D&D General The abandoned core monsters of D&D

[Paul Farquhar]

Nessie was a huge cultural phenomenon in the 1970s and lake monsters were being "spotted" all over the Midwest during that time. I guess Gygax wasn't one of the fans.

Nessie, at about that time, was “identified” as a plesiosaur, which has appeared in most editions of D&D.

One of the early side quests in Rime of the Frostmaiden is a take on this. If my memory isn’t playing tricks, 2nd edition Ravenloft too.

If you delve back into the earlier Celtic myths, proto-Nessie was a water horse, or kelpie. I don’t recall ever seeing a myth-accurate version of the water horse in D&D. The D&D kelpie is nothing like.

 

[Echohawk]

Made even more complicated by the fact that there isn't a real-world African spiting cobra, but that there is a real-world giant spitting cobra. Wherefore we could argue that "African" is meant to be "from Africa rather than from Asia", and that MCC1 actually refers to a "spitting cobra" under the heading Snake, Giant - Spitting.

Speaking as someone living in a part of Africa with a high density of them, I can confirm that there are indeed spitting cobras here. The giant spitting cobra occurs farther north, here we tend to get a lot of Mozambique spitting cobras. We've evicted eight of them from the house so far this month; but fortunately none of them was giant, dire, winged or otherwise CR-enhanced.

 

[Tonguez]

Nessie, at about that time, was “identified” as a plesiosaur, which has appeared in most editions of D&D.

One of the early side quests in Rime of the Frostmaiden is a take on this. If my memory isn’t playing tricks, 2nd edition Ravenloft too.

Aggie from Castle Forlorn? shes a gargantuan undead lake serpent. more serpent/eel than plesiosaur and with a cloudkill breath weapon too.

I have always wondered why the association of Horses with Water was so prominent in Europe, it doesnt seem to be a natural link to make. But the ubiquity of lake monsters from the waterhorse and knuckers, to hippocampi it makes sense that cryptid hunters would try and find a common model in the plesiosaurs.

I do wonder why the Nuckalavee never gained as much traction in DnD, I suppose it is at the extreme end of weird; not being quite waterhorse and not quite troll, but a horror mashup of both.

 

[ilgatto]

(...)
If you delve back into the earlier Celtic myths, proto-Nessie was a water horse, or kelpie. I don’t recall ever seeing a myth-accurate version of the water horse in D&D. The D&D kelpie is nothing like.

Dunno whether they're myth-accurate - there seem to be many myths involving the water horse // kelpie - but there's a Water Horse in Dragon 48, a Water Horse in HR3, and a/an Aughiski/Each Uisge/Cabyll-ushtey in Imagine 17.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Nessie, at about that time, was “identified” as a plesiosaur, which has appeared in most editions of D&D.

One of the early side quests in Rime of the Frostmaiden is a take on this. If my memory isn’t playing tricks, 2nd edition Ravenloft too.

If you delve back into the earlier Celtic myths, proto-Nessie was a water horse, or kelpie. I don’t recall ever seeing a myth-accurate version of the water horse in D&D. The D&D kelpie is nothing like.

If we get dwarves, drow, duergar and maybe derro from the same word, I think D&D can handle having plesiosaurs and actual sea serpents. The time to say "whoa, whoa, we've already got that monster in D&D" was passed in 1977.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If we get dwarves, drow, duergar and maybe derro from the same word, I think D&D can handle having plesiosaurs and actual sea serpents. The time to say "whoa, whoa, we've already got that monster in D&D" was passed in 1977.

D&D does have actual sea serpents (in 5e they are in Fizban’s), along with giant squid, kraken, megladon and all the other legendary sea monsters, but the lake monster trope is a plesiosaur.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

IIRC 4E has the sea serpent-like dragon eel.

 

[JEB]

Is listed in FR wiki. It did show up in a couple 2nd edition adventures, and is well enough remembered for someone to have done a 5e conversion. If you do a google search you get a load of stuff.

Oh yeah, weresharks certainly made further appearances - though surprisingly, nothing official since 3e. They just haven't been core monsters outside of Basic. (Heck, the seawolf made it into the core ahead of weresharks!)

(Also worth noting - the OAR update of The Isle of Dread included 5e weresharks.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When I was a kid, I heard what I thought was an audiobook of Polynesian myth that featured a wereshark, although damned if I can find any evidence that it was a legit one nowadays. (A boy with a mysterious tattoo of shark jaws on his back is forbidden from ever eating meat. When he goes out on an expedition with men from the village, without his mother around, they give him some barbecue and he devours all of them before turning into a shark and swimming away for good.)

In any case, they're super-cool monsters that don't deserve to be memory-holed.

 

[Tonguez]

When I was a kid, I heard what I thought was an audiobook of Polynesian myth that featured a wereshark, although damned if I can find any evidence that it was a legit one nowadays. (A boy with a mysterious tattoo of shark jaws on his back is forbidden from ever eating meat. When he goes out on an expedition with men from the village, without his mother around, they give him some barbecue and he devours all of them before turning into a shark and swimming away for good.)

In any case, they're super-cool monsters that don't deserve to be memory-holed.

That is indeed the legend of Nanaue the shark-man of Kaneana Cave in Waianae, Hawaii. He's a relatively famous aumakua in Hawaiian Lore.

BTW the DC comics character King Shark is given the name Nanaue