so.. monsters then

What would D&D be without monsters? Well it would be called "Dungeons and" for starters but anyway...

Which monster is the best: obviously it's the Owlbear.

But which is the worst? Well there's one in my Rules Cyclopedia called a Revener which looks like an undead but isn't, is hard to hit and takes load of damage and if it hits you... you lose one of your senses. Apparently, if elves (and only elves) lose their sense of touch they can no longer find secret doors.

However, there are many other terrible monsters, particularly in the Fiend Folio.

The Sea Bishop sadly not statted for D&D

So Basic D&D had some monsters that don't appear in other editions. I (like Bargle and the Hutaakans) am quite fond of Living Statues - a sort of cut-price golem with odd abilities. I'm not sure why we need Giant Ferrets and Giant Weasels (but also why we don't get Giant Stoats, Pine Martins or Polecats). So my plan is to convert some of these for 5e instead of just picking something similar.

I may even stat up a Sea Bishop.

Mystara musings (Part 1?)

So my introduction to Mystara, or The Known World as it was then know, was in 1986 when I got the Dark Blue Expert box Set for my 11th birthday.

Of course, the most exciting thing about that set is not the rule book but the supplied module - The Isle of Dread. This was the second version with the Orange cover and a picture of some guys in the sea fighting a flipping T-Rex! Which was obviously really cool if you are 11. Dragons? Pfff.

"Those T-Rex look so stupid with their tiny arms... There's one right behind me, isn't there?"

So back to the Expert Rule book, well there wasn't much about the Known world in there. A bit about The Grand Duchy of Karameikos and a bit more about the small town of Threshold and that was it.

There was more info about The Known World in The Isle of Dread - a very brief description of each country and that was it. The Known World was our oyster.

And so it stayed for the next couple of years - there was dribs and drabs of info in various adventure modules and a world map in the Master Set. I think there was more in the Immortal Set but I never owned that.

A then came the Gazetteers. 

But next up - I'm going to think about monsters. Possibly.