MitD XIX: The Potted Plant Is Starting To Look Reasonable

[hroþila]

In my opinion, intuitively, there'd be a big difference between Xykon emoting with his eye sockets (even closing them against all logic), and a creature being depicted with eyes that do not clearly match any physical characteristic analogous to eyes

[Tzardok]

Could've used with that description ages ago. Yoink'ed.

Thanks!

ETA: except... what creature type is the uvuu? Most types still need to eat, so it must have a mouth-like organ somewhere, even if it is not in the forward appendage? Also, does it have blindsight?

GW

Uvuudaums are outsiders, which means they don't need food. They have blindsight 500 ft.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

In my opinion, intuitively, there'd be a big difference between Xykon emoting with his eye sockets (even closing them against all logic), and a creature being depicted with eyes that do not clearly match any physical characteristic analogous to eyes

You're going to have to expand on that intuition, because Xykon fits that second definition of "a creature being depicted with eyes that do not clearly match any physical characteristic analogous to eyes". Xykon does not have eyes, nor anything analogous to one. It has empty eye sockets that provide as much assistance to his vision as the cheerleaders do to the final score of the game. I've no idea if D&D has a definite answer to "how do undead see" ("mumble mumble negative energy" if I were to guess), but I am fairly sure "photons hitting the back of the eye socket" does not come into it at all.

And yet Rich needs Xykon, and indeed MitD, to emote, so emoting eyes they get, against all logic. So once again, I stand by my original statement: we do not know that MitD has eyes. We do not know them he has them while awake, we definitely don't know that he does when depicted with curved lines indicating sleep. We have never seen his eyes, and while assuming he does have eyes is more likely than not, it is not an indisputable fact.

Uvuudaums are outsiders, which means they don't need food. They have blindsight 500 ft.

Thanks again.

Grey Wolf

[Keltest]

Oh for...

This is the correct analogous creature for something lacking eyes. You will note the complete lack of lines where eyes might be to emote, even when it is expressing an emotional state.

[Kish]

Uvuudaums are outsiders, which means they don't need food.

I'm inclined to think of this as a rule that Rich has played fast and loose with in the past, but there is, of course, no way to say that Celia actually needs to eat rather than just choosing to.

I also think that while Rich would not have said "nothing in the first 100 comics contradicts" if the creature he'd chosen had no eyes, if he disagrees with me there, he wouldn't then balk at depicting a sleeping uvuudaum with closed eyes.

The creature in the darkness definitely eats, and proverbially eats a lot, whether he needs to or not.

[hroþila]

You're going to have to expand on that intuition, because Xykon fits that second definition of "a creature being depicted with eyes that do not clearly match any physical characteristic analogous to eyes". Xykon does not have eyes, nor anything analogous to one. It has empty eye sockets that provide as much assistance to his vision as the cheerleaders do to the final score of the game. I've no idea if D&D has a definite answer to "how do undead see" ("mumble mumble negative energy" if I were to guess), but I am fairly sure "photons hitting the back of the eye socket" does not come into it at all.

I don't mean analogous from a biological point of view, but rather in terms of their physical appearance. Xykon has eye sockets analogous to eyeballs and he has shiny pinpoint eye thingies analogous to pupils. Those are things with actual physical reality being used to emote in the comic. A creature with no eyes, a completely different number of eyes or eyes laid out in a different shape would not be equivalent to Xykon emoting with his very real eye sockets and shiny pupil-like dots, that would be the equivalent of Xykon having no face at all but emoting with imaginary eye sockets

[brian 333]

You're going to have to expand on that intuition, because Xykon fits that second definition of "a creature being depicted with eyes that do not clearly match any physical characteristic analogous to eyes". Xykon does not have eyes, nor anything analogous to one. It has empty eye sockets that provide as much assistance to his vision as the cheerleaders do to the final score of the game. I've no idea if D&D has a definite answer to "how do undead see" ("mumble mumble negative energy" if I were to guess), but I am fairly sure "photons hitting the back of the eye socket" does not come into it at all.

And yet Rich needs Xykon, and indeed MitD, to emote, so emoting eyes they get, against all logic. So once again, I stand by my original statement: we do not know that MitD has eyes. We do not know them he has them while awake, we definitely don't know that he does when depicted with curved lines indicating sleep. We have never seen his eyes, and while assuming he does have eyes is more likely than not, it is not an indisputable fact.


Thanks again.

Grey Wolf

I would like to comment on the two bolded lines:

Liches are described and typically depicted as having glowing orbs in their eye-sockets. Therefore they do (or can) have something analogous to eyes which can be used to emote.

Cheerleaders do, in fact, have an affect on the score of a game in virtually direct proportion to the degree to which they stimulate the fans to cheer. The effect is more pronounced at amateur levels, but even professional teams gain a 'homefield advantage' primarily due to the ability of coordinated fans to control the level of excitement and the volume of noise on the field.

Cheerleaders performing dance routines while the game is in progress do little to alter the game's outcome, but cheerleaders who generate fan participation during lulls, or who stoke fan noise and excitement during critical plays can have a measurable effect on gameplay.

Just ask any NFL quarterback who has been inside the 20 on a drive against the Saints in the Superdome.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't mean analogous from a biological point of view, but rather in terms of their physical appearance. Xykon has eye sockets analogous to eyeballs and he has shiny pinpoint eye thingies analogous to pupils. Those are things with actual physical reality being used to emote in the comic. A creature with no eyes, a completely different number of eyes or eyes laid out in a different shape would not be equivalent to Xykon emoting with his very real eye sockets and shiny pupil-like dots, that would be the equivalent of Xykon having no face at all but emoting with imaginary eye sockets

You cannot emote with eye sockets, and yet Xykon does so. A creature with no eyes, or weird eyes, can still be depicted by Rich emoting with whatever they happen to have. Even if they are yellow pus-filled balls of putrescence. Even if they are patches of skin used for attracting mates. Whatever. Rich is not constrained by the physical reality of the creature, he is constrained by his need to have it emote.

Liches are described and typically depicted as having glowing orbs in their eye-sockets. Therefore they do (or can) have something analogous to eyes which can be used to emote.

And Rich could have chosen to show Xykon "sleeping" by dimming those orbs. But instead he chose to depict an anatomically impossible closed eye sockets, aka the curved lines that are the comic shorthand of sleep.

Cheerleaders do, in fact, have an affect on the score of a game in virtually direct proportion to the degree to which they stimulate the fans to cheer.

Rich disagrees with you.

GW

[Metastachydium]

Obligatory reminder, once more, that this is what an eyeless creature at rest looks like. (Also, obligatory reminder, once more, that freaking humans can sleep standing up if they have something to support themselves against – like a wall or, say, a sturdy box.)

[brian 333]

Rich disagrees with you.

GW

Rich disagrees with science? Please link.

[Tzardok]

Rich disagrees with science? Please link.

Grey Wolf references this conversation between the IFCC directors.

[Ruck]

The third panel of page 49 does not show the Monster in the Dark at all.

You are assuming that the Monster in the Dark must be in the light in this panel, and that the Hunting Horror can never be in the light, when both of these assumptions are points under debate.

Look, if you want to interpret that panel as "the MitD isn't actually in the light and/or saying how much he loves the sunshine," you can, but I think you're straining to rationalize your position here.

The one we never got to make because Peelee wanted a monster on deck for Whataboutisms with no limitations on what would be considered germane.

What?

How does the Protean explain this scene? We've never found a monster that can explain this scene, so no explanation is necessary?

How does the Protean "explain" saying "Oh boy! Try to be scary, try to be scary, try to be scary..."? What needs an explanation? That's perfectly reflective of MitD's personality from what he's seen.

And how does the Protean explain all the times it asks to be in the light or be let out of the box and desists simply because it's told it can't? A Hunting Horror is prone to following orders per its fluff.

I think the best reply to these two questions are:

Do you just... genuinely not comprehend that the MitD is a person? And that people's personalities are, in fact, not defined by their species' statblocks?

This is supposed to be one of the major themes of the comic, looking at the goblins.

Again, you are, from what I can tell, assuming every aspect of MitD's personality is explained by his species, when MitD has a clearly defined personality of his own and it's also clearly not typical for his species.

But you only do this for the Protean: When MitD does things that directly contradict how a Hunting Horror would act, you claim those are further evidence he's a Hunting Horror.

Like Peelee, I do not understand how you arrive at conclusions in general. I don't understand the process that leads you to arrive at a lot of your conclusions, and the ones I do understand seem like rationalizing and working backwards from the desired outcome, rather than forward from the evidence. From what I can tell, your MitD arguments revolve around cherry-picking, special pleading, and trying to derive relevance from scenes that don't seem relevant. The conclusions you draw about who other posters are also remain a mystery to me; I understand neither your logical process nor what the evidence is you are using to arrive at them. (I also find that your theories about who the other people on this forum are are generally unnecessary and sometimes offensive; it often comes across like you're more interested in remotely diagnosing people than interacting with them.)

Okay. My argument is, that the single defining quality of a Protean is constant shapeshifting; and yet,
–the one thing the Monster consistently does is actively and deliberately use its most difficult to use pertinent innate ability, which is suppressing/counteracting that;
–except when it is very convenient for him to suddenly develop a special ability;
–except in the Circus scene where he feels that it is very important that he maintain consistent features, but is still an ever-boiling tide of flesh regardless.

So, he mostly maintains a shape/size/features set, which is somewhat unlike a Protean (a), which he only seems not to do when it is suddenly convenient to produce a wild transformation (b), but he is somewhat both "a form you are comfortable with" and "an ever-shifting tide of flesh" in the Circus scene (to explain both the constant features and the reactions)(c).

First, the Protean has a default size unless it's actively changing into a creature of a different size. That's in its statblock.

Second, the partial in "partial shapeshifting" is important here. He can easily maintain a face while the rest of his body still boils and such.

Both of these are mentioned on the Protean's page. I don't think it's an outlandish reach for me to be drawing qualities directly from this page.

If you dislike these ideas, that's perfectly fine, I'm not trying to argue or convince anyone of anything. Just putting it out there because i did want to note that "it must be using an action to maintain form" is not the only proposed reason given for the eye placement/number. In fact, i believe back when i was trying to argue this to be the case, i did not away anyone at all, so dismissing this puts one in plentiful company (and the lack of any such support is probably why my guess seems to be pretty well forgotten).

Yes, I've been saying that there are both explanations that involve MitD holding his face or eyes in position, and explanations that do not involve that but involve something in the artistic style and/or the rules of dramatic convention OOTS runs on.

And I've said I don't know which one explanation is correct, but the fact that I can find enough I consider reasonable or plausible satisfies the doubts I've had there.

FTR: this is a strawman. No-one has argued this.

The actual argument, as has been stated over and over, is that MitD retains a face to fit in. It retains it at all times, no "excepts" anywhere. It has a face in the circus, it has a face in the jungle, it has a face whether it is convenient or not. The rest of him is a mass of boiling flesh. The assertion that this is "its most difficult to use" is a fallacy conjured by Meta to strengthen his weak case, with no support other than his say-so. Proteans basic description is that they copy what they see. Everyone around MitD has faces, which they use to emote. Protean!MitD would, the argument goes, attempt to copy that, as something that comes naturally to all proteans. To duplicate an ability seen in an otherworldly construct he saw only once decades earlier and that he had to reach deep into his subconscious to recall would be far harder than "copy those things with eyes and mouths all around me".

That too (bolded emphasis mine). At this point I don't expect to convince anyone new, but I am frustrated with how consistently the people trying to argue against me specifically keep misrepresenting what I've said.

(Also, I'll throw my support for your points about the "closed eyes as shorthand for sleep" position. It's clear that Rich has to use certain artistic conventions in order to accurately convey his characters' emotions in a stick figure comic.)

---

I might just be repeating or summarizing my essay here, but I felt it might help to present the sum total of my perspective on MitD's species, rather than arguing bits and pieces of it.

Here's what I see as the mechanical / portrayal drawbacks for each species in the FBS list.

• The Uvuudaum has no eyes, and MitD definitely has eyes. It also has no mouth, and MitD defintely eats. (These may just both be artistic license in the known drawings, as they are not specified in the Uvuudaum's stat block. But on the other hand, Tzardok's post supports these details, or at least supports that the Uvuudaum doesn't have eyes and doesn't need to eat.) MitD also does not cause swirly-eyes confusion in anyone, which an Uvuudaum's aura likely would have done at least once. (Maybe plausible Redcloak and Xykon could resist it, but MitD has been around enough lower-level minions that it becomes a lot less plausible that every single one did.) The confusion aura would also be significant in the circus scene.
• The Athasian Nightmare Beast probably doesn't exist, at least not in the form that fits the big scenes.
• The white/black Slaad's reproduction cycle doesn't fit MitD's comments on his dad, and the age he would have to be and stages of evolution he would have to go through to be a white/black Slaad doesn't fit with him being a juvenile. The SBGH should not be surprised a Slaad can talk in Common. As already portrayed in comic, a Slaad is also not the kind of creature that would cause a learned wizard to say "I've never seen anything like it!" On top of that, a Slaad has already been portrayed in the comic, and I don't think Rich would do that if the Slaad was his planned reveal. (This is still a story first, and I don't think Rich would undercut a big moment in the story, a big reveal he's been planning for decades, just for a joke about a pregnant deva.)
• Redcloak knows what MitD is, and it's doubtful he would be unsure if there were psionics in this world if MitD was a Xenocrysth. Also, a Xenocrysth kind of just looks like a cool big serpent, hardly the kind of monster that would cause a learned wizard to say "I've never seen anything like it!"
• The Carbosilicate Amorph is from an entirely different work with an entirely different basis for its world. I don't think anything from outside D&D in a world that runs roughly on D&D 3.5 rules could be "possible to guess." (It does have other cons, like Doug Lampert mentions in how the Amorph's terraport works, as well as its depiction as looking roughly like a giant pile of poo, which doesn't strike me as something a wizard would have "never seen anything like."
• The Protean normally wouldn't appear as two eyes in the dark. But it could. It would have to partially shapeshift into the right creature with the right power to teleport Vaarsuvius and O-Chul away. But it could.

Only one of those monsters has drawbacks that are possible to explain with the rules, mechanics, and portrayal as established. So I think by the mechanics that one is the most likely.

In other words: Each candidate has drawbacks, and each of those sets of drawbacks may be something you consider a deal-breaker. For me, I find the Protean's drawbacks to be the least deal-breaking and most possible to explain by the rules and what we've seen.

In terms of the positive case:

• It's also the strongest creature on the FBS, which I think makes it the best fit for the Tower Scene.
• I also think its unique qualities make it the best fit for the Circus scene-- by a substantial margin, I might add.
• And, finally, the story reasons and thematic resonance for it really work for me: MITD is a character expected to be a scary monster, who's been content to follow others around and do what they want, and who now has to find the inner strength to follow his own heart and mind and change, to be who he wants to be instead of what other people expect of him. That character then being revealed to be a species of constant change, with more power to change than anything else we've seen in this world, makes a lot of sense to me. And so far I have not come up with or been presented with a good story reason for any of the other candidates.

Combine the two and that's how I got my answer.

[Doug Lampert]

[*]The Carbosilicate Amorph is from an entirely different work with an entirely different basis for its world. I don't think anything from outside D&D in a world that runs roughly on D&D 3.5 rules could be "possible to guess."

IMAO, the big strike against Carbosilicate Amorph is that while a built in terraport would make the escape scene conceivably possible, there really is no way for the Amorph to know where to send anyone. I would expect the Carbosilicate Amorph to send them someplace it had reason to believe is safe, like the jungle or somewhere else it has been in comic.

I simply don't see "non-D&D" as a negative at all, but I also don't see the CSA as all that compelling a case.

[Ruck]

IMAO, the big strike against Carbosilicate Amorph is that while a built in terraport would make the escape scene conceivably possible, there really is no way for the Amorph to know where to send anyone. I would expect the Carbosilicate Amorph to send them someplace it had reason to believe is safe, like the jungle or somewhere else it has been in comic.

I simply don't see "non-D&D" as a negative at all, but I also don't see the CSA as all that compelling a case.

Well, I'll add that as I understand it, the Amorph kinda looks like a big pile of poo? That hardly sounds like something a wizard would have "never seen anything like." So between that and your point about the terraport, there are at least two other reasons it's not a great fit.

It's just that the non-D&D-ness of it is the first hard stop for me, but if that's not a hard stop for you, there are a couple of other ways it doesn't fit particularly well.

[brian 333]

Grey Wolf references this conversation between the IFCC directors.

I withdraw my objection on this point and humbly ask forbearance regarding my ignorance.

[Ruck]

Updated my essay to add the fuller list of cons from the above post, Grey Wolf and Crusher's noted hard proof that the strip has used artistic license with other characters to accurately depict their expressions and emotions, as well as address a couple of other details I thought needed cleaning up.

[b_jonas]

Elementals aren't supposed to speak Common, yet the OotS one in #457 speaks what seems to be Common, despite that it has no mouth. I'd like to note this for MitD candidates that aren't supposed to speak Common.

The white/black Slaad's reproduction cycle doesn't fit MitD's comments on his dad, and the age he would have to be and stages of evolution he would have to go through to be a white/black Slaad doesn't fit with him being a juvenile.

This is much less of a problem since we got to know Sunny:

Sunny considers Serini his mother, such as in #1238, #1244, #1253, #1257, #1283. I think this means that it's less of a problem when a candidate has no parents, such as with the Slaad.

[Ruck]

Elementals aren't supposed to speak Common, yet the OotS one in #457 speaks what seems to be Common, despite that it has no mouth. I'd like to note this for MitD candidates that aren't supposed to speak Common.

Note to what end, though? The SBGH are surprised MitD speaks Common; how does the elemental there speaking Common-- or even more broadly, how does the idea that some other creatures in the comic that don't normally speak Common do-- affect their perception?

(Even setting aside that I think Rich mostly did that to have the "kill all humans" line repeated at the end of the strip.)

This is much less of a problem since we got to know Sunny:

Serini raised Sunny from a baby (for lack of a better term) and Sunny is still a child from what we can tell. Seems natural for Sunny to think of her as mom. I don't think the thought process is going to be the same if MitD is 300 years old, and also I think he would have mentioned to O-Chul in #651 when he asks "Is that normal... for your kind?" that his dad isn't actually "his kind." (Sure, he doesn't really know what he is, but he can probably tell when another creature doesn't look like him.)

It's less of a problem insofar as MitD could consider anyone who raised him his parent, I guess. But I lack a compelling reason to consider "MitD is actually a 300-year-old Slaad but still acts like a juvenile and also has someone he considers his dad despite the Slaad reproduction cycle" to be the case, and I'd have to question why Rich wouldn't write #651 differently if it was somehow.

I'm not trying to shoot these down if you have a way they can work or would be significant, but those were the points that immediately came to mind for me when I read it.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

This is much less of a problem since we got to know Sunny:

"He's adopted" has been a possibility considered since the very start of this thread. But a white slaad needs to have gone into seclusion for a 100 years from their, IIRC, grey form, which itself spent a 100 years in seclusion from... green, I'm gonna say? Some other colour. Given we know that they become adults "very quickly" (i.e. gone from birth to implanting its own spawn in a matter of months), Slaad!MitD acting like a 12 year old boy despite being at least 300 years old, and more likely far more than that will continue to be an issue even if when he spawned as a red/blue he was raised by something other than its biological father.

BTW, do slaads even have genders? 'Cause they sounds fairly genderless to me.

GW

[Tzardok]

Not sure wether 3.x ever made a statement about it, but IIRC in 2e it was said that Slaadi can be male, female, both, neither and anything in between, pretty much at random.

Also, the lore mentions that Slaadi go to the Spawning Stone in Limbo to mate.

Edit: I also wouldn't be suprised if Slaadi could change their sex over time. Demons could do so in 2e simply by willing it, and devils got cycled through male, female and neutral over the course of their career by their bosses, so that they can get experience with tempting anything to sin.

[hamishspence]

"He's adopted" has been a possibility considered since the very start of this thread. But a white slaad needs to have gone into seclusion for a 100 years from their, IIRC, grey form, which itself spent a 100 years in seclusion from... green, I'm gonna say? Some other colour. Given we know that they become adults "very quickly" (i.e. gone from birth to implanting its own spawn in a matter of months), Slaad!MitD acting like a 12 year old boy despite being at least 300 years old, and more likely far more than that will continue to be an issue even if when he spawned as a red/blue he was raised by something other than its biological father.

White Slaadi are produced from death slaadi rather than gray slaadi (and death slaadi are produced from gray slaadi via a "mysterious ritual" rather than via retreating into seclusion.)

However, the "retreat into seclusion" part, for green slaadi to turn into gray slaadi, and for death slaadi to turn into white slaadi, only requires a year (the retreat does need to be done after the slaad reaches 100 years of age in its current stage of life, but the previous 100 years don't need to be spent "retreated").

A possible way around it might be the parent having taken the slaad brooder prestige class (from Savage Species, a late 3.0 book that came out in mid-2003). The prestige class is designed for blue and red slaadi, but any slaad can take the PRC, though it's left unclear what happens when a non-red or non-blue slaad takes it.


One of the abilities of a slaad with a high level in the class is to "choose the colour of the spawn" - it's implied that it's just red, blue, and green, but it's not explicitly stated.


Raising the possibility that a white or black slaad with high levels in the PRC can choose "white" or "black" as the colour, implant a target, and thus spawn a white or black slaad offspring.

A black slaad parent, being huge to the white slaad's Large, would fulfil the "Dad was bigger than me" bit.

[lio45]

Updated my essay to add the fuller list of cons from the above post, Grey Wolf and Crusher's noted hard proof that the strip has used artistic license with other characters to accurately depict their expressions and emotions, as well as address a couple of other details I thought needed cleaning up.

Of course the strip regularly features artistic license; that’s unanimously agreed upon, and it’s not the point — the point is that when the author says it’s possible to guess and says that nothing shown contradicts what the creature is, then it’s a pretty safe assumption the author is not going to be using much artistic license in that particular case, even if he otherwise uses it liberally and frequently.

[Crusher]

Of course the strip regularly features artistic license; that’s unanimously agreed upon, and it’s not the point — the point is that when the author says it’s possible to guess and says that nothing shown contradicts what the creature is, then it’s a pretty safe assumption the author is not going to be using much artistic license in that particular case, even if he otherwise uses it liberally and frequently.

The problem is that if you apply this point directly, nothing at all works.

- ANB is 20' tall and 40' long and weighs 4,000lbs (which makes no sense at all, but that's what it says). This is gigantically larger than MitD is typically shown to be, and there's no way RC could lift a box with a 4,000lb MitD in it.

- Protean, already being discussed.

- Carbo... silicate Whatever - Looks like a pile of poo, which raises serious questions about why Giant *chose* to draw the Circus scene.

- Slaad - Parents? Maturity? Arguably violates the least artistic license (which is why its my first choice vote).

- Uvuudaum - Probably no eyes, yet Giant chose to draw MitD eyes for emoting (could have gone in another direction), maybe no mouth (unsure) yet eats constantly. Continuously radiates a DC47 Confusion field with a 30' range. Goblins around MitD would be constantly getting wrecked by this.

- Xenocrysth - 30' long and weigh 40,000 lbs. If RC couldn't lift an ANB, there's no way he'd be able to lift a 10x as heavy Xenocrysth. No legs, yet Giant chose to have an entire scene based around it "stomping" (could have "slammed" instead).

So, by an even modestly applied version of that standard, nothing works. The point of the FBS list is to give examples of the kinds of things that do well on the tests. Having zero creatures on the list defeats the point, so, for our purposes, we MUST assume some measure of artistic license, somewhere.

(the rest of this is intended less and less for lio45, and more just general points)

And the standards we've set were not handed down from on high by GW_c or Pelee or whoever. They are the ones that have been slowly voted into place by the folks who voted on them in the various threads in which the voting occurred. Which means, as GW_c periodically laments when Ox and others complain, that the standards *can change*. Indeed, they have changed, many many times over the years for a wide range of reasons.

Rather than arguing everyone is implementing the rules in a way you disagree with over and over and over and an elite few gatekeepers are oppressing the masses (though you certainly may), GW_c is suggesting that maybe you propose a vote on a rule change (as has happened many times before, and there are rules for it and everything) and see if there's a quiet groundswell of support.

Or, not. Arguing is fine, too.

[Emberlily]

BTW, do slaads even have genders? 'Cause they sounds fairly genderless to me.

I'm not sure this would be something that could be conclusive one way or another for any individual. oots has what read as genderless characters from species that have no setup for sexual reproduction (like sunny) and also what read as genderless characters from species that do (like vaarsuvius and inkyrius). we have gendered characters from species that have no setup for sexual reproduction, too, like mimi

however, that being said.... the one time we do see slaad, gendered pronouns are used, so take from that what you will

[Sky_Schemer]

Oh for...

This is the correct analogous creature for something lacking eyes. You will note the complete lack of lines where eyes might be to emote, even when it is expressing an emotional state.

And that works well for a creature you can see. It emotes using its mouth, tongue, and posture.

The MitD cannot be seen. It has always been drawn as eyes in a field of black. With no form to look at, no mouth to see, no features whatsoever. There just aren't many options for an artist so show emotion or non-verbal actions like sleeping when you can't see the creature at all, anywhere, at any time.

Personally, I think the MiTD has eyes. But I am not going to rule out "doesn't have eyes" [edited to add: or the protean's shifting form], either, because Rich has to do something to convey emotions and reactions, and eyes are a well-established shorthand that are within the realm of artistic license.

[Ruck]

The problem is that if you apply this point directly, nothing at all works.

This has been a point I've been trying to make for a while now, and why I keep emphasizing that there is an answer.

If you apply a standard that nothing can pass, then that's not going to work to find the answer. If you apply a standard selectively just to disprove specific candidates but ignore it for others, then you're not trying to find the answer.

[Jasdoif]

Arguing is fine, too.

Are you sure it hasn't gained enough hit dice over nineteen threads to advance to diminutive?

[b_jonas]

Xykon […] has empty eye sockets

I'm not entirely sure that the eye sockets are empty. The Animate Dead, Create Undead, and Create Greater Undead spells require you to insert onyx gems into the eye or mouth sockets of the corpse. I always figured that this means that undead have gem eyes, though with consumed gems that no longer have a monetary value, and they can express emotion with these gems. Creating a lich is more difficult than any of these three spells, but even so those three spells are so uniform that I expect Xykon to have gem eyes.

Also this statue depicting Xykon used to have gems in it (though it's not specified that they were in the eye sockets specifically), so apparently even statue makers expect that the undead have gem eyes. (Admittedly that might apply to statues depicting non-undead people too: Oscar Wilde's story describes a statue that has emeralds for eyes.)

Update: Admittedly gem eyes don't help with eyebrows, which are the real expressive part. Nor with the closed eyes of Xykon sleeping or the surprised or scared raised eyebrows depicted with just the eye socket changing shape to round.

[Ruck]

Update: Admittedly gem eyes don't help with eyebrows, which are the real expressive part. Nor with the closed eyes of Xykon sleeping or the surprised or scared raised eyebrows depicted with just the eye socket changing shape to round.

Yeah, that's the real key information here. I don't think anyone has argued that Xykon isn't really a lich because he apparently has eyes/eye sockets and eyelids that can emote.

[Keltest]

This has been a point I've been trying to make for a while now, and why I keep emphasizing that there is an answer.

If you apply a standard that nothing can pass, then that's not going to work to find the answer. If you apply a standard selectively just to disprove specific candidates but ignore it for others, then you're not trying to find the answer.

If you're playing a game of 20 questions, and you ask a question whose answer eliminates the last thing you thought it would be, that doesn't mean its a bad question that shouldn't be applied, it means you just don't know the answer.