D&D General Re-Loring Monsters

[SkidAce]

Kobolds are like elves...they adapt (mutate) to their environment/creature leader.

So traditional kobolds are doglike, the dragon worshipping ones are semi reptilian after a few generations.

And the aquatic ones are like World of Warlock murlocs....mrglwglwlg!

 

[Stormonu]

I relore things all the time, and for 5E I often use a lot of 2E lore for monsters over 5E lore as well.

For my homebrew

• Ogres are the male offspring of hags
• Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Orcs & Trolls are from the dark dream area of the dream realm Aurora (there is no feywild)
• Beholders were once elves who served the god of death. For an act of betrayal their left eye was plucked out and their souls imprisoned within
• Dragonborn are from another world (Al'galue - having traveled by spaceship) or are the offspring of transformed dragons and elves (Tyres Haul) or were fashioned by dragons as soldiers for their empire (Drang)
• Dwarves are made of living stone, craft their children from stone "eggs" and breathe life into them

 

[Reynard]

• Dwarves are made of living stone, craft their children from stone "eggs" and breathe life into them

In one world I made, dwarves were asexual (but presented typical bearded male) and did not reproduce at all. Their God carved them and gave them life, and would make more as time went on. But then the Orc Lord killed the Dwarf Lord and no more dwarves could be made. Ever. They were a literal dying breed. It explained dwarfish pessimism and their hatred of orcs.

 

[Minigiant]

Orcs are a composite of a mixture of human, elf, dwarf, goblin, and ogre stock.

Half-orcs, or as they are called orcleans, are orcs who lean to one of their base species. This process is natural due to unstable combination of holy, giant, and fey magic used to make the first orcs. Therefore there are 5 types of orcleans.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

There is only one owlbear.

 

[Voadam]

In 3e I made elves and gnomes humanoid fey and their specific languages were dialects of fey.

I made dwarves and giants the same humanoid subtype and their language the same which both denied vociferously.

I also made orcs goblinoids to be more Tolkienesque, though with the same cultural hostilities to goblins.

I also turned half orcs into full gray orcs and half elves into a new elf sub race for no half man races.

Similarly half dragons were individual magical experiments, not hybrids with dragon parents

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The idea of "re-skinning" comes up pretty often, where you take a stat-block of a well known creature but alter the way you describe it, maybe change a few minor things like damage type, and have a whole new monster. What I think comes up less often is the idea of re-loring a monster: that is, giving a well known staple D&D monster a totally different backstory, place in the world and lore, but keeping it pretty much as is otherwise.

As an example, in one of my home brew worlds, ogres were explicitly the sons of hags ("bog witches" in this setting) who had seduce via shapeshifting local lords and such. in this setting, even bastard sons could claim their inheritance and these hags would create heirs so they could ruin the lords and their lands, putting their violent and deformed offspring on the High Seat.

In another setting, gnomes and goblins were the same fey "species" -- but if they were malevolent, their form changes to goblin and f they were benevolent their form changed to gnomish.

What kinds of re-loring have you done in your games and campaign worlds? Why? That is, what was your motivation for doing so? For example, I once decided to make succubi cosmic psycho-therapists just to combat the "evil hawt woman" trope; they were able to control minds and such because they were getting in there and helping put things back in order.

Do you have a favorite bit of re-loring someone else did, fan or pro?

Thanks.

I guess I don't really see a difference between reskinning and "re-loring." Both of them put new skins on old drums. The former is just more overt about it.

But within the subset of re-skinning that you've described, where it hews close to the original concept with some tweaks, my explanation for where devils and demons come from (and why they're Always LE/CE respectively) comes to mind. TL;DR: They fought a War in Heaven for (from their perspective) an infinite amount of time. If it were possible for any given being to "persuade" a devil or demon back to the side of good, it would have happened already.

That doesn't mean it's impossible, the party has met a reformed (now-ex-)succubus. But it's so rare as to be effectively unworthy of consideration. Further, in the one exception the party has found, her situation was unique and preceded by (quite literally) centuries of being given reasons why protecting the world, rather than destroying it, is a worthwhile goal. Such a redemption arc couldn't even theoretically work for a devil, because they don't want to destroy anything; they want to fulfill what the priesthood calls the "Divine Plan," they just want to do it by forcing mortals to obey.

(Anyone familiar with The Magician's Nephew, or the ways Gandalf and Galadriel describe how the One Ring would have used them, knows what the product of the devils' efforts to fulfill the "Divine Plan" would be.)

 

[Tonguez]

Oh and griffons and owlbears are both species of feathered dinosaur related to velociraptors, Aakorocka are a more evolved form. (Technically so are Kenku but theyre true bird race)

Saurians are also theropod dinosaurs but no feathers

 

[cranberry]

The only monster I've re-lored was Dispater. I simply made him less paranoid and reclusive.

 

[R_J_K75]

Back in mid 90s we were playing a pickup game that turned into a mini campaign that I DM'd. Long story short, halflings procured a McGuffin artifact that allowed them to reproduce at an alarming rate. They were evil, ended up taking over the town and exploiting the Humans for labor, made them pay tribute and relegated them to the less than desirable sections of town. The PCs were on the road to liberating the humans but the game kind of fizzled out, can't recall why though.