WOTC finally updates the brownie and boggart!

[johnsemlak]

Redone? Where were the Rusalka, Domovoi, and Vodyanoi done previously?

 

[Knight Otu]

I've studied Japanese for over six years, and I've never seen a word arbitrarily hyphenated like that in any of the standardized transcriptions I saw.

As you're the expert in this matter, I won't argue that point. I've checked, and it is indeed written as Yuki-on-na in Oriental Adventures, but there is also the Hebi-no-onna. A quick google search seems to suggest that it's always been spelt like that in D&D rulebooks. Seems that the error crept in at one point and was never removed afterwards?

 

[Knight Otu]

Redone? Where were the Rusalka, Domovoi, and Vodyanoi done previously?

I don't know about the domovoi, but there were a rusalka and a vodyanoi in Dragon # 290.

 

[Filby]

Yeah, the domovoi was in Dragon #290... but it was just a ghost with a forest gnome as the base creature.

 

[Alzrius]

As you're the expert in this matter, I won't argue that point. I've checked, and it is indeed written as Yuki-on-na in Oriental Adventures, but there is also the Hebi-no-onna. A quick google search seems to suggest that it's always been spelt like that in D&D rulebooks. Seems that the error crept in at one point and was never removed afterwards?

That's all I can think of. The fact that they don't split the "onna" in the hebi-no-onna ("snake's woman", or "woman of snakes") is a pretty good case for it being an error that is just being recycled across editions.

 

[Gez]

In all fairness, they aren't actually called desmodu. But if you look at the nycter and then look at the desmodu, I'd say there is definitely not much difference.

Maybe next time they'll convert the Bainligor, too.

About the On-na: I just checked OA, because in my memory, it was Yuki-no-Onna.

Sometimes, I wonder if those books don't find a malign pleasure in changing what's written on them.

More probably, I confused with the Hebi-no-Onna.

 

[Shade]

Nah, I'd say that nycters and desmodu are pretty different. Small vs Large; vulnerable to sonic vs resistant to sonic; Roguish vs brutish.

Yeah, but that's a pretty small difference to eat up several pages that could've been devoted to something truly new or different, or for the brownie and boggart.

 

[Knight Otu]

So far, the only variant in the MM3 I'd rather not have is the scullcrusher ogre. I like the new lizardfolks, and don't consider the nycters to be an actual variant.

So, drop the scullcrusher ogre and a few of the sample living spells, and you have room for these two fey.

 

[BOZ]

bingo!

 

[Filby]

Yeah, I really liked the forestkith goblins. They're not fey, but they work well in the same context.

The skullcrushers might find some use, but I agree that they're mostly superfluous.