Giant Lizards

The giant lizard has been a staple of cinema as a low budget option for stop motion dinosaurs since the making of the Academy Award-winning One Million B.C. in 1940.

The footage of giant iguanas from this film was recycled in dozens of low budget dinosaur movies in the following decades.

The Harryhausen remake of the movie employed a giant blue iguana as an homage to the original film.

Later, in the 1981 comedy Caveman, technology had advanced to a point where even the giant lizard was stop motion animated.

The giant lizard crossed over to D&D as mounts and beasts of burden for lizardmen and drow.

One of my grail miniatures has always been the Dragontooth miniatures Champion on Giant Lizard (SMC1) upon which the Sutherland illustration in the Holmes Blue Book was based.

I was finally able to obtain one of these miniatures, and will eventually paint it up in the color scheme of the original Sutherland miniatures. Next to it is a smaller Archive Giant Lizard (Dungeon Nasties 774).

Both of them seem to be modeled after iguanas of some type and are pretty difficult to find.

More commonly available miniatures include the Pathfinder Battles Hodag (Legends of Golarion #33) and the D&D Icons of the Realms Guard Drake (Tyranny of Dragons #22).

The Hodag has been linked to the Paul Bunyan legends by some sources, but no specific legend is ever mentioned. The closest explanation I could find seems to suggest that the Hodag is somehow related to an ox owned by Bunyan (presumably not his Blue Ox?).

The Guard Drake is still easy to find, but kind of expensive nowadays. I bought my miniatures when they were first released, at about a quarter of the price they sell for currently.

The final picture includes the Pathfinder Battles Monitor Lizard (Kingmaker #13). Based on how it's painted, this miniature seems to represent a Greater Monitor Lizard. While for something closer to real-life monitor lizards, Mick Yarrow sells a prehistoric Megalanio [sic] (Inuit 86) stated to be for 15mm figures, but which I think falls within the size range of Megalania at 1/72 scale.

I still think that the Dragontooth miniature is the ideal giant lizard. I wish that there were some similarly sized plastic toy marine iguanas that I could use to assemble a squadron of lizard cavalry.

Dungeon Meshi & Walktapodes

I don't remember food (or lack thereof) ever being a particular issue when playing tabletop RPGs, but it was often a mechanic used in computer RPGs (e.g., Rogue, NetHack, Ultima).

One of the methods of preventing death by starvation in the dungeon in rogue-like games was to eat the corpses of monsters that you had killed in the dungeon.

The manga Dungeon Meshi by Ryōko Kui is a humorous take on this concept.

The English language version of the manga is published by Yen Press, and I believe that two volumes have been released so far.

The translated version uses the original subtitle of the manga, "Delicious in Dungeon" as the title, but I would have personally used something like "Dungeons and Dining" as a play off of D&D, or "Dungeon Eats" which is closer to what "Dungeon Meshi" would translate as.

Some of the monsters cooked up by the adventurers include giant bats, giant scorpions, myconids, slimes, living armor, carnivorous plants, and basilisks.


In one episode, they kill a kraken, but unfortunately it didn't taste as good as Marcille envisioned.

The episode reminded me of an article by Bill Johnson printed in the Wyrm's Footnotes about cooking walktapus.

Walktapus is also an ingredient of the Everlast biscuits used as rations by the troops of the Broo King of Dorastor.

The walktapus of course, is a tainted chaos creature from Glorantha with a head like a giant octopus, and a man-like body. It has the ability to regenerate, and can release poison gas in the manner that a normal octopus would release ink.

I recently was able to complete my collection of walktapodes when I picked up an Archive Giant Octopus (Fantasy 5038) which was originally used as the head of the Archive Walktapus (RuneQuest 819).

I've had the body (which is the same as that of the Arduin Shadow Golem) for years, but was missing the head.

The following image is of the Archive Walktapus, the Martian Metals Walktapus (RuneQuest 7002), and the Ral Partha Walktapus (RuneQuest 18-402).

The Martian Metals miniature comes in two pieces like the Archive miniature, while the Ral Partha miniature is a single piece casting.

Lance & Laser also made a walktapus, but at ~2.5" in height it would have towered over my other octopodes, so I had no use for it. The Lance & Laser walktapus suffered the fate of the Archive walktapus, and now only exists as a [giant] octopus from Armorcast.

Trolling

The origins of various words and phrases can be very interesting because definitions are affected by usage and can stray from the original intended meaning.

This may occur when people either intentionally or inadvertently misuse a word in a context where it was not originally meant to be used, and the misuse gains traction and eventually becomes popularly accepted as truth — which is how this:

Trolling

Became this:

Trolling

Anyway, enough digression. The subject of this particular post is obviously the troll.

In Norse myth, trolls were closely related to giants (it is even believed that troll is just a negative synonym of jötunn), but the term was also used to describe various smaller mythological beings including huldra.

On to the miniatures (grouped roughly by size and proportions):

The largest trolls in this group are from RAFM, and include a Troll Warrior (Demons of Darkness RAF3723), and an Undead Troll (Demons of Darkness RAF3724).

The next pair is a Giant Troll attacking with Spiked Club (Fiend Factory FF16-1) and a Reaper Marsh Troll (Dark Heaven Legends 02609).

The Marsh Troll was sculpted by Bob Olley, and bears the characteristic facial features of all Olley trolls.

Two more Olley trolls, but this time they are older Ral Partha trolls that stand about 1cm shorter than the newer Reaper sculpt. On the left is one of the Troll Heavy Infantry figures (Fantasy Armies 02-143), while on the right is one of the Troll Rock Throwers (Fantasy Armies 02-142).

Some of these Ral Partha sculpts were used for Mage Knight, and include the Krugg Heaver (Whirlwind #040, #041,#042), Krugg Thug (Whirlwind #037, #038, #039), and the Krugg Headhunter (Minions #082, #083, #084/Nexus #102).

I repainted my figures to eliminate the awful yellow-blue-red colors originally used on them.

The Krugg heaver is one of the Troll Rock Throwers, while the Krugg thug is one of the Fantasy Armies Troll Light Infantry sculpts. The Krugg Headhunter is a modified version of the Fantasy Armies Troll Leader.

I cut off all of the trophies from one of the headhunters because I don't like figures that are covered with skulls or decapitated heads. It is a painstaking process, and will require additional work to make the figure presentable.

I really like these Olley trolls, as they remind me of the Fjeltroll from The Sundering Trilogy by Jacqueline Carey.

Next are a pair of Heritage trolls. The one on the left is a Troll of Moria (Lord of the Rings 1760), while the other one is a regular Troll (Dungeon Dwellers 1246).

A Grenadier War Troll (MM84) and Female Troll (MM86), both from the Monster Manuscript Vol.X box set.

Two Citadel C20 Trolls: Grog Stuntycrusher (left), and Hobol Firebreath (right).

Another Citadel troll (Marauder MM40) and a Reaper Cave Troll (Bones 77004).

Citadel Fantasy Tribe Trolls, sculpted by Tom Meier.

These are the early sculpts, and I believe there were later releases with their "naughty bits" covered up.

Next is a Large Troll with Club (minus the club) from Asgard (Fantasy Monsters FM66), a TSR troll (AD&D Monster Tribes 5305), and a very similarly posed Grenadier troll from the Horrors of the Marsh boxed set (Dragon Lords 2010).

A Ral Partha Troll (AD&D Monsters 11-408), and a pair of Grenadier Trolls (Julie Guthrie 706) are next.

The Ral Partha troll in particular bears the characteristics of the classic troll from the AD&D Monster Manual. The AD&D troll was obviously modeled after the troll from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson (which may in turn have been influenced from elsewhere?).

I also have the Grenadier Denizens of the Swamp troll that is even closer in appearance to the Sutherland illustration from the Monster Manual, but unfortunately it suffered an accident while I was gathering up all my troll miniatures for photography.

More Ral Partha trolls include True Trolls (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-063), and a Hill Troll (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-010 v2).

Some unconventional trolls are the Archive Bridge Troll (Middle Earth 540), and the Ral Partha Draken (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-123).

The figures are kind of similar, and remind me a bit of the Fremont Troll.

More unconventional trolls are the Uz of Glorantha. From left to right are a Trollkin with Spear, Trollkin with Sling, and Dark Troll with Large Axe from the Citadel Trolls and Trollkin box set (Runequest Box 3). The final figure is a Troll Adventurer from the Citadel Adventurers box set (Runequest Box 2).

The Runequest trolls seem a bit undersized for their intended scale, since Uz are supposed to be larger than humans, but they're just about right compared to 1/72 humans. The trollkin are okay, but having even smaller ones would be nice.

Additional candidates for trollkin are cave imps from Splintered Light Miniatures. The following miniatures were purchased as part of the Cave Imp Army (BOX21).

The figures look as if they may have been modeled after the Dam troll, and I'm going to paint them up as such. The product line has been sold to C-P Models, but a boxed set appears to still be sold by Splintered Light. I'm not sure if they actually come in a box though, since I received my figures in a single ziploc bag.

Last are my 15mm trolls, with figures from Chariot (GOB10) and Alternative Armies (HOT3) on the left, while to the right is a Splintered Light Troll Throwing Rock (ORC04) and a 25mm Heritage River Troll (Fantasy 1315).

These smaller trolls would be ideal for a low fantasy game in which monsters are not of gigantic proportions.

The Heritage troll is a 25mm figure, but it is barely taller than the SLM troll. The Chariot figure looks like a typical Warhammer troll, while the HOT troll would fit well stylistically with the Olley trolls (while still being unique). I just wish there was a 25mm version of the HOT figure so that it really could be used alongside the Olley trolls.

A nasty-looking troll, brandishing a bloody axe,
blocks all passages out of the room.

Carrion Crawler

The Carrion Crawler is one of the iconic D&D monsters, but there are almost no miniatures that accurately capture the segmented, worm-like appearance of the creature illustrated by David Sutherland in the AD&D Monster Manual.

The two miniatures that I have are both pretty difficult to find. On the left side is the Archive Miniatures Rotting Crawler (Dungeon Nasties 761). On the right is the MPC Carrion Crawler from one of the AD&D Action Scenes kits.

The MPC crawler is much harder to find, particularly with all the legs and tentacles intact (I have two MPC carrion crawlers - the one in the photo below, with a couple of broken off legs, and another one with all the legs intact, but most of the tentacles broken off).

The Archive crawler looks a bit like the OD&D carrion crawler, while the MPC crawler is much closer in appearance to the AD&D version.

Both miniatures only have a single row of nodules down the back. The LJN Carrion Crawler also shares this feature, so somewhere along the line, this seems to have become official. The illustration in the AD&D Monster Manual, however, shows that the monster has two rows of nodules down its back, although this is more apparent on the back cover of the book.

There is also a Citadel Carrion Crawler that is pretty close in appearance to the Monster Manual illustration. It has two rows of nodules down its back, but the legs are just too long and thick to look right. I'm also not sure how big it is, and am inclined to believe that it is probably too big for use with 1/72 figures.

Unfortunately, only the Archive crawler is suitable for gaming, as the MPC model is just too fragile for the table top. I just may have to try my hand at sculpting something up on my own.

Then inspiration struck me. It was a rust monster...

The rust monster is another iconic creature from D&D that originated from toy monsters that were made in Hong Kong. Based on general appearance, it's likely that the toy was modeled after Kemular (ケムラー), also known as the Poison Gas Monster (毒ガス怪獣; Dokugasu Kaiju). Kemular does not have antennae, but the tail and back (with the wing case folded) seem fairly analogous to the rust monster. In any case, rust monsters are the nightmare of any character with magic weapons and armor made of metal.

In old school illustrations, rust monsters were not particularly big, but in later editions they were portrayed as much larger creatures.

I like the original way in which they were presented as whimsical creatures, like in The Very Hungry Rust Monster by Steve Dismukes. I don't think every monster needs to be huge and menacing.

The miniatures of rust monsters in my collection include the Archive Rust Eater from the Dungeon Nasties II blister pack (Fantasy 5040), the Grenadier Ruster Beast (Monster Manuscript Vol.IX 1509, MM74), and the TSR Rust Monster (AD&D 5612).

The Rust Eater has the bumpy skin of a rust monster, but is bipedal, with aardvarkish features. The other two miniatures are pretty consistent in appearance to the original plastic toy.

As far as size goes, they're all probably about twice as large as I would prefer them to be, but they do not look overly large if you consider them to be later edition rust monsters.