Erik's editorial in Dungeon 133 (Lovable Losers) got me thinking: what would a D&D world where the only monsters were those "custom made" for the game be like?
I’m one of those people who have problems figuring out how all the beasties compiled over four volumes and counting of Monster Manuals and Fiend Folios are supposed to find room in a single setting. I like the idea that a setting has a choice selection of monsters. Not necessarily a limited selection, just not an unlimited one. I mean, from a gamer’s point of view, Middle-Earth is pretty sparse on monsters. It’s pretty much orcs all the way, with half a dozen unique or very rare and very powerful others thrown in, which does not make for a lot of variety (and entertainment) when it comes to throwing adversaries at your PCs.
So any way, here we go. Let’s get rid of anything lifted from literature or mythology. So there go dwarves, elves, halflings and gnomes. There go goblinoids, orcs, ogres, trolls and giants. There go griffons, harpies, manticores and al the rest. Whoa – there go dragons! Bye-bye to skeletons, zombies, wraiths, ghouls…
What have we got left? The weird stuff. Rust monsters, owlbears, mimics, chokers, mind flayers, all sorts of deadly blobs of slime and psychopathic fungi. The really interesting stuff.
What would their world be like? The forests no longer ring with elven laughter. There aren’t any lost dwarven halls beneath the mountains, now the breeding warrens of goblins and majestic nests of sleeping dragons.
My first thought is that it will be something more Vancian and less Tolkienesque. Most of the civilized folk you meet are going to be human, and monsters will be monsters. Not endless species of folk with green skins or animal heads queuing up for an ecological niche. I mean freakish things born on a wizard’s workbench that have escaped into the wild, crossbred with something else and established themselves as a real menace to tourism. The things that evolve when rising damp gets in the way of a misfired spell or a spilled potion and goes on to get that first taste of human blood.
But, hey, over to you.