Tymar lives!

November 29, 2010 5:09 AM

Speak With Monsters -- A comic about the most interesting parts of D&D.

Courtesy of Metafilter's own, the much-linked Lore Sjöberg. Formerly "Monster Manual Comix." While mentioned in past threads, it turns out never to have been on the front page.
Flightless Bird, Efreeti, Giant Leech, Cockatrice, Blink Dog, Ki-rin, Purple Worm, Displacer Beast, Troglodyte, Roper, Green Dragon, Merman, Gnoll, Pixie, Hell Hound, Griffon, Lamia, Carrion Crawler, Ghost, Djinni, Giant Spider, Halfling, Fire Elemental, Trapper, Shrieker, Centaur, Ogre Mage, Hobgoblin, Manticore, Leprechaun, Ear Seeker, Beholder, Peryton, Anhkeg, Berserker, Dryad, Iron Golem, Umber Hulk, Xorn, Rakshasa, Giant Ant, Demogorgon, Bulette, Ceratosaurus, Invisible Stalker, Ettin, Medusa, Mummy, Will-O-(The)-Wisp, Minotaur, Troll, Kobold, Pseudo-Dragon, Harpy, Mimic, Owlbear, Herd Animal, Skeleton, Shambling Mound, Vampire, Doppelganger, Mind Flayer, Unicorn, Orc, Rust Monster, Succubus, Sahuagin, Chimera and Rot Grubs.

posted by JHarris (35 comments total)

The orc entry is one of my favorite comix EVAR.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:41 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Now I see. At first I was like, man, this is just like Lore's comic! Boo!
posted by Mister_A at 5:46 AM on November 29, 2010

Awesome. love the "I wish for a buttload of gold!" one.
posted by zombieApoc at 5:59 AM on November 29, 2010

'4th Edition renames dinosaurs “behemoths” ' What is this madness!?

(also no Rust Monster)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:03 AM on November 29, 2010

My facebook feed and everyone who reads it hates you for posting this.
posted by GoingToShopping at 6:26 AM on November 29, 2010

It's a great comic, but there haven't been any new posts in a while. I'm not so familiar with the early monster manuals, but has he exhausted the non-mundane creatures? "Flightless bird" has a good joke, but it might be hard to pull the same trick with something like a wolf or a bear.
posted by jedicus at 6:36 AM on November 29, 2010

"Clerics of Placebo" is maybe the best band name ever. They would play whatever the opposite of Christan Rock is.
posted by The Bellman at 6:40 AM on November 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

I love the giant spider one.
posted by swift at 7:11 AM on November 29, 2010

Sahuagins are weird because they get no respect but they are probably the biggest deal of all creatures! They are smarter than all the other low hitdice creatures and they live in the ocean! The D&D world probably has mostly ocean like our world. So there is a race of shark geniuses (not technically but they have an intelligence of 14 which based on 3d6 would make the average sahuagin as smart as a human in the top 10%) who are in charge of like 3/4 of the world that is a lot! They are just clearly better in every way to the other sentient sea creatures. Merfolk, please! Tritons? whatever! Tool using sharks who are much smarter than us and can stay out of water for an average of 6 hours at a time before invoking drowning rules! Say goodbye to coastal real estate elves.
posted by I Foody at 7:16 AM on November 29, 2010 [13 favorites]

A couple of friends of mine once baked a panful of special brownies, with the expectation that lots of people would show up to help them eat the baked goods. Well, there had been some miscommunication and their friends were waiting for them to come over with the brownies. So, my two friends started munching and ate their way through the whole pan. I feel I should mention that this was the first time either of them ever partook. Anyway, their friends wondered what was up and went over to see what the hold up was and found the two of them splayed across separate sofas, one speaking in a made up language he kept trying to teach other people, the other convinced he was a displacer beast.
posted by Kattullus at 7:19 AM on November 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Panel 3 in this one is pure genius - more please.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:31 AM on November 29, 2010

I am still patiently waiting for his Gelatinous Cube comic. It's my favorite monster.
posted by notmydesk at 7:38 AM on November 29, 2010

IFoody,

Yeah, Sahuagin & Umber Hulks were the two races that basically scared the crap out of me. I'll tell you the scariest stat in all MM's - Intelligence. If you got a monster with AT LEAST average human intelligence, that means they can start casting spells, building tools and developing advanced sciences.

Hey, look, it's a thing with claws that can cut through solid stone, cast spells and has mastered engineering and mining and can work in teams! Hey, is that town sinking into the ground?

...

Are those trained attack Boullettes with Silence cast upon them so they can snack quietly and no one hears a thing?

Yeah, Average Human Intelligence or Better, don't fuck with it.
posted by yeloson at 8:04 AM on November 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

My favorite throwaway gag for the Halfling entry: "Also available: Cup O' Elvenses, Hungry Hairfoot Suitcase Meals, and Cool Ranch Lembas."
posted by ShawnStruck at 8:20 AM on November 29, 2010

Tymar is one of the great comic strip characters. There, I said it. I love that lovable idiot.
posted by ardgedee at 10:19 AM on November 29, 2010

I want to collect these scrolls instead of meeting real girls!
posted by lekvar at 10:35 AM on November 29, 2010

I read every one. Great stuff. Thanks.
posted by Splunge at 10:36 AM on November 29, 2010

I spent more time reading these than I'd like to admit I spent leafing through the Monster Manual at 13.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:52 AM on November 29, 2010

Tymar is one of the great comic strip characters. There, I said it. I love that lovable idiot.

Agreed. "Heh, heh. I am dumb."
posted by hydrophonic at 10:52 AM on November 29, 2010

Holy crap, this is so good. I'll admit to being a sucker for D&D humor, but still.
posted by Myca at 10:56 AM on November 29, 2010

The one for Djinni is Djenius.
posted by straight at 10:58 AM on November 29, 2010

Sahuagins are weird because they get no respect but they are probably the biggest deal of all creatures!

Borderlands of the Sahuagin: Sore Winners
The first thing to understand about the Sahuagin is that they have already won. Completely. The surface of the world is about ¾ ocean and they own almost all of it. From the standpoint of the Sahuagin, the only places on the planet that have non-Sahuagin races in them are the stale crusts that they already had the presence of mind to cut off their sandwich. All of the non-Sahuagin races are all ghettoized. Even the other aquatic races have been marginalized to the point where they only get the brackish water (Locathah), the rocky shallows (merfolk), the underground darks (Kuo-Toans), or the muddy salt marshes (Lizardfolk). The real real estate – the ocean and coastline – are pretty much the private playground of the Sahuagin.

Individually, Sahuagin will kick your ass, and collectively they will kick the ass of any nation you happen to support. The combined populations of all other sapient races on any planet are less than the population of Sahuagin on that planet. The Sahuagin are also much smarter and better organized than you are so their cities are actually more productive than yours per person in addition to the fact that they have more cities than all the other races and their cities are more populous.

The Sahuagin mutate constantly, but are not inclined to Chaos. They just all have different appearances and capabilities. But every one of them is gifted with super intelligence and thick natural armor. The Sahuagin deep seers are some of the most gifted wizards on the planet and honestly have nothing better to do than just scry on crap and tell the armies where there's some cool stuff to go loot. From time to time the Sahuagin will come onto land to beat the living crap out of people and take control of important or valuable items. Then they take the spoils of war and drag it back under water, laughing the whole time.

Against this backdrop of crushing inferiority, how do the other races maintain? Most of them are fighting for stakes so small that they haven't even noticed that the vast majority of the planet is owned and operated by brutally efficient fish men. But one race that certainly has noticed the power discrepancy is the race of elves most likely to be forgotten: the Sea Elves. They actually live in many of the same areas and have a war going with them.

Life is hard for a Sea Elf, because every one of them is born into a post-apocalyptic world where mutants run amok and hunt them for sport. But it's actually even worse than that because in addition to simply being physically and intellectually inferior to the Sahuagin like everyone else is – they are actually stupid and useless even contrasted with the surface races. An average Sea Elf is as much the intellectual inferior to a Sahuagin as a Griffin is to a normal human. The Sahuagin consider the Sea Elves to be little more than animals, and they aren't wrong.

And yet, despite the fact that the Sahuagin have won at everything, they still continue to fight the other races and take their children and stuff. Partly this is to feed the insatiable demands of their Baatezu masters, and partly this is because on some deep level the Sahuagin are convinced that it actually couldn't possibly be that easy. In addition to looking for bling and candy to take from the weaker races, the Deep Seers are also combing the world for the one thing that the Great Mothers are pretty sure exists somewhere: the hidden army that the other races are putting together to take the world back from the clutches of the Sahuagin Empire. As far as anyone knows, it doesn't exist, but for some reason the Great Mothers keep insisting that the searching continue. Maybe they know something we don't?
posted by Sebmojo at 11:53 AM on November 29, 2010 [30 favorites]

Oh god, I had a mouthful of sandwich when I got to "Efreeti" and almost choked to death.

Totally worth it, though.
posted by lekvar at 12:28 PM on November 29, 2010

And yet, no one has yet mentioned Blink Marmaduke.
posted by JHarris at 12:45 PM on November 29, 2010

I did, but my comment disappeared.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:36 PM on November 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

If DMs are going to go twisting wishes whatever they may be, we may as well throw caution to the wind and get big.

"I wish gravity was 50% less!"
posted by JHarris at 1:51 PM on November 29, 2010

robocop is bleeding: I did, but my comment disappeared.

Oh yeah, I saw it earlier in the Fry and Laurie thread but it's gone now.
posted by Kattullus at 2:25 PM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm the opposite of a Tiggeyore; I have my despair up top.
posted by Eideteker at 4:15 PM on November 29, 2010

Schrödinger's displacer beast is easily my favorite.

"Thus is born the concept of quantum ententaclement."
posted by annekate at 5:24 PM on November 29, 2010

Love Sjöberg's stuff, and I'm glad to see Speak With Monsters pop up here. And yeah, Tymar is basically the best character. The stupidest part about him is that Sjöberg didn't even make up the chain-mail t-shirt.

Also, Sebmojo: really enjoying this PDF you linked to. I actually don't have much D&D experience, but, even if I don't get all of the nitty-gritty statistical details relating to challenge ratings or whatever, it's still a good read. I'm on the Alignment chapter right now and they're making some really interesting observations.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 6:36 PM on November 29, 2010

Double Halfings. Can't. Stop. Laughing.

fearfulsymmetry writes "(also no Rust Monster)"

Wouldn't be hard to crank up in monster creator.
posted by Mitheral at 7:27 PM on November 30, 2010

fearfulsymmetry writes "(also no Rust Monster)"

Wouldn't be hard to crank up in monster creator.

It's the principal!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:14 AM on December 1, 2010

The pleasure principal?
posted by Eideteker at 11:57 AM on December 1, 2010

Principle.
posted by JHarris at 2:27 PM on December 1, 2010

Also, Sebmojo: really enjoying this PDF you linked to. I actually don't have much D&D experience, but, even if I don't get all of the nitty-gritty statistical details relating to challenge ratings or whatever, it's still a good read. I'm on the Alignment chapter right now and they're making some really interesting observations.

Frank Trollman (real name AFAIK) is an interesting character - runs a forum called the gaming den that is even parts crazy ranting and brilliant insight.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:36 PM on December 1, 2010