Perfect World Entertainment has just released

a video for their forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons-based MMO,

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/games/neverwinter">Neverwinter

showcasing the Icespire Peak region. The video shows off somewinter-themed monsters - Ice Trolls, Frost Giants, Winter Wolves and IceGolems. Last

week , we speculated on the inclusion of giants in Neverwinter, andthis video confirms it.

This week, we'll engage in even more outlandish speculation, looking at

the weirder side of D&D monsters. Some of these are awesome and iconic

monsters we want to see in Neverwinter. Some of them seem more like the

fevered brain-doodles of an over-tired DM trying to find new ways to screw

his players over.

Slimes, Fungi and Mold

Much of Dungeons & Dragons takes place in subterranean locales -

crypts, catacombs, tunnels, caves, et cetera. Green plants cannot grow in

these spaces since there is no sunlight, but the dank, dark and often

humid nature of underground spaces create ideal growth conditions for

lichens, mold, fungi and other slimy, nasty things. And in the grand

D&D tradition, if something is gross, it is often also deadly. Even

when they don't make any real sense as adversaries.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/248663">Though they have

fallen in prominence in recent years, there were once vast swarms of

slime-monsters creating deadly environmental hazards in 2nd Edition

dungeons. They ranged from transparent slithering slime and psionic Grey

Ooze to the mighty Gelatinous Cube, a

nightmare serving of evil Jell-O that swallowed adventurers whole and

dissolved everything but their magic items. Fungus and mold was

anthropomorphized into the Myconid and Vegepygmy,

respectively - humanoid monsters with varying degrees of intelligence,

composed entirely of non-meat organic matter.

Of the huge assortment of oozes, slimes, puddings, fungi and molds, the

Gelatinous Cube is perhaps the most likely to slither and jiggle its way

into Neverwinter. It was originally designed by Gary Gygax as a sort of

robo-vac for dungeons - 10 feet per side, the same as a standard dungeon

passageway, it would slither down the hallways and dissolve any organic

material (read: dead adventurers and monster corpses) it came across, the

ultimate in self-cleaning dungeon technology.

Deadly Jackalopes and Wolpertingers

The Monster Manuals have always been filled with a huge range of

creatures, many of them drawn from myths and legends and others created to

fill ecological niches. But there are also a huge number of weird monsters

that all sort of fit into one generic category: "An X with the Y

of a Z and the A of a B." Like the Jackalope

of North America or the Wolpertinger of Bavaria, these bizarre cryptids

are Frankensteined assemblages of various creature parts kit-bashed into

one body.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/248665">

Some of these are ripped directly from

ancient myths. The Griffon, for example, has the body of

a lion and the head, wings and talons of an eagle, and has been used as a

heraldic emblem for hundreds of years. Some of these monsters are

interpretations of old myths - the Catoblepas, for

example, is an exaggeration of a creature described by Roman naturalist

Pliny the Elder, who may have been attempting to describe the gnu or some

other kind of unfamiliar wildebeest. Others are entirely new creations,

like the Grell (a giant floating brain with the beak of

a parrot and the tentacles of an octopus) or the ManBearPig

Owlbear (a monster created by Gygax for the 1st Edition,

which was inspired by a Chinese toy).

Many of these mashups are likely to make an appearance in Neverwinter.

Griffons are industry-standard aerial mounts, the Grell is featured rather

prominently in the 4th Edition Monster Manual and is a strong contender

for late-game underground encounters, and the Owlbear is one of those

wilderness encounters that makes D&D the game it is.

Revenge of the DM

Occasionally, the dungeon master needs to correct a mistake introduced in

a previous session. Characters become too powerful and no longer fear

death by Hit-Point-loss, so a new form of danger must be introduced that

once again gives them pause and makes them cautious. A player with a

powerful magic item has been using it to annihilate his enemies at every

corner, so a new enemy with immunities to that item's effects comes into

play. Or perhaps the DM simply wishes to exercise his sadistic streak and

punish and abuse his players. Either way, the Monster Manual provides the

means to achieve these ends.

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A good storyteller will add clever twists to his tales to keep the

audience guessing, and lazy DMs can accomplish this with deceptive

monsters. Mimics look like treasure

chests until they chomp off the hand that reaches in to loot them. That

sweet dark garment hanging on a hook by the door might not be a real

magical cloak, but a Cloaker that will attempt to

strangle and eat anyone attempting to wear it. Those perfectly

normal-looking stalactites? Some of them are alive and will impale you

when you walk below them. That puddle of water? Actually it's just

water... but at the bottom is a crystal-clear slime-monster

indistinguishable from the puddle above. Even perfectly ordinary clear air

can be hostile if an Invisible Stalker is in the

neighborhood. The Monster Manuals give the DM loads of tools to help him

be a player-hating dick.

A

number of monsters have particularly deadly, impairing or deleterious

effects on the players. Instant-death attacks have become less common over

the years, but the Banshee's wail has always been

instantly lethal. Even worse than that was the Rot Grub,

a worm that would burrow into the victim's flesh until it reached the

heart, killing the host. This was particularly cruel because the victim

needed to make a successful Wisdom check to even notice the infestation,

and the "cure" involved burning the worms out with fire... within the

first 6 or so rounds of infection. After that, the only solution was a

Cure Disease spell. 4th Edition rules have more or less eliminated the

instant-kill monster, but these guys are nasty even in their nerf-y 4E

bodies.

There were only ever a small handful of monsters with instant-death

attacks. But there are loads of monsters with incapacitating attacks -

especially petrification and paralysis. Medusae, Cockatrices,

Basilisks, Catoblepases and Gorgons,

among many others, all have attacks that permanently turned their victims

to stone. Paralysis is another very common type of incapacitating attack

occuring in loads of monsters (including the previously-discussed

Gelatinous Cube). Powerful demons, devils, dragons and other large

beasties have a fear aura, which can cause anyone just looking at them to

freak out and flee in a panic.

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One of the douche-iest DM-Revenge monsters ever created is the

Rust Monster, a creature that destroys any metal objects it

touches. Fighter types with razor-sharp enchanted swords and bunker-like

plate armor, who can take on most any powerful foe without fear, are

reduced to quivering bowls of angry Jell-O when faced with a Rust Monster.

In older editions, the Rust Monster was relatively peaceful, only

interested in consuming the metal worn and carried by adventurers and not

in their meaty bodies. 4th Edition has beefed the Rust Monster up a bit,

giving it a stronger bite attack and increased movement speed from 3rd Ed,

but nerfing the rust effect so that it only happened as the result of a

successful bite attack.

Mimics have already brought their brand of cruel deception to Neverwinter,

but hopefully none of these other creatures find their way in. Avoidable

instant-death attacks are to be expected as a part of boss fight

mechanics, and temporary, non-lethal incapacitating attacks are a major

part of any game system using magic. But any kind of balancing issues that

might otherwise require the introduction of a Rust Monster can be avoided

by standardizing gear and loot drops, which is sort of central to any MMO.

Beholders

Beholders are the stuff of nightmares and the terrors of

the Underdark. The Beholder is a large floating head with a giant, glaring

central eye, a massive fang-filled mouth and a varying number of creepy

eyestalks instead of hair - the standard beholder had 10 eye stalks,

lesser variants had fewer, and some weird offshoots have more. Each eye

has a different magical ability. In the old days, the central eye of a

standard beholder was an anti-magic cone, but that has been replaced by a

daze attack in 4th Edition. Beholders are egotistical and xenophobic,

believing themselves to be the pinnacle of creation and everything else to

be lesser beings. They hate everything that is different from themselves,

including variant sub-species.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/248671">

While a massive part of the Dungeons & Dragons bestiary is derived

from folklore and the works of other writers, the beholder is a wholly

original creation, created by Terry Kuntz, one of the earliest employees

of TSR. It was first published in the original Greyhawk rules supplement,

appearing on the cover and detailed inside.

Beholders are late-game monsters, even in the tabletop version, and have

made many video game appearances over the years. There is no guarantee

that they will be included in late-game Neverwinter. But, as one of

Wizards of the Coast's most recognizable unique properties, they damn well

should be. At the very least, they should be made available in the Foundry

toolset so creative players can include them in their own adventure

modules.

The Tarrasque

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The Tarrasque is a perfect engine of raw destructive

power. It is enormous, violent and very nearly unkillable, and it exists

only to destroy. There is only one Tarrasque (per world) but that is a

good thing. It is powerful and destructive enough to bring ruin to the

earthly works of the gods themselves, and it can only be defeated by the

equivalent of an army (but not killed - that requires powerful magic and

possibly divine intervention). From its conception, the Tarrasque has

always been an epic boss fight, the last thing an adventuring group would

fight on the Prime Material plane before challenging the gods themselves.

The Tarrasque has gone through a number of changes since its 1st Edition

introduction. The early edition versions were immune to basically

everything and regenerated Hit Points at an absurd rate (and could even

regenerate from instant-death spells), but could be slain by reducing it

to negative hit points and using a Wish or Miracle spell on the gooey

remains. The 4th Edition version is less expansive - it's only a sub-entry

of the Abomination category. It is less physically resilient, with no

regeneration and immunity only to charm and fear effects, but it

technically cannot be killed. When reduced to 0 Hit Points, it sinks back

into the world's core and takes a nap.

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/248674">

The Tarrasque is based on a legendary French beast of nearly the same

name (minus one R), which was said to have six stumpy legs, a turtle's

shell, a scaly tail tipped with a scorpion stinger, and the head of a

lion. Unlike the D&D monster which is immune to charm effects, the

Tarasque was tamed by Saint Martha, who charmed it with hymns and prayers

and then led it to the nearby city. The people there freaked out when they

saw it and attacked it, but the creature, charmed by Saint Martha, offered

no resistance and died. Saint Martha cussed all the heathens out for being

dumbasses and converted them to Christianity, and the name of the town was

changed to Tarascon in honor of the slain beast.

The Tarrasque has not appeared in any game to date. There is only one

(per realm), after all, and slaying it would run contrary to most canon.

At least, it would prior to 4th Edition. In 4th Edition rules, the

Tarrasque simply resets when it reaches 0 Hit Points. The 4E Tarrasque is

a natural MMO boss fight., and since Neverwinter is the first 4E MMO, it

would make sense to build an endgame raid around this. It is very unlikely

that the Tarrasque will make an appearance, but the logic of the system

supports his existence, and we can always hope for the best.

Neverwinter's second beta event starts this weekend on March 8. What

weird, unlikely monster would you like to see in the game? Let us know in

our comments!