Avalokias

[Tinker Gnome]

I know these critters are statted up in the 3.0 Monster Manual II, but I am curious about their origins (where did they first appear? As I am pretty sure they were around before the 3.0 MMII) and relations to Kyuss. A Google search does not yield much information surprisingly.

 

[kilamanjaro]

3rd Edition is their first appearance. There's more info about them in Dragon #276.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

3rd Edition is their first appearance. There's more info about them in Dragon #276.

Huh? I thought they were older than that.

 

[Dire Bare]

Huh? I thought they were older than that.

I think he's right, but post this over on the Creature Catalog forums - General Monster Talk on these boards, those guys will know for sure!

 

[Alzrius]

Huh? I thought they were older than that.

According to Echohawk's Complete D&D Monster Index, the avolakia only appears in Dragon #276, the 3.0 Monster Manual II, Elder Evils (apparently a singular advanced one, as the herald of Kyuss), and with a brief entry in the 3.5 update booklet for their MM2 appearance.

 

[frankthedm]

The dark sun Psurlons, while a different creature than the avalokia, also happen to be alien worms. I've confused the two a few times.

 

[Joshua Randall]

They feature pretty heavily in the Age of Worms adventure path that ran in Dungeon magazine a few years ago. I can't recall much being made of their background, but icky worm creature + Kyuss seems like a natural fit.

 

[James Jacobs]

I invented the avolakia, actually, back in the late '80s for 1st edition. But at the time, of course, they existed only in my home-brew setting (they were a LOT different in that incarnation though... more like high-powered vargouilles who haunted Abyssal graveyard realms).

When I got the chance to write an article about the Wormcrawl Fissure's monsters in Dragon #276, I did a pretty significant redesign of them, transforming them into the wormlike monsters associated with Kyuss that they are now. They then got picked up to be reprinted in 3rd edition's Monster Manual II (which pleased me to no end, of course).

Since then, they played a pretty significant role in the latter 3rd of Age of Worms.

I suppose that subconsciously the psurlons had something to do with their wormification for that old Dragon article, but avolakias are as much bug monster as they are worm monster. I certainly wasn't conscious of any eldritch psurlon influence on them during their creation; they're pretty different when it comes to history and backstory and ability anyway.

Anyway... it's always cool to see folks getting a kick out of the avolakias! yay!

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I invented the avolakia, actually, back in the late '80s for 1st edition. But at the time, of course, they existed only in my home-brew setting (they were a LOT different in that incarnation though... more like high-powered vargouilles who haunted Abyssal graveyard realms).

When I got the chance to write an article about the Wormcrawl Fissure's monsters in Dragon #276, I did a pretty significant redesign of them, transforming them into the wormlike monsters associated with Kyuss that they are now. They then got picked up to be reprinted in 3rd edition's Monster Manual II (which pleased me to no end, of course).

Since then, they played a pretty significant role in the latter 3rd of Age of Worms.

I suppose that subconsciously the psurlons had something to do with their wormification for that old Dragon article, but avolakias are as much bug monster as they are worm monster. I certainly wasn't conscious of any eldritch psurlon influence on them during their creation; they're pretty different when it comes to history and backstory and ability anyway.

Anyway... it's always cool to see folks getting a kick out of the avolakias! yay!

Cool!: Avolokia (Sorry for spelling it wrong in the title!) are one of my favorite monsters.

I was actually thinking about using them for a Dragonlance game I hope to run some day, and I was also thinking about making some Pathfinder stats for them eventually (I do not have the MMII with me right now).