MitD - What We Know

[Beorn080]

My personal theory is that it can NOT be a D&D monster. I am not an expert, but no one has found anything that fits every criterion given without either a template or some weird rule changes. Now, some personal thoughts on the matter.

Some form of game baddy. Snorlax is out, due to size and speed problems. However, something from a FF, or other RPG could fit. Indeed, Escape is a spell in the FF universe, and many creatures have it, and Earthquake is another fairly common ability.

[RdMarquis]

That isn't too far fetched. Rich has already given the cast of FF6 a cameo, and teleportation spells and abilities are very easy to access and use in those games.

Also, on the stats scale, FF monsters and characters are way higher than D&D characters. The MitD's defense and HP would be so high, that people aren't doing enough damage to matter. The Monster could have been using the Final Fantasy characters' uncanny ability to do anything they want in a cutscene to protect O-Chul and V.

[afroakuma]

Here's a question: when did Rich state that we would recognize it? Because having the chronological limit could filter out some possibilities.

[stsasser]

a god in a box

[Haedrian]

As I just posted in the 661 thread, I now believe that MitD is actually a

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Solar.

A 23 challange arch-angel who's purpose is to attend to the gods or to perform some INCREDIBLY important task? I don't think so.

[Beorn080]

That isn't too far fetched. Rich has already given the cast of FF6 a cameo, and teleportation spells and abilities are very easy to access and use in those games.

Also, on the stats scale, FF monsters and characters are way higher than D&D characters. The MitD's defense and HP would be so high, that people aren't doing enough damage to matter. The Monster could have been using the Final Fantasy characters' uncanny ability to do anything they want in a cutscene to protect O-Chul and V.

Tonberry. Massive strength, yellow eyes, odd magic, easily recognizable, carries a lantern which covers wishing to be in the light, wields a chef's knife which explains its appetite and wish for stew, and would also explain why everyone is shocked it speaks common instead of say japanese.

[Lord Kamper]

I believe we know nothing.

[Lufia]

Snorlax is out, due to size and speed problems

There are problems with Snorlax:
- it's asleep most of the time;
- you have to have played Pokemon to recognize it.
But size? Snorlax is fat, but "only" 6' 11", which is just about the right size. I'm not sure what you're getting at with speed.

Tonberries, on the other hand, are too small. They reach the knees of FF characters, at most. Besides, holding a kitchen knife does not cover "MitD will eat anything". It's a shame, Tonberries are huggable.

I can't think of FF monsters / summons that have Quake / a stomp ability at the moment. It's worth raking my brain over, though.

[Beorn080]

In FF Crystal Chronicles, the Tonberry chefs are laboring to feed a Gigas Lord and his wife, and IIRC complain about the lack of food for the chefs.

[Haedrian]

I believe we know nothing.

Then you are the wisest one! (According to socrates)

[ranagrande]

A 23 challange arch-angel who's purpose is to attend to the gods or to perform some INCREDIBLY important task? I don't think so.

Why not? It meets nearly all of the requirements for the MitD, namely items 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,12,12,13,14,15,16,17,18, and 19 from Onyavar's list above. I would theorize that the inconsistencies with the other few criteria are due to his strange childhood and life with Xykon and Redcloak.

Also, the fact that they are usually (not always) personal attendants to gods or in else in charge of "some INCREDIBLY important task" is flavor text in the Monster Manual that did not make it to the SRD, so it might not apply to the comic.

[hungerer]

Well, I'm going with a (now) Young Adult Prismatic Dragon. Runted to fit in the frame of the cartoon. The plane shift or lesser wish 'get out of jail free card' was spontaneous sorcerous casting.

Epic Dragons

Usually Neutral, Insane DR (20/epic), and sorcerous, so intuative magical abilities that it doesn't really understand. Also explains why it is being kept in the dark (limit its prismatic powers) and the beautiful/frightening thing (dragon awe/fear). Only issue: the size. But we've seen bigger things shoved into smaller spaces to fit the comic.

[David Argall]

SoD

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0) Rightly, as many have pointed out, the MitD is a species rather than a unique creature due to the number of people who have recognised "one of these!".

The evidence is not overwhelming. Our hunters do not say they recognize it, merely that it is not a local creature. They imply they know it, but they do not say so. An alternate reading is that they do not want to admit not knowing.
Redcloak is more definite here, but it too can be read more vaguely to mean he merely knew the MitD was able to beat up the entire circus if it wanted.
The presumption is that MitD is a known type, at least to experts, but SoD does not nail that down. and it could be something quite different.

2) Creature cannot normally talk *or* cannot normally speak Common (From SoD)

Again this depends on the hunters being accurate and honest witnesses. We might note here that Redcloak seems unconcerned with MitD talking

Take a look at Strip 543.
MitD: Poor Mr. Stiffly! I hoped really, really hard, and he still didn't escape!
Tsukiko: Yeah, gee, I don't know why wanting it wasn't enough to make it happen.
MitD: Me neither!

And in Strip 661
MitD: ...What? Why are you all looking at me like that?

So not only does the MitD have the ability to have others teleported, but he knows he has the ability, doesn't see it as unusual, and expects it to work.

The MitD has consistently shown itself able to forget things instantly. [No, this ability is not at all limited to the gate.] Here it has already forgotten it Escaped the duo, and has no idea it has done anything.
So no, it was not expecting O-Chul to succeed back in the 540s due to any success with wishes it has had in the past. It simply had a child-like faith that wishing would make it so.

It may not be DR, just that Belkar couldn't beat a very high AC based on natural armor.

Belkar is about +20 to hit, meaning with 5 swings, he likely hit AC 35 or higher. That's a durn high AC. There are higher, but they are rare. And we have the report on Miko's attack that they tickle. Her to hit bonus is not much higher than Belkar's, which suggests MitD has an AC of no more than 40 or so [and may be much lower]. So Miko does hit, but only causes trivial damage, or none at all. So Belkar's swings likely hit too, but fail to even get close to beating the DR.

I think someone's already said this, but I'd like to reiterate.
Strip #666 is coming up. Any significance to that?

Yes, it has been suggested before. No, it is not significant.

[Borris]

It's certainly not a Final Fantasy (or other intellectual property) monster. If the Giant had to change the Band-Aid box between the online strip and the sold book to cover the possibility of lawsuits, I doubt we would get to see a creature taken from a video game, unless it's one so well-known that it's gone into popular culture.

What the MitD may be, if not a D&D monster, is one of the many creatures from pop culture, Greek mythology, generic Halloween monsters, etc. It may also be an old 1st or 2nd edition D&D monster that used to be iconic, but hasn't been transposed into more recent books.

[Morgan Wick]

Wish makes everything better. If he has it.

The context of that makes it really unlikely Wish applied there. It's made very clear that it's stomping the ground that did it (see the roach's lines).

It cant be a Tarrasque.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm

The tarrasque cannot speak.

As has been pointed out, one of the sources of the hunters' surprise was that it could speak Common. I think the bigger problem at this point might be having spell-like abilities. (And the whole had-a-father thing. Frankly, I'd be surprised if it turned out to be a tarrasque.)

My vote is for the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh.

It's not a gaming session until someone quotes Monty Python! Someone said something that caused me to riff on it being the Dread Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog in another thread, actually.

• It's not an outsider (would speak in a different colour, also outsiders don't eat, most wouldn't have parents)

Sabine doesn't speak in a different color either. Your point?

The tarrasque does not fulfill the requirement of something being easily recognizable, and a templated one even more so.

Whose recognition of him are we talking about? The hunters? It could be fairly common in the OOTS-verse. The readers? Rich did not say we would all recognize it immediately, just that it already existed and we could guess it.

Well, Pokemon does suck. If some stupid thing shows up screaming its name over and over, I'm going to be seriously pissed off. I'd rather have it be a freaking spakly vampire from Twilight.

Well, now we know why they keep him in the darkness!

Perhaps a verbal description of panel 7 here will help? I would note that you can take the sizes of the eyes to indicate the orientation, or you can ignore that and upside-down it. Either way I dunno what it is :D

That's purely speculative.

There are problems with Snorlax:
- it's asleep most of the time;
- you have to have played Pokemon to recognize it.

Again, all Rich said was that it was pre-existing, not that it was iconic as Godzilla.

Well, I'm going with a (now) Young Adult Prismatic Dragon. Runted to fit in the frame of the cartoon. The plane shift or lesser wish 'get out of jail free card' was spontaneous sorcerous casting.

Epic Dragons

Usually Neutral, Insane DR (20/epic), and sorcerous, so intuative magical abilities that it doesn't really understand. Also explains why it is being kept in the dark (limit its prismatic powers) and the beautiful/frightening thing (dragon awe/fear). Only issue: the size. But we've seen bigger things shoved into smaller spaces to fit the comic.

I was just going to ask what the problem was with it being a dragon.

[EmeraldPhoenix]

I found another one! 259. I'll edit my first post...

done.

[Haedrian]

Why not? It meets nearly all of the requirements for the MitD, namely items 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9,12,12,13,14,15,16,17,18, and 19 from Onyavar's list above. I would theorize that the inconsistencies with the other few criteria are due to his strange childhood and life with Xykon and Redcloak.

Also, the fact that they are usually (not always) personal attendants to gods or in else in charge of "some INCREDIBLY important task" is flavor text in the Monster Manual that did not make it to the SRD, so it might not apply to the comic.

What would a Celestial being be doing on an earth plane, helping a lich? Taking orders from a lich? And I think a being THAT powerful would be used for 'incredibly important tasks', its damage reduction weakness is for epic weapons. Its not meant to pop out and get Pelor's daily newspaper. That sort of thing could easily crush a pit fiend without breaking into a sweat.

Also it has 23 Intel and 25 Wisdom. I doubt it'd be usign the terminology "Mister Stiffly", and commenting on not having eaten beans that day.

[shmeck]

i think the "DR vs Slashing" entry is a red herring. there is no reason to assume the MitD has DR vs slashing. what we know is that he thought Miko's swords tickled and he didn't notice Belkar's attacks.. this could be the result of insanely high HP as easily as it could be DR. Also, its DR could be /- or /cold iron or /daffodils.

also, i'm convinced V & O'C's escape was a Wish effect, & ruling out creatures who can't do some kind of Wish effect may be the best process of elimination.

[veti]

I'd like to re-arrange all those facts that we know about the MitD thematically.

Facts about the origins:
1) belongs to a whole species (from sod)
2) not normally found in a Rain forest (from sod)
3) the parent/father is bigger than the MitD (from 651)
4) the parent/father eats even more (from 651)
5) unknown homeland (from 651)

Mindset/Psychical traits
6) cannot normally talk *or* cannot normally speak Common (from sod)
7) Not very savvy (either wisdom- or intelligence-based): cannot understand the gates or the "Xykon clones"
8) Has a weird reality perception: cannot see the gates(?), believes in the power of achieving something by wanting it really hard
9) not immune to Mind Affecting spells (from sod)
10) no tendency regarding good/evil/law/chaos. (neutral/immature?)
11) its thoughts most times revolve either food or games
12) (yet undefined) ability to make others disappear (from 661).

...

Meta-Information
19) Rich told us: the monster isn't a made-up one and he always knew which one (though there are different opinions if "non-made-up" means "core D&D", "existing fictional monsters", "monsters already mentioned in OotS")

I'd like to take issue with a lot of those "facts". Not that I'm claiming to know they're wrong, but they're not as "proven" as you seem to be assuming.

1. Maybe belongs to a species. But as an alternative, it may belong to an identifiable type of creature, such as "tentacled monstrosity", without necessarily being easily identified as a specific species.
5. Unknown homeland - sure, but is it a "land" at all? Maybe a time, dimension, or completely different ruleset.
6. Not necessarily true - all we know is that Redcloak (if I recall aright) was surprised that it could speak Common. That may be because it's unusual for its species, but it may also be just because Redcloak is ignorant 'cuz he's never met one before.
7 and 8. Does not recognise the gates even when he looks straight at them. Maybe an Important Clue.

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Yog-Sothoth is the Gate. Yog-Sothoth is the Key and Guardian of the Gate. Of course he wouldn't recognise Dorukan's Gate, because it's a completely different type of "gate" from a completely different mythos.

9. Again, all we know is that Xykon thinks it's not immune to mind-affecting spells. Xykon could be wrong.

It's a long shot, but I'd like to place my Monopoly money on the creature named in the above spoiler.

[PANdemonium]

Just a quick question/observation: Some people have been suggesting that the spell/ability MitD used to save V and O-Chul could have been touch range. If that were the case, wouldn't it have affected Xykon too, as he was touching them when it happened? Based on that, I'd say that whatever MitD used, it probably wasn't a touch range spell.

[leftler]

Snolaxes wouldnt be recognized by hunters.

Also, I doubt the mitd is going to be something silly.

Unless they where Pokemon hunters...

[Tuber]

+1 vote against Tarrasq
Re the things we know, we are all falling into the habit of thinking that the teleportation of o'chul and V are at the hands of the MITD.
We do not have enough evidence to say that with certainty.
My thinking is that in the next few strips we will have more info based on where V and O'Chul end up.
At the moment the roach reactions are the main reason we give credence to the idea that Mitd has some ranged teleport or wish.

[Kish]

Just a quick question/observation: Some people have been suggesting that the spell/ability MitD used to save V and O-Chul could have been touch range. If that were the case, wouldn't it have affected Xykon too, as he was touching them when it happened? Based on that, I'd say that whatever MitD used, it probably wasn't a touch range spell.

Touch range=requires the caster to touch the object. Touch range=/=affects anything touching the object.

[RdMarquis]

I will soon have all of these strips tacked to the wall of my apartment for reference, as I sit in the dark, scribbling wild theories about the identity of the MitD and drinking some lukewarm caffinated beverage.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Great work, a massive community service. I was thinking of making a similar list with hidden equipment in D&D books, but that's too massive.

[Trebuchet]

Looking at the MitD strips, I noticed for the first time that the speech bubbles are those of normal living people, rather than elementals, ghosts, undead, fiends, imps, celestials, ancient black dragons, and evil Vaarsuvius.

Impressive list of strips.

[David Argall]

Our master compilation says MitD appears in 55 strips, plus 7 in which it appears in 2 or more extra pages. So there is still one or two to find.

113 & 120 seem to be them.

[EyethatBinds]

From what I've noticed though constructs do not have a telltale speech bubble. My Zodar theory has gained a little more ground now.

[Onyavar]

I'd like to take issue with a lot of those "facts". Not that I'm claiming to know they're wrong, but they're not as "proven" as you seem to be assuming.

Yessir. I know that and already mentioned it in this very thread. My pet theory about the snarl offspring is also based on neglecting some of the more questionable "facts".

So perhaps I'll make a new list where I also state which facts are "proven" and which are disputable assumptions made by forumites.
Expect this new list to come up next time when the Giant provides us an opportunity to freak out about the MitD.
In the meantime, I will do some research here. Thanks to Belkar=awesome for this thread!

[paddyfool]

My thoughts are that it's one of these:

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1) Gated, mindraped (or similar) Solar
2) Gated, mindraped (or similar) Pit Fiend

(The second seems more likely with the explorers being surprised it spoke common)

3) Some kind of godspawn. Like, Thor got really drunk and had a baby with the Tarrasque (if anyone could, it'd be a god). The baby looks like a Tarrasque, but is smaller due to an intervention by the godly parent to hide the evidence, and can both talk and occasionally pull off godlike stuff.