Sunday, August 31, 2025
Sunday, August 24, 2025
K Monsters at the Opera
Credit: Richard Whitters
K monsters are all plundered from various cultures around the world, perhaps outside the "default" medieval England / France milieu popular high fantasy normally anchors itself within. Anywhere from Japan and China to Germany and Norway to... uh, Atlantis?
Monday, August 18, 2025
Jackalwere at the Opera
Credit: this comic
Uhhh... yeah, so I guess this is basically the only major "J" monster in D&D's history. There's a couple other minor ones but only this guy has found his way into the majority of editions. And usually in the core books, too!
I spent literally months with this post sitting in my drafts folder trying to come up with something worthwhile to say about the jackalwere, knowing that it would get an entire post to itself. Unfortunately, I really got nothing.
It's yet another iteration of the classic folklore "stranger danger" monster. It's reminiscent of lycanthropes, it borrows a lot from the Arabian ghul, yet it's not as potent as a Rakshasa or even just a doppelgänger. The art has never been great, and jackals themselves aren't very interesting (even though the word "jackal" is wonderful). Worst of all, I've never used one in a game!
I just started playing The Caverns of Thracia. Guess who guards the entrance. Some gnolls and a jackalwere. You know what that guy ended up doing? Getting sucked into a black hole I opened. Didn't even get a chance to open his mouth or swing a sword or nuthin'. He never stood a chance.
The letter J deserves better.
-Dwiz
Sunday, August 10, 2025
I Monsters at the Opera
Credit: Prem (aka Coool Brain)
Been quite a while since the last one of these, huh? Sorry about that, for the three people who found this series interesting. The purpose of this series was to help keep me regularly blogging, but as you may have noticed, I've been busy blogging for the last year. But hey, that's no excuse to leave something unfinished.
Now, where were we?
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