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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6039162" data-attributes="member: 42582">Whereas I find demographics pretty easy to handle - I'll combine my own working knowledge of human demographics with my memories of Tolkien with my encounter- and scenario-building needs - but am very happy to have someone else lay out the basics of the mythic history for me. (And I find 4e to be a nice compromise between the relative silence of earlier editions, and the extrememe intricacies and complexities of Glorantha.)They're compared to treants, not farmers - and treants don't cut down, burn or eat the trees they shepherd. And unlike birds they have INT Very (11-12). I did say "seeming contradictions" - maybe in the author's mind this all made sense - but to me it reads more like sloppy writing.Quite a bit of that 2nd ed "flavour text" is actually mechanical information (especially in the Combat section). For example, the Galeb Duhr entry tells me that:Galeb duhr can cast the following spells as 20th-level mages, once per day: move earth, stone shape, passwall, transmute rock to mud, and wall of stone. They can cast stone shape at will. They can animate 1-2 boulders within 60 yards of them (AC 0; MV 3; HD 9; Dam 4d6) as a treant controls trees. Galeb duhr suffer double damage from cold-based attacks and save with a -4 penalty against these attacks. They are not harmed by lightning or normal fire, but suffer full damage from magical fire (though they save with a +4 bonus against fire attacks).In 4e this information would all be in the statblock, and in my view much easier to read and process because of that.As to whether I've cherry-picked my 4e examples - well, I have mentioned some of the ones that I'm particularly fond of, but in a discussion about Hook Horrors a couple of months ago, after Mearls discussed them in his Legends and Lore column, I established that basically all the flavour that he provided, derived from the 2nd ed entry, was present in the 4e MM:These pack omnivores scour the Underdark in search of live prey, foraging when necessary. Hook horrors drag victims to their deaths using their powerful hooked arms. Hook horrors are omnivorous but prefer meat to plants. Rumor has it that they prefer the flesh of drow over any other. Not surprisingly, drow slay wild hook horrors and take young and eggs to raise as slaves. Hook horrors live in total darkness. They can see in lit environments, but in the dark of the deep earth they navigate using echolocation. Hook horrors communicate with one another using a complex series of clicking noises they make with their mouths and carapace. The eerie clicks echo in the Underdark, warning prey that death is near. An Underdark explorer might become aware of nearby hook horrors by these noises. Although they hunt in small packs, hook horrors also gather in larger groups called clans. A particular clan, ruled by its strongest egg-laying female, ranges over a wide area in the Underdark. Its members defend clan territory fiercely from any intruder, including unrelated hook horrors.I agree that the info on zombie is less - a lot of cultural knowledge is presupposed by the designers, I think. But here are the flavour highlights of the <a href="http://www.dotd.com/mm/MM00310.htm" target="_blank">2nd ed entry on zombies</a>:Zombies are mindless, animated corpses controlled by their creators, usually evil wizards or priests. Zombies are typically found near graveyards, dungeons, and similar charnel places. They follow the spoken commands of their creator, as given on the spot or previously, of limited length and uncomplicated meaning (a dozen simple words or so). Zombies cannot talk, being mindless, but have been known to utter a low moan when unable to complete an assigned task.How do these non-intelligent creatures figure out who to grab? The text is as silent, in that respect, as the 4e text. In both cases, all we are told is that they follow the commands of their creators.I have nothing against that. I may be running a purple worm encounter soon, and I'm not yet sure how I plan to handle the apparent tensions between its body shape (tubular), it deployment of the tunnelling rules (it leaves tunnels behind it that other creatures can move through) and its square shape on the battle grid.</blockquote>

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