Greetings!

Well, it has been a fairly long-standing lament by many people of how D&D traditions through the various Monster Manuals often presented different creatures from mythology and folklore in a distinctly different manner from how such creatures are presented in the original source material. Occasionally, some have even lamented that such depictions by D&D were highly *Sanitized*.

I have noticed such, casually, through the years, though often only in a brief, glancing manner. Recently, I have been engaged in extensive research in mythology and folklore, and that old bone of lamentation came up, and it made me laugh.

SANITIZED indeed! In looking at the Hulda, Mavka, Rusalka, Grain-Maidens, and many other varieties of Dryads, Nymphs, Forest Nymphs, Water Nymphs, and so on--it struck me how deeply sanitized such creatures through D&D have been presented. Throughout the primary source materials, and additional ethnic stories and depictions, many of these types of creatures for example are only seldom benevolent, or occasionally so, depending on whom they are encountering, how faithful the locals have sacrificed to them, and so on. Much of the time, such creatures are prideful, jealous, possessive, and ruthlessly vengeful. Folklore stories and attributes of such creatures are, in contrast with *most* of D&D depictions--routinely full of sex, seduction, guile, manipulation, hatred, wrath and bloodlust. Such "Faerie Women" often engage in seduction, seeking to have sex or enslave every man they can get their hands on. Otherwise, such "Faerie Women" take great joy and pleasure in slaughtering people they encounter, sacrificing them, casting all kinds of spells, enchantments and curses, and routinely enjoying torturing, slaughtering and eating people.

Happy, Hippy Nymph-Women? LOL! BULLOCKS! Not even fucking *close*!

In my view, such creatures as seen in the folklore and mythology are far more "morally diverse" and interesting as to their personalities and motives than any Disneyfied presentation that has typically been found in D&D. All of the diverse creatures from folklore make traveling through the wilderness far more interesting and dangerous--and certainly unpredictable--than the typical D&D presentation would otherwise indicate. REAL Folklore and Mythology is absolutely *wild* with magic, uncertainty, seduction, sex, torture, vengeance and death. Occasionally, such Nymph-like women can be romanced and won over to being a wondrous ally or wife, but the idea that such "Faerie Women" are *always* sweet, happy, hippy girls that just prance about in meadows is merely scratching the surface. That is the *least* thing they do, and Disney Hippy girls they most certainly are not. LOL.

What do you all think my friends? Have you found creatures from folklore and myth to be *more* intriguing than the typical D&D presentation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1072817Have you found creatures from folklore and myth to be *more* intriguing than the typical D&D presentation?

For the most part I'd say so. Been trying to inject more of that in my own D&D hack.

This is a common misconception people keep getting in their heads for some god unknown reason.

Dryads and other creatures from mythology and legend originally in D&D and even into AD&D were more often much closer to their source material than from 2e on. Why? Because people bitched incessantly about it. Bitched to the point that for a while there was no Deities & Demigods book for 2e.

It's almost like D&D was an adventure game aimed at a general audience or something!

Quote from: Omega;1072822This is a common misconception people keep getting in their heads for some god unknown reason.

Dryads and other creatures from mythology and legend originally in D&D and even into AD&D were more often much closer to their source material than from 2e on. Why? Because people bitched incessantly about it. Bitched to the point that for a while there was no Deities & Demigods book for 2e.

I always assumed it was just part of the whole 'avoid the Satanic Panic' mindset that was going on, kind of like renaming Devils and Demons.

Quote from: SHARK;1072817What do you all think my friends? Have you found creatures from folklore and myth to be *more* intriguing than the typical D&D presentation?

As always, it depends. One adventure's intriguing fey is another's boring boogeyman trope.

I've been saying a variation of this argument for a while. D&D and its derivatives (mostly Pathfinder) has an odd fixation on removing the most interesting parts of mythology and fairytale that it copies. I have an entire series on my blog about how to make monsters more interesting using their original myths and beyond.

In Greek myth the lamia is a man-eating monster and children's bogeyman that is supposedly the transformed ghost of a woman spurned. They are inherently sympathetic while still being man-eating monsters. In D&D they become murder machines with no purpose other than being evil.

In Greek myth, the minotaur was just a man-eating monster but a cautionary tale about pride and greed. There's a fair amount of revisionist fiction which imagines the minotaur as the hero. In D&D they are a generic race of evil killers without higher purpose.

In medieval folklore, the mandrake root is a creepy plant that is difficult to harvest owing to a deadly scream. It grows from the drippings of a hanged man, yet cures numerous diseases. In D&D, or at least Pathfinder, it is a generic murderous demon plant with no medicinal uses.

The list goes on.

In general, modern fantasy games often neuter the more fantastical elements of their inspirations. The old ecology magazine articles are very guilty of this.

5e tried to get away from this in parts, IIRC. For example, the 5e sphinx is not a mortal creature but a sacred guardian created or wished into being; The 5e naga is born of spontaneous generation in auspicious circumstances; The 5e medusa is a curse of some kind.

Researching for my blog, which involved reading Armenian and Hungarian fairytales among others, inspired me to start writing my own fairytales to recapture that fantastical feel that I think is lacking in modern fantasy. I have been unable to write due to my recovery from a car hitting me, but I fully intend to write a book's worth of fairytales.

A related idea I forgot to mention is codification.

The myth and fairytale generally describe things in very vague manner. There are rarely hard and fast rules, and if there are then at some point they are broken.

One of the ways this contrasts with fantasy gaming is in monster design.

In myth and fairytale monsters are told and studied in terms of archetypes. For example, the "ogre" is a generic man-eating giant concept that appears all over the world. What constitutes an ogre is cannibalism and typically greater size, but they aren't really a distinct race or anything. A forest hag or a mountain giant could equally be labeled ogres.

In D&D, ogres are a specific race. Forest hags and mountain giants are distinct races. None of them can overlap like they do in myth and fairytale.

D&D goes a step further by taking monsters from world myth and tossing them into what TVtropes calls a "fantasy kitchen sink." It expects all this world mythology to play well together... and it doesn't. It leads to redundant design.

In comparative mythology fairytale ogres, Indian rakshasa, Japanese oni, etc are equivalent concepts. They fall under the same archetype.

In D&D, rather than positing these are just different views of the same monster and that said monster may be quite diverse in its manifestations, each is made a separate race. Not only that, each entire race is pigeonholed into following an extremely specific stereotype.

Oddly enough, this concept is applied selectively to different monsters. By contrast, there are a dozen varieties of hags which are considered the same race including the British black annis and the Russian baba yaga.

Purely from a rules perspective it makes sense to define what a given enemy monster can and cannot do. It doesn't make sense to apply the same logic to world building, leading to a lot what someone else called "backwards world building" in D&D campaign settings.

This backwards world building refers to the settings being built to adhere to literally interpreted idiosyncrasies of the rules rather than use the rules as abstractions which support the world building. A very obvious example is the type mechanic, which I have complained about before.

The type mechanic makes distinctions which are uniquely D&D and don't apply or even make much sense in any other fantasy context. It isn't holistic, or even particularly well-defined.

The elemental type is a big offender. The concept originates from real world alchemy and occultism, which used nymphs and satyrs as examples of water and earth elementals. In D&D, those are instead typed as "fey." The fey type is nebulously defined, variously including nature spirits, tricksters and nobility of the otherworld.

The elemental type has a bizzare definition that is completely at odds with its literary origin. D&D uses it for anything from the "elemental planes" (a unique invention of D&D), whereas the alchemical elementals referred to nature spirits and to some degree all life. The classical elemental theory posited that humans and other animals were composed of all four elements, known in pre-modern medicine as humors.

In D&D, we instead get the nonsensical world building that only elementals are composed of classical elements. The "material plane" is instead composed of the periodic table of elements. It isn't explained how these two systems are supposed to mesh in the workd building.

(This is why I decided to switch to Mythras Classic Fantasy, since it includes an animistic cosmology right out of the box.)

Basically, the problem boils down to the writers making things up as they go along with no regard for a holistic setting.

Christ. Here we go again.

TSR prioritized writing up descriptions and depictions they could more easily assert were legally their own.  

Yes, I think the originals are more compelling, as monsters.  But like others have said, parents who wouldn't mind their children playing "Tolkien" might take a different view to an adventure including a succubus depicted faithfully in accordance with the folklore.

Which is fine; I can use them any way that I wish.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1072868Christ. Here we go again.

Greetings!

Hey Ratman! What do you mean, "Christ. Here we go again."? I have never made a thread about the distinctions between D&D traditions and real world mythology and folklore. What are you getting at, Ratman? I'm confused.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1072882Hey Ratman! What do you mean, "Christ. Here we go again."? I have never made a thread about the distinctions between D&D traditions and real world mythology and folklore. What are you getting at, Ratman? I'm confused.

It's not you per se. It's that there have been previous arguments over BoxCrayonTales' criticisms of monster handling in D&D.

On the general topic, I like fairy tale monsters - but I'm also good with more simulation-like modern-fantasy style monsters. I'm not so sure about the two mixing.

In D&D, I usually take things to be Tolkienesque fantasy style.

Quote from: jhkim;1072891It's not you per se. It's that there have been previous arguments over BoxCrayonTales' criticisms of monster handling in D&D.

Not even so much his handling of monsters, so much as his rhetoric on the topic.

... Voltron Hussie. (sorry, inside joke, I'll show myself out. )

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1072907Not even so much his handling of monsters, so much as his rhetoric on the topic.

What rhetoric would that be? The car crash blotted out my memory of the preceding months and I was doped up for weeks afterward.

As far as I can remember, I have only a few big problems with the overall monster design. 1) the fluff is usually boring, 2) there are tons of redundant monsters, and 3) there are arbitrary and unnecessary taxonomy rules.