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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 5896469" data-attributes="member: 508">This was a slightly irritating article to write, although I was pleased how it eventually turned out.  I had been specifically asked to write an ecology article using one of the new monsters for 3E, but this was before the 3E's Monster Manual creature selections had been finalized.  The pickings were rather slim in the monster document I had been given (I remember one critter was the "inviso-beetle," which didn't ever make it into the MM), but I recognized the darkmantle (then spelled "darcmantle" -- I convinced Skip Williams to change the spelling; all 3E monster articles had to go past him at that time) as an updated piercer and thought that was very apt, since as you mention the first ecology article ever had been about the piercer.However, my idea of the darkmantle as a mutated offshoot of piercer that had resulted from a cave full of piercers being shunted through a planar rift into the Demiplane of Shadows and warped as a result was promptly shot down.  At the time, 3E was seen as a "reboot," so I wasn't allowed to refer to anything that wasn't mentioned in the 3E core rulebooks (not all of which were available at the time this article was published, and none of which had been finalized when I wrote it, several months prior to publication).  Piercers weren't going to be in the 3E MM, so I couldn't refer to them.  (Apparently they retroactively never existed or something.)  Likewise, they hadn't decided whether the Demiplane of Shadow was even going to exist as such (it later came out as a full-fledged plane of its own), so I couldn't refer to it either, which was a pity, because I had referenced an old Dragon article about the Demiplane of Shadow that specifically mentioned its fleshwarping properties.  Plus, that explanation fit rather nicely with the creature's innate darkness spell-like ability, I thought.  But whatever.  I made the article a Shandrilla and Javorik one so I could have SOME continuity with the past, and also because they tended to be my Underdark explorers, and thus especially suited for the darkmantle.Incidentally, this was the last published Shandrilla and Javorik ecology article.  I wrote two more, but they were bulk-rejected when they redid the format of ecology articles and no longer wanted any fiction in the mix.  For those interested, check out the "Chuul" and "Destrachan" links in my signature -- and read them in that order.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Johnathan</blockquote>

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