Houyhnhnm fields of oats". The Houyhnhnms are rational, equine beings and are masters of the land, contrasting strongly with the Yahoos, savage humanoid creatures who are no better than beasts of burden, or livestock. Whereas the Yahoos represent all that is bad about humans, Houyhnhnms have a settled, calm, reliable and rational society. Gulliver much prefers the Houyhnhnms' company to the Yahoos', even though the latter are biologically closer to him. It is possible to interpret the Houyhnhnms in a number of different ways. One might possibly, for example, regard them as a veiled criticism by Swift of the British Empire's
The Complete Book of Humanoids mumbo jumbo". An article by James Wyatt in "Dragon" #250 (August 1998) presented rules for playing various aquatic races, including crabmen, koalinth, locathah, malenti, merfolk, pahari, selkies, and vodyanoi in the same format used in "The Complete Book of Humanoids". Wyatt acknowledged that ""The Complete Book of Humanoids" broke a long-standing barrier in the AD&D game by allowing players to make characters of nearly any humanoid race," and noted that the book carefully balanced such advantages such as great physical strength against substantial disadvantages, mostly in the form of prejudice and superstition from the more common races. Player characters based