Hello.

This time, the theme is the International Day for Biological Diversity, with the idea of putting together a personal field guide to the various creatures found in Nexon games.

MapleStory brings together regions with a wide range of settings and concepts, making it home to a remarkably diverse array of creatures. Humans, elves, fairies, Anima, demons, animal folk such as pandas, seals, and wolves, aliens, devils, the undead, dragons, Hobi, Yetis, half-human beasts, mushrooms, and many more can all be found here. With nearly every kind of creature you might expect to encounter in a fantasy world, it is quite a treasure trove of biodiversity.

While considering what to use as the basis for this guide, I thought of the World Archive for the undersea tower, the Tower of Oz. Built by the Transcendent of Life as an ark, the tower houses many different creatures, so I used its archive as a foundation and added further information where appropriate. Since many players have never tried the Tower of Oz, I thought this might offer something new to discover.

Creatures Chosen by the Transcendent of Life

As mentioned above, the Tower of Oz is an enormous ark created by Alicia, the Transcendent of Life at the time, to preserve creatures facing extinction at the hands of the Black Mage. The various creatures she selected and brought into the tower therefore remain there to this day, along with their environments.

Built long ago, the tower is home to many creatures that no longer exist elsewhere in present-day Maple World. The date of the Tower of Oz's construction was revised from 800 years ago to several hundred years ago between the test server and the live server. Although the revised date is less specific, several hundred years is still an extremely long time, so the creatures found both inside and outside the tower have survived for a remarkably long time.

Humans are not among the creatures preserved in the Tower of Oz, as Alicia had not considered including them in the first place, though they might have been brought inside under different circumstances. The Grand Athenaeum episode The Winter Bard explores this part of the story.

In the archive below, I have added related information wherever I felt it would help supplement the research notes.

Tower of Oz World Archive: Monsters

These are the ancient Slimes found in the Henesys setting. It is interesting to learn that they were once as widespread as Orange Mushrooms.

They are described as being much larger than the Slimes we know today, and the image above, which shows their sprites at their actual size, makes it clear just how fitting that description is.

These are Hector and White Fang, found in the El Nath setting, and they are no different from their familiar counterparts. One feature of the Tower of Oz's World Archive is that these monsters can be registered separately from those outside the tower. I had intended to include the original monsters' World Archive entries as well, but left them out because they are almost identical to the ones above.

These are the ancient turtles found in the setting based on the depths of Minar Forest. The Turtle Eggs mentioned here are what Alicia's Soul asks you to bring her to clear the 3rd floor. She is particularly fond of them: the required number was 3000 at launch and is now 1000.

Here is the information on Brexton, mentioned in this entry.

Although it looks identical to the King Slime outside the tower, this one is said to be simply a mass of Slimes joined together. Judging by the monster defeat count, 1 King Slime consists of 30 ordinary Slimes. By contrast, the King Slime in First Time Together, the Kerning City party quest, came into being after Lakelis of Kerning City poured a growth accelerator down the drain.

As the description explains, volcanoes periodically rose from the ground in Perion at the time.

Since it is thought to have also lived outside the tower, this appears to be the only Tower of Oz boss that was not created by Alicia, but instead once inhabited Victoria Island.

The statement that it deflects all attacks refers to the damage reflection mechanic. Since that mechanic has now been removed, the Giant Spider presumably no longer uses it either.

If you fail to break the cocoon, several baby spiders emerge, and they are quite cute.

The white thorn bear plays a significant role in the Grand Athenaeum.

This creature could once be found at Florina Beach, but with that entire region removed, it can now only be encountered inside the Tower of Oz, as the research notes mention. Lupin is a similar case, though it can no longer be encountered as a monster even in the Tower of Oz, appearing only as a banana-throwing obstacle in the obstacle course maps.

If it successfully oils itself, all of its attacks become instant kills.

You can lower the lion's courage gauge using the fear-amplifying device on the map.

Here are the description and appearance of the Fairy found in Maple World.

The entry describes it as cute, and that holds true even when it attacks.

This shows the difference in size compared with an ordinary Slime.

This is what its hide looks like. I had expected to find some explanation of the black creatures on its head, so I was a little disappointed that they were not addressed at all.

The Scarecrow takes a fixed 10 damage from normal attacks, but, as the research notes explain, you can lure it into the fire in the center of the map and burn it to death.

This was the greatest hurdle for players attempting to complete their Monster Collection.

Despite its human appearance, it is not human.

Tower of Oz World Archive: NPCs

Below is the list of NPCs in the Tower of Oz World Archive. These characters have no connection to the tower's original purpose as an ark; the humans are all explorers whom Alicia's Soul called upon for help.

With Alicia's actual body now effectively dead, her presence here has a certain significance, though that same circumstance makes it difficult for her to appear in the main story.

The suspicious artifact is not an item players can obtain in the game, and Fleta is the only character who mentions it.

Offending her here means choosing the dialogue option “Hey! How am I supposed to get that right!” Selecting it sends you back to the lobby regardless of how much time remains.

Thank you for reading.