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More: Tiamat, Shedu, Lammasu: Babylonian and Sumerian mythology Elementals, sylph, salamander: Medieval alchemy (based itself of Greek sources) Yuan-Ti: R.E. Howard's snake people, possibly? Swanmays are from Hans Andersen's The Marsh King's Daughter, though he didn't name them. I expect...

Fire, Frost and Stone giant - Norse mythology Fomorian, Kelpie - Celtic mythology Otyugh - Trash monster from Star Wars (but debatable) Xvart - Alan Garner Not quite: Clay Golem, Golem (name) - Jewish myth Iron Golem - Greek myth (Talos) Flesh Golem - Mary Shelley (Frankenstein's monster)

Not really. Royal flush is merely the highest valued hand - not much good if everyone folds. An ace+king in Blackjack is an automatic win - even though in some rules variants it isn't even the highest valued hand, and so wouldn't have won if the round had been played through normally.

No, "adder" is from "nadder", with the initial "n" being absorbed by the indefinite article (i.e. "a nadder" became "an adder"). Same thing happened to apron and orange. The opposite happened to newt (originally "eft"). "Nadder" is, I think, from the same root as Sanskrit "naga".

Interesting. I found the following additional information from etymonline: So, origin unknown. I did find that another OE word for spider was loppe or lobbe, which rimes with -cop. Could be some linguistic corruption going on which lead to ettercop.

Not off-hand, but etymonline suggests "natterjack" as another derivation. It has cognates in other languages as "swelling" or "ulcer", so the original sense was probably poisonous bite. Head is "Kopf" in German, but Old English had "heafod" - same root, but English has always had an initial...

It's acceptable cheese. Each episode the team hunt some prehistoric creatures which have come through one the time portals which have started popping up throughout the UK. The team is constructed to get the widest demographic appeal: clever guy, tough guy, cute girl, nerdy guy, mysterious girl...

Etter: poison Cop: spider (as in cob-web). Cap is just a variant. Probably originally meant "head". Ettercop "poison head" is just an old name for spider. Try www.etymonline.com, which has other variations for attercop and cobweb.

Pachisi: Throws of 0, 1 or 6 gave you an extra turn. Backgammon: Doubles give you an extra turn. Not sure if they count as critical hits, but the idea of certain die rolls giving you a boost beyond what the actual roll is is an old one.

Well I've just discovered Tool. I was listening to them last night when my son comes in and asks me to turn the music down :confused:

They were on the verge of inducing. In our health authority, they don't normally induce unless the baby is 2 weeks overdue, and they wouldn't operate unless there were complications. Labour was just slow.

If only all sociopaths were this incompetent :D I grew up in Guildford, and I once missed a close encounter with a nail bomb in London by a few minutes, so I feel qualified to make off-colour jokes about terrorists. Here goes: "Did you hear about the jihadist who tried to blow up a car? Got...

Torchwood blew hot and cold, due to the writers not quite knowing the characters. That's why they seemed to change every single week. I've high hopes for season 2 - should be a lor more consistent. The better stories are all found in the second half, so give it another go. Out of Time is...

I've never had a problem with eBay. Granted, I buy and sell mainly in the UK, but I've received stuff from Canada overseas with no problem. Shipping from UK to Denmark's pretty cheap.

Congratulations! Our firstborn took 83 hours to come out :(

In the new series he's had just as many male companions (Adam, Jack, Micky) as female (Rose, Donna, Martha). He just hasn't had a male companion on his own. Trivia question: Which three classic series stories does the Doctor not have a female companion? Answers:

Eccleston's Doctor's also in a Titanic-related picture that Clive (the guy in Rose who's been collecting information about the Doctor) showed Rose.

I un 3.5, but most of my adventures are 3.0, or earlier editions. Things you've got to watch for: 1) Damage reduction has changed for most monsters which have it. 2) Many spells have changed, and this can affect some encounters dramatically. Examples include buff spell durations and a major...

Pure cheese, but an especially fine bit of cheese. :D At least this time the Deus ex Machina had some justification and plenty of foreshadowing.

C.S. Lewis used the term Hnau or Nau to describe any sentient being in The Cosmic Trilogy. IIRC it was a Martian term, due to there being three intelligent species on Mars who needed a common term to describe themselves. Sentient robots and AIs might take on the term hnau. Alternatively, they...