Earth

Troll · The Regenerating Giant — A Savage Race of Tenacious Vitality

The troll, from Old Norse 'troll' (proto-Germanic *trullaz, 'magical being, monster'), is a giant of Norse mythology who dwells in mountains, caves and under bridges. The fullest medieval source is Snorri Sturluson's prose 'Edda', Gylfaginning chapter forty-eight (c. 1220), and the 'Þrymskviða' of the Poetic Edda preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript (GKS 2365 4to, c. 1270, Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavik), in which trolls are great human-shaped jǫtnar or wicked magicians. The modern fantasy troll — two hundred and thirty to three hundred centimetres tall, green or green-yellow skinned, with long sinewy limbs and the signature trait of astonishing regeneration (severed parts regrow at once) — is the direct invention of Poul Anderson's science-fantasy novel 'Three Hearts and Three Lions' (Doubleday, 1962), chapter eight, in which the hero Holger Danske finds his sword cuts wholly futile against a regenerating troll. Gary Gygax borrowed Anderson's troll wholesale for the D&D original boxed set of 1974 and codified the figure in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual. In the fifth-edition Monster Manual (2014) the troll is Challenge Rating 5, 84 hit points, AC 15, with three attacks per turn (one bite and two claws) and the Regeneration trait (regain 10 hit points at the start of its turn unless it has taken fire or acid damage during the previous turn). The same iconography runs through the three trolls William, Bert and Tom in J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' (1937), the cave trolls and Olog-hai of 'The Lord of the Rings' (1954-55), the troll tribal cards of 'Magic: The Gathering' (from 1993), the Darkspear and Amani trolls of Blizzard's 'World of Warcraft' (from 2004), and the friendly rock-spirit reinterpretation in Disney's 'Frozen' (2013).

Giant-kin · The Giant Race — Primal Titans Like Living Mountains

A primal people of bodies that dwarf the human form, raising tribes in mountains, glaciers, and wastes and dividing along elemental lines — frost, fire, stone, storm, hill, and cloud. They wield overwhelming strength and live for centuries, the lingering remnants of a mythic age before human kingdoms. The oldest direct attestations are Hesiod's Gigantes and Titans in the Theogony (c. 700 BCE) and Snorri Sturluson's Jotnar in the Prose Edda (c. 1220 CE); Dungeons & Dragons' Monster Manual (TSR, 1977) fixed the six-elemental schema, and the fifth-edition adventure Storm King's Thunder (Wizards of the Coast, 2016) canonised the Ordning, the caste order among giants.

Orc · Warrior Tribes — A Fierce Race That Reveres Strength and Honor

A warrior race marked by green, grey, or brown skin, protruding tusks, and a heavily muscled, often oversized frame. Orcs live in tribes and clans across wastelands, mountains, and fortresses, prizing strength, valour, and the honour of single combat. After J. R. R. Tolkien revived the word in The Hobbit (George Allen & Unwin, 1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), the orc became the most recognisable adversarial race of modern fantasy. Tolkien's letters 144 and 153 frame them as corruptions of Elves bred by Melkor, and through Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, and Warcraft the orc has shifted from generic foe to a society with its own pride, kinship, and warrior code.

Ogre · The Man-Eating Giant — A Dull, Cruel Tyrant of the Wilds

A man-eating giant race standing nine to ten feet tall (roughly 2.7-3 m), thick-hided in grey-green or sallow tones, brutally strong yet slow of wit. Ogres live alone or in small family bands in caves, ruins, and under bridges, swinging tree-trunk clubs and hunting humans, especially children. The figure descends from Giambattista Basile's Neapolitan fairy tale collection (1634-36) and Charles Perrault's tales of 1697, and was crystallised into the standard club-wielding giantkind by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's Dungeons & Dragons (1974) and the 1977 Monster Manual.

Kobold · The Dragon-Serving Little Folk — Masters of Traps

The kobold is a small reptilian, dog-like humanoid race introduced by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons original boxed set and codified in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual as a Lawful Evil (Challenge Rating 1/8) cave-dwelling trapsmith race that worships dragons. The name descends from sixteenth-century German mining folklore, where 'Kobold' was a mine-haunting sprite blamed for arsenic poisoning of silver-ore miners, attested in Georgius Agricola's 'De re metallica' (Leipzig, 1556), book six, under the form 'cobaltus'; the chemical element cobalt was later named after the same sprite by the Swedish chemist Georg Brandt in 1735. In fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons the kobold stands sixty to ninety centimetres tall, with red-brown, dark blue-green or black scales, small horns, a thin tail and a body proportioned as a miniature dragon — 'Volo's Guide to Monsters' (2016) and 'Fizban's Treasury of Dragons' (2021) codify that kobolds hatch from dragon eggs or are otherwise a magical by-product of the dragon. Kobolds live in tribal warrens of fifty to two hundred members in mines, caves and underground labyrinths and give blind religious devotion to a dragon overlord or a great kobold chieftain. They specialise in elaborate traps — spinning blades, slippery slopes, falling stones, poison gas, deadfall pits — and although individual combat power is minimal (5 HP, AC 12 at Challenge Rating 1/8), their numbers, cunning and precise ambushes make them a persistent threat.

Halfling · The Little Folk — Peaceful Farming Folk

The halfling is the generic D&D name for J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbit, the small humanoid race introduced in 'The Hobbit, or There and Back Again' (George Allen & Unwin, London, 21 September 1937) and 'The Lord of the Rings' (1954-55). The word 'Halfling' itself is Tolkien's own term — in Appendix F of 'The Lord of the Rings', he gives it as the common designation by which Men of Middle-earth called the hobbits, derived from Old English 'half + -ling' ('one half-grown'). After Saul Zaentz's Tolkien Enterprises filed a trademark claim against TSR in July 1977 over the use of 'Hobbit', 'Ent', 'Balrog', 'Mithril' and 'Nazgûl', the AD&D Player's Handbook (1977) renamed Gygax's 1974 'Hobbit' race 'Halfling', and the name has been canonical since. In the fifth-edition Player's Handbook (2014), halflings stand ninety to one hundred and five centimetres tall, weigh eighteen to twenty-two kilograms, and bear curly brown or fair foot-hair on large bare feet with thick leather soles, round faces, curly brown, fair or red hair and an average lifespan of one hundred and fifty years. Their society is built on peaceful farming and herding communities, Shire-style chimney-houses and a famously elaborate seven-meal day (first breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper). Fifth-edition racial traits are +2 Dexterity, Lucky (reroll natural 1s), Brave (advantage on fear saves) and Halfling Nimbleness (move through larger creatures' spaces), with the two canonical subraces Lightfoot (+1 Charisma, stealth advantage) and Stout (+1 Constitution, poison resistance). The same iconography is visible in the Halfling counties of Warhammer Fantasy (Games Workshop, from 1986) and is locked into modern popular imagination by Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy (2001-2003) and 'Hobbit' trilogy (2012-2014).

Dwarf · People of the Mountain — Smiths, Miners, Rune Artisans

A short and broadly built race that raises great kingdoms inside mountains and beneath the earth. Long beards, dense musculature, mastery of forge and mine, and a near-religious regard for gold, oaths, and family honour define them. The figure descends from the Old Norse 'dvergr', whose oldest written sources are Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (c. 1220) and the Codex Regius (c. 1270), which preserves the Voluspa list of dwarf-names. J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (Allen & Unwin, 1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) recast the dvergar as a kingdom-building people in exile, and Dungeons & Dragons (TSR, 1974) made that template the standard for modern fantasy.

Gnome · Folk of the Earth — Artisans of Invention and Illusion

A short, cheerful, and incessantly curious people, smaller even than dwarves, who are geniuses of mechanical invention, alchemy, illusion magic, and gemwork. They cluster in workshops dug into hills or hidden in deep forests, and they are famous for their pranks and outlandish ideas. The name was coined in 1566 by Paracelsus in his posthumously published Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris (Henricpetri, Basel, 1566) as the elemental of earth, and the figure fused with European folk earth-spirits (German Heinzelmaennchen, Polish krasnoludek, Italian gnomo). Dungeons & Dragons turned them into a standard player race in the Greyhawk supplement (TSR, 1975), and Blizzard's World of Warcraft (2004) has made the Gnomeregan gnome a popular variant.

Nemean Lion · Invulnerable Beast — Immortal creature of Greek myth

The Nemean Lion (Greek Leon Nemeios) is the gigantic golden lion of Greek myth that inhabited the valley of Nemea in the northeast Peloponnese, the target of the first of Heracles' Twelve Labours. According to Hesiod's Theogony it was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna (or Orthrus and the Chimera); a variant tradition has the moon-goddess Selene drop it from the sky. Its defining trait was a hide that no bronze or iron weapon could pierce. Heracles tried arrow, sword, and club without effect and finally chased the lion into a cave with two mouths, sealed one entrance, and strangled it with his bare hands. Even his blade was useless for skinning: only the lion's own claws (or teeth) could cut the hide, a trick the goddess Athena revealed to him. Heracles wore that hide as a cloak for the rest of his life, with the head as helmet, and the lion-skin became the most distinctive emblem of his iconography.

Golem · Artificial Creature — A being made from inanimate materials

An artificial creature of the Jewish mystical Kabbalistic tradition, built from clay, stone, or metal and brought to motion by sacred letters or formulae. The Hebrew word golem first appears in Psalm 139:16, where it names an unformed substance; the earliest direct technical account is in the Kabbalistic Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation, c. 200-500 CE), and the twelfth-century German Hasidei Ashkenaz pietist Eleazar of Worms wrote the first detailed creation ritual in his Hilkhot Yetzirah. The most famous case is the Golem of Prague, attributed to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (1525-1609, known as the Maharal), who is said to have built a clay servant from the banks of the Vltava to defend his persecuted Jewish community; the legend was given its modern canonical form by Yudl Rosenberg's 1909 pseudepigraphic Niflaos Maharal. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Gustav Meyrink's Der Golem (Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1915), Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Aventinum, 1921) which coined the word 'robot', and the four-type Dungeons & Dragons golem (Clay, Stone, Iron, Flesh; TSR, 1977) are all direct descendants of the same template.

Medusa · Monster — Ancient creature with snakes for hair

Medusa (Greek Medousa) is the youngest of the three Gorgon sisters of Greek myth, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, and the only one of the three who is mortal. According to Hesiod's Theogony she is the daughter of the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto, with serpents for hair and a gaze that turns any who behold her to stone. The first-century Roman poet Ovid, in Metamorphoses IV, supplied the most influential variant: Medusa had once been the beautiful priestess of Athena's temple, was raped within the sanctuary by Poseidon, and was transformed into a monster by Athena, who punished the desecration of her shrine. The hero Perseus slew her, aided by Hermes' winged sandals, Hades' helm of invisibility, and Athena's polished bronze shield, by looking only at her reflection. From her severed neck sprang the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor; her head, the Gorgoneion, became a powerful apotropaic device fixed at the centre of Athena's aegis.

Two-Headed Serpent of Greek Myth

The Amphisbaena (Greek Amphisbaina, 'going both ways') is a legendary two-headed serpent of Greek and Roman myth, possessing a head at each end of its body and able to travel in either direction. Its name derives from Greek amphis (both ways) and bainein (to go). The Roman poet Lucan's Pharsalia describes the Amphisbaena among the desert serpents born when Perseus carried the head of Medusa over Libya and her blood dripped onto the sand. Pliny the Elder, Natural History VIII.35, notes drily that the Amphisbaena is the only serpent with two heads, 'as if a single mouth were not enough to release its poison'. The motif entered medieval bestiaries and heraldry as a standard charge, and was canonised again in Jorge Luis Borges's Book of Imaginary Beings (1957). Folk medicine credited its skin and living body with talismanic powers, particularly to protect pregnant women.

Gargoyle · Stone Monster — Legendary Protectors of Medieval Architecture

The Gargoyle (French gargouille) is a grotesquely carved stone waterspout fixed to the exterior of Gothic cathedrals and churches between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The name derives from French gargouille, itself from Latin gurgulio ('throat' or 'gullet'), the same root that yields English gurgle. Its function is severely practical: a channel is bored through the body so that rainwater channelled along the roof spouts through the creature's mouth and is thrown clear of the wall, sparing the masonry from erosion. At the same time, the monstrous, demonic, or chimerical form was meant to ward off evil. The most famous gargoyles are those of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163, completed 1345), many of which were redesigned during Eugene Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of 1843-1864. Victor Hugo's 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris brought them into popular Romantic imagination. Stone figures without a water-spout function are, strictly, chimeras or grotesques, not gargoyles.

Sphinx · Guardian of Riddles — Hybrid of Human and Lion

The Sphinx (Greek Sphinx, Egyptian shesep-ankh) is a mythic composite of human head and lion body, developed in two parallel traditions. The Egyptian Sphinx, usually a wingless male with the head of a pharaoh, served as guardian of temples and tombs, exemplified by the Great Sphinx of Giza (73 m long, 20 m high), carved from a single limestone outcrop in the reign of Khafre around 2530 BCE. The Greek Sphinx, by contrast, is a winged female with a savage temper who took her station outside Thebes in Boeotia and devoured travellers who could not answer her riddle. When Oedipus solved her riddle, 'What walks on four legs at dawn, two at noon, and three at evening?', answering 'Man', the Sphinx hurled herself from her cliff. From this Egyptian-Greek synthesis the Sphinx became the archetype of the guardian-tester: wisdom and threat, protection and danger, fused in a single hybrid body.

Mountain Nymph of Greek Mythology

The Oread (Greek Oreias, plural Oreiades, English Oread) is the mountain nymph (Greek nymphe) of Greek mythology, who dwells in mountains and caves, frequently depicted as a companion of the hunting goddess Artemis — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of the Greek-mythological mountain spirit. The etymology derives from the Greek oros ('mountain'), and within the classification of nymphs — Naiad (freshwater), Oceanid (ocean), Nereid (salt sea), Dryad (tree), Oread (mountain) — the Oread is the decisive canon of the mountain. The decisive textual canon is the origin in line 420 of Book 6 of the Iliad of the eighth-century BCE Homer (Homeros) — that the mountain nymphs planted elm trees by the grave of Eetion, father of Andromache — and in lines 615-617 of Book 24 — that the mountain nymphs danced on Mount Sipylos after the death of the children of Niobe — the origin of the mountain-nymph iconography, and the decisive canon is the Echo and Narcissus canon in lines 339-510 of Book 3 of the Metamorphoses (Metamorphoses) of the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE - 17 CE) of c. 8 CE — in which the Oread mountain nymph Echo loved the beautiful youth Narcissus unrequitedly but, by the curse of Hera, could only repeat the last words of others, and ultimately became the mountain echo (meta-echo) — the decisive culminating canon of the Latin-literary Oread. The 1903 painting Echo and Narcissus by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), held by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Britain, established the visual canon of the Oread in the nineteenth-century Victorian era.

Earth Spirit of Paracelsus

The Gnome (Latin Gnomus, English Gnome) is the decisive canonical spirit of earth (Terra) among the four element spirits (Elemental Spirits) in the posthumous 1566 Latin treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders (Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris) by the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541). It has the decisive iconography of a small old-man figure (usually about 30 cm), with a white beard and a red conical cap, dwelling in the earth, caves, rocks, and mines, skilled in mining for gems, minerals, and metals — the canonical guardian of treasure, of disposition to avoid humans. The etymology is the Latin Gnomus — coined by Paracelsus, presumably from the Greek ge-nomos (ge-nomos, 'one who dwells in the earth') or gnosis (gnosis, 'knowledge') — and is decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive canon is the four-element-spirit theory of Paracelsus of 1566, published posthumously in Basel, Switzerland — Undine (Water), Sylph (Air), Gnomus (Earth), Salamander (Fire) — by which the Gnome became the decisive canon of the European Renaissance earth spirit. The first ceramic garden gnome (Gartenzwerg) production at the Philipp Griebel workshop in Graefenroda, Thuringia, Germany, in 1872 decisively settled the nineteenth- and twentieth-century global garden-decoration Gnome canon, and the Gnome race of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual by Gary Gygax of TSR in the USA — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — is the decisive canon of the modern fantasy RPG Gnome race.

Adamantine · The Unbreakable Black Metal of Ultimate Strength

Adamantine (English Adamantine, Latin adamas, Greek adámas) is the absolutely unbreakable black strongest metal of the decisive canon — derived from Greek 'adámas (ἀδάμας adámas, unconquerable, untamable, a- 'not' + damān 'to tame')' — the decisive canonical vocabulary — the decisive canon of Hesiod's Theogony. Aliases — Adamantine (Adamantine), Adamant, adamas (Latin/Greek), adamantium (Marvel), the unconquerable — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive Hesiod canon is the decisive canon of Kronos's adamantine sickle in Hesiod's Theogony (Theogonia) lines 161-167 of the 8th century BCE. The decisive Homer canon is the decisive canon of the Iliad of the 8th century BCE. The decisive natural history canon is the decisive canon of 'adamas is the hardest substance' in Pliny the Elder's Natural History Book 37 chapters 55-61 of the 1st century. The decisive D&D canon is the decisive canon of adamantine in Dungeons & Dragons of 1974.