Early D&D monsters and godzilla/ultraman knockoff toys

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 1:08 am

http://diterlizzi.com/home/owlbears-rus ... tes-oh-my/

So that's a super cool article on the Hong Kong toys that Gygax bought early on to represent D&D monsters like the rust monster and owlbear. Is anyone here familiar enough with Ultraman and Godzilla to identify which monster is what though?

How about other D&D monsters? Like is the beholder actually based off of something? Is there a reason umber hulks make people dizzy?

All I know is that the displacer beast is from a sci fi novel about space cats with paralyzing tentacles and mind powers called couerl and that the gith are from GRRMartin in spaaace.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Sep 04, 2014 2:16 am

The red one is probably the original umber hulk (sources differ).

Bullettes were written later, by someone else, but were based on that toy (you can find a similar blog post from Bulettes' writer kicking around, but I don't have a link on hand).

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 9:27 pm

https://twitter.com/kasuga391/status/507489636315181056

Went on twitter to ask a Japanese dude that's into early D&D monsters. He figures the Bulette is Skydon from Ultraman.

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:00 pm

It's funny, I had that set when I was, like, 4 or 5. Wouldn't play D&D for another decade and my folks didn't play ever. Didn't realize what they were, (Or what they resembled) until years later when I found the rust monster and bulette in an old box.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:03 pm

You know what I miss? The bags of black, white, and gray ninjas. It was like a whole army of damn ninjas in there.