The Hobbit – Over Hill and Under Hill

Enter the goblins.

Chapter Summary

Crossing through the Misty Mountains, Bilbo and the dwarves are captured by the goblins. Gandalf comes in and saves the day, leading the dwarves to safety. However, in the final sentences, as they are making their escape, Dori loses Bilbo and the chapter ends there.

Analysis and Discussion

The Misty Mountains serve as a physical boundary that separates the civilized from the wild. On the other side of the mountains one can find the appropriately named Mirkwood, which implies something quite sinister, and of course the dragon. It is fitting that Rivendell represents the calm before the storm, as a terrible lightning storm confronts the party in the opening pages of the chapter.

One of the more interesting bits in The Hobbit is the description of the storm in which stone giants are tossing rocks at each other. This is the only place that I know of where the stone giants are mentioned. The mental image of the giants throwing rocks as the lightning flashes is quite vivid, and gives the storm a more ominous feel to it. It is as if the giants are part of the storm, not just merely passive spectators to nature’s fury. It also raises questions as to whether the storm is natural or unnatural. In the follow up Lord of the Rings, again the Misty Mountains serve as a barrier, and it is a snow storm that confronts Frodo’s party, forcing them to take an underground route. The implication in there is that the storm is a product of something malevolent, and not the work of the natural world.

As Bilbo’s party takes shelter from the storm, they are confronted and captured by the goblins. Throughout The Hobbit, the term goblin is used, while in the larger follow on work, the term orc is used. One frequently used explanation is that Misty Mountain goblins are smaller than orcs, and are more concentrated in the mountains, while the orcs range throughout Middle Earth. In The Hobbit, the goblins appear almost comical when compared to the orcs found in the Lord of the Rings. I suspect that nature of The Hobbit as a whole is intended for a younger audience, and the term orc is meant to imply something a bit darker and fouler than what is found the earlier work. This supports the claim that Tolkien meant for the Lord of the Rings to be a deeper work than what is found in The Hobbit, and as such tackles grimmer and grittier themes than those present in The Hobbit.

In the previous chapter, Elrond identifies the elven swords Orcrist and Glamdring. It is interesting to note that even Gandalf did not know of their names nor of their history. I suspect that he had a good idea of where they came from, but clearly the details eluded him. When Orcrist is presented to the great goblin after the dwarves were captured, he immediately knew what it was. I find this point very interesting, and worthy of some further discussion. Often in literature, the heroes of the story do not realize the tools that they possess to get some particularly difficult task accomplished. This is frequently used to create a story arc of discovery which unfolds as the heroes progress through the story. While the heroes may not understand what they possess, the villains always know. There is this theme in literature that suggests evil understands the power of good, and cannot stand before these instruments. They intuitively know, and shy away from these instruments. In this tale, the Great Goblin, and the rest of his pack understand what Thorin is carrying, even if Thorin does not. Their reaction is immediate.

“Also, he has not explained this!.....The Great Goblin gave a truly awful howl of rage when he looked at it, and all his soldiers gnashed their teeth, clashed their shields, and stamped. They knew the sword at once.”

This reaction is similar to how a vampire would react when confronted with a holy symbol. The reaction is immediate, as the revulsion is powerful.

“They hated it and hated worse any one that carried it.”

Gandalf appears, and rescues the dwarves from certain death. The goblins take chase, and Tolkien gives us an insight into the nature of goblins with his description of the chase. He uses the phrase, “..flap of the goblin feet, many many feet..” This gives an image of rodents scurrying through an underground tunnel, which I suspect was done on purpose. In the short story The Rats in the Walls, Lovecraft weaves a tale of horror based on the sound of rats racing behind the walls. While I am not sure if Tolkien ever read this tale, I can say that he was clearly tapping into this imagery with this choice of words, and the comparison between goblins and rats is an interesting one.

Monstrous Discussions – Goblins

For the record, I really like goblins. They are small creatures that inhabit caves and other dark places. They are not as fierce as their larger cousins, the hobgoblin or the bugbear, but there is still something special about them. They can be played serious or they can be played light and humorous, as they are meant to challenge low level players. I really like Paizo’s reimaging of the goblin that they did for Pathfinder #1, and expanded upon in their Classic Monsters Revisited.

In this chapter, I think Tolkien was looking for something in between sinister and comical. He was considerate of the younger audience when he wrote, yet he did not water the content down too much. The goblins in The Hobbit are not simply mindless beasts, but they do possess some level of rational thought. The Great Goblin could have had them killed right away, but he was willing to trade words with Thorin, before deciding that they would be better off dead.

This feel of the goblins still colors my image of them, and in particular, it is the animated version of the goblins that has stuck with me throughout the years. After the Fellowship movie, smallish creatures that can climb walls like vermin has given me another dimension to add to the goblins. This goes back to the comparison to rats, which resonates rather well with me. In some ways, I do consider goblins to be the rats of the dungeon.

The Hobbit – A Short Rest

With this chapter Tolkien introduces us to Elrond and the Rivendell elves. Elrond comes across as the wise old scholar that puts names to the swords that were found in the previous chapter and shows Gandalf and crew the moon-letters on Thorin’s map.

What I found most interesting about this chapter was how the elves were described. The party encounters the elves just outside Rivendell laughing and singing silly songs.

“So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense I daresay you think it. Not that they would care; they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. They were elves of course.”

“Then off they went into another song as ridiculous as the one I have written down in full.”

Compare this to the more somber elf found in the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. There is no talk about the long defeat, or about the tragic history of the elves. These elves are a kin to happy-go-lucky types, that do not worry about anything. Silly songs do not portray a race in decline and that will eventually pass over to the west. The heritage of Gondolin is only briefly mentioned and is left for the reader to decide what kind of legacy it is. It is only years later that the fully glory of what was Gondolin and its tragic downfall were made public with the publish of The Silmarillion.

There are points in the book where it is clear that this is a children’s story, and this is one of them. It feels like when the good professor first wrote about the elves, he had a lighter vision of them and turned much darker the more he wrote. Galadriel’s discussions with Frodo are in stark contrast to what we find here in beginning of Chapter 3.

Elrond takes center stage in the back half of the chapter, and he is described a bit differently than the elves that were encountered earlier.

“He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer. He comes into many tales, but his part in the story of Bilbo’s great adventure is only a small one..”

There are no silly songs in his make-up. As Elrond looks at the map, we gain a sense of his character.

“He took it and gazed long at it, and he shook his head; for if he did not altogether approve of dwarves and their love of gold, he hated dragons and their cruel wickedness, and he grieved to remember the ruin of the town of Dale..”

There is a note of seriousness to him, and a compassion for those that have been wronged by evil. The fact that he grieves for Dale shows his human side and that he does care about the affairs of men. As was stated by the narrator, his part in this tale is small, but there are hints of his larger role in the history of middle earth.

Monstrous Discussions – Elves

Elves have always been one of my favorite races. That is probably akin to saying that dwarves are not one of my favorite races, which would be true from a player’s perspective.

I am of the opinion that D&D elves borrow quite a bit from Tolkien’s elves. Tolkien’s elves come in a couple of different flavors, but in the hobbit we see a distinction between the high elf of Rivendell and the wood elf of Mirkwood. In D&D terms, I would call these high elves and wood elves. Since the creation of the AD&D monster manual, the number of elf subtypes has grown considerably, but I would still argue that most are a spin off from the civilized high elf and the more savage wood elf. I have to admit, that when I think of the D&D elf, they have a Tolkien flavor to them. Some may disagree with me, but I cannot shake this from my mind. Tolkien in The Silmarillion, gives the elves a noble and heroic face, and this resonates with me. The elven heroes described are beings of legend that went toe to toe with the worst of Melkor’s servants, and frequently emerged victorious from these battles, although in some cases the scars of battle would remain with them. These were mighty beings. While I agree that this type of heroic elf does not fit well in a D&D world, I find that there is a place for their spirit of nobility.

As a final thought, in early D&D elves were both magic users and fighters. This combined legacy would stay with them up through 3rd edition. In 4th edition, this legacy gets split apart and the magic using elves now become eladrin. From a mechanics stand point, it makes perfect sense. In essence, eladrin now replaces the high elf and the wood elves are now just elves. From a flavor stand point, I think we have lost a little. I suspect this is because eladrin just does not sound very Tolkien to me.

Just call me old fashioned.....

The Hobbit – Roast Mutton

Running late in the morning, Bilbo joins the dwarves and they end up in sacks, captured by trolls.

While that is an accurate summary of the chapter, I want to dig into the encounter with the trolls as that dominates the chapter. Cold and hungry, the dwarves send Bilbo to check out the fire in the woods. As it turns out, the fire belonged to three trolls – Bert, Tom, and William, who are sick of mutton, and would like a different type of meat on their patter. Tolkien describes the trolls as “Three large persons sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs.” To be honest, this description is rather blasé. This begs the question of, when one thinks of a troll, what image pops into mind? I suppose it depends a bit on what mythology one looks at.

A snippet from Wikipedia:

A troll is a fearsome member of a race of creatures from Norse mythology. Originally more or less the Nordic equivalents of giants, although often smaller in size, the different depictions have come to range from the fiendish giants – similar to the ogres of England (also called Trolls at times, see Troller's Gill) – to a devious, more human-like folk of the wilderness, living underground in hills, caves or mounds. In the Faroe islands, Orkney and Shetland tales, trolls are called trows, adopted from the Norse language when these islands were settled by Vikings.

Nordic literature, art and music from the romantic era and onwards has adapted trolls in various manners – often in the form of an aboriginal race, endowed with oversized ears and noses. From here, as well as from Scandinavian fairy tales such as Three Billy Goats Gruff, trolls have achieved international recognition, and in modern fantasy literature and role-playing games, trolls are featured to the extent of being stock characters.

Again from Wikipedia, the Tolkien troll:

In J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth, Trolls are very large humanoids of great strength and poor intellect. While in Norse mythology, the Troll was a magical creature with special skills, and are so accepted to this day in Scandinavia, in Tolkien's writings they are portrayed as evil, stupid, with crude habits, although still intelligent enough to communicate with a known language.

In The Hobbit they speak with very thick Cockney accents. They turn to stone when exposed to sunlight and they enjoy eating meat (such as mutton, hobbits and Dwarves) and drinking beer. While threatening, the trolls in The Hobbit serve as a comic element. They even have normal names: Tom, Bert and William (Bill) Huggins (the only one with a given surname).

The fallen Vala and first Dark Lord, Morgoth, created the first Trolls before the First Age. They were strong and vicious, but stupid creatures. The major weakness of at least some Trolls was that they turned to stone in sunlight. Nobody knows how he managed to breed them, though it is stated by Treebeard of the Ents that Trolls were "made in mockery of" them, as Orcs were of Elves, though not necessarily from Entish stock. However, they are likely a corrupted form of some other race of Middle-earth, as neither Morgoth nor Sauron have access to the Secret Fire, and cannot therefore create things; only corrupt that which already exists. There is reference that sunlight will return them to the stone from which they were made in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

I cannot help but notice the differences between the trolls from The Hobbit and from The Lord of the Rings. The trolls from The Lord of the Rings are terrifying creatures that are instruments of war, while in The Hobbit they come across a bit differently. Now part of this is due to the difference in the tone of the stories. The Hobbit is a much lighter tale, when compared to The Lord of the Rings, and there are parts in The Hobbit that make it feel a bit disconnected from the larger work. The narrator’s voice in The Hobbit gives it a story book feel, and insulates the reader from the grimmer nature of the larger work.

As stated in the above quote from Wikipedia, the trolls in The Hobbit, while fierce and dangerous in their own right, come across as a bit comical. Upon reading the description from The Hobbit, I have a mental picture of a hillbilly like giant, not entirely unlike the giant from Jack in the Beanstalk. Even their names, Tom, Bert and William come across as rather plain, and uninspiring. I am not struck with notion that these trolls are the elite of Dark Lord’s army. Gandalf easily tricks them into staying up all night until the dawn turns them to stone, and he does not come across as sounding concerned that there was going to be an unfavorably outcome. Clearly he was concerned when he heard that there were trolls in the area, and he hustled back to check on Bilbo and the dwarves, but I get the feeling that once he saw what was going on, he easily took control of the situation. Once again, Gandalf steps into the role of the supernatural aid, coming to the rescue in the nick of time, providing aid to an otherwise hopeless situation.

With trolls defeated, Gandalf leads the group to the trolls hideout, and they find a number of strange weapons. In the next chapter, Elrond will identify them as elvish blades that date back to Gondolin, which I found to be a nice tie into the larger story that is Middle Earth.

Monstrous Discussions – The Troll

To go back to the discussion on the trolls for a moment more. The D&D troll is a green rubbery creature that has powers of regeneration, and it harkens back to an earlier time in literature. The D&D troll feels a bit like a solitary creature that does not naturally interact well with other humanoids. The D&D troll just does not feel like the Tolkien troll, which has always left me scratching my head. There is a part of me that really likes the idea of the Tolkien trolls which is a beast of war that fights along side the orcs. The orc is a great humanoid opponent for low to mid class characters. However, sometimes one needs to step it up a notch and provide a similar yet different experience in an encounter. This is where the Tolkien troll would fit in well. Now, one can argue that the ogre fits into this category, and I would be inclined to agree. However, there is something about the Tolkien troll that I just like.

In the animated Hobbit, one of the trolls had tusks, and I rather liked that look. I do want my trolls to look rather bestial, and not just like large humanoids. In Peter Jackson’s film version, the trolls looked like monstrous humanoids, with the emphasis on monstrous. I my own mind, I picture them as something in between. Upon further consideration, I just like the tusks.

Since the troll’s first appearance in the monster manuals, there have been a number of sub type trolls created, which allow for plenty of diversity, and I suspect that everyone has their favorite type of troll. There are also a number of different kinds of trolls in Tolkien’s work. Perhaps my favorite type from Tolkien is the Olog-hai.

Olog-hai from Wikipedia:

Olog-hai were "strong, agile, fierce, and cunning" trolls created by Sauron, not unlike the Uruk-hai, and were able to withstand sunlight while under the sway of Sauron's will. They seldom spoke and were said to know no language other than the Black Speech, in which Olog-hai means "troll-folk" (singular Olog "troll"). Because of their cunning, they were thought by some to be giant Orcs, rather than trolls.

I know there have been a number of different types of half orcs created in D&D that captures the essence of the Olog-hai, with the half orc/half ogre being the closest to this. With that said, I think need to sneak a couple of these trolls into my next campaign. These would be perfect in a mega-dungeon that features a large number of orcs.

Monstrous Discussions: The Gnoll

These guys are just plain nasty, filthy animals, and I am comfortable with this.

Paizo will be launching their new adventure path, Legacy of Fire, later this month, which will have gnolls as their featured villain. With villain names such as “The Carrion King,” I will be looking forward to see how it all fits together. With that in mind, I thought I would step back and review the gnoll and give my thoughts on its development and why I like them.

In the beginning (c1974), gnolls began life as a cross between gnomes and trolls, which is where the name came from. Huh..what? Wait. Gnomes and trolls? Are we talking about small elvish fey and big green monsters mixed together? To be honest, I am struggling with this combination. It’s not quite the classic peanut butter and jelly combination. Are we talking about small green guys with pointed ears, or are we talking about giant green fey, or are we talking about the green goblin? To be honest, I am not sure what this looks like. While it is probably better than the flumph, it still feels a bit like (green?) mashed potatoes to me. By 1st ed, the gnoll had turned into the familiar hyena humanoid, and this version has stayed with us to the present day. So to summarize, in the span of just a few years, we have gone from a green goblin thing to a nasty, filthy humanoid monster, which I will mark down as progress.

One of the issues with the humanoid monster is how do you differentiate it from each other. We have the orc, half-orc, goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, troglodytes, ogres and the gnoll all occupying the same space. If we expand this category a little more to include just humaniods, one could add humans, drow, and dwarves. If we include animal humanoids, we could throw in lycanthropes, lizard men, beastmen, ratmen, and a host of other critters. From a mechanics point of view, they are all very similar, and I would argue that one can stat them up to look almost identical to each other. So back to the question of how do we make them look and feel different? This is a tough one.

I think in order to really answer the question, one has to understand what exactly is a gnoll. I am going to stick with the newer version of the gnoll, as I like this one better, and I think this is what most folks think of when they think of the gnoll, which is a nasty, filthy animal.

In the gnoll’s most basic form, it is a smelly, stinking, beast like humanoid. What’s not to like? In retrospect, having the gnoll based on a hyena, was brilliant. There are a number of wolf or dog creatures already in the game and in literature, so the hyena-humaniod is similar but different. On a side note, I was reading a fan created dungeon that I think was sponsored by the fine folks over at Enworld, and they had created a dungeon, in which the gnoll barracks had beds. I am not thinking that they sleep in beds, but that is just me.

In first edition, the link between gnolls and demons was firmly established by the presence of Yeenoghu, the demon prince of gnolls. With this link, their alignment as chaotic evil was the natural fit. With the appearance of the D series, the drow took center stage and their culture defined chaotic evil. The drow’s form of chaotic evil is a cruel society in which the matriarchs wield power, and everyone watches their back in fear of an assassin’s blade or worse. Gnolls version of chaotic evil is very different.

Paizo, in their Classic Monsters Revisited book, dedicated a chapter to fleshing out what gnoll culture is like. True to their animal heritage, gnolls are vicious pack animals that live by the law of the pack. Their slant on the gnoll resonates well with me, as it draws on the culture and image of cannibalistic tribes, and the hunter/scavenger nature of the hyena. The flavor hangs together very nicely.

However, after spending some time reading through this, I start rethinking their alignment of chaotic evil. For the most part, the write ups in the various clearly show the gnoll as a pack animal. This feels more like lawful evil to me. Clearly their pack is ruled by the strongest alpha male, and to compare it back to the drow, feels completely the opposite of their culture. Now with this statement, I do not mean to imply that just because there is a stark contrast between the two, the gnolls would be by definition lawful evil. But this pack society with an implied law of the pack, feels a bit like lawful evil rather than chaotic evil. If we extended on this line of reasoning, it would question the categorization of Yeenoghu as a demon prince. Wizards published an interesting article on Yeenoghu in Dragon 364, which is available as a download from their website, that provides some insight into Yeenoghu. While this article is written for 4th ed, there is still some good fluff that can be pulled out and applied generically to any previous version of D&D.

To circle back around to the question on differentiation, I think it’s the link between them and the hyena, that helps to separate them from the other humanoids. Very rarely is the hyena seen as the good guy, and the pop culture view of the hyena is something that can be built upon. The Lion King is an excellent example as the hyenas are the servants of Scar, and are the embodiment of evil. Even their nature as scavengers of carrion brings up images of a savage beast. To be blunt, they are smelly, nasty animals.

If I get a chance to GM with gnolls again, what I would like to do is mount them on dire hyenas that look very similar to the wargs in Lord of the Ring movies. While I have mixed feelings about the depiction of them in the movies, if I take that warg and put a gnoll on it, now we have an interesting mounted warrior to use against the characters. The nomadic gnoll tribe now would have a quick striking arm that could run down characters that try to get away. I like it!

Monstrous Discussions: My Top 10 Favorite Monsters

James over at Grognardia has an excellent post on his top ten monsters. Since it is Saturday night here in China and I am feeling rather lazy at the moment, I thought I would follow suit for today’s blog, and I will write my product review post tomorrow.

One of the first D&D books I bought was the 1st ed Monster Manual. Even though the front cover is a bit of a mess, the interior of the book is pure genius. It is a walk through literature, the pulps, and mythology, and most of the names are instantly recognizable. I first saw it in the hands of my buddy, and I just could not put the book down when he showed it to me. I still have my original book, complete with a signature from Gary himself!

Without further ramblings, let’s get on with the list.

1. Wolves/Worgs/Winterwolves. I love these guys. I know I am grouping a bunch of these canine critters together, but I will use them interchangeably based on character level and the environment. When I am designing and running games, expect a heavy dose of these baddies. In my mind, they are very versatile and can be used to augment an encounter with other monsters, then can stand by themselves, and they can give a bit of ambience with their sinister howl. In addition, I love the concept of talking worgs that serve as messengers for the BBEG. As a final point, worg riders are the best! While the scene in The Two Towers movie was a Peter Jackson add on scene, it was really cool to watch.

2. Dragons. I love dragons. The good ones (silver), the bad ones (red), and the ugly ones (blue - the third edition ones are just really ugly, but I like them anyways). And there are plenty in between to like as well. I like the idea of drakes as lesser dragons that can challenge lower level parties. I like the idea of dragon men. While I am not a big fan of DragonLance, the concept behind the Draconians was a really interesting idea – good dragon eggs that had been corrupted using vile magic and abishai.

3. Werewolves. Of all the lycanthropes, these are my favorites. I also like the idea of wolfweres, which are the reverse of werewolves. In the Ravenloft campaign setting, both of these beasties received a lot of attention, and were one of my favorite parts of that setting. For me, there is a strong link between werewolves and gothic horror, which is always fun for a GM.

4. Ratmen. I have always like the way Games Workshop has treated the concept of ratmen. They are servants of chaos and have access to bizarre chaos weapons, which adds to the mystique of these creatures. When Monte published Ptolus, he included ratmen in the monster write ups, along with plenty of ideas on how to treat chaos. For me, this was perfect. In my Ptolus campaign that I ran, ratmen received generous attention and were a primary villain for the characters to battle. Going forward I expect them to infest my future campaigns. ON a side note, I do like wererats, however I am hooked on the GW feel of ratmen, which gives them the nod over the wererats.

5. Lich. Whoa…what’s not to like. Perhaps the most memorable lich I ever faced was the second lich , which was a 37th level lich. I can still remember that encounter fairly vividly. The GM for that particular monstrosity was my buddy Mike who was one of my favorite GM’s, although his stuff was always super powered, but the concepts were awesome. He took D&D to a whole different level, that that is another story. Needless to say when he announced that the lich was just going to cast a little 'ole fireball, my other buddy freaked. “That’s a 37 dice fireball! There is nothing small about a 37 dice fireball.” It was just a precious moment. I cannot remember how much damage it did, but it was significant. This was also the occasion that I was introduced to the spell meteor swarm. Ouch!

6. Gnolls. Hairy, smell, hyena humanoids that worship demons. Perfect! Paizo is going to be featuring them in their upcoming Legacy of Fire Adventure Path, and I am curious to see what sort of flavor Paizo is going to given them. Eric Mona is writing up the first book, and it is due out in another month.

7. Wraiths. As a big Tolkien fan, wraiths are one of my favorites. The 1st ed one is by far the best. With their level drain, they are just pain scary. I really like the idea of the Ring Wraiths, which are powerful servants of a BBEG. They also remind me of the Shadowlords from Ultima V, which is perhaps my favorite of the Ultima series. This is another blog post that I want to write up in the near future.

8. Shadows. Shadows are great. They are sneaky, and you can put them anywhere. They are one of the ultimate dungeon critters, and a definite favorite in my book.

9. Gargoyle. Gargoyles smack of gothic horror. Stone creatures that have been animated by evil magic, and serve are guardians. With the possibility of multiple arms, wings, horns, and tails, these guys have it all, and they just ooze flavor.

10. Kobolds. I love ‘em for a number of reasons. They are going to be the topic of an upcoming Monstrous Discussion, so I will hold off on further comments.

Monstrous Discussions: Drow - Contempt

Drow. Dark elves. Familiarity breeds contempt.

I remember when I first heard about them, way back in 1981-ish, a buddy of mine was talking about the D series, and the topic of the Drow came up, and I was thinking, “wow, that is cool.” Well 25+ years later they do not seem quite the same. It feels like they are now a bit overexposed, and they do not feel as fresh and exciting as they were back in the early 80’s. I really like the concept, but it has been watered down a bit, and they do not feel nearly as mysterious as they once did. For me, the attraction was the mysterious nature of them. They lived underground, hidden from the above ground world. We did not know a lot about that them, and that was actually a good thing. Forgotten Realms changed all that, and now we have a number of different flavors of Drow (including good Drow and surface Drow). This is too much, and I think the image is tarnished a bit. Too many designers have ruined an other wise good idea. Now it is just too much.

I have pulled some info from Wikipedia on the original history of the Drow:

The word "drow" is of Scottish origin, an alternative form of "trow", which is a cognate for "troll". Trow/drow was used to refer to a wide variety of evil sprites. Except for the basic concept of "dark elves", everything else about the Dungeons & Dragon drow was invented by Gary Gygax.

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax stated that "Drow are mentioned in Keightley's The Fairy Mythology, as I recall (it might have been The Secret Commonwealth--neither book is before me, and it is not all that important anyway), and as Dark Elves of evil nature, they served as an ideal basis for the creation of a unique new mythos designed especially for the AD&D game." This establishes Gygax's source for the term as Thomas Keightley's The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries.

The drow were first mentioned in the Dungeons & Dragons game in the 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (1977) under the "Elf" entry, where it is stated that "The 'Black Elves,' or drow, are only legend." They made their first statistical appearance in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King and the sequel D series modules, which expanded on drow culture. The first D&D manual that the drow appeared in was the original Fiend Folio. The modules in which the drow originally appeared were later published together in Queen of the Spiders (1986). The drow are first presented as a player character race in Unearthed Arcana.

A couple of things to point out in the above text. I liked the way that the first edition MM just mentioned the Drow as a footnote to the elf entry. It is almost a throw away note at the bottom of the entry. I liked it. Greater mystery is only hinted at. Perfect. One of the things that I have read about world design is that you never want to wrap up all the loose ends. You want a number of dangling threads that are a bit messy. This leaves plenty of room to build upon. It feels like with all the information that has been written about them, they have become a bit too tidy. Let me be blunt on this one. When they take a crap, we know how many pieces are in the bowl. There is no mystery.

Unearthed Arcana is a bit of a mixed bag. There are some things I liked, and there are something I did not like. Adding Drow as a player race, in my mind, was a mistake. We might as well call them blue elves. We have grey elves, sun elves, moon elves, wood elves, wild elves, and now we can have blue elves. I go back to the idea that what appealed to me about the Drow is that they were something of an enigma. Not any more.

There will be more grumblin’ about this topic.

Monstrous Discussions: Drow - Initial Ramblings

I just reviewed Pathfinder 18, which was the 3rd Adventure Path series featuring the Drow. I have been giving the Drow quite a bit of thought as I have been reading through this adventure path.

I will be providing my more extensive thoughts on this in my next blog.

Monstrous Discussions: What is an Orc?

What is an Orc?

I am in the middle of my Paladin series blog, and I am getting ready to wrap up that series very shortly. However, before I can complete that series, I must take a side step over to this topic. Some of my readers may see where I am going with this. So with out further delay, let’s get into it.

What is an Orc? I think the answer is a bit subjective, and I can see how it can vary from DM to DM. However, I want to give some historical perspective, and then give my own personal take on them. I think there are some common themes that run throughout, and I want to discuss that at some length.

From the first ed MM:
“Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general, but they particularly hate elves and will always attack them in preference to other creatures. They take slaves for work, food, and entertainment (torture, etc) but not elves whom they kill immediately.”

From the 2nd ed MM:
“Orcs are a species of aggressive mammalian carnivores that band together in tribes and survive by hunting and raiding. Orcs believe that in order to survive they must expand their territory, and so they are constantly involved in wars against many enemies: humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, and other orc tribes.”

From the 3rd ed MM:
“Orcs are aggressive humanoids that raid, pillage, and battle other creatures. They have a hatred of elves and dwarves that began generations ago, and often kill such creatures on sight…..Orcs believe that to survive, they must conquer as much territory as possible, which puts them at odds with all intelligent creatures that live near them.”

From Paizo’s Classic Monsters Revisited:
“Mad marauders in the dark of night, these terrors descend on the unsuspecting and leave naught but slaughter in their wake…..Orcs are aggressive, brutish humanoids that exist by strength of their arms and sinews. They are the cockroaches of the humanoid races….The orc is the antithesis of civilized man…Never be mistaken: They’re not men, they’re monsters.”

From the New Tokien Companion:
“….believed to be themselves descended from the Quendi, for their sires, it was said, had been abducted by Melkor and twisted and corrupted into this new race: evil, filled with his dark will, cannibalistic and cruel.”

From Wikipedia:
“Orc is a word used to refer to various races of tough and warlike humanoid creatures in various fantasy settings, appearing originally in the stories of Middle-earth written by J. R. R. Tolkien and derivative fictions. Orcs are often portrayed as misshapen humanoids with brutal, warmongering, sadistic, yet cowardly tendencies, although some settings and writers describe them as a proud warrior race with a strong sense of honor.”

From Warcraft (source – Wikipedia):
“In the Warcraft computer game series Orcs are depicted as more ethically and socially complex than in most renditions. The great Orcish race is a savage but noble society made of shamanistic and fierce warriors.”

I included a number of sources to get a full range of opinions on what is an orc. I believe that the term (not necessarily the idea) first came from Tolkien, who took ideas from Old English and a variety of other old European languages and came up with the term. For the purposes of this discussion, I will consider the good professor as the official origin of the term. I believe that Gary Gygax took the term right from Tolkien and imported it directly in the D&D. While I have heard Gary's comments that Tolkien’s works had nothing to do with the creation of the game, I will take that with a grain of salt.

In looking over the list, the definitions vary from monster to noble yet savage humanoids. Clearly in the creation of the term orc, Tolkien had in mind a monster that was a twisted creation of the elf, which would explain the hatred of their founding. I think that this is important to note, that in the creation of the term, orc was meant to imply a warlike humanoid, descended from the elves. Elves in Tolkien’s world were fair and beautiful creatures. They first the first born, and they were the fairest of the children of Eru. In other words, the orc was not a natural creation by the creator, but rather a corruption of what was fair, beautiful and natural.

As I have stated in my earlier blog on the minotaur, I am not a fan of watering down the historic concepts of monsters. There is something about going back to the roots of the mythology that provides an authenticity, which one can rest upon. I agree that sometimes the redemption story of traditional villains resonates well with us, but they should be the outlying exception, not a general rule of thumb.

When I look over the various definitions, I see that first ed MM was very much in line with Tolkien. The 2nd edition started to water down the definition. By bringing in the term “mammalian,” it feels like the orcs are more neanderthalic tribes, rather than a corruption of nature. Third edition feels like it is moving back towards the original definition by bringing back the concept of a hatred for elves, and that they raid and pillage. I like the way that the third edition states, “…puts them at odds with all intelligent creatures.” This denotes a fundamental disagreement that can only have one outcome. Moving on to Paizo’s Classic Monsters Revisited, they have pulled out all the stops in describing the orc. They have separated the Orc from man (by with they mean all intelligent life forms), by calling them monsters, cockroaches and mad marauders. There is no doubt that these are the villains of the game, and to be more specific, they are monstrous villains. These are the monsters that mothers warn their children about. This is very strong imagery, on the nature of the orc.

Dropping down to the WoW game, the orc is now a noble savage. This leaves me cold. This feels like a watering down of the concept, and creating a grey space in which to comment on social injustices. By using the term noble savage, the image of the American Indian is called up, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A noble savage has a totally different visualization, than a mad marauder or a cockroach. I could easily put some of the heroes of pulp fantasy into this category of noble savage. The term savage calls forth an image of wildness, not monstrous. Coupling this with the term noble, gives the savage honor. I just finished reading Almuric, and I could easily put the hero, Esau Cairn, in the category of savage noble. He calls forth the idea of a primitive, raw force that does know honor, and can act boldly for a greater good. There is something raw in Esau Cairn that resonates well with the reader, and harkens us back to an earlier untamed time, but that still can be called good. This is not where I want my villains to live.

Clearly, in my game, my orcs are villainous. They are monsters of the night. They are not natural, but a perverse creation of what was once fair and good. They are blight to all intelligent life, and I love the comparison to the cockroach. In the film, Fellowship of the Ring, there is a scene in Maria in which the orcs are crawling down the massive columns, and this is specifically done to link the image of the orc to a cockroach. Make no mistake about it, this is a direct statement on the identity of the orc.

While some may like their villains to be misunderstood, I think that this waters down the intrinsic alignment that is in the game. With the alignment system that is in the game, there is a calling to pick a side. One is not to be neutrally generic. The characters are not just thugs that are one step away from being villains, but rather they are called to understand the innate foulness of the creatures they face, and they need to be ready to answer the call, in order to drive out such filth when ever they encounter it.

To conclude, I opened up this topic to provide a discussion on what is an orc. I think it is important to understand where the monsters in the campaign line up in the big scheme of things. I am going to follow up on this point in my subsequent blogs on the paladin, as we wrap up that discussion.