Anything strong enough?

[Linkavitch]

Sorry if this has been done before, but is there anything in the DnD world that is man-sized, has the many times more then enough strength to punch a human through a wall, and has the ability to stomp the ground hard enough to produce earthquakes, and has some kind of weakness that would allow hunters to capture it effectively? Yes this is another MitD post, but I'm just asking...

[hamishspence]

no-one knows: high strength and relatively small size do not usually go together. And ability to cause small earthquake by smacking the ground does exist (Savage Species) but again, you need to be rather bigger to take it.

[An Enemy Spy]

He would be easy to catch because he is so stupid and trusting

[Texas Jedi]

I believe in the Epic Level HB the Axiom monster is maybe a medium to large creature with a pretty big strenght number around 27-28 range.

That would put a world of hurt on a man/woman and would put them through a wall of certain materials (i.e. drywall, paper, light wooden door).

The only problem is those are made not created so he would have to mechanical.

[hamishspence]

RoboCreature in the Darkness? Hmm.

[SPoD]

I'm pretty sure that if it were possible to accurately deduce what the MitD was from nothing but these clues, then these wouldn't have been the clues we were given.

[Texas Jedi]

I'm pretty sure that if it were possible to accurately deduce what the MitD was from nothing but these clues, then these wouldn't have been the clues we were given.

Man you just came in an spoiled our fun. :smallwink:

[hamishspence]

The recurring theories were Baby tarrasque (mysteriously intelligent) and Fragment of Snarl. Anaxim Abomination is a new one though.

[black_Lizzard]

Maybe he has an item with a really high +# to strength.

[DreadSpoon]

What? I thought everyone knew that the MITD is Redcloak's niece, Miko.

[Inhuman Bot]

No.:smallannoyed:

[Zordrath]

I'm quite sure the MitD is some sort of homebrew monster (if we will ever know at all), as it's the best way of assuring none of us will ever guess it :smallwink:

Another theory is that the Giant has no intentions of ever revealing it, and thus doesn't even know it himself, thus imposing no limits on himself what the Monster can do for comedic purposes. The MitD seems to be like the sort of mystery that will never be revealed, as it has little importance, is only played for the laughs and will, no matter what finally is under the umbrella, be disappointing, unless it's a really big surprise. I mean, no matter what monster eventually is revealed, it would be very hard to live up to all that rampant guessing...

[Occasional Sage]

I'm quite sure the MitD is some sort of homebrew monster (if we will ever know at all), as it's the best way of assuring none of us will ever guess it :smallwink:

Another theory is that the Giant has no intentions of ever revealing it, and thus doesn't even know it himself, thus imposing no limits on himself what the Monster can do for comedic purposes. The MitD seems to be like the sort of mystery that will never be revealed, as it has little importance, is only played for the laughs and will, no matter what finally is under the umbrella, be disappointing, unless it's a really big surprise. I mean, no matter what monster eventually is revealed, it would be very hard to live up to all that rampant guessing...

Aha, that's it! The MitD is a MacGuffin!

[Kiara LeSabre]

Sorry if this has been done before, but is there anything in the DnD world that is man-sized, has the many times more then enough strength to punch a human through a wall, and has the ability to stomp the ground hard enough to produce earthquakes, and has some kind of weakness that would allow hunters to capture it effectively? Yes this is another MitD post, but I'm just asking...

Sure. A high-level psychic warrior can do all of this.

Psychofeedback: Increase Strength by a number equal to your manifester level at the expense of ability burn on other attributes. Say you're level 20, so you give yourself +20 to Strength -- that should be enough to punch a human through a wall pretty easily, especially if your Strength was already high to begin with. Assuming 18 Strength at creation and 5 increases from leveling, that's 23 base, then a Belt of Giant Strength +6 is 29, then a Tome of Whatever Increases Strength That I Forget What It's Called +5 to get it to 34, and finally +20 from Psychofeedback to get to 54 Strength.

To give you an idea of how much that is, even a great wrym gold dragon, which is slightly stronger than even the tarrasque, still only has a Strength score of 47. For mega lulz, make the character a halfling instead; you only take a 2-point penalty to Strength and still end up at 52 at level 20.

Stomp: There's your earthquake -- in a 20-foot cone, at least.

[Zordrath]

While being pretty awesome, this does, however, require math and thought, so the Monster could never pull it off :smalltongue:

[Kiara LeSabre]

What I really love is the image of a high-level halfling psychic warrior being mistaken for a typical halfling.

Rude Human: Outta the way, shorty! Grownups first! Haw, haw, haw!

Halfling: ... (manifesting)

Human: Hey, what's ...

Halfling's Fist Against Human's Stomach: BOOOOOOOM!!!

:smallbiggrin:

[Zordrath]

I'm sure Belkar would do anything to be able to pull that off :smallbiggrin:

(so would I, for that matter... :smalltongue: )

[Borris]

In the 3.5 onter Manual, the medium creature with the highest Strength score is the Leonal Guardinal, a lion-like guardian of pure good, with a Strength of 27.

Give it the paragon template from the Epic Level Handbook, making it the epitomy of the Leonal, and you get a score of 42.

It makes no doubt this is what the Creature in the Darkness really is.

[Teatime]

If the Monster in the Darkness is going to be revealed, and it just turns out to be some random obscure monster, I think that'd be a huge slap in the face to every reader who came in for the plot without knowing much about DnD. I think a lot of people are looking at this from the wrong perspective; if the MitD is anything that's ever going to be revealed, it'll be a huge "oshi" shocker to everyone whose read the story, and not a *facepalm* moment just to people who didn't scrounge around in an obscure enough sourcebook.

[herrhauptmann]

Imagine that we'll discover the answer in the same thread where we discover V's gender.

Perhaps : MitD will pull the D&D equivalent of pantsing V, who will turn around and slap MitD with a super lightburst spell of some sort.

Yes I know what I just suggested was ridiculous, but it IS a fantasy comic after all.

[Asarth]

I would like to point out that in Start of Darkness, the Monster in the Darkness appears in the rain forest, found by two hunters, who comment about how it is unusual to find one of the Monster in the Darkness' species in the rain forest, and how strange that the Monster in the Darkness could talk. If the hunters weren't talking crazy or something, I don't think it would be a piece of the Snarl, since the Snarl isn't very widely known, nor do I think that it would be strange that a psychic human(oid) would be able to talk.

[holywhippet]

I would like to point out that in Start of Darkness, the Monster in the Darkness appears in the rain forest, found by two hunters, who comment about how it is unusual to find one of the Monster in the Darkness' species in the rain forest, and how strange that the Monster in the Darkness could talk. If the hunters weren't talking crazy or something, I don't think it would be a piece of the Snarl, since the Snarl isn't very widely known, nor do I think that it would be strange that a psychic human(oid) would be able to talk.

Yes, but I sort of had the impression that they may have been too arrogant to admit they had no idea what the MitD was - so they simply made some vague comment about it being in an unusual location.

[thereaper]

If the MitD is ever revealed, it will be either one of two things:

A floating set of yellow eyeballs with telekinetic abilities that allow it to simulate hands, feet, and digestion (the ultimate irony: we all wonder what it is, and it turns out to be nothing more than what we've already seen :smallamused:)

A gazebo (it has roughly the right shape and size! :smallbiggrin:)

[evileeyore]

A gazebo (it has roughly the right shape and size! :smallbiggrin:)
This notion has merit.

I've yet to meet a Paladin that didn't fall prey to the might of the Gazebo.

[Salty]

A gazebo (it has roughly the right shape and size! :smallbiggrin:)

I can't believe I didn't realize that! You sir, are bound to be correct.:smallbiggrin:

[AlexanderRM]

The recurring theories were Baby tarrasque (mysteriously intelligent) and Fragment of Snarl. Anaxim Abomination is a new one though.
How would you get a baby Tarrasque? Not only does the Tarrasque not reproduce sexually, it doesn't reproduce at all, as evidenced by the fact that there's only one. Not to mention that, A: It can't talk, and B: it sleeps most of the time (as far as we can tell, the MitD sleeps at night, based on the subplot with O-Chul).

On that note, it would be cool if the MitDs' reveal was O-Chul riding it into battle as a paladin mount. That has some issues, though.




If the MitD is ever revealed, it will be either one of two things:

A floating set of yellow eyeballs with telekinetic abilities that allow it to simulate hands, feet, and digestion (the ultimate irony: we all wonder what it is, and it turns out to be nothing more than what we've already seen :smallamused:)

A gazebo (it has roughly the right shape and size! :smallbiggrin:)
Yes, definitely one of those.


Either that, or some sort of homebrew. I'm almost certain it's not anything in the MM.
However, I don't think it's the right size for a gazebo.

[Grushvak]

After so much mass wild guesses, anything the Giant would come up with would turn out to be a disappointment. He's too brilliant a narrator to ever reveal what the MitD is, if he even knows himself, because he knows it wouldn't live up to expectations.

Just think of The Dark Tower. Sometimes, it's best not to know.

[Linkavitch]

I thought of something today. You know how a lot of people think the MitD is a small piece of the Snarl? And somehow that piece is preventing it from coming out? Well, I don't know about that, but the first part got me thinking. What if, since even though the gods worked together and agreed on everything to create the second world, what if the decisions that some gods made that were generally agreed with, were still not liked by some gods, and this small bit of dissent created a small Snarl? It could even have been a secondary on-purpose bit, for them to create a small Snarl, a Snaggle, maybe, thatcould defeat the Snarl if it ever escaped?

[Linkavitch]

Another great(I wish) idea. What if Rich has been doing some work for whatever company does DnD and MitD is a 4.5 ed. monster?

[GSFB]

I think about the only monster out of the books that it could be without serious "aw, is that all it is?" feedback would be the tarrasque. I mean, for like 25 years or so of D&D, the tarrasque has been THE quintessential "big bad dumb killing machine." it is the Godzilla of the D&D world. MITD could be the tarrasque, and no one would be much let down. Any other monster out of the books, and it would be a head scratcher.

And for folks who haven't read my interpretation of the tarrasque as MITD in other posts, the reason it is size M is that, in my universe, the tarrasque remains shrunken down to M size for centuries at a time, easily hiding out of sight and away from civilization, just eating and eating and eating until every so often it goes BOOM and explodes into colossal size, wipes out a civilization, then shrinks down and disappears again.

After all, something like the full blown tarrasque is pretty hard to miss. The trail of destruction would make it easy for the epic level characters to find and destroy. And if not destroyed, it would itself destroy the entire civilized world in inhabits.

It makes sense that it would show up, destroy, then disappear for centuries. Everyone who saw it would be dead of old age (ok, except for some elves and dragons and stuff) before it came back again - making it a thing of myth and bedtime stories to scare the kids. No one would take it seriously because, if it were real, by golly it would be out there and easy to find.

So for many, many years, the thing just hides in the jungle eating carrion and stuff. It isn't very smart, but is good at hiding and eating. And it is still very, very, very powerful... it just doesn't need to USE that power, so it doesn't draw attention to itself.

So now Xykon has it. And, apparently, Xykon knows how to make it become full sized - and is holding it in reserve for a dramatic battle later.

So we see it revealed at the end of the strip - where it eats Belkar. Somehow, V says the right four words to it. Mayhem ensues.

This is the only way MITD is revealed.

If MITD is NOT the tarrasque, there is no reveal. The strip will probably end with OotS defeating Xykon and the snarl, going off into the sunset, and MITD walking in with the Hello Kitty umbrella and saying "gate? what gate?"

[AlexanderRM]

And for folks who haven't read my interpretation of the tarrasque as MITD in other posts, the reason it is size M is that, in my universe, the tarrasque remains shrunken down to M size for centuries at a time, easily hiding out of sight and away from civilization, just eating and eating and eating until every so often it goes BOOM and explodes into colossal size, wipes out a civilization, then shrinks down and disappears again.


Please, don't tell me that you made that whole thing up JUST as an explanation as to how the Tarrasque remains hidden? Because there's already an explanation in the MM entry for it. I suppose having it WALK back to it's lair after every time it awakened would be kinda odd, but there must be a simpler explanation than that it somehow magically goes instantly from C to M and goes off and nobody noticing the presence of a medium-sized creature that looks just like the Tarrasque near where the Tarrasque just was...




Another great(I wish) idea. What if Rich has been doing some work for whatever company does DnD and MitD is a 4.5 ed. monster?
Now that would be just plain awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[Emanick]

I'm not sure who questioned why the MitD obviously has higher than 3 Intelligence, yet the Tarrasque has just that, but all it would have to be is Awakened. Sure, Awakening (I think) requires 2 or lower Int, but Rich has smoothed over larger wrinkles than that (eg. Goblins being one size larger).
It could be a made-up monster, though. Rich wouldn't make us go insane by never revealing it, but the suspense of MitD being "in the shadows" isn't to keep us guessing its exact identity (at least not primarily). It's to keep us from knowing exactly what it is and how powerful it is, a minute but important difference.