Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
In 1977, the rust monster was updated for the Advanced D&D game, appearing in the Monster Manual. The illustration accompanying the rust monster's actual entry shows a round tick-like creature—albeit 3 feet high and 5 feet long—with a bony shell of armor, four mammal-like legs, two long antennae and a scaly prehensile tail ending in what appears to be a propeller. In this edition, the rust monster consumed all metal, although it still preferred ferrous metals over copper, gold or platinum. It had no bite, tail or claw attack, but the rust monster could smell metal from 90 feet away, and with an increase to its already rapid speed—it now moved six times faster than the average character—it would rapidly close and attempt to touch its antennae to metal, thereby causing the object to instantly corrode. (Magical weapons had a small chance to escape this fate.) In order to escape, fleeing adventurers could discard pieces of metal in the hope that the pursuing rust monster would stop for a few seconds to devour them.
A droll illustration in the Dungeon Masters Guide shows a fully armored fighter leaping into the arms of a wizard for safety as they are confronted by a playful-looking rust monster.
In the May 1978 issue of The Dragon, Michael McCrery wrote "Excerpt from Interview with a Rust Monster", purportedly a talk with an adventurer who had been magically transformed into a rust monster. However, rather than acting as an insight into rust monsters, this was an article about how to properly explore a D&D dungeon.
The rust monster appeared in set 4 of the Monster Cards series in 1982.
In the August 1984 issue of Dragon (Issue #88), the rust monster was described more fully in "The Ecology of the rust monster", supposedly by a sage. In this article, it is a strange bacteria living in the rust monster's stomach and blood stream that caused metal to rust. Rust monsters have poor sight, although their sense of smell for metal is extraordinary. Handheld spears are useless against its armor, although wooden clubs and crossbow bolts were effective. Rust monsters give birth to live young.
The rust rat variant appeared in the UK's Imagine magazine #22 (January 1985).
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