D&D Day by Day - Blink Dog

Ah yes, the blink dog, humanities last hope against the... you know what, I've been playing D&D for a long time, and I don't think I ever came up against a blink dog. You hear about them, but you'd typically never fight them, because why would you fight a dog? Dogs are friendly and helpful and really just want you to throw the Orcs arm so he can bring it back for you. The warriors best friend.

I don't know, I'm making stuff up (again). Follow the jump to learn more about them and see what our contributors thought they should look like based on name alone.

This is not a Blink Dog. Just a dog (maybe) that is blinking, and bringing you coffee

Right, so lets dive right ing - What is a Blink Dog? 1978 Monster Manual says:

1st Edition Blink Dog. Looks like Simba from the Lion King 

"These brown and yellowish creatures are as intelligent as normal humans and have a fairly complex language consisting of barks, yaps, whines, and growls. They are also able to use a limited form of teleportation (the blink). In attack, pack members will blink in and out in a random fashion at random intervals, teleporting individuals having a 75% chance of appearing behind the opponent. Blinking is an inborn instinct, and it never allows the animal to reappear in a space already occupied by a solid object. If seriously threatened, the entire pack will blink out and not return. There is a great enmity between blink dogs and displacer beasts and the two creatures will always attack each other. If encountered in their lair there is a 50% chance there will be from 3-12 pups. These young are worth from 1000 to 2000 gold pieces on the market as they can be tamed and trained."


The more I read the 1st edition monster manual, the more I think that this was written for an early pre-internet Pokemon trainer, acting as a field guide in place of their Poke-deck, or whatever the hell it is that Ash uses to look up Poke-porn on. From this we can learn:

1. Blink Dogs are crafty as fuck because they are smart as humans. This is dangerous since they don't have the internet to distract them and they can hone their skills, making them formable 
2. Chances are they will be rogues and thieves when they grow up since they have a 75% chance on sneaking up on you from behind. Pair that with 1st level rogue skills, and they will be bad ass.
3. They will fuck shit up if there is a displacer beast around. have you seen West Side Story? Yeah, its like that, but instead of singing and dancing, theres fur and murder.
4. When they are not fighting all the time, they are having crazy blink dog sex since they have kids at least half the time. Hopefully its consensual since they can teleport behind you 75% of the time
5. Don't tell a blink dog how much their kids are worth, because I have a feeling that they might start selling them themselves, and then I'll have to get pissed.

Blink dogs have appeared in all but the current 4th edition D&D, and have progressively gotten more bad ass, in appearance anyway. Not sure if its the breeding, but they've gotten larger and more vicious looking. First edition (above) looks like a terrier and Simba from the Lion King got together and had a kid. I mean, why wouldn't you want that running around your house at full speed blinking all over the place? you'll need a lot of newspaper is why. 2e had blink dogs, but they were filed under dogs in general, and there was no recorded image for them (musta been blinking). 

3.0/3.5 saw two versions of the dog, both domesticated as well as ferrel. Also, it looks like someone then cross bred them with german sheperds, or something. 

Blink Dog, 3.0

Blink Dog, 3.5

So lets get in to our submissions. Had a few additonal ones this week, including George and a fan:

Luke has taken a bulldog meets Zuul and goes with a an Eldritch beast that will fade away and leaving you looking into the eternal void. Cold...so cold. 

Suzannes interpretation has clearly faced some inbreeding issues due to its one eye, but man what a well built machine of death this seems to be. I wouldn't want to be stuck with it blinking behind m...HOLY FUCK IT SEES ME!

Becca has decided to go with an inbred mutt as well, but I think hers may have gotten the short end of the gene pool, as...well...lets just hope that it goes to a good home, as I don't think you'll be fetching 2000 gold for this one.

New to the pack is reader of the blog Marty, as you can see his purple one eyed beast has a comical look to it, possibly out of a saturday morning cartoon or a PBS show for young blink dogs to learn from in adolescence as they attend blink dog school. You can tell that he's one of the cool kids who the others look up to, but he'll learn some valuable lessons in life from the other blink dog kids.

J has decided to enslave his blink dog and ride him around the neighborhood, complete with Clockwork Orange riding mount to keep the dog from blinking, which clearly is how a blink dog will teleport. You are a cruel man, sir, a cruel man. Also, whats up with you having a rat tail?

George is not much better than J it seems, as he has opted to go for the even crueler exotic meats route. His blink dog has been processed and filled with preservatives and put on a poppy seed bun for your enjoyment.

Ive presents us with a very different take on the blink dog. It seems that his may be from an oppressed line of cute underground dwelling dogs who are forced to wear peasant shirts. The light hurts their eyes so they have to blink in order to not be totally blinded.

And that brings us to a close for this week. Next week, we tackle and draw the Eye of the Deep. Want to draw one too? Submit it to us at contact@fruitlesspursuits.com