Creature Template (Dungeons & Dragons)
In the Dungeons & Dragons game, a template can be applied to a creature to enhance its abilities or to even create a new type of creature.
Templates can be either acquired or inherited. An acquired template can be applied to a creature at any point (assuming it meets the prerequisites for the template), while an inherited template is gained at birth (or creation). For example, undead are usually acquired templates, as they are usually created upon the death of a living creature. On the other hand, a half-dragon results from the mating of a dragon with another creature, and thus is inherited.
Some of the more common templates include the celestial creature, fiendish creature, half-celestial, half-fiend, half-dragon, and various templates to create lycanthropes and undead.
Read more about Creature Template (Dungeons & Dragons): History
Famous quotes containing the word creature:
“Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)