The Short-Legged Man-Mimic Lizard

A friend and coworker of mine gave me an old drawing tablet she no longer uses, as a gift. I haven't used drawing tablets all that much, mostly because when I was younger I just sorta bounced off of the only one I had ever attempted to use, not quite able to wrap my head around drawing without looking at my hand holding the pen. This time, it has come much easier to me; I guess I just needed time to grow and improve or whatever. Anyway, here's a monster I drew (in MSPaint) with that drawing tablet the day I was given it.

Short-Legged Man-Mimic Lizard
Number Encountered: 1d3
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 2 claw (1d4) + 1 bite (1d6)
Armor: as leather + shield
Morale: 6
False Face: The short-legged man-mimic lizard sports a false human face on the underside of its neck, which, in low-light conditions, vaguely resembles a real human face. Human beings will recognize that it isn't a person, but non-humans and animals may be tricked by it.
Mating Display: Male short-legged man-mimic lizards create elaborate, almost sculptural, structures to entice females during their mating season; these often incorporate large collections of pearls collected from the insides of their prey, deliberately placed in pillars of dried lizard waste and mud. These courtship structures will contain 3d6 pearls worth 2d4*5 gold [or silver if using a silver standard] each.
Toe Pads: The short-legged man-mimic lizard has subtly hooked scaly pads on the underside of its feet, allowing it to climb walls and ceilings.

A true result of the intertwined ecosystems in subterranean dungeons, the short-legged man-mimic lizard is an active, skittering predator that prowls dimly lit halls and cavern tunnels in search of its prey. Its method of hunting: subterfuge. These reptiles feature an uncanny imitation of a human face on the pale green underside their necks, complete with bumps that resemble a nose, ears, and the folds of the cheeks and brows, a crescent moon of scarlet a la lipsticked lips, and large orange and white eyespots that, in low light conditions, would look like a human's eyes, wide in shock, to any dumb beast of the underground. One might assume the man-mimic lizard uses this facsimile to ensnare human prey, but this couldn't be further from the truth: the short-legged man-mimic lizard isn't a man-eater, but an eater of man-eaters!

Dungeons are full of monsters that have taken a liking to the taste of human flesh, namely soft-bodied invertebrates and cartilaginous creatures like Ropers, Trappers, Lurkers Above, and Cloakers. Coming upon one such man-eater, the man-mimic rears its neck, inflates the red wattles so that they sway about like hair in nonexistent wind, and positions itself right in front of its quarry's beady little eyes. When the Roper ensnares it in its tentacles or the Trapper curls its stiff body around the lizard, the man-mimic begins its vicious struggle, its needle teeth and razor claws slicing through mollusc and cave-ray flesh like butter. While sometimes the man-eater wins out, most often the man-mimic lizard leaves with a belly full of slimy flesh and its prey's green ichor blood strewn all across the dungeon floor.

Adventurers have nothing to fear from short-legged man-mimic lizards; they generally (unless under the influence of a spell or disease that addles the mind) do not engage with human or demihuman interlopers, and tend to avoid adventuring parties. The man-mimicry won't work half as well if there's real humans right next to them! They will attempt some resistance if, during their mating season, adventurers attempt to pilfer their courtship structures. Embedded in the guano and mud daub pillars of their elaborate courtship nests are pearls, little marbles of glimmering white, torn from the gullets of Ropers and Lurkers Above; these can be valuable collections for enterprising dungeon delvers. If these dungeon-pearls are large enough, they can fetch high prices from jewellers and collectors up top!

A Forgotten Monster: The Cruel Jackdog

I've shared some of my love and appreciation for the monstrous creations of the early D&D hobby before; the original creatures of referees from the late seventies have been a regular appearance in my Fiend Folio review series (which, as an aside, will return shortly; apologies for the lull in posting). But what I have not been able to share with you all, until now, has been anything truly new, truly undiscovered, truly forgotten to the annals of history... but I (or, rather, my girlfriend) made a discovery! You see, her dad was one of the founders of the fanzine Factsheet Five, one of the early SciFi/Fantasy fanzines, and in that capacity he acquired or was sent an extensive amount of material related to SFF fandom, including Dungeons and Dragons material. Most of the actual zine material is now in an archive in New York, but a lot of the D&D stuff has been handed off to my girlfriend in big cardboard boxes, things that he used in his games or that didn't make it into the zine itself. In going through this collection of material on the early days of the RPG hobby, she found the following creature, sent to Mike Gunderloy by a certain David "Dinkie" Rizzle, an obscure early hobby personality.

Below is the text reproduced in full.

The Cruel Jackdog

Hit Dice: 3

Armor Class: 5

Move: 9"

IQ: 1d6+2

Dext.: 2d6+4

% Lair: 45%

No. Enctd.: 2-24

Alignment: Animal (Chaos)

Attacks: 3 (claw/tail/bite)

Description: Waiste [sic] high reptilian doggies with sharp hooked beaks and featherless wings like a chicken wing, a knifelike spike on the tip. Orignally [sic] dwelling in fetid swamps and sweaty jungles, cruel jackdogs became favorite pets of evil figures like evil MUs and warlords. They are sadistic little shits with a penchant for toying with prey before eating it, and tend to hoard shiny objects. Evil owners of cruel jackdogs often use them as scouts to go out and snatch stuff up to bring back to them. Cruel jackdogs can climb on walls and ceilings with their hooked feet, and will use that to sneak up on interlopers. Their bite is rife with bacteria that will cause any successful hit with the bite to fester, the limb liable to rot off. Their tail spikes can hit multiple targets at once with a swipe, spreading damage rolled between them. Anyone who casts speak with animal [sic] to talk with a cruel jackdog must save vs. wands or be overwhelmed by the freakishly fast thoughts of the jackdog and succumb for 1d6 rounds. They can flare their ears and scream for a fear effect, test hireling morale; if they scream, they lose their bite and claw attack that round.

Note for Mike: Hey man, heard you were wondering about the monsters from my campaign back in Milwaukee. Figured I could at least send a couple your way. Here's one of the oldest, from around when I left Gary's game to start my own. He gave me the mini for this guy at least, I guess that was nice of him. Hope you get some use out of it!

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So now for some HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.

Unfortunately it seems we don't have the other monsters that Mr. Rizzle sent to Mr. Gunderloy, or at least can't find them as of right now. What we do know, at least, from both this document and other available sources on the mysterious Dinkie Rizzle is that he was a player in Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, albeit likely not one of the earliest batch of players. From the "note for Mike" at the bottom of the document, we can tell that he left Gary's game to start his own campaign; not uncommon for the Twin Cities scene at the time, where obviously Arneson had a preexisting game before Gygax, and a number of Gygax's other players also refereed. But it seems that the parting between Gygax and Rizzle was not on the best of terms; there is no mention here of Rizzle returning to play in Gygax's Greyhawk game, and, while maybe this is me reading into it a bit, the aside "I guess that was nice of him" implies to me that he felt Gygax was hostile to him, the only good thing he gave Rizzle being the miniature for the cruel jackdog.

I think it may be possible that Rizzle and Gygax split over personal conflict that manifested itself in fundamental rules disagreements. Notice how idiosyncratic the cruel jackdog stat block is; it incorporates verbiage from OD&D Monsters and Treasure, of course, but lacks a treasure type listing and, most importantly, features IQ and Dexterity. And, unlike in the AD&D Monster Manual, Intelligence here is not listed using an adjective, but with a dice expression! I think that these elements of the stat block show influence from the Perrin Conventions, the rules overhaul for D&D written by Steve Perrin of RuneQuest fame. The Perrin Conventions were before RuneQuest's time, however, and were first widely published in Chaosium's All the World's Monsters in 1977, shortly before the publication of the AD&D Monster Manual. There, every monster has an Intelligence and Dexterity score, sometimes expressed as a static number, sometimes a dice range. Perhaps Dinkie Rizzle had taken an interest in Perrin's attempt at a more "realistic" D&D combat, to the chagrin of Gygax, and started his own campaign to allow him to use elements of the Perrin Conventions, divorced of their original California context, in the heart of the hobby: the Twin Cities.

And what about that miniature Rizzle mentioned? He says that Gary gave it to him, so the ultimate source for the creature must be Gygax, by way of whatever he was using as miniatures. Here's my theory: I think Dinkie Rizzle's cruel jackdog is inspired by one of the "chinasaurs", a set of plastic figurines from Hong Kong that were likely inspired by kaiju from Ultraman (which, as an aside, is one of my favorite shows ever, watched it a lot as a kid). These little plastic figures have a bit of fame in the old school D&D community, since they are the seeming origin of a number of original D&D monsters, such as the bulette and rust monster. However, the chinasaur derived creatures in the AD&D Monster Manual are only a selection of the complete set of figurines; what happened to the other chinasaurs? Did they ever play a part in inspiring a monster in the early days of the hobby?

To be specific, there is one chinasaur in particular that I believe is the origin of Rizzle's cruel jackdog. This guy:

Unfortunately, there's no illustration to go along with the document so I can't confirm for certain that this specific chinasaur is the inspiration, but based on the line about it being a mini from Gygax and elements of the description ("reptilian doggies with sharp hooked beaks and featherless wings like a chicken wing", "Cruel jackdogs can climb on walls and ceilings with their hooked feet", "they can flare their ears", also the mention of a tail attack), I'm pretty confident that it has to be this one. No other figure from the chinasaur set has all of these discrete elements. It's gotta be this guy.

So, to bring it all together:

The cruel jackdog was an original monster made by David "Dinkie" Rizzle for his campaign in Milwaukee, most likely in 1977 or 1978, given 1977 was the year All the World's Monsters came out and made the Perrin Conventions widely available. They were only even created in 1976, and at that time they were only used at DRAGONCON 1 in San Francisco, so no dice on them getting to Rizzle all the way in Milwaukee. Rizzle was a player in Gygax's Greyhawk game (who seems to have traveled from Milwaukee to Lake Geneva just to play in Gygax's game?), who left that campaign and started his own when he and Gygax butted heads, presumably beginning with some personal slight that then expressed itself in game mechanics disagreements. Despite the breakup, Gygax had given Rizzle one of his chinasaurs as a mini, presumably one that Gygax didn't intend on using, which explains why this toy never made it into the Monster Manual or Fiend Folio. And then, some time well after all of this happened, Mike Gunderloy asked Rizzle for some of the monsters from his campaign, and that document ended up in a box collecting all of his TTRPG material from the early hobby, and ended up in the hands of my girlfriend and then on my blog!

Wanted to try my hand at drawing one of these guys!

While this curiosity isn't the most representative item from the Gunderloy collection that is currently in my girlfriend's possession, I figured it'd be something of interest to you all, especially those among you who are dedicated Rizzle sleuths, trying to put together the life story of quite possibly the most obscure figure in the early D&D scene. Hope this small contribution helps!

Lizardmen of the Eastern Satrapies

 In ancient days, when the Reptile Tyrants, those Dinosaur Kings, ruled petty kingdoms in the East, they kept the lizardmen in chains and in pens, and cooked them up for lunch, for dinner, and for supper (rarely was their flesh eaten for breakfast, though their leathery eggs were cooked up for such occasions).

Courtesy Locheil (this is from a session from a while ago)

A Fine Recipe for Roasted Lank-Lizard Flank

(Sourced from On Cookery Both High and Low and of the Uses of Spices, a manuscript written on orders from the Dinosaur King Kalanna in what is now western Numistan, transcribed on a scroll made of sewn together shed skin)

Take the flanks of the lizard which walks like a man. Create mixture of yogurt, onion, and garlic, and the juice of a lemon, and pepper, cardamom, salt, cumin, and turmeric in equal part. Lighten the mixture with water and sunflower oil. Slather it on the flanks, and roast over a fire until the flesh resists not the blade.

Using the framework of Skerples' Monster Menu-All, lizardman flesh is a rare normal meat that tastes like a cross between chicken and fish (leaning more toward chicken) with no unusual effects.

When the Conquering King came on in with his armies that filled the horizon, he destroyed the citadels of the Dinosaur Kings and laid waste to their cities. To the princelings of the scaly ones, this was a terror of apocalyptic proportions, the end of their civilization, the final hurrah of the apes over the reptiles. They receded into the far valleys, into the countryside, into the foothills of the mountains that loom to the east; they ensconced themselves in secrecy, or hid their visages behind sorcery. They feared that what they had done to the kings that came before them would be done to them. For the Conquering King, it was the tail end of a long campaign, his soldiers tired and weary after years away from home. It was nothing special to him; he had conquered many a land before it. He barely even thought anything special of knocking down statues of the ancient kings of the Thunder Lizards and putting their viziers and generals to the sword. Armageddon for dinosaur princes was more of the same for the Conqueror.

And just as in all other lands that he subjugated, the Conquering King sought to win the support of the oppressed and downtrodden segments of the population, so that his rule would be upheld without even a second thought. In other lands it was he who rebuilt destroyed temples and liberated slaves (whilst enslaving others); in the lands of the Dinosaur Kings, he empowered the local human population by giving them most of the local administration, and he freed what he thought were the dinosaurs' slaves: the lizardmen. 

Courtesy myself

A Partial Translation of THE EDICT ON THE LIBERATION OF THE LIZARDMEN as Issued by the GLORIOUS CONQUERING KING

In this Green Land, the Green Men which dwell here, the Lizard Men, once Enslaved now Free, redeemed by My Hand, by My prophesied Hand. In the name of the King of the Gods, my Father, the Bondage of these Scaled Men shall Forever be ended. Their Tyrants vanquished, just as My Forefathers did, so that all men in the world can forever be free!

-Inscribed on the Orders of the Conqueror-

In truth, however, the lizardmen were not men at all; they were beasts! Despite their humanoid appearances, the lizardmen have none of the emotional nor cognitive abilities of human beings. In the words of many a thinker in the east since the days of the Conquering King, the lizardmen are without a soul. The Conqueror's "liberation" of what were little more than cattle was entirely due to a misunderstanding and miscommunication on his part. He was under the impression that they truly were men, a race of men entirely enslaved at that, and thus were in needing of redemption. And so, with the chisel in the hands of a hundred artisans, this foreigner singlehandedly put a breed of unintelligent meat-beast on the same level as humanity. He even appointed a lizardman as vizier to the local governor! (That eternally controversial move has left a lasting impact in the mythology and art of the region, such as the comedic poem The Appeal of Dosthenes, about a foreigner attempting to lobby the vizier for access to the satrap but having to contend with the vizier's inability to speak or comprehend what he says.)

And so was born the scourge of the wild lizardman. For as long as the Conquering King and his appointed satrap lived, it was punishable by death to put a lizardman in bondage. What was once a domesticated species went completely feral in one human generation. And with the Dinosaur Kings having receded away, those who had domesticated them in the first place were no longer able to, not on any large scale. By the present day, the lizardmen are at best an exotic pet, and much more commonly packs of feral things crawling around the forests, hills, and swamps of the eastern Satrapies.

One of the distinctive features of the lizardmen is their very matriarchal relationships. They form packs, sometimes called nests, headed by the lizardmothers, the venerable female progenitors of the rest of the pack. This is not a eusocial system a la those of bees, ants, wasps, or termites, but rather a loose hierarchy with the oldest, largest, most ravenous females at the top. Most packs only have a small number of lizardmothers, for they are very competitive, typically only between one and five; it is not uncommon for a female to leave their pack to establish their own. Oftentimes the lizardmothers also control reproduction, being the primary target of mating for most males in their pack. The quickest way to destroy a nest of lizardmen is to kill their lizardmother(s).

(I'm going to be using a smaller more generic statblock format for this post. Its something I've been using in my notes/documents for a while, it should still be usable with just about all of whatever OSR type RPGs one may need it for)

Lizardmother

Number Encountered: 1d6 (Almost always encountered with lizardmen)

Hit Dice: 3+2

Attacks: 2 claws (1d6+1) or 1 tail swipe (see below)

Armor: as chain

Morale: 8

Cold Blooded: All lizardmen are cold blooded. They must sun themselves regularly to not become sluggish. If conditions are cold or the lizardmother has been kept from sunlight for an extended period, they make all rolls with disadvantage.

Commanding Presence: Lizardmen of the same nest as the lizardmother will go to defend her. When defending her, they make morale checks as if they had the same morale as the lizardmother.

Tail Swipe: Instead of making her normal two attacks, the lizardmother can choose to perform a tail swipe. Any within melee or reach range must make a saving throw or take 1d4 damage and be knocked to the ground.

(note: In OSE (and in B/X), lizardmen have perfect morale (12). I kind of hate overusing things that don't make morale checks because, as I may have said before, I really like morale rules. Assume that when I mention lizardman morale, they have a morale of like 6 or 7. I'm just mentioning this because of the above mentions of it.)

A nice little boy!

Some distant ancestors of the lizardmen, perhaps coming from the same time as the first progenitor population to be domesticated, escaped into the caves and crevices of the mountains. After generations beneath the surface of the world, they have become pale, blind, emaciated, and sluggish. Cold blooded like their surface brethren, they subsist on the most meager of food in the depths. Unlike some other creatures adapted for the depths, these troglodytic beasts only really live in some of the more wide open caverns, around bodies of water although they are not able to breathe underwater. The men of the deluge often hunt the subterranean lizardmen.

Pale Blind Cave Lizardman

Number Encountered: 1d8+1

Hit Dice: 2

Attacks: 2 claws (1d6) and 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: as leather

Morale: 7

Blind: Pale blind cave lizardmen are not affected by bright lights or visual effects. They can only effectively target someone for an attack if they are making noise; if all is silent, they will not know that you are there.

Sluggish: Despite their lithe appearances, pale blind cave lizardmen are very sluggish owing to their dark dank environs. They make saving throws to dodge out of the way of something with disadvantage.

Swimming: Despite their sluggishness, pale blind cave lizardmen are avid swimmers.

Vice Grip Bite: If a target is hit by the pale blind cave lizardman's bite attack and both claw attacks, then the lizardman bites down with such force that the target cannot remove them. They deal 1d6 damage to the target every round and make them unable to move, as well as still being able to defend themselves with their claw attacks.