Yea, I was expecting a discussion on the various ecology of monsters, like the 2E monster books had.Clicked on the thread for the science. Got philosophy instead. Meh.
Yea, I was expecting a discussion on the various ecology of monsters, like the 2E monster books had.Clicked on the thread for the science. Got philosophy instead. Meh.
Nymph – beauty of nature
I'm trying to understand the D&D monster categories mostly so that if I come up with a concept, I have a better idea where to put it.
Are my categories correct? Frex do giants really represent the power of nature or do they represent only unliving natural forces?
And what's missing? It seems to me that D&D has sufficient highly magical representatives of nonliving natural forces - giants, elementals - but lacks plant and animal spirits. Dryads are hella specific. So is the cat lord. I'm thinking of beings that are below gods in power and stature, but aren't just animal or plant people like gnolls and myconids.
DragonsAnd what's missing?.
Godzilla?
I'm sure he was going for 'dragon.'
But, D&D's resident Kaiju is the Terrasque.
Dragon - coloursDragons
Dragon - colours
As a whole they don't fit into any other categories. Some have natural breath weapons, some don't. I think they were derived from the conceptual associations with their various colours. Red = heat, white = cold, green = poison, blue = sky, gold and silver = noble metals.
The reason they're essentially meaningless is that the colour-coded dragons have shallow roots, being created for D&D, while the D&D giants frex are mostly from Norse myth and elementals are ultimately from Greek natural philosophy and Paracelsus.
Some have natural breath weapons, some don't.