Some Kind of Monster (Type)

With some of the discussion on monster types and what sapient beings can and cannot understand the thought processes of other creatures, I am starting to feel like creature type is the new alignment and that some of the issues with older D&D content haven’t been addressed so much as shifted to another part of the game’s narrative.

This is a collection of my thoughts on the process. Rather than stating an absolute, I wanted to discuss how likely different mindsets might clash and where those perspectives might align and find common ground. 

I don’t think any fantasy world needs to have creatures that are always villains. If you have a fantasy world where mortal conflict will be a theme, you don’t need a block of things that are always hostile and always justifiably opposed. You need to have specific creatures opposing your heroes, who have motivations that may or may not allow them to compromise before they fight to the death.

On that note . . .

Associated Magic Sources

Associated magic sources aren’t meant to limit what creatures of that type can use. These are the sources of magic most tied to the creature’s existence and place in the multiverse. Giants are tied to the divine and the primordial, but individual giants can study and use arcane magic. Dragons are tied to the arcane and the primordial, but some dragons serve gods and wield divine magic. This is more about supernatural positioning than access.

Aberrations

Associated Magic Sources Arcane

Aberrations are creatures that should not exist in the multiverse. Their existence warps and overwrites the laws of the multiverse with those of an incompatible universe. Even aberrations that aren’t traditionally hostile naturally warp and twist reality around them. The more aberrations want to establish themselves in this reality, the more they destabilize what is and what can be expected.

This may not always make them antagonists, but it does mean that to them, the Far Realm is more “real” than this universe. To some of them, that means this universe is a mistake or a source of material to mine for greater efforts on the Far Realm or possibly even universes that can’t be perceived by anyone on “this side” of the Far Realm. 

Beast

Associated Magic Sources Primordial

In some ways, beasts are the opposite of aberrations. They arise from the natural world and respond to the most common natural laws. In many ways, they belong more in the Prime Material world than species influenced by creatures from the Elemental and Outer Planes. Beasts have a collective spirit. When they are communicated with, the collective spirit speaks through the context of the beast present for the communication.

Various faiths have different views on whether having this collective spirit means that harm to animals should always be avoided, but because of this collective spirit, it’s hard to argue that large-scale harm to a species is a moral evil because the more of those creatures that experience harm or cruelty, the more the individual, collective spirit is harmed. Some aspects of these collective spirits take on singular purposes, which may cause them to divide from the collective spirit and become fey or elementals.

Celestial

Associated Magic Sources Divine

Celestials are beings that are partially created from cosmic philosophy. Their physical form is only the package holding their drives and the connection to their greater purpose. Regardless of the celestial’s disposition, they frame almost everything as being about doing the “right” thing. Because they are connected to the greater philosophies of the multiverse, it is difficult for a Celestial to frame any situation in a way that doesn’t begin with “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

Celestials that begin to understand the perspective of mortals become increasingly more physical beings as more of their “philosophical” energy begins to solidify. In many ways, Celestials don’t fall because they become evil but because they have started to reach critical mass between balancing the mortal and eternal perspectives.

Construct

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Primordial, Divine

In many ways, “Construct” is an incomplete explanation of a creature that focuses on the literal form of a creature. At its most basic level, constructs are beings that animate physical matter to interact with the world, which should not naturally be animate. There are many means of providing this motive force, from reassigning souls from other types of creatures, binding elemental spirits, tapping into collective spirits of the multiverse, or lending a “copy” of part of the creator’s soul to the construct.

Because souls are technically infinite, loaning part of the creator’s soul to a construct may sometimes cause that soul spark to grow into it’s own soul, but the exact way that partial souls reach the point of becoming actual souls is beyond the understanding of most beings. In many ways, the body the construct uses is either not its body, it’s a prepared vessel being “driven” by a motive force, or its body was not its own, but at some point, the motive force of the construct becomes intertwined with the external, in this case, their body.

Dragon

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Primordial

Dragons are intrinsically magical creatures. They can often be too large or too small to exist according to the physical laws of the multiverse and can accomplish things they should not be able to do, such as generating elemental force or being able to fly despite their massive forms. Unlike aberrations, this doesn’t mean that dragons aren’t meant to exist in this universe, but rather, they are a creature that exists at the juncture of expressions of raw magic, the pinnacle form of beasts, and elemental energies.

Because they are tied to arcane and primal forces, dragons often understand magic intrinsically, and even dragons that lean more bestial tend to sense magic on a level that other creatures do not. Being infused with magic and elemental power means that dragons, even smaller, “lesser” dragons like drakes, live much longer than their physical forms would seem to support. In some ways, dragons are similar to beasts; it is not that the dragons share a collective spirit, but that a dragon is not wholly contained in one physical space and is in some ways connected to various versions of themselves across reality. Because of this, and they are so long-lived, they rarely ponder matters of the soul and tend to view gods as troublesome older siblings rather than a source of awe or reverence, though some dragons serve deities. 

Elemental

Associated Magic Sources Primordial

Like Celestials and Fiends, elementals are partially composed of a “concept” as part of their physical bodies. Unlike Celestials or Fiends, philosophy is rarely part of the concept. Instead, they are paragons of building blocks of Primordial magic used to build the physical aspects of the multiverse. Elementals often have a difficult time understanding mortal concepts, being bound to their element and not understanding so much as existing, but because they aren’t composed of philosophical energies, any concept that doesn’t challenge their understanding of the continued existence of the elemental force they embody, they can learn the perspective of other creatures.

Genies are especially well-versed in understanding the perspective of mortal beings and tend to be naturally social, seeking out interaction with other sapient beings. The most significant limitation to understanding and empathy when dealing with genies is that it is challenging to address any situation where the elemental to which they are aligned might be fettered or destroyed. An Efreeti could be good friends with a party of human adventurers, but they will always have a difficult time understanding why they would lessen the intensity of flames in their domain for the benefit of their friends because thinking of their element tends to reframe their perspective in an almost defensive space.

Fey

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Primordial

Fey share some traits with Celestials, Fiends, and Elementals in that there is a powerful aspect of their being that is as much conceptual as it is physical. However, one important thing to remember when making this comparison is that the Fey’s primary drive is to Experience. In many ways, they are the opposite of the Celestials or Fiends in that abstract philosophy is difficult for them, but choosing a mode of existence and learning what it is to experience reality in that context is their way of engaging with the concepts they embody.

The convoluted agreements common to many Fey are an aspect of their adherence to a particular vector of existence. If they agree to something, everyone has to agree that their perspective is the perspective through which the fey are experiencing reality. They often have a difficult time grasping the fragility of life because even death is an experience, but it is a great annoyance if that death has nothing to do with what they currently want to experience. Fey are masters of engaging topics in a complex, but almost wholly surface level, perspective.

Because the Fey primarily exists to experience, it’s hard for them to change their conceptual space in the multiverse in the way a Celestial that becomes “too mortal” might. It’s possible for a fey to completely shift what kind of fey it is, depending on shifting the perspective through which it will experience it. Some Fey become so embroiled in experiencing the world via mortal perspectives that they drift away from being fully fey, which is the case with many elves, gnomes, and goblins.

Fiend

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Divine

Fiends are conceptual beings similar to Celestials. Celestials are conceptual beings drawn to actively completing goals and preserving, while Fiends are driven to change and erode. That broad directive can be changed greatly based on what other cosmic forces coalesce to create the fiend group. Being aligned with law, Devils are drawn to using the law to wear away at souls bound for other planes of existence and to maintain the existence of law while undermining the purpose of laws. Demons are drawn to work toward entropy maliciously, ensuring there is less of the multiverse today than yesterday while ironically living in one of the most infinitely sprawling planes of existence. Daemons are drawn to promote perpetual strife, which some manifest in their work as mercenaries in an eternal cosmic war.

Celestials believe there is always something more significant to work towards, which means they can be dramatically affected by adopting a mortal understanding of the multiverse. Friends don’t often “fall” in this manner because their nature is much more naturally nihilistic. It’s challenging to feel as if your perspective on the multiverse has changed by seeing things like mortal beings do because, ultimately, nothing matters except performing your function in proving some aspect of the established universe needs to be perverted. That doesn’t rule out that Fiends can begin a radical transformation away from their largely philosophical makeup. However, this may be more likely to come from learning the perspectives of other conceptual beings rather than via empathy for a mortal perspective.

Giant

Associated Magic Sources Primordial, Divine

In some way, most sapient beings are the children of the gods, either directly or indirectly. Giants are among the more “directly” descended creatures. The gods have manifested their glory in the giants, which causes them to be impossibly large creatures compared to other beings. In some ways, the gods that still favor their giant children don’t have a purpose for them in the multiverse, so much as they retain a fondness for a species that is no longer primary in the multiverse.

Being mortal beings that manifest some of the glory of their divine ancestors, giants often have access to magical abilities that they manifest naturally. It’s not uncommon for giants to shift the landscape around them by simply existing in that area, both from their sheer size and the manifestation of divine glory that shines through them. This is also why giants often live in more remote locations because some of their divine progenitors don’t want them to shift the modern world subtly, so they entreat them to live in remote or liminal spaces and, like the gods themselves, are expected to “visit” the world of small folk, but not be of that world. 

Humanoid

Associated Magic Sources Primordial, Divine, Arcane

In many ways, humanoids are similar to animals in that they are very much creatures of the collection of things that come together to make the Prime Material plane. Humanoids have a finite lifespan, and the collective life force, which manifests as a collective spirit for beasts, is more differentiated for humanoids, forming what many religions and philosophies detail as a soul. There is still enough mystery in the universe that some philosophers point out that many petitioners in the outer planes lose their singular memories. They use this as evidence that humanoids may have a collective spirit more likely to remain in its contextual “mask” but just as likely to fade into the collective once the collective spirit is no longer connected to the physical.

Because humanoids are adapted to living a life in a world that balances a world of elemental and primordial forces, and they have the mental faculties to search for the arcane and ponder the divine, it is not uncommon to find Humanoids that have made contact with these magical forces and the heralds of those forces, drawing some of those forces into their still mortal form but transforming it from its original manifestation. Humanoids, as beings of the Prime Material plane, are also the “destination” of many creatures that lose their connection to the rest of its kind, such as Celestials or Fey, and species that exist on the border of those types.

Monstrosity

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Divine

Monstrosities are creatures composed of other creatures that can exist and function in the natural world but are supernaturally changed to allow an amalgam of disparate beings to function in the same body. Some definitions of Monstrosities are easily applied because they are amalgams of beasts with other creature types. Other “monstrosities” are barely differentiated from humanoids, being humanoids infused with a higher degree of magic in their natural existence. Many monstrosities ride the edge of beasts or humanoids, and some sages decry that this creature designation isn’t an actual creature type as it is a category made to hold creatures that live on the edges of other creature types.

Ooze

Associated Magic Sources Primordial

Oozes can appear to have traits similar to other creatures. For example, the slow decay of some fungi mirrors the way Oozes perpetuate their existence. Oozes, however, are a throwback to the primordial origins of the multiverse. They are the charged particles of proto-matter that were left over when various parts of the multiverse were finalized. Some new ooze types have developed over time that seem to challenge this origin, but other experts have conjectured that those “new” forms of ooze represent mortal beings using magic that causes matter to resonate with its primordial form. 

Plant

Associated Magic Sources Primordial

The designation of “plant” can be misleading, as fungi are also organized in this category, mainly because fungus lives in a similar space relative to other living things. For those that study the almost unknowable energies of the universe, plants seem to exist in a manner that is less possessed of a collective spirit, the way beasts (and maybe humanoids) have, but are more a form of life that interacts with other life, both physically taking material and converting it to facilitate continued existence, and generate low-level life force energies to infuse the living beings around them. This life force is a powerful means of maintaining life on the planes where plants are present. Still, there are dangerous explorations into converting that life force into broader supernatural energies, which removes that life force from the pool of life force available to maintain the natural cycle of existence.

Because most plants tend not to be animate or moderately animate, actual plants that exhibit sapience create a conundrum for sages and naturalists since those sapient beings don’t seem to emerge from a collective spirit, and most plants are not receptacles of souls. One leading theory is that many sapient plants live at the intersection of Fey and the mortal world, where Fey become more obsessed with broader life cycles rather than pondering a mortal existence. 

Undead

Associated Magic Sources Arcane, Divine

The undead is a confusing designation among other creature designations. It is fairly easy to make a case for their existence, similar to aberrations in that they should not exist. Mortal beings should live, die, and have whatever life force, collective spirit, or soul connected to them drift off to the natural flow of energies in the multiverse. The undead hold back part of that life energy from being able to recombine and participate in the natural cycle. 

This means that the undead sometimes presents the most significant moral quandaries of all creature types. Undead trapped in torment by a curse are wholly given to being predatory creatures or are fragmentary malignant souls and are almost universally held as things that should be erased from existence. The point of divergence is on whether animate undead without sapience are truly the same kind of cursed creature as other forms of undead and if undead that enter a conditional existence willingly with acceptable conditions to those around them are truly an abomination that needs to be removed from existence.