Occasionally, you’ll find yourself looking for a word to describe a group of something. And sometimes “bunch” or “flock” just doesn’t do them justice. Or perhaps you want to add a sudden dose of humor into the description.
The word for those words is “terms of venery” and here are a few examples, divided by type. In the animal and vermin categories, additional terms are often available; I just picked the one I liked. Click the links in the Sources section below to see the others.
- Aberrations
- Animals
- Constructs
- Dragons
- Elementals
- Fey
- Giants
- Humanoids
- Magical Beasts
- Monstrous Humanoids
- Outsiders
- Plants
- Undead
- Vermin
Sources
In addition to various D&D sourcebooks, some terms (for critters which also occur on Earth) come from lists maintained by the USGS, Wikipedia, and the San Diego Zoo. If you find other sources for terms of venery, send me a link and I’ll incorporate them here.