[Myth-related] Can someone tell me...

[Mouseferatu]

Why is it that every conversion of Cerberus to D&D, from 1E on to now, insists on giving him a high Intelligence? Okay, I'm not an expert in Greek myth, but I've done my share of reading, and I have a number of reference books. And not once can I find any sign of Cerberus doing anything to show that he's smarter than... Well, a dog.

Am I missing something? What's the deal?

 

[Tinner]

Why is it that every conversion of Cerberus to D&D, from 1E on to now, insists on giving him a high Intelligence? Okay, I'm not an expert in Greek myth, but I've done my share of reading, and I have a number of reference books. And not once can I find any sign of Cerberus doing anything to show that he's smarter than... Well, a dog.

Am I missing something? What's the deal?

My books are packed away, but IIRC there are some versions of the tale that have Cerebus speaking to visitors to the underworld. That's justifiaction for better than animal INT.

I'd suspect the other reason for the high INT would be the fact that he's smart enough to distinguish the living from the dead, and intelligently guard the entrance to the underworld. Again, probably qualifies for better than animal INT. Not sure how high I'd go though.

 

[Aaron L]

I'd suspect the other reason for the high INT would be the fact that he's smart enough to distinguish the living from the dead

My dog can do that

 

[Mouseferatu]

My books are packed away, but IIRC there are some versions of the tale that have Cerebus speaking to visitors to the underworld. That's justifiaction for better than animal INT.

Hmm... Not familiar with those variants. Still, speech in D&D only requires Int a few points higher than animal.

I'd suspect the other reason for the high INT would be the fact that he's smart enough to distinguish the living from the dead, and intelligently guard the entrance to the underworld. Again, probably qualifies for better than animal INT. Not sure how high I'd go though.

Fair point, though I'm not sure that really requires Intelligence; it could easily be instinctive or supernatural.

Even under these circumstances, while I might acknowledge the need for higher than 2 Int, I don't think it needs to be much higher. Certainly not to the levels I've seen it presented.

I appreciate the thoughts, in either case.

 

[Wayside]

Of the uncountable distortions of mythological figures in D&D, why does this one in particular bother you?

 

[Slife]

Because three heads are better than one.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Of the uncountable distortions of mythological figures in D&D, why does this one in particular bother you?

It's less that it "bothers" me, per se, and more that I'm trying to figure out the reason for it, simply because it's so ubiquitous. I suppose it could all trace back to the 1e Deities and Demigods, which had him at "Intelligence: Very." People may have just seen that and run with it.

Mostly, I just want to find out if I'm missing somethig in the mythology to inspire this, or if it really is just, as you say, a distortion that's become commonplace.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I don't believe I have ever even seen him speak. Indeed, in Hesiod's Theogony, one of our earliest sources from ancient Greece, we see the following,

"Typhaon the terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her [Ekhidna] ... And next again she bore the unspeakable, unmanageable Kerberos, the savage, the bronze-barking dog of Haides, fifty-headed, and powerful, and without pity."

So apparently he barks, not speaks. Also:

"And before them, a dreaded hound [Cerberus], on watch, who has no pity, but a vile stratagem: as people go in he fawns on all, with actions of his tail and both ears, but he will not let them go back out, but lies in wait for them and eats them up, when he catches any going back through the gates."

So that's sort of wily, but it is mostly just an animalistic strategy, and this is the smartest we see him acting in the following sources:

Homer, The Iliad
Homer, The Odyssey
Hesiod, Theogony
Greek Lyric IV Bacchylides, Fragments
Apollodorus, The Library
Aristophanes, Peace
Aristophanes, Frogs
Euripides, Herakles
Callimachus, Fragments
Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy
Strabo, Geography
Pausanias, Guide to Greece
Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History
Plutarch, Lives
Hyginus, Fabulae
Virgil, Aeneid
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Propertius, Elegies
Cicero, De Natura Deorum
Valerius Flaccus, The Argonautica
Statius, Thebaid
Statius, Silvae
Apuleius, The Golden Ass

Mostly he is tricked, or assuaged by sweet cakes (sometimes these are drugged, like in the Aeneid).

I would guess the intelligence is an artefact of 1e's Deities and Demigods then, but I may have missed something (though if I did, it was probably more apocryphal than the sources I included). Hope this helps!

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would guess the intelligence is an artefact of 1e's Deities and Demigods then, but I may have missed something (though if I did, it was probably more apocryphal than the sources I included). Hope this helps!

It does indeed. Thank you much.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It does indeed. Thank you much.

No problem--I just wrote a paper on the portrayal of the Underworld and the Underworld journey in classical texts from Homer to Dante, so I thought I'd chime in with what I knew