![]() A size-accurate D&D mini – biggie? – would need to be about 20 inches (half a metre) long. Blue whales can reach a maximum length of nearly 100 ft (or 30m). There are no stats for blue whales in D&D, but I include them here as a comparison for fantasy creatures, since these animals are believed to be the biggest animals to have existed. In real life, a sperm whale is closer to 52 ft or 16m, so a ten-inch-long mini (26 cm). These are described (slightly inaccurately) as growing up to 70 ft long. The sperm whale features in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. A size-accurate D&D mini of a brontosaurus would need to be 14 inches (36 cm) long. Adult brontosauruses are estimated to have weighed up to 15 tonnes (17 short tons) and measured up to 72 ft (22m) long. The brontosaurus appears in Volo’s Guide to Monsters, where it is described simply as ‘massive’. Maybe we should start with the only gargantuan D&D monsters to have existed in real life: whales and dinosaurs. I am also going to think about the scale which is usually used for D&D minis (1:60, or 5 ft to 1 inch) to see whether the models on the market match up. I thought it would be fun to have a closer look at some of D&D’s largest monsters to give a sense of their scale. The famous tower is actually called Elizabeth Tower.) (By the way, Big Ben is technically the bell. All of these things are technically ‘gargantuan’ in D&D terms. And the Shard, at one point the tallest building in the EU, is over 1,000 ft tall (310m). The iconic Routemaster buses in London are about 37 ft long (11m). A telegraph pole in the UK is about 30 ft (9m) tall. I would argue that ‘anything larger than 20 ft‘ is a pretty vague category. ![]() Gargantuan – defined in 5e as ‘anything larger than 20 feet ’ – a whale. No edition except 3rd has had a size category above gargantuan. 1st edition had nothing smaller than ‘small’ and nothing larger than ‘large’. 2nd edition AD&D only went down to ‘tiny’, as did 4th edition, and 5th edition has followed in this tradition. But this was something of an anomaly for D&D. In 3rd edition – the edition I started with – there were eight size categories: fine, diminutive, tiny, small, medium, large, huge, gargantuan, and colossal. Having painted a few dragon minis over the last year, it got me thinking about monster scale in D&D. ![]() ![]() How big is an ancient dragon? How tall is a cloud giant? What is the wingspan of a roc? ![]()
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