D&D monster descriptions

[fable]

Well, sorta. The dry, rather silly website you can find here will remain available, but is no longer producing new material. Instead, the writers have now joined The Book of Ratings, here, where three categories are of particular interest. All of 'em are about D&D monsters, and they're a scream. Here's an excerpt, focusing on the Mind Flayer:

Among the many variations on brain-eating found in D&D, the mind flayer is about the coolest. First off, it doesn't look like a platypus or star-nosed mole. Seriously, those are options. Secondly, the brain eating is not purely metaphorical. This thing doesn't just feed on your thoughts or emotions, it pulls your damned brain out of your head with those face tentacles and swallows it like neuron sashimi. Frankly I think you could make more money by videotaping this process and selling it over the Web than by raiding ogre dens for random coinage.

And this is the one devoted to the Displacer Beast:

As far as I know, the idea of a six-legged panther with squid tentacles that looks like it's somewhere other than it really is originated in the mind of D&D creator E. Gary Gygax, possibly as the result of blunt trauma. Not that I'm complaining. The displacer beast is an excellent example of synergy; a panther with squid parts is considerably more intimidating than a squid strapped to a panther. My main complaint with the name. Not only is it alarmingly prosaic, shouldn't it be called a "displacing beast"? We don't call flying fish "flyer fish." We don't refer to the Ukrainian burrowing elk as a "Ukrainian burrower elk." On the other hand we do have leafcutter ants and nipple-kisser voles, but it just sounds wrong to me.

Now, don't you just wish all those AD&D manuals were written in this fashion? Go check it out.

[smass]

Nice link Fable. Thanks. I am always looking for decent satire to read during down times at work. Makes me feel like I am actually doing something intellectual and amusing at the same time.

[smass]

I am sure that I am violating copyright rules - but this one had me on the floor laughing:

Umber Hulk

"It's amazing what you can come up with using a thesaurus and a box of 128 Crayolas. I'm just sorry the Burnt Sienna Leviathan didn't make the cut. The umber hulk looks like a cross between a stag beetle and Jesse Ventura (or, in more recent incarnations, a cross between an African harvester termite and Crispin Glover): a big bipedal insect with those weird insect clampy jaws and claws and fingers and bleh. It has the power to confuse onlookers, which is a power more D&D monsters should have. "So this is, what? A perfectly round bird with five legs? I don't get it. What kind of monster is OW MY HIT POINTS!"

ROFLMAO!

By the way - Kayless has to read this stuff - its right up his Dungeon Crawling alley...

[fable]

Yeah--I came upon this very late one night (or early one morning, depending upon your interpretation), and had to tone down my laughter not to wake up my wife. The whole site's pretty good, but that description of the AD&D picture of the Umber Hulk as a cross between a stag beetle and Jesse Ventura was simply too much.