Let's Read: The Dungeons and Dragons 5e Monster Manual!

[MrConsideration]

I'd like to point out that the main critics of the Vikings like the Franks and Anglo-Saxons - who are by and large the inspiration for standard Human culture in D&D - also engaged in raiding and wars for plunder.

Almost all early medieval cultures did.

[RossN]

I'd like to point out that the main critics of the Vikings like the Franks and Anglo-Saxons - who are by and large the inspiration for standard Human culture in D&D - also engaged in raiding and wars for plunder.

Almost all early medieval cultures did.

True enough.

Still that gets back to my point that even played as a culture as against monsters in human shape Orcs aren't like humans. Even a brilliant Orc is only as clever as a slightly above average human while the scrawniest Orc is as strong as a hefty human. Even aside from Alignment they are going to be different from the humans surrounding them, and as I said probably far less successful than our real life Huns or Goths.

While the idea of Half Orc leaders has been raised maybe the Half Orcs, combining Orcish brawn and human brain have driven full Orcs to near extinction by out competing them? Over several generations of slave taking and intermarriage with local humans you could end up with Half Orc majority tribes.

[Ralanr]

I'd like to point out that the main critics of the Vikings like the Franks and Anglo-Saxons - who are by and large the inspiration for standard Human culture in D&D - also engaged in raiding and wars for plunder.

Almost all early medieval cultures did.

"It's only ok if we do it!"

[Naanomi]

My depiction has always been orcs are a race created for war, and even with their limited intelligence they have a good intuative sense of 'war stuff' to make it work... Logistics and command structure and formation marching come easy to Orcs. When they are at war they are doing good... Their 'warlords' lead well on the battlefield, they know how to keep fed on the march through hunting and pillaging. It is when peace comes they run out of steam and can't manage a 'civilian government'. The big and successful Orc settlements are therefore where war never stops... Either endless raiding between eachother where Orc populations are high, or near enemies that they will never fully defeat but will also not destroy them. Hobgoblins are warlike but can handle peace as well.

The current campaign I run has orcs mostly as mercenaries for other races, but an Orc 'kingdom' does exist on the edge of a dimensional rift, where endless outsiders, abberations, and elementals exist to war upon and keep 'focus' of Orcish minds

[RossN]

My depiction has always been orcs are a race created for war, and even with their limited intelligence they have a good intuative sense of 'war stuff' to make it work... Logistics and command structure and formation marching come easy to Orcs. When they are at war they are doing good... Their 'warlords' lead well on the battlefield, they know how to keep fed on the march through hunting and pillaging. It is when peace comes they run out of steam and can't manage a 'civilian government'. The big and successful Orc settlements are therefore where war never stops... Either endless raiding between eachother where Orc populations are high, or near enemies that they will never fully defeat but will also not destroy them. Hobgoblins are warlike but can handle peace as well.

The current campaign I run has orcs mostly as mercenaries for other races, but an Orc 'kingdom' does exist on the edge of a dimensional rift, where endless outsiders, abberations, and elementals exist to war upon and keep 'focus' of Orcish minds

That makes me think less of Warhammer Orcs but more of Warhammer Lizardmen. The Saurus are literally bred for war and have limited intellects, except for matters military, where they are at least the equal of humans. A Saurus Oldblood might not even know the word 'tactics' but has an excellent intuitive grasp of them.

I'm not sure I'd apply it to Orcs - being Chaotic Evil they strike me as much more brawling, might is right places where the warlord rules only as long as he is able to break the next challenger's arms but it is an interesting idea.

I suppose I'm more interested in the idea of the Orcs as a people in decline; dangerous individually but too crude and quarrelsome to compete with Hobgoblins and humans, and lacking the survival skills and society of Goblins and Kobolds. That could be why they flock to the banner of evil magicians, seeing in them someone powerful enough to arrest that decline.

[JoeJ]

This is exactly what I'd like to see cited -- not "we lack evidence that they had X", but rather, "we have evidence that they lacked X".

Hundreds of Mississippian sites have been examined, and none of them have had anything resembling writing or accounting records. The Spanish and French explorers who traversed the Southeast in the 16th century did not report encountering any kind of a writing system, and none of the North American tribes have any oral traditions about having once had their own writing system. There comes a point, which has long since been reached, when absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

They seem to have had a complex trade network, similar to Bronze Age Europe, but with more cultural regularity -- and then undergone a trade network collapse, just like Iron Age Europe, with similar concomitant cultural fragmentation.

A large trade network implies extensive accounting tallies.

AFAICT, across the vast swath of human societies, trade implies accounting.

If you can show that they had an extensive trade network without accounting, you will have shown me something unexpected and very interesting.

Thanks!

Your assumption that a large trade network needs something beyond personal memory to function is not supported by evidence. There was no form of writing, including written numbers, anywhere north of Mexico prior to European contact. Yet shells from the Pacific Ocean were carried deep into the Great Basin and into the Southwest as far as the Four Corners region. Turquoise from Nevada and Southern California (as shown by trace element analysis) is found in Colorado and New Mexico. Macaws were bred in Mexico and traded as far north as Colorado. The trade networks that brought goods into Cahokia and other Mississippian cities were longer than most in North America, but no different in kind. Similar long distance trade contacts existed on all the other inhabited continents as well, but they're well outside my area of specialty.

If you're interested in more details, a good layman's introduction can be found in the book Ancient North America by Brian M. Fagan.

[Osrogue]

this, rather than dissuade my opinion, makes me desperately want to write a story about some half-orc who stands up and begins to unite the orcs all under one nation and one tribe. This would be an amazing story to read

To be honest, while writing it out, I thought the same thing.

[Nifft]

The trade networks that brought goods into Cahokia and other Mississippian cities were longer than most in North America, but no different in kind. Similar long distance trade contacts existed on all the other inhabited continents as well, but they're well outside my area of specialty.

Yes, that's indeed the reason why an extensive trade network WITHOUT CONTRACTS would be surprising.

Contracts are a form of record, of course, and having contracts would mean record-keeping. Just stating that for the record. (Heh.)

Debt contracts pre-date writing and currency -- heck, interest-bearing debt contracts pre-date both of those things -- so a lack of those things isn't evidence of anything in particular.

If you're interested in some recent work about ancient trade networks, I can recommend "DEBT" by David Graeber (from 2011). It's well-written and very accessible.

[deathbymanga]

Yes, that's indeed the reason why an extensive trade network WITHOUT CONTRACTS would be surprising.

Contracts are a form of record, of course, and having contracts would mean record-keeping. Just stating that for the record. (Heh.)

Debt contracts pre-date writing and currency -- heck, interest-bearing debt contracts pre-date both of those things -- so a lack of those things isn't evidence of anything in particular.

If you're interested in some recent work about ancient trade networks, I can recommend "DEBT" by David Graeber (from 2011). It's well-written and very accessible.

ok, I'm just going to put this out there.

where the [blip] does it say that Orcs can't have record keeping?

[Mrglee]

where the [blip] does it say that Orcs can't have record keeping?

Doesn't, just people assuming they don't due to below average int and nomad culture.

[Nifft]

ok, I'm just going to put this out there.

where the [blip] does it say that Orcs can't have record keeping?

Don't point that tone at me, I'm not the one who says that they can't have such a universal thing.

I'm just the guy saying that record-keeping is a pretty universal thing.

[JoeJ]

Yes, that's indeed the reason why an extensive trade network WITHOUT CONTRACTS would be surprising.

Contracts are a form of record, of course, and having contracts would mean record-keeping. Just stating that for the record. (Heh.)

Debt contracts pre-date writing and currency -- heck, interest-bearing debt contracts pre-date both of those things -- so a lack of those things isn't evidence of anything in particular.

If you're interested in some recent work about ancient trade networks, I can recommend "DEBT" by David Graeber (from 2011). It's well-written and very accessible.

I'll look that up. However, memory is the kind of record keeping that most societies have used to keep track of debts. If Graeber's argument is that long range trade requires something beyond human memory to keep track of obligations, then he's simply wrong.

Getting back on topic, I don't use any part of the MM fluff on orcs. In large part, that's because it's tied to deities and mythologies that just don't work for me. In the last world I created, I had orcs be the descendants of humans that had been driven underground long ago by other humans. Consequently, orcish animosity toward surface humans is much greater than toward either elves or dwarves. (Orcs and elves mostly just ignore each other, in fact.) Half-orcs are treated as second class citizens (at best) by both humans and orcs.

As for why orcs aren't ruling the world, the obvious answer to me is simply numbers. Orcs can breed like anything, but they can't organize themselves on the scale that humans can. Raiding back and forth between orc villages is nearly constant; they're far more likely to fight each other than join together to war on anyone else. And they're certainly not going to form any kind of disciplined army and take orders from somebody who isn't even from the same village.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm actually sympathetic to the idea of playing with Orcs as a culture as against simply monsters - but I don't think playing them as tusked Vikings is the answer. Orcish limitations should define them as much as their strengths. Orcs are stronger and hardier than humans so they might well be able to live in places were we can't, achieve things with mere muscle it would take humans machines or beasts of burden to work. However Orcs are also less intelligent than humans, with all that implies - poorer farmers, poorer craftsman, and so on.

Maybe Orcs raid human settlements less for plunder and more for food, which the humans always seem to have an abundance of, knowing the strange magic of 'agriculture'. Maybe more successful Orcish tribes have slotted themselves into human cultures as mercenaries, letting the humans take care of making food and weapons while Orcs do the fighting and heavy lifting.

They are dumber, but they aren't that much dumber. To play it out, I'd have it that the primary form of Orc tech advancement is to loot, steal, and trade from their neighbors. The raiders may even take slaves to invent new things for them. But it would take a really exceptional Orc to expand on those ideas themselves. But those exceptional orcs can and do exist.

[RossN]

They are dumber, but they aren't that much dumber. To play it out, I'd have it that the primary form of Orc tech advancement is to loot, steal, and trade from their neighbors. The raiders may even take slaves to invent new things for them. But it would take a really exceptional Orc to expand on those ideas themselves. But those exceptional orcs can and do exist.

I think it might be a good idea if we moved the debate on Orc intellect and civilisation (or lack thereof) to a new thread and let MrConsideration continue with his monsters.

[Mrmox42]

I think it might be a good idea if we moved the debate on Orc intellect and civilisation (or lack thereof) to a new thread and let MrConsideration continue with his monsters.

I agree with RossN.

[Aetol]

Why were orcs even brought up ? We're still at C, no ?

[deathbymanga]

Why were orcs even brought up ? We're still at C, no ?

I didn't know this was alphabetical. I just wanted to talk about orcs

[Shining Wrath]

that's litterally the exact opposite of what happened. Grummsh came last and everything was already taken. So he told his orcs to conquer everything

Sorry - my world, not the default.

[MrConsideration]

Here's a thread where you can continue the debate on Orc culture or lack thereof.

[Tallis]

Hope I'm not out of line posting this now. The new thread is just for the record-keeping type discussion yes? We can still talk about the entrees as monsters and how we would use them?

Orc

Ah the mighty orc, the powerful barbarians of D&D. The cousins of the Elves and sworn enemies. Worshipers of Grummsh One-Eye, who I'm still confused about if he's an elven God as well, like Lolth, or if he's a completely different God. Are Orcs Giant-beefy Elves, are they cousins? Nephews? Uncles? The Orcs were told by their god to take any land that they can find, because when the world was started, everything was already taken and they had nowhere to live.

Am I the only one who feels a lot more of a Jewish feel for the Orcs than a Mongol feel?

Yes, I'm pretty sure you're the only one that thinks orcs are like Jews. Although in their early history the Jews were quite warlike. I'm also curious about where you are getting the orc/elf relation. Been watching or reading Lord of the Rings? I can't find anything about that in the monster manual.
Orcs are a plague, they are scavengers. They come into an area, kill or enslave everyone, use up all the resources and then move on. They produce nothing. They only build for defense. They are not an organized army they are a mob whose weapons are fear and brute strength. Their fast breeding is counterbalanced by so many of them dying in combat because full frontal assault is pretty much their only tactic. You might find a rare orc that's smarter and tries to lead a band with some tactics but they are undisciplined and unruly so it is difficult to get them to fall in line.
Adventure Hook
Orcs came through these lands a hundred years ago. They took everything of value, destroyed everything else and only a very lucky few escaped their wrath. Now small bands of orcs have been seen in the area. Are the hordes coming back? How can we save ourselves? Many people are already talking about packing up and leaving but the peasantry can't just leave their farms. They have nothing else....

[Tallis]

Chimera


We continue our trip through Hellenistic myth with the Chimera. Like many monsters in the D&D canon, the Chimera has moved from being an individual creature to a whole species, which is an interpretation I feel is a little odd (are all chimera in the world specifically part lion, dragon and goat? I'd prefer to see a range of Chimera - one is part crocodile, zebra and stag, another mixes aurochs, badger and platypus....) and rather lessens the impact of the sheer weirdness of the Chimera. Long before the progenitors of our hobby were looking at crappy plastic miniatures and inventing Gelatinous Cubes and Owlbears, ancient Greeks were also assembling absurd monstrosities. In my personal campaign setting, I'm a stickler for unique monsters. I've always liked the Forgotten Beasts and Titans of the Dwarf Fortress and think the chimera works best as one of those - a hideous antideluvian accident that by sheer happenstance is still blighting the world. Before we get too mixed-up, let's check him out.

I like the chimera because it's such a classic monster. Your idea of different kinds of Chimeric monsters is awesome and could be used to great effect for flavor and to buff them up for higher level parties.
To me a chimera is a divine guardian or curse. The gods put them there to guard something they don't want disturbed by the unworthy or they send them to punish the town that displeased them. I could also see them being used as shock troops by monstrous armies.

[deathbymanga]

Hope I'm not out of line posting this now. The new thread is just for the record-keeping type discussion yes? We can still talk about the entrees as monsters and how we would use them?


Yes, I'm pretty sure you're the only one that thinks orcs are like Jews. Although in their early history the Jews were quite warlike. I'm also curious about where you are getting the orc/elf relation. Been watching or reading Lord of the Rings? I can't find anything about that in the monster manual.
Orcs are a plague, they are scavengers. They come into an area, kill or enslave everyone, use up all the resources and then move on. They produce nothing. They only build for defense. They are not an organized army they are a mob whose weapons are fear and brute strength. Their fast breeding is counterbalanced by so many of them dying in combat because full frontal assault is pretty much their only tactic. You might find a rare orc that's smarter and tries to lead a band with some tactics but they are undisciplined and unruly so it is difficult to get them to fall in line.
Adventure Hook
Orcs came through these lands a hundred years ago. They took everything of value, destroyed everything else and only a very lucky few escaped their wrath. Now small bands of orcs have been seen in the area. Are the hordes coming back? How can we save ourselves? Many people are already talking about packing up and leaving but the peasantry can't just leave their farms. They have nothing else....

Orcs in D&D were born from Tolkien's interpretation of Dark Elves, the underground equivalent of Elves. The two races populated their world in the Nordic Multiverse with the Elves living on the surface, while the Orcs lived in the caves and tunnels.

Also, I referred to them as the cousins of Elves because the Orcs were made by Grummsh in his image, while the Elves were made in the image of their own gods, and Grummsh seems to have a very long relationship with the Elven deities, and was even manipulated by Lolth into fighting the elven gods (hence his missing eye)

[Tallis]

Orcs in D&D were born from Tolkien's interpretation of Dark Elves, the underground equivalent of Elves. The two races populated their world in the Nordic Multiverse with the Elves living on the surface, while the Orcs lived in the caves and tunnels.

Also, I referred to them as the cousins of Elves because the Orcs were made by Grummsh in his image, while the Elves were made in the image of their own gods, and Grummsh seems to have a very long relationship with the Elven deities, and was even manipulated by Lolth into fighting the elven gods (hence his missing eye)

Fair enough, but non of that is from the monster manual except the part about Grummsh losing his eye to Corellon Laerethian in battle. Having a longstanding feud with someone doesn't make you their cousin. I argue with lots of people that I'm not related to at all :P.
It's a fine interpretation if that's what you want to use for your campaigns but as we've seen in other MM entries the current official D&D version of monsters are not always the same as the source material. ex- Chimreas were created by Demogorgon? Pretty sure that's not in the original Greek myths....
Again: whatever you like is cool, just thought it was odd that you posted it the way you did. Made me go back and read my MM looking to see if I missed something :)

[JoeJ]

I like the chimera because it's such a classic monster. Your idea of different kinds of Chimeric monsters is awesome and could be used to great effect for flavor and to buff them up for higher level parties.
To me a chimera is a divine guardian or curse. The gods put them there to guard something they don't want disturbed by the unworthy or they send them to punish the town that displeased them. I could also see them being used as shock troops by monstrous armies.

I've never liked D&D's habit of turning a unique monster into a species (although I'll admit that the idea of an entire nation of minotaurs is slowly starting to grow on me). The most awful examples are Scylla and Charybdis, which almost made me hurl the PF Bestiary 2 across the room when I saw them both treated that way.

But taking a cue from the modern usage of the word "chimera" in biology (and Full Metal Alchemist), I could see the word being applied to any magical hybrid. I'll therefore second the suggestion made a few pages back that each chimera should be unique in both appearance and abilities.

Adventure Hook: Years ago, an evil transmuter was caught committing horrible crimes against nature and executed. All the creatures in his tower were destroyed at that time, but a recent earthquake has revealed a hidden level. Explorers find the level to be empty, but something has started attacking outlying farmstead. Did the earthquake free something that shouldn't even exist at all?

[RossN]

Fluff
The fluff gives them an origin story as creations of Demogorgon, which I can get behind, and I love the idea of their heads being conflicted or antagonistic to one another - whilst this is played for laughs with Ettins, you could make it more tragic with the chimera in your campaign. They occupy vast territories and fight rival monsters for dominion, so they're always going to be coming to the attention of local adventurers. The 'typical' Chimera resembles the one on this page, which gives a nod to the idea that there are many varieties of chimera you could introduce. All in all, there's a tone of both the mythic and mundane naturalism in this text which I always find a little irritating in D&D - if I know its the monstrous creation of demons I don't need to know how it goes to the toilet. All in all, a few gameable morsels and a lot of the usual "bla bla bla this creature is extremely cruel..." waffle you always get in Monster Manuals.

A heroic effort is made throughout to make the goat head threatening - it apparently bestows a willingness to fight to the death.
If you say so, Monster Manual!

An origin by Fiend is fine but maybe it's just me but if any D&D monster seems to suggest "a (Chaotic) wizard made me" it is the Chimera. Their bizarre appearance created out of real animals seem very experimental, and they would make good shock troops.

There was actually a Wizard kit for 2e that was based around creating magical hybrids - the Merlayne.

[Wardog]

For an alternative design of a Chimera skeleton, see here:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/qimera

[MrConsideration]

Chuul
A Chuul, introduced in the Third Edition of D&D and thus a comparative newcomer to monsterhood, is ancient in-universe. Created by the Aboleths to assert their hegemony on the land, these strange creatures are somewhere between crustacean, automaton and sea-food platter, and now exist only to scuttle about trying to resurrect the glories of the Pax Abolethia.


Art
I sort of wonder what the brief was for the artist drawing the Chuul. Having a google over its previous incarnations, this artwork is fairly derivative - that's not necessarily a criticism. I think when you're marketing something that is weird, like the z-list abberation that the Chuul are, you have to really work to establish the form in people's minds. Ithillids and Beholders are established enough that we can mess around and make the form different and have our own riffs on them: they are suitably antifragile. So it's a big weird lobster thing, flailing its arms. The art foregrounds the claws and Ood-like mouth tentacles as its main unique selling points. I really like the legs, which don't really look like anything I've seen before in fantasy. I think it establishes Chuul well, but its not a piece of art that I find particularly evocative. It's more biology sketch than masterpiece.


Purpose and Tactics
The Chuul is fairly unlikely to be a social encounter, judging by its poor intelligence and the fact it only understands Deep Speech, and can't actually speak. However, I can see using the fact it has a simple, pre-programmed mission to use it. If players discover the Chuul defends a specific area or item, they could bait it into a trap, or into fighting other enemies.

As a combatant the Chuul is something of a one-trick prawn-y. It's multi-attack gives it the option of grappling with the lobster claws and then using its Dr Zoidberg face to paralyse an opponent. Considering the low damage output (6-16) and the limitations on how many people the Chuul can immobilize, I'm fairly sure the Chuul won't be much of a threat without support from other creatures. As a group or in an Aboleth cohort, they're excellent crowd control monsters. Additionally, their ability to swim and breathe underwater can help them traverse flooded areas, sunken temples or coastal regions to ambush your players - it also has brilliant darkvision, so a particularaly memorable encounter might take place both underwater and in pitch blackness. An encounter on those lines should be more evocative of Ridley Scott's Alien than your standard D&D fare. In the dark the Chuul's innate ability to sense magic should allow it to home in on your standard party with the ease of an thaumaturgic bloodhound - and dangling the possibility of abandoning magic items to save their lives would truly horrify most players.

Fluff
There are aspects of this that I really like: the concept of a race of mindless, scuttling minions still following genetic commands millenia after the Aboleths have passed makes for excellent adventure material. They're active in a way few other 'ancient lost empire' races can plausibly be, and could easily emerge from a coastal region or lost temple to capture humanoids, hoard treasures and combat rivals. This gives them loads of excuses to become quest hooks for your players.

One brilliant aspect is the idea that Chuul keep growing - whilst Large Chuul might be scrapping with your party, a long-term threat might be a Cloverfield-sized Chuul resting on the ocean floor, ready to awaken and signal the thousand year Aboleth-reich.

Adventure Hooks
In the Isles of Daganskuld, there has long been rumours of a sea-creature of incredible size, which drags ships into the depths with complete arbitrariness and indifference. Could your players chase down the source of this behemoth?

An expedition has been mounted to the recently discovered ruins on the island of Svaldi. However, members of the team have gone missing, as has a rare crate of magical equipment...

Your players arrive in a coastal village. Everyone is missing. Strange tracks abound.

Verdict: Solid, creepy aberration for lower-level characters. Unfortunately not as iconic as Mind Flayers or Aboleths.

[JNAProductions]

I actually used a Chuul as a criminal mastermind once. I, uh, might have missed the low intelligence.

To be fair, this is the same game where the players main goal was running a coffee shop.

[RossN]

Adventure Hooks
In the Isles of Daganskuld, there has long been rumours of a sea-creature of incredible size, which drags ships into the depths with complete arbitrariness and indifference. Could your players chase down the source of this behemoth?

An expedition has been mounted to the recently discovered ruins on the island of Svaldi. However, members of the team have gone missing, as has a rare crate of magical equipment...

Your players arrive in a coastal village. Everyone is missing. Strange tracks abound.

I like the adventure hooks you provide, nicely creepy.

I'm not sure Chaotic Evil is the right alignment for these critters. From the description they seem little like they should be Lawful, being hyper obedient minion types.

[Talakeal]

The Chuul always reminded me of the Meganulon from the original Rodan movie. Those scared the hell out of me as a kid, and have always made the Chuul stick out in my mind.