Monster Manual project

[Hobgoblin]

Hm. Interesting! Also, none of them really took, other than gnolls and bugbears, which have stayed pretty close to their original sense. Orcs in today's D&D just look like, I dunno, slightly toned down GW Orcs, kobolds are very explicitly lizardlike (and they're a bit lizardy in 1st) and Hobgoblins just look like ... hobgoblins, I guess. In the case of kobolds, that's clearly a direction they chose to go with them, but with the others I wonder if they just couldn't shake the pervasive cultural influence of Tolkien and subsequent products that included Orcs.

That's all true - except that the pig-orc is very much with us still! The original Monster Manual illustration is iconic, and it spawned the piggy orcs of the D&D cartoon and (probably) the Gamorrean guards. And there are still a number of companies (Otherworld, Antediluvian, Splintered Light, Minifigs) producing pig-orc miniatures. It's impossible to tell, but I imagine a large proportion of D&D players are still thinking "pig" when they encounter orcs.

As you say, though, the illustrations today look GW-lite. There's a kind of circularity there, because Citadel's orcs were pretty obviously intended for D&D in the first place. The Fantasy Tribes range are much more D&D than Tolkien, what with their polearms and crossbows. And they're a bit closer, I think, to what Gygax envisaged than the Monster Manual illustration:

"Actually I envisioned the D&D game orcs as porcine in appearance but not actually pig faced--more like large, upturned noses and small tushes jutting from their mouths, heavy bodies and small, pig-like eyes."

So it's ironic (or fitting) that the descendants of Citadel's FF orcs, who do fit that description, have ultimately displaced the pig-orcs in the Monster Manual itself.

Yeah, I thought of the Analeptic Alzabo when I was recording that segment, actually! Wolfe plays with the idea there that the creature actually takes on something of the *mind* of its victims, rather than just their voices? I don't remember the precise details, but it makes sense, since the whole series is about identity and Severian is constantly meeting people who are in some way his double or reflection. What exactly is it that makes you *you*? I think one of the reasons the leucrotta is a little more of a horror monster than some of the other classical fantastic wildlife is that we don't like things that threaten the boundaries of our identities.

Yes, indeed. If done well (say, by coopting the player of a dead PC who the others think might still be alive), it could be truly unsettling.

[Hobgoblin]

This interview is interesting on Gygax's views of D&D monsters (as well as his flagrant revisionism of how they came about!).

Given his comments on gnolls here and on orcs elsewhere (quoted above), a general trend seems to be that Gygax wanted the humanoid monsters to be a bit like certain animals, but illustrators made them much more like the animals than he had intended. So, he didn't envisage gnolls as hyena-men, but as "hyena-like. Thus they are hairy, have a bad odor, and the female gnolls are larger and stronger than the males, a pack of gnolls is led by a female".

[otherworld]

I'm not sure that I believe any of these tales of Monster Manual art not reflecting Gygax's intended appearances of monsters.  Surely if a piece of art was presented for the MM, and he didn't like it, he would've sent it back with a request for a revision.  

I suppose that it's possible that he might have occasionally thought 'Well, it's not quite what I had in mind, but it looks cool anyway, we'll run with it!', but if Orcs were not meant to have porcine snouts, their depictions in Swords & Spells, MM, Holmes Basic and the Minifigs official D&D range would never have happened.

I don't have a copy to hand, but I'm pretty sure that Kobolds were described in Keep on the Borderlands as dog-like, with yappy voices.  Sure, the MM illustrations show them with scales skin, but I don't remember them having a reptilian Heritage until much later on, possibly 2nd edition (Dragon Mountain?), and then more explicitly in 3rd.

[Hobgoblin]

I'm not sure that I believe any of these tales of Monster Manual art not reflecting Gygax's intended appearances of monsters.  Surely if a piece of art was presented for the MM, and he didn't like it, he would've sent it back with a request for a revision.  

Well, he's certainly an extremely unreliable narrator! I'm not sure the orc story is entirely implausible, though. He might not have been terribly bothered at the time - after all, long-snouted orcs were in currency through the Brothers Hildebrandt. And he might have taken an "illustrators have licence" view - which, after all, was probably the norm before companies like GW started putting more emphasis on consistent appearances and intellectual property.

There might also have been cost or time factors involved: I don't know how much leeway there was to send drawings back - or how much oversight of the illustrators.

I suppose that it's possible that he might have occasionally thought 'Well, it's not quite what I had in mind, but it looks cool anyway, we'll run with it!', but if Orcs were not meant to have porcine snouts, their depictions in Swords & Spells, MM, Holmes Basic and the Minifigs official D&D range would never have happened.

That's a good point: there was a lot of consistency in those early sources (after the first version of D&D, when the rough orc illustration is different - just a generic ugly humanoid). The Minifigs range are very closely based on the MM illustrations.

On the other hand, there's the Citadel AD&D range: these were official figures, but the orcs look pretty much like other Citadel orcs of the era; they mix happily with the LotR and C15 ranges. And they don't look anything like the ones in the Monster Manual. So TSR endorsed both pig-faced and GW-style orcs during the lifespan of the first MM.

So it may just be that Gygax didn't care that much - or that he took a "do your own thing" stance, in line with the DIY ethics of 70s fantasy wargaming.

I don't have a copy to hand, but I'm pretty sure that Kobolds were described in Keep on the Borderlands as dog-like, with happy voices.  Sure, the MM illustrations show them with scales skin, but I don't remember them having a reptilian Heritage until much later on, possibly 2nd edition (Dragon Mountain?), and then more explicitly in 3rd.

That certainly rings a bell. I think the MM says "scaly" as well as doglike, but they definitely looked more like dogs than reptiles in the illustrations. I've never understood the move towards making them reptile-people: that niche seems to be pretty well filled in D&D, whereas dog-like goblins have at least a bit of folkloric resonance.

As an aside, does anyone else think that Gygax ended up sounding rather like one of Jack Vance's wizards?

[James Holloway]

"I, with equal vehemence, am Mordenkainen!"

[James Holloway]

Speaking of which, it's time for another episode!

In this one, we continue our tour through the L section, with the kind of weird Lizard, the useful Lizardman, the uninspiring Locathah, and the weird but charming Lurker Above!

http://monsterman.libsyn.com/episode-36-lizard-to-locathah

[Hobgoblin]

"I, with equal vehemence, am Mordenkainen!"

Ha! Exactly!

[James Holloway]

Right, time for a new episode, this one featuring the Lycanthrope and the Lynx, Giant!

http://monsterman.libsyn.com/episode-37-lycanthrope-and-lynx-giant



By the by, if anyone knows where that adventurer comes from, I'd love to know. She has kind of a Runequesty vibe to be, but I dunno.

[James Holloway]

No photo with yesterday's episode (I don't appear to have a figure for a mammoth, manticore, mastodon, or masher), but here's one for today's very special episode about owlbears! This is out of order, but that's the kind of deluxe treatment you get as a Patreon backer.

http://monsterman.libsyn.com/special-episode-owlbears



The owlbear is a Reaper Bones model, and frankly I think it's kind of an awkward pose, but I bashed it out over the weekend and overall I'm pretty happy with it. I'm trying not to get too hung up on the individual quality of the models and take a view of the collection as a whole.

[James Holloway]

Today's lead-off monster is the Medusa, but I already used up my good medusa model for the Lamia entry, so instead have an easy one ... because the next monster in the episode is men! Perhaps man is the real monster ...

http://monsterman.libsyn.com/episode-39-medusa-and-men



I ran out of patience and space, so I didn't include every variety of Men in the book, but I got a good number: there's a bandit, a brigand, a berserker, a buccaneer, a pirate, a tribesman, a dervish, a merchant, and a pilgrim. Good enough.

[James Holloway]

A little more actually monstrous -- this episode includes the Merman, the Mimic, and the Mind Flayer! This Mind Flayer was provided by Otherworld Miniatures, and I painted it up in a hurry so I could post it along with the episode, but I think it looks OK! I might go back and touch up the robe.



http://monsterman.libsyn.com/episode-40-merman-to-mind-flayer

[Father_Andrew]

This has been a lot of fun to follow!

[Little Odo]

My most fave monster in the entire Monster Manual - you've done it justice with those white, life-less eyes that will just drink your soul.

[James Holloway]

Thanks for the kind words, and I'm glad you're enjoying the show, Father_Andrew!

One of the cool things about the Otherworld Miniatures I was recently very generously sent is how closely they're modeled on the MM illustrations -- right down to the totally inexplicable skull just hanging off the guy's robe. Is it supposed to be the skull of someone whose brain he's just gobbled up? It's a mystery.

[James Holloway]

Feels like this M section's been going on forever. Today we bash out the Minotaur, some Molds, and the Morkoth. Overall, some pretty high quality monsters!

http://monsterman.libsyn.com/episode-41-minotaur-to-morkoth



I mashed this Reaper Bones minotaur out in a hurry for the episode -- the show is actually inspiring me to paint, which is nice -- but I'm pretty happy with it. Like a lot of my Bones monster figures, it's just a base coat of grey highlighted up to white, coloured with washes. Picked out a few details like the metal bits and the horns and that's about it.