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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 7713563" data-attributes="member: 3285">The Dread Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail is  legendary among tabletop gamers.  It turns out that the diabolical  rabbit has precedent in medieval manuscripts before it was finally  imported to tabletop role-playing games.[ATTACH]83336[/ATTACH]<h3>A Brief History of Killer Bunnies</h3>In medieval times, the rabbit was primarily used as an allegory for purity, helplessness, and fertility. Pliny the Elder <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast4483.htm" target="_blank">classified rabbits</a>  in his Natural History:Given their reputation in medieval manuscripts, rabbits are the least likely candidates for violence.  Which is of course, why they were satirized as as murderers in "drolleries," <a href="https://jonkanekojames.com/2015/05/02/why-are-there-violent-rabbits-in-the-margins-of-medieval-manuscripts/" target="_blank">in which a traditional portrayal was flipped to represent the opposite</a>:Rabbits, it seems, have been killing humans in fiction for some time. <h3>The Dread Killer Rabbit</h3>The impact of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) on fantasy gaming cannot be overstated. It was released a few years after the arrival of Dungeons & Dragons, making it a perfect companion for the shenanigans that many players got up to.  When the Dread Rabbit debuted in the film, it launched an entire trope around it -- the Vorpal Rabbit --  a seemingly harmless creature that was actually quite lethal.  The Vorpal Rabbit was certainly in keeping with the aforementioned medieval drolleries. Were the drolleries the inspiration for the Dread Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog? <a href="https://sexycodicology.net/blog/medieval-killer-bunny/" target="_blank">Marjolein de Vos theorizes</a>:Eric Idle even gave de Vos' article <a href="https://twitter.com/EricIdle/status/680053081522831360" target="_blank">a shout out on Twitter</a>, so it's entirely possible. The Dread Rabbit wasn't the only influence on killer bunnies however.  There was also Watership Down (1972), which was turned into an animated film (1978) that surprised some parents by its violence.  Which brings us to the first debut of violent rabbits in tabletop role-playing games.<h3>Rabbit Role-Playing</h3>Watership Down was the inspiration for the tabletop role-playing game, Bunnies & Burrows (1976), published by Fantasy Games Unlimited.  Players took on the role of rabbits struggling to thrive in a world of predators. It featured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnies_%26_Burrows" target="_blank">several tabletop RPG innovations</a>:Anthropomorphic rabbits later appeared in Gamma World in 1978 and became the iconic -- <a href="http://gammaworld.wikia.com/wiki/Hoop" target="_blank">and sometimes silly</a>  -- monsters known as hoops:They were introduced, in much the same fashion as rust monsters in D&D, to balance out PCs with too much metal weapons:It would take a few more years before deadly rabbits appeared in D&D. One of the earliest rabbit monsters was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf-in-sheep%27s-clothing" target="_blank">wolf-in-sheep's-clothing</a> , which debuted in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1980):The next year, the Fiend Folio featured the Al-Mi'raj, a dangerous horned rabbit inspired by Arabic poetry.  The first formal representation of a bunny as a violent psychopath manifested in the computer game dungeon crawl, Wizardry (1981).  <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KillerRabbit" target="_blank">It was called the Vorpal Bunny,</a>  no doubt in part due to the ability of the Rabbit of Caerbannog to decapitate foes:<h3>Hoppily Ever After?</h3>ike the medieval drolleries that inspired them, vorpal bunnies are a popular trope because they embody game design dissonance between what's described in-game (a cute, fluffy bunny) and the power level of the creature -- a challenge that bedevils role-playing games to this day where physical size equates to power. In role-playing games where literally "anything can be attempted," a harmless rabbit could certainly be a dire threat.  But players might not view a lagomorphic monster -- created with the sole intent to surprise the PCs by letting down their guard -- so charitably.  Happy Easter!Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to <a href="http://amazon.com" target="_blank">Amazon.com. Spend less. Smile more.</a>. You can follow him at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/talien" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.</blockquote>

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