Recent content by Minion X

You are correct that I should have said the "idea of Tiamat" and not just the name. The concept is still the same even if he hadn't picked a specific name yet. Something like Echidna would have worked fine too.

It's good to see someone consider exactly where Gygax might have picked up the name Tiamat and the idea of a dragon queen instead of just pointing to modern Wikipedia articles.

While I'm a bit late to the party, I feel it should be pointed out that while Gary Gygax may have been sexist, he was not misogynist. For example, he personally hired Jean Wells to work for TSR: https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/02/interview-jean-wells-part-i.html

They were ruled by their very own Lolth: https://barsoom.fandom.com/wiki/Issus

That wasn't exactly an original invention by Gygax, though. The drow were obviously heavily inspired (i.e. lifted straight from) the Black Martians in Burrough's The Gods of Mars.

Exactly, by the time the word "gnome" was used in connection with folklore like "little people" or kobolds, they weren't really folklore anymore and had become kitsch decorations.

The name "gnome" was made up by Paracelsus in the 16th century, while trolls have been part of Germanic/Scandinavian myth for at least a couple of thousand years and have attained a distinct folkloristic identity, just like elves, dwarfs, giants and dragons. The orc is closer to the gnome in...

That is exactly what I meant. The original D&D gnome is like a mix of Christmas elves and various creatures from European folklore, like leprechauns and house elves, but I can't think of any antecedents in fantasy literature, and all subsequent appearances are in works that are directly...

Are they? I have the distinct impression that they are a Dungeons & Dragons staple, like the cleric.

I believe Lovecraft considered Jews (at least European Jews) to be white, but disliked orthodox Jewish culture, mainly because it displaced much of ancient European culture with the introduction of Christianity. His wife and his Jewish friends and correspondents were more of the modern, secular...

It's still a game played by people in the mind's eye. A guide sounds more like a set of instructions, like how to assume and play out a fake identity in real life.

It would be a hilarious explanation that meets both arguments halfway. At the same time it leaves you wondering how Lovecraft got along perfectly well with Howard who loved to write stories about Gaelic heroes.

I know it's really bad form, but I can't not say that American celebrities are probably the worst example you can pick if you want a clear family tree. Professions like musician and actor really screams riff-raff.

Some people outside of the US do take a passing interest in your quaint colonial customs, and it's not the only nation to implement similar policies, like South Africa with its pencil tests that led to at least one publicized case where a girl born to white parents was classified as colored and...

I am familiar with the one drop rule, it's on all the hot sauce bottles. And by bastards in the family tree I mean literal gaps with unrecorded fathers or suspect listed fathers. And while on the subject, there was an interesting genetic study in Sweden that checked for genetic continuity in...