Thread by @Shinto_Nephilim

The Unique Beast.
We find it interesting, and frustrating, that unique creatures from our mythology become just generic creatures when they show up in a #ttrpg. Something gets lost when this happens.

First, and foremost, they always stop being mythological. By this, we mean such creatures can't only be taken down by 'a hero'. They're not as terrifying as they were in mythology - because it's expected a PC party should be able to beat them.

You don't have to be particularly heroic or special to take down the creature - and they lose impact when they become part of a species. For example, a town may say, "within the swamp lurks a hydra, it's killed 20 of our men."

The group knows 1) it's 'a' hydra. 2) it took out what was probably 20 commoners or plebes, and that the group can probably take it out (or, the players presume, the GM'd not mention it).

Rather than, "within the swamp lurks THE Hydra, and when the king sent 20 of his best soldiers and would-be heroes it destroyed them."

There's only one Hydra. And this is it.
It took out some mid-to-decent levelled people, and all of them at once.

Now the group starts doing the math. Now the stakes become real. This is a mythological horror, not some 'monster'.

Sure, goblins, kobolds, dragons, is there more than one? Yeah, okay.

But when you get into the named things.
Medusa. The Hydra. The Chimera. The Sphinx. Pegasus. The Minotaur. These should have the mark of a legend. A thing people hear of, and don't want to mess with.

When the PC party finds out one of these is a threat, defeating it should be the End Goal of the adventure, not some middle-encounter.

"Okay, I want to face the Minotaur. It's in a labyrinth that nobody has escaped. How do I get in there, kill it, and escape?"

"Oh, we're having to face the Kraken. What do we need to take this down? Where do we have to go? What do we have to face?"

"Crap, we need to fight MEDUSA?! So, how do we survive this?"

You drop the name, it should invoke fear in the group. It isn't just 'a type of monster to defeat', it's an honest to goodness Titan or a manifestation of the Wrath of the Gods, or some other unique abomination that gives the group pause.

We're so used to taking what were epic creatures in mythology, and turning them into 'an encounter'. And for some reason, it's done almost exclusively to Greek mythology.

Imagine if we did that to others?
"There's a jormungandr wandering these mountains."
"I ran into a pack of fenris going through the forest."
"I ran into a baba yaga in the highlands."
"I heard you were plagued by a tamamo no mae."

And honestly, that first one makes us laugh. "a WORLD serpent." But seriously, it dilutes the feel of these creatures and people to make them just a generic race. If you're going to do that, might as well have 'Herakles' as a wandering monster type.

We think this might be a problem with games where the PCs are expected to grow stronger and stronger and stronger - bigger threats need to be created for the group to face.

But rather than, you know, perhaps showing the GM how to set up legendary creatures, and giving a bunch as examples, they take what would be legends and make them into 'just another monster'.

The Tarrasque. It's mentioned as 'unique', as are a bunch of other creatures in OD&D. So, you know, it was possible to do this with a bunch of things. It isn't like there's no precedence.

The Nemean Lion. Imagine if they made that just a generic monster. Rather than 'nothing you do to this creature's going to actually hurt it', it has 'Resistant to Non-Magical Weapons'. By the time the PCs encounter it ... it isn't even a threat.

It'd be much more epic a fight if it just shrugged off spells, swords, magic arrows, its hide untouched by these things. The PCs need to think of better tactics to take it down. It takes *effort*.

And when they're done. That feeling that they've done something truly MYTHIC.

We're Shinto Nephilim, and thanks for coming to our TED Talk.