Behold the used bookstore, a gambit of chance! Rarely does one venture forth with naught, yet each trove is a law unto itself. On occasion, a meager take is all that can be mustered–a few Don DeLillo hardbacks (a fixture of nearly any used bookery) that are of the same edition and printing as what you have at home yet with marginally less damaged dust jackets. Other times you stumble upon a real treasure. Sometimes even Monsters & Treasure–the second of the little brown booklets from which sprang our hobby. And I recently happened upon a monster long-thought lost to history: the Mosquitillo.

Vintage gaming manuals grow scarce these days. Perhaps the hoary sages of the hobby bequeath their treasured tomes to fledgling enthusiasts newly interested in the Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, it isn’t unheard of to find a classic of D&D lying amidst the Dons DeLillo. Just last week, in fact, my correspondent, Sam from the Save vs Worm blog, found City State of the World Emperor from Judges Guild lying in repose in some far flung bookstore (Recycled Books in Denton, TX). Her find inspired me to do some delving of my own.

The Mosquitillo - a mere whisper in the wind. The first mention I could find was a 2009 Dragonsfoot forum post which links to a (defunct) blog ran by a David “Dinkee” Rizzle, apparently a player in the early D&D games of none other than E. Gary Gygax. He described the Mosquitillo as a “fucking dumb, just stupid” monster that Mr. Gygax “pulled out of [his] ass” but quickly became a favorite of Mr. Gygax’s and his coterie (save for Mr. Rizzle). The capabilities and statistics of the monster, if even listed in the now-404’d blog post, are unfortunately not discussed in the forums nor anywhere else I searched. An interesting note, summarized from the blog post by Dragonsfoot forum user “1eyed_Bholder”, was that Mr. Gygax eventually stopped using the Mosquitillo, to the chagrin of his players who were beginning to adopt it as a mascot for the campaign, when he lost the “plastic figurine” that he used to represent it. It was after this incident that Mr. Gygax began using his children’s toys for monster inspirations with greater frequency. Thus, from the untimely demise of the Mosquitillo, a wealth of iconic beasts arose–foremost among them, the owlbear.

Gygaxian artifacts are no doubt spread across the continent, awaiting discovery by intrepid hobbyists. It is a little-known fact about Gary Gygax that, after contracting a nasty illness during his forays in California, he sojourned in Warm Springs, Georgia, seeking the restorative powers the springs of that town are rumored to possess. It was in this pastoral town, while visiting a distant relative, that I happened upon an antique store with a small collection of dusty tomes. With an afternoon to myself and no internet service in this rural area, I spent quite some time examining all this store had to offer, and my excavation eventually bore fruit. I found a worn journal filled with beautiful cursive penmanship. On the interior cover, someone had scrawled three letters: E.G.G. I thought nothing of it at first, but began to peruse its pages. At first it contained nothing exciting: details of marital troubles, boredom at work. However, the diarist sprinkled tantalizing glimpses of his wargaming exploits, just here and there at first, but eventually it made up the bulk of the journal. Just from my limited awareness of Mr. Gygax’s biography, I knew that this journal must have belonged to the man himself, or the very least have been a very convincing forgery. I knew for sure it was his writing when I counted four uses of the word “milieu” on a single page. Unfortunately for D&D scholars, the journal ended around 1969, before even the publication of Gygax’s Chainmail rules. The only fragment of D&D contained within was a loose leaf sheet of paper, that seemed to have been either mistakenly jammed within the pages or else used as a makeshift bookmark. Unfolding this paper, I could hardly believe my eyes. Complete with an illustration, here was the rumored monster. I found the Mosquitillo.

We know too much about monsters. Aren’t monsters more fun when they are a bit mysterious, not fully taxonomized, with detailed statistics, and standardized across all monsters of the same type. It is impossible to return to, yet all the same do I yearn for, those days when I had never heard of a “kobold” and, when I first encountered the little lizard people that yapped like small dogs in a cave, I didn’t know what to expect. Such was the thrill of the unknown. Alas, with each tome of monstrous taxonomy I consume, a bit more potential for wonder leaves me. I recall, fondly, those days when I exchanged playground tales of “secret” Pokemon, monsters that both existed and didn’t exist, like Pikablu or Charcoal. This was before I had any access to the Internet, when rumors remained unverifiable. Back then, if you heard a rumor about what “Bree-yark” means in goblin, you could never be quite sure if it was the honest-to-god truth or pure hokum. There is some beauty in the unverifiable mystery of things. Is the Mosquitillo better as just a mystery? Am I doing any favors by unveiling this Gygaxian monstrosity that history forgot?

MOSQUITILLOS: This monster’s body is covered in a patchwork of overlapping plates of thick keratin, and its sharp claws can gouge deep furrows in the hard earth. Its beady eyes glint like black gemstones, and beneath its eyes is a dagger-length proboscis. Once attached, it will drain the blood of its prey at a rate of 1-6 points/melee round until the victim has no blood left. The mosquitillo thrives in parched, barren lands, using its proboscis to satiate its thirst for blood. When threatened by a predator, the mosquitillo will either coil into a ball, relying on its armor-like hide for protection or, if it has time, use its strong legs and long claws to burrow deep underground. The mosquitillo’s antennae are used to detect both hosts for blood feeding and potential predators, such as the displacer beast. Young mosquitillos are approximately 8-12” long and sometimes adopted as a pet. This is ill-advised, as the mosquitillo grows quickly, reaching 5’ in length and up to 100 lbs in 1-2 years.