Introduction and Death Linens

I've been a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons since middle school.  And one of my favorite things about the game has always been the weird monsters.  The weirder the better for me.

Starting a few years ago, there's been this trend on the internet towards making lists of "stupidest D&D monsters", because apparently only the grimmest of the grimdark are acceptable creature material (though that does seem to be changing a little for 5th edition). This blog will showcase the wide variety of obscure, silly and/or just plain weird monsters of D&D and hopefully show folks that these creatures have just as much of a place in D&D as the baddest-ass were-dire-owlbear tiefling (or whatever).  When possible, I try to give credit to the creatures' creator.

A major source for a lot of these critters is the "Dragon's Bestiary" column regularly found in the pages of Dragon magazine.  White Dwarf-- a sister gaming magazine from Great Britain that long ago dropped D&D to focus exclusively on Warhammer and Warhammer 40K-- also had a regular column devoted to creating new monsters for Dungeons & Dragons.  Many of D&D's most iconic creatures came from this magazine, including drow, githyanki, githzerai and grell.   In addition to Dragon, I've combed through several issues of WD to find more unusual and intriguing monsters for your enjoyment.

I should add that inspiration for this blog came from a similar series of articles written by Jonathon Wojcik over at Bogleech.com

So let's start this blog with one of my favorite weird D&D monsters-- a bunch of living bedclothes!

The October 1998 issue of Dragon magazine (#252) featured a Dragon's Bestiary article titled "Formidable Visitants" written by Michael D. Winkle.  The monsters here were inspired by the works of M. R. James, a popular writer of ghost stories from the early 1900s.  James wrote most of his stories to be read aloud at Christmas gatherings with friends (reading ghost stories at Christmas is, or at least was, a popular part of the holiday celebration in Britain which we here in America really need to adopt).  Eventually I'm going to talk about all of the Jamesian monsters featured in this article, but for today let's focus on the three species of "Death Linens". 

Winkle writes: "Death Linens are beings of living cloth, usually sheets, pillows, and other items associated with beds. They have been infected with latent psychic forces born of nightmares."

KILLER PILLOW

Basically a textile version of a Venus Flytrap or a predatory Megalodicopia tunicate.  Killer Pillows lie in wait on a victim's bed and close around their head when they sleep, suffocating them. They are, as the article says "literally bad dreams in physical form"

  The creatures were inspired by James' story "Two Doctors", specifically a scene at the end where a character is discovered dead in his bed with his pillow curled around his head by implied supernatural means.

FLANNEL BEAST

Described as a thin, ribbon-like bit of shredded cloth that lies coiled up in a pile of towels or linens, waiting to bounce on victims. Interestingly, the Beast is described as having poisonous fangs-- presumably formed from some material besides cloth? I'm curious where these hide when the Flannel Beast is camouflaged.  Are they folded up deep inside the cloth?  And where does the "poison" come from?  Does this thing have venom glands like a cobra?

SHEET

In essence, this is your classic, cartoon "sheet ghost", except instead of being the spirit of a once-living person, the Sheet is a non-living fabric that has been animated by supernatural (but not ghostly) powers.  When animated, the Sheet develops a disturbing, semi-human face formed from crumpled fabric.  Like the Flannel Beast, it possesses fangs (somehow) that it can use to cause damage.  And, like the Killer Pillow, it can wrap around a victim to smother them

Both the Flannel Beast and Sheet were inspired by the story"Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad", wherein a character finds an old metal whistle in a Crusader ruin.  Blowing the whistle summons some sort of mysterious entity (exactly what is never made clear) which takes the form of the narrator's own bed sheets crumpled into a vaguely humanoid form at the climax. 

While Death Linens obviously don't provide much of a challenge in a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl game, they work quite well in a slower, atmospheric game.  Maybe even a campaign set in Ravenloft. 

Living clothing and other normally inanimate objects do actually exist in real-world mythology.  In Japanese folklore, any household item that has been around for 100 years will develop a soul and transform into an intelligent, semi-anthropomorphic spirit called a tsukumogami. 

Various Tsukumogami, including a Karakasa obake, Chochin-obake, Bake-zori and others annoying Ikuko, a miko priestess from my novel "At Yomi's Gate" which I am totally going to get around to publishing one of these days.

Folklore records dozens of distinct tsukumogami types, including animated parasols (Karakasa-obake), straw sandals (Bake zori), paper lantern (Chochin-obake), inkstones (Suzuri-no-Tamashi) and many more.  There is even a spirit equivalent to the flannel beast called an Ittan-momen.

Source: The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai by Mathew Meyer