MitD VI: The Undiscovered Creature (Please Read the First Post)

[Bulldog Psion]

The point remains, though, that when he falls asleep here --

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0662.html

His eyes are at the same level as when he's awake. It's quite possible that he can lie down, but he clearly doesn't lie down to sleep, which seems like it might be significant.

[AgentPaper]

The point remains, though, that when he falls asleep here --

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0662.html

His eyes are at the same level as when he's awake. It's quite possible that he can lie down, but he clearly doesn't lie down to sleep, which seems like it might be significant.

Should be noted that this is while he's in the box, so it could easily be that he's so large that he can't move around in the box enough to lie down, forcing him to sleep while standing regardless of what he would normally do. So this could also suggest that he's large enough to just barely fit in the box.

[CloakedDancer]

Or he is holding the umbrella between shoulder and neck, leaving the arm free.

But we don't even know that he has shoulders, do we? Or at least shoulders that could hold something between his head and shoulders. There are a lot of creatures with heads and faces that would only be able to use appendages for the purpose of holding an umbrella.

[rweird]

Conte_Vincero: The Shadow Demon also is homebrew that was made in 2010, several years after the MitD was.

[Olinser]

But we don't even know that he has shoulders, do we? Or at least shoulders that could hold something between his head and shoulders. There are a lot of creatures with heads and faces that would only be able to use appendages for the purpose of holding an umbrella.

He could have 2 mouths and be holding it with one of his tongues, for all we know.

Very, very little about the MiTD's physical makeup is known. The only basic things we know are that he has to be able to A) hold the umbrella, B) be able to pull the rope, C) have SOME form of foot/leg that can smash the ground, D) have some form of striking appendage to hit Miko with, and E) have SOME form of orifice to eat with that includes a tongue (he specifically says 'lick the stew bucket'). Anything else he's done (set up the tea party, eat from the stew bucket, transport Roy/O-Chul around) could have conceivably been done with some form of magical or psionic levitation.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

But we don't even know that he has shoulders, do we? Or at least shoulders that could hold something between his head and shoulders. There are a lot of creatures with heads and faces that would only be able to use appendages for the purpose of holding an umbrella.

As with the lying down, I'm not espousing a particular position, only countering a different one. If the proposal was that the particular scene told us he must have two grasping appendages on that side of his body, I countered that he could be using the same appendage to drag O-Chul and hold the umbrella. "Shoulder" meant, in this context, the place where said appendage meets the rest of the body. Most such appendages have enough give that at that point, they can hold an umbrella.

But even simpler, now that I have time to think about it, is the old stand-in for holding the umbrella when he is out of limbs: it is resting on his head.

The point I was trying to make is that we can't tell how many limbs he has. I remain convinced that everything he has done, save possibly the holding of paper and crayon in the back of the colouring book, can be explained with one leg and one arm. Does that mean I think he only has one leg and one arm? No. Just that what little evidence we have doesn't tell us much about his body configuration. (See also: Olinser's post)

E) have SOME form of orifice to eat with that includes a tongue (he specifically says 'lick the stew bucket').

Interesting. I would've picked this comic instead. But same difference. He has a tongue.

Edit: I'm going to take a raincheck on updating the first post until the weekend.

Grey Wolf

[ReaderAt2046]

Conte_Vincero: The Shadow Demon also is homebrew that was made in 2010, several years after the MitD was.

He explicitly said he already knew that, he was trying to give an example of the type of creature he had in mind.

[Bulldog Psion]

The Quaraphon Bully from Monster Manual III has a few points in its favor, but some major ones against it:

Pros:
-- Hideously ugly, a bright dark blue all over hairless centaur with a misshapen head, two mouths, four glowing yellow eyes, and three-fingered hands.
-- Eyes glow yellow.
-- High strength (24), though maybe not high enough.
-- Has the supernatural ability "Deafening Bellow" which can be used once per day.
-- Armor class 23 might explain the misses, but I doubt it.
-- Centaur-like build which seems to match what we know of the MitD's physique.
-- Large size presumably fits under the umbrella.

Cons:
-- No wish ability or teleport ability (this pretty much eliminates it right there).
-- Probably not strong enough.
-- Probably not resistant enough to damage.
-- Eyes glow yellow but there are too many of them.

I know this has a 99% or more chance of not being MitD, but it's interesting that there's something with even a few matches to MitD's requirements, in something as prominent as the Monster Manual III, that nobody has mentioned before!

[Steven]

Maybe it uses the paradox caused by it being both bright and dark blue simultaneously to teleport V and Ochul... ;)

[Silverionmox]

Interesting. I would've picked this comic instead. But same difference. He has a tongue.
Grey Wolf

And he smells by sniffing while holding the bag close to below his two eyes. It seems he has a smelling organ coupled to a breathing system. Though you never know with a monster.

And it munches its food. And its voice is deformed while speaking with its mouth full. Seems a pretty standard vertebrate configuration.

[Bulldog Psion]

Maybe it uses the paradox caused by it being both bright and dark blue simultaneously to teleport V and Ochul... ;)

Well, I should have chosen my words a bit more carefully there. I should have said "vivid dark blue" or "intense dark blue," I suppose.

[Steven]

Yeah. After typing my answer I went and looked it up. Pretty intense all right.
And that is one ugly blighter.

[DaggerPen]

A quick thought about sizes that I don't think has actually been mentioned before:

When we see Xykon's zombified silver dragon, the dragon appears to be about Large or Huge. We know from No Cure for the Paladin Blues, though, that it was an Ancient Silver Dragon, whose size category is listed as Colossal, meaning it'd have to be at least 64 feet long or high. Even assuming that Xykon is like 6 feet, that dragon is clearly not a Colossal dragon. So we do have an example of Rich making a giant creature much smaller than it should be.

The Momma Black Dragon seems to have been Colossal size, though, which I would have expected from an Ancient Black Dragon, IIRC, so do take that with a grain of salt.

[Steven]

Sadly we already know Rich plays pretty fast and loose with the sizes of creatures. Goblins, slyphs(or whatever Celia is I forget) and various other things are all different sizes than we'd expect.

I think the general stance on the size of the MitD is that we hope Rich would be more careful about changing things since he knows we're all obsessive about figuring it out.

Having said that he did choose the creature before there was much in the way of organized speculation on it so he might have fudged the size then and hasn't gotten around to lamp-shading it for our convenience.

Still it's good to know he makes things smaller as well as bigger since I don't know of any examples of that prior to your post. But that could just be my ignorance. :P

[Emanick]

A quick thought about sizes that I don't think has actually been mentioned before:

When we see Xykon's zombified silver dragon, the dragon appears to be about Large or Huge. We know from No Cure for the Paladin Blues, though, that it was an Ancient Silver Dragon, whose size category is listed as Colossal, meaning it'd have to be at least 64 feet long or high. Even assuming that Xykon is like 6 feet, that dragon is clearly not a Colossal dragon. So we do have an example of Rich making a giant creature much smaller than it should be.

The Momma Black Dragon seems to have been Colossal size, though, which I would have expected from an Ancient Black Dragon, IIRC, so do take that with a grain of salt.

Actually, ancient silver dragons are Gargantuan. So the dragon could be anywhere between 32 and 64 feet long.

[rodneyAnonymous]

Many problems with size could be explained by the MitD's youth.

[Olinser]

Many problems with size could be explained by the MitD's youth.

The problem is that it has been 29 years since Start of Darkness, and he doesn't appear to have grown or developed appreciably in that time.

29 years is an AWFULLY long time to be a child and exhibit no growth. We're talking about a 1000 year lifespan at that point.

[Steven]

Is the MitD actually mentioned as being young or is that just based on how he acts?

[Kish]

The creature's age is never spelled out.

[Qwertystop]

Is the MitD actually mentioned as being young or is that just based on how he acts?

All we know about his age is that he is at least 29 (plus enough time to know what the forest is like and see his dad eating, which could be a very short amount of time), assuming no looped-reincarnation shenanigans.

It's just based on how he acts, plus an excuse for size that may or may not hold up depending on the specific creature.

[Bulldog Psion]

Is the MitD actually mentioned as being young or is that just based on how he acts?

Actions, and the fact that his father was said to be a lot bigger and hungrier, I believe.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Many problems with size could be explained by the MitD's youth.

MitD being young would introduce problems of its own, particularly in the strength department.

GW

[Crusher]

Yeah, MitD being young is one of those things that seems like it would make it easier to figure him out yet never quite seems to. Most monsters don't explicitly have different stats for the age categories, and the few that do (mostly dragons) sometimes feel like they're conspiring with Rich to confound us.

Almost inevitably, the ones that are young enough and small enough to fit in the box are too weak physically or defensively, or otherwise lack some crucial ability, while the ones that can at least make an attempt at checking the boxes are invariably too large. Its uncanny.

Also, its worth noting that dragons, speaking generally, aren't all that strong (STR-wise) for their size. Even a 30 STR (MitD's lower bound) is strong enough to be fairly uncommon among monsters and there really aren't all that many monsters that strong which aren't also quite large.

[silversaraph]

I could not give one good goddamn what the rules say about anything. There are no mistakes, because there are no rules. NONE. No, not even that one.

I hate to bring this up, but do we just have to work under the idea that the MitD is somehow an exception to "No, not even that one"?

[DaggerPen]

I hate to bring this up, but do we just have to work under the idea that the MitD is somehow an exception to "No, not even that one"?

I think the general heuristic with MitD is "would I call bs on a DM who pulled this on us?" The DM rule 0 is, after all, that you can fudge the rules a bit if it makes the story better. For the MitD, I'd say that Rich could well, for example, fudge the teleport rules a bit, or his size a bit, but that he wouldn't flat-out change anything from the MitD's creature's manual entry without lampshading it (such as with the lack of speech).

[Kish]

I hate to bring this up, but do we just have to work under the idea that the MitD is somehow an exception to "No, not even that one"?

I'm not even sure what you're getting at here. Are we working under the idea that after what the creature in the darkness is is revealed, Rich will be beholden to any Monster Manual-wielding person who declares, "You can't have him do that, no member of that species would do that!"? While I'm not the thread curator, I would venture no.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I hate to bring this up, but do we just have to work under the idea that the MitD is somehow an exception to "No, not even that one"?

For the purposes of this thread? Yes. For actual MitD? No, of course not.

Rich believes that MitD can be figured out. I suspect he means "when all clues are in", even if he didn't say as much, and I also suspect we haven't reached that point yet. But I'll be surprised if MitD's species can speak Common. So in a way, Rich has already changed the rules of MitD. The difference between MitD and, say, what the OotS knows about RC's level (which is what prompted Rich's angry remark, IIRC), is that I expect Rich to lampshade when the rules surrounding MitD are bent or broken, while I wouldn't expect him to beat us over the head with checks of knowledge (religion) and other minutia in other circumstances.

Grey Wolf

[Mage Paradox]

In the class geekery thread Charmy raises the sensible point that, in light of recent remarks by Rich, maybe this thread is pointless. Rich has said the only thing that matters now is the Plot, and there are no rules and everything from here will be homebrew... so why should we assume the monster is from the D&D sourcebooks?

[ti'esar]

In the class geekery thread Charmy raises the sensible point that, in light of recent remarks by Rich, maybe this thread is pointless. Rich has said the only thing that matters now is the Plot, and there are no rules and everything from here will be homebrew... so why should we assume the monster is from the D&D sourcebooks?

Because that's kind of a strawman of what Rich actually said. Unless everything said before about the MitD is a lie or he's completely abandoning internal consistency - which at least one quote (the one about how "he's stuck" with spellcasting being a calling-your-attacks thing) explicitly contradicts - the MitD is still whatever it always was meant to be.

At most you could say there won't be any new clues, but I strongly doubt that's the case either.

[Bird]

... so why should we assume the monster is from the D&D sourcebooks?

The thread doesn't assume that. Plenty of proposals aren't from sourcebooks.