MitD XV: The Other Dark One

[Peelee]

I still think there's at least one good argument against the Protean; that Xykon expected start-of-story Order of the Stick to instantly recognize MitD as being tremendously powerful.

Point of debate +: Xykon expected the Order to be afraid.

[Ruck]

I am very toasty, it’s true.

Fun fact: my first apartment after school was immediately upstairs from a large bakery. At first it was really cool waking up to the smell of baking break, but after a few months it started getting really tiresome. Too much of a good thing.

There are worse reasons to live near a bakery.

[Shining Wrath]

And how many mid-level adventurers would instantly recognize a Protean? How many have even heard of this particular CR 29 monster?

And it can assume the form any combination of creatures, which means it can precisely imitate a chimera if the mood strikes it.

EDIT: "Chimera" should be used broadly. A protean can resemble any creature that is a combination of other creatures. Manticore, sphinx, hippogriff, griffon, Pegasus, and more. The protean could appear to be any of those creatures, some of which are not scary to a mid level party. And then the next round it would be something different, unless it used a move action to preserve form. It doesn't have to be recognizably a combination of several creatures that don't normally combine.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

And how many mid-level adventurers would instantly recognize a Protean? How many have even heard of this particular CR 29 monster?

Irrelevant. It would strike fear regardless of whether they can give it a name.

it can assume the form any combination of creatures, which means it can precisely imitate a chimera if the mood strikes it.

No, it can't. It could duplicate up to four of a chimera's extraordinary abilities, but the chimera has none to duplicate. It cannot duplicate any supernatural or SLAs the chimera might have (like, for example, its breath weapon). It cannot duplicate a chimera. And during that time, its form is constantly boiling, and requiring a move action per turn just to keep those Ex duplications working. There is no scenario in which a protean looks like anything else than a protean with bits and pieces of other creatures.

GW

[Shining Wrath]

Why must a large creature that appears to be a combination of several non-threatening-to-midlevel-characters creatures (e.g., ox, lamb, ape, dog) always be frightening? By level 10 the Order has seen worse. And nothing in the Protean's stat block mentions it being frightening or causing fear - or, for that matter, being ugly.

I know it's lethal and dangerous. But the OotS world is full of weird creatures beyond number, and the Protean, unless recognized, just looks like a Large jumble of pieces.
Why would Roy view even a Large jumble of lion and tiger and bear and dragon as inherently terrifying?

[hamishspence]

I know it's lethal and dangerous. But the OotS world is full of weird creatures beyond number, and the Protean, unless recognized, just looks like a Large jumble of pieces.
Why would Roy view even a Large jumble of lion and tiger and bear and dragon as inherently terrifying?

The fact that its shape is "constantly boiling" might add somewhat to the scare factor.

In Tamora Pierce's The Realms of the Gods, being grabbed by a Protean-like goddess is utterly horrifying to even the fairly hardened protagonist.

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Beneath her, the ground lurched, rolled, then sank. Before her appeared an arch and pool of oozing, dripping muck, their shifting colors making her dizzy. In the spot where pond and arch met, a hunched figure straightened. The face changed without letup, no part of it ever still, from unmatched eyes to the overall shape.

Horrible as she looked in Daine’s dreams, the physical reality of Uusoae was much, much worse. The girl’s hands and feet scrabbled in the dirt as she tried to get away from the Queen of Chaos, but her muscles were as soft as butter. Trembling, Daine covered her eyes. It didn’t help. The Chaos queen was in her mind. Her constant shifts of body and face pulled at Daine’s belly and ears and heart.

“You dared to interfere,” the creature muttered, her breath scented richly with flowers and long-dead meat. “For my creature, and my plan —” Hard, sharp, gluey, oozing, pulpy, twining hands seized Daine’s wrists.

The girl shrieked at the horror of that touch. Her scream went on, and on —

And ended, as if cut off by shears. They were nowhere, in a flat, dead space where there was no sound, no light, and no up or down. Mercifully, Daine could no longer feel Uusoae’s touch. She only wished that she could no longer see the goddess, but her vision was crystal clear, even without light.

And, in a previous dream scene:

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Looking from face to face, she saw that all of the Great Gods but one formed the ring.

The lump in their center began to rise, changing color swiftly. When it halted, a person stood there, bent nearly double. The hunched figure straightened. At first it was a gold-skinned woman with stormy gray hair and a simple gray dress. Within a breath, she changed. Her skin went yellow, her hair became twigs, her body sprouted a mass of tentacles. That, too, lasted briefly. She never kept one shape for long, but shifted constantly from patchwork to patchwork in combinations of things that lived and things that did not. Pincers grew on a cheetah’s forequarters; a cow’s head and a man’s legs were attached. Just to look at the changing thing made Daine’s stomach roll.

The creature lurched to the side, diving for the opening between the Wave Walker and the Black God; white fire appeared, to form a dome between gods and their captive. Half lion, half crone, she dropped and crawled for the gap between the Thief and the Smith, only to retreat howling after she touched the barrier.

[Fyraltari]

The fact that its shape is "constantly boiling" might add somewhat to the scare factor.

Yeah, okay, if the bad guy said he was going to unleash his trump card and out of the shadows came The Thing, regardless of level, I'd be terrified.

[Crusher]

Yeah, okay, if the bad guy said he was going to unleash his trump card and out of the shadows came The Thing, regardless of level, I'd be terrified.

Yeah. A lich sorcerer is going to have some credibility. If they unveil something weird looking and tell you its going to wreck you, you're probably going to assume its true until proven otherwise.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Why must a large creature that appears to be a combination of several non-threatening-to-midlevel-characters creatures (e.g., ox, lamb, ape, dog) always be frightening? By level 10 the Order has seen worse. And nothing in the Protean's stat block mentions it being frightening or causing fear - or, for that matter, being ugly.

Because it is not just "several non-threatening-to-midlevel-characters creatures". It is an eldritch horror looking creature with boiling skin that constantly mutates. It is sprouting anything from a goat head to a dragon head to a tentacle to anything else, usually all at once.



GW

[corydeburd]

Section 1g: (Not) Seeing the Gates

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MitD's inability to "see" the gates is felt by several participants to be a "clue" about MitD (rather than the alternative possibility, Rule of Funny). However, no explanation that ties MitD's species to the gates has been forthcoming, except when contemplating the idea of MitD being part of the Snarl.

Alternatively, it has been proposed that since the demiplane in which the Snarl is trapped is designed to null divine magic, and it is third-handedly established in SoD that the gods have difficulty in detecting the rifts, there might be some connection between MitD and the gods that makes him, too, unaware of the rift. Note, however, that MitD has an issue seeing the definitely-not-Snarl-related gate that Xykon installed to stop his zombies from walking into and being destroyed by the rift, so this connection is quite far-fetched.

Finally, it must be pointed out that MitD doesn't have a problem actually seeing the physical object that is the gate. Instead, his words seem to suggest that he doesn't know it is one. It has been suggested this might be because he thinks the only definition of "gate" is the portal that opens when the spell gate is cast. If he has been told that is a gate (and he probably had seen the spell before, when he previously saw the Astral Plane)TV, he would be confused as to why he can't see one near the massive wooden thing Xykon and RC keep pointing at.

A small point on this. Given the double deep mystery around MitD's identity and the true nature of the Snarl, I think it's unlikely the "what gates?" is merely a throwaway meme. It's not enough to be a good clue about MitD's identity, but presumably it will all connect eventually. A number of characters have remarked that we don't really have the full story about the Snarl. Thor's explanation is nice, but it doesn't really explain the other worlds.

It seems like these remarks are more a clue about the nature of the Snarl than MitD. The "gates," to one with a better perspective, aren't actually gates in some deeper sense. This suggests MitD has some (naive intuition-based) perspective on the Snarl's nature, but this could come from many sources, making it a very indirect clue about MitD.

[Shining Wrath]

A small point on this. Given the double deep mystery around MitD's identity and the true nature of the Snarl, I think it's unlikely the "what gates?" is merely a throwaway meme. It's not enough to be a good clue about MitD's identity, but presumably it will all connect eventually. A number of characters have remarked that we don't really have the full story about the Snarl. Thor's explanation is nice, but it doesn't really explain the other worlds.

It seems like these remarks are more a clue about the nature of the Snarl than MitD. The "gates," to one with a better perspective, aren't actually gates in some deeper sense. This suggests MitD has some (naive intuition-based) perspective on the Snarl's nature, but this could come from many sources, making it a very indirect clue about MitD.

If MitD can see into the Ethereal / Astral planes, maybe they don't see Gates because other planes just blend right into the one they are on? Perhaps MitD doesn't see any clear border between Snarlworld and OotSworld?

But more likely that was a throwaway joke about MitD not being very bright.

[halfeye]

But more likely that was a throwaway joke about MitD not being very bright.

I really hope that isn't it. Sometimes you can't see something because your position is wrong.

MitD is pretty clearly "not with" a lot of the in context jokes and tropes of the setting, but that means he's ignorant of the setting and says little about his intelligence. There are times when he clearly does have knowledge that other people lack, such as the "half a ritual" situation, that also tells us little about his intelligence, but he seems to be quite quick to learn, which is a feature of intelligence.

[Crusher]

There are worse reasons to live near a bakery.

I just want to say, IMO, no bad reasons to live by a bakery were mentioned in that clip.

[corydeburd]

If MitD can see into the Ethereal / Astral planes, maybe they don't see Gates because other planes just blend right into the one they are on? Perhaps MitD doesn't see any clear border between Snarlworld and OotSworld?

But more likely that was a throwaway joke about MitD not being very bright.

But MitD is very much in the "deceptively dumb" category. For example (via the wiki, "When they arrive at Girard's Gate, Redcloak wanted to destroy the Order, but MitD argued persuasively to manipulate Xykon into leaving them, saying that O-Chul and Lien were the real threats, and the Order were just there to delay them. This suggests both that MitD's friendship with O-Chul has led him to pursue ends separate from those of Team Evil, as well that he has considerable intelligence."

Some of MitD's "unintelligence" may also be due to some sort of trauma/magical effect/memory loss. MitD cannot remember its own name [but probably has/had one]; MitD says it likes the Astral Plane, but can't remember when or if it was there, once pressed.

This format, to me, suggests that something is very plain to MitD that most of the other characters are missing about the Snarl. I don't know what it is that we're missing -- if I could tell you, I could probably predict a lot of the big spoilers of the rest of the story. Maybe the "gates" aren't "gates" because there's not a meaningful difference between each side. Maybe they connect to alternate timelines or the past stories that were "destroyed." I really have no good idea. But MitD has a lot of planar travel and perhaps more -- I'd trust its impressions.

MitD is pretty clearly "not with" a lot of the in context jokes and tropes of the setting, but that means he's ignorant of the setting and says little about his intelligence. There are times when he clearly does have knowledge that other people lack, such as the "half a ritual" situation, that also tells us little about his intelligence, but he seems to be quite quick to learn, which is a feature of intelligence.

Completely agree. On serious issues, MitD's intuition is usually correct, even if it doesn't know why.

[Carl]

Not sure it's really super relevant either vis a vis the gates and the MitD but here's a thought. the gates are all supposed to be giant crystals. Could he be a crystalline creature of some sort and sees the gates as either big dumb rocks or another crystalline creature thats not doing anything?Might even fit in with redcloak's obsession with weird elemental. Presumably he's not an Elemental himself, (don;t think there's official stat blocks for that kind of crystal elemental thing), but i guess he could be a templated creature of some kind, (Pesudonatrual maybe). Not sure what if any creature would make a good base.

Also another random thing i recently noted, well two.

1. The rules on Dieties creating their familiar thingies, "Petitioners" include some examples of unusual planar qualities they can have but the list is explicitly not exhaustive. One of the options removes all their immunities except mind affecting effect. presumably with the right origin plane being vulnerable to mind affecting things is an option. Also unique versions are described as "may" retain knowlage and skills of a previous life. Partial memmories of his mortal self would fit with that for sure. TOnly catch is they're restricted to their home plane only normally, so probably doesn't work. But it was interesting enough i wanted to mention it. Wonder if the nature of a plane could affect a deity that way, that would mean proxies and the like would be the same and they don't have the same restrictions on places they can go? Also what would happen to a proxie when a god dies?

2. The rules on Diety abilities specify a rest period after using some of them. They literally fall asleep on the spot for a set number of rounds on use. Sounds a lot like MitD after the escape. Again the usual issues with deities apply, but i'm throwing up every detail i'm picking up, see if it sparks anything from anyone else.

[Peelee]

Not sure what if any creature would make a good base.

Bonsai trees work well.

[Ruck]

I just want to say, IMO, no bad reasons to live by a bakery were mentioned in that clip.

Well... touché.

[Shining Wrath]

But MitD is very much in the "deceptively dumb" category. For example (via the wiki, "When they arrive at Girard's Gate, Redcloak wanted to destroy the Order, but MitD argued persuasively to manipulate Xykon into leaving them, saying that O-Chul and Lien were the real threats, and the Order were just there to delay them. This suggests both that MitD's friendship with O-Chul has led him to pursue ends separate from those of Team Evil, as well that he has considerable intelligence."

Some of MitD's "unintelligence" may also be due to some sort of trauma/magical effect/memory loss. MitD cannot remember its own name [but probably has/had one]; MitD says it likes the Astral Plane, but can't remember when or if it was there, once pressed.

This format, to me, suggests that something is very plain to MitD that most of the other characters are missing about the Snarl. I don't know what it is that we're missing -- if I could tell you, I could probably predict a lot of the big spoilers of the rest of the story. Maybe the "gates" aren't "gates" because there's not a meaningful difference between each side. Maybe they connect to alternate timelines or the past stories that were "destroyed." I really have no good idea. But MitD has a lot of planar travel and perhaps more -- I'd trust its impressions.



Completely agree. On serious issues, MitD's intuition is usually correct, even if it doesn't know why.

I think in D&D 3.5 terms MitD is high intelligence, low number of skill points put into knowledge skills. He may also have low wisdom - he doesn't perceive things that other people notice.

[Carl]

That or it's similar to Cecelia and Minrah with their "wait humans can't do that" thing. They've got abilities that apply that humans don't. But the MitD doesn't seem to know what most of his abilities are which adds an extra layer of obfuscation to things.

[corydeburd]

That or it's similar to Cecelia and Minrah with their "wait humans can't do that" thing. They've got abilities that apply that humans don't. But the MitD doesn't seem to know what most of his abilities are which adds an extra layer of obfuscation to things.

This is more my take. At a minimum, MitD's abilities allow it to perceive the world in a different way (regardless of the assessment of its intelligence). Mosquitoes can see in infrared but that doesn't mean they're smarter than humans.

That said, my take is that MitD has to have both high INT/WIS. To trick Team Evil into sparing the OOTS required both wisdom (for an assessment of motivations) and intelligence (to make a rational argument for another course of action). Yes, in classic 3.5E CHA would be used to lie, but reading this as a story requires thinking through the exact narrative. It's true MitD often appears oblivious (re: "what gate?" meme), but I think this is mostly a product of (a) younger/child appearance (b) memory loss/trauma/enchantment (c) lack of realization that others perceive the world differently, connected perhaps to point (a). When it comes to things that really matter and are high stakes, MitD shows INT and WIS both. Perhaps with age in an unshackled state it would demonstrate this more consistently.

I have seen less MitD discussion around the memory loss/trauma/backstory aspects. I don't think the reveal will be "MitD was a generic XXX all along." Instead, it will be more like "MitD was an XXX, this is the backstory that explains its memory loss, and that's how it ended up where it did in 'Start of Darkness.'" What happened to MitD pre-prequel may be as interesting as its species. I'm not sure what it will be, perhaps it's a sole survivor from one of the past worlds the Snarl ate or the Gods destroyed. That would at least explain the memory loss.

[Shining Wrath]

This is more my take. At a minimum, MitD's abilities allow it to perceive the world in a different way (regardless of the assessment of its intelligence). Mosquitoes can see in infrared but that doesn't mean they're smarter than humans.

That said, my take is that MitD has to have both high INT/WIS. To trick Team Evil into sparing the OOTS required both wisdom (for an assessment of motivations) and intelligence (to make a rational argument for another course of action). Yes, in classic 3.5E CHA would be used to lie, but reading this as a story requires thinking through the exact narrative. It's true MitD often appears oblivious (re: "what gate?" meme), but I think this is mostly a product of (a) younger/child appearance (b) memory loss/trauma/enchantment (c) lack of realization that others perceive the world differently, connected perhaps to point (a). When it comes to things that really matter and are high stakes, MitD shows INT and WIS both. Perhaps with age in an unshackled state it would demonstrate this more consistently.

I have seen less MitD discussion around the memory loss/trauma/backstory aspects. I don't think the reveal will be "MitD was a generic XXX all along." Instead, it will be more like "MitD was an XXX, this is the backstory that explains its memory loss, and that's how it ended up where it did in 'Start of Darkness.'" What happened to MitD pre-prequel may be as interesting as its species. I'm not sure what it will be, perhaps it's a sole survivor from one of the past worlds the Snarl ate or the Gods destroyed. That would at least explain the memory loss.

If MitD is a member of a species normally immune to mind-altering affects who was subjected to some sort of cataclysmic event that reduced or removed that immunity, it would open up some possibilities. It also allows for the immunity to be restored as time passes, which may surprise Xykon - fatally. E.G., MitD is an abomination and when the last world was destroyed his parent somehow spared him - but the other gods insisted on him not remembering the previous world.

[Peelee]

If MitD is a member of a species normally immune to mind-altering affects who was subjected to some sort of cataclysmic event that reduced or removed that immunity, it would open up some possibilities. It also allows for the immunity to be restored as time passes, which may surprise Xykon - fatally. E.G., MitD is an abomination and when the last world was destroyed his parent somehow spared him - but the other gods insisted on him not remembering the previous world.

Assume, for the moment, that is 100% accurate. How in the world would it possibly be guessable?

[Carl]

Assume, for the moment, that is 100% accurate. How in the world would it possibly be guessable?

I agree that specific example wouldn't be guessable. But "MitD is subject to some effect that would result in severe amnesia that also affects his other statistics" isn't far out there. It fits with his childlike personality and poor past memory despite clearly having a lot of info buried in his head.

In much the same way that "the thing in the cloak has troll like skin and voice but clearly isn't a troll or half troll and so must have gained troll like qualities in some unknown fashion" would be a valid way to work out the the thing in the cloak is a part troll creature. If we knew Serreni had been left for dead by Xykon outside a non-human village, (and the troll like voice thing had been explicit), i think we could reasonably given time an incentive have put the outlines together to come up wit "it's Serreni, the village she was left for dead outside of was a troll village and they used soem weird troll stuff to heal her that gave her troll like qualities"

The MitD could easily have any one, (or more, but i'd say probably one), oddities applied to him that explains something we know about him that isn't tied to what he is or appears to be. What i think where missing is some obvious piece of evidence that lets us tie things together, (in the same way that without knowing Serreni was left for dead outside a monster village we couldn't put together the implications of her stature and current location with her voice and troll-skin).

I'm going to go off and do some research on a thought i had...

[corydeburd]

Assume, for the moment, that is 100% accurate. How in the world would it possibly be guessable?

This is a good point & I don't think we should go too far into the "backstory as explanation." We should perhaps be happy to accept a situation where "Generic XXX" matches 80-90% of what we know and the other 10-20% is explained by backstory. It's also not that any backstory could fit to make it unguessable. We know, for instance, that MitD has memory issues (can't remember their name; vaguely remembers visiting the Astral plane but backtracks on details).

[Squire Doodad]

I misread the post above and thought I needed to elaborate on the topic. But, I just spent 20 minutes writing this, so I'll post it anyways, as it's a decent refresher of an example.
Let's give an example of a situation where backstory means a flagrant oddity WOULD be guessable:
Suppose MitD meets a magic dragon with a scroll able to bestow 1-per-day castings of any ability. The dragon likes MitD, and gives him the ability to shoot heat lasers out of his eyes once per day.
Later, MitD is stuck on a small glacier with O-Chul with a horde of golems on the other side and chasing after them. Unable to run any further, MitD uses his heat laser to melt a line in the ice, cutting off the golems and saving the day.
As we have seen MitD receive the heat laser ability from the magic dragon, we know that MitD's heat laser is independent of his species. Thus, MitD can be a creature that lacks heat lasers.

Now, suppose the meeting with the magic dragon never happened.
MitD is stuck on a small glacier with O-Chul with a horde of golems on the other side and chasing after them. Unable to run any further, MitD uses his heat laser to melt a line in the ice, cutting off the golems and saving the day.
As there is no evidence that MitD has acquired this ability from an outside source. As MitD suddenly used heat lasers without any justification for it, we must assume MitD is of a species that has heat laser eyes.

It's plausible that MitD lost a given trait for the sake of the narrative. Weirder stuff happens. However, for the sake of the guessing game, we must operate under the assumption that MitD has not been subject to that, for the same reason there are not templates on the FBS.
Of course, you're always welcome to theorize or guess that MitD is a XXX subject to scenario YYY, removing his ZZZ ability.

Imo the "MitD has below-average [stat] for his species, so failed a roll he should have always won" is fair, but "MitD has amnesia and therefore lacks [fundamental trait]" is a bit iffier. Could probably make an exception for some specific "has too many spells" monsters, but YMMV and I'm not really qualified to make an assertion on that topic. Only thing I can really say is that while MitD might not remember he's able to do xyz, Redcloak has almost definitely read his MM entry, so at least RC is almsot definitely aware.

[Carl]

That last part is actually part of the issue. RC has read his MM entry yet doesn't seem to have worked out that he might have been behind the escape, doesn't have any explanation for him being able to talk, and dosen;t seem to think he knows a thing about divine magic, (when evidence suggests otherwise). It raises questions. Either RC, (and presumably the Monster Hunters), are wrong or he's not standard for his race.

As an aside my research project came out bust. I had an idea he might be some Druid using reincarnate that came back messed up, but the only druid of any real note we've seen was Lirrian, and she got soul trapped. I did consider if it might have been a contingency spell, (that would of meant the process was in progress when she got trapped which could have resulted in somthing messed up), but that washed out because the MitD was capture by the big game hunters 2 years before Lirrian died. So barring an epic version of contingent with time travel magic built in, (and we have no evidence Lirrian ever messed with anything like that), it doesn't track. If anyone else can think of a sufficiently old druid we've heard of i'd be happy to hear it though, maybe i'm forgetting somthing. A sufficiently messed up reincarnation that rolled super lucky on the creature table could cover the MitD nicely, i just don't know of anyone who would fit.

[Ruck]

That last part is actually part of the issue. RC has read his MM entry yet doesn't seem to have worked out that he might have been behind the escape, doesn't have any explanation for him being able to talk, and dosen;t seem to think he knows a thing about divine magic, (when evidence suggests otherwise). It raises questions. Either RC, (and presumably the Monster Hunters), are wrong or he's not standard for his race.

I don't think there's any reason for Redcloak to have ever looked into the escape. He wasn't there when it happened, and whatever summary he got of the situation probably just said "and then they teleported away somehow," and Redcloak probably presumed O-Chul and Vaarsuvius did it themselves, however it happened.

I don't know that Redcloak needs an explanation for why MitD can talk? We've never seen him surprised by it, but I also don't know where he would have expressed any confusion about it.

Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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When Redcloak first meets MitD, he almost certainly saw the monster talking to Right-Eye's children before being introduced (p.85), and cutting away to him to express surprise there would've spoiled his reveal (p.86).

I don't remember what suggests MitD knows anything about divine magic. The only thing coming to mind is that he immediately recognizes Tsukiko's half of a ritual is only half, but it's still the arcane half. In any case, the only thing we can say for sure is that Redcloak is certain MitD doesn't have divine levels in spellcasting.

[Emanick]

Has anyone yet pointed out that Serini's employment of Piercers confirms that there are monsters far outside of Dorukan's Dungeon that were never updated to 3rd edition? I think this is a significant rebuttal to the argument that "the MitD is probably not a pre-3rd edition monster, because if so, he would have been trapped by Dorukan."

Sure, Pierce could have made his (?) way from the Dungeon of Dorukan to Kraagor's Tomb over the course of the last year or so, but that seems pretty unlikely. Serini probably had enough monsters stacked away by the time the Tomb fell. The simplest explanation seems to be that not every pre-3rd edition monster on the planet made it to Dorukan's Dungeon.

That last part is actually part of the issue. RC has read his MM entry yet doesn't seem to have worked out that he might have been behind the escape, doesn't have any explanation for him being able to talk, and dosen;t seem to think he knows a thing about divine magic, (when evidence suggests otherwise).

Responding to the bolded part of your post (emphasis mine), I'm not sure we can assume this. Redcloak has access to sourcebooks, sure, but not necessarily every sourcebook; after all, he acknowledges the possible existence of "sourcebook[s] I haven't read." He may simply recognize the MitD from lore or from reading a description about it once or twice. Many of the people active in this thread, after all, are at least semi-familiar with certain monsters whose official entries they haven't read.

For example, I'd recognize a flumph in an instant, but I've never looked at its stats in any edition, despite having read dozens of sourcebooks in my time. I know roughly how powerful it is and much of what it's known for, but I don't, for instance, know if it can cast any cantrips, or, if so, which ones. I don't think anything in the comic confirms that Redcloak is much more familiar with what the MitD is than I am with what a flumph is.

In other words, I think we can't rule out the possibility that Redcloak is aware of the MitD's species and his general characteristics, but not of every last detail in his statblock. And of course, the MitD might not have a published D&D statblock at all, in which case this is moot.

In any case, the only thing we can say for sure is that Redcloak is certain MitD doesn't have divine levels in spellcasting.

Technically, we can't even say that. He could cast spells from the druid, ranger or paladin lists (although the latter is incredibly unlikely for story reasons; it doesn't take a genius to realize that Xykon and Redcloak would probably not want to employ a monster who casts as a paladin). None of those classes have access to Animate Dead.

[halfeye]

I still don't have a good guess at what the MitD is, but isn't it a very good fit for Belkar? We know he's due to die, and not breathe again, but he'd love to hit Miko for six, and he had that big sheet of lead. Time travel shenanigans would obviously be required, are there no gods capable of that?

[Peelee]

I still don't have a good guess at what the MitD is, but isn't it a very good fit for Belkar? We know he's due to die, and not breathe again, but he'd love to hit Miko for six, and he had that big sheet of lead. Time travel shenanigans would obviously be required, are there no gods capable of that?

How does any of that relate to the MitD?