Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 7 (Galltrit to Githzerai)

 It was not my intention to have such a gap since my last Fiend Folio review... Well, back to it! This next section, the letter G, has a few too many monsters to cover in one post so I'll be halving it, nine this time eight the next.

Galltrit

★★☆☆☆

Just a weird little bloodsucker! I think the image of a grotesque little humanoid with anticoagulant spit is fantastic, but the mechanic that involves constitution drain and delayed healing is a bit clumsy. The galltrit being difficult to notice is cool, but weird with how large it looks in the drawing (also, why that lil guy got such a booty?), but its pretty central to the monster since if you are drained of enough blood to lose 3 points of CON (i.e. after 12 rounds) you just straight up collapse! That's pretty great, I love a bloodsucker that just sucks enough to knock you out, doesn't kill you necessarily.

Gambado

★★★★☆

A very unique and sadly underutilized creature! It isn't explicitly stated here but I get the vibe that the gambado is like some kind of skull hermit crab, since it is mentioned that its skull-head can be either an animal or a "primitive man" (I figure some kind of neanderthal skull, which is just such a good image on the shoulders of such an inhuman creature), and it is mentioned that they gather together in places with lots of bones. The spring-loaded manner in which they pounce, move, and attack is just delightful, and I love how they really take on the expectations of a dungeon monster; they hoard gold and jewels in their little hidey holes! I think these shouldn't be played as straightforwardly violent monsters; they're ambush predators for sure, but play with them as animals, or perhaps as creatures with some modicum of intelligence!

Garbug

★★★★☆

I'm gonna be completely honest, the garbug is definitely carried by the visuals and the concept. Sure it doesn't really do anything all that unique, the paralytic tentacles are seen in the carrion crawler, plenty of giant insects or flying enemies for adventurers to face off against, but are any of them a horrible fusion of a lobster and a wasp? I think the two different "types" are a bit redundant, at least in how they're presented. I would love it if the black and violet garbug were instead the species' two sexes. It would make sense! They share morphology for the most part but are sexually dimorphic. Though, notice how the garbug illustration gives them both the black garbug's proboscis and the violet garbug's pincers... an intersex garbug! I just think its a very monster movie esque giant bug mutant, and I love it for that.

Fog Giant

★★☆☆☆

Not very distinct from the cloud giant from the Monster Manual, something further exacerbated by the fog giant being encountered with cloud giants if enough fog giants are rolled. I'm giving them two stars though because I actually think the fog giant is much more interesting than the cloud giant. Their pale skin and "black penetrating eyes" give such a unique appearance, and having them explicitly wear the skin of white dragons is honestly kinda cool, also I can only imagine what sort of "ornate swords" they love so much. They just feel much more characterful than cloud giants, but that doesn't make them super great.

Mountain Giant

★☆☆☆☆

This is just a hill giant but bigger and tougher. While the fog giant was basically just a cloud giant but weaker, it at least had more unique details and implied personality to make it stand out somewhat... the mountain giant has nothing like that. Not a fan of the weirdness around meeting giantesses of the mountain giants, it is always so strange to me how fixated some AD&D authors were on the sex makeup of monster lairs (although here it is rare to ever encounter a female mountain giant or young mountain giant so I just... don't get the point of even including it). Sorry to say it, but a pretty much worthless monster I am not inclined to use.

Giant Strider

★★★★☆

Oh my god these things are birds? I actually did realize this before writing this post, but it wasn't that long ago, just earlier this year; this whole time I thought giant striders were two-legged lizard things! Then being featherless birds makes me love them a whole lot more. At their core, they're just good effective flightless birds. However, they have a super fun and unique defense mechanism: the ability to shoot fireballs from glands on the corners of their eyes! Really evokes the blood-spewing adaptations of the horned toads... is their blood made of fire? I love how they are so adapted to hot environments that fire spells act as cure light wounds for them, that is such a unique detail, and it is so good that they made sure to include the inverse: cold spells deal extra damage. Not a fan of how they never check morale, but I honestly never am a fan of overusing never checking morale. Y'know, actually looking closer at the giant strider's abilities have really given me a new appreciation for them, I never used to care much about them but this is such a unique monster.

Gibberling

★★☆☆☆

I want to like gibberlings, I really do, I mean just look at the name! The idea of a bunch of pallid subterranean humanoids that just make weird incomprehensible noises is so good... but the execution is intensely subpar. They always fight to the death (again, never a fan of things that overuse never checking morale), they just attack with swords and are just good at fighting with swords like a normal swordsman is, they have no discernable language and no leaders and no real society despite somehow being able to utilize tactics and somehow being able to produce metal swords. In the end, these are just another brand of boring humanoid to mow down, and they don't even have the benefit of being able to parlay with! It is the worst of both worlds: the inability to communicate of a mindless crazed animal, and the qualities of a generic D&D humanoid. I would much rather it commit to being one or the other (and ideally the mindless incomprehensible babbling one, since that is such a unique image and there are already so many other monstrous humanoids around).

Githyanki

★★★★☆

The githyanki are one of those monsters with such a unique vibe going on that you kind of have to appreciate them. I especially appreciate them here where they look like absolute ghouls with skin drawn tight on their bones. In terms of their place in the game world, they are fantastic: the mutated evolved descendants of humans bound in mind flayer slavery for generations, having rebelled from the mind flayers using developed psychic abilities, now dwelling in a higher dimension, worshiping an undying lich-queen, doing expeditions into the material world, and having special agreements with red dragons that let them ride them around. That is just so so much absolutely fantastic detail, I love it! As far as humanoid factions go, I don't think there is much better than the githyanki. The githyanki are what I wish the (Fiend Folio version of) the dark elves were, in terms of evocative detail. Less interested in the specifics of the composition of their parties and treasure rates, but those are just kind of expected for AD&D 1e humanoids. Though I will say, I love the detail that their silver swords can sever people's connections to their physical bodies when they are in the astral plane. The only reason they aren't a 5 star is that they aren't universally usable; if I were to put the githyanki into a setting, I would want them to be a major part of said setting. They have to be tied into the rest of the game world, or else all of this interesting detail becomes ultimately unimportant. Also I think it would be cool to take historical inspirations from real life societies that grew out of revolution; githyanki society as a fantasy version of Actually Existing Socialism would be such a cool angle to take.

The githyanki are also the only monster in today's post to be featured back in the Fiend Factory column. The Factory version of the githyanki is more or less identical to the Folio version, even featuring identical art. I am honestly much more inclined to use this version mechanics-wise, if only because it is much simpler. A lot of the same details are here, including weapon and class probabilities, but it is just explained in way fewer words. Don Turnbull's comment isn't very interesting, though I am intrigued by his characterizing the githyanki as a "'tribal' beast"... what on earth does that mean. Small tribes aren't mentioned anywhere in the githyanki description, in fact the mention of the lich queen makes me think that the githyanki are governed by one single tyrannical state. He says that the swords are cool though, and on that count I think I am inclined to agree.

Githzerai

★★★☆☆

I am... considerably less interested in the githzerai as I am in the githyanki. Firstly, appearance-wise they are just less interesting looking, dropping the githyanki's hellish skeletal visage for... being a race of completely identical lanky monks? The description doesn't say they all look the same, but all four of the githzerai seen in the illustrations have the exact same face, which honestly provides a much more interesting implication than anything in the rest of the description (are they perhaps a race of clones?). The githyanki-githzerai war and the githzerai truce with the mind flayers are only really interesting when paired with what the githyanki have going on, which kind of ends up making the githzerai feel less independent conceptually. Though I will say, now that I've suggested githyanki as monstrous AES, I guess the githzerai end up as... revisionists? Anti-revisionists? A bit of a silly thought perhaps, but I end up much more enthused for my version of the githzerai than for the one presented in the Folio proper. The githzerai wizard-king would feel less interesting compared to the githyanki lich-queen except apparently the wizard-king never lets githzerai advance past 9th level? What on earth does he do, does he kill them? See I just end up interested in questions or musings prompted by isolated sentences in the description or comparisons with the githyanki, rather than the githzerai on their own! They would be only two stars if they didn't prompt such musings; as it stands, just on their own they are very very weak.

d8 Alternative Mind Flayers

 So I was reading this post by the wonderful semiurge over at Archons March On, and it got me thinkin'. Thinkin' about my own introduction to D&D being relatively similar (my first exposure to D&D was the 4e Monster Manual 2, along with the 3e-era kids book series that WotC put out, gazing in awe at the 3e books my mom's friends had, flipping through the pages of Pathfinder bestiaries while sitting on the floor of bookstores... though my first actual game was a boxed set, the box for the 7th edition of Gamma World). Also thinkin' about one bit that is mentioned in the post:

"Urophions", mind flayers made out of ropers, are born losers. An SCP-ish list of other attempts at making non-humanoid mind flayers would've been neat. 

I'm already familiar with those Urophions and other illithid-variants (alhoons (illithiliches) and vampire illithids for instance) so well, I thought I might try my hand at writing a few of those "attempts at making non-humanoid mind flayers"! Another big inspiration for this post was definitely the line of Alien toys by Kenner, which included a number of xenomorphs that had taken over non-human life. Oh also technically there is another mind flayer with a non-human host in the tzakandi which is a mind flayer in a lizardman, but its kinda boring if I'm completely honest. 

The urophion mentioned above... I wanna say this is from 3e? Love the colors and the horrid little mouth!

Alternative title for this post: d8 Mind Failures. This was going to be d12 but it has been taking me a bit too long to write.

1: Illithox: An attempt at developing an illithid to infiltrate human societies unnoticed, the illithox is a looming monstrous thing of an only loosely bovine inspiration. The host creature, the humble cow, was too large for a single larval mind flayer to take control of the whole body on its own, and so a second was introduced to speed along the process. This has resulted in a two-headed beast, long stiff necks tipped with tentacular heads jutting out from front and back. It groans incessantly, its back weighed down by a large udder-like growth that produces a sweet jelly that is sometimes used as bait by other mind flayers. The two heads of the illithox can oftentimes come to disagreements, and it is not uncommon for an illithox head to request being removed from its body so that it won't be around the other head anymore.

So I only found out after writing this that there already is
a gnome illithid but I think my attempt is distinct enough

2: Half Brain: Although the small races (halflings, gnomes, leprechauns, etc) are of a similar form to humanity, when a mind flayer larva is inserted into their skull, it finds little in the way of body matter to work with. The product is a half brain: an engorged mass of tentacles and valves with only the most vestigial of humanoid bodies hanging on like a skin tag. They move very slowly and are relatively dim witted since they lack a body to sustain them. They can reach the heights of mind flayer intelligence only shortly after feeding, their oversized brains filled with nutrients that steadily dwindle down, leaving them dumber until their next feast.

3: Calcium Creature: The rust monster is an ubiquitous presence in the dungeon ecosystem, its unique mouthparts and feathery tendrils adapted to melt away metal at the gentlest of touches. When a mind flayer takes control of these insectoid beasts, their rusting mouthparts are twisted into corrosive bonesaws that melt away calcium to leave the underlying organs defenseless. The carapace of the calcium creature is a lavender purple speckled with pale white spots, its long mandibles wrapping around limbs and heads and leaving them soft and flimsy.

4: The Colony: A desperate mind flayer larva, abandoned in the wilderness, comes across an underground maze of naked mole rat tunnels and nests. Crawling within, the wriggling thing finds the abode of the colony's queen, sliding into her mouth and taking root. What emerges is a mound of wrinkly flesh, its limbs turned vestigial, a circle of tentacles tipping its nose. The new mind flayer mole rat's psychic field takes control of the other rodents, already evolved for a eusocial existence, and bends them into a powerful colony united by one ur-mind. The colony hides beneath the surface of the earth, sometimes emerging as a many-limbed mass of earth puppeteered by the mole rats under the sway of their mind flayer queen.

5: Cerebroid Birther: In the depths of hot jungles dwells the pipa pipa, a strange little frog with a flat appearance and a unique style of birth. The female pipa pipa lays eggs which the male then forces into the female's back, the skin growing over them to keep them protected until it is time for them to hatch. When a larval mind flayer takes control of the pipa pipa, it uses these adaptations to its advantage. Although sex matters little to the mind flayer, the cerebroid birther comes in two forms: a wide limbless egg-holding form that crawls about on a ring of wriggling toes on its underside, and a slim egg-placing form with long and surprisingly strong forelimbs. Both forms produce partial larvae as clones of themselves, with the egg-placing form inserting them into the back of the egg-holding form. These partial larvae are little more than a brain with a flagellum, able to produce a slight telekinetic field that allows them to fly through the air when released from the back of the egg-holder. When the partial larvae are in the back of the egg-holder, it is also able to fly in the air, and can use the collective telekinesis to lift large objects, sometimes with the assistance of the strong forelimbs of its "mate", although this telekinesis dissipates as the larvae are launched.

6: Postoina: One of the more common variant mind flayers, the postoina is born from a larva inserted into the body of the olm, a pale and eyeless cave salamander ubiquitous in the wet caverns beneath the earth. Its pale purple skin is drawn tight on its frail bones, its head a perfectly smooth shield over a wide mouth filled with small teeth and a mass of flailing growths. Those growths are the center of the postoina's psionic power, able to cause hallucinations strong enough in the minds of creatures within a certain distance of it. Often, the postoina tricks the viewer into seeing it as much larger than itself, and as breathing a poisonous fume that can ignite easily. Because of this, the postoina is sometimes called a mind flayer dragon, but in reality the thing itself is rather small and physically weak.

7: Blattobrain: A last-ditch attempt to save whole societies of mind flayers from utter destruction, the blattobrain is a cockroach (multiple varieties of which are ubiquitous in subterranean environs) bred to large sizes and taken over by a cloying illithid larva. Dungeon cockroaches are kept as a foodstuff for the juicy mammals and reptiles that illithids eat, but during intense societal collapse the elder brains can ordain to force new larvae into especially large specimens in order to relocate. Found in massive swarms that carpet every surface as far as the eye can see, blattobrains carry their elder brain masters upon their backs, protecting the relocating society with a collective psychic blast that can put the victim to sleep. They are able to collaborate and form vaguely humanoid shapes in a pinch as well, but do not rely on that ability, instead focusing on relocating the elder brains to a new home.

8: Kavalrax: The mind flayers are fascinated by the phenomenon of otyugh intelligence, the beasts' large stumbling bodies endowed with the gift of telepathy and a mild sapience. Born from a larval illithid inserted into an otyugh, the kavalrax is a creature torn from its natural environment. The otyugh, like the cow, is too large for a single mind flayer to control, but this issue is compounded even more by the otyugh's mind already being endowed with mild psychic ability. No matter how many illithids take control of the bottom feeder's body, its mind will remain in the dark recesses, able to send out psychic screams or periodically take over the body's tentacular limbs. As a result of the uncertain control the mind flayer has over the kavalrax body and the disgust that mind flayers have for the otyugh's home in refuse and sewage, the kavalrax is typically held in a tight metal cage, kept absolutely clean and perfumed, only able to walk around when allowed.