AMFES creatures I can't identify

[Sage Mann]

I hope the OOTS forum proper is the place to talk about A Monster for Every Season... I have all six collections that exist so far, got every one nearly the day it came out, and I'm obsessed with them. I've spent the past few months researching and classifying every miniature in the whole thing, there are certainly some deep cuts and while some of them haven't appeared since 1st Edition for good reasons, I've found most to be pretty valid to at least inspire something in my campaign worlds. I haven't actually printed and played with them since a little ranger-themed one-shot I did in the very brief period of time that Spring 1 was the only one that was out to the public, but... maybe someday.

After going through all 273 pages of unique miniatures, I've found there are only TWO creatures in the whole thing whose origin I've been unable to determine. Maybe someone else knows:

The first is the oracles. They appear once in every elemental theme in Summer 1 and Winter, including cold, and they're among my favorite designs in the whole set, but I can't figure out what inspired them, can't find anything about elemental oracles in the gaming world... oracles are usually just people, not huge elemental women. Are they a Giant orginal?

I thought the other one that would trip me up would be the pers, who appear in Summer 2 next to the valkyries and einherjar. Figured I'd never find them since "per" is a commonly used preposition, but I eventually thought to directly search for them on the Forgotten Realms wiki and found out what they are. I'd had the vibe that they were very similar to einherjar, and indeed, they have roughly the same origin story.

No, the other one that tripped me up was the nightmare inducer, appearing in the psychic threats theme, also in Summer 2. I know I've seen that very distinctive creature design somewhere before... it gives me 3rd Edition vibes... but I haven't found anything from searching the phrase "nightmare inducer". What is this guy??

[Tzardok]

The oracles are properly called Elemental Weirds, and IIRC they appear in the Monster Manual 2 (except for the snow and ice variants, which appear in Frostburn).

What does the Nightmare Inducer look like?

[Sage Mann]

What does the Nightmare Inducer look like?

Let's see... medium-sized, but of the "medium but on the large side" size that was introduced in Spring 2. Scaly serpentine body, face is featureless apart from seven eyes each of a different color, has a pair of pincer claws and three pairs of human arms.

[Tzardok]

Let's see... medium-sized, but of the "medium but on the large side" size that was introduced in Spring 2. Scaly serpentine body, face is featureless apart from seven eyes each of a different color, has a pair of pincer claws and three pairs of human arms.

That's a tsucora quori, from Eberron.

[Sage Mann]

Nailed it! Thanks.

I'm surprised about the elemental weirds. That they evolved from beautiful women to being just... serpentine. And just water. Always liked water weirds, interesting that's where they came from.

[Tzardok]

Nailed it! Thanks.

I'm surprised about the elemental weirds. That they evolved from beautiful women to being just... serpentine. And just water. Always liked water weirds, interesting that's where they came from.

That's what I believed too. It's not true. Water weirds (the drowning snakes) have been around since forever. 3.0 simply replaced them with the oracle elementals, and a Dragon Magazine article in 3.5 tried to tie them together in a clumsy way. Or, to say it more pithy:

Nope, it went:

OD&D: Hey dad let's have a drowny water snake.
1E D&D: Who doesn't love a drowny water snake?
2E D&D: Check out everyone's favorite drowny water snake!
3E D&D: Hi I'm an oracular lady who lives in a pool of water that can transform you into water and I tell you things about healing. Also I'm just one elemental flavor of the same thing.
3.5E D&D: ...oh and also drowny water snakes are our immature versions... for some reason.
4E D&D: What just happened? We're gonna take a breather on the insanity.
5E D&D: Breathing is for sissies, drowny water snakes are back!

[Metastachydium]

I mean, "powerful oracular being" makes a lot more sense with that name than "drowny water snake", but that larval stage thing… Yeah.