# Monsters on the Move *How creatures migrate from myth to game* - Tour: Tour - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/tours/monsters-on-the-move/ > Thirteen creatures, thirteen journeys: from Mesopotamian dragons and Pliny's basilisk through Tolkien's orcs and Poul Anderson's trolls to dime-store toys, Lovecraftian brain-eaters, Dragon Quest's slime and the chocobo. **Why it matters:** The monsters of fantasy games are a record of borrowing. Following them shows how myth, natural history, novels, lawsuits, toys and programmers' sketches all feed the same shared bestiary. Every fantasy game draws on a shared bestiary, and almost none of its creatures were invented for the game in which you met them. This tour follows thirteen of them on their journeys. Monsters migrate along several different routes. Some come from myth and ancient natural history: the [Dragon](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dragon/), the [Minotaur](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/minotaur/), the [Basilisk](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/basilisk/) and the [Griffin](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/griffin/) were described by poets, priests and naturalists long before anyone rolled dice. Others arrive through modern literature. [Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/) turned an Old English word into the [Orc](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/orc/) and created the Ents, and [Poul Anderson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/poul-anderson/) gave the [Troll](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/troll/) its famous ability to regenerate. When those creatures reached [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/), they sometimes had to change their names, which is how the Ent became the [Treant](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/treant/). Other monsters have no literary ancestors at all. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/) turned a bag of cheap plastic toys into the [Owlbear](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/owlbear/) and the [Rust Monster](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/rust-monster/), and players at his own table invented the [Beholder](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/beholder/). The [Mind Flayer (Illithid)](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/mind-flayer/) shows [Lovecraft](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/h-p-lovecraft/)'s influence arriving through a book cover. Once invented, these creatures traveled onward into novels, computer games and films as freely as any creature from myth. Games also exchange monsters with one another. The formless ooze of Western dungeons became the [Slime](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/slime/) of [Dragon Quest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/), and [Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/) added creatures, such as the [Chocobo](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/chocobo/), that belong to games alone. The final stop, the [Tarrasque](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/tarrasque/), shows the process running in reverse: a game borrowing a creature from a medieval legend and making it bigger than it ever was. At each stop, ask where the creature came from, what changed when it crossed into a new medium, and what rules a game had to invent to make it work. ## Stops 1. [Dragon](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dragon/) — Start with the oldest traveler. The dragon runs from ancient Near Eastern myth through Beowulf's barrow and Tolkien's Smaug to D&D's color-coded wyrms and Dragon Quest's Dragonlord. It is the pattern for every migration on this tour: each age keeps the shape and changes the meaning. 2. [Minotaur](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/minotaur/) — Greek myth gave us one monster in one maze. D&D turned the Minotaur into a species in 1974, and the labyrinth became the dungeon. Notice how games turn unique mythic beings into populations. 3. [Basilisk](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/basilisk/) — Here natural history, not myth, supplies the monster: Pliny's serpent whose glance kills. D&D made its gaze turn victims to stone, and the basilisk later coiled through Harry Potter's pipes. Watch how powers are translated into rules. 4. [Griffin](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/griffin/) — Lion and eagle combined appear in art thousands of years before the Greeks named them. The griffin passed through heraldry to D&D, where griffons still hunt horses, and to World of Warcraft's flight paths. 5. [Orc](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/orc/) — An Old English word for a demon, which Tolkien made into a people. D&D kept the name, Warhammer and Warcraft gave orcs green skin and cultures of their own, and later games made them heroes. 6. [Troll](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/troll/) — Scandinavian folklore supplied trolls; Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions supplied a severed troll hand that crawls back to its body. D&D took that regeneration, and fire and acid became the standard answer to trolls in games. 7. [Treant](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/treant/) — Tolkien's Ents walked into Chainmail and early D&D under their own name. Legal pressure over Tolkien's names turned them into treants, and 'treant' has since become the generic walking tree of fantasy games. 8. [Owlbear](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/owlbear/) — Now the tour turns to monsters with no myth behind them. Gygax built the owlbear from a cheap plastic toy bought to use as a miniature. Sometimes the source of a legend is a dime-store bag. 9. [Beholder](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/beholder/) — A player at Gygax's table, Terry Kuntz, invented this floating orb of eyes, and it debuted on the cover of the 1975 Greyhawk supplement. D&D later kept it out of the Open Game License, a sign of how valuable an original monster had become. 10. [Mind Flayer (Illithid)](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/mind-flayer/) — The mind flayer came from Lovecraft's cosmic horror by way of a paperback cover, and debuted in 1975. Five decades later its tadpole drives the plot of Baldur's Gate 3. Invented monsters can accumulate their own mythology. 11. [Slime](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/slime/) — Pulp horror's formless ooze became D&D's acid-dripping slimes and jellies. In Japan, Dragon Quest reinvented it as a grinning blue teardrop, and the most dangerous thing in the dungeon became the most lovable. 12. [Chocobo](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/chocobo/) — Some monsters need no ancestry at all. Koichi Ishii sketched this big yellow bird for Final Fantasy II in 1988, and it became a mount, a racer and a mascot. It is a native of games that has never lived anywhere else. 13. [Tarrasque](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/tarrasque/) — End where old and new meet. A dragon tamed by Saint Martha in a Provençal legend became, in 1983, D&D's unstoppable apocalypse on legs. Even the most game-like monster may have a medieval ancestor. ## Facts - The owlbear's inspiration was a plastic figure from a bag of Hong Kong–made toys that Gygax bought to use as miniatures. - The beholder was created by Terry Kuntz, brother of Greyhawk co-Dungeon Master Rob Kuntz. - Yuji Horii has said Dragon Quest's slime came from Wizardry. - The chocobo's name comes from the Chocoball, a Japanese chocolate snack made by Morinaga. --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.