D&D General D&D monsters that have been changed the most over time

[Mind of tempest]

Orcs or oinks?
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why were they pigs anyway?

 

[GuyBoy]

Never worked that one out. The miniatures are by Minifgs, a company based in Southampton, UK (my university city btw), and reflect the pictures in the AD&D Monster Manual......or the book reflected the miniatures idk?

 

[GuyBoy]

Here we go with a Minifigs gnoll, hobgoblin and, well, I’ll leave you to work out the other guy!

 

[Thunder Brother]

When did it actually happen? When I started D&D, kobolds were like, goblins, if goblins were too hardcore/dangerous for you.

The first time I really came across the idea that they were really associated with dragons was Dragon Mountain, in 1993, but it seemed like it wasn't an entirely new concept then. And the Monstrous Manual from the same year (both this and Dragon Mountain illustrated in part by the incredible DiTerlizzi, offering us both flat-faced and ratlike visions of kobolds) doesn't mention dragons.

Yet by 3E, kobolds are solidly little dragon-people.

I remember them being distinctly reptilian in the first Baldur's Gate video game. Which came out in 1998.

why were they pigs anyway?

tvtropes says it might be because "orc" is Welsh for "pig", but from what I can research the Welsh word for "pig" is actually "mochyn". So that's a bust.

But then again, in the pre-internet years of the 1970's, maybe someone actually thought orc was Welsh for pig. I would be surprised if a public library in 70's Lake Geneva would even have a Welsh dictionary.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

It's the one from the Fiend Folio or Monster Manual 3, though. (Forgot which one.)

One of the first monsters I noticed having changed significantly was the Morkoth.

In first edition, it was a... I don't know.
In second edition, it turned into... something else?
And in third edition, it turned into... a fish-thing?

Spoiler

This is a great example of a monster changing. Some creatures have stayed relatively unchanged other than lore (such as beholders) and some go through incarnations that bear little resemblance to each other.

The 5E Morkoth harkens back to the original while adding the insectile legs of later incarnations and the additional detail that they're obsessive hoarders.

 

[GuyBoy]

On the kobold issue, Minifigs may (or may not) be something to do with it; the image below is their kobold figure from 1977. I remember owning a few of these.
The metal is cross-hatched and gives the impression of scales, but I’m not going to read too much into this as late 70s miniatures weren’t wonderfully precise in detail.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Drow.

 

[Echohawk]

I've covered the evolution across editions of a number of monsters in the Monster ENCyclopedia series, and the one that really stands out is the lamia, which has already been mentioned. When you look closely though, even monsters that don't seem to have changed too much at first glance are quite different now to how they started. Both the aarakocra and the galeb duhr grew a whole set of extra limbs, and the kraken now looks very different to the giant squid it started out as. Even the flumph has changed — instead of large spikes on the bottom, it has small spikes at the end of its tentacles, it is multi-coloured (and changes colour) instead of always being white, and it moves by squirting air, instead of using magic anti-gravity powers.

 

[Helldritch]

Orcs...
I would love to hear what people think are some causal factors. I think WoW had something to do with it, but wouldn't place money on it.

In my mind, Warcraft and World of Warcraft both have everything to do with it. The orc line in warcraft was so much more interesting than the others that players developed a strong affiliation with them. Their story was more compelling that the others.

As for our topic, Dragons. They went from being beatable by a single high level character to able to challenge a high level party. Their size grew too. By a lot.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

tvtropes says it might be because "orc" is Welsh for "pig", but from what I can research the Welsh word for "pig" is actually "mochyn". So that's a bust.

But then again, in the pre-internet years of the 1970's, maybe someone actually thought orc was Welsh for pig. I would be surprised if a public library in 70's Lake Geneva would even have a Welsh dictionary.

There seems to be some conflation between between Orcs and the Isles of Orkney.

Etymologists usually interpret the element orc- as a Pictish tribal name meaning "young pig" or "young boar".[Notes 3][1] Speakers of Old Irish referred to the islands as Insi Orc "islands of the young pigs".[15][16] The archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized prepositional case ending.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Orknies are counted among the army of the White Witch.

Cruels and Hags and Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins. In fact here were all those who were on the witch's side and whom the Wolf had summoned at her command.