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I couldn't tell you anymore why I love the aurumvorax. I know the "Ecology of..." article from Dragon #132 had something to go with it. I know that it, along with all of the other critters from Barrier Peaks, was just entierly too weird not to like. Sure, when I was fourteen and just started gaming there was a lot to geek out on in those early 1E Monster Manuals and the Fiend Folio. But beyond the dragons, the beholder, and the githyanki, there was the aurumvorax- a big, nasty badger with a mean disposition, gold fur, and eight legs. The reasons are ultimately unimportant; the aurumvorax always had a strange little "I don't know what I'll ever do with you, but you're cool as hell" niche in my addled brain.
When first edition faded to second edition I said goodbye to my aurumvorax. If there were 2E stats for it I didn't see them. With third edition I held my bated breath one more time, but with each new Monster Manual release I found only disappointment. When even the flumph and the froghemoth found new life in 3E I figured that every useless thing from 1E that was going to resurrected had seen print. Between the death of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, coupled with last week's announcement of 4E, the last bit of dirt seemed to be thrown on a third edition aurumvorax's grave.
And then yesterday my copy of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk arrived. I did my cursory flip through the book, checking the locales, NPCs, and monsters in it. Never did I expect what I found when I reached the end of the book, hiding on page 216.
My aurumvorax. In all its third edition glory. And this time? With a pretty color picture.
There was an unexpected outpouring of fanboy as I said aloud- my cats, thankfully, the only witnesses to the abashed horror- "Oh sweet!" I envisioned a myriad of ways to drop the aurumvorax into my current campaign, loathing my players for only having third level characters and knowing it would be a while still before they were able to experience the full majesty of the aurumvorax.
I then regained my composure, remembering that I'm now supposed to be an adult as well as a respected and well-adjusted member of the education community. There's a comfort, though, in knowing that the fourteen year old geek is still that alive just under an austere exterior.
So, to Jason, James, and Erik, thanks for bringing the aurumvorax back. I may never get to run Ruins of Greyhawk, but rest assured that at some point either the Flanaess or, much more likely, Varisia, will face a veritable plague of aurumvorax that makes Australia's cane toads look like a minor pest problem.
Well, maybe not that bad. I'll try to control myself.
And Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk is really cool, too. Just, you know, FYI.
Dude I could have sworn the Aurumvorax made it to second edition. Anywho, I remember a ranger in a game I was DM'ing getting into quite a nasty tiff with one as a random encounter one session . . . the thing had shocked him and nailed him so fiercely and suddenly he even shot an arrow into it after the group had helped him kill it.
Good fun.
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The Aurumvorax did make it into 2nd edition. I think it might have been in the Greyhawk Supplement (back when they still did such a thing) to the Monstrous Compendiums.
One of the later annuals? Or the loose leaf version?
Maybe the 2E aurumvorax was like the missing thumbs of the illithid, and somehow I just never noticed. If I had seen them, you can bet that one would have tried to eat your arms off.
It was in the 2nd edition monster manual. the reprint one that came out with batches of Monstrous Compendium monsters.
On a personal note, woohoo! Aurumvorax!
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It was in the 2nd edition monster manual. the reprint one that came out with batches of Monstrous Compendium monsters.
That's why I missed it. I had dropped out of getting a lot of the D&D stuff by then, as my gaming group (of which Aberzombie was a part, long ago in those halcyon days) met less and money was getting tighter.
But still no flail snail! *sniff* :'(
-The Gneech
Anybody remember the super-lame 3e aurumvorax on the WotC boards, that was much weaker than a dire badger? JJ & co. really souped it up for "Greyhawk Expedition," and I like their version a lot. Just the thing for when the characters say, "Oh, how cute!" and it grapples and rakes them to death!
I also like what they did with the verbeeg, which is more or less exactly how I've been treating orogs in 3.5e (orcs, instead of humans, with the half-ogre template applied, and Medium size). Sweet!
I'd given up on getting modern stats for the golden gorger.Better late than never, I guess. I too fell in love with it from the ecology article. Funny, I thought I was the only one who remembered that. It really struck a chord with me for some reason.
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I'd given up on getting modern stats for the golden gorger.Better late than never, I guess. I too fell in love with it from the ecology article. Funny, I thought I was the only one who remembered that. It really struck a chord with me for some reason.
One of the only two back pre-3E issues of Dragon that I lost in a small house fire and need to bother myself to get back someday. The other being the issue in which I suggested that giant space hamsters were so popular with wildspace explorers because they had more white meat that the average space hamster, but that's another love story entirely.
Funny, I've had both the Aurumboax and Flail Snail for some time now *cough* Tome of Horrors *cough*
See my posts elsewhere about those, though. I'd almost rather have no conversion than a purely mechanical one.
<Stuff>
uh, hello.2nd edition monster manual page 10
Epic Necromancy.
Somehow, I think after almost 7 years of break in this conversation, which all occured within a day, it's a bit of a moot point.-TimD