[Monster Book Preview] Steam Dragon

Preview page from the Dungeonteller monster book, which is nearly done. I love this one.

[New Monster] Ghoul

With the character sheets done, I'm turning my attention to the missing monsters in the ruleset. The first one I chose to tackle: ghouls. I like the classic RPG ghoul, but I wanted to give them more of a shtick and so I made them super fast and aggressive like the plague victims in 28 Days Later, to distinguish them from other low-level undead. Enjoy! 

GHOUL

Luck 10                  

Armor 0      

Move 8      climb

Battle 7      + paralysis unless Resisted; lose 1 Luck each turn

Muscle 7                     

Notice 3      No penalty in dim light or total darkness

Resist 2

Sneak 5

Stunt 8
A fast-moving undead scavenger whose bite can paralyze and turn you into a ghoul. 
Ghouls are undead creatures who haunt graveyards, crypts, and catacombs, looking for fresh corpses to feed upon. They appear as pale gray humans with fangs and long, sharp claws. When corpses are scarce, ghouls may go looking for live prey. They are astonishingly fast and agile. With their long claws, they can clamber along walls and ceilings at full speed.
A ghoul that scores one or more successes on a Battle roll paralyzes you as well as taking away Luck, unless you score as many or more successes on a Resist roll, or you receive a paladin’s antidote power. Each turn, make another Resist roll to overcome the paralysis. For each turn you spend paralyzed, you lose another Luck. If you get to zero Luck, you will rise the following turn as a ghoul, joining the ghoul pack and losing any memories of your former life. Only a paladin’s antidote power can bring you back to normal, but it must be done before the next sunrise or you will become a ghoul forever.

Two New Monsters: Crypt Worms and Deaths-Head Moths

CRYPT WORM

A giant caterpillar that attacks by surprise.

Luck 10                  

Armor 0

Move 4                      climb, dig

Battle 6                      bite                  

Muscle 5                     

Notice 5                     

Resist 3

Sneak 5

Powers                     Ambush

Crypt worms are bloated, ivory-colored caterpillars about 6 feet long, with charcoal-gray heads and black legs. They tunnel through graveyards and catacombs, looking for recently-buried bodies. They often compete with ghouls and tend to attack them on sight. They attack living prey, too, preferring to strike out at passing targets from a hole or crevice. They can spin a line of strong silk from their abdomen to dangle from a ceiling or tunnel opening, ready to drop on unsuspecting prey.

If a crypt worm makes a successful Sneak roll against its target’s Notice roll, it can immediately make a Battle roll with 4 bonus dice, like a rogue’s ambush power.

Crypt worms are the larval form of death’s-head moths, which are described under their own entry. They build a hard cocoon out of silk and human bones , and emerge in their adult moth form after a period of a few weeks.

 

DEATH’S-HEAD MOTH

A giant flying insect that is attracted to lanterns and other light sources.

Luck 8

Armor 0

Move 2         climb 2, fly 8

Battle 4        bite                  

Muscle 3       +3 when sucking blood from a victim

Notice 5                     

Resist 2

Sneak 6

Powers                     Luck Drain 1/turn

Death’s-head moths are the adult form of crypt worms, which are described elsewhere. They have bodies about two feet long, and a wingspan of nearly four feet. These giant flying insects are a constant nuisance to underground exploration, because they are attracted to artificial light sources like lanterns, torches, and the powers starlight and will o’ the wisp. They tend to drop from ceilings and swarm around the lights, searching for live prey. Their proboscis is modified to suck blood, and once attached, will drain one Luck from the victim each turn until the moth is slain or else pulled off with one or more successes on a Muscle roll.

Wendigo

Wendigo. Pencil, 2004.

The Roper Next Door

On Hurricane Sunday, just as I was drifting off to sleep, we heard a prolonged cracking, rending noise coming from outside the house. An ancient maple tree had succumbed to the storm, cracking in two, to reveal a hollow interior big enough to accommodate many cookie-making elves.
At least, I thought it was a maple tree. Look familiar?

Just a friendly old maple tree...

Rowwwr!

[My Take On]... Cockatrices

Cockatrices are created by wizards to serve as monstrous guardians. A cockatrice is made by coaxing a hen to brood on a basilisk’s egg. When the egg hatches, a cockatrice chick emerges. The first living person it sees will become its master. It takes about a year to reach its full size – about five feet tall. It does not lay eggs or produce any offspring.

A cockatrice is alert and fast moving. It crows loudly when strangers come near. It may make several false charges to scare off intruders before darting at them with its forked tongue, which can turn a person to stone at a touch. Anyone sneaking up from the side or rear of a cockatrice can be hit by its spurred claws and scaly, lashing tail. The tail does not remove Luck but scores a knockback similar to the warrior power of the same name.

If the cockatrice scores one or more successes with its tongue attack, you must make a Resist roll and score at least an equal number of successes to avoid being turned to stone. An undo magic or restore spell will return a victim to normal – but be quick about it, because cockatrices peck away at their victims and consume them one grain of stone at a time. (The first indication a cockatrice is near may be the sound of its beak chiseling away at a petrified victim).

Story ideas:

Egg Run: stealing an egg from a basilisk is a challenge in itself. Wizards pay top gold for these eggs, and may hire adventurers to get them from a wild basilisk so that a cockatrice can be created.

Loyal Beyond the Grave: A cockatrice is very long-lived, like many reptiles. It may outlive its master by a century or more. Adventurers may find one guarding its master’s tomb or tower, long after the wizard who created it has passed away.

[My Take On...] Goblins

What do you like to see in the text description for a monster? 

I think the 1e MM had it just about right. You get a summary of the monster's appearance, organization, habitat, weaponry, and modus operandi, and not much more. When I write descriptive text for a monster, I try not to write more than a GM could read in 60 seconds. 

Here's my entry for "Goblin" in the DungeonTeller RPG:

Goblins are malicious, unruly, underground folk. They live in bands of 20 to 200 individuals, occupying a central, well-hidden cave and any number of surrounding mining tunnels. For every 10 goblins, one will be a “boss” who acts as an overseer. The bosses, in turn, report to the band’s king or queen. Occasionally a successful king or queen will rule over several bands. Each band also has its own hobgoblin wizard – it’s a rare goblin who can cast magic spells! (Hobgoblins receive their own entry in this book). Goblins mine metal ores as well as the coal they need to smelt the ores. They also raid dwarf mines for cartloads of ore and for prisoners they can use as slaves. When the ore in one area is exhausted, after a period of years or decades, the goblin band will move on to new grounds, leaving their cave and tunnels behind, often to become occupied by other underground monsters. Much of the underworld was carved out in this manner, making goblins an important part of the deep ecosystem and economy.

Goblins typically carry hammers and picks scaled to their size, and a bag of stones for shooting at enemies with a slingshot. They love cacophonous music, and sometimes throw wild revels accompanied by banging drums, rattles, and horns. These revels can be heard for miles underground and are sometimes the first sign that a goblin band is near. On the prowl, however, goblins are extremely stealthy and like to surprise their enemies with overwhelming force in terrain that favors their position.

In the 2e Monstrous Manual and certainly by the 3e MM, the descriptions became longer and more technical, two qualities that I find toxic to my sense of wonder. As one of my professors often said, "Evoke, don't describe." I like to leave enough unsaid so that I'm not imposing my goblins on your game. I think this principle may also illuminate why David Sutherland was perhaps the ideal illustrator for D&D. When I see a Sutherland illustration, especially, I feel I'm looking at an adventurer's impression of a monster, rather than a literal depiction of it, like something a PC might sketch out on a napkin in the tavern after returning from the dungeon.

[illustration] Urzen

Yet another alien species, the Urzen. I remember that they communicated with each other by scent. They were psionically sensitive to living things, and acted as guardians of nature.

[Illustration] Ferrec

A ferrec.

Another sketch from my Earthlaw campaign sketchbook. This is a ferrec, one of the cute, ruthless aliens I mentioned in my previous post. As god is my witness, I have no idea why there's a ball hovering over her head. It may have been a psychic artifact, or something akin to an Ioun stone.

[Illustration] Sea Devil

I drew this in 2005 for a Northern Crown adventure module called Isle of the Judge that was never published. It was a mix of Salem Witch Trials and HPL goodness. Think: Shadowe over Innsmouthe.


I still like the illustration, though. This was done with black and blue colored pencils and a bit of watercolor. When I'm drawing something that's going to be reproduced in grayscale, I often go the monochrome route, but the originals still have a cool vibe of their own -- it all hangs together coherently.

[Un-assuming Monsters] Orcs are Devils

Lets play with some assumptions about orcs.


Holmes doesn't say anything about their origin or their appearance, only that they are organized by uncooperative tribes or nations. 

Orc waits to be classified. Pencil, 2011.

Let's pretend I've never read LOTR. What the hell are orcs? What would be the most promising origin for these dungeon staples?


Are they just big goblins? As I see it, goblins are fairies, manifestations of darkness perhaps, but essentially of the earth and not inimical to it. Orcs, on the other hand, enjoy trampling pretty flowers, building fiendish machines, and generally making a slag-heap of things. They have un-nature in them. So they're definitely not fey creatures.


Where do we usually find them? As minions of a BBEG or else as AWOL troops of same. Where do they come from? Are they just another mundane humanoid race, which is what they were watered down to by the 3e era? I've never been happy with the idea of orc families, with little orc babies running around. Orcs shouldn't have dependents cramping their style. They have a certain standard to maintain.


My answer is that they are created (or summoned) servants of evil. In my campaign, orcs are the foot soldiers of the devil, brought to earth by evil wizards' summon orc spells to serve in their usual roles as minions, guards, and troops. And they're pretty bad-ass. I see them as rawhide-tough, brutal fighters who might live centuries on earth once they're summoned, long outliving their original masters. And yeah, maybe they take earthly mates but they don't hang around to drive their half-orc spawn to archery practice.


Here's my working description of them for my blue box set:

ORC

An infernal soldier who is summoned by magic to serve its master.

Orcs are generally human in shape, short and broad, powerfully muscled, with long arms, short legs, pointy ears, bulbous eyes, and sharp teeth. Their skin is a livid red color. They carry heavy curved swords, long-bladed spears, and short, powerful curved bows. They are brutally disciplined soldiers, strong and tireless, and follow orders faithfully, but not mindlessly.

Orcs are native to the infernal lands and only appear on earth after having been summoned by magic. They most often encountered as the soldiers or sentries of malicious wizards. See the spell Summon Orc for details.