Grue (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, a grue is a type of elemental.

Publication history

The elemental grues, including the chaggrin, the harginn, the ildriss, and the varrdig, first appear in Monster Manual II (1983).^[1] The Monster Manual II was reviewed by Megan C. Evans in the British magazine White Dwarf #28 (December 1981/January 1982). As part of her review, Evans comments on several monsters appearing in the book, referring to the grues as "a collection of terrifying beasties from the Elemental Planes".^[2]

The mud grue appears for the second edition in Dungeon #37 (September 1992). The chagrin, the harginn, the ildriss, and the vardigg appear as the grues for the Al-Qadim setting in Secrets of the Lamp (1993). The same grues appear for the Planescape setting in the first Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994).

The chagrin (earth grue), the harginn (fire grue), the ildriss (air grue), and the vardigg (water grue) appeared in third edition in Dragon #285 (July 2001). They appear in the monster section of version 3.5's "Complete Arcane" as minor elemental creatures, each containing a related magical item. The mud grue appears in Dungeon #138 (September 2006).

Grues appear later in the 4th edition of the game as vicious creatures which attack PCs from out of the dark; the portrait of a grue in the Monster Manual (2008) shows the creature with a bloody mouth full of knife-like fangs, presumably having just eaten an adventurer.

Description

The grue appears as a species of intelligent, evil elementals from the Inner Planes, presented as an alternative to the usual neutral, nonsentient summonable elementals of D&D.

Elemental grues are evil creatures created by magically corrupting elemental material. They interfere with magic that manipulates their associated element.

Types of elemental grues include chaggrin (/ʃɑːˈɡrɪn/ shah-GRIN)^[3] (earth grue), harginn (fire grue), ildriss (air grue), and vardigg (water grue).

References