D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Paul Farquhar]

It’s apocryphal in Protestant traditions, yes.

Which is significant because Gygax was a Protestant, so stuff lifted from Catholicism and Gnosticism was from “some else’s religion”.

 

[Remathilis]

i would say the Exorcist is very grounded in real world religious belief though. And it was based on a real exorcism (and pretty sure he got Pazuzu from Babylonian beliefs)

Pazuzu might have been named after a Babylonian deity (and the story is "based" off a "true" story). The D&D Pazuzu is based off the Exorcist version, who is absolutely a work of fiction.

 

[Remathilis]

Biblical demons are pretty different D&D demons as they are fallen angels and beings of pure spirit. And a lot of the theology around them is drawn from passages that aren’t clear (for example falling stars representing the fall of angels). But I also think drawing on popular folk beliefs and beliefs from books like the malleus malificarum works for an RPG

Much of the common conception of demons as fallen angels comes not from Biblical texts but Milton's Paradise Lost, which is at best Biblical Fan Fiction.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Much of the common conception of demons as fallen angels comes not from Biblical texts but Milton's Paradise Lost, which is at best Biblical Fan Fiction.

Demons as fallen angels is straight out of Catholicism

 

[TiQuinn]

It’s apocryphal in Protestant traditions, yes.

I can’t imagine what the Catholic Church thinks about Dungeons and Dragons today.

 

[Remathilis]

Which is significant because Gygax was a Protestant, so stuff lifted from Catholicism and Gnosticism was from “some else’s religion”.

It is also important to remember the 1970s had a mini revival in interest in demonology, mostly in the form of horror that was "based on a true story'. The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Amityville Horror, etc. It fostered a lot more interest in the demonic, but also helped fuel the Satanic Panic a decade later. It would make sense Gary would have been as influenced by this as he was in Kung Fu fueling the monk class.

I don't think Gary was opting to steal from other religions as much as cracking a pop-culture Book of Demons and plucking names.

 

[Alzrius]

It would make sense Gary would have been as influenced by this as he was in Kung Fu fueling the monk class.

Assuming you mean the David Carradine series, then it's questionable how much of an influence that was on the OD&D monk; and, for that matter, it's questionable how much Gygax had to do with the original monk class at all. To quote from Shannon Appelcline's product history for Supplement II: Blackmoor (affiliate link), emphasis mine:

Origins (II): Whodunnit? The incomplete nature of the original Blackmoor manuscript has led to much speculation about who actually wrote it. Decades later, Tim Kask would say that the book "was about 60% my work, 30% Dave Arneson’s and the remainder came from Gary and Rob Kuntz".

It seems obvious that there was heavy editorial work, but the majority of the material nonetheless has origins in Dave Arneson's game. "Temple of the Frog", an adventure clearly drawn from Arneson's own campaign, is an example of how these two facts could both be true. Multiple sources suggest that Kask had to convert the adventure, probably from the Chainmail (1971) system that Arneson used in his original Blackmoor games. This sort of massive renovation might have required considerable editorial effort from Kask while still preserving the core of Arneson's original material.

Brian Blume is believed to have contributed to Blackmoor, primarily due to one statement by Gary Gygax. In his forward to Oriental Adventures (1985), written ten years after the production of Blackmoor, Gygax claimed that the monk character class was "inspired by Brian Blume and the book series called The Destroyer". Tim Kask offers a more nuanced origin, saying that the monk definitely originated with Dave Arneson, but Brian Blume heard of it and may have adapted it on his own. Kask "could not tell you how much of what [he] was given for the editing of [Blackmoor] about the Monk PC was Dave's or Brian's".

Steve Marsh is the other author who's known to have contributed to Blackmoor.
He was a fan who had been introduced to D&D by Sandy Petersen. He sent a treatise on the Elemental Plain of Water to TSR, which Tim Kask cut apart to produce many of Blackmoor's aquatic monsters (including the ixitxachitl and sahuagin), some underwater magic items, and the rules for underwater adventuring. Marsh would later say that his material was used because "Gary was looking for material to fill out the page count on Arneson's supplement."

The final verdict? Other than the aquatic material, most of the ideas in Blackmoor seem to have come from Dave Arneson's group in the Twin Cities. How much of his original material remained in the printed book, and how much was revamped, revised, or reimagined in Lake Geneva is currently lost to the mists of history.

 

[Tsuga C]

I'd like to hear your comments on this.

When they decided that genetically evil, mortal races/species were no longer allowed in the game, they officially jumped the shark. They take pride in snorting in derision at the traditional player base, our norms, and dismissing us as relics of an unenlightened, intolerant past. This is the direction they have chosen, so I will once again state for the record that I did not leave D&D; rather, it left me.

At this late date, none of their actions of this nature should surprise you. Old School Renaissance gaming has come into being for this very reason.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is also important to remember the 1970s had a mini revival in interest in demonology, mostly in the form of horror that was "based on a true story'. The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Amityville Horror, etc. It fostered a lot more interest in the demonic, but also helped fuel the Satanic Panic a decade later. It would make sense Gary would have been as influenced by this as he was in Kung Fu fueling the monk class.

I don't think Gary was opting to steal from other religions as much as cracking a pop-culture Book of Demons and plucking names.

I think it was a bit different in the UK, with demonology largely viewed as campy Hammer Horror stuff.

 

[TiQuinn]

Assuming you mean the David Carradine series, then it's questionable how much of an influence that was on the OD&D monk; and, for that matter, it's questionable how much Gygax had to do with the original monk class at all. To quote from Shannon Appelcline's product history for Supplement II: Blackmoor (affiliate link), emphasis mine:

All of these things hit at the same time. The Destroyer was early 70s, Kung Fu the TV series was 1972, which was either originally a Bruce Lee project or greenlighted because of the popularity of Bruce Lee at the time, and on and on...it's really hard to pinpoint one single inspiration point when all of these things were part of the zeitgeist at the time.