Dungeon Master Forum

all right, thanks for clearing this up.. I am aghast, I really really thought there was only a single one of those rusters around.
nice extra info, like the alt graphic appendix.. uh.uh well.

I'm not sure why, but my DM hint book calls them "Generic Monsters", with no mention of the name "Ruster" at all, so that's what I still call them...actually, most of my names for DM monsters come from that book - Blue Trolls, Giant Spiders, Spell Vines, etc. A lot of the CSB ones are just names I made up 'cause we didn't have a hint book for that so just had to sort of improvise .

Clearly not an official hint book!

i would not say so.
If they use the term "generic monster"(in the hintbook)
and there is in the program also no specification for this monster,
then there are parallels to the game, which are likely no coincidence (insider - knowledge?)
It may not be 100% official, but ..

(ok, then again Gambit you know much more about this than me. So probably you are right and I am wrong. Just musing!)

I'm pretty sure my hint book is official...at least, I'd always assumed so, but I have no idea. It's uploaded on the DM Encyclopaedia somewhere, though, if you want to check it for yourself. I recall there are two versions of the hintbook - mine, and another one.
Anyway, how can they be called "Rusters", when they don't actually rust anything? Wasn't that a property that was removed from them, or something, so was never included in the full game?

Ameena wrote: Anyway, how can they be called "Rusters", when they don't actually rust anything? Wasn't that a property that was removed from them, or something, so was never included in the full game?

you answer your own question here! They are called Rusters because they should rust, but don´t. If you have played the old original D&D, there were rusters as well. You can clearly see the origin of the DM- beast if you compare. DM was derived/influenced from D&D

I'm pretty glad they don't rust in DM. When I played Eye of the Beholder, the Rusters annoyed me to no end.
By the way, in Conflux, Rusters DO rust. But at least items can be repaired there.

Actually, RTC rusters do rust too! Except you can't repair the items...eevil!

I'd never heard of "Rusters" till I came to this forum and heard (well, read) people describing Generic Monsters as such. I know one of the alternate names given in my book is "Mutant Armadillo" - I think there's another but I can't remember what it is (and I can't be arsed to get up and check right now).