Movie Review: Alien Romulus

Alien: Romulus (2024)

It's tradition for me to review an Alien movie every Halloween, and as luck would have it, last year was the release of a brand-new Alien movie, as a bit of a standalone/soft-reboot after the duology that started with Prometheus.

Romulus is a nice 'back-to-basics' approach to the franchise that has proven successful compared to more derivative attempts to expand on franchises, which we saw in Jurassic World or Star Wars: The Force Awakens as opposed to both of their sequel movies. And in that regard, I do really think Romulus is a nice take on the franchise while also building up the world of the 2100's. 

That said, it is admittedly just Alien-meets-Prometheus with the CGI budget and effects of a modern-day movie. The movie does feel a lot more tense being that these are a bunch of teenagers with absolutely no proper equipment, unlike the space marines of Aliens or the exploration teams of Prometheus and Covenant. It honestly feels very much unfair on the side of our protagonists, in the same vein of how the original salvage crew of the Nostromo was. 

The movie does start off with a relatively long sequence of introducing us to the teenagers that are about to be put through hell, people in the hellscape work colony of planet LV-410. We start off with Rain Carradine, who should have worked off her duty to the company but just gets extended in what's essentially enforced slavery. She also has an adopted brother, a malfunctioning android called Andy, which the movie shows a lot of scenes of the two of them behaving like a family. The movie also makes Andy very lovable, treating him as essentially someone on the autism spectrum.  They go to meet a bunch of other teenagers ready to escape -- her ex boyfriend Tyler, Tyler's pregnant sister Kay, and their cousins Bjorn and Navarro. It's clear at this point that Bjorn is a piece of shit that doesn't care much for androids, which drives a fair chunk of the movie's interpersonal plot. 

Just like Alien was, this movie starts off slow as we get introduced to the world around our main characters. It's a nice slow burn, even if I do admit that I cared more about the world these guys are living in as opposed to the actual characters themselves. 

They commandeer a hauler to reach an abandoned Weyland-Yutani station -- twin installments called Romulus and Remus, intending to steal cryostasis pods so they can escape the hell of the slave-camp world. While Rain is all for getting her android brother out with her, but the rest of the group are aligned in basically abandoning Andy once they've made use of his hacking capabilities in the station. 

Of course, the station was abandoned because it was experimenting with xenomorphs, and things get progressively creepier as our little teenage salvage team go deeper and deeper into the station and find signs that it wasn't abandoned willingly. The ominous prologue scene of the movie tell us that they apparently recovered the body of the Alien from Alien, and experimented on it, apparently going far enough as to get it to reproduce and create Facehuggers. These Facehuggers were the ones that were initially released, leading to a very tense locked-room scenario as the Facehuggers skitter around like spiders and move through the water unseen.

In panic, Rain pulls off a control chip from the Romulus's damaged (and insane) android, Rook. This allows Andy to help the group get free from the Facehuggers, but he goes fully robotic, losing a lot of his previous charm... and his allegiance shifts to Rook and Weyland-Yutani. During this sequence, Navarro gets attacked and impregnated by a Facehugger, and it is quite heartbreaking to see the family not accepting 'no, she's a lost cause' as an answer.

Rook, who's driven slightly mad by isolation, damage and desperation, gives some exposition about where the original Alien cocoon came from, as well as the experimentations that happened. Rook also reveals that some of the Facehuggers did make it into adulthood, and it's the acidic blood from these xenomorphs that blew up Remus. As all of this is going on, in some really nice space scenes, Romulus's orbit is slowly decaying as it is about to slam onto the Saturn-like planetary rings of LV-410, which is a nice visual treat. 

The cowardly Bjorn attempts to escape with Navarro and Kay, but the larva within Navarro bursts out of her chest in a very brutal sequence. This causes the teenagers' ship to crash into Romulus and accelerate the station's descent into the LV-410 rings, which I can best describe as an airplane descending slowly before an inevitable crash. The alien from Navarro begins to wreak a bit of havoc, cocooning itself and molting into a larger form. The grief-stricken Navarro attacks it, only to die when a spray of acidic blood melts his face off. 

The pregnant Kay manages to escape the crash site and run all the way to a door where Rain, Tyler and Andy are waiting... but Andy, driven to cold logic by the chip, notes that the xenomorph is actually playing and using her as bait. Despite Tyler and Rain's protests, Andy coldly refuses to open the door, and the xenomorph abducts Kay. 

Rook (and via him, Andy) gives an ultimatum that's tied to a theme that was in the original Alien -- corporate greed at all costs. They want our heroes to retrieve a fluid called Z-01 from the Facehuggers, which would allow them to genetically alter humans to live and thrive in space. Faced with no other choice, Rain and Tyler have to play along. They are armed with guns now, but they are also untrained, and shooting the hull of the space station risks decompression. 

The newly born xenomorph has discovered the xenomorph nest with many other adults, and in an attempt to protect the others, Tyler sacrifices himself as bait. Kay also almost dies from her injuries, but Andy gives her a dose of the Z-01 fluid to allow her to heal rapidly. Andy himself is also incapacitated, but Rain refuses to give up on him -- eventually restoring the chip and returning him back to his original personality. 

During the process of rescue, the Romulus continues to fall apart and this leads to a rather fun (if nonsensical) sequence of acid blood floating around while Rain and xenomorphs try to navigate in zero gravity. Rain turns into a bit of a deadshot here, able to shoot all the xenomorphs while they flounder around in zero-g. It's probably an action scene that takes me out of my immersion a bit, if we're being honest. 

As they escape Romulus while it is destroyed, we get one final action scene as, just like Prometheus, we get some pregnancy-inspired horror as Kay gives birth. The Z-01 mutates her fetus into a monstrous human-xenomorph hybrid that is called the Offspring. The Offspring honestly looks way more human than xeno, looking more like a malformed human from Dark Souls or something. Having a human face allows it to look particularly creepy when it starts making expressions. Ultimately, after a bit of a tense sequence, Rain and Andy distract it long enough before opening the bay doors and dropping the Offspring into the rings of LV-410. The movie ends with the two of them entering cryostasis as they go on their little journey to Yvaga III as planned. 

Ultimately? Again, it's a good standalone movie, but I don't really think it does anything particularly new. It's quite derivative and as neat as it is to see a brand-new monster design, I did feel like we could've had... more? It is thrilling, though, so I can't fault the movie on that end. 

One Piece 1153 Review: Mega Combo

One Piece, Chapter 1153: Promise

It's kind of an action-filled chapter, which is a bit nice since I'm very busy this week -- all the stuff you see in the blog in this week and the next couple are all pre-written. 

We start off with an interesting, if slightly gross, fused Saturn-Imu form. I think easily the most disturbing thing is that we see Saturn's regular old-man-head still attached to the spider body while Imu's goopy ghost-face grows out of his back like a tumour. Imu starts attacking everyone around him with a weird combination of shadows and spider legs, killing Marines and pirates alike. 

Notably, some members of Roger's crew are hurt by Imu. None of Roger's crew are particularly interesting other than the 'big three', of course, but rather interestingly, the wounded members note that it felt 'fascinating'. Roger apparently feels it's worth being cautious, and tells Gaban to take some treasure and escape with the wounded, while he goes off to fight Imu. 

And of course, Rocks faces off against Imu. Imu mistakes Rocks as Davy Jones, which Rocks corrects Imu. Now, Imu mistaking someone in the present as someone from his age isn't noteworthy, since he's compared Luffy to Joy Boy or Nika, but rather interestingly, earlier in the timeline Rocks has already met face-to-face with Imu. So for Imu to mis-identify Rocks now is... a bit odd, for sure. Rather interestingly, Rocks gives a line that is something to the flavour of "promises are meant to be kept!"... Which enrages Imu, declaring that 'Mu's/my world' is still incomplete, and that Rocks's kind needs to be erased from history. This feels like a set of lines that's going to mean a lot once we get a bit more context. 

Garp is also heading towards Imu, asking the Marines just what that monster is. Garp takes a look at Imu's monster form, is told that it's one of the Gorosei... and decides to go and look what a 'leader of the maggots' is like. So it is quite nice that Garp isn't actually on the Gorosei or Celestial Dragons' side -- as you could probably extrapolate from the character, y'know? I love the line where Garp tells his subordinates to move aside, since he's about to 'help'... and with a madman's look on his face, the other Marines start yelling at Garp, asking which side he is planning to help. 

And then we cut away to a lot of nonsense, a lot of fun continuity-laden action nonsense I love. We already know that at some point, Captain John is going to betray his crew for treasure. It just didn't click in my mind that the crew that John's going to betray is the Rocks Pirates itself. As everyone is trying to escape... John starts activating his powers, drawing everything metal towards him. So yes, that giant metal arm we saw last chapter is the Jiki Jiki no Mi, a.k.a. Kid's Magnet-Magnet Fruit. This includes causing even warriors like Gaban to have to hold on to his weapons, but also Monkey D. Dragon's gun from getting pulled up. This abuse of poor Dragon is what's going to separate him from Baby Shanks!

John dragons all the treasure to him in an attack called 'Big Eater'... but he gets interrupted by Ganzui, who does a pose and launches a Sky-Snake Red Cannon, causing a gigantic explosion from his arms. This, by the way, was something I thought was more akin to Don Krieg's abilities if it was a call-forward... but turns out that a closer inspection of the previous panel reveals that Ganzui is flicking a little black dot. A booger, in fact, because Ganzui is the previous bearer of Mr. 5's Bomu Bomu no Mi, the Bomb Bomb Fruit. Meaning that despite there being a lot of speculation that Mr. 5 has a great ability that he just wastes by using it in the grossest and stupidest way... turns out that apparently explosive flicked boogers is how you use the Bomb Bomb Fruit. 

John is at the epicenter of that explosion and I don't know if this is exactly his death, but he's either going to die here or soon afterwards. Shiki confronts Ganzui about this, but Ganzui monologues that each of these chests are worth a billion berries (a whole Jack!) and it's worth betraying someone over. Ganzui then prepares to attack Shiki from behind...

...which is not going to end well for Ganzui. We know John and Ganzui both show up as corpses in Thriller Bark, that Shiki survives long enough in-canon to be imprisoned and escape from Impel Down, and that Ganzui's devil fruit needs to reincarnate somewhere. Sorry, Ganzui.

We then cut away to the chaos around Imu. Garp charges in, being held back by Marines. Kaido and Whitebeard both slowly walk up to support Rocks... but Big Mom shows up all angry over the betrayal. Rocks has beef with Imu. Roger and Garp both seemingly want to fight. 

...and we get a badass double-page spread. Like, a full one, not a 75%-spread that One Piece really likes to do. We get a combination of attacks. Garp unleashes Galaxy Impact! Roger unleashes Divine Departutre! Rocks unleashes an attack called Pandemonium! Big Mom unleashes Ikoku Sovereignty! Whitebeard, who is noted as the only major character who never yells his attack names, does his 'punch the sky so hard it cracks' in an attack called 'Chalk Hakua'! 

...Kaido unleashes a Boro Breath/Blast Breath, but since he just had this fruit for maybe ten minutes, the fucking dork doesn't actually name his moves and just yells "DRAGOOOOOONNNNNN!" which is just the cherry on the top of this moment of awesomeness.

Because holy shit! Discussions about whether these are 'prime' versions of these characters or not be damned. Imu just tanked attacks from Whitebeard, Garp, Kaido, Big Mom, Roger and Rocks. 

All legends. 

I honestly spent some time just typing descriptions of the six characters that unleashed attacks, and realized that... no, I don't need to. They are just six legends, and if you got this far in your One Piece journey to read this chapter and read a review of this chapter, you know what that means. 

And it does nothing. There's not even an excuse of no Haki being applied, because Imu just gloops together, and unleashes a Haki explosion that knocks out all nearby Marines. We get scenes of the Roger Pirates escaping, with special lines noted to them picking up all the treasure. Dragon wakes up, separated from Baby Shanks... and Baby Shanks just crawls into a chest, because clearly his pirating instinct started early. 

As Imu reforms, the other characters yell around in the background. Big Mom demands Kaido at least pay her back for the fruit. Garp and Roger yell at whose blow deals the most damage. And Imu... starts taunting Rocks about how there are new Davys -- a woman and a child running through the forest. And that's a pestilence that needs to be eradicated. Rocks charges in and slashes Imu's head into pieces... and from those tendrils come tentacles that pierce Rocks, as Imu unleashes 'Domi Reversi', and commands Rocks to eradicate his own bloodline. 

And that's the cliffhanger! Some people guessed this pretty spot-on, that Domi Reversi is involved in both Harald and Rocks's deaths. Especially after Rocks was made out to be a good guy! Again, it feels like we're in for a great, tragic story for Rocks. I do feel like I can hazard a nice guess as to what happens next, but I prefer not to. It seems like something that I genuinely want to be on for the ride. Regardless... big badass scene. That whole sequence with the combo attack and the infighting among the Rocks Pirates was a treat!

Random Notes:

• Cover story's really over. It really is kind of a disappointing one, isn't it? I didn't have particularly high expectations, nothing even along the lines of 'Yamato's totally going to sail out', but even as a conclusion chapter to Wano it kinda is quite a load of nothing, isn't it? 
• The names of the wounded Roger crewmates are Rowing and Mugren. They all have names! 
• This is the first time that the Jiki Jiki no Mi is actually named in the proper manga itself, I believe? I knew there was a whole point about Oda admitting in the SBS thinking that he's already name-dropped the fruit before. 
• Even as Shanks crawls into the treasure chest, the panel cuts away the left side of his body, making his left arm not visible. Funny, Oda. 
• RE: Domi Reversi...
• There has to be a limit to Domi Reversi, otherwise there's no stopping Imu from Reversi-ing the six most powerful beings in the world instead of just one. So the question is, why only Rocks?
• Some people have theorized that Imu's ability works on 'leaders', so Rocks (as either the leader of the Rocks Pirates or the Davy clan on God Valley) and Dorry/Brogy (as major respected figures that are kings-in-practice of Elbaph), which tracks with magic. 
• But we also saw the random Davy clan villagers already been Domi Reversi'd. While the giants in the present day are caused by the Othello/Reversi of Dorry and Brogy, the Davy clan villagers are a bit suspect. 
• Also another theory people have been positing is that this has to do with being tied to the homeland, which in turn is tied even more to how flooding the world (thus creating many different 'homelands') is a tie-in to denying Imu one of her most powerful abilities? 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 5: City Hunter!

So evolution takes place from the menu, and Chikorita leveled up enough to evolve after the past couple of missions. It did really feel like a short amount of time that I spent with the adorable little pear dinosaur, but Chikorita has evolved into Bayleef now. Now, again, still somehow unspoiled, but I have no idea if we're getting a regional Meganium, or just a Mega Meganium. After all, Oshawott, Cyndaquil and Rowlet all turned into their 'regular' second forms before getting the Hisuian Samurott, Typhlosion and Decidueye forms. 

Also evolving in the party are Kakuna to Beedrill, Mareep to Flaaffy, and Fletchling to Fletchinder... and probably a bunch of others. Flaaffy and Fletchinder are quite useful for type coverage so I rotate them in fairly often, but other than Bayleef and maybe Binacle I'm not sure if I'll be using either of them to the end of the game. 

Bayleef also learns GIGA DRAIN when she evolves, which would be a bit insane if we're in the regular battle system. 

I return to Emma, who does this non-stop-until-you-click-the-A-button clapping animation that I find is quite adorable. Taunie reveals that while I was going around solving sidequests, she was consulting with Emma about something. She's looking for someone, and that's the whole reason that she came to Lumiose City in the first place... but she doesn't actually elaborate. They are stretching this mystery for quite a bit, aren't they. 

Emma basically gets me in as kind of an extra helper, but more importantly, she tells me about a special kind of evolution in Lumiose City (or, well, technically Kalos... and also Hoenn, Alola and Kanto...) called Mega Evolution. Emma then decides to battle me outside her office! She doesn't use Mimi or any of the Pokemon she played around with as Essentia, but... a Mareep? Anyway, I make short work of her Mareep, and we get the return of the adorable clapping animation. 

Emma then tells me that Mareep evolves twice -- into Flaaffy, then Ampharos. And then she sends out her Ampharos, which she proceeds to mega evolve with the Mega Stone embedded in her spy bodysuit. I love -- I love that the first Mega Evolution we see in this game, the Pokemon they choose to display this super-duper epic mechanic that is part of the game's selling point, is Ampharos. Mega Ampharos, if you forget, is just Ampharos with some extra luxurious flowing hair on her head and tail. In contrast, XY debuted it with mascot guy Mega Lucario, and I believe the anime used popular starter Mega Blaziken. I'm not even mad, this is awesome. 

We don't have abilities in this game, so I suppose the Mega Evolution just changes typings and just gives a boost to stats? Emma explains some aspects about Mega Evolution as a temporary power-up, and Taunie says that we need to become the best Mega Evolution users in Lumiose. Emma tells me to help anyone in need... and cryptically also notes that a 'black, four-legged Pokemon' is something she is interested in. Ominous! 

The game directs me to the Y promotion match, but... but I kind of want to wander around a bit. After spending a rather long amount of time distracted on the fashion district, I start doing a bunch of the parkour puzzles and collecting items and screws. 

I find a fancy Japanese-style dojo, too, with statues of Kingambit and Weezing inside. They've got a sick rhombus-shaped neon purple symbol that reminds me of the Z-stones from Sun & Moon. I can't enter this place yet, though, and the smartly-dressed guards outside just throw me out if I try to waltz in. 

I do sidequests as I encounter them. One of the first NPCs I meet is named Vivace, who wants me to show all five Flabebe variants. I've got a red and blue one, but I apparently need to do some rooftop-hopping to get the other colours. She is a hairdresser and this unlocks hair colour options. That's cute! It's like that one hairdresser in Hisui that gets inspiration of styles from random Pokemon she requests me to find. 

Another one is a cafe owner called Meuse whose Slurpuff is throwing a tantrum, and I have to escort the Slurpuff like two blocks over so he can get his usual snack of macarons. It's honestly kind of adorable to have the Slurpuff waddle after me, and I honestly do feel like this brief interaction gave me just a bit more of an appreciation for this Pokemon that I have otherwise neglected since Generation VI. Slurpuff is quite cute when its mouth is closed; that dog-tongue really does sell the look. Also, the cafe owner gives me free coffee for helping take care of a loyal poke-customer. That's nice!

At this point the Battle Zone pops back up, and I'm introduced to the bonus cards system, which is just mini-objectives to do while I run around ambushing people and beating up their weak Cleffas and Fletchlings. Unless something noteworthy happens, I don't think I'll be talking too much about the Battle Zones. They're fun to run around in, but the trainers, being randomly generated, don't really show much variety.  

Yvon faces off with me, but she's not as memorable as Zach. She's an adult that wants this to be over fast, and... when she reaches rank A, she wants Lumiose to... have a marathon? She doesn't like the Wild Zones cutting off her jogging route or something. Okay? Her party is a Spritzee, a Swirlix and a Vivillon. I send her packing, and she jogs off the stress while I get promoted to Rank X. Hey, that's all the original Generation VI letters dealt with!

After beating Yvon, Team MZ reconvenes in the hotel and have some dialogue about dinner again. All the while, the Zygarde Cell is watching. Cell-chan, do you want some of the croissant curry? Or are you perhaps enraged by it? In the next morning, Lida asks a question about why I joined Team MZ, and I can say 'for Taunie' or 'for Lumiose'. I was kind of strongarmed into it by Taunie, so I suppose she's the reason more than the city. I might say the city, but no one's explained the Big Plan (tm) to me yet. 

Lida is a bit of a blabbermouth and keeps talking about how my reason is different from Naveen, and despite Naveen telling her to hush several times, Lida prods enough to get Naveen to agree to fight me and he'll 'spill the tea' if he loses. "This is an invasion of privacy." Naveen moans, but it's clear that he really has no say in this and is just doing this to hush Lida up. Naveen sends out a Spinarak, a Sableye, and his final Pokemon is Scraggy. Very punk, my friend, very punk. 

After the battle ends, Naveen makes some comments about changing moves. Lida, however, isn't having any of this tutorial stuff distract us from gossip, so actually spills Naveen's whole backstory for him. ...not cool, Lida. Not cool. Anyway, Naveen's grandmother wants him to focus on his test scores, while he wants to be a fashion designer. And angry grandma threw away all of his sewing equipment. When he walked out in anger, he met Taunie and was roped into Hotel Z and began using it as a oasis-slash-studio. That's a rather simple but effective backstory, I feel. 

I go around the rooftops a lot and there are a lot of Pokemon on the roof! Flabebes, Pidgeys... and even Bellsprouts? Cleffa? Okay, I guess Cleffa falls down from space and they sometimes fly. I also catch an Abra that's just hovering on the rooftops casually. I suppose it makes sense for the Psychic Pokemon to teleport up to the rooftops to not be disturbed by the silly humans on ground level! I think it goes without saying, but just as with any game, Abra teleports away when you get near it. 

I also discover that as night falls, you don't have to go to the Battle Zone, since it's just random parts of the city that's fenced off by the battle royale. And I don't quite know why I didn't realize it, but there does seem to be Pokemon that do different stuff at night. In particular, the graveyard Wild Zone has a new rare spawn, Honedge! Loved this sword dude, and I used one quite extensively in XY. I think I'll be happy using one again. 

I find cute little alleys with Trubbishes hiding behind trash bins, which I thought was adorably appropriate. I also find Wild Zone 5 that's kind of infested with Venipedes. Always had a soft spot for the Venipede line, and I've always found them one of the most visually appropriate for an 'invasive bug swarm' vibe. The design of Zone 5 is quite interesting, you mostly have access to a street and a little lower pool, but destroy the sludge barriers and you unlock a sewers that leads to another side of the area... where a gigantic Alpha Whirlepede nests. Nope! Running out of there, that Whirlepede is level 28 or something!

The last sidequest I did was to help a little girl in a park who is very excited about the bestest Pokemon in the whole whole world... Kakuna! She is so excited about her Kakunas, and her team is three Kakunas... and a Beedrill! Kakuna uses Electroweb in this game, and this is where I learn that Electroweb (and moves like Spikes) actually create hazards on the battlefield, hazards that my silly big Venipede actually runs straight into and gets zapped. Also love the effect of Infestation that Venipede has access to, and the little infestation bugs just prevents the opponent from switching out. 

This poor Kakuna lover is a bit sad that I beat her, but even more confused when her Kakuna evolves into Beedrill. Beedrill is cool, but she wants a team of Kakuna! I mean the Beedrill itself seems quite enthused to evolve. This is a cute lampshading of the different evolution mechanics. In the Legends games you need to go to the menu and click 'evolve', since battles happen in real-time and evolution can't happen right after a battle finishes. But the Kakuna Fan's Kakuna actually just evolves automatically, meaning it's somehow still working off of the 'classic rules', however that works!

Random Notes:

• I do feel like the level scaling relative to the 'main story' of the game has always been a bit off ever since the move to the more 'real-time' 3D games? Or maybe the battles just feel a lot less personal with how much faster-paced they are, so we just feel like we're spending 'less' time with Chikorita. 
• One of the random shorter side-quests is a guy called Distan who challenges me in a tennis field, waxing lyrical about how he will only ever use ranged attacks in combat. It's a very simple battle mission against him, and the game kind of makes fun of him because he acts in an over-the-top way about his battle philosophy. It is kind of useful for me to learn that the ranged attacks actually have longer cooldown, which makes sense since getting close up to the enemy does make it much easier for them to not miss. 
  
• The promotion rank trainer is waiting for me as I gather points. Yvon, for example, waits in front of the obelisk in one of the parks. It is a bit of a weird system, though, because what if I just kept losing and never gather enough points? I know the game won't acknowledge it, but in-universe, what happens, then? Is Yvon just stuck waiting for me, or will the organizers/app assign a different promotional fighter to her?
• In addition to rock smash rocks, there are also brambles (which just shatter with anything; you'd think it would need fire) and giant Grimer-looking sludges that need Binacle's Water moves to break. 
• "For Water-type moves, do you think Pokemon use their sweat? Or other bodily fluids?"
• One of the NPCs notes that "I don't see many punk guys and the like around lately." Actually, that's true! The Punk Guy and Punk Girl NPCs don't actually make a return in this game, it seems! 
• Fire Spin creates a giant swirling vortex of fire. That's very cool, and looks a lot more impressive than any of the 3D games ever rendered it as. 
• A random NPC near the hotel called Claddia can give me a 'head-to-toe makeover', giving me a set of clothing that I can wear around for a day, but I have to return it to her at the end. Okay? 
• With the assumption that they're not going to pull an XY again, and that every NPC's prominent Pokemon will get the gimmick, I'm assuming Scrafty is going to get a Mega Evolution since it's Naveen's signature Pokemon. That, by the way, is easily one of the worst parts of XY where none of the new Kalos Pokemon nor a vast, vast majority of the characters in the game ever use Mega Evolution. They did this a lot better from Gen VII onwards, where every major character's signature Pokemon tends to have some kind of exclusive Z-Move, Gigantamax or Teracrystalization respectively.

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 4: Punch The Pokemon!

As we reach the next area, there is a demonstration protest by a group of martial artist looking guys. Their leader is a guy with long blonde hair called Ivor, who introduces himself as speaking on behalf of a group called the Fists of Justice. They appear to be a tamer version of Team Plasma... but a fair bit more unhinged. Ivor asks that if coexistence is the goal, why not get rid of Wild Zones and let the wild Pokemon run free? That is actually a good question, and one that was apparently successful in Ryme City in Detective Pikachu!

All of his arguments instantly become hilarious as he talks about why he would suggest this 'dangerous' thing. His solution? PUNCH DA POKEMONS. Yes. If it's dangerous for the Pokemon to be roaming the streets, he wants to make everyone in their ranks be strong enough to take on even Pokemon in hand-to-hand combat.

I think I laughed way longer than I should at this introduction. It's not even them trying to be good eco-activists or whatever. No, they just want to train everyone so they can be strong and be able to punch an attacking Rhyhorn or Gogoat in the face. To suplex the Cleffas and Hawluchas. To dropkick the Doublades and Budews. 

Ivor, you are insane. I have seen many insane NPCs in Pokemon, but not one that is more crazy than you. 

Taunie talks shit about Ivor, and she is overheard by Josée, one of Ivor's students and 'probably the fifth-strongest disciple'. There is a quick battle as she sends out her Machop and Meditite, but Ralts and Chikorita very quickly send Josée's team packing. Josée actually thinks that I am somewhere along rank H or G, which is very flattering. Ivor is impressed by the fight, and deduces that he 'can think of only one explanation'... that I have mastered having my Pokemon... learn... moves. 

...

Okay. I know it's just probably meant to be a tutorial for the four-move system, but I giggled even harder. We've gone through quite a bit more in the game that the concept of moves isn't even new, but Ivor is treating the fact that "you know that Pokemon can use moves!" as some groundbreaking, zen ability that most people aren't aware of. I think he might be my favourite crazy NPC in this game. I suppose his goal is a bit more noble than Zach's. 

Ivor then realizes he should not be revealing his tricks of the trade (the tricks that Pokemon use moves) because we might have to fight him in the Z-A Tournament. Out of respect for my strength, yes, my completely intimidating level 13 Chikorita, Ivor decides to leave me for today. Yes, be intimidated by my cute Pear! 

Ivor leaves, and Taunie rightfully calls him as someone off the rails. She lets me explore Wild Zone 3, which is a park divided into four quadrants. There are some brambles blocking parts of the area. The most intuitive thing is to use Fire on them, which I have access to thanks to Fletchling... but apparently any sufficiently powerful move like Chikorita's Razor Leaf can shred the brambles. I have a feeling that this might've been changed in development? This really felt like a Pokemon Ranger style barrier. 

In the center of the park are adorable little Flabebes flying around, and each quadrant has its own mostly Kalosian Pokemon. A group of Skiddos hang out on one end; very skittish Espurr on another corner; very aggressive Litleos on the third corner; and good ol' mascot Pikachu on the final one. The Litleos are super-duper aggressive and will chase you around, while Espurrs will teleport away immediately if you fail in sneaking up to them. Oh, and Pancham also appears sometimes. 

The moves thing actually does matter, because while Binacle has a super-effective Water Gun against Litleo, it's just one out of his two starting moves and Binacle can't actually spam damaging moves since Water Gun is on cooldown. Interesting! So Ivor does have a point. 

I reorder my party a bit to get rid of a lot of the early-route Pokemon and bring a bit more of the Galarian Pokemon, and then head off to meet Taunie in front of the Looker Bureau. Waiting for us is Mimi the Espurr! Hi Mimi, you are adorable, and I love the dead-fish eyes of Espurr and the :c expression but the absolutely adorable little nub-hands. I remembered being unimpressed with Espurr when I first saw leaked images of it online, but its animations in the game really endeared this thing to me. 

We enter the Looker Bureau and Emma seems to be deep in thought, eyes closed and arms in a steeple position. Taunie waxes some lyrical about Emma, noting that she is calm and collected all the time, a true detective. And then Emma goes... "zzz" to Taunie's surprise. She's sleeping! Power-napping! Don't judge her, Taunie! I love how Emma immediately goes straight into speaking and brushing off getting caught sleeping with absolutely zero guilt at all. That is how you should own your power naps!

More interestingly, Taunie tells me that she was in a rough spot back then, wandering the streets and keeling over until Emma found her and brought her to AZ. Interesting! A lot of mysteries are being built up, but we're not getting much answers. I am actually quite invested.

Mimi recruits me for her detective work. She frames it as also being helpful since I would familiarize myself to the Lumiose City map and citizens, but... but honestly, helping Mimi and doing missions is a lot more appealing for me personally to do than doing the Z-A battle royale! This unlocks side missions, which are the side-quests in Legends Arceus. 

At this point, I finally have free rein over Lumiose City! Hooray, I can wander around now! A lot of the Wild Zones are still not activated, I don't think, but I'm being a good boy and doing the three side-quests that are marked on my map. 

The first mission is with Moire, an old lady who lost her wedding ring in the Dormez Bien Cemetery. And somehow, they turned the cemetery into Wild Zone 4... which feels very irresponsible for the city to allow a cemetery to be turned into a Wild Zone! Even with the existence of Ghost-type Pokemon, it feels kind of disrespectful to the people interred there and their families! Makes for a really cool video game exploration area, though. 

Dormez Bien Cemetery is... well, a cemetery! I love how there are Spinaraks just casually chilling on the side of the crypts, including a building with like six of them clustering together. I feel like the game designers could've added some webbing to where they were at, though. Gastly also just roam the air around the cemetery, which is surprising that they're doing so in the day... but I suppose cemeteries are also creepy in the day? Eh.

Ekans also lurk around in the location, and I love how the game makes use of Ekans' slithering animation to have it move around. Love it! For most of the 3D games, Ekans just tends to be depicted coiled up since that's how the 3D sprite is. The games really don't make maximum usage of the walking animation yeah? 

At the end of the graveyard is the Sableye, who we challenge to get the ring back. The little goblin screeches, and I fight Sableye with my Chikorita. Chikorita knows Disarming Voice, which is a Fairy-type move, which... is interesting, and might be a clue to Mega Meganium? I remain unspoiled, still! I beat up Sableye, fail to catch it... but get the ring back. Moire thanks me, and is apparently surprised that the Sableye was carrying the ring around. This leads her to the morbid but kinda cute admission that she would like it that if she dies, she would like it if a Sableye would take her ring from her grave and appreciate it. I mean... sure, I guess. 

At this point I start running around and exploring around a bit. Tarragon and his crew left a lot of weird parkour scaffolding with neon arrows and stuff that let me climb up, and I just have some fun going around rooftops and talking to people. One of the NPCs lament the loss of the Gogoat Shuttle, which used to be around in XY. The Gogoat became way too skittish once Wild Zones started popping up all around the city. I manage to catch an Abra that's just floating in some roof, which is a bit news to me -- apparently wild Pokemon do also exist out of Wild Zones! Some Espurr are also hiding in little balconies, and walking around in the overworld lets me see that some trees have Kakuna in them. Again... this makes me love the game a lot more because the Wild Zones are nice, but having some Pokemon 'overflow' out into the overworld is quite cool. Some of the other Pokemon I found are blue-flower Flabebe, and some Pidgey that evaded my capture. There is also a big scary Pidgeotto, though it's a lot more manageable when you can sneak-ball it. 

One of the rooftops has a level 18 Swirlix floating around that wiped out half of my party, particularly since it has the high ground and floats around. Not cool, Swirlix! I also find like a little farmer's market selling berries and feathers, and among the shopkeepers is just a Spritzee that's just... floating there. I thought it was some trainer's Pokemon until I was clicking random buttons and the game locked in on Spritzee. 

The second side-quest is relatively simple, although it did distract me quite a bit. This takes place within a huge fashion district location, with a lot of customization options. At least, a lot compared to previous Pokemon games. I still maintain that one of the biggest travesties of Scarlet and Violet is to only give us four terrible-looking uniforms for almost the entirety of the game. There is a lady called Tracie there who has brought a Thunder Stone, and wants to look for a Pikachu to evolve it to.

...Team Rocket from the anime could do that all along? Ha! 

This introduces us to trading, because she ends up trading her Heracross ('Bois') to us! Heracross is relevant because it's a potential Mega-Evolution. The lady evolves the Pikachu to Raichu, which is a bit neat considering how much out of focus Raichu has been throughout the franchise's history. I half-expected the Pikachu to pull off something similar to the anime and refuse to evolve. But no, the Pikachu evolves to Raichu, and the lady is happy... until she reads the pokedex and learns that Raichus shock their trainers all the time if they build up electricity. Er... good for you, I'll be off with Bois. 

My final side-quest involves an overly-excited backpacker called Trevelle, who keeps yelling his words. He has met a great, big... BUNNELBY! Twice as large as his own Bunnelby! It's got glowing eyes, and Trevelle actually points out what I observed moments ago... that there are wild Pokemon outside of the Wild Zones. Trevelle leads me to an alley where he saw the offending Bunnelby. It is... quite surreal, seeing a larger Bunnelby with glowing red eyes yelling "BUNNAAAAAAA!!!"

Trevelle finds it huge, terrifying and awesome, and leaves me to fight and take it down. It is still a Bunnelby, but a Bunnelby that knows Earth Power. The ground around me keeps exploding, and it feels so cool, again, to see this in a 3D game. I actually had to roll around to avoid Bunnelby's Earth Powers, that's not something I expected to write when I got up today. 

Trevelle tells us that this reminds him of something... something he read before. A long time ago, in a different region, people used to live in fear of giant ferocious Pokemon with glowing eyes called... Alpha Pokemon. Which is cool, it's a nice callback to the previous Legends game, Legends Arceus in Hisui. But Trevelle lampshades something important. How is it that these Alpha Pokemon have made their way into modern-day Lumiose? Why and how? 

I have an inkling that this might be the threat that AZ is assembling young fighters for, but we'll find out next time, I guess! I'm having a bit too much fun just running around Lumiose and exploring it now that I have full free rein over it.

Random Notes:

• A slight gag is that there seem to only be five people with Ivor, so if Josée is the fifth-strongest, she's the weakest of their little band!
• There is a random Nurse Joy that used to be a crepe seller, until she decided to convert her crepe cart into a portable Pokemon Center. Okay, Crepe Joy! 
  
• Really love that Mimi kind of randomly teleports from the floor to a little chair with a cushion as the Emma scene goes on. I don't think she even teleports on-screen, she just appears on the elevated chair as the scene goes on. Mimi's a Psychic-type, she can absolutely do that!
• We get to see pictures on Emma's office of Mimi playing with Looker, helping him to write on his book. Yay Looker! A bit more surprisingly is Mimi playing with Xerosic. Xerosic and Emma had a bit of a complex relationship in XY, so I think this implies that this might be after Xerosic did his time in jail, perhaps? He didn't have a change of heart until the end of the XY story missions with Emma, and Mimi wouldn't be friendly with Xerosic until then. 
• I love how Moire notes that Sableye is a Pokemon that's only weak to Fairy type.  Oh, there was once a time when Sableye's whole deal is that it's the only Pokemon without a weakness at all! How have times changed...
• 'Dormez Bien' means sleep well in French. 
• I can finally go to the Introversion Cafe and order some coffee or tea, but it seems to just be an excuse for me to sit on the chair with some food and drinks in front of me, and Chikorita chilling next to me. I mean, okay, it's cute. 
• I find a hidden back entrance to Wild Zone 1, and catch a lone Pichu hiding in a fenced-off area that would be inaccessible from the tutorial area. 
• I got a bunch of new TMs from Mable's research, including some of the elemental fangs, Mud Shot and Protect. Protect is particularly interesting because now you actually have to time to get the Protect shield up! Again, this sort of mechanic in a Pokemon game is just so surprising to me. 
  
• Perhaps this will get a bit more obvious as the articles come out, but I am hella busy in October and November, and I played Pokemon Legends Z-A in huge bursts of time, and also pre-write these articles essentially during those bursts of time, so there's definitely a lag between when I experience something in the game and when I write about it in the blog. 

Reviewing D&D Monsters - 5E Monster Manual, Pt 12 (Lizardfolk to Mind Flayer)

It is kind of surprising the amount of entries I stuffed into certain articles back in the past. At this point I'm just breaking them up by an approximately similar amount of length, but I really did breeze through a lot of the monsters back in 2019 without giving them the time of the day. I thought it would really be fast once I got through the giant mass of demons, devils and dragons, but I am quite pleased to talk about a lot more monsters now. 

This one contains a couple of very iconic monsters. Sure, we've got the Merfolk, the Lizardfolk and the many Werebeasts... but most importantly we've reached two of D&D's most famous original IP monsters... the Mind Flayers and the Mimics! The Mimics have basically became an iconic piece of fantasy and gaming media nowadays, and the Mind Flayers are probably one of the 'faces' of D&D alongside the Beholder as far as monsters go.

I was sorting out the entries in the Monster Manual, and assuming I do a couple of entries for the appendix and the playable races/classes, I do think we'll hit a nice even 20 with the volumes. Afterwards, I am debating a bit on whether I'll do some newer material and adventures first, or if I'll jump straight into the two bestiaries merged into Monsters of the Multiverse. I did really think a lot of the older adventure modules could really use a lot of tightening. I don't mind doing a bunch of what's essentially 'NPC' statblocks when I review the appendices for the Monster Manual or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but I don't think that's what's most interesting about the adventure books. 

Click here for the previous part
Click here for the next part

Click here for the index.

[originally published in December 2019; revised in October 2025]

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Lizardfolk

• 5E: Medium Humanoid; Neutral; CR 1/2
• 5E/5.5E: Medium Elemental; Neutral; CR 2 (Shaman/Geomancer), 4 (Lizard King or Queen/Sovereign)

Another favourite race is the Lizardfolk. Previously ‘Lizardmen’ in older material, any whatever-men species have been rather consistently turned into -folk, which I think makes quite a bit of sense. As their name implies, the Lizardfolk are just… huge, bipedal lizards! This allows for quite a bit of variety in looks, with various editions going for more threatening and scalier crocodilian aesthetics. Other takes might go for something more colourful, or dinosaur-inspired. It is quite necessary to distinguish them a bit from the Kobolds that take up the more fragile-looking reptilian niche, and the Lizardfolk tend to be portrayed as being bulkier and more feral. 5E doesn’t go full-in on being crocodilian, but they do look nicely bulky with some prominent colourful fins. 

In 5E, particularly in the supplement of Volo’s Guide to Monsters, much emphasis is placed on the Lizardfolk being primitive folk with a completely alien sense of culture towards most of the world, not caring much about money or property. Their view of morality and even death is different, and they tend to be content on just maintaining their swamps and jungles. A lot of a Lizardfolk’s world-view tends to revolve around what it views as its clan or pack, and they are fiercely territorial not out of hate for other races but out of protectiveness. While the wording used for some of these might be a bit more… shall we say ‘outdated’, I feel like the idea of a culture with very alien values is very valid to put in any RPG world. 

And it’s not like the Lizardfolk is always portrayed as primitive either, because even in 5E it’s noted that any Lizardfolk that was forced into alliance with nearby kingdoms or settlements of non-Lizardfolk will become the most steadfast allies. It’s just this initial bout of diplomacy that tends to be difficult. 

Lizardfolk do bear the brunt of a lot of unfortunate ‘tribal primitives’ stereotypes, but… again, I feel that there are ways to rework this instead of reducing them into statblocks with two sentences in 5.5E. Much worse, I think, is that the 5.5E Monster Manual retcons the Lizardfolk into Elementals, which makes absolutely no sense. I can see why some of the categorization changes were done, and in some I could see it going either way. But there is absolutely no explanation as to why the Lizardfolk – which has never been associated with any of the elemental planes, or be more associated with elemental magic than any other humanoid species, is suddenly considered ‘elementals’. There is only a vague ‘some of them forge pacts with the Elemental Earth’, which… humans and elves and dwarves do that too, but they’re not all considered elementals suddenly.  

There is also a bit of backstory towards the most powerful Lizardfolk variant – either the ‘Lizard King/Lizard Queen’ in 5E and pre-5E material, or ‘Lizard Sovereign’ in 5.5E. Normally, Lizardfolk worship a pantheon of gods led by the lizard god Semuanya; but sometimes the touch of the demon lord Sess’ienk will corrupt individuals to turn them into Lizard Kings/Queens, usurping their traditional shamanistic leadership and driving the tribe into aggressive frenzy. 

Again, I do agree that some of the wordings and maybe some specific aspects (like the ‘human sacrifice religion’) might need to be toned down as D&D reaches an even bigger audience. But to eliminate everything and reduce Lizardfolk, Drow and Orc into just pictures with no context is not much better, I feel. 

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Lycanthrope

I’ve always found the Lycanthropes to be quite interesting in how it’s handled in D&D. They never, I feel, get quite the same amount of love like a lot of other iconic horror monsters – especially compared to their opposite number, the Vampire. With the Lycanthrope, there’s always a half-dozen of Lycanhtrope options in any edition’s main Monster Manual… but it all ends up just being a choice of what animal you’re feeling like turning into. This feels a lot less special, by the way, when the Druid class already allows you to transform into any other animal you’ve seen and not locking you to a single one; and there are many playable races like the Tabaxi, Kenku, Lizardfolk, Minotaur and many others that let you play as a straight-up half-beast humanoid.

The idea for a Lycanthrope and what makes them different, I suppose, is that it’s borne by a curse, and it’s something that most of its bearers have to struggle with. Lycanthrope can transform – similar to the Jackalweres we covered earlier – from a regular human, to version of their animal form, to the infamous were-animal form where they are a bipedal version of their chosen animal. They often transform in animal or hybrid form at night, especially under the full moon… but isn’t locked specifically to that. Which I suppose in gameplay perspective does make sense practically; it’s not fun for the gimmick of either the villains or the player characters be stymied because it’s the wrong time of the night. 

5E describes two variations of the curse. A ‘natural-born’ Lycanthrope is born out of two Lycanthrope parents; while an ‘afflicted’ Lycanthrope is one who was bitten or wounded by a Lycanthrope. And these Lycanthropes can either resist the curse, where they often have to fight against their base urges but are forced to transform under a full moon. And just like the most famous Wolfman movies, sometimes they aren’t aware that they have even transformed. Those that accept the curse can master their shapechanging, and can do so at will… which might be cool, but again, without much mechanical rules it makes it not that much different from a barbarian’s rage or a druid’s wild shape. 

The original 5E Monster Manual does have a whole sidebar about changing a player character or NPC into one of the five basic Lycanthrope variants introduced in the book, but to be frank it’s basically just a lot of stat adjustments. I think they really should’ve committed to some kind of mechanic to make the Lycanthropic curse actually feel like something cool to overcome and eventually master, but it overall just feels like a bit of an afterthought. I really did feel like the Lycanthrope stuff should’ve been reworked into an actual Class or Species/Race instead of an afterthought, which would allow the players to properly engage with more involved mechanics. As it is, the best you could do to roleplay a Lycanthrope would be to flavour a Barbarian. In a setting like D&D, it is also a lot less special to turn into an animal with druids walking around everywhere, or even being a half-animal person with so many animal-people races around. Perhaps they should have integrated the werewolf-vs-vampire popular media trope, and make Lycanthropy grant immunities to mind control or undeath, or something along those lines? As it is, it really isn't much of a benefit to the Lycanthropy curse other than the 'coolness' factor, which I mention is a fair bit diluted in this world. 

As a side-note, 5.5E combines the artworks for the Werebear, Wereboar and Wererat above. Normally I would place all the 5th Edition artwork together above the individual monster entry, but in this case it's really a bit hard to extricate them. 

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Lycanthrope - Werebear

• 5.5E/5E: Medium or Small Humanoid; Neutral Good; CR 5

I do quite appreciate that even from the earliest days of the 1st Edition, the designers wanted there to be various types of Lycanthropes based on different animals. Some editions (particularly 3E) go a bit too wild by having essentially the entire zoo be available as a were-beast option, while 5E limits it to around a half-dozen. How innately ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the Lycanthrope is tends to be governed by the stereotypical image of the beast. 

Which is why one of the most strongest Lycanthropes, the Werebear, is counted as a ‘neutral good’ creature. It’s perhaps more of a Western-culture thing, but the Werebears are noted to be able to control their violent impulses. They tend to be loners, keeping to remote jungles and mountains so they don’t accidentally injure innocent beings around it. 5.5E even note that Werebears often aid druids and fey in protecting natural habitats, and even are often transformed because of it. Oh, as usual, in a nice little bit of customization, 5.5E notes that Werebears often take the form of whatever bear is local to their chosen area – brown bears, polar bears, black bears… 

5E also gives us a bit of lore, noting that Werebears passes on its lycanthropic curse to those that it views as companions or apprentices, and tends to avoid biting in combat to prevent an epidemic of Werebears. Again, it is an interesting take on the Lycanthropy angle… it’s just such a shame that the actual statblocks are honestly not very interesting. A Werebear, transformed into a bear or its full hybrid form, is just a big ball of melee attacks. Which, to be fair, is something you expect from a half-man, half-bear… but at the same time I feel like there could be a lot more mechanics that revolve around all the lycanthropes’ curse-passing or transformation.

With all my ranting, you would think that I don’t like the Lycanthropes. But I do! I really do. I just wished they were executed a lot better, instead of being reduced as a weird afterthought hidden in the Monster Manual. 

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Lycanthrope - Wereboar

• 5.5E/5E: Medium or Small Humanoid; Neutral Evil; CR 4

Yep, boars, wolves and bears tend to be the ‘holy trinity’ of early-game beasts in a fantasy video game, so I suppose it tracks that the Wereboar represents the porcine beasts among the Lycanthropes. The Wereboar is noted to be ill-tempered and vulgar, and are classified as evil. Their design, again, isn’t much to write home about – all the artwork are competent, but at the end of the day it’s juts a portly pig-man. 

Wereboars are noted to inflict creatures indiscriminately as it charges through crowds and goring all they can. I don’t know if this little detail is meant to be applicable to all Lycanthropic curses or just the Wereboar curse specifically, but they relish the fact that “the more the victims resist the cures, the more savage and bestial they become.” Interestingly, the Wereboars apparently have a unique society where they live in small family groups in remote areas, unlike the loner Werebears.

5.5E gives us a short blurb but one that has a rather interesting little gem, noting that some Wereboars involuntarily transform any time they perform a greedy or selfish act. I feel like the various Lycanthropes really could have benefited and be more memorable with these kinds of differentiators. The idea that ALL Werebears are quiet nature-loving loners, and ALL Wereboars are chaotic bastards charging through crowds to spread their curse feels a bit weird since theoretically anyone that’s injured can get the curse. Something that’s tied to aspects of their biology and behaviour, like transforming due to emotional states, feels like they would distinguish the different Lycanthropes a lot more than just ‘choose which cartoon animal you want to be’. 

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Lycanthrope - Wererat

• 5.5E/5E: Medium or Small Humanoid; Lawful Evil; CR 2

Probably my favourite out of the five ‘basic’ Lycanthropes in terms of design is the skittish Wererat. The weakest of the five Lycanthropes due to the fact that rats are much smaller than bears or wolves; Wererats have the personality associated with rats in popular media. They are sly, greedy, and often sneak around and ambush their enemies. I also should note that D&D Lycanthropes have some tics in their human forms that might give them away as Lycanthropes, and for the Wererat they tend to have thin hair, darting eyes and look wirier than a regular specimen of their humanoid species.

Wererat clans operate like a thieves’ guild, lurking in the fringes of society and within their sewers and back-alleys. Wererats sneak around and use their ability to turn into rats as a way to ambush, steal and assassinate. I didn’t quite realize that the ability to shrink to the size of a rat would be particularly useful for a sneaky organization. And just like the Werebear, apparently the Wererats tend to transmit this curse only to new recruits of their clan, and they hunt down and kill traitors as well as anyone who have contracted the Wererat curse accidentally. I feel like this a much more believable way to have an entire species of monsters always be in a similar society – if they had such a strict, cult-like code. 

Again, 5.5E adds a bit of a little condition that distinguishes the Wererat from other Lycanthropes. Wererats sometimes are compelled to shapeshift when they are exposed to complete darkness, or specifically nights of a new moon. It’s a nice twist on the classic full moon of a Werewolf, and again I really did wish that they had put a bit more thought to the differences beyond just whatever animal trope comes to mind first.

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Lycanthrope: Weretiger

• 5.5E/5E: Medium or Small Humanoid; Neutral; CR 4

The Weretigers, I feel, are extra weird to be included in the main Monster Manual since they share the same ‘core’ book as a different and more interesting race of tiger-men, the Rakshasa. They did really look a bit too 'soft' in their 5E art, too. Weretigers are noted to be ferocious and haughty, focusing on the hunt. They live in jungles where they can hunt, and tend to not like to spread their curse for fear of competition in their territory… which… sure? Their penchant for hunting translates to a bunch of bonuses to their stealthing and tracking.

In 5.5E, Weretigers are noted to be tied to ‘the crescent moon, seasons or momentous events’. Very ambiguous, isn’t it? And they were doing so well with the last two Lycanthropes! I do like the added context that some Weretigers view their abilities as a family honour, and they are often defending something of historic importance like a legendary weapon or a sacred proving grounds. It’s not much, but it’s something, I suppose? 

Again, I feel like they really could have done a lot more to distinguish these Lycanthropes instead of just relying on the animal they turn into. The Wererat stuff feels probably the most fleshed-out, but I would really like to know why the Weretiger curse is specifically tied to guarding things. Was it invented by some royal family? Where do these curses come from, anyway? As much as I was uninterested in talking about the Giants, at least they gave me a lot of material to work with.

As a side-note... yeah, that 1st Edition artwork for the Weretiger is... is certainly... something.

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Lycanthrope: Werewolf

• 5.5E/5E: Medium or Small Humanoid; Chaotic Evil; CR 3

And now we end the Lycanthrope segment with the most iconic creature, the one that everyone in pop culture knows… the Werewolf. Everyone knows what a Werewolf looks like. Head of a wolf; a furry muscular body; claws; doggy legs; and a compulsion to transform at a full moon. And the Werewolf in 5E is noted to have everything associated with the Werewolf in popular media. They have a fiery temper, prefer to rend their foes apart, and are driven by pure instinct. 

Werewolves often flee civilized lands after being cursed, fearing what they will do if they remain among friends and family. Even those that embrace the curse try to use their transformation as a way to hide their murderous acts. And… and in the wild, they also form packs with wolves and direwolves, which allows it to use its ‘pack tactics’. 

That’s about it for the Werewolf itself, and part of it is because all the Lycanthropes do share a lot of the features from the long opening ‘Lycanthropes’ section that apply to all of them. A lot of the werewolf/lycanthrope tropes were all kind of piled up on top of each other in that rather long one-pager, but it's at least something that allows you to draw ideas to run your Were-beasts. 5.5E's Monster Manual doesn't even have all of those... but I digress. I think I've complained about the 5.5E Manual's organization enough in this review series. 

Again, I really do feel like the poor Lycanthropes really could have used a lot more attention and even abilities. The fact is, they just don’t really feel particularly special when any random Barbarian is likely to also be dealing with rage-control issues; when Druids and beast-men races cover the part-animal vibe; and there are a lot of more interesting avenues to roleplay curses or a split personality. They did list a lot of tropes related to Werewolves but not much mechanically that’s interesting. Where Vampires or Hags receive so much powers due to the designers drawing from a lot of different sources, the Werewolves are ultimately just slightly-stronger beasts that can sometimes use weapons, and are perhaps one of the poster boys for D&D monsters that rely more on the audience and DM’s familiarity with the tropes more than anything. 

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Magmin

• 5.5E/5E: Small Elemental; Chaotic Neutral; CR 1/2

The Magmin is an interesting one. It is a bit neat to have more ‘lesser’ elementals to fight just from a dungeon master standpoint, and the Magmin fills the role of a tiny little creature to fight. Magmins are essentially little grinning gremlins made of magma, and you can see flames rising up from its head and hands. The backstory is that Magmins are fire elemental spirits that are bound into physical forms after being summoned, so they kind of fall into that ‘specialized elemental’ that I mentioned before with Invisible Stalkers. 

The Magmin itself has a very simple personality. As the 5.5E Manual notes: “Magmins divide all things into two categories: things that are on fire and things that should be on fire.” I can respect that! With the manic jack-o-lantern grins that the 5E artwork gives it, you can honestly guess their personality quite easily, yeah? Being simple happy elemental beings, they don’t even necessarily care for the destruction of it all, they just are incapable of viewing other things as anything other than kindling. Explaining these concepts to them is futile, due to their completely different outlook on life. 

A Magmin’s behaviour is simple – they set themselves on fire, run around and set everything else on fire, and if they die… they explode into even more fire. Interestingly, their rocky-magma outer shell does limit the extent of its pyromania, since the idea is that summoners would not want to use the Magmin as a more directed attack dog.

One little side-note is that the Magmin (or sometimes ‘Magmen’) have shown up in most editions, but never in particularly ‘main’ bestiaries. In past editions they have merely been weird little dudes on fire, looking particularly fleshy and not too elemental-y in their first two incarnations. I do really like their 5E redesign quite a bit. I think it’s that face. 

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Manticore

• 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity; Lawful Evil; CR 3

Always the subject of rather impressive artworks is the Manticore, with both of its 5th Edition artworks looking very impressive compared to its surprisingly low challenge rating. The Manticore hails from Persian legends, and they are giant lions with draconic wings (the wings are a D&D addition), the head of a human, and thorns all around its mane and tail. I say ‘head of a human’, but that honestly looks quite monstrous with a mouth that looks disproportionately too large for the face. The text doesn't mention it, but 5E actually does seem to adapt the 'three rows of teeth' that the classical Manticore would have, which does make that head look particularly monstrous. I would also like to take note of the rather disturbing 3E Manticore as well, whose ‘human’ head looks so malformed next to the emaciated leopard body that it really does dip into uncanny valley territory. 

In combat, the Manticore is delightfully simple, just flying around as the giant lion-dragon that it is, and showing tail spikes from its tail to impale people at range. Because yes, those spikes on the Manticore’s tail are detachable and meant to be used as projectiles. But I also feel like it’s something meant to be a cool visual spectacle than anything. 

The Manticore’s lore isn’t particularly fancy. The are fierce killers that hunt prey, and can work in packs to bring down larger enemies. They are territorial and fight against other winged beasts like chimeras, griffons and wyverns. Oh, they also eat humans, because of course the do. It’s also noted that they are sapient enough to converse, and in the course of attacking, it will mock its foes and offer to kill them swiftly if they would beg for their lives. Again, being an intelligent creature does mean that there is room for negotiation, particularly if you could appease the Manticore with favours or gifts. 

Pretty cool classic mythological creature, and I do find it a bit of a shame that the Manticore flies under the radar a bit.

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Medusa

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Monstrosity; Lawful Evil; CR 6

I have gone on the rant on the ‘Gorgon vs. Medusa’ thing when I talked about D&D’s Gorgon before, but I will reiterate it quickly – in Greek myth, Medusa is the name of a single individual, a member of the Gorgon Sisters. D&D has elected to use the Medusa as the name of the species instead. 

And the adaptation is more or less straightforward, Medusas are women with snake hair and the ability to petrify with a gaze. We’ve already had a couple of other monsters with petrification abilities, but the Medusa might prove to be dangerous for the reason that they are sentient beings. And in case they are unable to catch you with their gaze, they also have the ability to conjure poison blasts. 

Whereas the classical Medusa causes anyone that gazes upon its visage to turn into stone, it’s a bit more impractical in D&D on the poor monster’s side so it’s changed to the Medusa cursing whatever she looks at. It is notable that this doesn’t change the Medusa’s classic weakness, since looking at a mirror still causes the Medusa to turn itself to stone since she would be gazing upon herself. Also, I am quite happy that they gave the Medusa a fully humanoid body, since thanks to the movie ‘Clash of the Titans’, so many modern depiction of Medusas give it the lower body of a snake.

The relative beauty of the Medusa is also subject to change from edition to edition, with 3E and 4E giving her a monstrous look, 2E being near-indistinguishable from a human, and 5E doing an ‘otherworldly beauty’ vibe by giving the Medusae a statue-like countenance. I actually really like this, newest redesign, and I particularly like the 5.5E one with the far more prominent snake-hair. Having a statue-like stony body also allows the Medusa to hide amongst the petrified statues of her victims, which is a nice, creepy little bonus. 

Just like their Greek myth inspirations, it is noted that the Medusae are transformed from an immortal curse related to their vanity… whoever causes it, be it a god, a devil, or anything else. 5.5E expands this a bit, giving a bunch of other potential origin stories like a cursed treasure in a ruin, created whole-cloth by a god, a bite from a magical serpent, or simply being born a Medusa for no reason. I do like the origin stories that tie to vanity, though, which feels a lot more on-brand for these beings who want the world to look at them, but will turn those that do into stone. 

As a side-note, while the Medusa join a lot of other ‘previously single-gender species’ monsters to get both genders represented, male Medusae have always been an obscure variant in older editions – called the Maedar, they’re just more rare and less combative than the female. Even the first 5E manual has already noted that the Medusa curse could affect anyone vain enough, and it doesn’t have to be a woman. So this one actually fits a lot neater into older edition lore!

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Mephits

• 5.5E/5E: Small Elemental; Neutral Evil; CR 1/2 (Dust), 1/2 (Ice), 1/2 (Magma), 1/4 (Mud), 1/4 (Smoke), 1/4 (Steam)

It is admittedly a bit vexing that the relatively uninteresting Mephits always get multiple pages in the 5th Edition Monster Manuals when entries like Faerie Dragons and Lizardfolk are reduced to barely more than three sentences. I am sorry, but the Mephits just aren’t that interesting either visually, lore-wise or even mechanically to justify taking up multiple pages.

Originally classified as ‘elemental imps’ in the earliest days of D&D before the lore about the different planes were more defined, that is exactly what a Mephit is. They are tiny little guys with sharp, dagger-like noses and heads, wings, and a body made up of their corresponding element. As the 5.5E artwork shows, Mephits are just chaotic little tricksters that go around causing havoc and breaking everything in their path. When not associated with a stronger summoner, they tend to indulge in their overblown senses of ego and twisted humour.  

The idea is that Mephits represent the ‘para-elemental’ planes, borders where two of the main elemental planes clash with each other to create a brand new element. So the Dust Mephit is a Mephit made up of dust, which is the combination of earth and air. The Dust Mephit has a bit of an interesting note where they are drawn to catacombs and find death morbidly fascinating… which, I suppose, is a pun on the ‘dust to dust’ phrase people say in funerals. 

The Ice Mephit (air and water) is pretty much what you’d expect, though. They like the cold, their personality is equally cold, and they are aloof and play cruel pranks. So cruel, like dropping ice down someone’s clothes! The Magma Mephit (fire and earth) is interestingly not a pyromaniac like the Magmin, but rather is slow and dim-witted. It’s an unexpected reference to how slow magma actually moves, which is kind of an interesting thread to pull since normally any magma-themed monster tend to be saddled with explosive anger. 5.5E actually adds a new bit of lore that says that Magma Mephits hate Magmins, and the two will attack each other on sight. Huh! 

Mud Mephits (earth and water) look the most gross, and they just have a nasty personality of attention-seeking and constant complaining. They also like to pollute food and water that they see. Smoke Mephits (air and fire) have a personality that feel a bit less tied to their element, being noted to be lazy liars who mock others. Steam Mephits (fire and water) are bossy and hyper-sensitive, and apparently leave noisy hisses of steam as they move. The Steam Mephit is the one that might be a bit more malicious, often actively tricking other creatures into deals and reneging on rewards. They also appoint themselves as the ‘overlords of the Mephits’,a totally grandiose title that I assume the other Mephits don't care about. It is a bit funny because even the 5E Manuals puts the Steam Mephit at a lower CR compared to half of the gang. . 

All the Mephits have more or less the same set of ability – a breath weapon (sometimes with an extra debilitating effect), a claw attack, maybe an extra weak spell and the ability to explode upon death. Some Mephits are able to disguise themselves as just a clump of mud. Okay. I must admit that I tend to gloss over the Mephits and just enjoy the admittedly cool artwork during most of my reading through the Monster Manual. I definitely appreciate them slightly more thanks to actually sitting down and properly reading the personalities assigned to them… but they’re still not my favourite creatures in this manual. 

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Merfolk

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Humanoid (5E), Elemental (5.5E); Neutral; CR 1/8 (Skirmisher)
• 5.5E: Medium Elemental; Neutral; CR 6 (Wavebender)

Merfolk – somewhat more commonly known as ‘Merman’ or ‘Mermaids’ in pop culture and in older editions – are another staple in fantasy, although probably not as iconic as a lot of the other classic fantasy races. Hans Christian Anderssen’s The Little Mermaid is a seminal and iconic piece of literature, but I must confess that I haven’t really paid that much attention to Merfolk in D&D. A Merfolk’s visual design is relatively obvious – human upper body, but a long fish tail instead of legs. 5E tends to go for a design that gives the human half blue skin and a bunch of fins and fishy elements to make the Merfolk a bit more interesting, which I am all for. I’m not sure when I first saw Merfolk that had these kinds of adornments instead of being the upper body of a human superglued to a fish… it would probably be Magic: The Gathering?

The lore given in 5E is that Merfolk are essentially the ‘humans’ of the sea, being extremely diverse and having kingdoms that span the entire ocean floor. I suppose this is to make them contrast against the Sea Elves, Tritons, and the other dozen fish-people races. Merfolk are described to be quite variable, so you can have your fishy-looking Merpeople as shown in the 5E art, or you can have the more classical, very human-looking Disney Mermaids. 

Merfolk are another victim of 5.5E reducing their lore into basically almost nothing in favour for a second, stronger stat-block. Literally, their lore is reduced to ‘Some are curious about land dwellers, while others view them with suspicion.’ Like the Lizardfolk, they also get retconned into being elementals, though it’s a bit easier to swallow with a species that spends most of its life underwater. The Merfolk’s 5E entry, meanwhile, almost takes up its entire page. The Merfolk are essentially portrayed as existing in two kinds of societies – some of them are just capricious and maybe sometimes fall in love with humans; while others form massive settlements in underwater cities, where they have a society of farming coral and shepherding schools of fish. They tend not to venture too deep into the oceans, and even if they do, they tame powerful aquatic beasts to aid them.

Overall, I’ve always found that D&D’s 5th Edition have really tried to push some aquatic races, but for some reason kept introducing similar ones instead of trying to go deep on any one of theirs. I am frankly surprised that the Merfolk didn’t get a playable variant that features the mythological ability of an older Mermaid to transform her fish-legs into regular human feet! Again, while I personally am not chomping at the bit for the Merfolk as a concept, I really felt like they could’ve done a lot more with them instead of ‘Atlantis and the Little Mermaid tropes, idk’.

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Merrow

• 5.5E/5E: Large Monstrosity; Chaotic Evil; CR 2

We do also have evil Merfolk in the Merrow, which is mostly a 5E invention. The term ‘Merrow’ did appear in 2E before, but as an underwater ogre. The 5th Edition Merrow keeps the size of the Ogre, but has a really cool design of a monstrous, rabid giant Merfolk. In fact, both manuals emphasize the Merrow's resemblance to an Ogre quite a fair bit. I like the depiction on both the 5E and 5.5E artwork, with mean-looking fins all over the ‘humanoid’ part of the Merrow’s body, a massive set of fangs, beady eyes and tentacles lashing as a makeshift beard. It’s a very cool design all around!

The Merrow haunt waters where there are plenty of sentient species. They will look for merfolk, fishermen, and frankly anyone foolish enough to cross their path. They drag their prey down as captives in their larders, storing them for food. The 5E Monster Manual gives an origin story of the Merrow, informing us that they are a tribe of Merfolk who has been transformed by contact with an idol of Demogorgon – which decimated their society and transformed them and their descendants into Merrow. It is interesting that even with the 5.5E update that they’re not retconned into Fiends, when a lot of other monsters have been for far less connections to the Lower Planes. 

Other than the cool design, however, there isn’t really much to distinguish the Merrow from their fellow aquatic, fish-based raider race, the Sahuagin. Combat-wise the Merrow is also nothing particularly special, just having a bunch of generic attacks. With the Merfolk being updated to having a bunch of water spells, I really felt like the Merrow should have had a similar update as well, and might deserve it a bit more as they are more likely to be an antagonistic force. 

5.5E does note an interesting tidbit with the Merrow… they do resemble the Merfolk, and for sailors running for their lives from these fish-people, Merrow attacks often end up causing misunderstandings and conflicts with land-based humanoids who blame the local Merfolk kingdom for the raids on their people. And if nothing else, I really do like the art direction for the Merrow, which is probably one of the straight-up coolest sea monsters in this series. 

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Mimic

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Monstrosity; Neutral; CR 2

Perhaps one of the most significant contributions that Dungeons & Dragons did towards the world of fantasy gaming is the concept of a Mimic. The original D&D Monster Manual – which itself has been aped by so many other famous video games and tabletop RPGs – had a lot of creatures that were simply… just there, disguised as some aspect of the dungeon as a ‘gotcha’ to unassuming players. We’ve seen some of the remnants of these ‘gotcha’ enemies, like the Animated Objects, Stone Golem, Gas Spore, Cloakers and Darkmantles. But none are as iconic as the Mimic. 

Now, theoretically, even from its first appearance, the Mimic is a shapeshifter that can look like absolutely anything. But the most memorable artwork from the 1st Edition was a treasure chest sprouting a gooey arm to punch an adventurer in the face. And I think there’s just something so hilarious about having a treasure chest – something that promises reward, something that looks so wondrous and tantalizing… and it turns out to be something that sucker-punches you. 

From 2E onwards, the visual appearance of the Mimic has stuck to be a treasure chest that sprouts a massive fanged mouth on where the chest should be. It’s a rather cute bit of anthropomorphizing, where the hinges of a chest already look like a pair of jaws. 5E’s Mimic is particularly neat, with multiple rows of different-sized teeth, a massive tongue, and at least six eyes on the upper side of its face. 

Unlike an Animated Object, however, a Mimic is fully a living creature. A ‘monstrosity’, specifically. The wooden and metal texture it has are all just perfect mimicry! It is noted to attack with pseudopods, and it is noted to take the forms of inanimate objects that specifically can lure creatures to them. And what lures silly adventurers more than treasure chests? It’s a very valid predatory method used by many predators, like the anglerfish or the orchid mantis, and when the prey gets close enough the Mimic will reveal its true form and attempt to grapple the adventurer with its sticky pseudopods and consume them. The entirety of the inner side of its mouth is just fleshy muscle, which I thought was perfectly depicted in the recent D&D: Honor Among Thieves movie.

All in all, it is a very iconic monster – I love when the mechanics and gimmickry of a monster is actually justified with a fair bit of lore, and I just find it adorable that the reason a Mimic is the way it is can be traced to what’s essentially evolution and adaptation. The fact that the Mimic is canonically a shapeshifter also allows it to look quite a bit different depending on your preference, meaning that you could also give your Mimic pseudopod fists or claws like the artworks from previous editions. 

Now 5.5E expands a bit more on the Mimic lore, acknowledging perhaps for one of the few times outside of text that Mimics can mimic absolutely anything. The artwork for the 5.5E Mimic shows the iconic treasure chest Mimic, yes, but everything in that treasure room – from the barrel of gems, to the regal chair, to the helmet on the chair, and even a tiara on the corner of the picture – are all Mimics. 5.5E even notes that a Mimic’s natural form are ‘little more than roaming stomachs’, which is an interesting mental image. 5.5E gives a list of some 35 different options for a Mimic’s form, going from the classic chest to mundane items like mats, chandeliers and gravestones… to hilarious ones like ‘oversized cake’. Nothing can beat the classic chest, but I love the subversion, particularly when you are utilizing multiple Mimics in an encounter! 

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Mind Flayer / Illithid

• 5.5E/5E: Medium Aberration; Lawful Evil; CR 7 (Mind Flayer), CR 11 (Mind Flayer Arcanist)

And here we are, ending this segment with the Mind Flayer. Also known by their proper species name of the Illithid, The Mind Flayers are one of D&D's most iconic monsters. I feel they do a good job at presenting a relatively unique concept but in a lot of simple ways, that in turn are just all begging to be easily expanded upon. The Mind Flayers are squid-headed humanoids, they have weird psychic powers, and they feed on brains. All in all, the first impression of a Mind Flayer is a pretty simple, if slightly goofy, monster. The Cthulhu influence, particularly the squid head, is definitely not lost on people... and I feel like that specific visual look does make the Mind Flayer – and Cthulhu, for that matter – both simultaneously alien but also somewhat 'cool' or even 'cute' enough.

In addition to the visual appearances, Mind Flayers also share a fair amount of tropes with other Lovecraftian monsters. They are most commonly found in the Underdark, the winding network of underground caverns, but almost all material tend to hint that the Mind Flayer are strange aberrations that are simply... just not natural. Even their psionic powers are a step removed from regular magic. Depending on the edition, Mind Flayers could have come from the esoteric Far Realm, time-traveled from the future, and in 5E, from space. Indeed, many 5E adventures have featured the Mind Flayers' Nautiloid Ships that allow them to warp through space... as explored in our Spelljammer coverage. The 'time travel' bit has been dropped since 2E, but the idea of the Mind Flayers trying to restore a massive, once world-spanning empire, is still around. 

Mind Flayers aren't content to just eat brains, however. Mind Flayers have long plans that are often incomprehensible to humanoids, but they are also masters of experimentation. Just within the Monster Manual alone, the Mind Flayers are responsible for the creation of the Gith, the Duergar, the Intellect Devourer, the Grimlock, and maybe the Kuo-toa. All of these beings tend to come out of the Mind Flayers' experiments either utterly crazy, or vengeful with psionic powers. All of this ties to the fact that Mind Flayers are exceptionally poor physical fighters, which is why they are happy to enslave hordes of lesser 'grunt' species to fight and die for them.

Mind Flayers have quite a bit written about their biology and society, particularly, again, in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Mind Flayers live in colonies interconnected with hive-minds, and they all commune to the Elder Brain. Elder Brains are part of the Mind Flayer life cycle, being both a central hub and also a repository for the minds of an Illithid when they die. Being connected in this twisted hivemind, this causes most Mind Flayer to not fear death as much since their minds can be absorbed by the Elder Brain as a form of immortality. I do really like this hive-mind thing, and it all ties to the theme of a species that revolves so much around mental and psychic powers. 

Speaking of the life cycle, Mind Flayers reproduce by ceremorphosis. Inspired undoubtedly by things like the Alien franchise and real-life parasites, Mind Flayers will capture humanoids, and instead of consuming their brain, they will implant a Mind Flayer tadpole that will burrow into the minds of the victim and eventually transform them into a fully grown Mind Flayer. The cool high-collared gothic outfits come later on, I would assume. This, by the way, is the main plot of the seminal game Baldur's Gate 3, where the game's D&D party wakes up with these Mind Flayer tadpoles implanted in their bodies. (Which, by the way, the Lycans above wished they had been given the amount of care that D&D gave to the ceremorphosis!) Being a species that reproduces by essentially parasitizing other creatures and transforming their bodies, some of the newer 5E books have taken that advantage by giving us a lot of Mind-Flayer-corrupted monsters. 

Again, there are a lot that's been written about the Mind Flayers. Some interesting aspects include their language, called 'Qualith'... which they do by carving Braille-like runes and infusing them with psionic power. The Mind Flayers actually talk to each other with psychic powers, and they only really speak vocally when communicating with other species like us. Both the Monster Manual and Volo's also describe how rogue Mind Flayers that are disconnected from an Elder Brain exist, and they are often outcasts or exiles due to some radical ideas. That doesn't mean that the Mind Flayer will be automatically friendly to your party, however, due to their strange morality. 

Volo's Guide to Monsters adds a lot more Mind Flayer variants, but the original 5E Manual briefly mentions the 'Arcanist' variant, which is expanded a bit by the 5.5E remaster. The regular Mind Flayer's spell list is quite short, which are Detect Thoughts, Dominate Monster and a variation of Plane Shift. All of these are honestly flavoured to be natural abilities of the Mind Flayer's biology. Indeed, Mind Flayers actually tend to not like arcane spells, which makes the Mind Flayer Arcanist often a bit of a pariah since they have learned actual regular magic like Lightning Bolt, Disguise Self, Mage Hand and of course, Fireball. Again, the existence of these Arcanists are interesting. Perhaps they are kept as pariahs in reserve of a colony, or perhaps the study of magic causes the colony to exile them. 

Being perhaps one of the main marquee enemies of Dungeons & Dragons as a whole, I do really see so many plot thread options with the Mind Flayers. Even 5.5E's table seems to just be scratching the surface. Creating a brand-new fused atrocity to serve as minions? Makes sense, they are already making Intellect Devourers and whatnot. Forge a psionic network between all local Illithid communities? Sure, makes sense. Restore their Nautiloid Ships to travel back to space? Sounds logical, but maybe you want them to just be out of your neck of the woods. Replace the world leaders with Intellect Devourers? That sounds hilarious, but also funny at the same time. Sacrifice the mental energy of an entire planet for a nefarious plan? Blot out the sun so their Underdark minions can conquer the surface? Some pretty neat 'end of the world' plans. 

The general package of the Mind Flayer just feels so complete, and I can honestly see why the D&D writing teams put so much effort into making their most iconic monster have a lot of stories to pull from. Overall, these xenophobic, gothic brain-eating psychic octopus-men are quite cool!