Richards said:
The answer to the "five-legged shedu" question can be found HERE, about halfway down the page.
Hey! I was about to cross post it!
I'll just link the image, and an excerpt of the commentary, for the lazy ones:
Stone sculptures of mythological figures, sculpted in relief or in the round, were often placed as guardians at gateways to palaces and temples in ancient Mesopotamia. These figures were known to the Assyrians as lamassu. They were designed to protect the palace from demonic forces, and may even have guarded the entrance to the private apartments of the king. The figure has five legs, so that when viewed from the front it stands firm, while when viewed from the side it appears to be striding forward to combat evil. The 'Standard Inscription' of Ashurnasirpal, common to many of his reliefs, is inscribed between the figure's legs. It records the King's titles, ancestry and achievements.
As for why illithids are aberration, one has to remember their humanoid shape don't comes from their nature, but from the fact they are a parasitic specie that take over their host and mutate it. The new
Fiend Folio has even made a template to apply it to other creatures than human (an odd choice, I always considered they used orcs, creatures more commonly found in the underdark, with stronger physical bodies, and a higher reproductive rate).
Now, on to questions of my own:
Why are centaurs and wemics monstrous humanoids, sphinxes and lamias magical beasts, and hybsil feys ?
Why aren't sahuagin and locathah monstrous humanoids ? I have trouble with a
charm person spell working on a sahuagin but not on a centaur...
Why aren't Dragonne dragons ?
Why are athach aberrations, when avariels aren't ? Especially considered they were found in the Giant entry in previous beastiaries. Possible answer would be having a giant the dwarves, gnomes, and giant-"favoring" rangers would get no bonus against.
Why is channeling energy from the Negative Plane a school in its own right, while channeling energy from the Positive Plane is a Conjuration subschool ? Oops, the topic is
monster questions.
Why aren't (Positive) and (Negative) possible subtypes for outsiders coming from the energy planes, just like we have subtypes for the elements and alignment planes ? Devourer and nightshades seems more Outsider (Negative) than actual Undead to me. (Note that undead traits could be a package of the (Negative) subtype.)
Why aren't humanoid subtype more often used to non-humanoid creatures that are related anyway ? Only official example I know is the Dekanter Goblin (a Monstrous Humanoid (Goblinoid)). As I said in other threads (see the "Creature by Poll 4" related ones), I consider Azers are Outsider (Dwarf, Fire, Lawful).
Why are animal stats so silly ? Cats have a -4 Dex penalty compared to average stats of animals of their size, according to the MM2 charts. Real world donkies are smarter than horses. Lots of real world animals would have Int greater than 2, by the way.
Why do small skeletons and zombies move at the same speed as their larger "brethren", when they are supposed to be slower because of shorter legs ?
Why do goblins and kobolds move at 30 ft. speed without that being a goblin/kobold trait (like the 20 ft. move speed is a dwarf trait) ?
Why are hill giants so charismatic ?
Why is the nightwing's transformation bite so enigmatic ?
Why is the new marilith so famished you want to give humanitarian food rations ?
