The Jabberwock

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Inspired by this cover to a new Pathfinder book, as well as the classic illustration by John Tenniel, I started thinking about the jabberwock in my campaign world. (Although I play 4E, I hope this brainstorming-session can be useful to people who play other editions as well.) I have always loved The Dragon of Tyr from Darksun, especially how it is just refered to as "The Dragon". It is mysterious, powerful, and seems to be the centrepiece of many that world's secrets. I started thinking that The Jabberwock (singular, there is only one) could be a similar creature, but instead located in The Feywild. Indeed, the Pathfinder version seems to hail from The First World (which I believe is the PF-version of The Feywild or Fey), but in PF there are many Jabberwocks, just like there are many dragons.

(If there are many Jabberwocks, I just got the idea that eladrin knights could hunt Jabberwocks just like "human" knights in the mundane world hunt dragons: it is the ultimate acheivement of a human knight to slay a dragon, and the same for an eladrin knight to slay a jabberwock.)

Any suggestions as to what The Jabberwock's motivation(s) is/are? Is it intelligent, or just a mindless ravager? Is it a deity, can it be worshipped? Is it one of the first dragons, cursed by the gods and transformed? Does it love riddles and poetry, having a love for bards and music? (Maybe singing to a Jabberwock is the ultimate acheivement for a bard, like an eladrin knight slaying it.) In PF/3E, the Jabberwock could maybe be weakened if a character were to make a great performance check against it, singing, dancing, etc. Is it evil, good, chaotic neutral?

Any ideas?

 

[Papa-DRB]

Here is Paizo's take on a Lesser Jabberwock. It is in the Kingmaker 6 book.

Lesser Jabberwock CR 20
CE Huge dragon (air, fire)

-- david
Papa.DRB

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Lesser Jabberwock CR 20
CE Huge dragon (air, fire)

Although nice to know its alignment, CR and creature type (strange, I thought it would be fey as well, doesn't it come from the First World in PF?), this information is really sparse. What about motivations and creature "hooks"? I read that it is supposed to be especially vulnerable to vorpal weapons, which is really nice and very appropiate considering the source material.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I can't remember if the Jabberwock ever appeared in the DungeonLand/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror series. I remember an old Dragon (around the 50-60 range) that stated it out.

Jabberwocky is a weird poem in general. This is probably the best commentary on that.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGCJFFxoHJ4]YouTube - The Muppet Show - Jabberwocky[/ame]

 

[Alzrius]

Interestingly, in 2E the jabberwock was portrayed as being an incarnation of nature in the monster book it was printed in (one of the Monstrous Compendium Annual books as I recall, though that usually means it was printed somewhere else first).

However, the only adventure I ever saw it in was "The Manxome Foe" in TSR Jam 1999, a Planescape adventure, where it was a lower planar creature that came through a portal and was terrorizing a section of one of the upper planes (can't remember which one).

 

[Hand of Evil]

Always liked Monty Pyton's

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKDxK7nNE0A]YouTube - Jabberwocky - Introduction[/ame]

 

[Kvantum]

Although nice to know its alignment, CR and creature type (strange, I thought it would be fey as well, doesn't it come from the First World in PF?), this information is really sparse. What about motivations and creature "hooks"? I read that it is supposed to be especially vulnerable to vorpal weapons, which is really nice and very appropiate considering the source material.

It has DR 15/vorpal, and a couple of abilities called "Burble" and "Whiffling". I suspect it's Dragon type instead of Fey due to Fey type's poor BAB and d6 HD vs. the Dragon's d12 and full BAB. Now you could just double up the Fey HD (it has 25 Dragon HD) but it would mean that the Fey Jabberwock would have absurdly high saves, feats, and skills.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Here are a Jabberwock 3.0e and a Jabberwock 3.5e right here in EnWorld's own Creature Catalogue.

Both are CR17 and True Neutral. The 3.5 version is cast as a dragon, while the 3.0 version is, interestingly, an aberration.

 

[hamishspence]

Maybe a 4E version could have an attack or two that fit with the lines.

For example

"Claws that Catch" - if it hits, target takes damage and is grabbed.

 

[James Jacobs]

The First World is where the fey come from, but it's also where a lot of other things come from. Linnorms, for one. Think of the First World as the "rough draft" of reality, where everything is just "more" than it is in the real world. Another way to look at it is a version of the Material Plane infused with positive energy—in this regard, it's kind of the opposite of the shadow plane, which is a reflection of the Material Plane infused with negative energy. The shadow plane is thus being "destroyed" and is thus shrinking and is thus smaller than the Material Plane it reflects (which incidentally, is how we explain in Pathfinder why shadow walk lets you travel fast; in the shadow plane, it's smaller so distances between two analogous sources are shorter), while the First World is being infused with life and created, so everything is bigger and more over-the-top.

As for who and what lives there—there's a strong skew toward fey, but just as there's more than demons on the Abyss and more than archons in heaven, there's more than Fey in the First World.

As for why I made the jabberwock a dragon... well, that's kinda what he looks like to me. Also, he's a tough guy, and dragons have those fancy d12 hit dice...