An Owlbear Dinosaur Finally Surfaced

[geneweigel]

Hey check this out:

www.flickr.com/photos/paulkaiju/6477493273/sizes/l/in/photostream/

I still that orange "pecker" guy has got to be the original stirge before they accidentally turned it into the "giant insect" image on page 26. The artist (Bell?) was bad and since there were no images of stirges when GREYHAWK came out Sutherland probably assumed that "giant insect" was it when he drew the "attack of the stirges" image in STRATEGIC REVIEW #5 (DEC 1975). He didn't seem to be working with TSR until BLACKMOOR (SEPT 1975). That would explain why the description doesn't match:

STIRGES: Large, bird-like monsters with long, dangling proboscuses, the Stirges
might call to mind evil-looking, feathered ant eaters. Stirges are attracted to warmblooded
creatures, and when a hit is scored by one it indicates it has attached itself to its
prey in order to suck its blood. Thereafter it will drain the blood at the rate of 1-4
points/melee round until the prey is a bloodless corpse, the Stirge growing bloated in the
process and moving out of the area to digest its repast. Note: Stirges are considered as
attackings as 4th level fighters for purposes of determination of attachment although
they have but 1 hit die.

This would explain the reason it said anteater (its close to the pangolin kind) and the two antennae on the figure as the feathers. The bloated body of the figure as well. I think they just said fuck it our legendary stirges (strigae) look like this and when the image was misused like the ghoul image for the wight in the MONSTER MANUAL it stuck.

[GRWelsh]

What was the wight supposed to look like?

The wight illustration and ghoul illustration in the MM are different. So what are they illustrations of?

Gene, you should do up stats for that dog-dinosaur thing. "Caninusaurus."

[Scott]

I had a few sets of those when I was a kid, but they were long lost by the time I started playing D&D.

[GRWelsh]

Your woofasaur is so happy to see you when you get home that he licks you with an enormous sandpaper-like tongue. It knocks you over and you take 1-4 points of damage. He wags his tail which has stegosaurus-like spikes, and that does structural damage to your castle.

"Woofasaurus -- stop!"

[geneweigel]

Sept 5, 2013 7:57:50 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

What was the wight supposed to look like?

The wight illustration and ghoul illustration in the MM are different. So what are they illustrations of?

My theory was that the ghoul as depicted in page 65 and 67 of SUPPLEMENT I: GREYHAWK (FEB 1975) influenced the two Daves to draw the ghoul and Tramp's was rejected and repurposed for the wight because Sutherland's was set in a graveyard making it less versatile. See the two images are almost exact copies of GREYHAWK's ghouls:



When approached for this question when Gary asked me to throw him some bones for the UNDEAD book he said he wasn't involved in the artwork for MM so he wasn't sure. But he did say it looked like a ghoul.

So the Wight would look like a barrow king probably archaic but not the savage creature depicted in the MM

Sept 5, 2013 7:57:50 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

Gene, you should do up stats for that dog-dinosaur thing. "Caninusaurus."

That actually seems doable. I recall tossing out dinosaurs that can go for quite a lot on Ebay and that dog-dino, dog-dragon, dog-bird or whatever it is I definitely had at least three of those. The dinosaurs I missed the most was my Marx playset with cave-like rocks and a pool with cavemen and most prehistoric mammals. They don't make shit like that anymore.

[geneweigel]

Heres a mockup of what an original wight may have looked like using this image of a bronze age couple's clothing. Sort of close to the wraith but more in line with their former selves with archaic dress (not ghoul rags or savage clothes on average at least.) Then lighted cold eyes and a dark form with plenty of fog.

[geneweigel]

Heres some stats I just put together based on on the weird dog dragon:

DOGONNE

FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE: 18"
HIT DICE: 9
No. IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: H,Tx5,Wx5
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6/1-6/4-24
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Bark
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Low
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: L (10')
PSlONlC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
XP/LEVEL: 1700 +12/HP/VII

This natural(?) enemy of the dragonne (q.v.) is an even weirder cross between a bronze dragon and some kind of canine. The doggone is a social animal, although hard to find more than one, it sometimes is found as a pet amongst the more powerful giants. It has a weak dog-like claw attack although scaled to this size it is lethal force to be reckoned with for man-sized opponents. Next is its horrid beaked and fanged mouth a non-phenotypical byproduct of its weird breeding. However, as the saying goes, the doggone's bark is worse than its bite. In this case, the bark is a soundwave that at 3" range causes all sound to be negated (communication, spells, command word magic items, etc.). At greater length, up to 10" range, it works as a repulsion spell causing listeners to save vs. breath weapon or flee for 6 rounds.

They speak the language of bronze dragons, hell hounds, worgs and winter wolves.

[GT]

And since the creature is partially prehistoric, in most areas it would be "doggone"...

[geneweigel]

Sept 24, 2013 13:54:48 GMT -5 GT said:

And since the creature is partially prehistoric, in most areas it would be "doggone"...

For the stats, I was originally going to go with a pure dinosaur angle based on GRWELSH'S "woofasaurus" suggestion but then realized dinosaurs as a concept is frustrating.

Seriously, I think that dinosaurs in general are broken in D&D because they aren't plain enough. There is no medieval mind that is going to classify something like a tyrranosaurus that was found and named in the 19th-20th century in remnant fossils when a survivor or a time breeched dinosaur could look pretty much like anything considering fossils were only ever specially preserved under certain conditions and certain times. For example from allosaurus to tyrrannosaurus to gigantosaurus how many links and offshoots are going to surface in future dig findings? The possibilities are practically endless.

[Merkholz]

The funny thing is that I remember having those plastic toys mixed in with farm animals and "real" dinosaurs but tossing them away when I got older and more into mature pasttimes, such as D&D for instance! Ironic, huh?

[geneweigel]

I usually hold onto... EVERYTHING. Scraps of paper from D&D games, souvenirs from the year RETURN OF THE JEDI premiered, art supplies (that I never use!), the odd piece of junk that might make a good 25mm miniature, and it goes on and on.

However just like everyone else it comes down to "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO CLEAN UP THAT JUNK?". I had styrofoam, cardboards and recycled packing shapes all over the basement 5 years ago because I wanted to build one of my castles from the campaign of course it never happened and I ended up throwing all of it out.

I went downstairs to check on what "dinosaurs" that I could scratch up but I think there is more somewhere. This is all I could find right now:



I believe that there is more in a miscellaneous figure bucket somewhere but that remains to be seen. I know I have those "stirges" for sure.

[geneweigel]

Back to the dinosaur yammer that I was saying about the less said about dinos the better.

Its like older people think the Museum of Natural History is still as cool and straightforward as HALL OF EARLY DINOSAURS and HALL OF LATE DINOSAURS when everything was like eye candy.

They don't realize that all thats gone and replaced with HALL OF ORNITHISCHIANS and HALL OF SAURISCHISANS. First of it sounds "off" and second lets make them divided by millions of years along their diet plan. What politically correct nerd thought of that? Wait, it gets better. The artwork that ran all around the walls was destroyed for these claustrophobic clusters of overwritten science text that no one stops reading for over five minutes so you can't get close to anything anymore. Knuckleheads.

Heres a perfect example of "dinosaur" fuck ups by the "scientific" staff:

Heres ANDREWSARCHUS when I was a kid:



Heres ANDREWSARCHUS being pulled out for a quick glimpse with a temporary display WHALES: GIANTS OF THE DEEP:



The difference is NO FAT GUY... no seriously, whales? Its boring. Dinos need to be either sexy or never seen or mentioned, right?

[Scott]

I had a couple of those sets growing up. They ended up being melted, drawn and quartered, used as bb gun targets, launched into orbit, etc. If only I would have known...

[geneweigel]

I still have burnt bombed star wars storm troopers and green army men from the 70s.

[geneweigel]

I found the toy the roper (and/or beholder) most likely was sourced from:

www.flickr.com/photos/93779577@N00/5778059281/in/set-72157616204448788

I've seen Basil Wolverton comics/drawings close to the beholder but this was based on a Wolverton card series called RUBBER UGLIES.

Although unrelated directly, in an interview Erol Otus cited being inspired by RUBBER UGLIES cards here:

www.tor.com/blogs/2009/04/an-interview-with-fantasy-artist-erol-otus

And that is the end of that!

I hope!

[GRWelsh]

That rubber cyclops-roper thingy looks very familiar...

Looking at it now, it is making me think of a Lovecraftian beastie... one of those plant-based monsters or maybe the Great Race.

I definitely had that black rubber spider. I can almost feel it when I look at the picture... the hollowness of the abdomen.

I like the weird vintage toys gallery!

[geneweigel]

Heres a link to info on it: www.normansaunders.com/RUgly,01.html


The original 1965 Wolverton UGLY STICKERS idea is different from the final product of the RUBBER UGLIES which were eventually in gumball machines in the 1970's but it says they were originally sold out of a box.

Anyway, the styles just scream "beholder" and "roper" but that rubbery one takes the prize for most likely inspiration.

[geneweigel]

I just stumbled on some more D&D-iana that just blew my mind. A Wolverton comic that has the obvious source of the rust monster's body shape that must have inspired the "chinasaur". Makes me wonder if the whole shebang of D&D oddities is somehow Wolverton-based:


NOTE: In the story they call it a "spiderosaur". There is also an establishing shot of it but its smaller than these.

[geneweigel]

Oops just finished and some bad news. The series is from the 1940's called SPACEHAWK and unfortunately that issue was the second from last with alien creatures. The rest of the series went WWII crazy with bombers, subs, "krauts" and "japs".

[geneweigel]

This my line of thinking, although this is obviously not a creature of rust or has the weird tail of the rust monster but consider this:

1) Basil Wolverton was internationally recognized as a creator of ugly things winner of creating an ugly face for a character for LIL' ABNER out of 500,00 entrants. (LIL' ABNER was a newspaper strip that was eventually made into a film as well)
2) He was associated with EC Comics and EC-like comics of the 40's and 50's era which is the era cited by E. Gary Gygax as inspirational to D&D.
3) He had his own line of unreal trading cards produced into unreal toys that were readily seen at corner stores in an open box in the 1970's.

Perhaps the Chinasaurs are Wolverton creatures made to bank on the success of the TOPPS RUBBER UGLIES series toys. The antenaed dino, the dog dino and the "pecker" seems to scream his style.