Bones 6 Enthusiasm and Commentary

[Green Eyed Monsty]

13 minutes ago, Corsair said:

I still am deeply honored.

Your starfish is in the e-mail.

GEM

[YronimosW]

I'm assuming - and it's just a guess - the not-Stirges will appear in the "Denizens" expansion - they seem like they'd be right at home there.

 

 

Re:  Deep Ones and friends:

 

Are we sure the Deep Ones spend any significant amount of time on the surface?  Did any Deep Ones actually appear in the original story ("Shadow Over Innsmouth")?  What I mean is that...

 

Spoiler

In the original story, we see lots of the half-human children of the Deep Ones, while the Deep Ones themselves never actually appear on-screen at all - through most of Obed Marsh's day, they worked their Deep One mischief through Marsh and a few other agents, visiting Innsmouth apparently only during the EOD's "devil worship" holidays, until the Innsmouth folk rebelled and tried to stamp out the EOD, prompting the Deep Ones to rise up to crack down on the town.  But that was in the story's past - by the time the POV character visits Innsmouth, the town was broken by the Deep Ones, and the survivors left to obediently run the town according to the Deep Ones' Oaths (secrecy, loyalty, and taking a Deep One "bride" or "husband"), with the hybrid ruling-class running the town in secret, and the Deep Ones again apparently only appearing long enough to uphold their monstrous part of the Oaths among whatever purely human folk remained in the town.  During the main part of the story, it's the more human-looking hybrid Innsmouth folk that the POV character interacts with, until night, when the older and less human-looking folk came out of hiding with at least one Shoggoth, and maybe some Deep Ones, but it seems to have only been formerly human hybrid fish-things that are glimpsed in the mobs at that point, and then only in the sketchiest detail.  And then off-screen again, the military invaded Innsmouth and torpedoed Devil's Reef - any interaction with the Deep Ones themselves seems to have been carefully filtered through a cover story.

 

What the RPG materials are calling "Deep Ones" are usually the older half-human children of the Deep Ones - effectively, aquatic fairy changelings, all grown up from innocent-looking children, into grotesque horrors to be kept hidden away in Innsmouth's attics and basements.  That's not the only mythological/fairy-tale inspiration for the story:  of course, mermaid lore plays into it, and there are hints of the Biblical story of the Dagon cult which Obed's crew used as a cover story for their cult, but there's also a hint of the legend of dragons and/or the half-bull Minotaur in there:  part of the Deep Ones' original bargain with Obed Marsh was that he was to take a number of human children to Devil's Reef, to give to the Deep Ones on appointed holidays.  It was after Obed was jailed for "devil worship" and missed a few holidays that the Deep Ones rose up out of the sea to subjugate Innsmouth under the Oaths, interbreeding with the population directly as a city, rather than taking a few of their youths at a time to raise up among them and "devour" in "marriage"....

 

Young Lovecraft's favorite books were books of mythology from his grandfather's weird and esoteric library, about which the boy would daydream while staring out of the window of his grandfather's house into the gardens, imagining (and later claiming to have seen, iirc) the mythical creatures frolicking among the trees.  Among the other mythological creatures to appear in Lovecraft's stories were a great variety of chimeras assembled from strange collections of jarringly different animal parts (including, famously, Cthulhu, who also resembles a dragon), and satyrs in the  form of the "Men from Leng" from Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath!

 

 

In short, if we ever see a pure Deep One at all in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", it's only at a distance, in the dark, among a hybrid mob of half-human things that were shockingly horrible enough to look upon - the oldest being more "fish" than human.  What we think of as "Deep Ones" are generally just their changeling children, in an advanced state of their transformation into monsters.

 

As for D&D, the First Edition Lovecraft material was produced at a time when Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu RPG) and/or Arkham House claimed the license of copyright over Lovecraft's material, and put their foot down on TSR's attempt to use it.  TSR also got into trouble at pretty much the same time for using other property in their material, most notably Tolkien's Hobbits, Ents, and certain other creations - that would have been the point where the Lovecraft material got scoured from D&D, and the Hobbits and Ents became Halflings and Treants.  I don't know the specific details on the various Deep One wannabes and who created them and when, but I'm going to assume they were various writers' attempts to skirt the legal problems with "not-Deep Ones", probably during that time when Basic and Advanced D&D were on the brink of splitting, and/or depending on how the various D&D settings (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, etc.) chose to handle it.

 

Lovecraft's material has since fallen into the public domain, with the various Lovecraft beasties having mostly made their way back into D&D (Pathfinder in particular embraced them again, while the D20 edition of Call of Cthulhu included rules for using official CoC material in D&D!)

 

Rather than reverting the whole pack of "not-Deep Ones" back into Deep Ones (or, more accurately, half-Deep Ones), it seems WotC chose to just fold them all into modern D&D as separate monsters (in much the same way that Goblins, Orcs, and Hobgoblins are treated like different monsters, and the way that the mad, subterranean sadist Derros and Drow are treated as separate monsters, in spite of more or less drawing on the same Richard Sharpe Shaver source material through different writers.)

 

It's especially amusing, considering the fact that Lovecraft's Ghouls and Deep Ones both draw from folklore versions of mischievous elves and their changelings (hence the reference to some of the "not-Deep One" children looking like elves, no doubt!)  I should perhaps mention here that that famous Lovecraftian word, "eldritch", was actually a nearly obsolete word used to describe something elven!  (See the "Did You Know?" section of Merriam-Webster's definition - the word seems to have descended from Old English Aelf Reich - literally "Elf Kingdom", or "fairyland"!)  Technically, Lovecraft's Deep Ones and Ghouls behave a bit more like traditional elves and goblins than D&D Elves and Goblins do!

 

And that's just part of how weird things get in D&D's fantasy kitchen-sink....

 

Anyway, I forgot what the original Sahuagin question was 😄 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Oh, it only gets more Fun the more complete the list of not-Deep Ones gets:

• Deep Ones
• Sahuagin
• Kuo-Toa
• Locatha
• Tiik
• Slithe
• "Abominatons"  (HeroQuest 2021)

 

It seems that the Tiik and Slithe are Reaper's "not-Sahuagin/Kuo-Toa/Locatha", while Heroquest 2021's Abominations are Hasbro's "not-Deep One" direct stat-for-stat replacements for Fimir, which couldn't be used because Games Workshop (or one of GW's original writers?) claimed copyright over that single element of the base game - so the Abominations are both not-Deep Ones and not-Fimir and Reaper's Tiik and Slithe are not-not-Deep Ones 😄 

 

(Apparently the Skaven, Chaos Warriors, and Chaos Dwarves are in the same copyright boat - the HeroQuest 2021 game renamed the Chaos Warriors to "Dread Warriors", too, as one of the game's other few updates besides the Fimir changing to Abominations!)

 

I bet there are many, many other examples of not-Deep One-manship gone wild 😄 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by YronimosW
It's beginning to look a lot like fish-men....

[haldir]

1 hour ago, YronimosW said:

I'm assuming - and it's just a guess - the not-Stirges will appear in the "Denizens" expansion - they seem like they'd be right at home there.

 

 

Re:  Deep Ones and friends:

 

Are we sure the Deep Ones spend any significant amount of time on the surface?  Did any Deep Ones actually appear in the original story ("Shadow Over Innsmouth")?  What I mean is that...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

In the original story, we see lots of the half-human children of the Deep Ones, while the Deep Ones themselves never actually appear on-screen at all - through most of Obed Marsh's day, they worked their Deep One mischief through Marsh and a few other agents, visiting Innsmouth apparently only during the EOD's "devil worship" holidays, until the Innsmouth folk rebelled and tried to stamp out the EOD, prompting the Deep Ones to rise up to crack down on the town.  But that was in the story's past - by the time the POV character visits Innsmouth, the town was broken by the Deep Ones, and the survivors left to obediently run the town according to the Deep Ones' Oaths (secrecy, loyalty, and taking a Deep One "bride" or "husband"), with the hybrid ruling-class running the town in secret, and the Deep Ones again apparently only appearing long enough to uphold their monstrous part of the Oaths among whatever purely human folk remained in the town.  During the main part of the story, it's the more human-looking hybrid Innsmouth folk that the POV character interacts with, until night, when the older and less human-looking folk came out of hiding with at least one Shoggoth, and maybe some Deep Ones, but it seems to have only been formerly human hybrid fish-things that are glimpsed in the mobs at that point, and then only in the sketchiest detail.  And then off-screen again, the military invaded Innsmouth and torpedoed Devil's Reef - any interaction with the Deep Ones themselves seems to have been carefully filtered through a cover story.

 

What the RPG materials are calling "Deep Ones" are usually the older half-human children of the Deep Ones - effectively, aquatic fairy changelings, all grown up from innocent-looking children, into grotesque horrors to be kept hidden away in Innsmouth's attics and basements.  That's not the only mythological/fairy-tale inspiration for the story:  of course, mermaid lore plays into it, and there are hints of the Biblical story of the Dagon cult which Obed's crew used as a cover story for their cult, but there's also a hint of the legend of dragons and/or the half-bull Minotaur in there:  part of the Deep Ones' original bargain with Obed Marsh was that he was to take a number of human children to Devil's Reef, to give to the Deep Ones on appointed holidays.  It was after Obed was jailed for "devil worship" and missed a few holidays that the Deep Ones rose up out of the sea to subjugate Innsmouth under the Oaths, interbreeding with the population directly as a city, rather than taking a few of their youths at a time to raise up among them and "devour" in "marriage"....

 

Young Lovecraft's favorite books were books of mythology from his grandfather's weird and esoteric library, about which the boy would daydream while staring out of the window of his grandfather's house into the gardens, imagining (and later claiming to have seen, iirc) the mythical creatures frolicking among the trees.  Among the other mythological creatures to appear in Lovecraft's stories were a great variety of chimeras assembled from strange collections of jarringly different animal parts (including, famously, Cthulhu, who also resembles a dragon), and satyrs in the  form of the "Men from Leng" from Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath!

 

 

In short, if we ever see a pure Deep One at all in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", it's only at a distance, in the dark, among a hybrid mob of half-human things that were shockingly horrible enough to look upon - the oldest being more "fish" than human.  What we think of as "Deep Ones" are generally just their changeling children, in an advanced state of their transformation into monsters.

 

As for D&D, the First Edition Lovecraft material was produced at a time when Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu RPG) and/or Arkham House claimed the license of copyright over Lovecraft's material, and put their foot down on TSR's attempt to use it.  TSR also got into trouble at pretty much the same time for using other property in their material, most notably Tolkien's Hobbits, Ents, and certain other creations - that would have been the point where the Lovecraft material got scoured from D&D, and the Hobbits and Ents became Halflings and Treants.  I don't know the specific details on the various Deep One wannabes and who created them and when, but I'm going to assume they were various writers' attempts to skirt the legal problems with "not-Deep Ones", probably during that time when Basic and Advanced D&D were on the brink of splitting, and/or depending on how the various D&D settings (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, etc.) chose to handle it.

 

Lovecraft's material has since fallen into the public domain, with the various Lovecraft beasties having mostly made their way back into D&D (Pathfinder in particular embraced them again, while the D20 edition of Call of Cthulhu included rules for using official CoC material in D&D!)

 

Rather than reverting the whole pack of "not-Deep Ones" back into Deep Ones (or, more accurately, half-Deep Ones), it seems WotC chose to just fold them all into modern D&D as separate monsters (in much the same way that Goblins, Orcs, and Hobgoblins are treated like different monsters, and the way that the mad, subterranean sadist Derros and Drow are treated as separate monsters, in spite of more or less drawing on the same Richard Sharpe Shaver source material through different writers.)

 

It's especially amusing, considering the fact that Lovecraft's Ghouls and Deep Ones both draw from folklore versions of mischievous elves and their changelings (hence the reference to some of the "not-Deep One" children looking like elves, no doubt!)  I should perhaps mention here that that famous Lovecraftian word, "eldritch", was actually a nearly obsolete word used to describe something elven!  (See the "Did You Know?" section of Merriam-Webster's definition - the word seems to have descended from Old English Aelf Reich - literally "Elf Kingdom", or "fairyland"!)  Technically, Lovecraft's Deep Ones and Ghouls behave a bit more like traditional elves and goblins than D&D Elves and Goblins do!

 

And that's just part of how weird things get in D&D's fantasy kitchen-sink....

 

Anyway, I forgot what the original Sahuagin question was 😄 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Oh, it only gets more Fun the more complete the list of not-Deep Ones gets:

• Deep Ones
• Sahuagin
• Kuo-Toa
• Locatha
• Tiik
• Slithe
• "Abominatons"  (HeroQuest 2021)

 

It seems that the Tiik and Slithe are Reaper's "not-Sahuagin/Kuo-Toa/Locatha", while Heroquest 2021's Abominations are Hasbro's "not-Deep One" direct stat-for-stat replacements for Fimir, which couldn't be used because Games Workshop (or one of GW's original writers?) claimed copyright over that single element of the base game - so the Abominations are both not-Deep Ones and not-Fimir and Reaper's Tiik and Slithe are not-not-Deep Ones 😄 

 

(Apparently the Skaven, Chaos Warriors, and Chaos Dwarves are in the same copyright boat - the HeroQuest 2021 game renamed the Chaos Warriors to "Dread Warriors", too, as one of the game's other few updates besides the Fimir changing to Abominations!)

 

I bet there are many, many other examples of not-Deep One-manship gone wild 😄 

 

 

NOW THAT IS A ANSWER!! 

 

"Not-stirges" in DD makes perfect sense. I didn't think they were in Core.

 

Since I don't allot of Egyptian setting, my interest in Hakir is so so right now. I guess it all will come down to seeing the entire expansion. Love Izzy's artwork thou!

[DragonWyrm]

Hmm. I am kind of bored of generic dragons. Sure if the sculpt is something nice I would buy it (scenic bases or hand sculpted are what interest me). What I would like to see if more in the vein of Dance Of Death (or Love), dragons with a story. Furthermore, I would like to see some more intellectual dragons. Dragons engaging in other things than just roaring, stalking or looking menacing. Stuff like the Darksword Book Wyrm or Checkmate Dragon from Real Partha.

 

1 hour ago, Green Eyed Monsty said:

Your starfish is in the e-mail.

GEM

Australian customs speaking. You dare send an organic product in the mail!!! DIE!

 

[Green Eyed Monsty]

1 minute ago, DragonWyrm said:

Hmm. I am kind of bored of generic dragons. Sure if the sculpt is something nice I would buy it (scenic bases or hand sculpted are what interest me). What I would like to see if more in the vein of Dance Of Death (or Love), dragons with a story. Furthermore, I would like to see some more intellectual dragons. Dragons engaging in other things than just roaring, stalking or looking menacing. Stuff like the Darksword Book Wyrm or Checkmate Dragon from Real Partha.

 

Australian customs speaking. You dare send an organic product in the mail!!! DIE!

 

E-Mail

Outside of your jurisdiction. 

GEM

[haldir]

1 hour ago, Green Eyed Monsty said:

Your starfish is in the e-mail.

GEM

 

You know that is going on the back of the toilet! 

 

 

[Grumpy Gnome]

On 4/15/2022 at 2:52 AM, DragonWyrm said:

The wall looks nice. Thought why they would have a statue of a skeletal pharos I don't know.

The Desert Dwarf is great, like the earlier Barbarian… however, the terrain less so for me as I am not keen on the skeletal aspect. I loathe that aspect of the GW not-Egyptian fantasy desert faction and I am sorry to see Reaper going down that path as well.
 

And while Inarah is correct that a bit of greenstuff can change it, I would prefer models I do not need greenstuff to fix. 
 

Still… I will likely encourage Mrs. GG for us to back this add on. 

[Painting Dog]

7 hours ago, DragonWyrm said:

Hmm. I am kind of bored of generic dragons.

This is blasphemy! One does not get "bored" of dragons, sir! 😉

Edited April 16, 2022 by Painting Dog
Spelling

[Looter]

Yeah the Skeleton on a sarcophagus is a little odd.  Why is a relief of a skeleton on that?  Isn't that supposed to be a representation of when they were alive?  It seems like for a skeleton to have a sarcophagus like that it would just be a bed.  Like is this undead Pharoah's napping place?  I would have liked it to be more for something like a god or goddess representation, like for Set, Anubis, Bastet, or Isis. 

 

If they are going for a cool setting instead of a historically accurate one use the gods and goddesses as a template.  Jackal headed Anubis is cool, Crocadile headed Set is cool, Cat Headed Bastet is cool, Hawk headed Horus is awesome.  Mummies are not cool.  Mummies in all forms of media are pretty much a joke.  The one good mummy movie was good not because of the mummy but because Brendan Frasier shooting mummies in the face was cool.

 

Lean into what makes Ancient Egypt awesome:  The story of Osiris being cut into pieces and Isis finding them and stitching them back up like some fantastic Dr. Frankenstein.  The Sphinx being an eternal guardian of the dead.  The Scarabs that are beautiful and yet have a terrifying reputation.  Those are cool.  Statues of Mummies?  Lame.

[Jeronimus]

Well, I would expect to see at least a mummy in an Egyptian expansion, if only because it's so obvious, and it would make sense to add a sarcophagus as well. I'd probably go with an undead pharaoh and some undead tomb guards - but I do think there should be more to "Egyptian" settings and adventures than raiding tombs! Then again, they did call the expansion "lost tombs"...

 

I also expect to see a sphynx, that's the other creature you can think of without having to actually look into Egyptian myths. Scarabs, I really hope to see a big one and/or swarms of them.

In terms of humanoids, YES to adventurers with different cultural garb. Think of the fighter in the D&D 5E player's handbook - that illustration really got people thinking out of the box. Get guys with turbans and headscarves who aren't bandits - though some desert raiders aren't a bad idea either. Get some camels, get a flying carpet! Maybe some ideas will begin to lean a bit more Arabian than Egyptian, but hey, I would certainly not say no to a "1001 Nights" expansion, either.

[GoldenPiggy]

I can't decide if I want Denizens of the Dungeon to be a bunch of monsters with no terrain, or if I want them to put in a bunch of dungeon terrain.  The monsters are more useful, but I do love painting terrain, especially treasure.

 

Mostly, though, I just want to see more of what is in it.  Not just the occasional tease.

[Grumpy Gnome]

I am all for undead, even mummies. I am just tired of undead with undead symbology on them. It is a bit redundant in my opinion. But to each their own, my yuck may be your yum.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Grumpy Gnome

[JG/RR]

For those of you who don't like the skeletal sarcophagus on the wall, remember that the wall has two sides and is reversible.

 

Bob

[Chaoswolf]

2 hours ago, GoldenPiggy said:

I can't decide if I want Denizens of the Dungeon to be a bunch of monsters with no terrain, or if I want them to put in a bunch of dungeon terrain.  The monsters are more useful, but I do love painting terrain, especially treasure.

 

Mostly, though, I just want to see more of what is in it.  Not just the occasional tease.

I'm hoping for a fairly even mix of the two, maybe even more critters than terrain, depending on what the critters are.

 

[Blip]

Just now, Chaoswolf said:

I'm hoping for a fairly even mix of the two...

 

Same, I already have a preferred way to make terrain (Hirst arts), but unique centerpiece terrain is always welcome