Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyaricus" data-source="post: 3013138" data-attributes="member: 35678">Hussar, check out a book entitled Giants, Monsters and Dragons by Carol Rose (published by W.W. Norton and Company). It's a great little encyclopedia of monstyers from around the world, and details the Gorgon <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=";)" />To clear it up: The D&D bull-gorgon was, in RL, originally called the Catobleapas, which menas "that which looks downward" in Greek and was described by Pliny the Elder. It had a heavy head with an enormously long and thin neck, and Pliny considered this to be good for any human who looked it in the eyes was thought to automatically drop dead. It was said to inhabit the wastes in Ethiopia and Southern Egypt. Descripions of it were many in travelers account and in early medieval bestiaries, and described it having the head of a pig and a scrawny black body. By the 17th century, it's description had been changed completely; Edward Topsell described it as having the scales and wings of a dragon, gigantic teeth, and hands instead of paws or hooves - oh, and called it a Gorgon, creating the discrepency. Gustave Flaubert, a French author, was so enthralled by this terrifying desrciption that he immortalized it in his work La Tenation de St. Antonie (1874), which many be the 19th century work that Imruphel is referring to.---Other than that: I wish that Dire animals were a template; I can't understand why they aren't!</blockquote>

Verification