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Hey; even the OSR needs some high level foes, that require high level characters.

Let's talk about the Death Knight, and the Lich.

I also like the concept of the Hierophant Lich, in the 5E Creature Codex.  A Cleric of a Death Deity; who is rewarded with Undeath, rather than taking the traditional path to Lichdom.

FIGHT!!!  Haha!!!

Quote from: Razor 007;1091294Hey; even the OSR needs some high level foes, that require high level characters.

Let's talk about the Death Knight, and the Lich.

I also like the concept of the Hierophant Lich, in the 5E Creature Codex.  A Cleric of a Death Deity; who is rewarded with Undeath, rather than taking the traditional path to Lichdom.

FIGHT!!!  Haha!!!

I'm more of the idea we should create our own monsters, best if placed in public domain or at least under the OGL. Plenty of undead mythos from around the world to choose from, and even in movies, there was one about interstellar psychic vampires in a comet.

With that said do fight please, I'm bored.

I think that you are right, there are a lot of different ways that you can get to being a Lich or a Death Knight too I guess, although in my mind it is probably more likely that turning into a Lich is more of a conscious decision.

My favourite characters would be Lord Soth from Dragon Lance and Szass Tam from the Realms.

Quote from: Shasarak;1091389I think that you are right, there are a lot of different ways that you can get to being a Lich or a Death Knight too I guess, although in my mind it is probably more likely that turning into a Lich is more of a conscious decision.

My favourite characters would be Lord Soth from Dragon Lance and Szass Tam from the Realms.

I fell in gamer-love with the Death Knights when they were originally published in 1e Fiend Folio. That went into overdrive with Dragon 79, which introduced Saint Kargoth, Patron Saint of Death Knights.

Lord Soth? Poseur. :D

Quote from: RandyB;1091410I fell in gamer-love with the Death Knights when they were originally published in 1e Fiend Folio. That went into overdrive with Dragon 79, which introduced Saint Kargoth, Patron Saint of Death Knights.

Lord Soth? Poseur. :D

Could be interesting to hear the story behind what extra power Demogorgon offered him to unleash demons on to the Prime.

I'm a big fan of Death Knights, both my own hybrid and of course, the glorious Fiend Folio 1e (my fav monster book ever).

I am less impressed with Liches in the RAW because I want lower level skeletal mages, so I've toyed with the idea that newly undead begin at 1 HD / 1st level and they must level up through their undeath existence. But since they can live centuries or millennia, they can reach scary levels eventually.

I like Death Knights and Liches as long as they some intense obsession that drives them on and keeps them trying to achieve a goal.

The most recent Lich I used in a game was a queen who loved her city so much she followed the liches path so that she could keep watch on it from behind the scenes.

Quote from: Altheus;1091451I like Death Knights and Liches as long as they some intense obsession that drives them on and keeps them trying to achieve a goal.

The most recent Lich I used in a game was a queen who loved her city so much she followed the liches path so that she could keep watch on it from behind the scenes.

Why am I picturing Candace Bergen's character in Sweet Home Alabama?

On BX Spectres were the big undead threat and alot of Wights came across as proto-death knights as they tended to be knights of some sort and very formidible,

The fun thing about BX though was you neeeeeever knew if the next one you met would be friendly, or out to exterminate you, or just kinda indifferent. Or wanting to sell you some stuff. You. BUY this! NOW!

Sadly never published. But for Dragon Storm we were working on a Spectre PC set that would have allowed players to play as a ghostly wraith made more solid by their connection to something still in the living realm. Like exterminating necromancers. Depending on the profession they had before becoming an undead thingy, they could map to about anything. Or something weird like a unicorn spectre that looks like a skeleton with a ghostly flesh animating it. Putting the DEATH in Death Ray.

One of my characters had a memorable encounter with several Death Knights in the Greyhawk setting: he ran for his life !

I don't know if I've been overly influenced by this harrowing experience, but Death Knights have always been more terrifying to me than Liches. Perhaps it's because I haven't met many evocative liches in my roleplayer career.

Ho, and I'm currently playing in an alternative remake of the Dragonlance campaign, and I can proudly testify that: Lord Soth rules !

And damn, as a DM reading this thread , I'd now really like to have B/X states for Death Knights...

Death Knights always seemed so much cooler.  More 'metal' maybe.  Liches were almost... common.  And Death Knights had random powers.  Fireball and Wall of Ice?  Plus major magic resistance.  Power Word: Kill.  Yes please!

In my setting Death Knights and Liches are just specific types of Wights (they're titles specifically) and there's really only four total types of undead; animated (mindless constructs), wights (undead spirits tied to a corpse), wraiths (bodiless undead spirits) and ghouls (a corpse inhabited by a demonic spirit with significant supernatural abilities and gains power by feeding on the blood or flesh of the living... a vampire is a type of ghoul).

The title of Death Knight is applied to wights of sufficient strength to organize lesser wights under its rule (with the even rarer title of Death Lord applied to wights who have multiple Death Knights as their vassals). Lich is a title claimed by Necromancers who achieve their undead apotheosis (most wights are born randomly through a combination of violent death and unresolved issues that keep their spirits from being able to move on... Liches use a deliberate ritual to make the transition).

Wraiths are generally considered the weakest of undead (outside of animated constructs), lacking the strength to reanimate their corporeal body, but the elder wraiths (undead spirits so old their corpses have crumbled to dust) are among the most terrible and powerful of undead monsters.

Death Knights make great mega-villains for a campaign. They're undead, yet martial lords who seek to conquer and dominate. Entire kingdoms could fall under the might of a Death Knight commanding human troops as the DK sets itself up for an eternal reign.

Also, a DK might be a successful king. It isn't ruled by human emotions, isn't gonna get caught up in sexual intrigues and doesn't need to sleep so it can work 24/7 on domination. Unlike Liches which seek ever greater magical knowledge as it exists, the DK might be more focused on on rulership.

Or a DK just likes to travel across the world(s) causing hell and havoc. It's a murderous mote carving a path of death across civilization for no rhyme or reason. All you can do is flee its path.

I think the original Hypnotic Spectre and Abyssal Spectre emblamize my view of Death Knights. They got the look. They are also a cheap casting 2/2 flyer Rare (uncommon) that will wreck your future plans if it comes out early. Such an awesome thing to add to the Rare & Very Rare section of a Wandering Monster table -- bam! major threat pops out to end the careers of young heroes early. ;)

Death Knights were always one of my favorite monsters to run. Obscenely powerful and with interesting stories that explained how they became such terrible monsters in the first place, and I loved pairing them with Skeleton Warriors, à la Keith Parkinson's brilliant painting of Lord Soth and his retinue.

I've only run a Lich once, and it kinda obliterated the party (their fault for not preparing enough for what they knew was going to be a tough fight).

Ghost Knights are a common theme in Medieval lore. They're in the monster section of Lion & Dragon.

Oh! I didn't think of this until I saw Pundit's post, but the Erlkonig could be good source material to adapt-steal for this kind of enemy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig

The source legend is of an elven/fae type creature, but I think it would fit - especially for the Goethe version - to add undeath to the mix, including for the motivation to kill.

I don't have my 5e Monster Manual handy, is access to 9th level spells still a requirement for becoming a liche? That's why I have rarely used them. Our group tends towards mid level play and a liche will wipe the floor with most parties below a certain level.

Quote from: Dimitrios;1094341I don't have my 5e Monster Manual handy, is access to 9th level spells still a requirement for becoming a liche? That's why I have rarely used them. Our group tends towards mid level play and a liche will wipe the floor with most parties below a certain level.

Without looking it up, I think you have to be a 14th level spell caster, at minimum; so no, it doesn't require access to 9th level spells.

The term "lich" is too often misused to refer to a high-level undead wizard when semantically it simply means a corpse, animate or otherwise. The word was chiefly used in combination: lich field, lich gate, lich owl, lich stone, etc.

The high level trio of lich mages, death knights and mummy priests are arbitrary anyway. It makes as much or more sense to call the trio lich mage, lich knight and lich priest and scale them for any level. Maybe give them special titles to indicate level thresholds, like apprentice, journeyman, and master a la medieval trade guilds.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094372The high level trio of lich mages, death knights and mummy priests are arbitrary anyway. It makes as much or more sense to call the trio lich mage, lich knight and lich priest and scale them for any level. Maybe give them special titles to indicate level thresholds, like apprentice, journeyman, and master a la medieval trade guilds.

   Not wholly arbitrary. The mummy priest has venerable precedent; I refer you to The Mummy, 1932, starring the incomparable Karloff. :)

   But in your favor, didn't the 1E Fiend Folio, which introduced the death knight, define it as a variant lich?

I think it is a pretty big stretch to try and lump Lichs, Death Kngihts and Mummy Priests all into the same category of "Lichs"  It would be like putting Fighters, Wizards and Priests all together in the same "Fighter" class differentiated from each other by their titles.

Quote from: Shasarak;1094409I think it is a pretty big stretch to try and lump Lichs, Death Kngihts and Mummy Priests all into the same category of "Lichs"  It would be like putting Fighters, Wizards and Priests all together in the same "Fighter" class differentiated from each other by their titles.

That is not my intent.

All undead can be defined as liches, because lich means "corpse." (Much like how D&D refers to what is technically a draug as a "wight" due to a misunderstanding of Tolkien.) We need a better name specifically for the high level immortal necromancer invented by Gygax based on Clark Ashton Smith, Koschei the Deathless, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. (And death knights for that matter, since they aren't necessarily knights. In fact, the term draug can apply here too.)

In German translations of D&D materials, lich seems to be translated as Leichnam  (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Leichnam)rather than Leiche. The English cognate is lichame (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/likam#English) or lich-hame (hame meaning "covering"). Leichnam is a respectful way to refer to a corpse, which I suspect is due to influence from the practice of shrouding holy objects and corpses. Natural languages have all sorts of baggage like that.

Anyway... in the case of lich mages, death knights and mummy priests, they do all have soul jars in different editions. In fact, several undead have some kind of "rejuvenation" trait that lets them revive from apparent destruction. The lich mages have their phylacteries, the death knights have their panoplies, the mummies have their canopic jars, ghosts have their unfinished business, vampires have their graves, etc.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094464That is not my intent.

All undead can be defined as liches, because lich means "corpse." (Much like how D&D refers to what is technically a draug as a "wight" due to a misunderstanding of Tolkien.).

A wight is NOT technically a draug (draugr more accurately) though unless your setting is explicitly Norse (in which case you should be insisting on Alfair instead of Elf, Duegar instead of Dwarf, Jotun instead of Giant, etc.).

Language marches on and whether Tolkien was misunderstood or not, the most watched television series in the last decade popularized Wight as a common term for corporeal undead just as countless games (computer and tabletop) have made Lich the go to word to use for "Undead Spellcaster."

Never forget that the purpose of language is to be understood by others. The very fact that you felt the need to use "Wight" in terms of explaining what a "Draug" is makes it self-evident that, at least in modern English, "Wight" is the clearest word to describe an animated corpse.

I bet if you quizzed the general English-speaking population ten times as many would be familiar with "Wight" as had any idea what the heck a "Draug" was. I'd bet a similar ratio would identify Lich as an undead spellcaster vs. identify it as a generic word for corpse.

That may not have been the original meaning of those words, but English is extremely adept at adapting words to mean things other than their proper definition; ex. cool, hot, gay, dope, car (vs. automobile), chopper (vs. helicopter or motorcycle... which if we used your requirements should also be applied to cars since "motorized wheels" is the literal meaning if you ignore that it's a contraction of "motorized bicycle" which is why "motorbike" is also valid), etc.

Hell, why aren't you similarly incensed by "wizard" since it means "wiseman" and Wisdom can easily be a dump stat for D&D wizards? Shouldn't the wiseman be the class that uses Wisdom? Likewise, Cleric derives from the same root as Clerk, a reminder of the time when only clergy could reliably read and write and so did work as scribes... reading, writing and scribing are the roots of magic used by Intelligence-based casters.

Why aren't you complaining that the D&D Clerics should actually be called Wizards and D&D Wizards should actually be called Clerics? Probably because you realize that language has marched on in those cases, even as you insist on ignoring similar shifts in other areas.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094464That is not my intent.

All undead can be defined as liches, because lich means "corpse."

Sure, and all characters can be defined as fighters, because fighter means "one who fights". Wizards are magic fighters, warriors are sword fighters. But playing semantic games with literalism doesn't advance the discussion or provide any benefit in my experience. At the table, it just winds up confusing players.

Quote from: Chris24601;1094506A wight is NOT technically a draug (draugr more accurately) though unless your setting is explicitly Norse (in which case you should be insisting on Alfair instead of Elf, Duegar instead of Dwarf, Jotun instead of Giant, etc.).

Language marches on and whether Tolkien was misunderstood or not, the most watched television series in the last decade popularized Wight as a common term for corporeal undead just as countless games (computer and tabletop) have made Lich the go to word to use for "Undead Spellcaster."

Never forget that the purpose of language is to be understood by others. The very fact that you felt the need to use "Wight" in terms of explaining what a "Draug" is makes it self-evident that, at least in modern English, "Wight" is the clearest word to describe an animated corpse.

I bet if you quizzed the general English-speaking population ten times as many would be familiar with "Wight" as had any idea what the heck a "Draug" was. I'd bet a similar ratio would identify Lich as an undead spellcaster vs. identify it as a generic word for corpse.

That may not have been the original meaning of those words, but English is extremely adept at adapting words to mean things other than their proper definition; ex. cool, hot, gay, dope, car (vs. automobile), chopper (vs. helicopter or motorcycle... which if we used your requirements should also be applied to cars since "motorized wheels" is the literal meaning if you ignore that it's a contraction of "motorized bicycle" which is why "motorbike" is also valid), etc.

Hell, why aren't you similarly incensed by "wizard" since it means "wiseman" and Wisdom can easily be a dump stat for D&D wizards? Shouldn't the wiseman be the class that uses Wisdom? Likewise, Cleric derives from the same root as Clerk, a reminder of the time when only clergy could reliably read and write and so did work as scribes... reading, writing and scribing are the roots of magic used by Intelligence-based casters.

Why aren't you complaining that the D&D Clerics should actually be called Wizards and D&D Wizards should actually be called Clerics? Probably because you realize that language has marched on in those cases, even as you insist on ignoring similar shifts in other areas.

Quote from: Zalman;1094597Sure, and all characters can be defined as fighters, because fighter means "one who fights". Wizards are magic fighters, warriors are sword fighters. But playing semantic games with literalism doesn't advance the discussion or provide any benefit in my experience. At the table, it just winds up confusing players.

I like studying etymology. I like playing word games. Since fantasy concepts are fictional, I don't really care about language drift in those cases. Especially not if the drift is a direct result of inadequate research by Gygax and co. That's not how language drifts in any other context outside of fantasy gaming. Indeed, a lot of weird spellings in the English language are a direct result of the people writing the dictionaries deciding to change the previously accepted spelling to better reflect its Latin etymology (even if those scribes are wrong).

I don't get upset. I get mildly peeved at worst. I don't get incensed about wizard and cleric because their meanings haven't changed outside of fantasy gaming. Literate people still think a wizard is a wise person, whether this wisdom be in magic or tech wizardry. Literate people can still see the clear relation between cleric, clerk, clergy, clerical services, etc. Lich and wight are archaic in most dialects of English, and only fantasy gaming uses them anymore. Their fantasy gaming usages may be traced directly to D&D and this is recorded only in wiktionary. Formal dictionaries don't include the fantasy gaming definitions and you can verify this will a Google search. The wikipedia pages recount the etymologies. The existence of the internet, standardized spelling, etc has resulted in language drift dramatically slowing as well as providing better access to research into etymology.

Even then, fantasy gaming relies on extremely anal-retentive usages that are not found in natural languages. D&D often exhibits an absurd tendency to give a unique short name to every monster they devise, as opposed to something sensible like compound words (e.g. black dragon, death knight, winged unicorn). No natural language has a one-syllable word for the concepts represented by D&D liches and wights. Even the Old Norse word draugr technically refers to ghosts and undead in general, not specifically a reanimated corpse. The undead taxonomy is needlessly convoluted with special snowflake names. Speaking of which, D&D often exhibits an absurd tendency to invent arbitrary taxonomy distinctions like "true" versus "false" dragons, elementals, and giants. No natural mythology creates a distinction between true and false dragons, true and false elementals, or true and false giants. A dragon is a dragon, an elemental is an elemental, and a giant is a giant. They might differ in size, age, power, etc but the taxonomies are simple common sense.

The usages of lich and wight are changing outside of fantasy gaming, specifically as a result of people reading dictionaries and wanting to feel more medieval or Latin or something. Neo-paganism uses the concept of wights to refer to supernatural phenomena, such as "house wights." The video game code named "Project Wight" is another example, as it used the term in the original Norse sense. There are quite a few books, like The Death of the Necromancer, Hawk And Fisher, and Wise Phuul, use lich to refer to reanimated corpses in general. The popular D&D-based anime Overlord never uses the word "lich" outside of the compounds like "elder lich" and "night lich," which is similar to its original living English usage.

The word taurus or taur is another example. As a morpheme meaning "bull" it is still used in English, such as the constellation Taurus. It still appears in words like centaur and minotaur, even if a lot of possible don't realize it and mistakenly use "taur" to refer to any centaur-like creature. D&D did this when it invented the tauric creature template. This usage doesn't appear in any dictionary, and I wonder what they must think that the cen- and mino- parts mean. If you look up the actual Greek (or even a lot of non-Greek contexts), the word "centaur" is used to mean any centaur-like creature. The horse-centaurs are... horse-centaurs. It's that simple. (The etymology of centaur is disputed. It might mean something like "bull-slayer" or "toreador," or it might be related to Latin centum, or even a pun of some kind. This makes the phrase "a century of centaur cowboys" particularly entertaining as wordplay goes.)

Another example would how D&D misuses "gorgon" and "medusa." This is clearly incorrect usage and pretty much everybody aware of the error acknowledges it as an error that shouldn't be repeated. (Although to be entirely fair, the word gorgon means "terrible" and was used in the compound Gorgon Aex (https://www.theoi.com/Titan/GorgoAix.html), a pun meaning both "terrible goat" and "fierce storm." It seems entirely reasonable to refer to the D&D monster as a gorgon taurus or "terrible bull." At least if it wasn't already clearly a catoblepas! That's what I mean when I complain about D&D naming scheme being anal-retentive.) Would you argue that D&D's usage is a natural language drift? By what criteria would you say we should argue that a word for a fictional concept is or isn't being misused?

If people can accept the existence of at least four wildly different "unicorns" (European unicorn, Arabic almiraj and karkadann, Chinese qilin), or a bazillion varieties of "vampire," then I doubt using words like wight, lich, centaur, and so forth in much broader contexts than fantasy gaming does is a stretch. I see nothing wrong with using qualifiers in compounds like house-wight, forge-wight, barrow-wight, lich-wight, lich-owl, lich-field, lich-gate, lich-stone, lich-mage, lich-knight, horse-centaur, ox-centaur, fish-centaur, and so forth. Nuances like that are the reason why learnéd people appreciate wordplay. I certainly do.

EDIT: Or boast-wight, my translation of German Bösewicht.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094680Speaking of which, D&D often exhibits an absurd tendency to invent arbitrary taxonomy distinctions like "true" versus "false" dragons, elementals, and giants. No natural mythology creates a distinction between true and false dragons, true and false elementals, or true and false giants. A dragon is a dragon, an elemental is an elemental, and a giant is a giant. They might differ in size, age, power, etc but the taxonomies are simple common sense.

That's true, the taxonomies in mythology are limited. That's because storytelling elements are continually repurposed and often lack any clear meaning outside the context of a particular story. The categories are loose, imprecise, and constantly evolve based on a continual series of subjective reinterpretations.

But the taxonomies in natural science are extensive, detailed, and often very precise because they categorize things whose variations can be objectively established. In the worlds of D&D, the animate dead, dragons, and elementals are part of objective reality. It wouldn't make sense for the natural historians of those worlds would use the foggy, imprecise definitions of our literature, they'd instead develop a fantastic version of our traditions of natural history and eventually the natural sciences to classify the monsters they hit with swords and spells.

Quote from: Pat;1094684But the taxonomies in natural science are extensive, detailed, and often very precise because they categorize things whose variations can be objectively established. In the worlds of D&D, the animate dead, dragons, and elementals are part of objective reality. It wouldn't make sense for the natural historians of those worlds would use the foggy, imprecise definitions of our literature, they'd instead develop a fantastic version of our traditions of natural history and eventually the natural sciences to classify the monsters they hit with swords and spells.

This is a VERY good point.

In the world of D&D your life can hinge on whether the corporeal undead you're facing is a zombie (tough, but nothing special), a ghoul (put the elf warriors up front since they're immune to its paralyzing touch) or a wight (Gah!!! kill it fast!!! It can life/level drain you with just a touch!). You need to know exactly what type of undead it is ASAP and vague descriptors are no one's friend.

If you're bitten by a snake it makes a huge difference whether its a kingsnake (non-venomous) or a coral snake (extremely venomous).

Can you tell the difference? Would you try to learn if your life depended on it?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Coral_009.jpg/674px-Coral_009.jpg)

(https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/images/a/w/b/lampropeltis-triangulum-elapsoides/lampropeltis-triangulum-elapsoides.jpg)

This is why having in-universe distinctions between zombies, ghouls, wights, etc. makes sense. Because if you picked up the first snake thinking it was a Kingsnake then you'd be on your way to the ER as what is actually a coral snake's neurotoxin causes your lungs to shut down. If your livelihood was clearing out snakes for a living you'd take the time to learn this. If your livelihood is clearing out old tombs, you'd take the time to learn that there's a meaningful difference between a wight and a zombie.

Quote from: Chris24601;1094691This is why having in-universe distinctions between zombies, ghouls, wights, etc. makes sense. Because if you picked up the first snake thinking it was a Kingsnake then you'd be on your way to the ER as what is actually a coral snake's neurotoxin causes your lungs to shut down. If your livelihood was clearing out snakes for a living you'd take the time to learn this. If your livelihood is clearing out old tombs, you'd take the time to learn that there's a meaningful difference between a wight and a zombie.

Personally I like the old saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" so it would be no point in labeling all undead as "Liches" because that is too simple.  You could perahps create some kind of quasi-scientific naming system calling Lichs "Lich Magicus", Death Knights "Lich Mighticus" and Mummys "Lich Bandagus"

It could be quite fun if you liked categorising creatures, like a fantasy butterfly collector.

Red touch yellow, kill a fellow... ;)

Huh, now that I think about it, that's a pretty awesome RPG gaming tidbit. :) There should be some neat rhymes with DnD monsters, especially undead, so as to sprinkle in NPC rumors. Maybe use them as children nursery rhymes so as to foreshadow a region's dangers! :eek:

Quote from: Opaopajr;1094796Red touch yellow, kill a fellow... ;)

Huh, now that I think about it, that's a pretty awesome RPG gaming tidbit. :) There should be some neat rhymes with DnD monsters, especially undead, so as to sprinkle in NPC rumors. Maybe use them as children nursery rhymes so as to foreshadow a region's dangers! :eek:

Sounds like a nice topic for a few pages' worth of adapted rhymes for various big bads. I would buy that supplement. :)

D&D zombies and wights are broadly your coral and king snakes... animate corpses. The primary physical distinctions I can think of are that D&D zombies are traditionally slow, with different editions including such things as "always goes last" or "can take a standard or move action, but not both" to reflect this. Wights, by conservative move as fast as a living man, occasionally even faster.

So maybe something like "if it shambles, take care. Of the swift, beware."

i.e. zombies are dangerous but can generally be handled if you're cautious and can be distinguished from wights by their generally slow and shambling gait. They're often created with specific orders they can't ignore so taking care in handling them can make all the difference... if they had the command "kill everyone who enters this room" they'd not fight back at all if you stayed outside the room and hit them with ranged attacks.

The wights on the hand are swift, intelligent and malicious. You can't use "exact words" commands against them and they're considerably more dangerous. In TSR-era D&D particularly they're dangerous regardless of party level because of their level drain and more constrained AC values (not to mention overbearing... overbearing + level drain... shudder).

Quote from: Pat;1094684That's true, the taxonomies in mythology are limited. That's because storytelling elements are continually repurposed and often lack any clear meaning outside the context of a particular story. The categories are loose, imprecise, and constantly evolve based on a continual series of subjective reinterpretations.

But the taxonomies in natural science are extensive, detailed, and often very precise because they categorize things whose variations can be objectively established. In the worlds of D&D, the animate dead, dragons, and elementals are part of objective reality. It wouldn't make sense for the natural historians of those worlds would use the foggy, imprecise definitions of our literature, they'd instead develop a fantastic version of our traditions of natural history and eventually the natural sciences to classify the monsters they hit with swords and spells.

Quote from: Chris24601;1094691This is a VERY good point.

In the world of D&D your life can hinge on whether the corporeal undead you're facing is a zombie (tough, but nothing special), a ghoul (put the elf warriors up front since they're immune to its paralyzing touch) or a wight (Gah!!! kill it fast!!! It can life/level drain you with just a touch!). You need to know exactly what type of undead it is ASAP and vague descriptors are no one's friend.

If you're bitten by a snake it makes a huge difference whether its a kingsnake (non-venomous) or a coral snake (extremely venomous).

Can you tell the difference? Would you try to learn if your life depended on it?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Coral_009.jpg/674px-Coral_009.jpg)

(https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/images/a/w/b/lampropeltis-triangulum-elapsoides/lampropeltis-triangulum-elapsoides.jpg)

This is why having in-universe distinctions between zombies, ghouls, wights, etc. makes sense. Because if you picked up the first snake thinking it was a Kingsnake then you'd be on your way to the ER as what is actually a coral snake's neurotoxin causes your lungs to shut down. If your livelihood was clearing out snakes for a living you'd take the time to learn this. If your livelihood is clearing out old tombs, you'd take the time to learn that there's a meaningful difference between a wight and a zombie.

And you think the medieval peasants who believed these creatures existed did not do that?

D&D's naming conventions simply aren't sensible by the standards you proclaim. They're far too arbitrary and use made-up words with no actual meaning, when real taxonomies use names that rather literally describe the animals. Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, is New Latin for "tyrant lizard king."

Furthermore, D&D has a bazillion different types of monsters. The Monstrous Manuals, modules, 3pp, etc. Even then, the same monster may demonstrate broadly different rules by individual (since natural selection favors those that adventurers can't perfectly predict). Van Richten's Guides go into a lot of detail about how easy it is to get killed when you follow stereotypes. It's ridiculous to try giving each one a unique name when it makes more sense to give them military style numbers, especially when adventurers are primarily interested in killing them and the monster in question may be a unique oddity created for that particular dungeon using a random generation table.

Also, who are these "natural historians" keeping track of and applying tortuously unique names to these bazillions of randomly generated monsters? Is this one of those absurd settings with adventurer guilds composed of billions of adventurers that farm dungeons for infinite loot, a setting for literal mythic heroes where monsters are both rare and usually unique, a gritty setting where literacy is a luxury of the church, or one of those logical settings where everybody lives in walled cities to avoid the monsters in the wilderness?

Genuine pseudo-medieval peasants probably wouldn't have any words to describe a high-level undead spellcaster with their soul outside their body, except for the phrase "a high-level undead spellcaster with their soul outside their body." That's assuming that such a creature was common enough that everybody knew what they were, which is unbelievable. Furthermore, that creature would not be equivalent to "a mid-level undead spellcaster with their soul outside their body," "a low-level undead spellcaster with their soul outside their body," "a high-level undead spellcaster with their soul inside their body," "a mid-level undead spellcaster with their soul inside their body," or "a low-level undead spellcaster with their soul inside their body."

For that matter, lots of taxonomists have pointed out that real taxonomies have systemic problems with describing reality because taxonomies are discrete and reality is very much not. Among other names, this is called "post-Linnaean taxonomy." Real life taxonomy is now cataloging species as branches on a cancerous tree, and it's insanely difficult.

Fantasy taxonomy takes place in worlds operating according to Young Earth Creationism in which all things were and are arbitrary created by gods/writers (or some kind of insane troll logic universe where Young Earth Creationism and evolution are simultaneously true because the writers have no idea what they're doing). Eberron and Forgotten Realms acknowledge the changes between rules editions by noting that the laws of physics change at different periods of history. Taxonomy simply doesn't work in a fictional universe subject the arbitrary whims of an ever changing clique of writers.

Quote from: Shasarak;1094702Personally I like the old saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" so it would be no point in labeling all undead as "Liches" because that is too simple.  You could perahps create some kind of quasi-scientific naming system calling Lichs "Lich Magicus", Death Knights "Lich Mighticus" and Mummys "Lich Bandagus"

It could be quite fun if you liked categorising creatures, like a fantasy butterfly collector.

That's exactly how monsters were classified by real life storytellers. Their names were literal descriptions of them in the languages telling the story. Yokai.com has a great list of monsters with meaningful names.

Gygax and co's world building when it comes to taxonomy leaves much to be desired.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094870And you think the medieval peasants who believed these creatures existed did not do that?

They did not. They told stories, that changed from generation to generation.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094870D&D's naming conventions simply aren't sensible by the standards you proclaim. They're far too arbitrary and use made-up words with no actual meaning, when real taxonomies use names that rather literally describe the animals. Tyrannosaurus rex, for example, is New Latin for "tyrant lizard king."

That's not true.

Tyrannosaurus rex isn't a lizard. Dinosaurs are archosaurs, lizards are lepidosaurs. Completely different. And there's no evidence they were kings who ruled tyrannically. The idea is so ridiculously improbable that we can safely dismiss it, until extraordinary evidence shows up in support of your outlandish thesis.

The purpose of scientific names is to provide stability and reduce ambiguity, not to be descriptive. Plenty of animals are named to honor people (Othnielosaurus and Marshosaurus were both named in honor of the same paleontologist) or even sponsors (Qantassaurus is named after the airline). Others are unabashed pop culture references (Gojirasaurus is named after Godzilla, but it's on the small side even among meat-eating dinosaurs, much less when compared to kaiju, and there's no evidence it breathed radioactive fire), or named based on where they're found (Sinraptor was found in China).

Yes, new species or genera are sometimes named based on anatomical features, but they're usually extremely technical. Diplodocus means "double beam", which describes a feature in the tail bones. Which you'd never see, if you met a living one. Not only that, it's not even a unique characteristic. Lots of other sauropods have double-beamed caudal chevrons. But that's irrelevant, because the important thing is the name Diplodocus is unique. And now that it's taken, the name can never be used for another animal (per the ICZN). That means there's a clear, unambiguous way to refer to the animal. Compare this to any birdwatcher's handbook, which might list dozens or even hundreds of local (non-scientific) names for the same bird.

Sometimes the names even turn out to be wrong. Megaraptor, for instance, was initially named because they thought it was a giant dromaeosaur, like Velociraptor. But that turned out to be incorrect. They thought it was an allosaur for a while, but now it seems to be more closely related to the tyrannosaurs. But none of that matters. Megaraptor will always be Megaraptor, because what the name means is irrelevant. The name is permanently affixed to the specimen, because that's the only way to provide stability and unambiguity.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094870Also, who are these "natural historians" keeping track of and applying tortuously unique names to these bazillions of randomly generated monsters? Is this one of those absurd settings with adventurer guilds composed of billions of adventurers that farm dungeons for infinite loot, a setting for literal mythic heroes where monsters are both rare and usually unique, a gritty setting where literacy is a luxury of the church, or one of those logical settings where everybody lives in walled cities to avoid the monsters in the wilderness?

Look up "natural history" some time. It's not this medieval guild you're imagining, it's a term for the study of the natural world, before it became formalized into science. It dates to prehistory, and is present in all cultures.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1094797Sounds like a nice topic for a few pages' worth of adapted rhymes for various big bads. I would buy that supplement. :)

It does sound like a nice new topic (and worthwhile supplement)! :) Wanna do the honors of starting it? You can copy pasta our posts as a starter prompt.

Quote from: Chris24601;1094841D&D zombies and wights are broadly your coral and king snakes... animate corpses. The primary physical distinctions I can think of are that D&D zombies are traditionally slow, with different editions including such things as "always goes last" or "can take a standard or move action, but not both" to reflect this. Wights, by conservative move as fast as a living man, occasionally even faster.

So maybe something like "if it shambles, take care. Of the swift, beware."

i.e. zombies are dangerous but can generally be handled if you're cautious and can be distinguished from wights by their generally slow and shambling gait. They're often created with specific orders they can't ignore so taking care in handling them can make all the difference... if they had the command "kill everyone who enters this room" they'd not fight back at all if you stayed outside the room and hit them with ranged attacks.

The wights on the hand are swift, intelligent and malicious. You can't use "exact words" commands against them and they're considerably more dangerous. In TSR-era D&D particularly they're dangerous regardless of party level because of their level drain and more constrained AC values (not to mention overbearing... overbearing + level drain... shudder).

See? This is cool! Could we even extrapolate that modern vs. mid-century modern zombie movies have switched from zombie hordes to wight hordes? :eek:

I do remember there are some fun zombie exceptions, like 5e zombies (they won't die unless they fail a CON save). These variations help give a rootedness to setting, and adding little rumor mnemonics would be awesome for variants, homebrew or not. Then players have not only a good chance at reskinned monster-look-alikes, but even more a reason to socialize and explore setting before blithely wandering into combat with their metagame knowledge.

This would really be some ace level detail in a cheap adventure module trying to stand out from the dross. :)

Quote from: Pat;1094872They did not. They told stories, that changed from generation to generation.


That's not true.

Tyrannosaurus rex isn't a lizard. Dinosaurs are archosaurs, lizards are lepidosaurs. Completely different. And there's no evidence they were kings who ruled tyrannically. The idea is so ridiculously improbable that we can safely dismiss it, until extraordinary evidence shows up in support of your outlandish thesis.

The purpose of scientific names is to provide stability and reduce ambiguity, not to be descriptive. Plenty of animals are named to honor people (Othnielosaurus and Marshosaurus were both named in honor of the same paleontologist) or even sponsors (Qantassaurus is named after the airline). Others are unabashed pop culture references (Gojirasaurus is named after Godzilla, but it's on the small side even among meat-eating dinosaurs, much less when compared to kaiju, and there's no evidence it breathed radioactive fire), or named based on where they're found (Sinraptor was found in China).

Yes, new species or genera are sometimes named based on anatomical features, but they're usually extremely technical. Diplodocus means "double beam", which describes a feature in the tail bones. Which you'd never see, if you met a living one. Not only that, it's not even a unique characteristic. Lots of other sauropods have double-beamed caudal chevrons. But that's irrelevant, because the important thing is the name Diplodocus is unique. And now that it's taken, the name can never be used for another animal (per the ICZN). That means there's a clear, unambiguous way to refer to the animal. Compare this to any birdwatcher's handbook, which might list dozens or even hundreds of local (non-scientific) names for the same bird.

Sometimes the names even turn out to be wrong. Megaraptor, for instance, was initially named because they thought it was a giant dromaeosaur, like Velociraptor. But that turned out to be incorrect. They thought it was an allosaur for a while, but now it seems to be more closely related to the tyrannosaurs. But none of that matters. Megaraptor will always be Megaraptor, because what the name means is irrelevant. The name is permanently affixed to the specimen, because that's the only way to provide stability and unambiguity.


Look up "natural history" some time. It's not this medieval guild you're imagining, it's a term for the study of the natural world, before it became formalized into science. It dates to prehistory, and is present in all cultures.

I know.

My point is that saying lich and wight should only ever refer to highly specific D&D monsters is nonsense. Even without being able to refer to the original meaning in modern dictionaries, natural linguistic drift would shift the meanings to something else.

The words lich means "death" and wight means "thing." As tvtropes attests, people still use them to mean those things and more. Why shouldn't they?

Have you ever heard the story of the Gorgons of Gorgonzola? They're gorgon medusa amazons that raise catoblepas gorgons for their milk to make into Gorgonzola cheese, named for their village of Gorgonzola. (I made that up.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;1094892It does sound like a nice new topic (and worthwhile supplement)! :) Wanna do the honors of starting it? You can copy pasta our posts as a starter prompt.



See? This is cool! Could we even extrapolate that modern vs. mid-century modern zombie movies have switched from zombie hordes to wight hordes? :eek:

I do remember there are some fun zombie exceptions, like 5e zombies (they won't die unless they fail a CON save). These variations help give a rootedness to setting, and adding little rumor mnemonics would be awesome for variants, homebrew or not. Then players have not only a good chance at reskinned monster-look-alikes, but even more a reason to socialize and explore setting before blithely wandering into combat with their metagame knowledge.

This would really be some ace level detail in a cheap adventure module trying to stand out from the dross. :)

After reading Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead, I'm further convinced that it makes no sense to apply one-size-fits-all monosyllable names drawn from a hat. Especially not when you're a creative GM who uses random tables for all your monsters specifically to pre-empt metagame knowledge and make your setting feel less of a cardboard assembly line than typical generic fantasy blandness.

When you're dealing with a monster, you'd need to know a lot more than its name to be able to deal with it. Saying that something is a "wight" tells you nothing, since a "wight" could refer to a barrow wight, a forge wight (see Creature Collection), or a house wight (see neo-paganism), to name a few. None of which are related or behave much alike, aside from being tied to specific locations.

Same with saying that something is a dragon, as there are a bazillion kinds of dragons before you bring in random tables. Did you just kill a Chinese dragon? Congratulations, you killed the guy responsible for making it rain! Did you just hand that fallen star to that giant talking snake? Congratulations, it just metamorphosed into a horned dragon and will now destroy the valley! Get married to that cute guy? Turns out he's a horned serpent too, i.e. a dragon!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094905My point is that saying lich and wight should only ever refer to highly specific D&D monsters is nonsense. Even without being able to refer to the original meaning in modern dictionaries, natural linguistic drift would shift the meanings to something else.

The words lich means "death" and wight means "thing." As tvtropes attests, people still use them to mean those things and more. Why shouldn't they?

Etymology is not meaning. And lich never meant dead, not did wight mean thing. Lich is an old word for corpse, surviving in certain constructions like the "lich gate" though which funeral processions pass. But aside from a few archaic references, it was effectively a dead word, when it was revived by D&D via Clark Ashton Smith to refer to a sorcerer who has archived immortality beyond death. Wight was a term for a human being, which was adopted in the 19th century to refer to barrow-wights, and that became cemented in popular culture by Tolkien. Language is not static, people can continue to repurpose words, including reinvoking older meanings, but when they do so that's not returning to the word's true meaning. The current meaning is the true meaning, and adopting old terms for a modern use is another type of neologism, even if that new use has old roots.

At this point, I'm not even sure what you're arguing about. You've been been making very broad and factually incorrect assertions, what you're saying radically shifts from post to post, and it's all wrapped in verbose digressions that have little semantic content. At first you were arguing that terms used to refer to monsters should be used loosely to refer to a broad class, as they are across mythologies, and against the idea that specific terms would be used to refer to concrete, verifiable differences. That's an argument that holds no water, because from the perspective of someone living in D&Dland they're real creatures, not fables and allegories and folk tales. Now you're arguing for a LotFP-style every-monster-is-unique game. Which isn't fundamentally an argument about naming conventions at all, it's about radically changing the way monsters are handled in D&D. In that case, where every monster is unique, you'd lack group names because groups don't exist. Instead, you'd have specific names, like the singing rat of Fire Peak, or the bug-faced boggum of the Mossy Swamp, or Raphagmortonmok. In that case, name components wouldn't be used in the species/genera sense, they'd be used to describe features, or just poetically. In that case, a lich might be a localized term for refer to anything dead and animate, wight might be the same from a neighboring county, and they might (or might not) be be used when a new monster emerges and needs a name.

Quote from: Pat;1094912Etymology is not meaning. And lich never meant dead, not did wight mean thing. Lich is an old word for corpse, surviving in certain constructions like the "lich gate" though which funeral processions pass. But aside from a few archaic references, it was effectively a dead word, when it was revived by D&D via Clark Ashton Smith to refer to a sorcerer who has archived immortality beyond death. Wight was a term for a human being, which was adopted in the 19th century to refer to barrow-wights, and that became cemented in popular culture by Tolkien. Language is not static, people can continue to repurpose words, including reinvoking older meanings, but when they do so that's not returning to the word's true meaning. The current meaning is the true meaning, and adopting old terms for a modern use is another type of neologism, even if that new use has old roots.

At this point, I'm not even sure what you're arguing about. You've been been making very broad and factually incorrect assertions, what you're saying radically shifts from post to post, and it's all wrapped in verbose digressions that have little semantic content. At first you were arguing that terms used to refer to monsters should be used loosely to refer to a broad class, as they are across mythologies, and against the idea that specific terms would be used to refer to concrete, verifiable differences. That's an argument that holds no water, because from the perspective of someone living in D&Dland they're real creatures, not fables and allegories and folk tales. Now you're arguing for a LotFP-style every-monster-is-unique game. Which isn't fundamentally an argument about naming conventions at all, it's about radically changing the way monsters are handled in D&D. In that case, where every monster is unique, you'd lack group names because groups don't exist. Instead, you'd have specific names, like the singing rat of Fire Peak, or the bug-faced boggum of the Mossy Swamp, or Raphagmortonmok. In that case, name components wouldn't be used in the species/genera sense, they'd be used to describe features, or just poetically. In that case, a lich might be a localized term for refer to anything dead and animate, wight might be the same from a neighboring county, and they might (or might not) be be used when a new monster emerges and needs a name.

You're right. I'm losing my train of thought.

I don't like it when people in real life insist that "lich (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lich)" and "wight (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wight)" should only ever refer to the highly specific D&D monsters. Those words have many meanings and I prefer the use of qualifiers to indicate more specific meanings.

The tvtropes page for liches (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurLichesAreDifferent) uses the term to refer to undead spellcasters with or without souls, animated corpses in general, living people whose souls have been removed, and a few other things. These usages aren't consistent with one another except in the sense that they all refer to bodies that are dead, undead, or soulless. These are examples of natural language drift that, ironically, bring the word closer to its pre-D&D meaning.

The tvtropes page for wights (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurWightsAreDifferent) uses the term to refer to several very different things. Even the monster in Tolkien's own fiction (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Barrow-wights) isn't the spirit of the deceased: their nature is an unknown.

And this applies to plenty of other words co-opted by D&D. A ghast, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghast) for example, has been used to refer to a monster in Lovecraft's dreamlands, a more powerful form of ghoul in D&D, "night-ghasts" and "cliff-ghasts" in His Dark Materials, etc.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1094986I don't like it when people in real life insist that "lich (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lich)" and "wight (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wight)" should only ever refer to the highly specific D&D monsters. Those words have many meanings and I prefer the use of qualifiers to indicate more specific meanings.

That's fine. Two caveats:

One, those are both well established meanings, particularly in the RPG world. You can repurpose them, but as is the case when anyone repurposes a reasonably common word, you're swimming against the current. While this can be good for flavor, it hurts immediate comprehension. Many of D&D's tropes, from ability scores to monsters, form a mutually intelligible lingua franca shared widely among the player base. All you have to do is mention the world "lich", and people know what you're talking about. This is especially important in RPGs, because RPGs are not a didactic or even a narrative form of art. More than novels or tutorials, RPGs suffer from long explanatory infodumps, The interactive back and forth makes these kind of shortcuts that briefly convey pre-established meanings particularly important.

Secondly, standard D&D has many monster types, and they all need unique identifiers. This puts a lot of pressure on the wordspace, because there are only so many ways of saying, for instance, "ghost". That's why D&D has borrowed names from so many cultures, and repurposed words that really mean the same thing into separate monsters (e.g. medusa and gorgon). That also limits the creative use of names, because each synonym/variant that's given a specific definition in the monster nomenclature reduces the pool of words you can poetically use to describe other creatures and phenomena. The playstyle where loose and creative use of terms works best (in contrast to the more standard technical and precise usage) happens to be a playstyle you mentioned liking -- games where there are no monster types, and each creature is unique. In that case, go crazy. Though even in that situation, it's unlikely a specific unique creature is going to be called "the lich". More likely, the word lich will be used as an adjective or noun within a portmanteau complex, like the weeping lich of Sassafrass Crick.

Quote from: Pat;1094989Secondly, standard D&D has many monster types, and they all need unique identifiers. This puts a lot of pressure on the wordspace, because there are only so many ways of saying, for instance, "ghost". That's why D&D has borrowed names from so many cultures, and repurposed words that really mean the same thing into separate monsters (e.g. medusa and gorgon). That also limits the creative use of names, because each synonym/variant that's given a specific definition in the monster nomenclature reduces the pool of words you can poetically use to describe other creatures and phenomena.

That is pretty silly. Is it so difficult to use longer and more descriptive names like "ax handle hound," "tree octopus," or "iron bull"?

The Thread that refuses to Die!!!

(A Thread about Undead. Ha!!!)

Quote from: Razor 007;1095010The Thread that refuses to Die!!!

(A Thread about Undead. Ha!!!)

Speaking of undead, someone posted this really cool idea (http://9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com/search/label/undead) for undead monsters to be a progressive hierarchical. E.g. ghouls evolve into wights evolve into vampires. I think it's a pretty cool idea and the same logic could be applied to all monsters.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1095008That is pretty silly. Is it so difficult to use longer and more descriptive names like "ax handle hound," "tree octopus," or "iron bull"?

What are you arguing? That D&D monster names should be longer, so you can use the shorter names more loosely?

If so, then yes. Very difficult. You'd need to come up with new names for almost ever monster ever published, remember to use those names, and not confuse them with the older shorter names when they're used more casually. It involves not just learning a whole new set, but the even more difficult task of unlearning the old one. It's nearly impossible.

Quote from: Pat;1095019What are you arguing? That D&D monster names should be longer, so you can use the shorter names more loosely?

If so, then yes. Very difficult. You'd need to come up with new names for almost ever monster ever published, remember to use those names, and not confuse them with the older shorter names when they're used more casually. It involves not just learning a whole new set, but the even more difficult task of unlearning the old one. It's nearly impossible.

That's not what I meant.

Local Farmer: "Ah, around these parts we call those little beasties Tree Octopuses"

PC: "You have never seen a Octopus, have you?"

LF: "No, lad.  Now let me tell you about Mountain Oysters"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1095027That's not what I meant.

Did you notice the question? You still haven't explained your point. You under no obligation to do so, but I'm done with this beating-around-the-bush and not saying anything. Can't carry on a conversation that way.

Quote from: Pat;1095032Did you notice the question? You still haven't explained your point. You under no obligation to do so, but I'm done with this beating-around-the-bush and not saying anything. Can't carry on a conversation that way.

I'm not sure Box even HAS a point beyond not liking the way D&D catagorized its monsters and getting vaguely upset that others don't actually care.

Personally, all the undead in my system setting fall into Animated (mindless), Wights (intelligent corporeal) and Wraiths (bodiless intelligent). I chose those over other options because Wight and Wraith both start with 'W' and it felt like a people who regularly dealt with the undead would have similar sounding words for the two main types. I chose commonly known words for the undead because while the people in that world don't speak English, I'm translating it all to English and whatever they're calling it would be as easily understood by them as wight and wraith are by us.

Lich is a title taken by Necromancers who have transitioned into a wight with their spellcasting intact.

Ghoul is what people call wights whose favor with the dark powers gives them the ability to disguise themselves by consuming mortals' flesh or blood (I did go back to the mythic roots of ghouls who were more demonic and often shapeshifters and basically Arabic Vampires because my demons are, overall, based on Middle Eastern mythology; Ifrit, Jinn, Shedim, Kullu, Dybbuk, Gallu, etc.). Because they are almost always encountered wearing a mortal's face, the common folk think of them as very different than a wight even if they actually are one.

Death Knight is a title given to any wight sufficiently powerful to wrangle a group of undead into an organized military force. A Death Lord is a wight who's organized multiple Death Knights into a sort of Kingdom of the Dead.

A Mummy is any wight whose body was wrapped and preserved to protect it from the harsh sun of the Blood Wastes (all undead burn in direct sunlight in my setting; overcast skies or full body covering prevents it). Thus, there are Animated Mummies (mindless undead), Mummy Wights, Mummy Liches, Mummy Death Knights and Mummy Death Lords (Ghouls instead opt for disguises that keep them out of direct sunlight or wear the full robes of the desert nomads who reside in the Blood Wastes).

This also made them easier to stat, since they're all basically Wight+ (wight+spellcaster, wight+elite warrior, wight+hypnotic shapeshifter).

Quote from: Pat;1095032Did you notice the question? You still haven't explained your point. You under no obligation to do so, but I'm done with this beating-around-the-bush and not saying anything. Can't carry on a conversation that way.

I'm sorry. We seem to be suffering miscommunication.

Quote from: Pat;1095019What are you arguing? That D&D monster names should be longer, so you can use the shorter names more loosely?

Only for the minority of monster names that contradict their dictionary entries and the more well-known mythology, like lich, wight, and gorgon. Call the lich a "lichame,"* "liche lord", "no life king" or something and note the dictionary definition of "lich". Call the wight a "barrow-wight," "crypt-wight," "grave-wight", "mort-wight," "lich-wight," or whatever and note the dictionary definitions of "wight." Call the gorgon an "iron catoblepas" and call the medusa a "gorgon."

*With lichame in particular you could note how it is a compound of lich ("corpse") and hame ("afterbirth; covering; horse collar") and note the possible complement to phylactery meaning "amulet, reliquary, safeguard." A shrouded corpse-shell that keeps its soul guarded within a container for relics. Good wordplay or no? (Of course after centuries of linguistic drift this might not be apparent to fantasy world people. From there it could also be expanded to include death knights and mummies as variants since they have their panoplies and canopic jars as their phylacteries.)

Quote from: Pat;1095032Did you notice the question? You still haven't explained your point. You under no obligation to do so, but I'm done with this beating-around-the-bush and not saying anything. Can't carry on a conversation that way.

I'm sorry. We seem to be suffering miscommunication.

Quote from: Pat;1095019What are you arguing? That D&D monster names should be longer, so you can use the shorter names more loosely?

Only for the minority of monster names that contradict their dictionary entries and the more well-known mythology, like lich, wight, and gorgon. Call the lich a "lichame,"* "liche lord", "no life king" or something and note the dictionary definition of "lich". Call the wight a "barrow-wight," "crypt-wight," "grave-wight", "mort-wight," "lich-wight," or whatever and note the dictionary definitions of "wight." Call the gorgon an "iron catoblepas" and call the medusa a "gorgon."

*With lichame in particular you could note how it is a compound of lich ("corpse") and hame ("afterbirth; covering; horse collar") and note the possible complement to phylactery meaning "amulet, reliquary, safeguard." A shrouded corpse-shell that keeps its soul guarded within a container for relics. Good wordplay or no? (Of course after centuries of linguistic drift this might not be apparent to fantasy world people. From there it could also be expanded to include death knights and mummies as variants since they have their panoplies and canopic jars as their phylacteries.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1095105I'm not sure Box even HAS a point beyond not liking the way D&D catagorized its monsters and getting vaguely upset that others don't actually care.

I wouldn't say I'm upset that others might not care. I'd probably get upset if people were actively hostile, which you aren't. If I decided to use "lich" and "wight" in more general sense, like in "lich-slave" (zombie) or "lich-knight" (an undead knight) or "lich-owl" (an owl that haunts cemeteries) or "forge-wight" (the fiery spirit of a forge) or "house-wight" (the spirit of a heart and home), then would you guys get hostile over it? I don't expect you to.

Words can have multiple meanings that require context and/or qualifiers to distinguish.

Quote from: Chris24601;1095105Personally, all the undead in my system setting fall into Animated (mindless), Wights (intelligent corporeal) and Wraiths (bodiless intelligent). I chose those over other options because Wight and Wraith both start with 'W' and it felt like a people who regularly dealt with the undead would have similar sounding words for the two main types. I chose commonly known words for the undead because while the people in that world don't speak English, I'm translating it all to English and whatever they're calling it would be as easily understood by them as wight and wraith are by us.

Lich is a title taken by Necromancers who have transitioned into a wight with their spellcasting intact.

Ghoul is what people call wights whose favor with the dark powers gives them the ability to disguise themselves by consuming mortals' flesh or blood (I did go back to the mythic roots of ghouls who were more demonic and often shapeshifters and basically Arabic Vampires because my demons are, overall, based on Middle Eastern mythology; Ifrit, Jinn, Shedim, Kullu, Dybbuk, Gallu, etc.). Because they are almost always encountered wearing a mortal's face, the common folk think of them as very different than a wight even if they actually are one.

Death Knight is a title given to any wight sufficiently powerful to wrangle a group of undead into an organized military force. A Death Lord is a wight who's organized multiple Death Knights into a sort of Kingdom of the Dead.

A Mummy is any wight whose body was wrapped and preserved to protect it from the harsh sun of the Blood Wastes (all undead burn in direct sunlight in my setting; overcast skies or full body covering prevents it). Thus, there are Animated Mummies (mindless undead), Mummy Wights, Mummy Liches, Mummy Death Knights and Mummy Death Lords (Ghouls instead opt for disguises that keep them out of direct sunlight or wear the full robes of the desert nomads who reside in the Blood Wastes).

This also made them easier to stat, since they're all basically Wight+ (wight+spellcaster, wight+elite warrior, wight+hypnotic shapeshifter).

Alliterative appeal is great. One of the dictionary meanings of wight is "intelligent being, particularly regarded as unfortunate." It isn't too much of a stretch that some Anglo-fantasians might apply it in this sense (or the fantasy language translation) to intelligent walking corpses.

That undead rank progression (http://9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com/2019/05/wip-undead-progression-road-map_18.html) I linked to a few posts back listed "wight" as a generic term for 3-4 HD undead (more specifically: mummified wight, rotting wight, skeletal wight, ghostly wight, spectral wight) and "liche lord/elder/ancient" as the 7+ HD ranks for rotting and skeletal undead (which makes linguistic sense since the distinction between the two ceases by that point). The "spectral liche lord/elder/ancient" is the ghostly/spectral variant.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1095111Alliterative appeal is great. One of the dictionary meanings of wight is "intelligent being, particularly regarded as unfortunate." It isn't too much of a stretch that some Anglo-fantasians might apply it in this sense (or the fantasy language translation) to intelligent walking corpses.

Except you AGAIN keep missing the point because you're stuck in some retrograde etymological straight jacket.

I. DON'T. CARE that an ancient, obsolete and all but forgotten definition of 'wight' could be tortured into fitting my definition of undead. I care that, between Tolkein, D&D and the most popular television show of the last decade (Game of Thrones in case you were living under a rock), "Wight" is a word that anyone with even an ounce of fantasy pop culture awareness will recognize as an undead creature.

I bet less than one-in-a-thousand people who play fantasy themed games have even heard the term "lich" referring to anything but undead spellcasters and trying to apply it to every type of undead is just going to confuse people.

Literally (in the modern sense, meaning "figuratively") no one cares but you about what these words meant 500 years ago. We care about what they mean NOW so that we can communicate efficiently with each other.

In the case of D&D, being able to call something a zombie, wight, ghoul, lich, mummy, vampire, spectre, shadow, wraith, ghost, etc. is efficient use of the language because they refer to different sets of mechanics within the game.

All your insistent terminology does is make things take twice as long to say/write without any increase in clarity. Real students of language would probably have a desire to slap you for wanting to make the language used in games less understandable and efficient just because you're pulling the same stupid thing that every amateur enthusiast does; thinking this new thing you just learned is the most fascinating and important thing that everyone must embrace.

It's not. No one cares unless there's actually a practical use for it. I love the fact that etymological root of Lord is the same as for Guard and Ward/Warden (the Old English "werd") because they all derive from the act of protecting someone or something (and I chuckle that the "Guards and Wards" spell would be "werd & werd"). But I'm not going to insist that the Lord and the night watchman both be called "werds" because of thousand year old word meanings.

On the other hand I DO have a sidebar about it in my Aristocrat background because the setting is basically post civilizational collapse akin to Europe c. AD 500-ish, the whole concept of a hereditary aristocracy is just starting to get a foothold and just about anyone who clears a section of wilderness, establishes and protects a community there could legitimately claim the title of lord (and lords who fail to protect their people typically do not remain lords for long).

Basically, the etymology was useful as a segue way to discussing the importance of being able to protect your land and people to keeping your title as a lord and that it's not quite hereditary just yet so being the child of a lord only helps you to become his successor in the sense that it gives you a leg up on the training and equipment you need to be a respected warrior among the lord's men (and those men's willingness to defer to the wishes of the current lord that you get the job next).

Quote from: RandyB;1091410I fell in gamer-love with the Death Knights when they were originally published in 1e Fiend Folio. That went into overdrive with Dragon 79, which introduced Saint Kargoth, Patron Saint of Death Knights.

Lord Soth? Poseur. :D

My favorite from the days I used to subscribe to the Dragon, and I remember the name of Kargoth's sword: Gorgorin the Shatterer.