MitD XV: The Other Dark One

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The bigger thing, for me, is that Rich is just a better story-teller than that. Like... at the point when the umbrella comes off, how many people are going to go 'oh, a Bakunawa, of course!'. How many people will even have heard of what a Bakunawa is?! I'd never heard of it before. I can't believe that Rich will be happy with himself unless at least 80% of his audience are kicking themselves for not seeing it before - and in my opinion, even a Tarrasque barely clears that mark.

I don't think this can possibly be the case. If Rich, at ~#100, decided he wanted this out of the reveal ("at least 80% of his audience are kicking themselves for not seeing it before"), he'd have to pick a creature that was extremely well known, and yet carefully dole out clues in such a way that no-one would figure it out before the end. That's not a realistic objective, not when 99% of your readership are seriously into D&D (percentage has been diluted by non-players since then). I have long been in the camp of "Rich does not expect everyone to recognize it", mostly on the back of his assessment that he'd expect someone to figure out, rather than "everyone". We know he's been picturing the reveal for years now, so I expect he already has a plan on how to tell everyone that does NOT recognize it what he is, possibly more subtle than our usual go-to of "Elan is confused, and V explains in thorough detail".

Grey Wolf