The Monsters of Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, Part II

Author’s note: I’m writing a series of posts on Zylarthen not so much to plug it, nor merely because I like talking about my work. Rather, I think of Zylarthen as sort of a love letter to early OD&D. Thus, I hope that the design issues I grappled with and the eventual choices I made might be of interest to those who enjoy “thinking about Original Dungeons & Dragons”, whether or not they have read, played, or have any intention of reading or playing my attempted “re-imagining” of it.

In this post I break down the precise sources for the various Zylarthen monsters.

In a previous post I wrote that I decided to include all and only those monsters appearing (in whatever form) in “official” D&D sources through the fall of 1975—those three sources being the original 1974 edition of the game (henceforth the three little brown books or 3 LBB’s), the first supplement—Greyhawk—and the first four issues of The Strategic Review. Interestingly, this cut-off point yielded roughly two hundred distinct creatures, even excluding most of the various “man-types”—leveled non-player characters, hirelings, soldiers and the rest—almost triple the initial number of monsters described and “statted” in the first part of Monsters & Treasure. The place to begin, though, is with those monsters:

Note: in the following lists, re-imagined creatures, my own extrapolations and extrapolations based on later sources will generally be denoted by italics.

THE MONSTERS from Monsters & Treasure, pp. 3-20

Bandits, Basilisks, Berserkers, Black Pudding, Buccaneers, Cavemen, Centaurs, Chimerae, Cockatrices, Dervishes, Djinn, Black Dragons, Blue Dragons, Golden Dragons, Green Dragons, Red Dragons, White Dragons, Dryads, Dwarves, Efreet, Air Elementals, Earth Elementals, Fire Elementals, Water Elementals, Elves, Gargoyles, Ghouls, Cloud Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, Hill Giants, Stone Giants, Goblins, Gnoles, Gnomes, Gorgons, Gray Ooze, Green Slime, Griffins, Hippogriffs, Horses, Mules, Camels, Hydras, Fire Breathing Hydras, Kobolds, Werebears, Wereboars, Weretigers, Werewolves, Manticoras, Medusae, Mermen, Minotaurs, Mummies, Nixies, Nomads, Ochre Jelly, Ogres, Orcs, Pegasi, Pixies, Purple Worms, Rocs, Sea Monsters, Skeletons, Spectres, Treants, Trolls, Unicorns, Vampires, Lesser Vampires, Wights, Wraiths, Wyverns, Yellow Mold, Zombies

Number of Monsters: 77.

Notes: These should obviously make up the core of any OD&D monster list. As it happens, none of them are non-SRD. A few are extrapolations. So, for example, I felt that Camels should be added to Horses and Mules, and that Lesser Vampires (the victims of the Stokeresque Vampires) should be added to Vampires. I fiddled with Gnomes to make them genuinely strange (as opposed to being merely more whimsical Dwarves). And I preserved the spelling of “Gnole” from the original Dunsany story as well as ignoring both the initial description of these monsters—“A cross between Gnomes and Trolls…otherwise they are similar to Hobgoblins”—and the description that would come a few years later in the Monster Manual—“There is a great resemblance between Gnolls and Hyenas”—in favor of leaving them explicitly undescribed, as they are in the story.

OTHER MONSTERS from Monsters & Treasure, pp. 20-22

Androids, Cyclopes, Gelatinous Cubes, Flesh Golems, Iron Golems, Stone Golems, Juggernauts, Living Statues, Robots, Salamanders, Titans

Number of Monsters: 11.

Notes: Some of these—Gelatinous Cubes, Golems, Salamanders and Titans—would later be more fully described in Greyhawk. For the fun of it I named all twelve of the Titans.

MONSTER LEVEL TABLES and WILDERNESS WANDERING MONSTERS from The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pp. 10-11 and 18-19

Apes, Boars, Lions, Snakes, Spiders, Giant Ants, Giant Beetles, Fire Beetles, Centipedes, Giant Hogs, Giant Lizards, Giant Rats, Giant Scorpions, Giant Poisonous Snakes, Giant Spitting Snakes, Huge Spiders, Large Spiders, Water Spiders, Giant Toads, Giant Weasels, Cave Bears, Dire Wolves, Mammoths, Mastodons, Saber-Toothed Cats, Spotted Lions, Titanotheres, Wooly Rhinoceroses, Brontosaurus, Pterodactyls, Stegosaurs, Triceratopses, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Cyborgs, Doppelgangers, Invisible Stalkers, Shadows, Thoblins, Apts, Banths, Calots, Darseen, Black Martians, Green Martians, Red Martians, Ancients, Therns, Holy Therns, Lotharians, Yellow Martians, Orluks, Sith, Tharks, Thoats, White Apes

Number of Monsters: 55.

Notes: So, counting the Zylarthen extrapolations, the number of these “missing monsters” almost equals the fully described monsters in Monsters & Treasure. The attentive reader will notice the cases where I consulted Blackmoor or even the Monster Manual. But some monsters such as Giant Ants were intentionally re-imagined. (For the Ants, think those creepy bugs from that great Outer Limits episode, “The Zanti Misfits”.) Of course the four varieties of White Martians are extrapolations based on the actual Burroughs stories. For all Martians, I learned much from David Bruce Bozarth’s A Barsoom Glossary as well as from the original Warriors of Mars and the OD&D version by “Doc”.

NAVAL COMBAT in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pp. 28-35

Giant Crabs, Crocodiles, Giant Crocodiles, Dragon Turtles, Giant Fish, Giant Leeches, Giant Octopi, Giant Sea Snakes, Giant Squids

Number of Monsters: 9.

Notes: Some of these appeared in the earlier encounter tables, and all them (I think) reappeared in the aquatic-fixated Blackmoor.

Other Monsters from “The Three Little Brown Books”

Amazons, Assassins, Barbarians, Bats, Huge Bats, Bears, Elephants, Halflings, Prisoners, Rats, Tigers, Vikings, Witches, Wolves

Number of Monsters: 14.

Notes: This is perhaps the most interesting group. There are illustrations of Amazons, Barbarians and Witches in Men & Magic, yet these beings were never described in that source or in any other early source (1974-75) nor have they been included in any of the retro-clones, as far as I am aware. Witches would seem to be almost paradigmatic in terms of being staples of fantasy stories as well as being featured in the classic explanation of the charisma ability score in Men & Magic. Vikings (or “Viking” things) are actually mentioned four times in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures but they fell out in later editions I assume because they were too “historical”. Ditto for Amazons. For Amazons I jettisoned the sexist (though intriguing!) interpretation that they fought without clothing (I kept that for Barbarians, and there is historical justification for that) but kept the fun (for me at least) assumptions concerning body modification and the rumor that Amazons would temporarily take captured males as lovers. I took some of the inspiration for Barbarians from the description of them in that great Avalon Hill wargame Caesar at Alesia, though inexplicably I forgot to cite it in my otherwise relatively long Sources section. There’s a fair amount of reference to “prisoners” in the Treasure Tables of Monsters & Treasure so I decided to expand on that.

Gods and Goddesses

Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Balder the Beautiful, Girra the Fire God, Ishtar, Isis, Kali, Lakshmi, Manannan the Sea God, Math the Great Wizard, Odin the One-Eyed, Pan, Set Lord of Shadows, Silvanus, The Spider God, Thor, Thoth the Terrible, Tsathoggus, Untamo God of Sleep and Dreams

Number of Monsters: 20.

Notes: As I wrote in the first post, it seemed a no-brainer to include gods and goddesses alongside the “regular” monsters. But I also thought the wide-open spirit of the original game dictated including beings from a diversity of sources—Classical, Egyptian, Norse, Middle-Eastern, Celtic, Finnish and of course Hyborian. Though most appeared in the 1976 Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes or its later 1980 incarnation, Deities  & Demigods, the descriptive content was almost entirely taken from original sources. Unlike for the other monsters, I did not give statistics to these immortals, believing that that would be a waste of space as well as sending the wrong message. Any god or goddess could easily defeat a character of any level if he or she had a mind to, so what’s the point of saying so and so has 300 hit points? But for each god or goddess, I did try to provide meaningful and useful information on how to actually include him or her (or his or her followers) in a campaign or adventure, if and when the occasion arose.

Giant Flyers

Bumblebees, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Eagles, Flies, Hornets, Locusts, Moths

Number of Monsters: 8.

Notes: Giant Eagles are mentioned in Chainmail, but the others are extrapolations based on the mention of “Large Insects” or “Giant Insects” in the rules on Aerial Combat in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. It was another way to be “original” without completely departing from the sources. I thought these winged critters rounded out the list of standard giant creatures in a way that was both fun and added to the diversity of things.

Evil Men

Brawlers, Ruffians, Duellists, Black Knights, Rakehells, Villains, Bravos, Interfectors, Evil Lords, Malefics, Praecantors, Diabolists, Demonurgists, Black Magicians, Hecatontarchs, Haruspices, Evocators, Incantators, Necromants, Wizards, Lifters, Snatchers, Fingerers, Harpaces, Sicarians, Phansigars, Thugs, Evil Thieves, Evil Master Thieves, Evil High Priests or Priestesses, Evil Priests

Number of Monsters: 31.

Lawful Men

Fighters, Pavisers, Thanes, Knights, Guardians, Defenders, Protectors, Vindicators, Lords, Famuli, Chirosophists, Tregetours, Pellars, Theurges, Thaumaturges, Talismanists, Solonists, Mirabilists, Magi, Archimagi, Borrowers, Mousers, Gilters, Dodgers, Coursers, Rescuers, Targeteers, Swordmen, Thieves, Master Thieves, High Priests or Priestesses, Priests

Number of Monsters: 31.

Notes: I loved the evocative level titles of the early version of the original game—another thing that would gradually fall out over the editions. One thing that virtually everyone has noticed about Zylarthen is the (mostly) new level titles for both the Lawful and Evil members of the three main classes. This was done for legal reasons but also for the sheer fun of it. It’s true that Gygax chose some silly titles, but he also laid claim to some of the better and more obvious ones, so I can’t say the enterprise was quick or easy. A number of specialized dictionaries as well as the OED came in handy here. Zylarthen assumes that player-characters (even Thieves) are basically good-guys, so titles with sinister, dark or particularly violent connotations were reserved for the Evil list. Particular effort was taken to clearly distinguish practitioners of “white magic” from, say, the “Wizards” of the Old Testament and other historical sources. I think most people appreciated the new titles, but everyone (including me, secretly) has their choice for one or two they don’t like. Note that Priests and Evil Priests only have one level. Since in Zylarthen, priests and evil priests become non-player characters, I didn’t see a need fuss things up with a full list of levels. Evil High Priests and High Priests have many of the most powerful Cleric spells that were not collapsed into the list for Magic-Users (including Finger of Death for Evil High Priests) but Evil Priests and Priests simply have a sort of aura, or whatever, around them that helps their friends and harms their enemies.

Monsters from Greyhawk

Aerial Servants, Blink Dogs, Bugbears, Cave Creepers, Brass Dragons, Bronze Dragons, Copper Dragons, Silver Dragons, The Dragon Queen, The Dragon King, Druids, Storm Giants, False Gnomes, Half-Elves, Harpies, Hell Hounds, Hobgoblins, Homunculi, Lammasu, Liches, Lizard Men, Wererats, Ogre Magi, Owl Bears, Paladins, Phase Spiders, Phaetonians, Rust Monsters, Sea Horses, Shift Panthers, Giant Slugs, Stirges, Giant Ticks, Tritons, Will O’Wisps

Number of Monsters: 35.

Notes: Even though these are relatively few in number, there are many canonical ones—so many that some don’t realize they didn’t exist in the original edition. This is why including Greyhawk was a must. A few of these as well some from the next two categories were non-SRD creations that I decided to modify into “science-fictional” or alien creatures. While I initially thought the issue annoying, I ended up with something I actually preferred, as the Androids, Cyborgs, Robots and Martians of the 3 LBB’s were now joined by entities hailing from Jupiter and the surface of the Sun.

Monsters from The Strategic Review

Clay Golems, Ghosts, Leprechauns, Lurkers Above, Guardian Nagas, Spirit Nagas, Water Nagas, Piercers, Rangers, Ropers, Shambling Mounds, Shriekers, Tentacle Men, Wind Walkers, Yeti

Number of Monsters: 14.

Notes: More canonical monsters. I liked what I did with Ghosts. Note that Zylarthen does include Rangers and Paladins (see Greyhawk, above), but only as non-player characters. I’m sure this was disappointing to many.

Monsters from Chainmail

Faeries, Solians, True Wraiths

Number of Monsters: 3.

Notes: Well, the last two fell out of the original for obvious copyright reasons (though the middle one would reappear in an inferior form). I decided to resurrect them.

Soldiers

From Men & Magic: Archers, Armored Foot, Barbarians, Crossbowmen, Heavy Foot, Heavy Horse, Horse Archers, Horsed Crossbowmen, Light Foot, Light Horse Bowmen, Light Horse Lancers, Mailed Bowmen (Medium Horse Bowmen), Mailed Crossbowmen (Heavy Crossbowmen), Medium Horse, Turcopoles

From Chainmail: Knights (Oddly, the term “Knight” appears nowhere in the 3 LBB’s), Javelineers

Extrapolations: Cataphracts, Cheirosiphoneers, Dwarf Guards, Elf Legionnaires, Halfling Slingers, Hoplites, Irregulars, Koursors, Peltasts, Pikemen, Mobs, Savages, Slingers, Varangians

Number of Monsters: 31.

Notes: I thought the original edition was simply begging for a clear and comprehensive list of soldier variations. And I thought it would be fun to include a table for the place of origin (native or foreign) and disposition of the soldiers upon encountering them. You probably don’t want to run into “friendlies” directly after they just got trounced in battle.

The AD&D Monster Manual

Troglodytes

Number of Monsters: 1.

Notes: My one concession to post-1975 modernity. Can you fault me?

So that’s the full list, 340 “monsters” if you count them broadly. Virtually all of them also appear in both the “Monster Encounter Tables” and “Wilderness Encounter Tables” of Zylarthen’s fourth and final volume—The Campaign. As with the encounter tables of the first version of the original game, a large proportion—one-third—are “man-types” of one form or another.

All in all, I’d like to think there’s enough “new” material to peak even the most veteran OD&D player’s interest.

Notes on Illustrations:

1. This drawing doesn't appear in the Book of Monsters but rather in the Book of Magic, p. 21.  What is it? Perhaps a Homunculus small enough to conceal itself in its master's mouth. I suppose you need an additional spell for that. Cropped from an illustration from “The Vision Of Macconglinney,” in Jacobs, Joseph, More Celtic Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895, orig. 1894, p. 73.
2. A Pixie from Book of Monsters, p. 47. From “My Own Self,” in Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894, orig. 1893, p. 18.
3. A Witch from Book of Monsters, p. 62. From ”Morraha,” in More Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 87.
4. An Evil Man from Book of Monsters, p. 22. Cropped from The Magic Purse, from “The Three Soldiers,” in Jacobs, Europa’s Fairy Book, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1916, p. 73.
5. A Ghost, one of the nastiest monsters in any category, from Book of Monsters, p. 25. Taken from the chapter illustration for “The Golden Arm,” in Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892, orig. 1890, p. 143.

The Monsters of Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, Part I

Once I had decided to create Zylarthen (or the original effort that became Zylarthen), one of the most basic questions was which set of monsters to include. I had two goals, and I didn’t initially know whether I could satisfy them both: 1. Make the list such that it would distinguish Zylarthen from the competition, as well as if possible constituting a worthwhile improvement or at least alternative to the standard canonical list. And 2. Be as faithful as possible to the original OD&D monster offerings.

The most obvious first pass idea was to include all and only those monsters explained and “statted” in the 1974 Monsters & Treasure. But it was quickly apparent that there were a number of problems with this. First of all, the list is actually quite short compared to what most of us are used to—only 60 creatures long if the subgroups are not counted—and it doesn’t include many of the monsters that we now think of as canonical—Carrion Crawlers, Stirges, Mind Flayers, Shriekers—some of which first appeared in Greyhawk or The Strategic Review. Second, using the original basic list seemed, well, sort of boring and had been done by at least one of the other clones. What exactly would be the point of rewriting the blubs for the 100 odd original creatures and setting out the same stats? Granted, one might be able to make some of the information a bit clearer than the original, but one would in turn lose some of the brilliant Gygaxian turns of phrase. What would be the purpose of a Zylarthen monster book, other than just to, well, have such a book with the “Zylarthen” label on it to go with the game?

The next thing that came to mind was to include all the monsters from Monsters & Treasure, The Strategic Review and the three (or possibly four, if one includes Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes) supplements. This would in effect have created simply a leaner OD&D version of the Monster Manual. That’s actually the primary reason I rejected it. Plus there were many monsters that seemed inappropriate to include in a small booklet, such as the numerous aquatic offerings of Blackmoor. It just seemed counter to the tone of the game to include the full parade of those watery creatures.

For a month or so I toyed with the idea of including every creature mentioned in the above sources, including all of the unstatted animals (giant and otherwise) in the wilderness encounter tables at the back of Eldritch Wizardry. I even started to research these animals so that their blurbs would be more “realistic”. (Do Jaguars generally live alone? How many cubs do they have?). It’s true that this would have created something a bit different from the Monster Manual, but its distinguishing feature would have been that 50% of it would be extremely boring. Fortunately I saw the light and scrapped that idea.

Well, why not just take the monsters I liked from OD&D and leave out the boring or silly ones, you ask? Swords & Wizardry basically does this, to give one example. The answer is that I guess it just offended my sense of historical symmetry. I wanted my effort to be in certain ways hyper-faithful to the original game, and so just picking and choosing seemed arbitrary to me—“house-ruley” as opposed to historically grounded.

At some point I sort of had an epiphany to draw a line at roughly the fall of 1975. This would have the virtue that it snagged most of the non-3 LBB’s members of the canon including 15+ from the first four issues of The Strategic Review, while avoiding Blackmoor, which was published a few weeks later. But to make it interesting I pretty much always knew that I wanted to describe every being or monster mentioned. This would include the “missing monsters” briefly mentioned in or after the wandering monster tables in The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures—Mammoths, Dinosaurs, Robots, Martians, Giant Whatevers, etc.—but also those gals and guys oddly appearing only in play examples and illustrations—Witches, Amazons and Barbarians—as well as the “historical” entities that some people hardly even notice—Vikings and Turcopoles. To make it even more interesting, some of the offerings that first appeared in Greyhawk would later be presented sort of differently in AD&D. So going back to the original presentation would make them seem “new”. For example, I think the NPC Druids of Greyhawk are implicitly a bit scarier (and historically based—with “barbaric followers”) than the sort of new-age semi-peaceful nature freaks that they became later. Though, I admit I sort of scarified them up for Zylarthen. (I think this sort of Druid has a basis in the actual history or at least the old myths constructed from that history—think Wicker Man—though I concede the question is controversial. Don’t kill me, Druid lovers.)

I expanded on the implicit potential of “Flyers” in The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures—adding such giant flying bugs as Bumblebees, Moths and Locusts (the “sexist” comment in the description of one of those creatures was meant in fun and to see whether anyone was listening)—as well as adding what I called “True Wraiths” from Chainmail.

One of the most noticeable features of Zylarthen was the substitution of player-character Thieves for Clerics. This was not merely because I subjectively didn’t like Clerics but because I thought having Clerics as player-characters was inconsistent with the overall tone of OD&D. But they very much remain as important "monsters". Among other things, one may encounter Evil Priests who employ the Finger of Death. Also consistent (in my mind) was adding a collection of gods (without stats) side by side with the other creatures. Not to seem too full of myself but it seemed to me that OD&D should have done this (and not by giving them stats in a separate supplement). Having a diversity of gods ready to occasionally interact with humans was implicit in the setting, I think. Interestingly, even though the gods only occupy a few pages, every reviewer has mentioned them. I didn’t expect this, as including them was almost an afterthought—but it was a choice I am increasingly very satisfied with.

Coming up with “alternative” level names, especially for evil non-player characters was fun. In my view, that was one of the really neat things about original OD&D. Who wouldn’t rather see “Thaumaturgists” or “Swashbucklers” in a random monster table than “5th level Fighters” or “5th level Magic-Users”? As much as I respect Gygax, I thought some of the original level titles were slightly silly and random—Vicars?—but the idea was cool. The online OED as well as some other dictionaries and etymologies were quite helpful in my efforts. The “restriction” of not copying most of the level titles (partly for legal reasons) actually ended up being quite liberating.

Finally, for the selections of “Soldiers” I added some types (and kept others, such as Turcopoles), again trying to be consistent with the original vibe. Though OD&D was supposedly and explicitly “Medieval” I felt there was a strong implicit classical, Byzantine and middle-eastern influence. So, partly to spice up the Chainmail survivals—Medium Foot, Heavy Foot, and so on—I renamed or redefined some of them as Hoplites, Cataphracts, Elf Legionnaires, etc. (There is a prize for anyone who correctly identifies what a Cheirosiphoneer is!)

The guiding philosophy was not to subjectively add things but to be faithful to the spirit if not the (sometimes neglected) letter of the original. I hope I succeeded.

What’s old can be new again!

Notes on Illustrations:

1. An Iron Golem, drawn by John D. Batten, 78 years before the publication of Monsters & Treasure, in Book of Monsters, p. 32. From  The Beguiling of Talus, from “The Argonauts,” in  Jacobs, Joseph, The Book of Wonder Voyages, New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1919, orig. 1896, p. 84.
2. An Invisible Stalker in the act of, well, stalking, in Book of Monsters, p. 35. From  Jack With His Invisible Coat, from “Jack the Giant Killer,” in  Jacobs, Joseph, English Fairy Tales, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892, orig. 1890, p. 117.
3. A Unicorn "staying in shape", in Book of Monsters, p. 59. From  The Unicorn, from “A Dozen at a Blow,” in  Jacobs, Joseph, Europa’s Fairy Book, by Joseph Jacobs, illustrated by John Dickson Batten, New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1916, p. 81.
4. A boy hugging a dog. I thought it appropriate to end the Book of Monsters on a positive note (p. 64). From ”Morraha,” in More Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 92.