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plangkye — Some Proper Yeth Hounds
Published: 2015-02-19 05:16:09 +0000 UTC; Views: 2352; Favourites: 25; Downloads: 11
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Description
D&D and Pathfinder neglected to include the most interesting feature of this unique beast of legend: They don't have heads. Seriously, THEY DON'T HAVE HEADS, OKAY? Why would you take a piece of grade-A horror beast and take away the single greatest unnerving thing about it? "But if it doesn't have a head how can it have a bite attack or employ its terrifying howl?" Dude, it can still have jaws without a head; that shouldn't be an issue. You already had a Hellhound monster, don't just clone it and give it a different name.Related content
Comments: 11
I... But... aren't jaws part of the head?
Also most sources say they have long necks and human-like heads, not that quantity matters.
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Never heard of the humanoid head thing.
...Jaws being part of the head was a problem I needed to solve for this. I've also seen depictions in which it's a severed neck stump, with spectral teeth floating where the mouth would be if there were a head, but I wanted to do something different.
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Spectral teeth floating sounds awesome, where you found the images?
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It was a while ago and I can't remember - let me see if I can find them again...
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Found it! It was from another artist on dA.
Mature Content
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Man. Miss this concept. She needed to be a proper hound for sure. Too wolfish. But yes. I needed a method of providing more expression and so a spectral face seemed appropriate. Thank you for this lovely trip down memory lane.
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I love the idea, in any case!
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I can easily see the art directors just not being aware that yeth hounds weren't supposed to have heads. They are mythical beasts, after all, so no two retellings are going to describe them the same way. Besides, if they're described as having jaws, the natural assumption is that they do have a head. Sure, they can have jaws without a head, but that's not intuitive (or even all that noticable, since yeth hounds also make heavy use of Stealth and teleportation IIRC)
Besides, the no-head ones might have already been copyrighted.
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Headlessness on a yeth hound is as copyrightable as fire-breathing on a dragon - you can't lay claim to an idea that's existed for hundreds of years. As for awareness of the attribute, I didn't know it until a few days ago when I looked up the mythology of them on a whim, and found it to be pretty hard to miss... there is a "with a head" version in some legends as well, but that version is identical to the hellhound monster that already exists (and indeed "yeth hound" and "hellhound" are sometimes used synonymously), so it seems redundant to have another one.
Re: stealth and teleporting - you're thinking of blink dogs.
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Actually, I'm thinking of a specific fight in a Pathfinder AP (I don't remember which one) during which my party was TPK'd by yeth hounds who teleported into a room after the party had entered, despite the party having taken precautions to verify that there was no ambush in said room.
This encounter is the only reason I know what yeth hounds are. At no point during the escapade were the hounds explicitly described as either having or not having heads. Given their relative obscurity and the fact that "headed" and "unheaded" versions of the legend exist, you can hardly blame Paizo for going with one over the other.
Blink dogs may be better known as "the teleporting dog", but they are by no means the only hound-like creature capable of the act.
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