"The next ______"?

[gizmo33]

• Ethergaunt (very cool villains, but useless for PCs, too smart and too weird and too genocidally xenophobic to become D&D party members).
• Shadar-Kai (they have potential, but seem overlooked, maybe they tried too much to be cool).
• Kaorti (again, very cool villains, but very bad PCs).
• Maug (cool construct PC race, but sadly for them, the nimblewrights from MM2 predated them, and the Warforged are not crippled by a massive ECL).
• The Nerra. They're rather nice, but they look too much like the Silver Surfer.
• Maybe the Khaasta and/or Saarkrith -- don't know whether they were new or not.
• Maybe the Jackal Lord.

This reminds me, if you're going to have a cool monster, HAVE A COOL NAME.
I'm terrible at cool names, but sometimes I get tired of fantasy naming cliche's, here are three I can think of:

1. the hyphenated syllables: Kubla-Khan, Shadar-Kai, Bobba-Fett, etc.
2. the double vowel: Khaasta, Saarkrith, Oomdaaliiduu or whatever.
3. the "word combo" Ethergaunt, Undermountain, Buzzkill, etc.

When I see these types of names I instantly know that I'm reading something fantasy related. Of course cliche is usually something that's overused because it's cool, so I can understand why they're used.

 

[Hjorimir]

When I see a name like Ethergaunt I think that isn't the proper name for the race but as they are known from the perspective of the PCs and referred to in the vernacular.

 

[Stalker0]

The music industry does this all the time.

You slap together a certain combo of guys or girls, give them a certain look, they place a certain kind of music, and your in.

Look at the boy bands for a while, the guy who started them pretty much had a formula, insert guy A with voice B and looks C into this group D.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think it's possible to intentionally create something with mass-appeal or a built-in coolness factor. PR and marketing are based on that.

But the public is a fickle audience, and difficult to predict. True coolness is not something that can be predicted or bottled. I think it come from that first contact; there's an immediate resonance.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

You want to design cool?

Hire a great artist.

 

[Simplicity]

Oh!!! They wanted something cool. I see. Has anyone ever had a competition to create a boring monster?

I couldn't pass up this opportunity... You have now:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2313277#post2313277

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You want to design cool?

Hire a great artist.

Yep. The 1E Fiend Folio had a great in-your-face cover of a Githyanki and, from the moment people saw it, they wanted to know what that creature was. The Githyanki didn't become cool, they were cool the moment they hit the streets. And in that original description, there was nothing that particularly would have led to the published drawing -- githyanki could have looked like ordinary humans, more or less.

The 3E FF is full of stuff that tries REALLY hard, too hard.

 

[francisca]

Yep. The 1E Fiend Folio had a great in-your-face cover of a Githyanki and, from the moment people saw it, they wanted to know what that creature was. The Githyanki didn't become cool, they were cool the moment they hit the streets. And in that original description, there was nothing that particularly would have led to the published drawing -- githyanki could have looked like ordinary humans, more or less.

I think tying their genesis to the mind flayers, and dropping breadcrumbs about Gith, the liberation, and subsequent splintering of the peoples of Gith had much to do with it, too, thought the illustration was an incredible attention grabber. There was just enough backstory to get people thinking, with an open-endedness so that DMs could mekae their own. In short, a perfect starting point for infinite number of campaigns.

The 3E FF is full of stuff that tries REALLY hard, too hard.

uh-huh. Contrive-o-Meter went off the scale.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I think tying their genesis to the mind flayers, and dropping breadcrumbs about Gith, the liberation, and subsequent splintering of the peoples of Gith had much to do with it, too, thought the illustration was an incredible attention grabber. There was just enough backstory to get people thinking, with an open-endedness so that DMs could mekae their own. In short, a perfect starting point for infinite number of campaigns.

True. But I think we can all agree that if they swapped the githyanki drawings for bullywug drawings, the outcome would have been very different.

Though it would have meant the 1980s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon kids would have had to face gith with +5 vorpal swords .. snicker-snack!

 

[Taren Seeker]

You want to design cool?

Hire a great artist.

Agreed. Some of the coolest PrC's for instance, have been partly fueled by the artwork. One that really jumped out at me was the 3.0 Spellsword. I didn't really like the class, but man I wanted to play one and throw down on some giants!

As for a monster whose cool has been steadily growing for a while, I'm wondering if the Rakshasas are finally going to take over the "coolest monster" title from Giths with the new types in MM3. I think all that is missing is a bit more of a backstory/connection to the game word of D&D, like Githyanki to Githzerai and Mind Flayers (another race that can compete with Githyanki for coolest). Doesn't hurt that the artwork for the new types is also aces

*thinks Naztharune Rakshasas are the coolest thing in MM3*