Monopod (creature)
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This page is about the mythical creature. For information on a support used for a camera, see monopod.

Basic Information

A monopod, as the name implies, is a one-footed humanoid. It's described as a dwarf with a single leg ending in a single huge foot. A foot so big they could lay on their backs with their leg in the air and the foot would provide shade for the rest of their body. They are also said to be very good jumpers.

The oldest surviving description of Monopods is by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. He indicated that he learned of them from Ctesias, who said they lived in India. Belief in their existence persisted to the Middle Ages. They are also known as skiapods, skiapodes, and Monocoli. In the fiction of C.S. Lewis the monopodal dwarves are called the Dufflepuds.

The Fachan of Celtic myth was also a vaguely human monopodal creature, although it was closer to being half a man, possessed as it was of only one arm, one leg and, in some accounts, one eye.

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Game and Story Use

  • This would certainly make your Dwarves memorable, and not just another vaguely Tolkien-esque race of short people with beards.
  • The Indian Dwarf Monopod may or may not be related to the South American Patasola Monopod. They have very little in common beyond the single leg and foot, but stranger connections have been made for gaming purposes.
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