D&D Monsters in Fantasy Literature: What's Where?

[Drew]

Neat thread. I'm just bumping it so I can easily find it later and add my own contributions.

 

[dougmander]

Gorgon/medusa are from greek myth too, although the name gorgon was used to refer medusa and her 2 sisters. I kinda forgot where the petrifying cow part came from.

Griffon is greek too. As are the harpies, and the hippogriffs.

The kraken can be traced back to natives of the south pacific, I think. With sailors spreading the word around about them.

The hippogriff is actually an invention of a known fantasy writer, Ludovico Ariosto, in the early 1500s. It is not from ancient Greek myth.

The kraken is Norse.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Just a minor point of order:

It is a fact I read and borrowed names and ideas from all manner of sources for creating new monsters for the AD&D game--mythology, folklore, fairy tales, and authored fiction. Be that as it may, the presentation of the several hundreds of such creatures and races I created for the game is unique and appllicable only to the D&D game system.

An a outstanding example is that of the Drow race. Nothing like it is found in any Norse mythology at all. Dockalfar had crow's feet and were ugly. The Scots ""drow" were simply "dark elves." Thus TSR, now WotC/Hasbro can claim rights to the Drow as depicted in the D&D game system becuse of the uniqwue nature of their description and attributes.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Lycanthrope, Wereboar The tale of Circe, from Homer's Odyssey?

I think this is from the Celtic story of Twrch Trwyth, a great boar that was actually a prince turned into a boar. Retrieving a silver comb from Twrch was one of the quests given to Culhwch by the giant Ysbaddaden Pengawr. Don't you love these Welsh names?

Lycanthrope, Werefox North American Indian mythology?

I always thought this one was derived from the Japanese kitsune.

Phoenix "A wonder-bird, which according to Herodotus flies once every five hundred years from India to Egypt, burns itself there on a pyre and arises renewed from the ashes." -- Fabulous Beasts and Demons, by Heinz Mode.

Kinda a clarification, the myth of the Phoenix, or Bennu as it was originally called predates Herodotus. The Bennu was a bird which lived on the pyramidal hill from which Ra came, in Egyptian mythology.

 

[Knightfall]

That's a great site. We must link that on in the D&D links section.

Here's another great site for information on mythology, folklore, and legends.

Encyclopedia Mythica
http://www.pantheon.org/

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Unseelie]

As to literary apparently the Displacer Beast comes from a Sci-Fi book,

Yes, or at least the visuals are...

Specifically, it's based on the Corayl(sp) from A.E. Van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle if I remember correctly. I will check when I get home tonight.

For those of you who are anime fans, that's also what Mughi from the original Dirty Pair novels was based on as well. They changed him for the anime to avoid problems, or so I am led to believe.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

About Cujo, as per my horror lit professor in college:

Stephen King wrote a number of stories where he took classic archetypes of horror and rewrote them for modern readers. Carrie is a retelling of the classic ghost story. Cujo is a retelling of the classic Wolf-man story. Pet Semetary is a retelling of the zombie or living dead story. And of course, my favorite, Needful Things, is about the devil.

By the way, you can also catch rabies via inhalation. Any mammal can contract it and once you start foaming at the mouth, it is too late. Even modern medicine can't save you.

About vampires:
Prior to Bram Stoker, vampires were not as they are today. They used to be filthy, nosveratu-like things.

Here is a link to some of the earliest mentions of hobgoblins:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4198/roxbur.html

Mr. Goodfellow wasn't at all like the hobgoblins in DnD, however. He's more of an evil fey.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

As far as I can remember, previous versions of vampires didn't bite? (correct me if I'm wrong, people). So they needed a different way to have some sort of drain effect - voila, level drain.

That seems a bit silly. After all, the people making the vampires decide if they bite, and so they would not put something in to compensate for them not biting, because they could have just put in a bite. Also, 3E vampires DO bite, so I'm really not seeing a reason. I took it out IMC, replaced it with a speed boost and more natural attacks.

 

[Tonguez]

Just a minor point of order:

It is a fact I read and borrowed names and ideas from all manner of sources for creating new monsters for the AD&D game--mythology, folklore, fairy tales, and authored fiction. Be that as it may, the presentation of the several hundreds of such creatures and races I created for the game is unique and appllicable only to the D&D game system.

Very true and I think the D&D Vampire can be added to the least of unique interpretations of classic monsters - it is not the Bram Stoker Vampire nor the earlier Nosferatu-type but uniquely DnD.

In fact DnD is probably the 'source' of many modern interpretations of various monsters, it just saddens me that so many people known only the DnD version and have never taken the time to read the original source material be they fictional or mythological...

 

[demiurge1138]

If I may plug....

This thread from last year is in a similar vein and contains a lot of good info, some of it already here, some of it not.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=63674
Demiurge out.