D&D General (2e) Which creatures are absent in specific classic campaign settings?

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm putting together a giant list of monsters from 1e and 2e that I can use for making random encounter lists on various worlds and planes and such in the traditional Planescape cosmology.

In doing this, I realized that while I've been putting a lot of work into determining (and in some cases deciding) which monsters are or should be exclusive to each setting, I don't really know how to determine which general monsters should be excluded from specific settings.

For example, I know that there aren't orcs on Krynn. And...that's the only one I can think of. I imagine there might be least a few other examples of monsters that are present on most D&D worlds but specifically absent from one of them.

There is of course Dark Sun, but in that case I'd need a list of what general D&D creatures are found there, rather than the opposite.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm putting together a giant list of monsters from 1e and 2e that I can use for making random encounter lists on various worlds and planes and such in the traditional Planescape cosmology.

If you're making these lists for a 2E Planescape campaign that is possibly going to other material planes my opinion is that theoretically just about any creature could be found anywhere. With planar travel, Spelljamming, summoning spells, (within reason and a little thought) I think you can justify quite a bit. It would probably be more rewarding for players to keep them on their toes with the unexpected. Just because orcs aren't traditionally found on or native to Krynn doesnt mean a tribe couldn't have made their way there for example. I'd create the list by terrain rather than campaign setting. The only restriction I can think of is if creatures are only found in wildspace, the phlogiston, or specific planes, and even then theres always gates, portals and pools that could solve that. If you have access to the old loose leaf MCs they had monster tables in the back of them by setting/terrain. Some of the MC Annuals had the campaign settings listed for the entries. And I think the 3 Planescape MCs had a pretty extensive & comprehensive monster list, if not in all 3 then I think it may have been the 3rd one. If youre planning on using this for 5E I think you'll find alot of monsters missing.

This link might help

List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[aco175]

The Krynn draconians do not exist on other planets unless you just call them dragonborn. Also kender.
Darksun Thri-kreen (sp) . Seems to be a lot of setting specific races

Also consider the worlds where the monster is a variant like Eberron orcs and FR orcs.

 

[humble minion]

Ravenloft was a weird one. While almost everything was potentially there in some weird domain or other, there were very few conventional d&d monsters at all. I think there was two dragons in the entire line ever, I don’t remember any gnolls, there were no genies ever to the best of my knowledge, only one celestial, and absolute zip miscellaneous extraplanar creatures like slaad, phoenixes, modrons, etc etc. Orcs were almost unknown, and goblins largely restricted to one domain (though another domain had goblyns which were different). And it wasn’t just monsters - there were very very few nonhumans in the setting either. Which led to weird outcomes, because the books always allowed PCs to be any of the standard races, but there was almost no (for instance) dwarf settlements or towns in the setting for your dwarf pc to come from.

 

[glass]

There is of course Dark Sun, but in that case I'd need a list of what general D&D creatures are found there, rather than the opposite.

Kobolds, goblins, pixies, orcs, ogres, gnomes, wemics, and trolls were specifically eradicated on Athas during the Cleansing Wars. They are not the only D&D species not found on Athas of course, but the they are worth bearing in mind when you come up with the list.

The Krynn draconians do not exist on other planets unless you just call them dragonborn. Also kender.
Darksun Thri-kreen (sp) . Seems to be a lot of setting specific races

The OP seems to be drawing a distinction between species which are specific to one world and those that are general, but specifically exlcuded from one (or a couple of) worlds. My understanding was that the OP had a handle on the former and needed help with the latter.

Draconians and kender were an example of the former. Thri-kreen were neither; they were a generic D&D monster years before Dark Sun was even thought of, and canonically showed up on Toril at the very least.

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The only other example I can think of OTTOMH is Birthright, which eschews most species of creatures in favour of unique examples. It has Orogs (but not Orcs), and Humans/Elves/Dwarves/etc, but not much else.

_
glass.

 

[Alzrius]

The only other example I can think of OTTOMH is Birthright, which eschews most species of creatures in favour of unique examples. It has Orogs (but not Orcs), and Humans/Elves/Dwarves/etc, but not much else.

The appendix at the back of Blood Spawn (affiliate link), the little-known monstrous compendium for the Birthright campaign setting, is good for that. For instance, it specifies that there's only been one confirmed dracolich in the setting (in the Shadow World).