Mythological Monsters in TTRPGs

How do you make a mythological monster matter in your game of DnD? We look at Medusa the Gorgon and other Greek and Roman mythology to figure out how to use the poetry and imagery of monsters in your ttrpg session! The Monster Manual will give you stat blocks, abilities, and ecological information, but this falls short of the storytelling that I like in my games! Download the MONSTROUS Preview Packet: www.thecloudcurio.com/monstrous

Great entrance and really loved the logo animation. I can tell it will be a great video as well.

I love the idea of a giant turned into a mountain from Ovid’s description. It gives the possibility of a really cool setting for a dungeon crawl where the interior of the giant has turned to stone creating its organs into caverns. Maybe they have to travel through his GI tract to reach its head which houses some kind of treasure or final boss.

This is why I enjoy this channel: A lot of think on and a lot to digest. This reminds me of the Dragon Disciple in 3rd edition and how humans slowly evolved over time into dragons of their own with that prestige class. It was fun to have a character go through it and develop a mythical origin story overall.

Always excited to see Map Crow in my notifications - crazy how consistently high quality this channel is

For what it's worth, goblins in my setting are highly mutile and all look different. They come in five different categories, but only they can tell one from another with any certainty.

Love seeing how you apply your philosophy of art to DMing. I need more!!

"I'm an artist, I'm a tinkerer, and I enjoy fixing things that ain't broke!" I love this!!! I also really enjoyed your point about falling in love with your own ideas, simply because they are your own and you get to tell a story built on your own experiences. As a child I was often scared to share my own original ideas and concepts with other people, but now, I'm at a point in my life where I'm confident enough to no longer be afraid to share my creativity or my perspective!! :D

I've been running Numenera for a few years now and have really liked being "freed" from those classical monsters and having encounters which are approached with wonder and excitement instead of assume meta knowledge.

This is a huge quality jump, i love it! the voice over sounds great! the intro is amazing :)

Every time i need to do some world building or other dnd/dungeon master stuff, i just have to go se if Map Crow has any new contentup. Its just a hot spring of inspiration. Love from Denmark ❤

I think this a super great point. I am currently writing an industrial era magic world where science is just taking hold and the grim dark accult creatures are really challenging scientists. It creates a really great mystery and lots of room for interpretation. And I cannot wait to try it with my player.

The blog post on "Taxonomy" has been reshaping my thinking since I first read it. Taking it to a meta level (e.g. RPG genres and families) opened my eyes quite a bit.

These sorts of ideas really bring a freshness to the game, getting past “realism” in creature or monster design can open the doors to some amazing enemies. Always love your mixture of philosophy, history and also allowing a the DM to have their own rule of cool that are woven into your videos. Hope to see you get back into the live streams on here when you find the time.

I need to start thinking about taxonomy in my games. I read the article too, and your reflexions about it are really interesting. Also, I love the new intro animation.

I really like that you have Classical influences. 😀👍

I often find the dogmatic adherence to taxonomy to be... fine, I guess. But ultimately, unfulfilling. I think it really depends on the individual and the game we're playing. WoTC is trying to make a Big Mac. If you sit at a table in Seattle VS one in Austin or Newark, you can be sure you're getting the Big Mac experience. It's consistent, you know what you're getting, most importantly it works! For some, this may be sufficient. I've known creatures of habit in my day, in fact the game I played from the 90s off and on until the recent passing of our DM (GNU Colby) there was a guy who brought literally the same thing to game night every Sunday, for literal years. I get bored though, and eventually want something a little different. And I witnessed this in action one night when our DM decided to throw a curve ball at the party, a gaunt and hooded creature in tattered robes he mistook for an undead. Turns out it was actually a Psionicist, and he was not prepared at all for the ensuing mental melee. It was a fun night, and the guy cried fowl. Because the image the DM used was for a specific type of undead from one of the extended pieces of material TSR put out in the early 90s when they were producing 20 books per month. The DM said, "this is the artwork I used, because that's roughly what it looks like." then he held up a sheet of graph paper and said "this is the creature you fought, and it says nowhere on the page that it's undead." Old Reliable was absent the next week, but back after that. This time with Hot Pockets and chips rather than his usual Frisco Burger and Curly Fries. In the years since, he's embraced the ethos that the game books are more what you call guidelines rather than law. And experiences with him improved from there. It was a classic case of a misalignment as Colville might put it, and no one knew there was a problem until it became one. I guess what I'm saying is, both approaches are valid. WoTC has a product they're making, and they decided their approach and for some adherence to that approach is the way. For others, they want something different. And there's nothing wrong with that, we're all built different. No big D. We just need to manage expectations and play the mixed metaphor where it lands. Happy New Year Young Crow.

The logo animation at the start is really cool, i don't remember seeing in in later videos. Hope it makes a comeback!

Can we take a moment to appreciate how perfectly drawn the hands on the corpse is?

every one of these videos are gold. i always come away feeling excited to create dnd stories