Sar-Aigu/Sahaugin

[aldarron]

I posted some observations yuins might find interesting http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/sar-aigu.html

[finarvyn]

Nice entry. 8)

there is no doubt that that creature was created and named by Steve Marsh, along with most of the other undersea baddies found in that work

If the entry is longer and contains some Arneson-isms, is it possible that Dave created them but never named them? Steve Marsh might have started with Dave's concept and developed them into something with proper OD&D stats.

It certainly sounds as if some of Dave's contributions went into the Sahaugin somehow. After all, why would Steve Marsh insert old game terminology into a new creature?

[Havard]

Very nice article Aldarron!

I found the comparison between the two races quite interesting. The theory that parts of the background for this creature comes from Dave sounds likely to me.

It seems to me that TSR was very "crunch oriented" in the 1970s. Back stories, setting descriptions and even adventures were discarded as TSR believed rules ought to be the focus of the books. I believe this could explain why so much of Arneson's material was cut from the final version of Supplement II. Perhaps the Sahuagin background intro was located in a more fluff based section of Arneson's material, possibly even tied to the backstory of the Temple of the Frog, while Marsh was the one who had to come up with actual monster stats (and even a name)?

-Havard

[aldarron]

Thanks gentlemen.

Yeah that original Sahaugin entry is intriguing. Steve Marsh wasn't a TSR employee at the time. He had submitted some material to TSR and Gygax had Kask include some of it in the Blackmoor supplement "to flesh out the page count". Which was probably because they cut at least some of the material Dave sent in. I'm pretty sure the Special Interests section of the FFC was written for Supp II., Note the Special interest class list includes rangers (strat review in summer of 75), Paladins (Greyhawk) and three other clesses - Assassin, Merchant, and Sage. Assassin and sage are in Supp II, Merchant was prolly cut by Kask.

Anywho, Marsh's sea creatures kinda fit with some of Dave's sea and water themes, so I guess it works. I don't think the extra material of the Sahaugin came out of Temple of the frog - maybe if there was some encounter in the "sea of Mil" that got left out, but TotF was only very lightly edited, by all appearances. More likely it would have been a monster entry, like a lagoon man or gator man (heh) that Kask may have felt was too similar (and silly sounding) to Marsh's Sahaugin and so he merged the two. I dunno - just a thought.

[Yaztromo]