Monsters in Flying Swordsmen 2E

I've been writing up the monsters for Flying Swordsmen 2E. I have around 50 of them (monsters and animals, not stock NPCs) total, and around 20 left to stat up. I've been basing a lot of them off of the OGL d6 Fantasy Creatures book, but with some modifications to fit the system I came up with for FS2E. 

A lot of the descriptions have just been copy/pasted from the original Flying Swordsmen, but there are some places where I've made some changes. One thing I did with the dragons is to make sure they all have some sort of special environmental effects they can create to make fighting them more challenging but also more interesting. 

Having done that, though, it makes me realize just how similar many of the monsters are to each other. Similar dice codes for abilities and skills. There's not really a huge range. Most creatures have attacks and skills at around 4 or 5 dice. 

I have given special abilities to some monsters, and some also get martial arts Powers and Techniques (Powers are sort of like the Force Skills in Star Wars d6, Techniques are a combination of the martial arts maneuvers and spells from 1E Flying Swordsmen, with a few new things thrown in). That helps distinguish some of the monsters. But I think I need to go through and figure out ways to make monsters more interesting. I think human opponents and rivals will be primary antagonists of the game, but there should be interesting monsters to fight when you have to throw in a monster.

Full Circle

I was reading the new post on Raven Crowking's Nest, and saw that he had stats for a monster from a poster of a Minneapolis ska band that my cousin had introduced me to. I thought, that's funny, I know I've posted that poster on my blog way back when. Is Raven also into ska? 

Turns out, he was reblogging the comment he'd made on my old post about the poster. 

Anyway, if you need stats for a cyclops Deep One boxer, check it out (either link). 

TS&R Ruby Bestiary & Treasury now available!

 It took me longer than I thought to finally proof and edit the TS&R Ruby Bestiary & Treasury, but I got it done last night. This morning (just now), I uploaded the file to DriveThru, so you can go grab it! 

The book has most of the Classic D&D monsters you know and love, plus some creatures from other editions converted to Classic style stats, and some originals as well. Those of you who remember my old Monster of the Week feature from many years ago may recognize some of the creatures (the Sauron didn't make the final cut, but some others did), but there are some completely new ones, as well. Not only that, I've got some different takes on some of the classic creatures as well. Oh, and a few name swaps to avoid WotC lawyers and Pinkertons bothering me. 

Oh, and there are also the treasure tables, magic item lists (some new things here, too!), and the reference tables, wandering monster tables, etc. 

As with the other TS&R titles, it's pay-what-you-want so go grab it. Feel free to take it for free, but if you like it and appreciate my work, I'll always be thankful to those who decide to pay me for it. 

Treasures, Serpents & Ruins Ruby Bestiary & Treasury

TS&R Jade Bestiary & Treasury now available!

Hey hey, I've gone through the Bestiary & Treasury book I'm using for my current campaign, and fixed a lot of small errors, and added some additional explanations where I thought they might help others. Added more art, as well (all public domain). And now it's available on DriveThruRPG.

As with the TS&R Players Rules, this is available pay-what-you-want, so you can download it for free if you like, or throw me a few dollars if you can spare them and think it's worth it. 

The book has around 370 monsters, plus full treasure tables and magic item lists, and some handy reference material like sample dungeon, wilderness, and planar random encounter tables.

Fiendish Gamma World Folio

As I mentioned a little while back, I went through the AD&D Fiend Folio for creatures that might work well in a Gamma World game. I was not disappointed. There are a lot of weirdos in there that I would probably never use in D&D but fit right in a GW game. 

The list of creatures that made the cut are: 

Achaierai

Algoid

Babbler

Blindheim

Bloodworm, Giant

Bonesnapper

Caterwaul

Clubnek

Dire Corby

Doombat

Dragonfish

Eye Killer

Fire Newt

Fire Toad

Frost Man

Garbug

Gorillabear

Gryph

Hoarfox

Jaculi

Kamadan

Mantari

Needleman

Osquip

Pernicon

Quaggoth

Qullan

Skulk

Tentamort

Thork

Tirapheg

Volt

Witherstench

 

I also decided, since I was statting up GW creatures, to add Slow Mutants, lobstrosities, and taheen from Stephen King's Dark Tower books. 

 

There were a few FF creatures that almost made it. I originally put them on my list to convert, but on a closer reading (or just on a gut feeling) decided not to include after all. These were the: 

Crabman

Death Dog (I used these too often in my D&D games)

Dunestalker 

Giant Strider

Meenlock

Quipper

Rothe

Stunjelly

Throat Leech

Umpleby

Vodyanoi

Whipweed

Witherweed

Gamma Folio

My friend Denis will soon be starting his Gamma World game. My sons and I, and Denis' daughter, all rolled up our characters for the game. A few more of the regulars still need to roll up theirs, but since Denis normally meets them online, I don't think they've done it yet. 

 Denis had the kids roll ability scores, then arrange them as they liked. Then he let them select mutations, but gave them defects depending on how many mutations they received. 

Anyway, so far, Renee (who played the Fairy Princess Goldie in West Marches) wanted to play a hippogriff (she's a Harry Potter fan*), so we discussed how to make that work. Horse with eagle/hawk mutations? Hawk or eagle with horse mutations? Anyway, somehow she has a hippogriff. I don't remember exactly what mutations she got.

Flynn, my older boy, rolled up another mutant raccoon. Atomic Raccoon (based on Marvel's Rocket of course) is shorter, has speed increase, mental blast, radar/sonar, and time suspension, plus bacterial susceptibility and periodic amnesia. 

Steven, my younger, rolled up a mutant cat (of course). And he named him "Iamashithole" and his mutations include regeneration, speed increase, weather control, and mental control. He has the fear impulse defect keyed to Fen (fish-men mutants). 

I rolled a Pure Strain Human. Since we were rolling and arranging to taste, and PSH are fairly weak, Denis let me roll 4d6 for each stat, not just for the three that normally get a boost. So Lothar has some pretty sweet ability scores (although PS is only 11, and MS is 12, everything else is 17+). With his bonuses to discovering artifact purposes and ability to command robots, I think he'll do alright. 

For fun, though, I later went on my Roll20 and rolled a random character, a mutant owl named Dr. Hoo. I got some decent ability score rolls, and then some mutations that pumped up a couple of them. In the end, he ended up with oversized brain (+4 Int and MS, +1 mental mutation), arterial weakness (defect), taller (3m tall! +2 PS), duality (nice!), teleportation, fear impulse (keyed to some sort of plant, Denis will decide), devolution, and heightened brain talent (+4 MS for defense only) as his oversized brain bonus mutation. Pretty strong. Denis took a look at it, and is wondering how balanced it will be. I have to admit, those random rolls probably gave me a stronger mutant than if I'd picked and chosen! Anyway, Dr. Hoo is my backup. I'll start the campaign with Lothar. 

In addition to Denis' game (2nd edition), I'm again working on ideas for a play by post 4th edition Gamma World game (I posted my barter table a while back). I've got an area map with settlements, ruins, and installations noted, and named, and found maps online or in my collection of old adventures that I can use for them. I've got the basic game set up on the site, but haven't started recruiting players yet. Real world was pretty busy the past few weeks. 

Last night, talking to Denis about Dr. Hoo, he mentioned maybe grabbing some creatures from D&D or other games to use. I told him it was a good idea. And today, I grabbed my Fiend Folio to do the same for my PbP game. There are a few FF creatures that I really like, and have converted to BX/BECMI stats for my games. There are a lot that are just too goofy for D&D. Some of those goofy ones (and some of the not so goofy ones) would make excellent mutants in GW, though. So I think I will spend some of my free time the next week or two converting Fiend Folio critters to Gamma World 4 stats. Should be fun! And will give experienced players a few surprises.

Werewolf by Night

We watched Marvel's new Halloween special, Werewolf by Night this evening. 

I'd never read the comics, and I'd only head about them fairly recently (two years ago, maybe?) when someone on Kevin Smith's Fatman Beyond podcast brought it up. 

Despite not knowing much of the source material, I found it to be a fun little show! 

It's only about an hour long. It's mostly in black-and-white to emulate the old Universal horror films, and the music, graphics, and a lot of the props also reflect this...but not all of them. There are definitely plenty of modern touches in it. 

The story is almost a Castlevania story! Monster hunters gather to compete for the inheritance of the most famed monster hunter, Ulysses Bloodstone. They have to hunt a fearsome monster, but are allowed to fight and even kill each other in the process. The winner gets Bloodstone's magical bloodstone which grants some magical powers. 

I won't spoil it, but I will say I really enjoyed the campy nature of it. It's got some fun action scenes, some campy scenery chewing by the actors, and plenty of Halloween mood. Not your typical Marvel superhero fare, by any means.

Going forward in my games...

 ...there will be a whole lot more Black mermaids. 

If this triggers any of my players, I will happily ask them to leave my games. 

That is all.

Threat Assessment is an Important Part of the Game

Ever since 3E came out, the currently published editions of D&D have included rules for "leveling up" monsters to keep their power level in line with those of the PCs. So instead of graduating from battling kobolds and giant rats to battling bugbears and carrion crawlers, then moving on to trolls and chimeras, and then on to frost giants and purple worms, we instead get just an ever expanding roster of creatures to fight. But it's perfectly possible for a DM to have a war against ever increasingly powerful orcs from level 1 to level 20 of the game, if that's what's desired. 

And this is a problem for more than one reason. For one thing, aside from the ability to now face some creatures that were off limits before, as a player you still feel like you haven't really gained in power. Your character has gotten more bells and whistles. Managing all the special abilities, feats, spells, and magic items takes more time and focus during games. Things slow down because of it. But you still need to wipe out ONE MORE nest of goblins. 

Part of this problem is also that the DM is either too engrossed with their idea of the great goblin war or whatever, or else too limited in imagination to use other types of creatures effectively. They know how kobolds work. Just keep pumping up their hit dice as the players go up in level, and it will all work out fine! Or so they think.

But another problem that people might not consider at first is that this means, to experienced players, that they will never know just how tough an encounter with orcs is going to be. 

I don't hear much bemoaning of "metagaming" these days, say compared to 10 to 15 years ago. Maybe I'm just missing a lot of the community chatter since I'm not really in a lot of RPG discussion social media groups and don't frequent any forums regularly. I do remember people championing this exact phenomenon because it helped to "prevent metagaming." But what it really does is render an important part of player skill irrelevant. 

If players know, from having faced certain types of monsters before, whether earlier in the campaign or from previous campaigns, that helps them with risk-reward assessment. They can gauge the power level of their part, the type and numbers of a group of monsters, and be able to judge easily whether to engage or try to avoid the encounter. Just like the artificialness of "dungeon levels" helps a party decide on their level of risk vs potential reward, knowing the monsters is information that experienced players (and by extension their characters) can use to make decisions. And decisions are the heart of game play. 

Now, if a DM is going to go the 3E and forward path, and try to run level appropriate adventures where the PCs are assumed to a) take on every encounter they come across and b) have a near guaranteed chance to win these encounters until the big bad at the end...which they still have a pretty good chance unless they make some dumb decisions or the dice are just not there for them, well for that DM it probably doesn't matter if the orcs have 1 hit die or 6. The PCs won't encounter the 6HD orcs until they're 8th or 9th level. 

But in an open world game, or a megadungeon, or any other more old school player driven game, knowing the monsters is part of the player skill set that should not be ignored. 

Now, this doesn't mean that there can't be an especially big and tough version of a normal monster, or that DMs should never introduce new monsters to the mix. It's important to shake things up now and then. But really, this works best if the players KNOW most of the regularly encountered creatures. The creatures they don't know will make them act cautiously until they know what they're up against. And really, a good DM should be giving clues when they put in those tougher than normal creatures. 

So, my advice for DMs? Don't scale up weak goober monsters for mid to high level PCs unless there's a solid reason to do so. Telegraph that when you do it. There are plenty of creatures of all challenge levels that can be pulled from 50 years worth of the game. And no matter what system you're running, it's probably not that difficult to convert between rule sets. I've converted plenty of 3E creatures to BECMI stats. And back when I played 3E I converted old school monsters to 3E. It's not that hard. 

[Yes, this post was inspired by an event in one of the the 5E games I play in (via PbP). We ran into an encounter with orcs wearing black chitinous armor. They're a lot tougher than normal orcs, and we're (6th to 7th level) getting our asses handed to us. But the GM DID give us clues that these guys were tougher than normal. I'm not faulting him! He did it right. But the encounter got me thinking about this phenomenon.]

Playing Black Hack? Need monsters?

Jeremy (been talking about him a lot lately) has been regularly putting out monster books for 5E, OSE, and Black Hack type games. He's currently running a kickstarter for Black Hack conversions of some of his previous monsters. If you're running a BH powered game, and want monster stats, printable paper minis, and VTT tokens, give it a look.

Check it out here.

Where's that Monster?

 So I'm going through my Treasures, Serpents & Ruins monster file this evening. For my own personal use, I'm free to use beholders, carrion crawlers, mind flayers, etc. But if I want to release this thing into the wild, especially if I'm hoping to make a bit of beer money from it (and no, I don't expect to make much if anything from it), I'd need to rename the WotC "product identity" monsters. 

Plenty of other games have these monsters in them, they just need to rename them. But I'm wondering how close I could get to the actual names and not get a cease and desist letter. 

For example, let's look at the beholder. Beholder is forbidden, but as far as I can tell, eye tyrant is not restricted. Observer is fine. I could easily go with either of those.

But one thing I noticed when looking through the OSE SRD the other day was that the renamed displacer beast, the warp beast, is nowhere near where I'd be looking for it. In the beholder's case, eye tyrant isn't too far away (although on the other side of the demons, devils, and dragons). If I wanted to keep the beholder in the B section, could I call it a "behold-orb"? 

Similarly, the displacer beast was based on the coeurl, so I could use that, or warp beast or something like that, but could I get away with displacer cat? Or if that's too close, disruptor beast? Could I get away with a carrion creeper? Illithid isn't mentioned as IP, but I'm betting I couldn't use that, but how about Mind Slayer?

Yuan-ti can just be serpent men, that one doesn't bother me. Never been a huge fan of that monster anyway.

Yet Another Chainmail Combat in D&D Thought

One problem with using Chainmail's man-to-man combat in D&D is that many monsters don't use manufactured weapons and armor. For those that do -- orcs, goblins, ogres, and so on -- it's easy enough to use. For those that don't, we either need to assign their natural weapons as a weapon class or else come up with some numbers just for them. And I don't think a generic "claw" or "bite" attack line makes much sense when you have everything from giant rats to dragons using them. So each monster would have to be evaluated as to what weapon is closest to its natural attacks, and how they compare against different types of armor.

Then again, if we're still using weapon damage, then maybe it's fine to have one "claw" attack line or what have you. My friends and I mistakenly used the 1st level hit roll numbers for all monsters and even for higher level PCs for the first few years we played, since they were printed on the character sheet on the back of the Mentzer book. So dragons and giants and rocs had the same hit probability as those giant rats in our early games. Dragons and rocs just did a LOT more damage when they hit with their claws and bites. Maybe having numbers for any "claw" or "bite" or "tail slap" or whatever would work. I'd still need to assign those numbers vs each armor type, though. Or decide that all tail slaps count as morning stars and all claws as daggers, something like that.

And then we turn to armor. D&D of course abstracts thick hides, quick movement, large or small size, etc. as part of a generic AC, while Chainmail man-to-man specifies the type of manufactured armor worn by an opponent. AD&D of course kept the weapon vs armor table which is based on Chainmail man-to-man (I assume, never checked the numbers to see if they more or less match). It's one of the things I never liked about AD&D and never used when I ran it, so I don't remember if it's just hand-waved for creatures with a certain AC but not assumed to be armored, or just ignored. For this system I'm developing, though, I can't really ignore it if man-to-man combat is going to be a big part of the game. 

Alternately, when fighting animals, bestial monsters, etc. we only use the mass combat rules, or Fantasy Combat if the creature is on the list (or equivalent to something on the list). 

Of course, if I do simplify the man-to-man tables to match the mass combat armor types instead of the detailed breakdown given in Chainmail, that might make it more manageable. But it's making me think more and more that the system in the Dungeon! board game might be simpler than Chainmail's system. Especially if monsters are just given a general chance to hit. While Dungeon! gives the same attack roll for all monsters, I could give some variety so that bigger, faster, or just more dangerous monsters hit more easily. But then it would negate the bonus that Fighters and Clerics get of wearing the best armors. So I'd need either numbers for armor types, or numbers vs class (the way Dungeon! gives each class different numbers vs monster type).

Or, to make a long blog post short, I understand why the "alternative" combat system using a d20 vs AC became the standard. Many fewer headaches. I'm not quite ready to ditch Chainmail, though, as I think it might make combat interesting.

Random Encounter Table Formats

Working on TSR-East (or maybe just TSR? No need to spam everyone with yet another pseudo-European clone of Ye Olde Game with mostly cosmetic changes, is there?) and I'm at the wilderness random encounter chart page.

Yes, I could skip it and return to it later. But I kinda enjoy the tedious and repetitive work of flipping through the monster section over and over, trying to find the best creatures for each terrain type!

Anyway, I started out copying the style of Cook/Marsh-Mentzer, with a general type of creature roll followed by rolling for the exact creature on a subtable. But I noticed something I hadn't before. Several of the terrain types have the exact same assortment of creature types, just in different order. Of course, several of the subtypes (men, humanoids, animals, and partially insects) each have different subtables by terrain type.

I also used this for Chanbara, adding in a few innovations (like seasonal animal encounters, and expanding the "settled" encounters for more variety of type of settlement.

But in the DMR2 Creature Catalog, there are big d% tables for each terrain/climate type, with just one roll per encounter needed to determine what it is. This is also kind of nice, and maybe less cluttered on the page, but harder to find the specific table you're looking for, perhaps.

I also checked the 1E DMG, but big sprawling tables with all monsters, and different percentages by terrain type isn't what I'm wanting here. Mentzer's version has them all on 1.5 pages (more or less), and in Chanbara I fit it all on a single page.

While I don't necessarily need to compact things as much as humanly possible for this game, I don't want to waste space, either. My character facing document is around 32 pages, the monster/treasure doc is around 60 with a few more things to add (sample artifacts, notes, a table of contents or index to find monsters easily). If I could keep the GM book to 32 (currently the wandering monster tables will start on p.13 so very possible) I'd be happy. Yes, the old printer's need to go in packets of 16 pages is no longer a concern with POD, but I kinda like the constraint. I think Chanbara is a better game because I limited what would go in it to what I could fit in 64 pages.

I'm leaning toward the BX/BECMI method of a subtype table for each terrain type, followed by more specific tables. Since I have every monster tagged with descriptors (for weapons +1, +3 vs X or certain spells/magic items), It won't be hard to fill in most subgroup categories.

But there are a few (like Shapeshifter) that don't really have that many entries. I could could leave them off, or lump them together. Mentzer (and I assume Cook/Marsh before him) includes an "Unusual" category. But do all of them belong in certain terrain types? Doing charts like in the Creature Catalog, where all the forest creatures for example are on one table, has its advantages. It also makes it easier to have charts for subtropical, temperate, and subarctic forests, or the deciduous/evergreen split. If I want to make many more charts, that is.

So, instead of deciding on one and working on it this evening, I'm asking you instead. What do you prefer in a wilderness random encounter chart?

No Humanoids Campaign

Yes, I've still got WotC's changes to humanoid creatures on the mind.

And no, this is definitely not a novel concept, I even considered doing it years ago just as a way to make a game that felt more mythological and less like Tolkien or his many fantasy fiction descendants (Wheel of Time, Shanarra, etc).

I'd like to one day run a campaign with no humanoid monsters. No goblinoids, orcs, gnolls, lizard men, etc. Just get rid of all of them. No demi-humans, either. Let's get rid of the bandits, pirates, brigands, etc. while we're at it.

All the PCs would be human. All the monsters would be normal or giant animals, slimes and oozes, or non-tribal monsters. There would still be intelligent monsters, but any intelligent monsters encountered would not be organized bands larger than family units.

It would be a different feel for a campaign, and would make some classes (my homebrew Berserker [Barbarian] class, the AD&D Ranger) less than optimal. So maybe stick to the BX/BECMI classes.

Looking at Basic (Mentzer) that would leave us with:

Giant Ant, White Ape, Rock Baboon, Bats -normal, giant/vampire, Bears - black, grizzly, polar, cave, Giant Bee, Giant Beetle - fire, tiger, oil, Boar, Carrion Crawler, Great Cat - mountain lion, panther, lion, tiger, sabre-tooth tiger, Giant Centipede, Doppleganger, Dragon - white, black, green, blue, red, gold, Giant Ferret, Gargoyle, Gelatinous Cube, Ghoul, Gray Ooze, Green Slime, Harpy, Living Statue - crystal, iron, rock, Giant Lizard - gecko, draco, horned chameleon, tuatara, Giant Locust, [Lycanthropes -- keep them in or not? Hmm...], Medusa, Minotaur, Mule, Ochre Jelly, [Ogre -- again, keep or not?], Owl Bear, Rat - normal, giant, Robber Fly, Rust Monster, Shadow, Giant Shrew, Shrieker, Skeleton, Snake - spitting cobra, giant racer, pit viper, sea snake, giant rattler, rock python, Giant Spider - crab, black widow, tarantella, Stirge, Wight, Yellow Mold, Wolf - normal, dire, Zombie.

That's a fair amount. Adding in Expert, we get:

Animal Herd, Basilisk, Black Pudding, Blink Dog, Caecillia, Camel, Chimera, Cockatrice, Giant Crab, Crocodile - normal, large, giant, Cyclops, [Devil Swine if Lycanthropes are in], Displacer Beast, Djinni, Dryad, Efreeti, Elemental, Elephant - normal, prehistoric, Giant Fish - bass, rockfish, sturgeon, Giant - hill, stone, frost, fire, cloud, storm, Golem - wood, bone, amber, bronze, Gorgon, Griffon, Hellhound, Hippogriff, Horse - riding, war, draft, Hydra, Insect Swarm, Invisible Stalker, Giant Leech, Manticore, Mummy, Nixie, Pegasus, Pterodactyl - normal, pteranodon, Purple Worm, Rhagodessa, Roc - small, large, giant, Salamander - flame, frost, Giant Scorpion, Spectre, Water Termite - swamp, fresh water, salt water, Giant Toad, Treant, Triceratops, Troll, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Unicorn, Vampire, Wraith, Wyvern.

That's a good amount of monsters. And of course, there are the Companion/Masters sets, and AD&D Monster Manual to get more from. Easily possible to run a campaign this way.

The Great Kobold Debate

Now that the orc alignment/racism thing seems to have blown over, time to move on to a more pressing question about D&D humanoids: Kobolds -- dog-men or mini dragon men?

Starting with Mentzer, I took the dog-like description as more telling than the hairless & scaly description (like I thought that meant they were mangy and diseased) but when later editions made them specifically little crappy dragonmen I didn't oppose it since it was an interesting twist. Anyway, here's the evolution of the kobold for the first 30 years or so. Feel free to chime in in the comments about how you view them.

In Chainmail, they're interchangeable with goblins, and no description given.

In OD&D, they're still just slightly weaker goblins.

Holmes goes with the folkloric description. Interestingly, they've got a save bonus to everything EXCEPT dragon breath.

In AD&D 1E, we get a lot of description, and for the first time they are described as hairless, scaly, and with small horns. The Sutherland illustrations have very dog-like faces, but the bodies are scaly (or wearing chain mail?)

Moldvay is the first time the kobold is described as dog-like. The Errol Otis illustration seems to support my 'diseased' assumption. Mentzer was the first set I owned, but I had seen BX before I got it. So maybe this picture colored my view?

Mentzer's text is nearly identical to Moldvay, but there is no illustration.

AD&D 2E of course gives us more information on kobolds than most people really need, although a lot of it is identical to the 1E information. The DiTerlizzi picture is definitely a hybrid dog-lizard here, which likely shaped their future development by WotC.

And in the Rules Cyclopedia, of course the text is again nearly identical to Mentzer, only adding in the note about spellcasters (from Mentzer's Masters Set).

And in 3E and forward, the kobold is finally specifically tagged as "reptilian" and given the draconic heritage. The heads are still described as dog-like, though.

The indie (and very fun) Kobolds Ate My Baby rejected the reptilian/draconic angle, and made them little furry nasties. I really appreciated that. I don't have a copy of that game to post, though.

Are they dog men? Mini dragon men? Something in-between? Or do you go to the folklore sources and make them evil little fae like redcaps? Something original?

Making the Cut -- Monster Selection

I'm just about done adding monsters (stats and descriptions) to my big list for TSR-East.

Going through some of the books, especially the original OA, there are quite a few monsters of a similar type -- small, humanoid spirits dwelling on the fringes of society, and kept happy through offerings by the common folk. The Bajang, Nat, P'oh, and Shan Sao are all fairly similar. Sure, there are differences in MO and in abilities. But I don't think I need this many Asian versions of the Fair Folk. I've got plenty of other monsters. Two of these four is probably enough. Now I need to decide which two...

Being based primarily on the BX/BECMI monster lists, I have djinn and efreet. While mostly associated with Arabian Nights/Al Qadim, if you read the original version of Aladdin, it does take place in China, not Baghdad. And then I thought, why not add the Marid and Dao from MMII? But then decided not to. I can always use them if I want, but they don't need to be iconic members of the lineup.

As mentioned in my last post, I repurposed the rust monster for the Korean legendary bulgasari. That's not the only monster. A few I'd cut, like the harpy and minotaur, got put back in, but as the (again Korean) inmyeonjo [human-face bird] and yakman (not Korean), respectively. And the Korean bulgae (fire-dog, an eclipse explaining monster in the myths) gave hellhounds stats a new purpose.

Right now, I've got 348 stat blocks in the document or being prepared for insertion. I guess I should add two more to get it to an even 350. Maybe the Marid and Dao will make it after all, or one or two of the creatures from the Creature Catalog that almost got chosen.

A Tale of Three Bulgasari

So I spent a bit of time refreshing myself on Korean mythical creatures. Most are pretty much the same as Chinese/Japanese ones, just with different names.

One that came up today (I went looking for it, actually, and learned something new) is the Bulgasari (also spelled Pulgasari depending on your Romanization system).

Now, in modern Korean, bulgasari 불가사리 means starfish. Just the aquatic animal.

But there was also a North Korean giant monster movie commissioned by Kim Jong-il in 1985 called Pulgasari (same spelling in Hangeul as the starfish). I was thinking I'd read up on the NorKo kaiju to include it in my game.

But then I discovered there is a mythical creature called the bulgasari 불가살이. Same pronunciation, but different spelling (and different Chinese characters if you look them up). This one means undying beast.

I found this wonderful little blog that stopped updating after only a few months. It tells of the mythical creature. It looks like the baku or shirokinukatsukami -- a bear's body covered in scales, an elephant-like head, a cow's tail, and tiger paws. It was immortal and ate metal.

Well, immortal is no fun for D&D, but eating metal? Guess how I'm reskinning the rust monster for TSR-East!

What does a GM Guide Need?

I've completed my "players book" for Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins - East (and I really need a new name, unless I want to release regular TSR which is just another vanilla D&D retroclone which no one wants or needs...or just call this TSR when I release it). It's 32 pages with absolutely no fluff. I figure with fluff (class descriptions, descriptions of how to make a character, examples of play) it will be in the 42 to 48 page range. For my current purposes, this is enough.

Now I'm putting together a monster book. I've got my monsters from BECMI (minus some that don't seem to fit, modified others - chimera and griffons are part tiger instead of part lion, for example). I've got monsters from Chanbara. I've got monsters from Flying Swordsmen. I've got monsters from OA (minus the overlap among these three sources). I've got monsters that I wanted to add to Chanbara but didn't for space concerns. Not sure how many of this last group I'll actually add, because it's already an awful lot of monsters! BECMI has the Gargantua template, but I'll probably at least want to add a Kaiju template as well. And for eventual release, I'll want to add some introductory text to explain the entries, hit bonuses, calculating XP awards for modified monsters, saving throws, etc.

While I edit together the monster book I'm thinking of what goes in the GM's Guide.

And I had the realization today that I'm a lot like Gygax back at the beginning of the hobby. OD&D didn't have a lot of explanations or contextualization of the rules, because Gygax knew his audience. They were tabletop wargamers like him. They could contextualize just fine. It was only once D&D started to spread out beyond the wargamer market that things like the Basic Sets and AD&D became necessary to spell all this stuff out.

And I'm in a similar situation. I doubt anyone who's purchased Chanbara wasn't already an experienced gamer. Likewise, anyone who would purchase TSR-East from me is also likely to be an experienced gamer. They've got the context. Do I really need to spell it all out for them?

Sure, it can give some insight into how I run my games, and how I expect the moving parts to work together. But if I released a bare-bones GM's Guide, would it be a problem? Do I need to tell you how to create a dungeon or a wilderness? How to prepare interesting NPCs for encounters? Or do I just need to give you the systems, algorithms, and processes you need to run the game all on your own?

Bare Bones: 
Running the Game:
Exploration Turns

• movement
• searching/detection
• adjudicating traps/hazards
• encounters

Encounters

• reaction table
• morale
• interactions
• chases/evasions
• adjudicating special abilities/spells/etc.

Combat

• combat round sequence
• initiative
• morale checks
• adjudicating special attacks/spells/etc.
• death and dying
• healing

Wandering Monster Tables (dungeon/wilderness)
Hirelings and Specialists
Strongholds for High Level Characters
Treasure

• coins
• gems/jewelry/special
• magic items 

That's about all that's really needed, right? I could add more, of course, but that's IMO the bare minimum needed. Anything I'm forgetting that's absolutely vital? Anything above you think I could safely leave out and assume the players will just import systems/procedures from D&D?

Why are stirges gluttonous?

Having dealt with stirges in some games recently as both player and DM, and in Pool of Radiance (still playing it!), I was wondering today why they will suck you dry if allowed

Mosquitoes don't do that. Ticks definitly bloat themselves, but detach before they pop themselves. I assume leeches do as well. So should stirges.

Idea: once a stirge has drained more than double its hit points, it detaches and flees to spawn.

Halloween Seasonal Monsters

Wow, that's a generic title! There are tons of monsters in D&D that fit the Halloween season.

But I'm going way back for this one.

The "pumpkin-head" bugbear.

I've got a Jack-o-Lantern monster (from my old Beast of the Week series), but I'm thinking that in my upcoming session of West Marches, I need to throw in some of these guys. Pumpkin-head bugbears. The group has fought regular bugbears before, but I think this time I'll throw in this twist and see what happens.

I don't remember if it was someone's blog, or maybe one of the D&D themed videos I was watching on YouTube, but recently someone was complaining about the overuse of bugbears in modules. Well, slap a pumpkin head on them and I think there's less reason to complain about them appearing so often.