Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons
As an essential part of Dungeons & Dragons, many of its monsters have become iconic and recognizable even outside D&D, becoming influential in video games, fiction, and popular culture.
[4] While many "bizarre and grotesque creatures" are original creations of Dungeons & Dragons,[2]: 5 the inspiration for others includes mythology, medieval bestiaries, science-fiction, fantasy literature, and film.
[4] Mauricio Rangel Jiménez goes so far to say that a basic knowledge of mythology, religion and fantasy is required to keep pace with the game,[5] although the "creatures were unbound by time or place" of their original sources and co-creator Gary Gygax "made them coexist in a single aggregate world".
[6] With regard to pre-modern sources, scholar Laurent Di Filippo remarked that game creators often do not rely directly on original texts.
This process of continuous evolution which involves both permanence and change is called "work on myth [Arbeit am Mythos]" by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg.
[1] In some cases, this has resulted in legal battles, such as when names taken from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien had to be changed due to copyright disputes.
Monsters may be adapted to fit the needs of the game's writers and publishers, such as by describing combat abilities that may have been absent or only implied by an original source.
[2]: 158, 161, 163 The number and variety of different monsters contributes to keeping the game interesting and forces players to think about employing diverse strategies.
In addition to other game elements, the presence of magical or demonic monsters has provoked moral panics among religious conservatives.
As monsters have traditionally been defined by the number of "experience points" they award when killed, the game has been said to promote a "sociopathic" violence where the dungeon master "merely referees one imagined slaughter after another.
"[18] Nicholas J. Mizer, in contrast, suggested that experience through combat was an in-game variation on Thorstein Veblen's theory that application of the "predatory spirit" of humans to warfare could lead to high standing in society.
[21]: 134 [22][23] Such groupings include humanoids, monstrosities, dragons, giants, undead, aberrations, fiends, celestials, fey, elementals, constructs, oozes and plants; and beasts.
The Fiend Folio: Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign was the second monster book for the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1981.
When a group of fiends (the Galchutt, from Monte Cook's Chaositech and Ptolus) were trapped on the Material Plane, they tried creating more of their own kind through magical means.
They were originally created for Monte Cook's Ptolus campaign, based on some gaming miniatures he had bought, and were added by him to the Book of Vile Darkness absent the context of the Galchutt, who did not appear until later on in Chaositech.
Those cambions that actually survive birth typically look like grotesque, hellish variants of their mortal progenitors, having wings, claws, fangs and often many other features that reveal their fiendish origins.
A variant of cambion called durzagon is described in 3.5 edition of the Monster Manual II and is the hybrid of a devil and an unsuspecting duergar.
[11][63][64] Marley King from Screen Rant recommended the hecatoncheires for Dungeons Masters to pit against high-level parties as a monster that is not "too cliché".
He commented that - aside from the monster's many attacks, and high perception - it was given "incredible martial prowess" in the game, hearkening back to the importance of skill in battle in the culture it was taken from.
[65] Nicholas Montegriffo from The Gamer called them "worthy foes for epic heroes" and found the down-scaling of offensively usable arms sad.
The conflict is depicted as a bitter war of annihilation between the baatezu race and the tanar'ri; an absolute, all encompassing, and virtually eternal struggle.
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss attributes it to an offshoot of the primordial battles between law and chaos, continued out of violent and sadistic stubbornness.
[69][70] Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells depicts Asmodeus as a formerly angelic being tasked with fighting an eternal war against the demons.
When he and his followers take on demonic traits to better combat their foes, these angels, now deemed devils, are either exiled to or granted (depending on perspective) their own plane, where they fight the Blood War without disturbing the primordial lords of order.
[70] The Guide to Hell instead portrays the Blood War as a distraction by Asmodeus to hide his true goal of usurping divine power and reshaping the multiverse.
[72] Black Gate reviewer Andrew Zimmerman Jones described it as the "eternal" conflict "for who gets claim on being more evil" and praised the Blood War as a background for adventures putting the player characters between the fronts.
[77][note 1] Black Gate reviewer Andrew Zimmerman Jones positively contrasted the extended description provided in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018) as compared to earlier material: "It's easy to treat demons and devils as villains just there to be killed, but after reading this chapter [on the Blood War], you'll be more inclined to treat them as unique creatures, with their own goals and motivations.
"[73] The tarrasque is a gigantic lizard-like creature which exists only to eat, kill, and destroy, "the most dreaded monster native to the Prime Material plane".
[80] In the 4th edition of the game, the tarrasque is listed as an "abomination" and classed as a "Gargantuan elemental magical beast"—a living engine of death and destruction created by a primordial race for use as a weapon against the gods.
"[11] Backstab reviewer Michaël Croitoriu highlights the tarrasque among the monsters rated upwards from 2nd to 3rd edition, and wishes good luck to the adventurers having the temerity to attack it.
