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

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Explaining that nobody is named Nobody doesn't seem to clear up the situation.

This line. Just this line.

I can see the Cyclops' reply "Of course, Nobody is named Nobody. Now bring out Nobody"
Humans: "Okay." (Proceed to bring out nobody).

It's an Abbot and Costello skit in the making.

[Mith]

It's an Abbot and Costello skit in the making.

But with treeclubs instead of slapsticks.

[Angel Bob]

That was the idea, yes. Frankly, I found it very difficult to come up with any exciting adventure hooks involving cyclopes, so I just went for comedy.

[Talakeal]

In my setting I have Cyclops as the degenerate children of a once enlightened civilization, inhabiting fantastic ruins that they no longer understand how to build or maintain.

They also believe themselves to be descended from the god Poseidon (even if they no longer have the god's favor) and they feel that all water is theirs by rights, and they tend to use their size to extort people who want to travel by boat or utilize aqueducts or irrigation in their domain.

[Angel Bob]

In my setting I have Cyclops as the degenerate children of a once enlightened civilization, inhabiting fantastic ruins that they no longer understand how to build or maintain.

They also believe themselves to be descended from the god Poseidon (even if they no longer have the god's favor) and they feel that all water is theirs by rights, and they tend to use their size to extort people who want to travel by boat or utilize aqueducts or irrigation in their domain.

See, now, that's how you make cyclops interesting in your campaign world.

[georgie_leech]

That was the idea, yes. Frankly, I found it very difficult to come up with any exciting adventure hooks involving cyclopes, so I just went for comedy.

It's not strictly comedy, but if you're not going for a serious tone, I've always liked 'tribe of cyclops that worships a Beholder' myself.

[Regitnui]

It's not strictly comedy, but if you're not going for a serious tone, I've always liked 'tribe of cyclops that worships a Beholder' myself.

The Cyclops being the relative of the beholder seems like an interesting twist. Older cyclopes start sprouting 'hair' nodes and when they die, their head pops off, the other eyes open and they head off.

Alternatively, the cyclopes were created by the same thing that made beholders, only they were an experiment to create humanoid beholders. They cyclopes got adopted into the giant ordning because no other races wanted the creatures.

[Flashy]

The Cyclops being the relative of the beholder seems like an interesting twist. Older cyclopes start sprouting 'hair' nodes and when they die, their head pops off, the other eyes open and they head off.

You could even add a transitionary step to the life cycle by having it go cyclops -> fomorian -> beholder.

[RazDelacroix]

Wait, head sprouts new appendages and flies off? Oh sweet mother of [Insert Holy Deity Here]! GIANT VARGOUILLES! RUN! RUN FER YER LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!

[Regitnui]

Wait, head sprouts new appendages and flies off? Oh sweet mother of [Insert Holy Deity Here]! GIANT VARGOUILLES! RUN! RUN FER YER LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!

Yeah, pretty much. That giant you spent about two rounds focus fire on? The fighter didn't decapitate it, the head matured. Now you've got a newborn beholder and a couple more cyclopes coming to see what the fuss was in grampa's cave. Good luck.

[Mrmox42]

This Beholder/Cyclops thing a brilliant idea. Gives the Cyclops a whole new dimension (and the Beholder as well). Consider it used in my campaign world.

[Kurt Kurageous]

This Beholder/Cyclops thing a brilliant idea. Gives the Cyclops a whole new dimension (and the Beholder as well). Consider it used in my campaign world.

I'm thinking of using it but not actually doing it.

Consider the effect on the party that finds a cave painting or a discovered series of paintings/sculpts/etc. showing cyclopses (?) transforming into beholders. That's a real nice red herring, and a quest that needs no seeding.

[Regitnui]

This Beholder/Cyclops thing a brilliant idea. Gives the Cyclops a whole new dimension (and the Beholder as well). Consider it used in my campaign world.

Thanks! :D

I'm thinking of using it but not actually doing it.

Consider the effect on the party that finds a cave painting or a discovered series of paintings/sculpts/etc. showing cyclopses (?) transforming into beholders. That's a real nice red herring, and a quest that needs no seeding.

Also a good way to use it. The Lords of Madness, Libris Mortis and other setting and monster splatbooks from 3.5 are my favourite source of ideas.

[Mith]

This Beholder/Cyclops thing a brilliant idea. Gives the Cyclops a whole new dimension (and the Beholder as well). Consider it used in my campaign world.

Myself as well. I cannot wait to throw my party at the Cyclops Islands.

[Angel Bob]

Looks like discussion on the cyclops has died down, so it's probably time to move on to the darkmantle. Is anyone else interested in writing up a post? It needn't be just me.

[Shining Wrath]

Agreed that the Cyclopian race is not sufficiently distinct from other giants merely by virtue of having the single eye. They need better fluff.

Odysseys used the name "Noman", not "Nobody". "Who hurt you?" "Noman". "Well if Noman hurt you it must have been one of the gods, and you deserve your blindness".

The Cyclops as the larval form of the Beholder is excellent, but why not the other way? Ancient Beholders wither away until only the great central eye is left, and when these fall to the ground they sometimes take root and grow a Cyclops. It gives the Cyclops both an aberrant feel and also an elemental one, sort of an Antaeus.

Aside from being Beholder-kin or Poseidon spawn they could be the descendents of once mighty hunters, who killed the birds sacred to [insert deity] and were cursed with only short-range vision and insufficient wit to craft bows. Can the curse be lifted? Should it be lifted? Perhaps the deity no longer cares.

[Mrmox42]

It could be an eternal cycle. The old Beholder shrinks, falls to the ground, sprout a body (over time) and becomes a Cyclops. Then it spends a few hundred years as an earth-bound biped, head pops off, and it becomes a Beholder Again.

[georgie_leech]

Odysseys used the name "Noman", not "Nobody". "Who hurt you?" "Noman". "Well if Noman hurt you it must have been one of the gods, and you deserve your blindness".

Do you have a source for that? The only version I've ever read uses Nobody, and while I can't read ancient Greek text, a cursory Google only brings up a slightly obscure literary question site and a great many books that reference works by another author with the same last name.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Do you have a source for that? The only version I've ever read uses Nobody, and while I can't read ancient Greek text, a cursory Google only brings up a slightly obscure literary question site and a great many books that reference works by another author with the same last name.

Not that I'm an authority or anything, but the first time I read the story it was "Noman". I have come across "Nobody" versions recently, but I figured that was something similar to the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone change.

[Kurt Kurageous]

It could be an eternal cycle. The old Beholder shrinks, falls to the ground, sprout a body (over time) and becomes a Cyclops. Then it spends a few hundred years as an earth-bound biped, head pops off, and it becomes a Beholder Again.

Ick. I guess that's why beholders are always P.O.ed. at the world.

What I've done is made it a scam. A new ruler within the empire wants the empire to shift resources their way. The ruler makes a magic item that reacts to a casting/attunement on it by casting Suggestion with a high DC. The suggestion is that the item (a tarted up plow yoke) has the ability to turn cyclopses into beholders, and further suggests that they believe this despite knowing facts that contradict it (cognitive dissonance).

It's called (prepare to groan) "the Yoke of the Beholder." And there must be more than one out there, as the runes clearly say "3 of 14."

The idea is that cyclopses becoming (really dumb) beholders is a threat the empire cannot ignore, so they will send $/military assets to help that ruler. The assets will be used to start/support a greater conflict.

[Shining Wrath]

Do you have a source for that? The only version I've ever read uses Nobody, and while I can't read ancient Greek text, a cursory Google only brings up a slightly obscure literary question site and a great many books that reference works by another author with the same last name.

Going by my memory of reading the Odyssey a few years back. Wikipedia has "Nobody", but the MIT online text has "Noman".

Tufts online text also has "Noman".

[SharkForce]

Going by my memory of reading the Odyssey a few years back. Wikipedia has "Nobody", but the MIT online text has "Noman".

Tufts online text also has "Noman".

they're translated. neither of them are really completely accurate. the actual text is a bunch of greek symbols that probably most of us can't read, and which does not sound particularly like either "noman" or "nobody".

the original name is not on the playing field, here. there's just english words that mean the same thing as the original name, and since both of those "names" mean essentially the same thing, either one works (but "noman" sounds a lot more like something that could be mistaken for an actual name, so i'd probably go with that).

[JackPhoenix]

Looks like discussion on the cyclops has died down, so it's probably time to move on to the darkmantle. Is anyone else interested in writing up a post? It needn't be just me.

I wanted to give it a try, but I was kinda busy the last few days...despite the entry being a little bland, it's the kind of creature I like

I think I should have time either later tonight or sometime tomorrow

[Shining Wrath]

they're translated. neither of them are really completely accurate. the actual text is a bunch of greek symbols that probably most of us can't read, and which does not sound particularly like either "noman" or "nobody".

the original name is not on the playing field, here. there's just english words that mean the same thing as the original name, and since both of those "names" mean essentially the same thing, either one works (but "noman" sounds a lot more like something that could be mistaken for an actual name, so i'd probably go with that).

The point of a translation - I believe both of these were done by people with PhD's in Ancient Greek - is that someone who can understand reads alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta etc. and turns them into English. A couple of really smart peeps, then, thought those squiggles were closer to "Noman" than anything else, while the person who did Wikipedia chose "Nobody", possibly with good reason.

Some people (I think it was Nietzsche) argue that translation is impossible, that a statement can only be understood in the original. Others believe that translation is possible to some asymptotic approach to accuracy.

[georgie_leech]

Interesting. Either way it gets the point across I suppose.

Also, turns out the reason I was having a hard time finding it was that my phone had autocorrected it to 'Norman' and I didn't notice. Oops.

[SharkForce]

The point of a translation - I believe both of these were done by people with PhD's in Ancient Greek - is that someone who can understand reads alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta etc. and turns them into English. A couple of really smart peeps, then, thought those squiggles were closer to "Noman" than anything else, while the person who did Wikipedia chose "Nobody", possibly with good reason.

Some people (I think it was Nietzsche) argue that translation is impossible, that a statement can only be understood in the original. Others believe that translation is possible to some asymptotic approach to accuracy.

sure, but in this case, it's like translating poetry. you just have to go with what you feel fits best... there is no "one true answer". you're just picking which of the literal meanings "feels right" to you. it's essentially an idiomatic expression, because the name is basically a pun. in greek. there is no direct literal translation that preserves the pun

[Mrmox42]

The idea is that cyclopses becoming (really dumb) beholders is a threat the empire cannot ignore, so they will send $/military assets to help that ruler. The assets will be used to start/support a greater conflict.

Another scheme by the military-industrial complex
Sounds brilliant. Gives the players a conspiracy to unravel.

[Shining Wrath]

sure, but in this case, it's like translating poetry. you just have to go with what you feel fits best... there is no "one true answer". you're just picking which of the literal meanings "feels right" to you. it's essentially an idiomatic expression, because the name is basically a pun. in greek. there is no direct literal translation that preserves the pun

Translation is both an art and a science; while "Noman" and "Nobody" might be acceptable, "Someguy" probably isn't. Anyway, I probably shouldn't have come in with a definitive statement that "Noman" is correct; I just thought that fit better with the line about "Well, if No Man did this it was a god" versus "Well, if Nobody did this it was a god" as gods are clearly somebody.

But I do like this site precisely because it lets me have conversations like this about the intricacies of translating puns.

[SharkForce]

Translation is both an art and a science; while "Noman" and "Nobody" might be acceptable, "Someguy" probably isn't. Anyway, I probably shouldn't have come in with a definitive statement that "Noman" is correct; I just thought that fit better with the line about "Well, if No Man did this it was a god" versus "Well, if Nobody did this it was a god" as gods are clearly somebody.

But I do like this site precisely because it lets me have conversations like this about the intricacies of translating puns.

so "noman" feels better for you. it is not particularly more valid than "nobody" or "no-one" or anything else that essentially means the same thing, because for someone else the other versions might feel more right to them. they aren't "wrong" for thinking that a different word feels better. of course, they aren't inherently "right" either...

[N810]

Ancient Greek generally lacked the large vocabulary of modern languages.