We're trying to make a game that we can sell for several years."

So, barring an 800-page Monstrous Manual, what should be in the Monster Manual, to cover the mix of newbs and oldbs?

Breadth doesn't require a monstrosity of a book.

The 3.5 Monster Manual was 320 pages, and it had a mind-blowing amount of content. Every iconic D&D monster, mundane and monstrous versions of animals, plus PC stats for any monster that could conceivably wear class levels.

It wasn't literally all-encompassing (it was missing Modrons, e.g.), but it didn't feel like it was holding anything back (it had all the giants, all the dragons, all the elementals, all the genies, etc.).

And this is only one example. 2e had the insanely-awesome Monstrous Manual, which probably crammed more monsters into one book than any other product for D&D, ever, even if it didn't give all of them full coverage. The 1e Monster Manual covers half of what you need and has a tons of stuff you can leave out- I'm fine with not having the flightless bird, herd animal, stag, giant sea horse, baluchitherium, cerebral parasite, Portugese man-o-war, Irish deer and buffalo in the MM, even if some of them are pretty useful for me personally.

So what do these have in common that contrasts with the monster products that aren't so good as fundamental core monster books? (Here I'll cite the 2e Monsterous Compendium vol. 1 and the 4e Monster Manual.) Obviously, it's a matter of content, but how? One huge factor is good use of space. The MC vol 1 and 4e MM limit themselves to one monster per page (with a few exceptions). The 3e MM and 1e MM don't- they cram as much awesome content as they can fit into each page. I have a clear and very strong preference here. The 4e MM was terrible for having huge swaths of white space or useless lists of monster combos. I'd wager better organization could have fit 20% more monsters in there.

Anyway, a great Monster Manual seems to be not only possible, but typical across the editions. I'm hoping that 5e will give us one with no serious omissions- especially intentional ones (remember, the 4e designers were quite frank about holding back some monsters from the 1st MM to help sell the MM2 as 'core').

 

[Tovec]

Within D&D, naturally D&D is the default. In many cases there are only "minor tellings" upon which to rely.

Actually, I was talking about how when you try to do searches for creatures online that it is becoming more and more prevalent to find only information on DnD's version instead of finding an original source. I have spent too much time over this last year and a half doing online research trying to find the roots of dozens, probably hundreds of creatures. Too often the only sources I can find are DnD. In this way DnD has almost replaced or usurped the original tellings. Sometimes that is fine, as the original stories are often very brief, relying on a single line at times, but other times they are larger sources that DnD has completely rebranded. As I am looking for the original source for my own games and my own system I care what that original source is.

Reread that full paragraph, I said that when I do research online, that DnD is the default. Not when I research DnD.

The cultures came from the historical cultures that created the folklore. Arabic, Persian, etc, etc.

Except, by your own admission, that isn't where those sources came from. You seem perfectly happy with DnD making things up. By in large I am too I was just wondering what description for Genies would be without DnD's influence, or even where DnD got its direct influence. If DnD had modeled genie hierarchy after a Japanese feudal system it would be equally baffling to me.

Right. One is lawful, one is chaotic. It's about how organized they are. Devils alphabetize their sock drawer; demons occasionally shoplift clean socks. It's a totally false distinction that doesn't exist IRL.

Never said it did. You need to read and quote the full paragraph to see that I said this exact thing.

That was a very late thing. Justification after the fact. Has nothing to do with why they were originally split.

I guess how you define "late" but it was 1991. What was the justification before this? Another interesting question that I have a hard time finding any answer for. In either case, it seems like the reason a blood war was introduced was the explain this split. Could a blood war type idea be introduced between frost giants and fire giants? I'm sure it could, but it seems unnecessary.

Broad strokes at best. Many of the historical fiends are actually different names for the same entity, or not names at all. Look up Baal/Ba'al, for instance.

Any references from real myth are broad strokes at best. I can't find any reference in Greek myth about Valhalla. But nearly all creatures in DnD, or at least a significant majority, are drawn in one form or another from real myth. Most often these references are as close as the game makers can make them. Medusa still turn you to stone after all, even if she is not a gorgon any longer. Gorgons would be an excellent example about how they often take a name and make something new, but I would argue gorgons aren't part of the "taken from myth" crowd and are instead something entirely fabricated by DnD, with the exception of the name. Baal I supposed would be another example. But Asmodeus is an archdevil because of myth. A good percentage (I haven't actually looked at most of the archdemons) of demon princes come from myth too, in one form or another - ranging from Baal to Asmodeus.

How many DnD cosmologies have you seen that lump all fiends together?

Well, mine for one.

Right, and I have no compunctions that this shouldn't be true. I don't see how you say devils are close enough to demons to all be rolled together. But then decide that genies are different enough from fey (even though you say they are similar in their roles in myth) to be distinct. That is a little odd to me.

When that happens, I feel sorry at the loss of such great and rich history

Well, I see the Blood War as a simplistic and crude hack job that reduces the complexity of evil to two guys hitting each other while a third one picks their pockets, but that's just me.

I'm turning into a bit of a promoter of this page, but I absolutely love it (link below). Until I read it I felt like you did about this split. I didn't understand it or the mindsets associated with the fiends. It seemed alien to me that they should be the way they were, and I didn't get why they never teamed up to destroy good.

After reading it I have a very different feeling; which is to say I value this "history" as incredibly rich and detailed. Whenever I can use even minor aspects of what ripvanwormer compiled I do. That is only what I meant about rich history. The fiends (of all stripes) are probably much closer, lending their type to "Fiend" after all.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19558750/The_History_of_the_Lower_Planes,_revised

The game creators took the rough concepts of the creatures from folklore, just like they took the genies. In almost no case did they directly import or imitate the "culture" or "history" of the creature, because usually those things didn't exist. When they did exist, they were often ignored. D&D centaurs have zero connection, inside D&D, to greek mythology or centaurian culture & history as written by the Greeks, and that's one of the best detailed monsters in folklore. The culture of the drow is totally fictitious, and has nothing to do with folklore - it's just the idea of a "dark" elf. The Norse themselves were a little fuzzy about the line between dwarves and elves. Dragons....many, if not most, folkloric dragons in western Europe were wingless. More like D&D linnorms. Winged dragons a la D&D is an artifact of 19th & 20th Cen. fairy tales & their illustrators.

To the centuars: What aspects of the man-horse thing are missing?

To "most cases" comment: I'm sure there are many examples where they went against or completely made things up for creatures. Did they go with original material for them or make things up? Is it a mix of both, as I assume mummies are? I would find it hard to believe that "most cases" are NOT drawn from myth in one fashion or another. Exclude names that get re-purposed (which happens all the time). Focus only on concepts. I would imagine most of those concepts remain the same. Ghost are still incorporeal, basilisk are still petrification, dragons are still scary and breath-fire, etc.

To dragons: European dragons don't fly, except they do. Is that the best argument you could have made? It is an evolution on the creatures that took hundreds of years, but it is clearly one that predates DnD. And as such flying, fire-breathing dragons are not "not drawn from folklore or history". Where else did they get the idea? I would imagine the electricity, cold, acid split was made up. As would most of the mindsets, but the dragons themselves have a source. The dragons still value gold and shiny trinkets even though they have magical powers and should logically have no need or want of such things.
Also, chinese dragons always flew, at least as far as I know. But they were much more serpentine. Still doesn't seem like the best example you could have given either way.

For all other examples: A lack of concrete of concrete details doesn't mean there are no details. Fire giants revere or outright worship Surtr. They don't have, to my knowledge, a big city of burning brass in the plane of fire. They could, but then I would be similarly asking where that bit of inspiration came from.

In game terms, it's to give them a schtick. A hook. Tie them into a bigger storyline than "big thing hits little things".

If you read the other replies to this thread, you can see other people may believe as I do. Make a basic giant "big guy, hits big" or whatever and then add the elements to him. It isn't something simply boiled down to "a hook" as you put it. There are giants in a LOT of myth and a lot of stories I read. I don't get why the DnD ones are categorized by element. I find this categorization fairly boring to be honest. As I find most times that a creature is boring if they are defined by an element. Demons would be boring if they were considered fire elementals. They aren't because they have a lot more written into them, they vie for power and fight devils and have a certain mindset. They have a history and a hunger to destroy. Fire giants.. like Surtr and are jerks. Fire genies.. have sultans.. and are jerks. Ooh the variety!

I've done the best I could, but you seem to want answers that only EGG can provide.

First, I just want to ask, what is EGG? I'm not personally familiar with it; and it doesn't help to Google EGG. Even when I try to rule out food, or reproduction, or the shape, or colour, etc. I'm assuming its short for something but I don't know what.

Second, I appreciate the answers. I seek knowledge, you gave knowledge. I accept your reason of "based on Arabian Nights" but I just wish there was more. Or something broader. Or something more in keeping with what I get when I Google non-DnD versions.

I would be equally disappointed if the only source you could point me to would be the Bible, if I was searching for information on the devil, demons and angels. There are so many other, better, richer and more .. evolved?.. sources I can find that in many ways contradict or give much fuller information than one book.

Especially if the only references for angels I knew of defined them and goodly creatures with wings, but gave no other recurring details. Pointing me to the bible probably wouldn't help me or instruct me on where all the other details, hierarchies and things came from. Or why they look the way they do. Those are evolutions that happened, through myth not by the writers of DnD, over hundreds of years and iterations.

What you seem to be saying is that the genies I know of are wish-granters, but that they have so many more details. To learn those details I should look at Arabian Nights, but then you are saying that those details are made up (in this case by the writers of DnD) and are not found in myth. That seems odd to me.

The specifics for a setting in DnD make sense, making all creatures of a certain type reflect that one setting seems odd. It would be like saying all minotaurs are sailors, because it is found in a setting. And without giving any mythological "evidence" or reference to back it up.

So, a lot of monsters get reskinned. That's it. That's all there is to it.

So, with Genies, is it that they are reskinned from something else? Or is it that they are based on that original story?

 

[Nellisir]

Ok. On one hand, I am rather amused by this sub-thread. On the other, I feel like I'm going around in circles. I'll take one more stab at it, but then it's probably over.

Actually, I was talking about how when you try to do searches for creatures online that it is becoming more and more prevalent to find only information on DnD's version instead of finding an original source.

Many of the original sources aren't online. If the internet is your only source of information, then you're going to run into problems like that. I'd suggest a good university library. Also, check out Project Guttenberg for the Arabian Nights and Victorian-era fairy tale books, like the Blue Book/Red Book/Orange Book/Green Book/Yellow Book/Brown Book of Fairies (yes, and there were more colors).

Get Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose, and Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia, also by Carol Rose. Those give definitions rather than quotations from the root source, but you can backtrace them if you want original source material.

Except, by your own admission, that isn't where those sources came from.

I don't understand your use of the word "sources", or possibly your use of the word "cultures". If you're talking about elemental affinities, there are some loose ones that I'm aware of in folklore, but by and large they were made up by Gary Gygax. If you mean "culture" as in "culture", then the D&D cultures of the genies are based on the cultures of the real-world societies that came up with genies, and which genies are treated as having when such matters come up in folklore. Put another way, the folklore of genies, djinn, and ifrit in the real world says that they have pashas and sultans just like humans do, but not much is said about it that I know of.

This is usually the case. Mythological creatures have societies that mirror the human society that creates legends about them. Fairies in medieval England have monarchies, while the Tuatha de Dannan of earlier Ireland have something closer to a warleader, who must be "unblemished". Thus when Nuada loses his arm, he can no longer be king/warleader, but is reinstated when a new arm is made for him out of silver.

Never said it did. You need to read and quote the full paragraph to see that I said this exact thing.

You were talking about the split between demons and devils. I said it's an artificial split based wholly on organization/alignment (chaotic/lawful) that has no basis in real life, just as the split between genie races & their elemental affinities is an artificial split with minimal basis in real life. You seem to find one (demons & devils) acceptable even though there's no real-life basis for it, and the other (genies) unacceptable because there isn't a real-life basis for it. I'm not sure that you can have it both ways.

I guess how you define "late" but it was 1991.

It got lip service in the Outer Planes Appendix, but wasn't really developed until 1994, with the release of Planescape.

What was the justification before this?

Symmetry. Demons were chaotic evil, devils were lawful evil. Daemons and Demodands were both neutral evil, I think, which still seems silly.

Could a blood war type idea be introduced between frost giants and fire giants? I'm sure it could, but it seems unnecessary.

I agree. Unnecessary. And a bit silly.

I can't find any reference in Greek myth about Valhalla.

I really hope you're joking.

But Asmodeus is an archdevil because of myth. A good percentage (I haven't actually looked at most of the archdemons) of demon princes come from myth too, in one form or another - ranging from Baal to Asmodeus.

Right. Asmodeus actually stays pretty close to source material. Geryon is actually a Greek Titan. Dispater, or Dis Pater, is another name for the Roman god Pluto. Beelzebub is "Lord of the Flies"; the "Beel" has the same root as Baal, or Ba'al, which meant "master" or "lord", and was used as an honorific or title. See also Bel and Belial.

One thing early Christians were very keen on was converting all the previous gods into demons, so there's whole lists of demons available.

I don't see how you say devils are close enough to demons to all be rolled together.

There's absolutely no real world distinction between demons and devils.

But then decide that genies are different enough from fey (even though you say they are similar in their roles in myth) to be distinct. That is a little odd to me.

Different cultures, different portrayals, even if the story roles are often the same. Elevators, escalators, and stairs all take you to the same point, but they're not the same thing.

dragons are still scary and breath-fire, etc.

Except when they're poisonous.

They don't have, to my knowledge, a big city of burning brass in the plane of fire. They could, but then I would be similarly asking where that bit of inspiration came from.

No, of course the fire giants don't have a big burning city of brass. That'd be silly. It's in the Arabian Nights, not the Prose Edda (but not on the Elemental Plane of Fire. It is made of obsidian, though, or basalt.) http://www.bartleby.com/16/701.html

Fire giants.. like Surtr and are jerks. Fire genies.. have sultans.. and are jerks. Ooh the variety!

LOL

First, I just want to ask, what is EGG? I'm not personally familiar with it; and it doesn't help to Google EGG. Even when I try to rule out food, or reproduction, or the shape, or colour, etc. I'm assuming its short for something but I don't know what.

Try "E. Gary Gygax".

Second, I appreciate the answers. I seek knowledge, you gave knowledge. I accept your reason of "based on Arabian Nights" but I just wish there was more. Or something broader. Or something more in keeping with what I get when I Google non-DnD versions.

You'll really have to get off the internet for that. The Arabian Nights are the simplest, most accessible resource. Jinn are figures in Islam, which is a contemporary religion, and there's probably a lot more about them in Islamic texts and folklore.

I would be equally disappointed if the only source you could point me to would be the Bible, if I was searching for information on the devil, demons and angels. There are so many other, better, richer and more .. evolved?.. sources I can find that in many ways contradict or give much fuller information than one book.

I suspect what you want and what you're asking for are two different things.

What you seem to be saying is that the genies I know of are wish-granters, but that they have so many more details. To learn those details I should look at Arabian Nights, but then you are saying that those details are made up (in this case by the writers of DnD) and are not found in myth. That seems odd to me.

I'm saying that the writers of D&D took what they knew of genies, took out the bits that they didn't like, and put it a bunch of stuff that they did like. I'm also saying that probably most of their perception of genies came from the Arabian Nights amd the encyclopedia, and that's the best place for the source of "D&D" genies in my guess. BUT, we are not in Wisconsin in the age of card catalogs and the US Mail. There are many other sources that didn't exist or weren't widespread back then, or have evolved. There has been a real evolution in the scope of folklore in recent decades. It used to be all Egypt, Greece/Rome, and Scandinavia, with a chapter on "Eastern" or "Oriental" folklore.