"N" Monsters Believe In Nothing

All the monsters: N.

N is a dangerous letter. Nastiness, nihilism, nothingness, and the night all start with "N". There are no giant animals, amiable bumblers, or typical PC races under "N". Even the nymph is, as wrtten, one of the deadliest things in the book.

Naga

"Naga are snake-like creatures with good brains and magical abilities". (Good brains?)

In real life, nagas are still very important in parts of India. I find the idea of humanoid creatures worshipping a naga (an "ordinary" naga--not some ethereal naga god) interesting since--assuming the naga has a range of desires and interests broadly equivalent to an ordinary aristocratic human--then a naga is esentially a kind of royal invalid. Unlike a dragon or something, the naga might actually need its worshippers--"Charles, would you mind turning the pages of this book for me, I've dreeadfully tired of these papercuts on my nose"--and risks becoming pathetic without them.

Neo-otyugh

I suggest that the otyugh is a tedious, uncompelling, and redundant monster unless you have a really cool and gross little miniature of it, in which case it can make a very pleasant unpleasant pulp diversion. The neo-otyugh doesn't even have that going for it.

Night Hag

So there's a hag meaning like just an old witch and there's a hag meaning like a sort of stringy gross giantess, and there's a zone in between. Either way the hag is always a GMIWNLF. That thing Jack Nicholson makes out with in The Shining also partakes somewhat in the horror of hagness.

There's some pop psychology quiz where they ask you how you'd react to seeing a naked member of the opposite sex that's 50 years older than you. The answer is supposed to be how you feel about death.

This is thinking about death in a different way than the way the undead make you think about death. The skeleton's about simply being gone--simply not being there any more. The hag is about all the humiliating, pitiless, flabby, gooey things that are going to happen to you on the way to bodily extinction. Horror of age, the body, the skin, physical need. There's a reason they're always cooking.

Nightmare

It is a mare of the night. I feel like the nightmare as presented is a little too big on bluster .

I mean. look at a hell hound--what's it going to do? It's gonna leap through the air with its paws on fire and land on your throat and chew on you. The nightmare? Not so much. And while it is true that horses bite hard, the symbolic point of the nightmare is that it's just something for something considerably more badass to ride around on.

You don't need a nightmare. If you go look at the cover of Death Dealer that guy's just riding a horse. It's a big, black, tough, scary-looking horse but it doesn't have webbed ears. Likewise, the steeds upon which The Nine ride in the movie are just horses.

Horses have inherently understated faces--their eyes are looking down at what they are doing--they concern themselves with chewing up ground and leave the rest to you. Horses with wide eyes or crazy expressions usually just look like they are doing their job wrong. If you really can't do without a flamboyantly menacing transport I suggest a skeletal steed.

Nixie

Apparently "nixies delight in enslaving humans" and also apparently a nixie won a gold medal in the Olympic 40 meter freestyle and had its smiling, waving portrait taken for the cover of a Wheaties box and also apparently a black and white version of this picture graces the otherwise very menacing entry in the Monster Manual.

Since they are supposed to appear in lakes rather than the ocean, the idea I guess is that Nixies are supposed to be frightening aquatic fairy folk of the indifferent-to-human-morality-variety. They need a better pr department.

Nymph

The nymph both has higher standards than the dryad (it takes a male with an 18 rather than a 16 charisma to catch her eye) but she's also less desperate (the dryad steals desirable men away whereas the nymph merely has a chance of being "favorably inclined" towards the person.)

Mechanically, the nymph as presented is little more than a trap--you have a pretty good chance of dying or going blind just from looking at her and if you manage to pass your saving throw she'll probably unleash some 7th level druid trouble on you just for coming near her house.

The nymph represents a common Monster Manual solution to making good creatures interesting, that is: find a way to make them hostile.

It seems like playing a nymph as a Gandalf-esque, charmingly manipulative schemer rather than some sort of fragile woodsy xenophobe is the way to go. And, needless to say, in my campaign they're pretty much useless unless they can get over their strict heterosexuality.

Let's Talk About "M" Monsters

Writing about all the monsters in alphabetical order soothes my unquiet mind.

So, M's....

Manticore

Somebody sent Mandy a copy of All Known Metal Bands. There are five bands called Manticore. That's how cool the word "manticore" is.

It almost doesn't even matter what the actual monster is like, if it's called a manticore you know that it's badass, and you know that telling everyone how you slew it with mighty and vorpal blows will transfer said badassness to you.

In truth, what it looks like is someone about eleven years old and male got ahold of a sphinx and decided it was boring so drew batwings and tail spikes on it. Being eleven myself, I wholly approve.

Footnote: The manticore picture in the D&D 4 Monster Manual is actually pretty good.

Masher

There are no known metal bands named "Masher". When you have a word that means "one who crushes violently" and still no metal band is willing to touch it, you know you've got yourself a sucky word. They couldn't even get anyone to illustrate it. And get this-it doesn't even mash. Its gimmick is actually poisonous spines. Poor masher.

Mastodon

There is a metal band called "Mastodon", and they're sometimes good. Also, the word "mastodon" means "tit-tooth". (I just sat down and I'm too lazy to get up and check to see if there's a band called "tit-tooth".) Mastodons alone are just too hairy for my taste, but severed mastodon heads are awesome.

Medusa

Unlike the Greeks, we can actually look at the medusa. Then the question becomes which one to go with: elegant medusa, fierce medusa, snake tail medusa, human legged medusa, mutant medusa, I think I want to use them all.

Men

"There are many types of men which are commonly encountered in the wilderness or in dungeons, always appearing in groups..."

"J'ai une âme solitaire." Apparently not when playing D&D.

That is perhaps the most bizarre fantasy in the whole game.


Merman

In the Manual, a female merman is, curiously. called a merwoman. Mermen are of course boring, mermaids aren't. Why is that? Perhaps because the idea of exerting martial force with only a tail for leverage doesn't quite click. A mermale might make a convincing wizard or something.

Mermaids themselves are ripe for evilization, the cannibalisic mermaid is all kinds of wrong and so, wedded to ideas painting them as distant untouchable magic creatures, a scheming one is even more frightening.

Mimic

"The killer mimics do not speak, but the other breeds have their own language and can usually speak several other tongues such as common, orcish, etc. For consideration they will usually tell a party about what they have seen nearby."

There's an episode of Frasier where Fraiser is trying to go see a movie the idea is that it's a ridiculously pretentious boring obscure foreign film. I forget the name of it but the idea was it was narrated by a stool that had been sitting in the living room of a German family for generations and the stool tells all about what it's seen. Reading this bit about the mimic makes that seem like kind of actually a nice idea, especially if what the stool just saw was like a three headed succubus chewing up someone's soul and spitting it into a giant slug's mouth rather than--say--Wilhelm teaching little Werner how to re-sole a work boot.

Mind Flayer

Probably because of the terrible sub-comic book-y pictures accompanying the original mind flayer entry it took about forever for me to realize that mind flayers were supposed to be some sort of Cthulianized humanoids and not just dumb Star Trek aliens in robes. I think the brain-extracting thing didn't really help. I mean, I'm all for brain-extracting tentacles but it seems to me the mind flayer should be an absolutely static mound of weirdness in opulent clothes that just points to you and you go mad with the realization of your insignificance in the vast and inhospitable universe. All this rushing around and zapping people with wavy lines seems undignified.

Minotaur

What is it about minotaurs? I think it may have something to do with the fact that, unlike a lion-headed person or a tiger-headed person or a snake-headed person the bull suddenly seems more capable and dangerous as a humanoid. The snake has lost its coils, the cat has lost its claws, whereas the bull has gained believably muscled fists and still can stand credibly on its hind hooves.

Writing this around Passover reminds me that the minotaur also has something of the aspect of the freed slave. The bull's eyes and face seem not restrained by its new body but genuinely raised up, able to do to us all the things we did to it, all the things it diffidently dreamed of while pulling our carts and mulling around our slaughter pens. What looks like fatalistic boredom in the face of the bull seems like resigned and unpersuadeably righteous anger in the face of the minotaur.

Mold

The form of conflict suggested by the original entries in the Monster Manual for slimes, molds, oozes, etc is essentially medical. How do I identify this thing and which spell specifically will work against it? It's hard to see this being that fun more than once or twice. These creatures seem most interesting when used as a tool by some other, more sophisticated monster.

Morkoth

The morkoth makes no sense on several levels. It hypnotizes you into coming close and then it bites you but if you come within 6" the hypnotism wears off yet still there's a description of what happens if it tries to bite you if you're hypnotized. What the fuck? But, really, this is--as has been pointed out before--the least of it. It lives in a hypnotic underwater maze and looks like mutant parrot. It seems like this would be way better as a poem than a D&D adventure.

Mule

Seeing as how they are strong, agile, and not panicked by fire, the mule would appear to be the ideal dungeon accessory. Unfortunately, as soon as you bring one into a dungeon the mood police come and decapitate it.


Mummy

The problem with mummies is we're more familiar with cartoon versions of them than with what they actually look like. Real mummies, particularly ones from outside Egypt--like the bog people or the Chachapoya mummies (pictured) are among the most fucked up looking real things ever. If I know for sure that this is what's in the player's mind when I sic some rotting remains on them then my job is half done already.

Mantis, giant

Unlike a lot of insects, a mantis doesn't seem disgusting. Its relatively upright posture makes it seem almost human or at least more human, but it nevertheless seems absolutely cruel.

The decapitation thing is in no way surprising. This is my go-to Awful Insect. The praying part is like a Shaolin monk whose absolute stillness is a threat directly proportional to the speed with which he will annihilate you if you disturb his meditation.

Minimal

We maybe didn't need the Monster Manual 2 to give us the concept of a large animal only made very small but still it's a useful idea. I see them appearing in the center of an excited ring of toothless gamblers in a city on a pseudo-Mediterranean coast. Tiny wolf versus tiny rhino and kept in fascinating cages or terraria.

Myconid

Fungi are disgusting. Mushroom people are ridiculous. Again--like the mummy--the challenge is freeing the creature from our cartoony associations or at least letting the creepy and the cartoony intermingle in an interesting way. Like in Alice in Wonderland (the real one I mean).

I think it's important that they be slow-moving yet somehow still credibly threatening. I think goblins using them as riding beasts and steering them by pressure on their big flat heads is a way to go. It might give them pathos.

________________
image credits: The Conan cover's by Barry Windsor-Smith, the black and white medusa is me, I don't know who did the excellent medusa at the top, sorry, let me know an I'll add a credit.

Dating Advice From Me And A Troll

"L" Monsters Are Pretty Good

So the alphabetical monster thing was pretty easy for a while there--I. J, and K are lightweights. But "L" is a hardworking letter. It starts a lot of monsters and most of them are decent...

Lamia

The D&D Lamia is a bit of a wash--further research is needed...

Sources are conflicted about what exactly a lamia looks like, so they're no help, and for the most part it just seems like a succubus-lite. Many versions have a snake tail, which is cool, but 30 other women in the Manual have a snake tail, so whatever.

The original Greek is extremely good, though--Lamia was a queen who ate children and had the ability to pull her own eyes out and make prophecies. That's where I'd go with it.

Lammassu

The lammassu and the shedu in Syrian mythology are just male and female names for the same creature. The shedu and lammasu are in turn less interesting versions of the manticore and the sphinx.

Lamprey

I sometimes think I'm a little too down on the ordinary animals in this here alphabetical review-- especially the aquatic ones. I'm all over the lamprey though.

A stone chamber, water four feet deep, a low-ceiling, a few visual aids from google illustrating the "sphincter-like mouths ringed with cruel teeth". Oh DMing is fun.

Mandy: "This is like a slug and leech and an eel with a butthole for a mouth and sharp teeth--it's way worse than a flail snail".

Larva

"The larvae are the most selfishly evil of all souls who sink to lower planes after death" Mandy finds the hyperbolic supernatural version of larva extremely funny.

But she's wrong. Larvae are loathsome ("You're eating maggots Michael").

Gygax's interpretation of them as a form of currency is interesting. You can talk all day about night hags or liches "wanting your soul" but interpreting your soul as a certain weight worth of yellow worms gives it genuine poetry.

This also makes the neutral evil larvae more interesting than the manes and the lemure--their chaotic and lawful evil counterparts, respectively--and suggests, again, that maybe the alignment-symmetry thing is a bit crap.

Leech

For the same reasons I like the lamprey, I think the leech is just too easy.

Leopard

If and when the girls ever get outside I think I will mention that snow leopards are relatively common in the mountains outside Nornrik and also mention that their monochrome coat is much easier to dye than the pelt of an ordinary leopard.

I may not mention that hit dice, abilities, and mutation-rate among these beasts vary wildly.

Leprechaun

"Leprechauns normally dwell only in fair, green lands with lush hills and dales they can frolic through."

I really like the idea of a sandbox campaign with all the seasoned players frowning over a hex map and going "What's over here?" DM says: "Hills". The party's wizard goes "Are there dales?" DM nods "A few". "FUCK."

Then the party has to decide whether the probable gold in that direction is worth all the sideburned annoyance or whether they'd rather take their chances in Bloodtroll Haven.

Almost any "serious" role player could not possibly plump for the more interesting option in that case. Solve a fucking riddle on a dale and get some gold--any real medieval person would go for that over having to fight a troll any day. But then, why on earth would anyone play with a serious role player? My guy's personality is generally whatever personality is going to get him into The Temple of the Demon Troll fastest.

(Speaking of trolls, you may now feel free to spam this blog with comments defending committed amateur-actor RPGers. You will post something all offended, I will post another thing which will clarify my position and make it seem reasonable, and then you will either ignore it or agree with it and then you will feel the comfort that comes with knowing some guy who lives in L.A somewhere agrees with you about some part of something you do once every other weekend, or the bitter sting of knowing he doesn't. I'm sure it will be so worth it.)

Mandy feels there is genuine life in the concept of an evil leprechaun based on older pre-Frosted Lucky Charms folklore. "They deceive you, that's the thing about leprechauns--and they're ugly" Mandy says.

I often think how things like harpies and succubi were invented by bitter straight men--it occurs to me that the runty, evil, hairy, deceptive, stingy, Rumplestilskiny leprechaun was probably invented by some aggrieved wife somewhere.

I do like the idea of people's babies being stolen by things that are smaller than babies.

Leucrotta

The absurdity of the leucrotta probably stems from the disparity between how grotesque the description (as just a line of syllables on the page) sounds against how toothless it is when actually constructed in the mind's eye. Badger head, lion tail, deer body, talks like a person. It's like you rolled on the random esoteric creature generator and got duds on every roll. The fact that it can talk and imitate people despite being a shambolic freak is interesting but there's about a hundred better monsters you could give that ability to.

Lich

We are born into structures of law and tradition which were invented by men who were dead long before we were born. All our lives, we struggle against their vast, ubiquitous and posthumous powers.


Lion

Now that I've done "jaguar", "leopard" and "lion" I can honestly say that thinking about these animals mechanically or ecologically gets you nowhere--yes, tigers have more hit dice than lions but that isn't what the players are going to remember.

I think that a lion is most interesting to me in D&D as a symbolic animal rather than something that's going to pop up on the random encounter table (especially considering that table is already full of wolves and snow leopards ) I think a living lion statue made on onyx or jade or a strange goblin-made clockwork lion somehow takes advantage of the distinctiveness of lions as compared shapewise to the other big cats.

Lizard

The lavish array of gorgeous visual aids for "lizard" available to anyone with both google and a color printer make them the kind of thing I want to go the extra mile to use. Just having a party see one seems kind of dull. I think of them more as kind of something that gets grown or enchanted or carries some bizarre and unspeakable secret.

A few specific notes: The fire lizard risks diluting the eventual appearance of a dragon but I think that if it can be made clear that it's just some sort of flame-wreathed gecko it makes an interesting alternative to just a regular old fire elemental. Mandy points out that Gygax doesn't describe the minotaur lizard's appearance at all.

Lizard Man

Lizard men should have all kinds of lizardthings, lizard rune and lizard tongue, lizard language and lizard art, lizard weapons and lizard gods and be endless sources of lizard mystery. The lizard men as presented in the manual are fairly primitive with only a small percentage of them even having their shit together enough to build huts. I prefer them to be much more sophisticated--it occurs to me that I said the same thing about the jackalwere. I guess I prefer everybody to be more sophisticated. Thugs don't scare me. Except Ogres.

Locathath

The lack of diapers makes them better than the Kuo-toa, and I suppose they could be pretty interesting if you ever decided to put in the effort necessary to make an underwater adventure interesting. I suppose I could rig them up as some sort of scaly underclass in Nephilidia.

Lurker Above

A mind more loyal to the Old Ways than me might find elaborate reasons why the 100% Pure Old School Lame represented by the lurker above is somehow better than the 100% Pure New School Lame represented by its later edition counterpart--the darkmantle. I however will just say this: don't be lame.

Lycanthrope

The werebear is wereboring as is pretty much anybody that turns into something that's pretty much like what they were before only more badass. Or maybe simply it's my prejudice against what I presume to be their lack of sophistication.

Wereboar--wereboar sounds funny but boar men are pretty cool. Grunting squealing axe wielding with tusks and warhammers. Better than pig-orcs.

Wererat--the wererat draws obvious comparison with the Skaven from Games Workshop. Skaven have the interesting addiction to eating warpstone, but the wererats as depicted in the black-eyed eerily human and eerily comfortable looking picture in the Monster Manual gives them the edge in creepiness for me.

Weretiger--the lady or the tiger? This one, along with the Monster Manual 2's Foxwoman both seem to have a lot of possibilities. A guy who is also a rat or a wolf seems like a guy who just has more ways of doing the things he was going to do anyway, a woman who is also a fox or also a tiger is a whole plot seed. This may be because tigers and foxes both seem extremely intelligent.

Werewolf--the big question is whether the werewolf is a horror movie werewolf where there is one of them and it's a mystery or it's more of a viking warrior werewolf thing with hunched devouring packs ravaging the land. I think you can't really do both. Either the werewolf is some monstrous and alien horror ( a bug in the sytem) or it's a feature--a characteristic species that defines the landscape the way an anaconda defines the Amazon jungle.

Seawolf--can't decide. I might try to make seawolves cool, but I got enough wolves going on in my game anyway.

Lynx, giant

Mandy wants to know why none of these big cats have bite attacks listed. She also notes that lynx kittens are super adorable. I want to know why only the giant and not the ordinary lynx made it in.

Hidden in a cave dispensing arcane wisdom for travellers who dare to brave the icy bleakscape? Maybe.

Lava Children

Eventually, someone at D&D decided that having players fight children was in some way distasteful. Too bad. Lava children are wonderful--churning, tumbling, volcanically flowing and bubbling out of molten pools and looking at you with big red burning ember eyes, grabbing your sword and melting it. Excellent, excellent.

Ok, The Secret Arneson Gift Exchange Is Happening

So the Secret Arneson Gift Exchange is happening.
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Basically, at the beginning of July, everybody who wants to participate e-mails some central someone (me) a request for some specific brand new campaign material--a new race, a location, a one-shot adventure outline, a random table, whatever. The idea is to be as specific as you need to be, but not too greedy (ask for a page or two of material).

Then the person running the Secret Arneson mixes all the campaign stuff requests up and e-mails them randomly back out to the people who entered. (Like a secret santa.)

Everybody gets the requests, and then they have until Gary's birthday to write up something matching the request. Then you post the material on-line or just send it back to the person who asked for that thing in the first place.

(It probaby goes without saying that none of this stuff should get used commercially unless the person who wrote it gets paid. Let's not celebrate the Gygax/Arneson relationship too literally.)

It will be called the Secret Arneson Gift Exchange.

Send your requests, with the (all caps) subject SAGE REQUEST to zakzsmith at hot mail dot calm (don't leave out the middle initial, I won't get your e-mail.)

Be as specific as you need to be, but don't get greedy. Asking for a d100 table is cool, but a d1000?--better let your Secret Arneson know that going that extra 900 miles is optional. Asking for a structure is cool, a whole mega-dungeon isn't.

I will stop taking new requests on July 1. Which is also when I'll re-mail them all out to respondents.

Then everyone has until July 27th to write up responses to the SAGE request he or she got.

On the 27th--Gygax's birthday--everyone must either post their product on-line or e-mail it to the original requester.

The original requester's name and e-mail address will be on the request unless s/he specifically asks otherwise.

One request per person.

You may want to wait 'til June to send in your request--if you send one immediately, you might end up getting past that idea before July 27.

All human undertakings involving interactions between strangers involve a capacity for misunderstanding and idiocy. The Secret Arneson is a gift horse. Do not look it in the mouth. No bad-mouthing people for what they ask for or provide. Serious and simulatory requests may get gonzo answers, gonzo requests may get serious answers, c'est la vie. If you're worried, try to be specific in your request so you get something you can really use.

You don't have to request D&D-specific stuff. I bet anybody could handle a sci-fi or super request--but just be aware that the pool of people responding to your request will be the pool of people who read this blog and act accordingly.

If you want art, accept that some people (non-artists) may merely google some interesting art on the subject and e-mail it to you. Everybody entering is probably a GM, not everybody is an artist.

I reserve the right to completely fuck up since this is the first time, but will try very hard not to.

I also reserve the right to ignore and not re-e-mail any request that's just a dumb joke ("I want stats for your mom." etc.) or otherwise beneath my contempt. If they are funny, I will, however, let you know. Since I had the idea and I'm doing the legwork here, I get total dictatorial say over what's beneath my contempt, but feel free to run your own SAGE's. This is Open Content.

Secret Arneson Party

Ok, so on this Dave Arneson's death day, I got an idea on what to do for Gary Gygax's Birthday.

(By the time it comes around--July 27--we'll have had time to decide whether we want to do it or not.)(I'm not committing to this idea until I'm sure a lot of people are into it.)

S0 here's the deal-we call it the Secret Arneson Party.

Basically, at the beginning of July, everybody who wants to participate e-mails some central someone (me, if nobody else wants to do it) a request for some specific brand new campaign material--a new race, a location, a one-shot adventure outline, a random table, whatever. The idea is to be as specific as you need to be, but not too greedy (ask for a page or two of material).

Then the person running the Secret Arneson mixes all the campaign stuff requests up and e-mails them randomly back out to the people who entered. (Like a secret santa.)

Everybody gets the requests, and then they have until Gary's birthday to write up something matching the request. Then you post the material on-line or just send it back to the person who asked for that thing in the first place.

(It probaby goes without saying that none of this stuff should get used commercially unless the person who wrote it gets paid. Let's not celebrate the Gygax/Arneson relationship too controversially.)

Pity The Poor K's

All the monsters, one letter at a time...

K monsters demand both patience and sympathy from the DM.

Perhaps more than this DM has.

Ki-rin

"The coat of the ki-rin is luminous gold, much as a sunrise on a clear day."
Mandy says it sounds like a My Little Pony.

Much like the gold dragon--and unlike the My Little Pony--the ki-rin always appears locked into a tight mesh of stylized and vortexlike clouds. Unlike the gold dragon, the ki-rin seems to lack any motive for getting in the players way in any interesting sense.

If the characters are bad the D&D version of a ki-rin--with its 18 wizard-levels and "4 major and 6 minor psionic disciplines"--will just come around and kick their asses. With good characters--or at least characters whose actions might conceivably contribute to whatever ethereal and Eastern version of the greater good the ki-rin represents--the thing seems to lack the awe-inspiring inscrutability that makes paying a visit to the magnanimous gilded throne room of a gold dragon or a couatl compelling. It's hard for me to really picture a ki-rin doing anything but descending from the sky, impressing everybody, and then going home.

Kobold

I imagine I work on Ellis Island. Here's comes this little bastard, dragging his suitcase, wearing a hobnailed collander for a hat, filling out his immigration forms: Place of Origin: "BlaCk foreSt, BaVarria", Name? "K. O. B. O. L. D."

So I take him into my office and sit him down.

"Listen, buddy, 'Kobold' is another one of those words that means something terribly specific to people who play D&D and means nothing at all to anybody else. (Except for maybe very old and very superstitious Germans.) The trouble with you people is the web of associations is very very small: I say 'kobold' and your average player thinks, at best, 'one of those usually very poorly drawn dogdragongoblinmidget things in D&D' or, at worst, (if you're new to the game) nothing at all.

"And yes, I remember how TSR's excruciating Dragon Mountain adventure seemed to think it was very clever for making you seem like formidable foes--but that's thinking very small--a dangerous kobold is only a surprise if all you ever think about is canonical D&D. Dangerous bunnies, dangerous blades of grass, dangerous woodchips--this is surprising. Maybe.

"Ok, little guy, don't cry--see, this is even more of a drag because a little dogdragonmidgetgoblin isn't such a bad monster and--for the girls-the obvious association with the little spiky-helmeted bastards in Labyrinth is bound to be compelling. So, yes, I do have a job for you, little pike-wielding muppetmonster, though here at DnDWP Isle we're changing this fancy German name, got it?--from now on you're a Thorn Goblin or Scaled Goblin or Bastard Goblin. Welcome to America."

Kenku

Going against old school type, I think crow men are way better than the Fiend Folio's original budgie men.

I recognize two species: the human-size Boschian crow people like on the cover of Stephen King's The Stand, and little ones about a foot-and-a-half tall that run around stealing shit, usually when the party has decided it needs eight hours of rest to get its spells back.

My only problem with the kenku is that crows themselves make such good monsters--as both Odin and Edgar Allan Poe would point out.

Kuo-toa

I think the H.P Lovecraft's Deep Ones are the least interesting of all his inventions, and I think that the mogwai-looking, diapered kuo-toa are the least interesting descendant of the deep ones, and I think that the official D&D minis of them are the least interesting version of the Kuo-toa, but whenever I'm sifting through the box trying to find something to represent a dire wolf or a demon dog and one of the girls catches sight of the kuo-toa mini one of them always grabs one of the goofy gesticulating frogmen and talks about how cute it is.

For this and similar reasons, I both anticipate and dread the day when one of my players decides to DM. I do hope I can get it on tape.

Kraken

I was going to write something about the kraken but it made me think of the old Clash of the Titans movie which then made me think of the new Clash of the Titans movie and that made me think about CG movies and then I got so depressed that I decided to stop writing and go outside.