Dire, Monstrous or Giant - What's in a Name?

[Laurellien]

Would a monstrous spider by any other name be as threatening? Would a dire ant be more threatening than a giant ant? Why is it only animals that are dire whereas vermin are giant or monstrous?

I have been going through some of the 3.5 monsters recently and this has piqued my interest. Is this naming convention an artefact of some older trend? Does anybody know if there is any specific reason for it?

[Keltest]

Dire Wolves, to my knowledge were at one point actual animals that have since become very extinct. The Dire prefix was later spread on to other animals, as the Dire Wolf was a larger and theoretically more dangerous version of your garden variety wolf, at least in D&D.

As for ants and bugs being giant, its a literal descriptor. Any bug large enough to be dangerous on its own merit rather than as a swarm would have to be giant. Dire-Giant ant is kind of redundant at that point.

[Maglubiyet]

Yes, the dire wolf is an extinct species of wolf.

The first edition MM mentioned Dire Wolves under the Wolf entry with the evil versions being called Worgs. Since Worg was still probably too similar to Warg for the Tolkien estate's tastes, TSR probably just went with the more generic name in the updated edition (also, ever wonder why D&D has "halflings" instead of "hobbits" and "Balors" instead of "Balrogs"?)

In 1e, many of the giant animals were just large prehistoric species similar to modern ones (megalodon, dire wolf, cave bear, spotted lion) -- maybe some hypothetical game designer saw the similarity to the dire wolf and applied the name to all of them. Of course, this doesn't explain giant frogs, toads, snakes, otters, lynxes, weasels, and wolverines all also in the 1e MM, but I'm sticking with that theory.

[Darth Ultron]

Giant animals are/were real. In the past, there were quite a lot of giant animals and insects. They are long extinct here on Earth....but in a fantasy world....

Dire animals are/were also real. They were the animals right around the last Ice Age. Bigger, stronger and more savage then modern animals.......dire.

Monstrous is just a twist on monster.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

To me dire or monstrous imply that the creature is not only huge but that there's something else wrong about it, some horrible magical trait that makes it even more dangerous.
Rulebooks can suck a ****, when a "dire" wolf comes after you in one of my games you better believe it's not just a normal wolf but bigger, that thing's gonna have x-ray vision, acid saliva, armored skin and whatever else I can think of at the time.

[Ashtagon]

Dire - the dire wolf was an actual creature from history. It lived in the Americas from 240 kya to 10 kya. The dire creatures from 3.x are essentially the base creature with osteoderms, bigger jaws and claws, maybe a thagomiser, and badder attitudes. The 3.x dire creatures bear no relationship to the historical dire wolf (which in 3e terms would be a normal wolf that had been advanced to 3HD).

Monstrous - In 3.x, this is a generic term to denote a group of creature types that vary only in their size class (and those abilities that are derived from that or adjusted based on that size). I believe the term got adopted when they realised that "giant" had become an overworked word. Monstrous spider is a good example of this.

Giant - In 3.x, this refers to creatures that are notably larger than a more mundane-sized counterpart, which may or may not also be in the Monster Manuals. It does not indicate any particular size, either an absolute size or a scaling factor relative to the original. Some of these, such as giant crocodiles, exist in reality. Prehistoric examples (giant dragonflies) also existed. Some are fictional (giant owl).

[snowblizz]

I'm not a D&D rpger so I haven't read all those sourcebooks, but one thing that strikes me from the examples here and what I've seen in various context is, a normally dangerous and fairly ok sized animal will be labelled as "dire" to distinguish it as even more dangerous than normal. A normal bear is dangerous, a dire bear much more so.

Giant animals it seems are labelled so because their danger comes precisely from that increased size, it is the most distinguishing feature. Since dire "means" somewhat more dangerous than the normal version a dire ant is a little larger and more dangerous than the regular variety. Take a red wood ant (Formica rufa) as the ant, then a dire ant would be something like a carpenter ant (a Camponotus spp.). Not that impressive. A giant ant however, well that immediately tells you what to look out for.

Interestingly, a giant is a giant humanoid... a giant human, which is spectacular because of its massive size, it's not called a dire human or humanoid...

[johnbragg]

Interestingly, a giant is a giant humanoid... a giant human, which is spectacular because of its massive size, it's not called a dire human or humanoid...

That's because humans are dire halflings.....

[Maglubiyet]

Interestingly, a giant is a giant humanoid... a giant human, which is spectacular because of its massive size, it's not called a dire human or humanoid...

Also confusing, a monstrous humanoid isn't necessarily bigger than a humanoid, just more wild or bestial.

lol, johnbragg...dire halfling!

[Hunter Noventa]

Half the time all Dire seems to mean is three extra hit dice and a rend attack.

[Dire Moose]

Real-life dire wolves were actually more like advanced wolves with higher Str/Con than the horse-sized creatures in D&D. They were a bit bigger and heavier, but still not Large.

[TheCountAlucard]

Actually, if I recall correctly, while RL dire wolves had larger builds, weren't their legs shorter overall?

[Keltest]

Actually, if I recall correctly, while RL dire wolves had larger builds, weren't their legs shorter overall?

Obviously there was something sub-optimal about them since they all died.

[Ashtagon]

Obviously there was something sub-optimal about them since they all died.

They died of the same thing that killed the New World horses. A lot of extinctions were going on around that time. Speculations range from climate change to the arrival of humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_lambei

[Eloel]

Prehistoric examples (giant dragonflies) also existed.

A quick research gives Meganeura as the name. 60cm wingspans? I'd say flamethrowers would be a lot more common.

[Ashtagon]

A quick research gives Meganeura as the name. 60cm wingspans? I'd say flamethrowers would be a lot more common.

Why? A decent flyswatter would do the job more much easily and cheaply. Something that size would probably have difficulty dodging a well-aimed shoe, even.

[Eloel]

Why? A decent flyswatter would do the job more much easily and cheaply. Something that size would probably have difficulty dodging a well-aimed shoe, even.

Sure. But knowing what the currently small bugs are capable of withstanding, would the shoe do anything to it?

[Maglubiyet]

Obviously there was something sub-optimal about them since they all died.

Everything dies...

[Eloel]

Everything dies...

Everything serves...

[Keltest]

Everything dies...

So far I have a 100% survival rate.

[TheCountAlucard]

So far the human condition only has a 97% mortality rate; will the final battle fall to Mung or to Time? Even MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀĪ cannot say.