D&D General What monster names are public domain?

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Couatl is the Aztec name for a day of the week, also meaning serpent or twin.

That particular spelling was probably the transliteration used in whatever original source that Gygax (or whoever) used.

 

[Gradine]

I have no idea how I misfiled the poor pegasus, but I'm not convinced about the couatl. The name coatl is public domain, but the couatl spelling seems to be D&D specific.

Is that even a thing you can do? They're the same damn thing, D&D just slapped an extra vowel on it for some unknown reason.

Edit: It's just an alternative spelling (and romanization at that), and it's the one Pathfinder uses too. IANAL but I really doubt they can pull that out of the public domain.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How important are carrion crawlers to you that you want to give all you money to a lawyer over?

Not at all. That said, if I was going to pretend that they were important, as WotC has done, I would actually put in the effort to make them more interesting.

For instance, if carrion crawlers are the larval form of something, do they pupate? And afterwards, what do they become? Crawlers being the lower-danger warnings that further into the dungeon that there are higher level doom moths, whose wing markings paralyze their prey with fear and whose whispery vocalizations cause psychic damage, that's interesting in a way that ordinary dungeon caterpillars are not.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For those of us who started with the Mentzer basic red box, the carrion crawler was quite likely to be the first monster you ever encountered.

I'm not sure if the BECMI version had 8 attacks or not, but it was an "interesting" choice for the first encounter to give to a bunch of 1st level PCs and their novice players (and a novice DM, in my case).

That makes sense. My entry point was AD&D, rather than BD&D, which we mostly just plundered for adventure modules.

 

[ValamirCleaver]

For instance, if carrion crawlers are the larval form of something, do they pupate? And afterwards, what do they become?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is that a Tome of Horrors entry?

 

[ValamirCleaver]

Is that a Tome of Horrors entry?

Tome of Horrors Complete Pathfinder version
The carrion moth also appears in the Swords & Wizardry version too.

 

[Jer]

Not at all. That said, if I was going to pretend that they were important, as WotC has done, I would actually put in the effort to make them more interesting.

I honestly want to see the product that Wizards decides to go after just because they included a carrion crawler in it.

Years later I still don't understand why they included the Carrion Crawler on their list of Product Identity.

 

[ValamirCleaver]

Years later I still don't understand why they included the Carrion Crawler on their list of Product Identity.

I've seen more than one version of a "carcass/corpse/scum/slime creeper/crawler/worm".

View attachment ktcw7g7yckb41.webp

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've seen more than one version of a "carcass/corpse/scum/slime creeper/crawler/worm".

View attachment 274336

I mean, if I were another publisher, I might include a dungeon caterpillar just for LOLs.