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http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... e/20121121 .
Jon answers his own questions halfway and fails to see it..
Dryad and Nymph as similar, but NOT the same thing nor does it make a "nymph" hierarchical to all other beautiful fey.
it is simple, folklore talks of beautiful women and to beware them when found out and alone. part of this is infidelity connections. while away hunting or such, dont cheat on your wife.
with this does it mean that a nymph, dryad, mermaid are all really the same thing? yes, it can easily mean that.
also you are in a time where polytheism was rampant, so two gods having similar creatures that were each different was not unheard of. also beginnings of science held the elements a power or even gods themselves: fire, earth, air, wood, and water.
this is D&D, it has various locations for which you can travel and see things so having a wood beauty and a water beauty isnt that hard to figure out. why no earth beauty? earth was man itself, so human women were earth beauty (if you were lucky). so how about air and fire beauties? well when you look to the sky you dont really see the wind, you can feel it but not see it, so IF one existed it was never seen, and likely never written about, or looking to the sky was like looking to the heavens and the "air" beauty would then be angels. as for fire.. it represents a hell, so easily then fire beauties would be devils or demons (succubus). not likely you would see a female sitting in a fire either unless you placed her there, you know as some sort of sacrifice. so an air and fire beauty was not something you would want to see or probably speak of lest you wanted to be thought of as crazy, cursed, or the like, on top of seeing them would pose as hard to do.
(A)D&D was based on myth and history, and under those 5 elements of alchemy and ancient the nymph and dryad as easily understood why two, and why so similar, and why no more. there are TONS of other beauties of feminine visage in D&D amongst the fey, faeries, pixies, sprites (don't get started on them all being the same thing until the idiot Jon S brings it up, but maybe he will think if this post ever comes to his attention before he asks).
again this artist should just shut up and paint the pretty pictures, or direct someone else to paint the pretty pictures he is told to rather than stick his nose into the design of it. it is really sad with his art background, he knows so little of the game to understand what it is and where it came from. i question him to have ever played an edition prior to WotC, let alone playing a TSR edition when it came out.
it is just that simple Jon:
-polytheism
-medieval fears
-locale
people in the woods saw dryads, females covered in leaves and sticks.
people near oceans and rivers saw myphs, females covered in kelps and scales.
this is the "clothes" they wore from their habitat, not unlike someone in Africa might have worn elephant hide instead of grizzly bear hide, i dont know, because that was the animal available in his area!
Jon, just shut up, get out your crayons and draw the pretty pictures you are told to draw, and let the adults design the game.
seriously, how did this person get a job working with D&D, when he clearly doesnt understand the genre, mythology, folklore, and such. Good thing Gary had a background in some of those things and others related, or else we wouldnt have the game at all, we MIGHT have had Blackmoor to play or Forgotten Realms, but never in the way it came out as D&D.
AO forbid Jon ever learns of selkie legends and cant tell them apart from mermaids..but then he thinks mermaids are just nymphs. Jon just thinks everything is a nymph and all D&D monsters are trying to seduce him. he is too worried about his sword being attacked by a rust monster at his age.