My favorite monster
Do you play Dungeons & Dragons? I do. I may have mentioned it once or twice before. I’m in the process of getting ready to play D&D with my friends in person in three weeks or so and that’s why I found myself in Guardian Games today. In-person D&D requires physical props, minis, and dice. Don’t they? Sure they do.
They have a much more limited selection these days than I remember from the past. For one thing, they’ve removed the used modules and rulebooks. I was looking forward to going through the used bins. I was hoping to find some old copies of modules I could read, nostalgize (that’s a new word; I just made it up) and maybe incorporate into my campaign. Guess there’s still DM’s Guild for that.
They had a huge display case just for dice. I must admit I am a bit of a dice goblin. There were dice there that were amazing and I am not going to mention what made them amazing because I still might buy them just to show off to my other players.
And they had a decent selection of miniatures, including a line of mini monsters that were using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons artwork. And, again, seeing them gave me a huge dose of nostalgium (it’s a word now; that’s how language works, deal with it). I love those old janky designs. The rubbery long-nosed trolls. The dog-faced kobolds before they became li’l dragonkin. The propeller-tailed rust monsters. The dookie-shaped ropers. Love, love, love.
Elsewhere in the store they had some modern, 5E designs for miniatures. I was looking for dragons. Several dragons are the big movers and shakers in my world, and I’d love to have them represented in my next session. I was particularly looking for a big angry black dragon. For some reason, I’ve always loved the design of the black dragon; they have those cool forward-pointing horns. In AD&D they were straight and pointy; modern designs have curved but still forward-pointing horns.
And that led me, nostalgalisticaly (it’s a word and the meaning is clear from the context, admit it; as long as you understand what I’m saying it’s a word) to thinking about monsters that I love, monsters I always include in my games for one reason or another but mostly because I just dig them. Black dragons; the very first dragon I ever used in a game was a black dragon, spitting acid, coming out of a swamp to attack the party.
Kobolds. I love the old school ones and the new school ones. If I need a mob that’s got low hit points but attacks in large groups, I don’t go goblin, I don’t go orc, I go kobold. I’ve pulled lore from all over the place for the canonical kobolds in my game.
One bit that came from earlier editions is that they will involuntarily switch gender in instances where their colony is threatened, in a similar way that some amphibians do in nature. I had an NPC kobold early on, Azak, who the players met in the middle of their change, so I tried to consistently refer to them with neutral pronouns. Not sure the players noticed but it was a touchstone for me. They weren’t trans in the way people are trans; they were literally undergoing an environmentally-forced gender change. I’m glad the players didn’t kill them and their friend Tuud. I’d love for them to make a return, if I can find the right story beat for them.
One other monster that I have fond memories of fighting is a troll. My first best AD&D character, “Griffon” Gondolin, elven thief (not Rogue, not back in those days) had a reputation for doing ridiculous damage when backstabbing, and the first time he killed a monster in one turn, it was a troll. The other party members rushed in to burn the pieces and prevent the troll from regenerating, but it was the twin blades of Griffon that took it down to -10 HP. Fun times.
