Horror Moon?

[Tvtyrant]

One of the D&D motiffs seems to be horrid moon beasts. Mooncalfs, Moonbeasts, Lunar Ravagers, Atropus, etc. Many of these creatures are not given a means of getting from the moon to planet and back, nor is it explained how they breath. Any idea where D&D's moon phobia started?

[(Un)Inspired]

Gary Gygax' father was killed by a moon. It created deep seated moon-resentment in him and it probably influenced the game he would create years later.

[Tvtyrant]

Gary Gygax father was killed by a moon. It created deep seated moon-resentment in him and it probably influenced the game he would create years later.

Moonsentment can strike even the best of us, alas.

[(Un)Inspired]

Truly it is a sorrowful affliction.

On a slightly more serious note I would guess that the moon is a very prominent part of tons o' different folklore (from which D&D draws so much of its jazz). There's already monsters related to the moon in popular culture (werewolves, Lunatics,... others probably) it's probably easy to whip up more.

[sideswipe]

this was not what i was expecting from the title.


http://40.media.tumblr.com/7fef15bdcd49205a20dbbcc73d3c973a/tumblr_mfeponOD1G1s19s89o1_1280.jpg

[Bronk]

One of the D&D motiffs seems to be horrid moon beasts. Mooncalfs, Moonbeasts, Lunar Ravagers, Atropus, etc. Many of these creatures are not given a means of getting from the moon to planet and back, nor is it explained how they breath. Any idea where D&D's moon phobia started?

Well, not all of those need to breathe in space. Mooncalfs are created in the atmosphere by the Moonlords, for example (Dragon 340). Atropus, on the other hand, is a moon and/or undead. So there's that.

The other thing is that some of them might have originated in AD&D, where the Spelljammer rules often let big enough creatures have a big enough air envelope to survive in space for a long time or indefinitely.

[Phelix-Mu]

Also important is that not all Crystal Spheres contain void throughout their interplanetary space. I am pretty sure that it is still canon that one can actually just fly from Krynn to one of its moons without any assistance breathing. That was part of one of the published novels back in the day, and was a pretty cool way to look at stuff, given how physics-oriented our conventional view of outer space is.

So who is to say that these beasties don't fly down in columns of air that descend from the moon to the land below. Or perhaps, on special nights, they can survive without air in the interstitial void by drawing their life from moonbeams as they descend.

Or we can go even more bizarro. Perhaps these creatures are inhabited by symbiotic plants hailing from the Far Realm that create the oxygen while feeding off of moonlight. When planetside, the symbiotic plants don't have enough moonlight, and start secreting an intoxicating vapor that can befuddle and madden nearby mortals. A nice tie in to the aforementioned lunatics.

[Karl Aegis]

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft like many other monsters. Gibbering mouthers are just renamed shoggoths.

Did they ever print stats for a shantak? Shantaks would be cool.

[Phelix-Mu]

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft like many other monsters. Gibbering mouthers are just renamed shoggoths.

Did they ever print stats for a shantak? Shantaks would be cool.

While we are on Lovecraft-ish monsters, special mention of the spirrax from MM5.