Lost Monsters

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I know that Urds are related to Kobolds, but I can't ever recall reading this...

Which book is it in??

The 1E MM2, IIRC.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The 1E MM2, IIRC.

Welcome to the Internet, ladies and gentlemen, where sentences need not contain actual words.

(Not picking on you, WD. This just struck me as very funny, for some reason. )

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was at work. If I typed it out the long way, it would have read thus:

The urd was first found in the first edition Monster ... what? Yes, I'm working. No, I am. You don't need to come over here, I'm working. What, don't you trust ...

 

[Nyaricus]

No need for special FR firearms when you have perfectly servicable ones in the DMG (and the FRCS even refers to them), and AFAIK Tinker gnomes are in Dragonlance where they belong like the abominations they are.

Actually, there is a special need for FR Firearms, because they aren't gun-powder weapons, but smoke-powder, and thus require a few special (if minimal) rules for them, since they are infact a magical item.

The behind-the-scenes story is actually kinda neat:

For a brief period, firearms were going to be included in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book. I don’t know what happened to the idea…
-Todd Lockwood​

As far as gnomes, they were (supposedly, according to a few people off the boards here) ret-conned for 3e to be tinker gnomes on the Isle of Lantan (in FR), as well as Todd Lockwood himself having saved the gnome in 3e with some decidedly 'tinkerish' concept art for the gnomes; if not for him gnomes wouldn't be a PC race in 3.xe at all (at least, out of the package)

This drawing rescued the Gnomes from oblivion. R&D didn’t know what to do with gnomes, and were considering dropping them entirely.
-Todd Lockwood

and also:

A natural continuation of the thought behind the Gnome Archer on Page 3.
-Todd Lockwood​

So, infact, both were deeply ingrained in the concept stage, but were both dropped for various reasons. Todd mentioned that the R&D team for 3e didn't have enough time to figure out a base class for the gnome (which in my belief was put on the backburner and then resurrected for the Artificer for Eberron; as well as the 'golem' in the second picture, which shares many similarities with Warforged), and thus he (the gnome) was stuck in his 1e Illusionist niche, since at the time a tinker class was out-of-the-question. The non-inclusion of firearms was likely due to space, since the FRCS is a hefty tome in-and-of-itself.

cheers,
--N

 

[Razz]

Poor gnomes, always forgotten and always abused.

I think I'm going to feature them more prominently in my games now.

 

[13garth13]

Urds are 2e I believe...

I seem to recall that they first appeared in the hole-punched compendia (the very first one to be precise, the one that actually came with the three ringed binder......a neat idea if a little flawed in the application, especially since those darned things always ripped.....but at least you could grab whatever monsters you needed for the evening and stick them in a little one-inch binder and have at it! ) I do believe they were in the entry under Kobolds.

I'm almost positive that they are not 1e (but true dyed-in-the-wool grognards will have to pass final comment on this), as the first I ever remember seeing them was in WGR1 (Greyhawk Ruins) and since I still basically ran 1e just using the very occasional 2e reference (especially anything to do with Greyhawk) at that point in my gaming career, I hadn't actually seen Urds before then, until the fateful day I bought the first binder and its sheets at a used bookstore (the Red River Bookstore on Portage for those Winnipegers out there )

Cheers,
Colin

 

[Nyaricus]

Poor gnomes, always forgotten and always abused.

I think I'm going to feature them more prominently in my games now.

As tinkers?

 

[Shemeska]

More on the Fallen Celestial controversy:

http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-50450.html

Heh.

I can't actually think of any instance where a fallen celestial turns directly into a preexistant type of fiend, that just doesn't happen in the DnD cosmology. What was said as a reason for excluding the fallen celestial template in that thread, assuming it wasn't garbled by being 2nd hand, clashes heavily with prior precident, and even clashes with prior and subsequent 3.x material. Celestials fall and they don't turn into fiends on some 1:1 translation from type to type. Yeah they're altered by the process of becoming evil, but that's -exactly- what a fallen celestial template might be useful in presenting till that fallen celestial became something worse and more powerful.

A real pity the picture and the template didn't make it into the book.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I believe Whizbang is right - 1E MM2 - the forgotten Monster Manual...

And though not a true find.. Isn't the Dragonwrought Kobold the Urd taken to the next level? I believe that this is the direction that they went with the Urd.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I had the same thought: Winged kobolds (built with RoD) are called Urds in my campaign.