‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Hid a Disney Easter Egg in Its Monster Manual

Dungeons & Dragons hid a clever Easter egg in one of its core rulebooks that puts a twist on a classic Disney movie. Generations of Disney fans have fallen in love with the company’s adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, a French fairy tale starring a young woman who falls in love with a prince transformed into a hideous monster. But while the fairy tale and Disney movies brush over the nature of the Beast’s curse, Dungeons & Dragons cleverly points out via an illustration in the Monster Manual that the Beast could be classified as a lycanthrope, a monster more popularly known as a werewolf. The Monster Manual contains a picture of the Beast attacking a hunter that’s clearly meant to be Gaston, the antagonist of the Disney versions of Beauty and the Beast.

While Gaston is depicted in the Disney films as a brutish misogynist hunter, he could just as easily be a Ranger/Bard multiclass with high Charisma in Dungeons & Dragons. Sure, he’s the personification of toxic masculinity, but his actions are nearly identical to that of a D&D player character who follows an adventure hook without gathering enough information. He finds a damsel that he perceives to be in distress, rallies a band of NPCs to assist him using his natural gift of song, and ultimately rushes into a castle without any sort of plan and falls to his death after challenging the boss monster while having his party split.

Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have hid tons of Easter eggs in its various D&D products and adventures. Whether it’s naming a magical submarine after the infamous Red October or referencing an obscure Sean Connery sci-fi movie, it seems that all of their books have little teases waiting to be discovered.

What’s your favorite D&D Easter egg? Let us know in the comment section or find me on Twitter at @CHofferCbus to chat all things D&D!

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