D&D General Re-Loring Monsters

[Blue]

This is one of the biggest things I push when homebrewing. Inspired by how Eberron put a fresh spin on everything, from gnomes to goblins to LG religions.

 

[Fifinjir]

• There’s no Inner Planes, elementals are nature spirits on the Prime.
• Demon just means an evil spirit from the Void (super-hell, basically), devils are a type of demon but they still don’t like being called that. One factor in how powerful a demon is comes from how much the evil that spawned it still impacts the world (which they can increase by doing more evil!).
• Shadows, sorrowsworn, the summonable shadow spirits, and several undead types are manifestations of “umbras” and “crowns”, tulpa-like demons generated from individuals and communities, respectively.
• Flesh golems are alchemically grown rather than made from corpses. Orcs are actually very advanced flesh constructs.
• Male hags are called “coots”.
• Dragons are supposed to sleep until the end times, one waking up early means something really bad has happened. More have been waking up lately….
• Beholders don’t really have bodies, they’re terrifying amalgamations of sensory organs.

 

[el-remmen]

Hell (called the Stem of Hell) is actually inside the Abyss. It is a fortress of infernal order in the abyssal chaos. Devils are just demons that accept the diabolical hierarchy, while demons reject all authority save that of immediate power.

 

[Yaarel]

Giants are souls of mountains and other features of nature, that sometimes roam ethereally and manifest ghost-like.

The difference between an Elemental and a Giant is, the Elemental is animation of the physical matter, while the Giant is the manifestation of its soul, its spirit.

Most Giants are humansize Medium, but some individuals grow to whatever height corresponding to the natural feature.

 

[Tonguez]

Giants are souls of mountains and other features of nature, that sometimes roam ethereally and manifest ghost-like.

The difference between an Elemental and a Giant is, the Elemental is animation of the physical matter, while the Giant is the manifestation of its soul, its spirit.

Most Giants are humansize Medium, but some individuals grow to whatever height corresponding to the natural feature.

That's a cool take on giants. Nice

 

[jayoungr]

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

This:

My Dad's Monster Manual - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

My Dad's Monster Manual - “This book needed a lot more of me in it. Instead, they completely rewrote my part and turned me into a giggling, tent

www.dmsguild.com

It does have replacement stat blocks for the new monsters, so it goes a little further than just replacing the lore. But James Introcaso's father's mind comes up with some delightful spins on traditional D&D monsters.

 

[steeldragons]

I tend to "relore" to minimize the wide array of creatures available, while still making it possible/plausible for them to exist in the homebrewed world.

The most blatant is probably reloring basically all draconic creatures to being mutated or "unfinished/incorrect" offspring of actual dragons. It leads to the limited, and continually shrinking, numbers of actual full "wyrm" dragons. The most common varieties are the wyverns, hydrae, drakes (roughly worg to lion-sized wingless bestial dragons), and "lapdrakes" (my homebrew's "pseudo-dragons"). Linnorms, dracolisks, dragonnes, behirs, etc... are all dragon offspring that didn't "cook" right or completely, or were somehow tampered with (by magics) before hatching, to produce a "true" dragon. At least half of every dragon egg clutch, nowadays, is producing these "faux" dragon/draconic monsters. No one knows why. But the dragons, themselves, are becoming increasingly concerned with the future of their "true" species.

Trolls and Ogres are the same species. "Ogres" (or "Ogors") just being the dwarven word for "rock/mountain trolls." They are then paired with Hags as the feminine of the species who hold all the magic power and intelligence to their male dimwitted brute counterparts. Traditional "Green (Forest)" Trolls mate with Green Hags. Rock/Mountain Trolls (Ogres) mate with Black Annis hags. Aquatic Trolls (I borrowed the folklore and name of "Aughisky" as the name for my world's water-trolls), obviously, are summoned by Sea Hags to further their repugnant kind. And the extraplanar Night Hags - the "ruling class" and most dangerous of Trollkind - are matched with their, almost as powerful and intelligent mates, the Oni (nee Ogre Magi).

I combined several smaller creatures to be offshots of "Halfling" to give a little diversity away from the "Hobbit/Tolkien" halfling IP. Dark Creepers are halflings that were lured to the subterranean realms, enslaved and turned evil by dark magic/magicians, now driven by an unquenchable greed for magic and "shiny" valuables. Brownies (somewhat typically) are halflings who reside in the Faerie. Nixies are also fae halflings imbued/cross-existing with the Elemental Plane of Water. Prime material "hairfooted" PC halflings are actually Brownies that came to the material plane and stayed/became enamoured with a non-fae/[predominantly]non-magical pastoral way of life.

So, that kind of "combining similar stuff" to make it seem more plausible for all these many many different creatures to all exist in the same world.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

This is probably seen more as replacing rather then re-loving, but one of the big changes I made was removing the genie species as the highly intelligent elemental powerhouses and replacing them with Elemental Aboleths, and changing the standard Angels, Planetars, and Solars of the divine heavens into Celestial Aboleths.

 

[Tonguez]

This is probably seen more as replacing rather then re-loving, but one of the big changes I made was removing the genie species as the highly intelligent elemental powerhouses and replacing them with Elemental Aboleths, and changing the standard Angels, Planetars, and Solars of the divine heavens into Celestial Aboleths.

Aboleths? - as in your angels and genies are gigantic aberrant tentacled mindbending hagfish?
awesom!

 

[SkidAce]

I tend to "relore" to minimize the wide array of creatures available, while still making it possible/plausible for them to exist in the homebrewed world.

The most blatant is probably reloring basically all draconic creatures to being mutated or "unfinished/incorrect" offspring of actual dragons. It leads to the limited, and continually shrinking, numbers of actual full "wyrm" dragons. The most common varieties are the wyverns, hydrae, drakes (roughly worg to lion-sized wingless bestial dragons), and "lapdrakes" (my homebrew's "pseudo-dragons"). Linnorms, dracolisks, dragonnes, behirs, etc... are all dragon offspring that didn't "cook" right or completely, or were somehow tampered with (by magics) before hatching, to produce a "true" dragon. At least half of every dragon egg clutch, nowadays, is producing these "faux" dragon/draconic monsters. No one knows why. But the dragons, themselves, are becoming increasingly concerned with the future of their "true" species.

Wow...the dragon re-loring is exactly what I've done for years.

"High fives"