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

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Does the Phrenic template also give access to a Greater Teleport variant, because isn't that required to get O'Chul and V across an ocean?

No, as I understand it, simple teleport is enough, and it is actually slightly preferred in the context of this thread, since there is an option for "misplaced teleport" that is "somewhere similar to the intended destination". If you arrived at misplaced because MitD doesn't know where to send O-Chul, and just wants to send him to "his friends", that would still send him to the right place.

Edit: Wish and equivalents would still be better than either, of course

Grey Wolf

[Grey_Wolf_c]

OK, having spent some time looking through templates, I think I have found a loophole:

Living Spell template on the Minor Creation spell, having used it to create a potted plant. This gives us an ooze. Not sure of the starting HD. It says caster level, so if it was a Living Spell cast by an epic caster, I assume it'd have 20 HD?

+ Shadow (becomes a magical beast)
+ Phrenic, Pseudonatural, Paragon, of Legend (as usual)

I'll let you guys figure out the details.

Edit: other ways to increase the HD without changing size is to add chimeric (has minimum HD of 9) and tauric (add the HD of the base humanoid creature to the base animal creature - get the potted plant to be one of them, and then pick the largest HD possible for the other side)

Edit 2: Elder Serpent adds 2 HD

GW

[b_jonas]

So, for example, Xykon explicitly calls the MitD ugly: so when the MitD is revealed, it needs to be ugly, in a way that can actually be drawn in a stick-figure comic book. If, for example, the candidate creature is described has having 'a huge mis-shapen nose weeping green pus', that fits the requirement nicely, but doesn't work for the comic, because no noses.

Technically, only some types of monsters are drawn with no noses. Humans, goblins and elves clearly have no nose. The water trolls in strip 0507 are drawn with a large nose. Some animals have at least a snout, and Xyklon has a nose hole.

[Qwertystop]

OK, having spent some time looking through templates, I think I have found a loophole:

Living Spell template on the Minor Creation spell, having used it to create a potted plant. This gives us an ooze. Not sure of the starting HD. It says caster level, so if it was a Living Spell cast by an epic caster, I assume it'd have 20 HD?

+ Shadow (becomes a magical beast)
+ Phrenic, Pseudonatural, Paragon, of Legend (as usual)

I'll let you guys figure out the details.

Edit: other ways to increase the HD without changing size is to add chimeric (has minimum HD of 9) and tauric (add the HD of the base humanoid creature to the base animal creature - get the potted plant to be one of them, and then pick the largest HD possible for the other side)

Edit 2: Elder Serpent adds 2 HD

GW

Problem: That'd give you an ooze that creates temporary potless, dirtless, dead houseplants (nonliving vegetable matter only) whenever it slams or engulfs something, not a potted-plant creature.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Problem: That'd give you an ooze that creates temporary potless, dirtless, dead houseplants (nonliving vegetable matter only) whenever it slams or engulfs something, not a potted-plant creature.

Ah, pity. I thought that the template created the item in the spell (i.e. a roaming fireball), not an ooze that freely casts the spell. I'm afraid the list of templates I found in google wasn't too detailed.

So, we don't know of any template that can be applied to an object? I'd say then that we house rule potted plant to be a valid plant creature for the purposes of the exercise. I find the idea that a plant isn't a valid target when a regular rat is to be absurd.

Thankfully, the HD increasing templates I located should still be of some value to the discussion.

Grey Wolf

[Qwertystop]

Ah, pity. I thought that the template created the item in the spell (i.e. a roaming fireball), not an ooze that freely casts the spell. I'm afraid the list of templates I found in google wasn't too detailed.

So, we don't know of any template that can be applied to an object? I'd say then that we house rule potted plant to be a valid plant creature for the purposes of the exercise. I find the idea that a plant isn't a valid target when a regular rat is to be absurd.

Thankfully, the HD increasing templates I located should still be of some value to the discussion.

Grey Wolf

For most things, there isn't much difference. A Living Fireball would be an ooze (probably looks like a reddish fog or a self-contained fire) that, on attacking or engulfing something, causes that thing to be affected as though hit by a fireball. A Living Solid Fog would cause things it hits or engulfs to be affected as though they were in a Solid Fog.

It's only when the spell starts doing things that don't really mesh with that that it starts not matching up. By default, the template's only applicable to area-effect spells for that reason, but the web articles that talk about them break that several times explicitly.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

By default, the template's only applicable to area-effect spells for that reason, but the web articles that talk about them break that several times explicitly.

Yes, I saw that, but the minor creation does affects an area (volume, actually, but I assume that is valid).

I didn't look very hard for an appropriate spell. I assume there must be some druid spell that does create living plants in an area. If there is some wiggle room, and that area happens to be a pot, and then you apply the living spell template to it, would it become a an ooze creature in a pot that looks like the original plant that creates ("buds") similar looking plants when it hits things?

I'm not as worried about the last part, since the inconvenient attacks can be eliminated by the tauric template.

To be clear, I'm way past RAI here. Can the RAW of the living spell template be twisted into doing what we need it to do? I'm fine with it being an ooze that looks like a plant in a pot; I think that is well within the spirit of the exercise.

Grey Wolf

[AgentPaper]

To be clear, I'm way past RAI here. Can the RAW of the living spell template be twisted into doing what we need it to do? I'm fine with it being an ooze that looks like a plant in a pot; I think that is well within the spirit of the exercise.

I still think that it's not really worth it unless we start with a literal planted pot. The whole point is to turn something mundane into MitD, not to make MitD look like something mundane.

If MitD started out as a potted plant and turned into an ooze through some shenanigans, on the other hand, that would be fine. What's important is that you start with the potted plant.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I still think that it's not really worth it unless we start with a literal planted pot. The whole point is to turn something mundane into MitD, not to make MitD look like something mundane.

Fair enough; but then we either need a template that changes an object into a creature, or we need to explicitly house rule that a potted plant counts as a plant creature. While the first one would be ideal, of course, I suspect we won't find it, so are you fine instead with the second one?

Grey Wolf

[Qwertystop]

Yes, I saw that, but the minor creation does affects an area (volume, actually, but I assume that is valid).

I didn't look very hard for an appropriate spell. I assume there must be some druid spell that does create living plants in an area. If there is some wiggle room, and that area happens to be a pot, and then you apply the living spell template to it, would it become a an ooze creature in a pot that looks like the original plant that creates ("buds") similar looking plants when it hits things?

I'm not as worried about the last part, since the inconvenient attacks can be eliminated by the tauric template.

To be clear, I'm way past RAI here. Can the RAW of the living spell template be twisted into doing what we need it to do? I'm fine with it being an ooze that looks like a plant in a pot; I think that is well within the spirit of the exercise.

Grey Wolf

It would create an ooze creature that happens to originate in a pot. It probably wouldn't look like a plant, because oozes are amorphous (I'd call it a greenish mist or gel, or possibly liquid fertilizer), and there wouldn't be anything forcing it to stay in the pot, but yes, it would make plants on hitting or engulfing things.

Plant Growth is a 3rd level Druid spell that could do that.

[AgentPaper]

Fair enough; but then we either need a template that changes an object into a creature, or we need to explicitly house rule that a potted plant counts as a plant creature. While the first one would be ideal, of course, I suspect we won't find it, so are you fine instead with the second one?

Grey Wolf

I can't find anything that really defines what a "creature" is in DnD terms, so treating all living things - including plants - as creatures seems like a fine interpretation. Not ideal, perhaps, but certainly acceptable.

On that note, I did a bit of research on the subtypes involved. The bad news is that Plant creatures are immune to mind-affecting spells and don't sleep. Fortunately, Pseudonatural changes it's type to Outsider (Extraplanar), who can be mind-controlled. They don't need to eat or sleep, but can if they wish.

There may be a way around even that, however, as an Outsider (Native) does need to eat and sleep like normal while on the material plane. Extraplanar only really means you're not on your native plane, so if you applied the template while on another plane, it's a fair interpretation to say that it would then lose Extraplanar and gain Native when you brought it back to the material plane.

Another interpretation, though, is that getting Extraplanar from the Pseudonatural template means you have it permanently, effectively making you non-Native to all planes. Fortunately, there's another little loophole to cover that: no Outsiders have the Extraplanar trait in transitive planes. So if you, for example, chucked a potted plant through a portal into the Astral Plane, then applied the Pseudonatural template to it, then theoretically it wouldn't gain the Extraplanar trait at all because it's not allowed to there by RAW. Then when you reel it back into the Material Plane (what adventurer doesn't have 50 feet of hemp rope?), since it came from there originally it should gain the Native trait.

The final loophole is that MitD might be a second-generation Pseudonatural Potted Plant, born on the material plane, meaning that he would be Native to that plane.


I'm starting to think that templates might be worth more than we're giving them. The "One of those" issue is certainly a problem for stuff like half-dragons, where it changes the nature of the creature, but something like a Pseudonatural or Phrenic creature could still easily be recognized by the hunters as "one of" the base creature, ignoring the templates. For example, if you had a Pseudonatural Snow Tiger roaming around the jungle, it wouldn't be strange for the hunters to be wondering why a Snow Tiger native to snowy high mountain peaks would be wandering around in a jungle, and able to speak common. The fact that it had some weird tentacle things would be an unrelated, though also very strange phenomenon.

Phrenic would be even less apparent, and the hunters might not have even known that MitD was Phrenic when they saw it, or even later, since it doesn't have any physical affect on the base creature's appearance.

[hamishspence]

Phrenic would be even less apparent, and the hunters might not have even known that MitD was Phrenic when they saw it, or even later, since it doesn't have any physical affect on the base creature's appearance.

The sample phrenic creature in Expanded Psionics Handbook (a manticore) has eyes that "glow green with psychic energy" though.

[Crusher]

I can't find anything that really defines what a "creature" is in DnD terms, so treating all living things - including plants - as creatures seems like a fine interpretation. Not ideal, perhaps, but certainly acceptable.

On that note, I did a bit of research on the subtypes involved. The bad news is that Plant creatures are immune to mind-affecting spells and don't sleep. Fortunately, Pseudonatural changes it's type to Outsider (Extraplanar), who can be mind-controlled. They don't need to eat or sleep, but can if they wish.

There may be a way around even that, however, as an Outsider (Native) does need to eat and sleep like normal while on the material plane. Extraplanar only really means you're not on your native plane, so if you applied the template while on another plane, it's a fair interpretation to say that it would then lose Extraplanar and gain Native when you brought it back to the material plane.

Another interpretation, though, is that getting Extraplanar from the Pseudonatural template means you have it permanently, effectively making you non-Native to all planes. Fortunately, there's another little loophole to cover that: no Outsiders have the Extraplanar trait in transitive planes. So if you, for example, chucked a potted plant through a portal into the Astral Plane, then applied the Pseudonatural template to it, then theoretically it wouldn't gain the Extraplanar trait at all because it's not allowed to there by RAW. Then when you reel it back into the Material Plane (what adventurer doesn't have 50 feet of hemp rope?), since it came from there originally it should gain the Native trait.

The final loophole is that MitD might be a second-generation Pseudonatural Potted Plant, born on the material plane, meaning that he would be Native to that plane.


I'm starting to think that templates might be worth more than we're giving them. The "One of those" issue is certainly a problem for stuff like half-dragons, where it changes the nature of the creature, but something like a Pseudonatural or Phrenic creature could still easily be recognized by the hunters as "one of" the base creature, ignoring the templates. For example, if you had a Pseudonatural Snow Tiger roaming around the jungle, it wouldn't be strange for the hunters to be wondering why a Snow Tiger native to snowy high mountain peaks would be wandering around in a jungle, and able to speak common. The fact that it had some weird tentacle things would be an unrelated, though also very strange phenomenon.

Phrenic would be even less apparent, and the hunters might not have even known that MitD was Phrenic when they saw it, or even later, since it doesn't have any physical affect on the base creature's appearance.

Sure, but the real problem with the templates isn't lack of recognition, its the whole crutch-thing we talked about a couple pages back. They make it that much harder to guess what the base creature is, hence the whole potted plant thing to make the point.

Edit - After reading through the Creature rules a bit, I'm torn on the whole house-ruling a particular plant as a creature. The line between plant-object and plant-creature is exceedingly thin in some cases, essentially making the distinction that the plant-creature is somehow intrinsically different or that something has been done to it. Making it Pseudonatural, for example, seems like an excellent way that would happen, except it can't, because its a plant-object instead of a plant-creature. The logic is somewhat circular.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Sure, but the real problem with the templates isn't lack of recognition, its the whole crutch-thing we talked about a couple pages back. They make it that much harder to guess what the base creature is, hence the whole potted plant thing to make the point.

Or, put another way, because of Okham's Razor, it is better a pure-blooded, unchanged creature that meets all clues, than a creature that must be enhanced in some way to meet those same clues - at least as long as we have no clues that point towards a mixed lineage.

Yes, acquired templates could work without indication of mixed species, but MitD is not a monster of legend (he'd be recognised at the circus, if he is the stuff of legends), or a paragon. He's lazy, childish and, given the power to command undead, uses it to order tacos.

GW

[AgentPaper]

Or, put another way, because of Okham's Razor, it is better a pure-blooded, unchanged creature that meets all clues, than a creature that must be enhanced in some way to meet those same clues - at least as long as we have no clues that point towards a mixed lineage.

Occam's Razor means that you need to go with the hypothesis that makes the least assumptions. A hyphothesis that uses a template assumes that MitD got that template somehow, which makes it worse than a pure-blooded creature, however you also have to consider that none of the pure-blooded creatures we have to far meet all of the clues. Even the best candidates all have some flaw, which while not deal-breaking is still something that needs to be explained. I would argue that it's a bigger assumption to assume that those are slip-ups by Rich or conscious decisions by him to mislead us, rather than to assume that there is some other factor, such as a template, that explains those flaws away.

Yes, acquired templates could work without indication of mixed species, but MitD is not a monster of legend (he'd be recognised at the circus, if he is the stuff of legends), or a paragon. He's lazy, childish and, given the power to command undead, uses it to order tacos.

GW

Yeah, certainly not all templates work, but some of them really do seem to. Phrenic and Pseudonatural certainly work, since their change to the base appearance is minimal. I'm sure with some searching, we could find other templates that also meet this requirement. If a template causes more issues than it solves (such as Half-Dragon and the two you mentioned), then that's a good argument for not including those templates, not to ignore templates altogether.

I'm going to start going over the SRD to see which ones other than Phrenic and Pseudonatural might be useful. I can agree that there's not much point in adding anything to the first post other than what's there already, but we can still come up with at least a working list for now, and see what happens. We can decide whether that list is worth adding to the first post in any form after we've seen what it looks like.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Occam's Razor means that you need to go with the hypothesis that makes the least assumptions. A hyphothesis that uses a template assumes that MitD got that template somehow, which makes it worse than a pure-blooded creature, however you also have to consider that none of the pure-blooded creatures we have to far meet all of the clues. Even the best candidates all have some flaw, which while not deal-breaking is still something that needs to be explained. I would argue that it's a bigger assumption to assume that those are slip-ups by Rich or conscious decisions by him to mislead us, rather than to assume that there is some other factor, such as a template, that explains those flaws away.

Currently, IMnpHO, the best fit to the evidence is the protean. The protean already has all the advantages that can be conferred by both the pseudonatural and the phrenic templates (i.e. it is a mass of tentacles with psionic powers). No base creature you add those two tempaltes to will be a better fit than the protean. The protean's issues (teleport is not as good a fit as wish, lack of mutability in his eyes) would also apply to a base creature with those two templates, except that creature would also be shouldering two extra assumptions: "it is a psionic creature, even though its species isn't" and "it is actually a eldritch horror that sometimes looks like a member of its species". Those are very large assumptions, especially the pseudonatural template, which is in essence a "change a creature into a lovecraftian horror" template.

In fact, while I could buy phrenic, under some very specific circumstances (which currently do not apply to MitD: he really doesn't fit the tropes relating to a 'member of his species with amazing metal powers'), I have never found pseudonatural at all compelling. We have absolutely no indication that MitD switches between ugly and normal. If he never switches, then his base species is pretty much irrelevant to what he is. In which case, the deduction game is pretty much unguessable. There would be no difference between a pseudonatural tiger and a pseudonatural therblewurkersaurus.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

That is an interesting thought. I'm very much certain we haven't yet exhausted all avenues of potential investigation, and people keep coming up with stuff frequently enough that I have no interest in throwing in the towel.

While approaching it from the other way ("based on what we know the MitD can do, what's the simplest way of getting there") is an interesting mental exercise, I fear isn't really a viable approach because of the sheer number of ways you can get there. Is a Pseudonatural Pitfiend a better answer than a Paragon Black Troll or an Awakened Potted Plant that's an Epic-level Sorcerer? Ok, that last one wouldn't win, but the point remains that the entire approach would have to be re-thought and I have no idea how you'd set up judging criteria to differentiate between the candidates.

[b_jonas]

I suggest we template up a bat or a toad. Why? They're the lowest CR (CR 1/10!) creatures in the MM1, so they have stats, but are also ridiculous. (Personally, I'd go for toad.)

If you want to choose from those two, I humbly suggest the toad because it's more vanilla. A bat is nocturnal and prefers to hunt in the dark. It's not clear to me whether that's an advantage or a disadvantage when turning a bat to the MitD, but certainly distracts from the point of the potted plant exercise.

[AgentPaper]

After some (admittedly limited) research, it turns out that the list of useful templates is actually very small, even smaller than our list of likely candidates. So far Pseudonatural, Phrenic, Crystalline, and Shadow are the only useful ones I've found. All of the others either don't add anything all that useful (IE: Lycanthrope), don't conform to the rules (IE: the metric ton of undead templates), or change MitD's appearance too much to fit "one of those" (IE: Half-X).

Crystalline is useful mostly to give hardness, and Shadow adds Shadow Blend, which would explain why MitD is always shrouded in darkness. (up to the individual to decide if this is more or less likely than the umbrella being a custom magic item)

Looking at your con list for templates:

No Wish template

This isn't so much a knock against templates, as against a creature made purely from templates. Adding a template to something that can already cast wish works just fine.

Probably violates the "figured out" clause in Rich's words (see Section 1a) since the exact base type and templates use is not really guessable.

As I mentioned above, there really aren't that many good template candidates. The clues work just as well to narrow down what templates can match as they do to narrow down the creature candidates, so I think this isn't actually a con.

Unless the exact combination of templates and base creature has been used elsewhere, it can be argued that an original template stack would be a Rich invention.

Probably the biggest knock against templates, but as Rich said, the line between something he made and something someone else made is thin, and I think templates are, while very close to that line, not quite over it. Still, this is certainly a con that could go into any templated creature's pro/con list.

Its unlikely that a one-in-a-lifetime combination of templates would be so common that the hunters call it "one of these"

This is true for some templates, especially stuff with lots of templates, but it isn't true for all of them. Some templates have little visible effect on the creature in question, and others might be more recognizable as their template than the creature in question. If a template makes something look like a horror from beyond the stars, it would make sense that the hunters would wonder what it's doing in a rainforest instead of being, well, beyond the stars.

No actual evidence of MitD having different species parents

Only a knock against templates that require mixed heritage, and even then, there isn't actually any evidence against him having different species parents either. All we know is that MitD's father was bigger than he was, which could mean a large father species and small mother species, or could just as easily mean he's small for his kind, or that he was young when he remembered that.


The Hagunemnon is certainly a close match, but I'm hoping we can get even closer with a templated candidate. I think as long as we're just as harsh in our examination of any templated creature as we are to non-templated creatures, we should end up with a very reasonable list of potential templated candidates.

[Crusher]

Sorry for the interruption, but I stumbled across a prospective candidate:

Ilsidaur - http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthr...=1#post4025832

Lord of the 90th plane of the Abyss and king of the Bar-Iguras (basically fiendish gorillas). He's a specific demon lord rather than just a powerful demon which is kind of an issue, but he's got a few things going for him.

Circus Scene - "This powerfully muscled ape bears the spiral horns of a ram, burning red eyes, jutting fangs, and a hairless, ratlike tail. Its rusty red and matted with filth." So that's decently odd looking.

Tower Scene - STR 36, 391 HP, DR20/Cold Iron, Epic and Good (it has to be all 3? Probably Cold Iron and Good, OR Epic but whatever)

Escape - "Unlike most tanar'ri, Ilsidahur can use greater teleport to transport other creatures." The specific restriction tanar'ri have against teleporting other creatures (but not "objects", I assume...) has been a huge thorn in my side so its kind of nice to find one that specifically doesn't have to deal with that.

Pros:
- CR23
- Size is about right (Large, 8' tall)
- Piercing Scream as a Special
- Dates back to Dragon issue #13 (1978) so he's plenty old enough
- He's famous for spending a lot of time on the Prime Material Plane generally causing trouble, explaining why he's there (but not why he doesn't remember being a demon lord)

Cons:
- He's a specific demon lord which is bad, but he's not actually listed as a unique
- Along those lines, his appearance is basically like a normal Bar-Igura except bigger and tougher so its possible the Big Game Hunters thought he was a Bar-Igura
- Speaks but not Common

[rweird]

It was posted in that form on 31st January, 2008, so unless there is an older version which can do all that, I think that it wouldn't be the MitD.

[Crusher]

Sure, the 3.5 update isn't old enough, but the creature itself predates that version by 30 years. Anyone happen to have that copy of Dragon handy?

[AgentPaper]

Sure, the 3.5 update isn't old enough, but the creature itself predates that version by 30 years. Anyone happen to have that copy of Dragon handy?

Without the 3.5 update, though, it falls under the issues of all the other monsters that weren't updated.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Without the 3.5 update, though, it falls under the issues of all the other monsters that weren't updated.

Not if it exists in 3.0

Edit: although, as with all demons, I would add "incapable of changing alignments" to the list of cons.

GW

[Lord Bingo]

I return to you now, in your hour of need...

First of all (to those of you who remember me) I apologize for my abscence - the frustration over the lack of viable candidates and other stuff has kept me away.

Still, I have been vigilant. I return to you with a crazy suggestion: The MitD is an Audrey II!

The Audrey II is featured in the musical "Little Shop of Horrors" and is an extra terrestial carnivorous plant the looks of which can best be described as a mix of an avocado and a venus fly trap.

Please note that since the Audrey II is not a ADD 3.5 monster this idea requires Rich to have made up suitable stats - but then again he did say that the line between something he made up and something someone else made up is a fine one.

If you have not at the very least seen the 1986 movie adaption, now is the time

I shall now list the qualities and abilities of the MitD and how I believe that the Audrey II fits these:

One of these: The Audrey two is an extra terrestial species of plant. There are more than one of these critters and they are probably taking over a planet near you as we speak!

It speaks: The Audrey II is very intelligent and it can speak, though it keeps this a secret to almost everyone. Thus it should also come as a surprise to the stereotypical big game hunters that it indeed does speak - one can certainly understand why they think it will bring in a lot of money and be an attractive investment for a travelling circus (freakshow).

Gender: In the musical/movie the Audrey II has a male voice and it continuously acts in a male manner, but its gender is ambigous.

Environment: Let us be clear: the Audrey II does not belong on our world - it is from outer space! The jungle might be a suitable habitat for an Audrey II but it is certainly not where you would expect to find it. The Audrey II seeks to insert itself into human settlements and apart from flowerists boutiques suburbia is where I would look.

Looks + size: As stated the Audrey II looks like a cross between an avocado and a venus fly trap, and it is potted!. It's main feature is the head which is a grotesque avocado-like thing with a huge mouth, filled with teeth. It has tentacle-like roots which it uses to grab onto things and it is sitting in a terracota pot!
It is most certainly ugly but a very thrifty specimen might be considered beautiful by connosseurs.

Smell: The MitD has been known to apologize for his odor. Venus fly traps have been know to smell horribly of decay. This is due to the way food is broken down and it is truly stomach churning.

Hunger: On the subject of mouthes and the smell of decaying flesh; the Audrey II is always portrayed as being ravenously hungry. While in the musical it seems that it prefers fresh (and bloody) meat I am certain that an ample supply of stew would keep it in great health.

Size: In the musical the Audrey II starts of as nothing more that a sapling on a flowerists cart. From these humble beginnings it grows into a huge bloodthirsty creature capable of swallowing people whole. In theory there is no limit to the size to which it can grow.

Father: In the movie the Audrey II is adopted by a young sap named Semour who is unable to stand up to the plant and in the end is undone by it. Had the Audrey II had better and more moral parents it might have turned out very different...

Limbs: The Audrey II has multiple rootlike tentacles with which it is reasonably dextrous. Lacking opposeable thumbs pulling a rope may prove a challenge but i most certainly think it will be able to pull of all the feats we have seen the MitD do.

Movement: Though it is a potted plant (which it would not necessarily have to be) it is able to move around by using some of the tentacles as legs. I imagine this would leave strange tracks...

Strength: As the Audrey II grows its strength increases and by the end of the musical it ends up tearing down the flower shop with its bare tentacles. It is certainly very strong but whether or not it is sufficient to knock someone through a wall is a matter of (Rich's) opinion.

Earthquake: In the 1986 movie adaption the Audrey II is able to stomp by lifting its pot of the floor repeatedly once it has grown big enough. This causes the building to tremble and shed some puss (if I remember correctly). It is kind of a stretch but I would guess that this is what should pass as an earthquake ability.

Teleport/Wish: The Audrey II arrives/appears "mysteriously" during a solar ecclipse. It is not clear how exactly this is achieved but it is definately not done by some external force. It is an intrinsic ability of the plant and depending on how you interpret this it will or will not be able to teleport O'chul and Pointy Ears out of harms way. Personally I will accept that it has an intrinsic ability to move itself and/or others across space if it tries hard enough or is somehow compelled.

Eyes: I have saved the best/worst for last The Audrey II has (to my knowledge) no visible eyes! They might be hidden beneath some leaves on the head though...
One thing is certain: The Audrey II is very astute at perceiving its surroundings and if it does not have eyes in the traditional sense it has some other way that is at least equivalent to having eyes.

I would argue that IF the MitD is an Audrey II then Rich gave it eyes in order for him to be able to display emotions and reactions. I further think that it lends credence to this claim that the MitD is surrounded by a magical darkness and by all rights we should not be able to see any eyes no matter what.

All in all the Audrey II might not be an obvious candidate to be the MitD and it might just be a bit too silly but if we allow Rich a little creative freedom I think it is a good fit.

Have at it!

[b_jonas]

While you're at templates, may I ask whether some of the powers of the Monster in the Dark could come from items he has at him or spells cast at him?

As a simplistic example, suppose that Redcloak gave the MitD a piece of highly enchanted magical body armor that gives him high damage reduction, which is why he shrugs off Miko's attacks, and Xykon has cast high level spells to buff his attacks which is how he could hit Miko and his horse so hard. I don't mean to suggest that this particular item and spell are good matches, nor do I suggest that the MitD is just a potted plant with only items and spells giving it unique properties.

Let me tell the reasons why I'd consider items and spells likely.

1. It is difficult to explain how a creature with three unusual templates would even come to exist, but it would not be unusual for a plot-central character to carry multiple rare magical items and be buffed with spells. Xykon and Redcloak both possess unique magic items themselves and can both cast high level spells, so they can supply him with these.
2. There are lots of powerful items and spells in source books to choose from, likely more than there are templates or classes.
3. If the MitD has powers as racial or class level or template abilities, it may be difficult to explain why he does not know about these. However, if the MitD is given magical items and buffed by spells without Xykon or Redcloak explaining the nature of these items or spells and with Xykon already mentally dominating him, it is more easy to see why the MitD would not know about the limits of his own powers. This is especially more so if the items are not given to him permanently or the spells do not give permanent bonuses, but instead items are lent to him or spells are cast to him for the tower scene so he can guard the tower and stop Miko.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Audrey II

I can't believe you missed that father being bigger is most easily explained from the fact that Audrey II grows huge, and yet at the end, the saplings are back to being small.

Other than that, lack of eyes, which you mentioned, and lack of teleportation abilities - your explanation is a massive stretch. From what I remember, it is strongly implied it is an alien seedling that fell from orbit. At no point does it display teleportation abilities.

While you're at templates, may I ask whether some of the powers of the Monster in the Dark could come from items he has at him or spells cast at him?

Because Rich said he expected people to figure it out, and since there is no evidence that he has any such spells or magic objects (and evidence that when such items are given to him, MitD breaks them), it would be quite dastardly or Rich to use such a crutch.

Edit: as to buff spells, RC states he knows MitD to be powerful enough to escape the circus on his own, implying MitD is in no need of further buffs.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

Without the 3.5 update, though, it falls under the issues of all the other monsters that weren't updated.

True but if you think about it in general terms "Fiendish, weird looking gorrilla, with colossal strength and toughness plus the very unusual, for a demon, ability to teleport other creatures".

That doesnt sound too bad, does it?

[DaggerPen]

Currently, IMnpHO, the best fit to the evidence is the protean.

IMnpHO? I know IMHO is In My Humble Opinion, and IMnsHO is In My not so Humble Opinion, but what's IMnpHO?

Audrey II! [Snip]

Wait a second. So we've been here trying to figure out template stacks that could make a potted plant the MitD... and you suggested that the MitD is an actual potted plant? :P

(I'm just saying, throw Pseudonatural, Phrenic and Paragon on that thing and you get far, far closer than you have any right to with a suggestion like that. XD)

[Grey_Wolf_c]

IMnpHO? I know IMHO is In My Humble Opinion, and IMnsHO is In My not so Humble Opinion, but what's IMnpHO?

"In My not particularly Humble Opinion". I'm not British, but my English is.

GW

Edit: The best way to describe Mr. Windling would be like this: You are at a meeting. You'd like to be away early. So would everyone else. There really isn't very much to discuss, anyway. And just as everyone can see Any Other Business coming over the horizon and is putting their papers neatly together, a voice says "If I can raise a minor matter, Mr. Chairman..." and with a horrible wooden feeling in your stomach you know, now, that the evening will go on for twice as long with much referring back to the minutes of earlier meetings. The man who has just said that, and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to the committee process, is as near Mr. Windling as makes no difference. And something that distinguishes the Mr. Windlings of the universe is the term "in my humble opinion," which they think adds weight to their statements rather than indicating, in reality, "these are the mean little views of someone with the social grace of duckweed".

~ Terry Pratchett, The Truth