Wandering Monsters - Hellenic Horrors

[howandwhy99]

The next Wandering Monsters article is up:
https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20130129

This one covers all of D&D's sphinxes in detail as well as chimeras and hydra.

 

[howandwhy99]

Historically I believe sphinxes were guardians and sages. They protected secrets whether they be the borders to ancient ruins or knowledge from a long forgotten age. Truly awesome sphinxes had ties to the gods. They may also be oracles foretelling the future.

The breakdown of the traditional D&D sphinxes is okay, but often unused. The predilection for lairing at borders is solid and I like their liminal, other wordly quality.

I have to say the vast majority of what most folks think of in terms of a sphinx is is not about combat. If these creatures are met in combat, they are understood to deadly foes, but it is not their combat strategies which define them. It is their conversational ones.

Chimeras in D&D don't have to be Dragon/Goat/Lion. That's just the traditional mix, like golems and and elementals don't need to be humanoid-shaped or Juggernauts simply big pavement rollers with battering rams

And all your hydra mechanics aren't like fighting a hydra at all. The first is the best, but attacking the creature should be possible, yet difficult if you don't attack the heads. Magical means and backstabbing are possible too, if not backstabbing while hidden given their range of vision. Also, this beast is more like a den of snacks tied together, think rat king, than the single entity Medusa with asps for hair.

 

[Stormonu]

I'm glad to see they're considering giving the hydra back its legs - not really fond of legless hydras. Interesting there was no mention of cyro-, pyro- or thessal- hydras, whose unusual abilities bring a wrinkle to the approach of combatting a hydra.

I personally see battling a hydra as a balancing act -you can only kill it with damage to the body, but if you ignore the heads, you'll get swamped by attacks (wounding the body should cause additional heads to burst from the wounds, just as decapitating heads; not only slashing and piercing weapons causing this, but bludgeoning weapons causing heads to burst from the bruises or causing "dead heads" to fall off like a lizard's tail). Yet, if you do try to prevent the attacks by decapitation, you risk making the situation worse.

 

[FireLance]

What I found interesting about the article was that the Criosphinx is unaligned but the Gynosphinx is neutral.

I assume the former is "who cares?" and the lattter is "must preserve balance".

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=3424]FireLance[/MENTION], that was my take also on the intended distinction.

 

[MortalPlague]

I personally see battling a hydra as a balancing act -you can only kill it with damage to the body, but if you ignore the heads, you'll get swamped by attacks (wounding the body should cause additional heads to burst from the wounds, just as decapitating heads; not only slashing and piercing weapons causing this, but bludgeoning weapons causing heads to burst from the bruises or causing "dead heads" to fall off like a lizard's tail). Yet, if you do try to prevent the attacks by decapitation, you risk making the situation worse.

I like the current hydra design for that, except that the damage required to lop off a head makes it worthless to attempt. By the time you cut off all the heads, the hydra would have died from the actual damage inflicted. Give the hydra a few more hit points, and the current version works nicely.

 

[Li Shenron]

I really hope that when doing historical monsters they try to remain faithful to the historical sources, or go back to them if we've strayed away already.

"Innovating" a historical monster should be nonsense. There are thousands of other monsters which D&D can change or create from scratch.

Of course the historical sources (epic books, famous legends and tales) are often contraddictive, so this does leave some freedom. And everything that those sources don't tell, is also plenty of room for "innovation". Just don't change (or reinstate) signature features that are easily recognizable from outsiders of the D&D world.

What I found interesting about the article was that the Criosphinx is unaligned but the Gynosphinx is neutral.

I assume the former is "who cares?" and the lattter is "must preserve balance".

I am more under the assumption that "unaligned" usually represents "not able to take side" (for example for lack of intelligence, but there might be other reasons) rather than "who cares".

 

[Klaus]

I am more under the assumption that "unaligned" usually represents "not able to take side" (for example for lack of intelligence, but there might be other reasons) rather than "who cares".

It can be both, actually.

 

[steeldragons]

Oh!

I was reading it totally differently. I thought Firelance meant, like, "Who cares [if they're unaligned]?" That is, we/those of us reading the article would not care if a Criosphinx were "unaligned" because...I suppose, because we don't care about criosphinxes. haha. Ah, interpretive internet reading fail (on my part), again.

 

[Stormonu]

I really hope that when doing historical monsters they try to remain faithful to the historical sources, or go back to them if we've strayed away already.


Of course the historical sources (epic books, famous legends and tales) are often contraddictive, so this does leave some freedom. And everything that those sources don't tell, is also plenty of room for "innovation". Just don't change (or reinstate) signature features that are easily recognizable from outsiders of the D&D world.

In some cases, going back to the source wouldn't be a bad thing. But in some cases, the D&D monster is nothing like the original (such as the gorgon). In those cases, I hope they keep what the D&D creature has evolved into.

Also, I hope they don't try to relate every monster to every other monster or be something from another plane (celestial pegusi, for example).