#argue all you want MDMR

[tomthefanboy]

Last week I made a simple post saying I wanted a D&D version of this chart with a gnoll in the middle. I know that most of the time if you want something on the internet you have to make it yourself, but I couldn't figure out what each axis would be.

I wanted the D&D chart SO BADLY that I started boosting the posts about it with tumblr Blaze... Post 1  EVERY Post 2  TIER Post 3  OF BLAZE Post 4 

and after spending $250 I had a very wild week...

...and had a lot interactions to sift through!

Before I go too deep into the feedback and my reactions, I would like everyone to know that only ONE tumblr user out of.... (3604 plus 19895 plus 25938 plus 63883... cary the tens...) ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY interactions actually had the combination of empathy, creativity, and reading comprehension to HEAR ME.

@emptymanuscript made me not one, but TWO D&D versions of the chart!

LOOK AT THEM!

Gnolls in the middle and everything! Fantastic.

This gives me the catharsis of being heard and a level of closure fitting with a $250 purchase on the internet. Especially when combined with all of these new friends (whom I will be spending the next month getting to know)!

Hoooooowwwwwwwwwever... I still want a version that has the D&D creature types Humanoid on one side and Beast on the other side of the gnoll. so lets slip under the cut and take a look at the suggestions.

So first off, Axis 1. The X axis if you like maths. This is where I felt like Human to Beast would fit. That changes the chart into something like this.

This will be the basis for most of the charts going forward, meaning that in addition to the top and bottom creatures we place at the extremes of Axis 2 (the Y Axis) we will also need to consider monsters that are "half-humanoid" or "half-beast" versions of those types.

Since I started with creature types, lets start with the two groups of suggestions that actually involved the Rules As Written (aka RAW) D&D monster types.

Fiendish - Celestial got a lot of hate from comments due to the lore of gnolls. Gnolls are the spawn of the demonlord Yeenoghu and reproduce through a wicked ritual. People claimed that this meant they could not be placed in the center of the chart this way. They were too hung up on the top of the chart being a celestial type creature, if you make the top of the chart a creature that's halfway between a demon and an angel (such as a chaotic neutral pixie) and the BOTTOM of the chart a creature that is full blood, bad-n-nasty demon (like say, Yeenoghu itself) then gnolls serve a pretty good middle ground. Then the corners would be creatures that are mixes of each of the sides (demonic beast, demonic humanoid, fey beast, fey humanoid) and you get a pretty solid chart like this;

A smaller group considered the mortal natures of both Beasts and Humanoids and chose a different set of criteria...

These don't have a unified voice but generally it was about an axis between what was natural/organic/normal and what was un-natural/in-organic/aberrant. Multiple creature types fit this bill at each end. Plants and fey are tied to living things while Undead, Constructs and Aberrations are based in inorganic and un-natural processes. We've already got fey in our last chart, so lets see how that looks on an axis against Constructs and Undead (both of these a created via magic like gnolls, so we'll leave out the alien aberrations and try not to think about them reproducing).

Before we continue, let's take our first side bar.

There were some fools out there thinking they could shame me for spending my money on this, proving they don't understand budgets OR the internet. Only ONE of you out there thought to ask me for some money and I respected their hustle so much I gave them enough to blaze one of their own posts. Don't think the rest of you will get some though, even if you come at me with charities or shit, so don't try it. That time has passed.

Such foolishness. Weep for them. Don't tag them. Definitely do not interact. I DO hope they get this blaze post as well though. (Hey @staff, you can do that right? It's not like any of them would have the mental fortitude to read this far after all)

From here we get into the more esoteric groupings. This is where the people who are VERY into D&D and the people who are completely unfamiliar overlap. Let's look at the physical descriptors first.

Size categories are a thing in D&D and Gnolls are medium creatures like dwarves or elves and most humanoids. There's plenty of small monsters and plenty of big ones as well so it is relatively easy to find Large or Small creatures on the humanoid side and the Beast side and then a Tiny creature for the top and a Huge creature for the bottom.

This makes for a satisfactory chart, but not one that captures the complexities of the original animal meme.

The Softness and Hardness of a creature can be reflected in they shape and their stats. It may be acidic but the gently curves of a black pudding are pretty soft, just like the fists of an iron golem are hard. The corners of a chart like this are a bit trickier, there's all shapes of armored things you need to find softer partial-beasts and partial-humanoids. Oozes don't come in half measures so a different creature might be needed.

Let's take a look at another side bar before we continue. There were a lot of people with something to say that were unhelpful in new and different ways.

I'm sure there are dozens of you out there who had been thinking about a Third Axis (the Z axis) this whole time. That stops being a "D&D version of this chart"! Not applicable to this discussion! Same with anything that doesn't have gnolls in the middle!

Next up we have some suggestions for metrics along SOCIAL lines instead of physical ones.

The lines here are very blurry. Gnolls work in packs but are not really social creatures. The destroy civilizations brutally but they do use weapons and magic items they find. They can speak language. The cuddle-to-kill spectrum is as skewed as the fiendish - celestial axis discussed earlier. Aside from player characters, gnolls want to kill and destroy things. I know the savagery is attractive to the monster-fuckers out there but they are 100% kill you. to go further down that axis you'd have to start looking into undead or outer planar beings that destroy the body, the mind, and the soul. So lets look at the Feral to Civil axis instead. Gnolls don't have as much infighting as some creatures. They are at least capable of teamwork to achieve their goals of mayhem so lets focus on that as a metric. Modrons exemplify orderly cooperation for a group cause but there's no CULTURE there. Just Law vs Chaos. We need a civil creature that is neither/both humanoid and beast and an utterly feral creature for the other side that will even turn on its own kind. Even more feral and unthinking than your average beast... But we simply can't ignore sexiness and willingness to cuddle in the equation... Metal to Cottagecore sums it all up best I think, so let's look for that.

When you practice for an exam a lot people will tell you to trust your gut. I'm here to tell you to trust your first Blaze results. As much as I loved the thrill and attention of the higher tiers, the roller coast ride of the $25 tier was enough to get me where I needed to go. Let's see one of the first suggests and the most popular.

Gnolls are a combination of brutal warrior and arcane origin story. There are certain gnolls with magical powers but in general they are not relied upon. This makes them a good middle ground. So we need a creature at one end that is a cunning spellcaster and an opposite that is a muscle-bound brute.  A number of arcane outsiders fit the first while half the giants fit the latter. But anything with a language is not quite dumb enough for an extreme. So there may be a need for outsiders on both ends if an unthinking/non-magical outsider can be found. BUT are outsiders by default eldritch magical creatures? Also, should I listen to the person that posted my face in their reblog more than the others? That seems important...

As much as I'd love to have different creatures on every single chart as a weird flex, but the Tarrasque literally REFLECTS SPELLS and is one of the few creatures dumber than an ogre without being an ooze, construct or undead. On the other end, I had considered that the Death Tyrant or the Demilich with its Strength of 1 might represent the ultimate embodiment of mind over matter, but nobody has as many MAGIC spells and MIND powers as the Illithilich!

As we reach the final side bar, allow me to slap down a block of tags for all the people who left notes specifically asking to see how it ends. that way they get an alert even if this blaze doesn't get to them. @trickstercheshi​

@kippkap​

@musings-of-an-avimancer

@thatwingeddaydreamer 

@smokenmoths

@queuest

If you did a CTRL-F and just scrolled down to your name, I don't take it personally. I applaud your efficiency!

Let's see all the "none of the aboves" that my Blaze Train awoke as it shrieked across their dashboards!

Not all comments are created equal.

Out of all the excellent ideas there was one that stood out to me early on and only got a few more people fully on board through the entire Blaze Train.

Yes. That's right. We come all the way back around to physical descriptors. But it's not that simple! On the original chart, the rat, weasel, and raccoon are also mischievous and unpredictable with their grabby little hands. Meanwhile the quadrupedal Horse has evolved just as far in a different direction. Solidity and strength are in their hooves. Llamas and goats benefit from this power and stability but use it for wildly different purposes. There are also easy D&D creatures to pick out for each side without dabbling in lycanthropy or shifters.

And now I can rest, knowing that I have the chart that I wanted all along. Now I just need to blaze this and see which chart people like the most and how many ideas people have for the Z axis on them. (you sick bastards)