Loebre brings you DND monster science.
Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Honor has been in theaters for some time, and this entertaining and professional film precisely balances the look and feel of DND enthusiasts and the general public, and exceeds the expectations of many gamers.
For audiences who have never touched Dungeons & Dragons (DND), the film presents an adventure story in an overhead fantasy world, with enough popcorn tubes to immerse people in; For veteran players familiar with DND, the creative team accurately grasped their interests and injected their favorite things into every corner:
From the fleeting "Icewind Valley" and "Ridge of the World" on the map, to the frequent place names such as Neverwinter, Deep Water City, Sword Bay, and Baldur's Gate, to organizations such as the Harpmer's League and the Red Robe Mage Society, even the floor tiles in the arena are arranged in a uniform five-foot square according to the format of the tactical map, these solid details will delight loyal fans.
The creative team is familiar with the DND world, and the carefully selected creatures in the movie also have their own origins, which have a deep relationship with this universe born in the seventies. Today, let's explore the backstories and anecdotes of these creatures in detail.
(Reminder: there will be spoilers below)
First of all, the fantasy creatures with more scenes in the film all appeared in 1977's "Monster Guide", and without exception they all belong to the veteran characters in this world.
One of the most memorable characters in the film is the Druid girl turned Owlbear, who beats the villain miscellaneous soldiers to the ground as soon as she appears, and finally suppresses the evil red-robed female mage to death.
The fantasy creature combines the characteristics of an owl and a giant bear, with a large and ferocious body, a body covered in thick fur and feathers near its head. In the fantasy world, it is the product of a whimsical mage who uses magic to fuse bears and giant owls.
In the real world, however, it is widely believed that the Bear's creation was inspired by a pirated Ultraman monster model used by Gary Gigaix, the father of Dungeons and Dragons, when playing the game's predecessor, Chainmail.
As the story progresses, the protagonist group ventures into dark terrain in search of a magical helmet that is crucial to the plan. Along the way, they encounter a group of small monsters that look like four-legged brains foraging for food.
These monsters feed on intelligence, and the smarter the target, the easier it is to become their target. Hearing this, the protagonist team looked solemn and held their breath, but they did not expect these monsters to pass by directly...
This small monster is the Intellect Devourer. In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, the Brain Eater is the creation of the famous underground monster, the Illithid.
Spirit suckers extract the brains of servants or slaves, soak them in a "spawning pool" containing glowing green brine, and perform a mysterious ritual for them to transform into a brain-eater for themselves to drive.
Spirit suckers mainly breed brain-eaters for hunting, and sometimes they are also used as guardian beasts and even pets, while the huge brain-eaters can even be used as mounts. In more complex tasks, they will order the Brain Eater to manipulate the host's body and travel to the host's original society to serve as a spy and spy on messages.
Another test that the dark region presents to the protagonist team comes from the film's cutest and worst managed monster: the chubby Red Dragon. Since the "Dungeons & Dragons" game has the word "dragon" in its name, dragons must be a big deal in this world.
At the level of game architecture, the designers have classified and expanded a wide variety of dragons, among which the most well-known dragon subcategories are good metal dragons and evil multicolored dragons, and red dragons, that is, black, blue, green, red, white, the most powerful existence of the five colorful dragons, so it often appears in many fantasy works-
It's just that there are very few such fat.
The protagonist foursome also encounter a series of fantasy creatures when they are forced to participate in the "Scorching Sun Tournament" in which monsters fight real knives and guns in the arena.
The first opponent, like a panther, has six legs and a pair of long tentacles that can offset the light so that its image appears a few feet away from its real location. It easily wiped out many of the other contestants in the field, and this ferocious predator was the Displacer Beast.
It is generally believed that the Shifter originated from the plane of the goblin. The evil goblin court trained the animal for hunting, but some of the shifters escaped the goblin's control and caused chaos. The goblins track down the beasts and banish them from the Goblin Wilderness, allowing them to enter the main material world.
In the real world, the 1939 science fiction novel Black Destroyer provided the inspiration for this monster. In the original work, this intelligent and vicious feline carnivore has tentacles on its shoulders, can also control various vibrations, and will suck minerals inside the human body, making it a difficult opponent.
While fighting the Shifter in the arena, the clever druid commanded his teammates to hide in a large soft light green cube to avoid enemy attacks. This seemingly harmless piece of jelly is actually a creature called the Gelatinous Cube, an iconic monster in DND that often appears in other works.
Gummons have no intelligence to speak of, they live to absorb everything they can eat, dead or alive, into their bodies and digest them.
Jumping out of the world of DND, in fact, the slime in the "Dragon Quest" series is also a more famous derivative monster created by Japanese manufacturers for gum monsters.
In the arena of the "Scorching Sun", the terrain is complex and changeable, and the monsters are haunted, and the participants can be described as suffering from unpredictability. Another monster in the arena may seem inconspicuous, but it hides a murderous intent.
In the tournament, participants can open the treasure chests scattered around the arena to obtain valuable weapon items, but there is a monster that can realistically disguise itself as a treasure chest and surprise characters that happily approach them. In the DND world, the official scientific name of this "chest monster" is Mimic.
It secretes a sticky substance that touches it and becomes sticky, and then the Morphomorph appears in its original form and attacks its prey with pseudopods and blood basins. In addition to the most common chest shapes, it can perfectly mimic various stone or wood products, so it is really suitable for casting tricks on players.
In addition to these creatures that are more or less involved in the battle, there are also some fantasy creatures that have left a glimpse of the world's setting in Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Glory. For example, Judge Jonathan, who has the same name as one of the directors, is one of the important characters who leads the audience into a wonderful world.
He is an intelligent winged birdman (Aarakocra) who provides (forced) help to the protagonist when he escapes from prison.
Another creature is the handiwork of a druid. She displays a powerful wild transformation ability while spying on messages, not only transforming into a variety of real-world animals, but even into a fantasy creature often used as a mount, Axe Beak, trying to blend into a group of its kind on the street to avoid being pursued by the guards.
In addition, in the scene where the protagonist team talks to the dead in the barbarian tribal cemetery, the audience will also see some deceased characters reminiscing about the battle of a hundred years ago. Among them, there is even a black dragon who appears, spitting out linear acid, only briefly after a short play.
The appearance of all these fantasy creatures not only brings a new exciting experience to the audience, but also expands the boundaries of this fantasy world, making people understand that anything is possible in this bizarre world.
In short, through the mysterious adventure presented in Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Glory, fans of Dungeons & Dragons revisit this fantasy world of magic and wonder; For audiences new to this theme, the film is also a door to a whole new universe.
In the words of the running group, there are countless eccentrics, ghostes, mythical creatures and magical rays waiting to be explored in this world full of adventures and challenges. Of course, to complete this adventure, you need to face various powerful monsters.
In order to give you a better understanding of these monsters, we have brought you a detailed study of some of the important monsters in the movie in the Youkensha App, which have rich backstories and long evolutionary development history. As one player put it, DND's decades of accumulation have enriched the amount of text for each monster's setting.
Our complete monster examination series, compared to this article, will have more information than this article, the total has exceeded tens of thousands of words, welcome friends who are interested in DND to go to the Youkensha APP for in-depth understanding.
Loebre Culture is a publishing team focusing on desktop role-playing game publishing and related culture, committed to translating and introducing more excellent game works to Chinese players, hoping to give more players the opportunity to try and experience the fun of tabletop role-playing games themselves.
After ten years of accumulation, we have published game products covering many categories such as independent games, commercial works and game design. Representative works include: "The Lost Trail of Cthulhu", "Woe is Not a Journey", "World Creation Guide", "Board Game Design Guide", etc., and we will also bring you more interesting content on DND and group running when we have the opportunity.