#grimlocks
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Hi! I really like your other takes on Underdark races, and wanted to ask if you had any thoughts on improving grimlocks? Beyond the permanent blindness they have and the whole being humans who adapted to the underdark, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot else done with them.
Monsters Reimagined: Grimlocks
Would it surprise anyone to learn that a d-list d&d monster has It's roots in 1800s ideas about eugenics and bad adaptations of genre fiction? No? Then you've been paying attention, top marks.
Asker is absolutely right in their assessment that there's not really much to grimlocks. They're one of many "hostile tribal primitives" that have filled out the monster roster ever since the original developers lifted them en mass from the pulp adventure stories they grew up reading.
A common theme among these pulp works and the early scifi that inspired it was devolution, the idea that a people could degrade from greatness back into an animistic nature. The most well known pop culture example would be HP lovecraft's deep ones, where the author's fears of race mixing manifest as monsters that literally push humanity back down the evolutionary ladder to the stage of fish.
There's plenty of different ways to explain the origin of this writing trend, but I like to chalk it up to an anxiety resulting from the widespread acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution by a society that believed wholeheartedly in scientific racism. If intelligence (read: whiteness) wasn't just a god given right but was infact inheritable, then it could also be disinherited, bred out of a population whether by on purpose or by accident. This made it so important to practice good breeding (read: eugenics), to preserve the pure stock from falling to degeneracy (read: miscegenation) and introducing undesirable traits into the genepool.
We can see fear this with grimlocks, humanoids who were inherently lessened by their "adaptation" to life underground, losing their intelligence and eyesight and descending into a state of barbarism. Given that this is one of the few d&d monsters that mention evolution at all, we can trace this feature to their likely inspiration: The morlocks in H.G. Wells' Time machine, published a scant 36 years after Darwin published The Origin of Species.
I'm not well read enough to know whether Wells pioneered the idea of subhuman descendants, but I can say that most of his imitators missed the point of his writing: Wells saw in his day an increasingly indolent upper class inflicting brutal and dehumanizing labour conditions on the poor to support their own carefree lifestyle. He satirized this in his book by showing that while the descendants of the rich had devolved into beautiful, useless, idiots, the descendants of the workers devolved into subterranean ape-things who maintained the machinery that allowed the eden like existence of the rich while farming them for meat. Say what you will about Wells' race politics (Neither degenerate fop or inbred ape can withstand the smarts and strength of the enlightened colonial Englishman) but his writing was specifically class continuous, and the brutality of the morlocks was a direct result of the exploitation of working people in his own day and age.
When the morlocks were adapted into the grimlocks , the d&d writers kept their canibalistic streak but specifically removed their class based origins as well as their mechanical knowhow. This is a near identical process to what happened with a creature the worlocks helped inspire: Tolkien's orcs, which were likewise turned from a commentary on the brutality of the industrial age into warlike primitives. It's a bit of a trend.
If you wanted to "fix" the grimlocks I'd go one of two ways:
If you want to engage with themes of primality, make them legit underdark dwelling primates/australopithecus type of creatures, just figuring out tool use and language. Make the rumours of them being descended from cave-exploring humanoids a common myth made up by surface dwellers.
If you want to get spicy about it though, give them back their mechanical aptitude and maybe mix in a few more dashes of pulp "lost civilization" ancient aliens nonsense. Have them dwell in great mechanical complexes beneath the earth, worker drones who've long outlived the creatures that enslaved them and scribed mechanical knowledge into their very being. Originally denied understanding of the machines they toiled to build, work, and maintain, the grimlocks jealously guard the science they've spent generations reverse engineering, giving them the reputation of being violently territorial for those underdark travelers who venture too close to the megastructures they inhabit.
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#monsters reimagined#grimlocks#the orc dissertation#underdark#dnd#dungeons and dragons#d&d#ttprg#pathfinder
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I want to rewrite the entire plot of the 2nd season of Earthspark:
1)Instead of Starscream, the main villain is Quintesson. (The whole season). That is, the Quintessons want to collect Emberstone, gain the power of Quintus Prime and destroy another world
2) Due to the fact that the Decepticons are not villains, we will have even more of their disclosures on the good side
3) And in the end, all together: Autobots, Malto, Decepticons will defeat the Quintessons
The Good ending. Peace, friendship, love 😘
#transformers#tf#transformers earthspark#maccadam#maccadams#decepticons#autobots#tf earthspark#earthspark season 2#earthspark#twitch#thrash#hashtag#nightshade#jawbreaker#robby malto#mo malto#optimus prime#megatron#bumblebee#starscream#soundwave#shockwave#breakdown#grimlock
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Among all my projects, I love doing bags. Currently I make about 12 per month and I really enjoy it! I have several designs and also I accept Custom orders :D!
#mtmte#g1#transformers g1#trailer bag#transformers#transformers bags#myla bags#prowl#elita#whirl#soundwave#barricade#blurr#jazz#wheeljack#sideswipe#sunstreaker#tarn#windblade#megatron#starscream#seekers#autobots#decepticons#rodimus#mtmte bags#rung#grimlock#so many!
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SNOW BOTS ARE BACK BABE, IF IT WILL BE LIKE THAT EVERY YEAR I MIGHT DIE ONE DAY OF HAPPINESS WHEEEZE (I mean, drawing them like that is so much faster, plus colors, plus snow, plus they all are alive, COME ON IT'S A DREAM) Go smooch @keferon and everyone who makes "everyone is happy" content wheeeeeze
#snow bots au#transformers#maccadam#OF COURSE I GOT MY BOIS BACK#They have a car they ride separately and they like to show the car off#Perceptor#Brainstorm#Hook#Scavenger#and others from their “family” but they are not seen or it is my hand begging me to stop it hasn't recovered fully yet bruh#I bet Minimus and Megatron are already inside sipping tea and watching them going inside the building#I already wonder if since it is the second year like this#Maybe Optimus also somehow found this place to relax after many years and just sees them all#And Megatron#I want them to recover here too ngghhh#I also was thinking of scavengers and Grimlock but ahah I have a feeling they hang out in a bit different places where less people#ALSO EHEGHEGEHEEH it's so cool to think of every group arriving together or separately in different days#I have a feeling that Tailgate Cyclonus and Whirl will arrive pretty late. Alway forgetting something and coming back because of it until#they just “OH just leave it be let's go already”#Group of docs arriving almost as the first ones#Okay I better run I didn't even have breakfast just jumped on it the moment saw it coming back
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Perceptor being absolutely precious for almost two minutes Compilation
Ok I know Prime wars trilogy is kind of ugly and boring BUT
YOU NEED to see it's version of Peceptor HE'S SUCH A CUTE LITTLE GOOBER GUYS just look at him
#maccadam#transformers#Perceptor#Prime wars trilogy#tf perceptor#Windblade is also there. And Grimlock and Megatron and Starscream's dead pieces lol#I watched the entire Prime wars trilogy for Percy#so you don't have to👍
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GRIMLOCK!!!
#grimlock#transformers#hasbro#maccadams#digital art#artists on tumblr#art#artwork#clip studio paint#csp art#csp
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Bayverse grimlock is so big
#I should be doing my coursework what the actual heck#valveplug#suggestive#staticoctopus#optimus prime#grimop#transformers bayverse#bayverse optimus prime#grimlock#v0re
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Then Twilight took a picture
#cuties#eepy puppy#best spot to sleep tbh#spike#mlp spike#fanart#transformers#mlp#tfp#equestria girls#transformers prime#eqg#crossover#art#robots in disguise#mlpfim#hasbro#crossover art#crossover fanart#digitalart#grimlock#maccadam#maccadams#my little pony friendship is magic#my little pony#robots and magic
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Happy Halloween with my fav four 👻👻🎃🎃
Gosh i love them sm...
#happy halloweeeeeeen#👻👻🎃🎃#transformers#tfg1#grimlock#jazz#wheeljack#bumblebee#art#fanart#*sobbing and crying*#im dying
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パクパク
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rc screenshot redraws
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i think you had a good analysis on the grimlocks & how to fix them overall, but i disagree that taking an "ancient aliens" route is a good way to fix them. i know it likely wasnt your intent, but all the ancient aliens stuff is also based in racist ideals of which societies were "advanced" enough to make certain things, and are also often quite antisemitic. sprinkling some stuff from that into the grimlocks gives it a good chance of just becoming racist in a different way
Friend I am all too familiar with the conspiracy theory/quack archaeology headspace so when I touch on that iconography I do so with deliberate intent.
The fundamental context of the ancient alien theory is "These buildings are too impressive for nonwhite savage people to build, they must've been constructed through advanced technology handed down by a white atlantian/interdimensional/alien civilization from whom the white explorer claims decent."
I'm a big fan of playing with problematic fiction tropes (especially in the pulp genre) by swapping perspectives around to the people the author doesn't expect you to sympathize with, and in the case of the ancient aliens setup it's something along the lines of "Man it sucks that this asshole with lazerbeams showed up, enslaved us, fundamentally altered what we were and forced generations of our people to labour to death building him a palace. We should unionize and kill that guy"
I was specifically inspired by the brilliant Innsmouth Legacy novel series which reinterprets Lovecraft from the perspective of the people his fiction acted as a veil for his (and the entire pulp genre he was a pillar of) prejudice.
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fuck canon Blackarachnia is actually a mother of three dinobot children that she loves very dearly
They were all malfunctioning dinosaur robots for kids that Sumdac made and he threw them out and Blackarachnia found them in the garbage and took them in. I'm literally a story writer for TFA you have to believe me.
She loves them so much. I love them so much.
#dinobots#transformers#transformers animated#blackarachnia#grimlock#swoop#snarl#shes literally their mom#i hate you canon#old art
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HAPPY BDAY DUDE AAAA HOPE U HAVE LOTSA FUN ON UR SPECIAL DAY !!!
THANK U SM !!! i will do my best!
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#transformers#idw#mtmte#maccadams#misfire#krok#the scavengers#that one dungeon meshi meme#meme#grimlock#djd
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first half of my drawings for this year’s @tf-bigbang !! I was partnered with @wendy-comet who wrote a fantastic fic of the scavs deciding to raise the firstborn (purple baby from the IDW comics)!! here are some photos from their family album!!🥰
link to the fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57546139
#transformers#maccadam#idw#idw scavengers#misfire#grimlock#fulcrum#crankcase#the firstborn#nickel#spinister#tf#my art#I LOVE THÈSE GUYS THEYRE GONNA BE GREAT PARENTS OK!!!!!
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