Gary credits the form of the mind flayer to the cover of the Brian Lumley book, The Borrowers Beneath. Gary gave them powers вЂњto highlight their unique nature and potency.вЂќ Mind Flayer In Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1978), the drow made their first appearance. Gary remembered pulling the name from an old, unabridged dictionary. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users.вЂќ The word вЂњdrowвЂќ comes from Scots dialects and refers to a sort of malevolent being. The Drow are said to be as dark as faeries are bright and as evil as the latter are good. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. вЂњThe вЂBlack Elves,вЂ™ or Drow, are only legend. They live and cause evil upon Svartalfheim.вЂќ Perhaps inspired by the mention, Gary offered more hints in the first Monster Manual. вЂњThese elves dwell beneath the earth, and cause trouble for anyone wandering through their territories. The first hint of dark elves comes in D&DвЂ™s fourth supplement, Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes (1976), by James Ward and Rob Kuntz.

Did Gary invent the notion, or did he adopt it? Drow Mystery: The cloak and beastвЂ™s displacement power seems like a defense that Gary could have taken from a golden-age science fiction story. That power comes from the Displacer Cloak, which appeared in the original D&D books.

In the tale, a character describes a thing called a вЂњcoeurlвЂќ that looks like вЂњa big cat, if you forget those tentacles sticking out from its shoulders, and make allowances for those monster forelegs.вЂќ The beast first appeared in the Greyhawk supplement, but the coeurl lacks the displacer beastвЂ™s defensive power. Before the creature appeared in the Greyhawk supplement, Gary explained that вЂњAll I needed to do was a bit of editing to make it a great addition to the terrible monsters to be found in the D&D game.вЂќ BugbearДЄlthough Wizards includes the displacer beast in D&DвЂ™s product identity, the monster owes its appearance to an alien in the 1939 story вЂњThe Black DestroyerвЂќ by author A. Rob credits his brother Terry with a wild imagination and the idea for the beholder, originally called the eye of doom. One of D&DвЂ™s original players, Rob Kuntz eventually joined Gary Gygax as co-dungeon master in the Greyhawk campaign. Many of D&DвЂ™s classic monsters have better stories behind their inspiration. The gauth just offers a junior beholder to pit against lower-level adventurers. D&D features a long history of frog men, but Charles Stross says a literal fever led him to imagine the extra-planar, chaotic slaad. When Dave вЂњZebвЂќ Cook needed memorable foes for an overgrown, forbidden city in the jungle, he made snake men called yuan-ti. When Gary needed вЂњsomething newвЂќ to populate the underworld, he imagined fish men and called them koa-toa. The leap of imagination required for some monsters seems short.

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