Sunday, November 1, 2015
Gygax's description of Giant Rats in the Monster Manual includes: "Their burrows honeycomb many graveyards, where...
Gygax's description of Giant Rats in the Monster Manual includes: "Their burrows honeycomb many graveyards, where they seek to cheat ghouls of their prizes by tunneling to newly interred corpses". This might be influenced by Holmes' Giant Rat tunnels in the Sample Dungeon (Room RT), which are in the "soft earth of the cemetery" and near the Ghoul room (Room P). The Monster Manual came out after Gygax reviewed the manuscript for Holmes Basic, the first edition of which doesn't have a monster entry for Giant Rats.
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Wonder if Gygax had read HPL's "Rats in the Walls" and/or "Pickman's Model" in the interim, and/or found some toy rats at the dime store in Lake Geneva (bags of dime store toys having been responsible for the bulette, owlbear and rust monster). "Willard" was also released in 1971 and may have influenced the rat as a Monster Manual critter (I remember seeing it on TV back in the mid-70s when the local UHF stations ran classic monster movies on Saturday afternoons).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of classic horror movies, that reminds me of one classic explanation of the concept of D&D: "Conan and Gandalf team up to fight Dracula". (original quote from Jeff Rients: http://jrients.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-swords-sorcery-dungeons-dragons.html) : )
The first edition MM doesn't have giant rats?
ReplyDeleteI have a "3rd Beta" printing (according to Acaeum terminology) that lists them under "Rat, Giant (Sumatran)." It doesn't have an illustration (Jean Wells' drawing were added later).
The "Sumatran" reference in the monster name shows that Sherlock Holmes was an obvious influence (as in the Giant Rat of Sumatra first mentioned in "The Tale of the Sussex Vampire").
Andy C Good call on Willard. I've heard of it but haven't seen it. There's also a 1972 sequel called Ben, with a theme song by Michael Jackson (!)
ReplyDeleteTony Rowe First edition Holmes doesn't have Giant Rats entry. So the Monster Manual was the first time they were written up with a full description, but this was after the publication of the Basic rulebook and thus after Gygax reviewed it.
ReplyDeleteThe Sumatran Rat reference goes back to Greyhawk where they are referred to as Giant Sumatran Rats in the variable damage listing. In addition to the Sherlock Holmes story, Gronan mentioned that Gygax was fan of Firesign Theatre, who had a 1974 album about the Sumatran Rat.
ReplyDeleteZach H, I see that I misread the last sentence of your post. And, of course Gygax would be a fan of the Fireside Theatre! That just makes sense and is good to hear.
ReplyDelete