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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 8890510" data-attributes="member: 57383">The BECMI versions are pretty close to the 2E "Giant, Cyclops", which is the same monster as the Lesser Cyclops from Deities & Demigods (1980), its reprint Legends & Lore (1985), and the 2E version of Legends & Lore (1990), all of which predates the 2E Monstrous Manual.If you compare the stats between the AD&D versions of the Lesser Cyclopes and Cyclops Giant it's pretty obvious they're the same creature. Almost all of their stats are the same, or so close the differences are negligible.A Cyclopskin is a different creature, far smaller and weaker than a true cyclops (7½ feet tall versus 20 feet) that first appeared in the 1E Monster Manual II as a humanoid race. 2E recategorized them as giantkin (they're listed as "Giant-kin, Cyclops" in the Monstrous Compendium). Which is a bit annoying, since the text always refers to them as cyclopskin and never cyclops. Why not "Giant-kin, Cyclopskin" instead? The MC also calls cyclopskin "single-eyed humanoids" as well as "one-eyed giants" so there is something humanoid about them as well as giantish.To compound the annoyance, the 1992 AD&D Trading Card "Cyclops" is actually a Cyclopskin, and the "Giant, Cyclops" entry in the 2E Monstrous Manual is 90% about the Cyclopskin (it basically repeats the Giant-kin Cyclopskin's description from MC3). The Cyclops Giant is one column of stats and a paragraph of description stuck at the bottom.The Desert Cyclops might be more closely related to those, since they're also a lot smaller than a Cyclops Giant.Oh, and there's also a Cyclops in the Desert of Desolation D&D Miniatures set, which is a new monster with different stats to the 3E Deities and Demigods' Lesser Cyclops (which is reprinted as the "Giant, Cyclops" in 3E's Shining South.That's a pretty obscure one.Incidentally, the first Cyclopes to see print in D&D were the "CYCLOPES ONE EYED GIANTS" in the Greek Myth section of Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976). Those fill the same slot as Deities & Demigods & Legends & Lore's Greater Cyclops.</blockquote>

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