Yesterday, as I was finishing up the post about "What Would Don Turnbull Do?" I realized that I didn't feel I was stating my case adequately, that something was missing from what I'd been writing. It wasn't until very late last night that I realized what it was.
I was dead wrong.
The question that I had been asking myself wasn't "What Would Don Turnbull Do?" but rather "Does this monster fit in the Fiend Folio?" Does it fit alongside the Adherer, the Kharghra or the mighty Flumph? Alongside the Githyanki, the Hook Horror or the Princes of Elemental Evil?
That's what I actually ask myself.
Of course, this rubric could be applied to every monster book out there. "Does this monster fit in the Monster Manual? What about Realms of Crawling Chaos? What about Realms of Chaos? What about the Old World Bestiary?" And so on.
And still, it's only a partly accurate guideline, because whatever we create will always be our own intellectual children, rather than of those who wrote these books, but that's the point isn't it? My monsters wouldn't all fit in the Fiend Folio. Few would, actually. Most would have to go into some sort of "Fiend Folio of Hyperboria and Zothique" or something like that. And that's fine. That's actually the goal, so no harm done.
This stuck in my craw all night last night and I had to correct myself. I'm sorry for any misconception my post yesterday may have caused.
[EDIT] When this post originally went out, I had mispelled Don Turnbull's name... twice. It's fixed now. Thanks for not jumping all over me, folks. I wrote this post after being awake for about ten minutes, so I didn't have my head on straight yet.
I was dead wrong.
The question that I had been asking myself wasn't "What Would Don Turnbull Do?" but rather "Does this monster fit in the Fiend Folio?" Does it fit alongside the Adherer, the Kharghra or the mighty Flumph? Alongside the Githyanki, the Hook Horror or the Princes of Elemental Evil?
That's what I actually ask myself.
Of course, this rubric could be applied to every monster book out there. "Does this monster fit in the Monster Manual? What about Realms of Crawling Chaos? What about Realms of Chaos? What about the Old World Bestiary?" And so on.
And still, it's only a partly accurate guideline, because whatever we create will always be our own intellectual children, rather than of those who wrote these books, but that's the point isn't it? My monsters wouldn't all fit in the Fiend Folio. Few would, actually. Most would have to go into some sort of "Fiend Folio of Hyperboria and Zothique" or something like that. And that's fine. That's actually the goal, so no harm done.
This stuck in my craw all night last night and I had to correct myself. I'm sorry for any misconception my post yesterday may have caused.
[EDIT] When this post originally went out, I had mispelled Don Turnbull's name... twice. It's fixed now. Thanks for not jumping all over me, folks. I wrote this post after being awake for about ten minutes, so I didn't have my head on straight yet.