D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Bedrockgames]

There is an element of Jewish traditional practice and worship called a Tefillin in Hebrew, but in Greek the word used is Phylactery: it is a little box with tiny scrolls of holy acripture worn on key parts of the body. There is an ugly history of anti-Semites being superstitious and weird about this practice in particular, and associating it with the Blood Libel mythos (which is waaaaaaay outside the remit of this forum, Not Great Stuff). The Blood Libel connection is particularly why connecting the evil Wizards who kidnap and ritually murder people to achieve immortality with Phylactery is potentially charged.

Again, not saying anyone really meant much by that along the way...but the 20s are very different than the 70s in terms of people even being able to have this stuff on their radar, and WotC was a bit behind the industry in general in moving away from the term.

Keep in mind they didn’t really make that connection to the Jewish Tefillin till the 2000s (pretty sure about that, could be wrong)

 

[pemerton]

In the AD&D Monster Manual, the lich's phylactery is mentioned only in passing:

A lich exists because of its own desires and the use of powerful and arcane magic. The lich passes from a state of humanity to a non-human, non-living existence through force of will. It retains this status by certain conjurations, enchantments, and a phylactery. A lich is most often encountered within its hidden chambers, this lair typically being in some wilderness area or vast underground labyrinth, and in any case both solidly constructed of stone and very dark. . . .

Liches were formerly ultra powerful magic-users or magic-user/clerics of not less than 18th level of magic-use. . . . All liches are able to use magic appropriate to the level they had attained prior to becoming non-human.​

I don't know if the idea of the phylactery as a soul object had emerged before AD&D 2nd ed, but that's where I first encountered it:

Defeating a lich in combat is difficult indeed, but managing to actually destroy the creature is harder still. In all cases, a lich will protect itself from annihilation with the creation of a phylactery in which it stores its life force. This is similar to a magic jar spell. In order to ensure the final destruction of a lich, its body must be wholly annihilated and its phylactery must be sought out and destroyed in some manner. Since the lich will always take great care to see to it that its phylactery is well hidden and protected this can be an undertaking fully as daunting as the defeat of the lich in its physical form.​

There are also rules for the process of transforming into a lich; and liches are described as being wizards (only), with the possibility of clerical liches being suggested as a very rare thing.

 

[Parmandur]

This is similar to a magic jar spell.

Well, I guess that is why they are going with "Magic Jar" as a replacement term.

 

[pemerton]

Well, I guess that is why they are going with "Magic Jar" as a replacement term.

<nods sagely>

 

[Chaltab]

Keep in mind they didn’t really make that connection to the Jewish Tefillin till the 2000s (pretty sure about that, could be wrong)

Honestly my guess is that somebody working at WOTC in the late 90s/early 2000s used one of those newfangled 'search engines' to find out what phylactery actually meant and then described it similar to the Judaic practice without a single thought to the implications.

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly my guess is that somebody working at WOTC in the late 90s/early 2000s used one of those newfangled 'search engines' to find out what phylactery actually meant and then described it similar to the Judaic practice without a single thought to the implications.

That does sound like WotC in the late 90s or Aughts.

 

[billd91]

The word isn't anti-semitic. It's just a Greek word meaning amulet--but the description for the past few editions has been similar to the Jewish tefflin, which is also known as a phylactery. They're trying to divorce it from that assumption and emphasize that the lich can keep their souls in anything.

A significant problem is it’s not easy to find usage of the term phylactery as an amulet in readily available sources. They tend to point to Jesus criticizing Pharisees for too much ostentation, which gets us right back it being a Greek word used for tefflin.
I kind of figure it entered the D&D lexicon through some Gygaxian journey through a thesaurus (I mean what else explains similar words like periapt?). And early references to lich phylacteries aren’t described like tefflin at all. But someone probably noticed the discrepancy and corrected one type of misappropriation of the word but effectively committed a bigger error by linking lichdom with something clearly Jewish.

 

[MGibster]

why are you not jumping all over @MGibster for insisting that orcs should always be evil in the game? After all, you guys have been going on and on about how it doesn't actually say specifically that orcs are evil, yet, when someone says that they want always evil orcs that are there to be killed, that's perfectly fine.

For the record, I swing both ways when it comes to orcs. I'm perfectly happy with them being always evil but I'm fine with the change as well. I've even accepted the current paradigm in my Greyhawk campaign. I think D&D will always need a species that is always evil. We can put a fig leaf on it and put some text in saying they're only "mostly " evil, but if they're primarily antagonist in most games then it's effectively the same thing.

 

[TiQuinn]

For the record, I swing both ways when it comes to orcs.

 

[Voadam]

I don't know if the idea of the phylactery as a soul object had emerged before AD&D 2nd ed, but that's where I first encountered it:

1e Lords of Darkness discussed the phylactery as soul object in-depth.