Random Monster Generator Shootout 6 - Blogosphere Rabbit Hole Remix!

So I stumbled across this somehow.
Probably on MeWe, where I follow some cool kids.
If you use it too, add me eh?

From that link I checked out several different monster generators on a few blogs, including some linked from the comments. Here is what I discovered:


*****

BUILT BY GODS LONG FORGOTTEN
Monster Remixes - links are on the right side of that page

Released as PDFs, one for each monster category (as delineated by Sham here). These are wild. I really wish they were compiled in one giant pdf document, but they were written years ago so what can you do?

Each one consists of a single page. They basically strip apart the traits, characteristics & special abilities of a particular category or flavour of monster, and spread them out across a series of tables. Each one is different, and the formatting & layout are all over the place. Let's look at the categories:

-"Beasts" of Fey Woodlands: animals with fairy tale abilities
-Humanoids of Fey Woodlands: elves, pixies and the like
-Dragons, Dragonesques & Chimera: an odd one, dragons share a page with grab-bag mixed animal shape beasts
-Esoteric Animals: random mundane animals with strange abilities
-Gorgons, Lycanthropes & Gargoyles: any monster that turns you to stone, or changes shape
-Humanoids: people-types, where they lair, what they look like and some of their behaviours
-Humans: for determining the size, composition and traits of a human fighting force
-Slimes, Molds and Jellies!: just like it says
-The Otherworldly: elementals & similar beings
-Undead: you get it

Let's have a few examples.

ESOTERIC ANIMALS
Type: cat
Size: large, horse-sized (3 HD)
Number: small group (d10)
Esoteric Trait: holding or touching one confers immunity to petrification

Well, that's an odd one...

UNDEAD
Form: corpse, child
Descriptor: bandaged (d8 damage)
Attacks: Mob, affected by normal weapons (-2 HD); Summons rats 3/day (+1 HD)
Vulnerabilities: magic, wood
HD: 3
AC: 5
No. Appearing: 3d6

This is good! A pack of bandaged-up children's corpses that can summon a horde of rats! Very Silent Hill. Perhaps they have a hive-mind and are treated as a single creature? Creepy.

DRAGONS, DRAGONESQUE & CHIMERA
Type: Chimera
Body: Big Cat (d8 damage)
Tail: Dragon (+1 AC, extra attack)
Wings: Yes
Trait: Headless Toothy Maw (swallowed if hit, or damage if body too large to swallow)
HD: 5
AC: 4
Attacks: 2*1d8
No. Appearing: 1d4

A great cat with a dragon's tail & wings and a fanged mouth instead of a head? That sounds hella gross and pretty cool. I am imagining a great cat-version of the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls. I imagine it might be able to swallow a halfling whole, but not a human. Still would make a great abomination for the heroes to fight!

I must say that these really exceeded my expectations! A little recombination of familiar elements can yield cool results, and I would happily use these monsters in my game. If I had a complaint about these generators, it would be a matter of scope. The undead table will only give you undead, the slimes & molds table will only give you slimes & molds. The tables seem to only include possibilities that already exist in the monster books, and few (if any) new additions by the author. You won't find an undead monster with a breath weapon or an ooze that can drain levels. Also, these pdfs are laid out a bit crudely and are sometimes tough to parse, if that's important to you.

Having said that, the results you get are pretty damn cool. If you want a lightning-fast generator that'll give you a monster blending familiar elements in a new way, these will do that.

How Many Rolls: Lowest is 3, most common 5, highest extreme for one of the pages is 14.
Would I use these in the middle of a session: Yes. The upside of using familiar elements is the short learning curve. If I needed a monster was just a bit different (instead of completely crazy like what the RECG turns out), I could easily turn to these tables.
Variety and Reusability: Limited variety. But the reusability is good, as you can mix these basic elements together extensively.





SAVE VS. DRAGON
d30 Generators - there are quite a lot of them. If you just want the monsters, better to go to the post on DIY and dragons linked at the top, which links the monster generators individually.

This guy has a TON of different generators. Mr. LeBlanc also wrote the d30 Sandbox Generator (which I quite liked and perhaps should review some day soon). For now, we'll stay on topic with the monster tables. LeBlanc has done so many of these, they are all small one-page affairs but each one is a really nice-looking pdf, laid out cleanly and professionally. Far better than I could do in a month, and he seems to knock them out in a day! I found 29 of these one-page monster generators in a few minutes on his site.

They seem to take a few forms. For humanoids (bandits, elves, dwarves, berserkers, goblins, gnolls, things like that) there is a standard layout. The first table is "Group Background/Descriptions," with motivations and organizational cues for the group, like "explorers: lost as a result of a dwarvish prank" or "tribal unit/thugs: seeking slaves." This is a good start. Then we have "No. Appearing," which doubles as a leader/champion generator. Then "Arms/Armour/Mounts," which offers a bit of variety (orcs with flails riding dire wolves, or orcs with axes & crossbows? etc).

This is a basic template which is departed from in some cases: the orc page has an "Orc Tribe Name" table (like "vicious bone" and "baneful axe"), the berserker page has a "Celebrate Victory By..." table. These add some welcome colour if you're stuck trying to think of something.

Other creature types have completely different generators. Generally the less humanoid the creature is, the more different its page. I approve of this. The Sea Creature Generator comes with nice little pictures to illustrate various aquatic body shapes, and an old woodcut in the corner of some great beast smashing a ship. The Fiend Generator is the only two-page entry, and looks fun. Let's try a few:

BERSERKERS
Group Background/Description: transporting captives to use as slaves
Celebrate Victory By: cutting off opponents' hands and feet
No. Appearing: 20
Additional Fighters: 2 1st-level, 1 2nd-level, 1 7th-level subchief
Motivation: bloodlust
Weapon: polearm

Huh, that's quite detailed! I'll wager this would add some excitement to your "(3d10) Men, Berserkers" on the standard encounter table. Maybe the party comes across them just as they're be-handing a few victims and tying up the survivors as captives? Or maybe they carry the severed hands of their victims on big garlands? Either way it's going to be harsh!

FIENDS
General Form: ape-like
Size: medium
Base HD: 5
Visage: stretched
Body Shape/Muscle: skeletal, +0 HD
Body Surface/Density: hairy/bristled, thin (+1 AC)
Back/Wings: crested, insect-like
Appendages: 2 short arms, 6 long legs
Hand/Arm Features: animal-like talons
Foot/Leg Features: octopus-like suckers
Head: goat-like
Head Adornment: grotesque spine
Eyes: amber, multi-faceted
Ears/Mouth: trumpet-like, gaping toothed
Special Abilities: immunity: acid, electricity; electric breath; gas breath; regeneration; paralyzing touch
Talon Damage: 1d8
Bite Damage: 2d4

What...

the...

FUCK.

I love it! This can go on the shelf with Appendix D, which I reviewed in the very first edition of RMGS! This monster is very difficult to picture, which is honestly what I want in a demon generator. I will 100% use this, guaranteed. Top tier. Seal of fucking approval.

How Many Rolls: Many are only 3 rolls. Some only 1. The most complex might have 5 or 6, except the Fiend Generator which has 15+!
Would I use these in the middle of a session: Fuck yes. Not the Fiend Generator though, it's in a class of its own.
Variety and Reusability: Well. If you have stuff like Berserkers, Goblins and Orcs on your encounter table, there is simply no reason not to use these! Having said that, these tables don't really 'interlock' like some random monster generators in a way that would give you 13,000 possible results or what-have-you. What they can do is add variety & interest for those bog-standard monsters on your encounter table that we're all used to. Go check them out!




OLD GUARD GAMING
The Unexpurgated Dragon Generator

This blog has been around for a long time, and I never came across it. It's really good. I'm just going to quote Palmer at length here:

"...I make a distinction between monsters (species in the Gygaxian Naturalism tradition), and MONSTERS (unnatural unique creatures which don't have to follow the rules of Nature). I employ both in my own Greyhawk, and my players can never be certain just what the hell they're up against in any given encounter. It adds spice to the game and checks the overconfidence that leads to complacency and boredom. Dragons especially seem to get over-defined in the game. Ancient and medieval dragons were extremely varied in form. Like elves and goblins and such in myth, they were rarely described in the same way consistently.
A randomly generated dragon will bring to your game some of that fear of the unknown which was the norm for people before the reign of technology."

That's what I'm talking about. This generator randomly determines age, size, hit dice and attacks like you'd expect. Also there are tables for special attacks & defenses, unique breath weapons, colours, special motivations and other strange things. I'll just show you with an example:

Int: very

AL: lawful

Age: adult (5 hp/die)

Size: enormous

AC: 6

HD: 11-14
Move: 9 ground/24 flying
Attacks: 2
Damage: 2-12, 2-12
Breath Weapon: cone of sound (1-8 dmg per hit die, save or be deafened permanently)
General Characteristics: construct
General Form: serpentine, bipedal rear legs, forearms, wings
Primary/Secondary colours: red, black
% in Lair: 10%
Speaking: Yes
Magic Use: No
Sleeping: Yes
Purpose or Obsession: to accumulate treasure
Allies/Minions: a non-dragon mate (the dragon is capable of breeding with other creatures!)

Wow, what to make of this one? A construct dragon with a monstrous mate? Perhaps it's a fleshly dragon-golem of some kind, created or commissioned by its mate for companionship, like the Bride of Frankenstein? Maybe a robo-dragon that found another robot to team up with, and they're building a new monstrous "child"? I could just throw this thing at my players, or I could sit down and explore the possibilities. Seems like there is a whole adventure or two in here if you want it. Awesome.

How Many Rolls: 26-32!
Would I use this in the middle of a session: Hmmm it's pretty long. It wouldn't be my first choice under time pressure. If I needed a dragon that quickly, I'd use stock stats and roll on a few of these tables to turn it away from the norm just slightly.
Variety and Reusability: Well... you're going to get a dragon. But since dragons are normally all the same, I'd say you could reuse this basically forever!


IN CONCLUSION

I thought this series had run out of steam. I'm glad to be proved wrong by folks releasing cool things on their blogs. No glossy books or fancy production values (well, LeBlanc's pdfs are a bit fancy).

If I could only pick one favourite, it's a toss-up between LeBlanc's Fiend Generator and the Unexpurgated Dragon Generator. Obviously the utterly bizarre multiplicity of demonic forms is a topic very close to my heart. But that dragon generator, man... it's a thing of beauty. The fact is that I will use almost everything I looked at today (except the orc generator, because I don't have orcs in my campaign setting!).

Just go out and download 'em, okay?


*****

Well this has rambled on for quite a while. Time to relax!!

Random Monster Generator Spotlight 5 - The Metamorphica Revised

I haven't been too loud on the blog for a few weeks, but plenty of gaming is happening over here. The Land's End crew is halfway to fourth level and very busy indeed - they raided the twin snake-man towers of science & sorcery, stole some ancient technology and just committed their first "war crimes" against the Neanderthals!

I also started running some LotFP adventures I have lying around with a gang of newbies. The first session was a blast (we played No Salvation for Witches) and I'm working on a follow-up. Maybe I'll talk about it all sometime but I find regular narrative play reports a bit tiring to write and they aren't nearly as exciting as those old Planet Algol ones I loved so much.

These days I'm running out of random monster generators to compare. Instead I want to dive deeply into a book that really blew my mind:

*****

THE METAMORPHICA REVISED

By Johnstone Metzger
Released by Red Box Vancouver
Print ($20) and pdf ($10) on DTRPG here
On Lulu softcover or hardcover

I remember perusing the Metamorphica Classic (still free to download right here) and thinking "yeah, this is pretty cool." The revised edition has updated that sentiment to a well and true stoking. This book is like Frank's Red Hot: I want to put that shit on everything.

It's sort of hard to review because it's so fucking large. Even ONE section from this 269-page beast would be a useful book in its own right. The Metamorphica Revised has it all: Tables. Tables of other tables. References. Sub-tables. Categories of other tables that refer to sections of larger tables. Mutants. Science. Plant monsters. Psionics. Super-heroes. Demons. Animal-men. It's all presented in a comprehensive way and organized so it can be used for various applications depending on your game (more on this later). There are no stats provided, everything is system-neutral. Normally I would hate that but it works here as you'll see.


The Big One

The main body of the book is the d1000 mutation table. Metzger gives us many ways to use it. We can roll a d1000 if we want but the various mutations are grouped by type, allowing us to roll through numerical brackets to get something particular if we want a physical, mental, psychic or supernatural mutation.

The entries themselves vary widely and are too numerous to list (they go on for 111 pages). Many entries are 1 in 1000! Simple stuff like "herbivore," "multiple heads" or "kidney stones" sits next to weird shit like "heal brain," "bag of creatures" or "demonic phenomena" (a four-page d200 table on its own). There are more results here than I could ever use. No statistics or numbers are provided, leaving every DM to adapt or create rules for each mutation in their own game.

The only gripe I can think of is that Metzger included ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING he could think of on this table. I am not sure when I'd find a chance in my game to straight up roll d1000 and play through. But that's okay, because the next sections show us how to use the book in even more ways:


Additional Tables

This is where this book really shines. This image is from the beginning of the book, but it conveys the idea. Check this out:




Do you see those grey numbers along the side? Those are PAGE NUMBERS. All the tables are like this! Can you imagine what a bitch this book would be without them? Indexing like this makes it worthwhile to recompile the giant d1000 table in different ways for various applications, as Metzger does throughout. Physical and mental, beneficial and detrimental mutations are grouped up so you can get something for your purposes instantly.

This section also includes a whack of tables for generally useful things. Randomly determining colours, body parts, animals, materials, monster powers, bizarre features, etc.


Themed Sections

This is where the book really gets awesome! Metzger recombines elements from the great d1000 table in new ways, and offers brand-new entries to serve a specific genre.

After The Fall - Tables for your post-apocalyptic mutant game. Mutant plants, beastlings, hyperevolved animals, pages of new tables for generating mutant hordes, and a whole d1000 table for the scavenged detritus a mutant might carry around.


The Ficto-Technica - The longest themed section, this one is totally mental and took me a while to get my head around. An abstract system for generating science-fiction devices and magic items, it works by combining prefixes, suffixes and descriptive terms to name the item and leaving you to decide what it does. Combinations are sorted by type of technology, like 'the corrupt arts,' 'the pure sciences' or 'genotech.' The magic item tables come right at the end and include guidelines for living or demon-possessed items, magical armour & weapons and strange magical gear. You won't find any +1 swords, and like the rest of the book you'll have to do the heavy lifting after the tables give you the kernel of an idea. Want more Goblin Punch-style artifacts for your OSR game? You could do a lot worse than this.


Popular Science - This section is short and sweet, mostly consisting of brand-new tables. Procedures for creating space aliens, comic-book superheroes and anthropomorphic animals, along with guidelines for rolling up mutations on the main table based on what kind of scientific experiments you were subjected to.


Swords of the Chaos Lords - This is basically Realm of Chaos part three and for my home game it's worth the price by itself! Much will be old hat to anyone familiar with those venerable Warhammer books. Guidelines for creating infernal sorcerers, demons, chaos champions and - you better believe it - chaos spawn. Most of the tables in this section point to existing mutations from earlier and group them up in different ways. Tables for the ill-effects of infernal sorcery, summoning mishaps, demonic motivations and a full d1000 table of bonus 'infernal characteristics' round this section out.

As an example, let's create a Lesser Demon. This is complicated and comes with some 'default' mutations like Immune to Disease and Immune to Poison, but I'll stipulate to those and assume that you know what the 'outsider traits' are in your own game system. This is what I rolled:

Body: Cactoid with the head and left foot of a dog

Superhuman strength

Invasive

Increased metabolism

Inhuman features push through this demon's skin when it is angry, wind and storms follow this demon wherever it goes, prayers or declarations of love cannot be spoken, vehicles crash and spin out of control.

Demonic Equipment: Retinue of lesser demons, Retinue of damned souls, Magical armour

Motivation: Inspires the careless expenditure of resources, so they are used for no good purpose.

I dare you to put this thing in your game and not have a memorable session at the very least! I need to roll up its magic armour, so let's flip back to the Ficto-Technica:

Shape: Amulet

Powers: Grants the wearer 2 mutations when worn: Arcane Tracking, Absorb Mental Properties.

That's a fantastic magic item! It might even be worth tangling with this dog-headed cactus demon. I think a DM that drew on these tables for demonic antagonists would start triggering acid flashbacks in his players pretty quick. I want to play in that game.

Overall

In a word: thorough. Absurd breadth and variety, collected and organized. Procedures and ideas tailored to the genre you want. For such a massive database, Metzger really knows how to make this thing usable and easy.

A few minor quibbles: there could have been more page references when the book directs you to a distant table, which happens a lot. The grey page numbers along the sides of the tables are a bit faint in the print version, it actually took me a while to notice them. And an absolutely demented degree of cross-referencing does sometimes happen.

How Many Rolls: 1 or more... sometimes lots more.
Would I use this in the middle of a session: Depends on the application - there is a LOT of cross-referencing and page-flipping. You might want to get some sticky tabs. To generate a new creature, no. For its intended purpose of mutating your characters, hell yes!
Variety and Reusability: Approximately 1 lifetime of gaming. "Creativity aid, not creativity replacement."


Johnstone Metzger, I bow to your dark genius.

Random Monster Generator Shootout 4 - Curse of the Random Monster Generator Shootout!

I dug through the mailbag, the comments and some of my books - wouldn't you know it, I found enough tables to warrant another round.


*****



Elegant Fantasy Creature Generator
by Raphael Sadowski
from Nine Tongues Tales
get the pdf here (PWYW)

I dig this one. Mr. Sadowski packs a big punch in a simple little 16-page PDF. Like the tome of adventure design from last time, the EFCG concentrates on 'top-down' generation. Rather than rolling stats, it generates creature's shape, size and attributes and leaves it to the DM to assemble & stat up in the end. Although it means more work for the long-suffering DM, the possibilities are limitless. The first few tables remind me of Raggi's RECG a little bit (is that really a crime?) and it distinguishes itself elsewhere so I'm fine with that.

It includes a few entries rarely seen in creature generators, like "static" for creatures that don't move, or the classic "swarm." The Mental Faculties table was a nice touch too. The Random Features section is a really good mix. Special abilities, visual quirks and odd behaviours all mixed together, so you really don't know what direction it'll take you. If he had only covered the basics this would still be pretty decent, but the Finishing Touches section puts the icing on. Peculiar Circumstances, the Weirdifier and Horrifier tables add strange behaviours, compulsions or abilities that you almost never see in these things, like "oneiric - you will have ominous dreams about its presence long before you even meet it." Fuck yeah. Let's give it a try.

THE LONELY ALIEN

I rolled:
Static; alien; instinctual; iridescent purple, blue and orange; precious trophy; levitation; singing; tragic; materializing.

Holy christ I damn near rolled up the horta! This rules. How to make sense of all this strangeness? A carcosa-coloured creature of otherworldly anatomy that can't move, but levitates. It has a tragic past which it sings about. Some part of its body is valuable, which could account for the tragedy - maybe the rest of its race has been hunted down for parts? Materializing is good - through a particular ceremony you can summon this creature from the ether if you seek to kill it for valuable parts (rare spell component anyone?). Then you must deal with the entity's tragic song which reduces you to tears, rendering you unable to act (mass Hold Person) while it eats you. If you cast Comprehend Languages and learn that it laments for the death if its race, maybe you get an attack of conscience about killing it? Fuck yeah. Put some clues in a ruined temple in the wilderness, I've got myself a great swords and sorcery hex location!

Number of Rolls? There are 9 tables, but Sadowski encourages the reader to continue rolling until the idea comes together. I didn't use every table and made 12 rolls to generate that creature up there.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? No way. Sadowski explicitly says not to in the introduction.
Variety and Reusability? Looks like it has enough possible combinations to get over the 'almost infinite' hump. I'll be using this one again for sure.



The Monster Machine
by Vincent Baker

from Fight On! magazine #2
print or PDF here

Holy shit, Vincent Baker wrote a piece for Fight On!? Well, this one is weird as hell and doesn't resemble any other generator I've reviewed so far. After four rounds of this stuff, that's a damn good thing.

Start by rolling twice on the Materials table. Then pick or roll for abilities based on what materials make up your monster. Pick a weakness associated with one of the materials. Then write up a description and tie it all together. That's it! Just as much space is taken up by a sample bestiary of 9 monsters generated with these tables. All of those are pretty cool, and I would be happy just swiping a few of them for my own game either way.

This table won't generate many "naturalistic" monsters. More like magical beasts, aberrations and sorcerous experiments. If that's what you need, give it a look! On the downside, like most of the early FO! material this thing is written for OD&D I think, and some of the terminology is unfamiliar. What's defense class or "DC"? Is that like Armour Class? What does "level" mean in this case? Is it like hit dice? What's a HTK? I'll just go with it and see what I get:

FOSSIL GUARDIAN

LVL: 4
DC: -1
Speed: 6

I rolled:
Made of - Bone, Stone 
Abilities - Impale, Frighten, Knock Down, Armor, Bludgeon
Weakness - Slow-moving

Ancient skeletal guardians assembled from multiple creatures. Look like 10' tall humans with spikes and blades of bone protruding everywhere. Now so old that mineral deposits have built up and begun turning them into stone. What antique culture made them? Usually assigned to guard a single place (doorway, treasure vault, etc). Because of slow movement, they'll only pursues fleeing opponents if they are recognized as interlopers a second time.

Number of Rolls? 8-10
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Nope. Even though there are only a few tables, it takes a bit of thinking to get a useable monster.
Variety and Reusability? Fair ta middlin'. There are only so many abilities, but the vagueness of the Materials table throws a lot of this work back on the DM. The attacks and weaknesses are broad enough that they could fit any application, but I worry that with such a broad-strokes approach, you won't be able to roll a result on this table strong enough to force your thought outside its normal track. Which is the whole point of a random monster table.



RPGPundit Presents: Weird Gonzo Race Generator
by RPGPundit
from Precis Intermedia
get the pdf here ($4.99)

43 pages? This better be good! It starts out oddly, asking me to roll on a Favoured Ability table for which stat gets a +1 bonus, then for hit dice. Not putting your most Gonzo foot forward...

After those tables and some explanations regarding notation used in the document, we make it to the meat of things. The Basic Species table determines what category of creature we have. From there, we scroll down to a subtable that offers a selection of abilities or traits unique to it. Each of these is a page or two. That's why this thing is so long! For any given creature, you'll only use a small section of the whole document. The Basic Species entries are decent, with some standards (lizardman, underwater, anthropomorphic mammal) and some really odd entries (asshole species, wuss species).

Progressing to the individual tables, I was irritated by the piddly entries. Why am I rolling on tables with results like "add +2 to an ability" or "+1 to willpower saves"? After reading through a bit more, I started to understand why these minor bonuses are included. Rather than wild-ass monsters, this PDF is for creating new (mostly humanoid) races with stats on a human level, like dwarves and elves. Just as dwarves have that bonus to detect unusual stonework and elves have resistance to paralyzation, this blob-creature I rolled has "half damage from fire, double damage from cold."

In the introduction Pundit writes that these races aren't intended for player-characters, unlike "Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun," which I am considering checking out next. This pdf is not without its flaws, but for 5 bucks I'd say it's well worth it for the intended application.

I rolled:
Favoured ability - Intelligence
Hit dice - 4d6
Species - artificial (non-robot)
Ability - enhanced resilience
Special powers - herbivore only, innate spell ability (one 1st-level wizard spell)

Fuck man, I wish I had a bit more to work with... These tables gave me no clue as to the look of this race, though. I'm going to roll again on the Basic Species table for another entry to combine with:

More rolls:
Species - blob (no tentacles)
Ability - toxic

So a race of small, artificial magic vegetarian blob-men. Now we're talking! They can't manipulate objects, so weapons and armour are out, but they defend themselves with a secreted poison and their minor magics. Created by a radical sect of druids to protect wildlife from encroaching civilization. I'd run that shit in my game.

Number of Rolls? Minimum of about 8. In rare cases (lots of "roll 2x and combine"), could be as many as 17.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Maybe. Depending on your rolls, generation could be dead simple or involve a bit of flipping back and forth. The party entered a new dungeon and you're really tired of orcs? Need a quick humanoid opponent for this random encounter? This thing gotchu.
Variety and Reusability? Reusability could go a long way, but the variety is limited. This document aims for a specific type of creature. It's not a one-stop shop for monster generation, but might have exactly what you need - I think I will refer to it more for strange alien races in Land's End.


******

Fuck man, a lot of really strong contenders today. Baker's Monster Machine is classic old-school wild imagination, especially for being a tight three pages! Pundit's entry is good once I got a handle on it, but long and of very specific usefulness. I think my personal favourite is the Elegant Fantasy Creature Generator, as it balances length, breadth and depth well and creates a LOT of material for my brain to grasp onto.

I'll use all three of these in my home game.

Now for something fast & nasty (just like a good monster table):

Random Monster Generator Shootout 3 - Turbo-Speed Rainbow Fighting!!

Oh yeah, you forgot about this series? I didn't!

In case you missed them last time, check out:
Part One - started it all
Part Two - LotFP 'house round' demon-summoning edition

*****


The Tome of Adventure Design

by Matt Finch
from Frog God Games
froggodgames.com
print/pdf here

The heavy-hitter of the random table game! For those who don't know, this book has a table for everything. I have barely scratched the surface of this thing's capabilities in my own games. It is divided into four sections: Principles and Starting Points, Dungeon Design, Non-Dungeon Adventure Design, and of course what we're all here for: Monsters.

The production values for this book are decent. I have the older version (not pictured here), and it has the kind of black & white artwork we have come to expect from FGG / Necromancer. Some of the pieces are reused from books like Rappan Athuk I think, which I always thought was weird, but anyway the illustrations are just a bonus in this one. The formatting is weird as fuck though, with tables crossing pages in an awkward way. It could have done with some more editing - frequently a table with ten entries will read: "0-10 - result, 11-20 - result..." when a simple d10 would have served perfectly. The perils of copy & paste? You be the judge.

Rather than providing quick stats or a jigsaw-puzzle anatomy system like other random generators, the ToAD is geared towards generating new ideas in the prep stages. While there are still physical attributes and special attacks to be rolled, many of the tables take forms like "Planar Trading/Commodities," or "Preparations for Intelligent Undeath" meant to prod your mind in a new direction. Most monsters rolled up here could form the seed of a new adventure instead of random encounter fodder. As you'll see, these tables inevitably lead to new and interesting combinations.

There are an absurd number of tables in this book (86 in the monster section alone!) but you'll never need to roll on all of them for one creature. The first table "Monster Categories" sends you to the appropriate section for a given creature type where a more manageable selection of tables can be found. Or if you like, you can go to the second half of the monster section with a raft of all-purpose tables, allowing you to build a new creature from the ground up in a more general way. Let's see what happens:


SAMPLE MONSTER 1 - "Night Dragon"

Type - Draconic
Dragon's Unusual Physical Feature - Body: Dragon is bioluminescent or has a luminescent "lure" to attract prey like an anglerfish
Dragon's Unusual Ability - Theme: Elemental or Planar
Dragon's Mentality, Motivation and Status - Hide. The dragon is virtually obsessed with keeping itself hidden from human notice.

This is a strange one. A huge glowing winged creature that's obsessed with hiding has a real problem, but would make for an interesting stalking mission, some kind of Alien: Underdark. Every time you see the dragon's glow around the corner it runs away! Its unusual ability might be tunnelling through rocks (elemental earth)  or even Gate-ing itself around to get away. Maybe scaring the dragon into digging a new tunnel is the only way to reach a certain place? The possibilities are endless.

The second option is that only a luminescent lure is seen, while the dragon camouflages itself within the cave walls. Instead of being perpetually in conflict with itself, now its abilities and personality mesh. You never actually see the dragon until it's too late, when it eats you. A quick-thinking character who isn't distracted by the lure might shine a light on the dragon to escape certain death at the last second.

Both of these make me think of Veins of the Earth, which is a damn good start. I can't decide which idea I like better, but I would put either one in my game.


SAMPLE MONSTER 2 - "The Crabessiah"

Physical and Special Attacks - Tail attack only, 2 special attacks
Special Defenses - 3 special defenses, 2 special attributes

Tail attack - pierces
Special attack 1 - bleeding, delivered by sound
Special attack 2 - sound (prevents spellcasting), in an exhaled cone

Special Defenses - chitin, immune to fire, regenerates
Distinctive Attributes - flying creature, associated with a particular sort of cult: healing

This monster looks like a tough customer. We don't know anything about it's actual body shape except that it has a piercing tail and chitin. An insect with a stinger? Scorpion? Maybe a horseshoe crab!

Those special abilities are very interesting. We can ditch the 'exhaled' part of attack #2 and have two straight up sound-based attacks. The second one is awfully bland compared to the first, and I would roll them into a single attack - a sound so awful that it causes spontaneous bleeding is sure to make concentration difficult!

The regeneration and fire immunity make the "healing cult" result quite interesting. Although it can regenerate wounds and may even be immortal, those around it suffer terrible bleeding from its voice alone. A messed-up cult indeed if they're willing to endure that punishment to be around their beloved regenerating giant crab.

This would be a really bizarre sword & sorcery god-monster, the kind of thing Conan squares off against in a lost city on a plateau. Attended by its deranged haemophiliac cultists who attempt to sacrifice him by exsanguination! What more could you possibly want?


How Many Rolls? Varies widely. The Beasts section might be eight. The Undead section only has 5 tables, and you won't need them all at once. The Mist creature section only has one. Generating a creature from scratch starting with table 2-72 could be up to fifteen.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Are you high?
Variety and Reusability? Borderline infinite. If you ever run this book out, send me some of your players, okay? I can never find enough.


*****

Carcosa

Spawn of Shub-Niggurath & Random Robots

by Geoffrey McKinney
from Lamentations of the Flame Princess
lotfp.com
print sold out? buy the pdf here

This one was recommended in the comments section of part two. I had forgotten about the Lovecraftian sword-and-planet madness in this book! As the most common monsters on Carcosa, the Spawn of Shub-Niggurath have to come together quickly at the table with enough variety to keep things fresh.

The first half of the tables are standard stats - movement rates and types, armor class, no. appearing, etc. The second half are descriptive - a table for colour (because it wouldn't be Carcosa without colours), eyes, mouths, hide, and 'body type' - which is a list of taxonomic animal shapes (batrachian, hexapod, annelidoid, etc) that required me to do a little googling from time to time. Finally it's rounded off with a table each for special attacks & defenses.

SAMPLE MONSTER

No. Appearing - Unique
AC - 12
Movement - 60'
Hit Dice - 5
Alignment - C

Body type - insectoid
Colour - yellow
Hide - suckered
Eyes - two
Mouth - circular gaping maw

So a great yellow bug with a suckered hide and a circular gaping mouth. Sounds Carcosa as hell!

Next up, the robot generator is even more fun than the Spawn tables. After a few basic stats, the book includes tables for cool robotic shit like treads, grenade launchers and x-ray vision! Let's see how it works:


SAMPLE MONSTER

AC - 19
Hit Points - 20-50
Movement - burrowing (210'), swimming (120'), jumping (10' to 40')

Morphology - humanoid
Offensive Systems - infrared bazooka beam (3 dice, range 3000 ft), microwave cannon beam (5 dice, range 20 miles), tractor beam
Defensive Systems - force field
Special Detection Systems - chemical identifier

Well, this thing can certainly get around. It moves slowly on the surface by jumping, but it doesn't really matter - with its microwave cannon, everything within 3 hexes is a no-walk zone!

How Many Rolls? Spawn: 12-20 Robots: 13-23++

Would I use these in the middle of a session? The Spawn tables, yes. They are compact and straightforward, across a handful of pages. Sometimes the results or ranges are strange (20-50 hit points, a 1-16 table), and it would be better if these were streamlined - trying to puzzle out how to roll these in the middle of a session is not high on my agenda. The robot table can refer you to the space alien armament table to determine its weaponry - so now I have to flip *backwards* and roll 4 or 5 more times! Almost no explanations are given for the robotic attacks, defenses or special detection systems - you'll have to roll them up in advance and think about how the abilities will work, write up your own stats.

Variety and Reusability? Somewhat limited. All you can really get for the Spawn are monsters of 'a shape and colour', so it works for an ugly beast that crops up on your random encounter table, but one seems generally the same as another. The robots are all bizarre and highly dangerous, but these tables feel unfinished. A little more development would have gone a long way for me. Given the amount of rolling necessary I would have liked to see a more fleshed-out final result.

*****


Gardens of Ynn
Hybrid-beasts

by Emmy Allen
from Dying Stylishly Games
cavegirlgames.blogspot.com
print/pdf here

I wrote an excitable review of this book a while back. Paging through it again has been great fun - this is really one of the more creative things to come out of the scene in the last few years. This thing could have made it through the gate with half the content but Emmy "went the extra 6-mile hex" and turned out something bursting at the seams with ideas.

This table is very simple. Every hybrid-beast has the same basic stats, and then we roll on three tables for its physical description and some modifiers: base animal, head, and unusual features. Let's try it out:

SAMPLE MONSTER - "Lurking Hyenoth"

HD - 4
AC - as leather

Base Animal - sloth (2 claw attacks for 1d4)
Head - hyena (extra bite attack, +4 1d8)
Unusual Features - gecko feet (can walk on walls), tiger-striped fur

Wow! I can almost picture a sloth with striped fur and a hyena head. Adding the gecko feet pushes it into another realm of oddness! Clearly these guys are a type of slow ambush predator or scavenger. Camouflaged on the ceiling or amongst the branches, they wait to pick off the weak and wounded members of the party.


How Many Rolls? Exactly four.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Yes, as it's meant to be.
Variety and Reusability? Not too bad for what it intends to do. It will always be an animal hybrid of some kind of course. In the Gardens they are encountered singly, and each one is completely unique. If you were to roll up groups of these hybrids, each one different, they would probably blend into an unrecognizable mess. However if I were using this outside the Gardens, I would roll up an entirely new race or faction of humanoid creatures. Thus only a handful of rolls could give you a whole campaign full of strange new enemies!


Conclusion

All these generators are so different. The hybrid-beasts are ready to hit your table at a moment's notice, while no amount of rolling on the Tome of Adventure Design will give you a usable result without some further thought (and writing your own stats). I have used the Spawn of Shub-Niggurath before in my home games, but the monsters generated are interchangeable beasts, differing more or less cosmetically from each other.

In the final analysis, I have to give this round to Matt Finch and the ToAD. This is the book that launched a thousand encounters, to mangle an oft-quoted phrase. The two monsters I generated up there are already getting me excited. I'm racking my brain for a place to add them into my campaign world, and that's the best result any table can give.


*****


PS: If anyone knows of other random monster generators I should look at, please let me know in the comments. I really enjoy these roundups. They are some of my favourite posts to write and I hope other folks get some use out of them. There is no reason to use manticores, orcs or owlbears unless you really want to. 

Go out there and blow your players' minds!

Random Monster Generator Shootout Round 2 - Hyper Diabolism Edition!!!

'SUP blogland? The first random monster generator shootout was a ton of fun. With help from the comments section (pretty cool feeling to get those - thanks!), I dug around my books and pdfs to find some more. I found more than I bargained for... a lot more. Hide your game books from Pastor Steve and cancel your Something Awful forum account: this round is all about LotFP and DEMON SUMMONING!


*****

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Rules & Magic
Summon spell

by James Edward Raggi III
from Lamentations of the Flame Princess
buy print or get the free pdf

Let's kick things off with another entry from last round's defending champion, James Raggi! Last time, the RECG took the title away from Michael Raston's Level 1 Creature Generator, although it was a tougher call than I let on at the time. Now we're going to the source and looking at the demon-summoning spell in LotFP: Grindhouse Edition.

Summoning Rules: Pretty fucking complicated for a first-level spell! The caster chooses what HD of monster to aim for when casting the spell. Make a saving throw vs. magic to hit your target. Make a 'domination roll' against the creature to see if it comes under your control. The margin of victory in this opposed roll affects the degree of control or lack thereof. This can be modified by using expensive materials to create a thaumaturgic circle and offering helpless living sacrifices (classic fantasy stuff, FINALLY!). If these rolls are failed terribly the creature goes berserk, or you might have to roll on a table of even worse consequences.

Another cool thing about this system is the 'form' table. If you fail your original saving throw, the creature has a much larger number of possible forms, each more demented than the last. This spell can have DIRE consequences for failure. Special forms include 'anti-matter,' and 'collective unconscious desire for suicide.' Heavy! The way you generate special abilities and limbs is a bit odd, generating a target number and then trying to roll under it, and there is theoretically no limit to the number of abilities/appendages a creature could have.


SAMPLE MONSTER - "John Carpenter Ant"

Because creature HD depends on caster level (you can try for HD up to 2x your level, plus modifiers), we'll use a hypothetical 3rd level wizard who has roped a few idiots in as unwitting human sacrifices. I make my rolls and summon a 7-HD creature:

HD: 7
AC: 14
Attacks: 1
Damage: d6
Speed: 120'

Shape: Insectoid
Appendages: 1 - Necrotic Proboscis
Powers: 1 - Impregnates (victims hit must save vs. poison or carry a thing)

AAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!! This is one of the less-deranged things you can roll on this table, and I definitely wouldn't want to meet it in a dark fucking alley.

How Many Rolls? Minimum 8 I think. Maximum is theoretically infinite.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Only if I had to. I find it hard to follow. Things are out of order, rules and the corresponding tables are in different places so I have to keep flipping back and forth. Surprisingly difficult to navigate given the rules themselves are only a few pages. This could really have benefited from some streamlining or a flowchart or something.

Variety and Reusability? Plenty. Raggi doesn't disappoint. I especially like the 'appendages' table which makes great use of almost poetic adjectives to create an image in the reader's brain, instead of technical descriptions. This whole thing is like a condensed version of the RECG in a way, and can generate monsters with a similar feel.

*****


PS: MASSIVE LIGHTNING-ROUND BONUS POINTS to Saker for doing his own version of the Summon spell, with a helpful step-by-step guide! Even fucking more bonus points to Angus Warman for automating it. Now you can generate a monster in seconds when one of your players springs the damned spell on you unawares.


*****

A Red & Pleasant Land
The Guests

by Zak Smith
from LotFP
Buy the Print and pdf

Oh, y'all forgot about this one huh? I didn't. When this book came out, I was enthralled by the Guests. A believable, flavourful take on AD&D demons seen through the unique setting of Voivodja. Crammed with classic Zak-isms, these guys are no joke.

Summoning Rules: A short, punchy list of 5 requirements: an hour of preparation, a banquet including a living sacrifice, a host creature to possess (nice!), a formal poetic greeting and contracts for the guest to sign (this being Voivodja and all). Zak usually likes to keep things simple and moving fast, relying on the DM to fill in the details. This is fine for me, and has enough flavour to keep me interested without being annoying.

There are several broad types of Guests: The Unholy (agents of temptation), The Implacable (agents of destruction), The Unwelcome (agents of disruption) and The Uncreated (agents of madness). Each one has a separate series of percentage rolls for its attributes, looks, number of special abilities, etc. While The Unholy are human-shaped with chances of wings, horns, tails etc, The Uncreated are hybrids of a random object and a random animal. Then everyone rolls on two common tables: Attributes and Powers (fairly obvious).


SAMPLE MONSTER - 'Raisin-Wheel of Madness'

Implacable - Agent of Destruction
Human as base creature
Purple in colour

HD: 4 (HP: 33)
Speed: 1/2 human
Armor: plate+shield+2
Int: 12
Attacks: +5/+2 to hit, d20 damage each

Attributes - withered, 2 limbs in wrong places, 3 tentacles
Other Powers - Confusion 20' radius for d4 rounds, causes one enemy attack/spell per round to strike a target of its choosing, guest can single out a target and attack at +2 until slain - if successful it gains d4 HD
Purposes - bring disease, destroy powerful holy object

Wow. I was afraid this monster would be lame (it failed all the % rolls in the Implacable category, leaving just a plain human body). The attribute and powers tables totally rescued it! A withered purple man with one arm & leg swapped so he gimps & flops around on his mismatched limbs & tentacles is suitably gross and otherworldly. The special abilities really carry the day here, and are actually the perfect fit for a monster that seem like a weak physical threat: everybody goes crazy while it flip-flops, and the one dude who passed his save and tries to strike it ends up stabbing his confused friends anyway. Magic!

How Many Rolls? Minimum 14 I think. Could be more than 20 if you roll lots of attributes.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? Yes. Almost everything is condensed on to one page. Slam down a handful of d%s and you're almost all done. Flip to the next few pages for attributes and powers.
Variety and Reusability? Tons. Having different types of demons who all draw from the same attributes chart in varying proportions is a great idea. If the PCs got familiar with the four different types they could develop at least a vague idea of what they're up against while still leaving plenty of room to be surprised.

PS: some of the powers are fucking nasty. PCs use caution!

*****

No Salvation for Witches
The Tract of Teratology

by Rafael Chandler
from LotFP
Is the print version sold out? get the pdf

NSFW is a bad-ass adventure set in 1620s England. I won't do a review/treatment of the adventure itself, but it is a creative and well-written horror escapade. If you're familiar with vintage LotFP adventures or Chandler's particular style, you have an inkling of what's going on here. I have it in pdf and wish I had pulled the trigger on a print copy when I had the chance.

Anyway, the last few pages of the adventure detail a book called the Tract of Teratology containing a ritual for summoning an otherworldly entity. The idea is there are countless Tracts in the world, each with completely different contents. Whether you use that idea, or just crib the monster generation tables is up to you. Let's see how it works.

Summoning Rules: Two tables that fit on a single page, some preamble. Roll for your ritual type (various grim & bloody sacrificial rites) and special components required (pieces of the victim, herbs, gems, whatever).

Every roll on the Tract's tables follows the same format: percentile dice + character level & INT modifier of every participant in the ritual. Simple and straightforward, easy to remember, while stats & planning can still influence the outcome. Great mechanic!


SAMPLE MONSTER - "Fruitopede"

Let's say my wizard is 5th level now, with three new apprentices whose stupidity cancels out my INT bonus, leaving us with a net modifier of +8%. Even this is an oversimplification, as the performance of the ritual (well-done or poorly) can modify your monster results too. We'll have to assume there were no screwups for the sake of argument:

Ritual - poisoning
Components - 200sp bar of silver, the victim's kidneys

HP: 6d8
Damage: 1d4+2
AC: 16
Move: 120'
Attacks: 4
Morale: 12
Summon duration: 1 day, then entity liquefies and seeps into the ground

Attributes - Segmented worm long as a man covered in violet scales, segmented tail w/barbed stinger (+2 damage), smells of orange rind, neutral attitude to caster
Abilities (3) - Random 4th-level MU spell, random 5th-level MU spell, random 7th-level MU spell
Compulsion - follow a stranger home and murder everyone who lives there, except the one who was followed. It must commit the act and the caster must help or lose a point of DEX every day for 1d6 days.

Ugh, well Chandler rarely pulls his punches. What these tables lack in variety, they make up for in nastiness. The 'body' and 'appendages' tables are the meat & potatoes here. Most entries are distinctive and flavourful but with only the two tables the possibilities for weird & unexpected combinations are kept to a minimum.

How Many Rolls? Exactly 19. Plus random MU spells if you get that result (and you will).
Would I use this in the middle of a session? For sure! The charts are straightforward and all use a d%, there is no cross-referencing. It's very easy to use, except for rolling up random MU spells I'd have to develop a method in advance.
Variety and Reusability? Low-Middling. 'Body' and 'appendages' each have about 50 entries, so repeats can happen but the same combination will be rare. The special abilities are sorely lacking though. Random MU spells, immunity to [x], or a flat mechanical bonus? My balls.

I wonder if we shouldn't expect too much from these tables, appearing in the back of an unrelated adventure as they do. But the Guests pack way more variety and juice into less space, so all excuses must fall on deaf ears! Not sure I'd use this to actually generate a monster for the PCs to fight, but it does well at its intended function.


Conclusion

The LotFP "house round" has been a tough one. Summon has classic Raggi juice but isn't very user-friendly. The Tract is clearly and cleanly laid out, but gives fairly basic results. I have to hand it to Zak - the Guests are imaginative, descriptive and flavourful. If you're generating your monsters in advance like with any other random monster generator, I'd give this round to him.

But at the last minute I saw how this hack, modification and automation of the Summon spell changes the game. For demon-summoning in the middle of a session it does exactly what you need. I have to give the title to the 3-man squad of Raggi, Saker and Angus for this OSR-style team-up! Now go click the button and generate your own monsters!!!!

*****

Now I'm pretty hungover today, so time to watch TV or something dumb for a while. I'll leave you with this (actually, 'necrotic proboscis' would be a good grindcore band name too):

Random Monster Generator Shootout!!

I can never get enough monsters. I will do whatever I can to get my greasy hands on any beasts that will throw my players for a loop - if the book is reusable, so much the better! So let's talk about some random monster generators that I have found recently and see how they work.


*****

1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide
Appendix D: Random Generation of Creatures from the Lower Planes 

by Gary Gygax

The all-time legend, defending champion, can Gary keep his throne with all these nu-old-school upstarts coming after the crown? Let's find out!

I discovered Appendix D in my copy of DMG just recently. I only found a hard copy a few months ago, I've had such a great time absorbing Gary's teachings directly. Stumbling on this section inspired the post you're now reading.

Appendix D consists of a mere two pages (not even. 3 and a half columns) of tables and guidelines for random demons, devils and the like. It starts out like a Monster Manual entry with random rolls built in line by line. Example:

"SIZE: S, M, or L (d8, 1 = S, 2-4 = M, 5-8 = L)"

After a while, this shit can get DENSE. Gary doesn't slow down to explain things. After determining stats, tables follow for appearance, body shape, skin colour, appendages, etc. Some of these tables interact weirdly - like rolling "thin" and "broad" under General Characteristics. Of course Gary also references a certain Dragon magazine article if you want more ideas. Thanks pal, I'll just run out and pick that up...

The section on special attacks and defenses is minimal and requires some work on the DM's part. The two tables are more of a jumping-off point. Actually, that's a good description of the whole appendix. It will give you a sketch of the monster, but you'll have to fill in the blanks to make it coherent. Gary gives us a sea of tables to wade through and STILL we have to decide attacks, damage, and special abilities on our own.

How many rolls? Around 30 give or take.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? No way
Variety and reusability? It's designed for a specific type of creature, so variety is limited but it's endlessly reusable. Running through this a handful of times could give you a whole new infernal order to go alongside demons/devils/daemons.

SAMPLE MONSTER - "The Bubblegum Owlbear"

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armour Class: -3
Move: 9"
Hit Dice: 8
% In Lair: 10%
Treasure Type: NONE, haha fuck you!
No. of Attacks: 4
Damage/Attack: 1-8 / by weapon x 3
Special Attacks: 18/00 strength, summoning
Special Defenses: +1 or better weapon to hit, immune to cold, acid
Magic Resistance: -10%
Intelligence: Average
Alignment: CE
Size: M

I rolled: owl head w/ crest or peak, twitching moving visage, tiny human ears, small slitted black eyes, large toothed mouth, bearlike body, thin and narrow, prehensile tail, odour of vomit, pink furred body, spined back, tentacles, one human-nailed hand, one withered & bony hand, insectile feet.

Sheesh. It's a mixed-up demonic TENTACLED PINK OWLBEAR! How much more Gygaxian can you get? This is perfect for an AD&D demon. I'm using these guys in my game - in E6 this could be a unique demon prince! On the downside, imagine the difficulty of describing this mess to the players? I wish I could draw.

Its tentacle-hands and prehensile tail (which I reckon should all look the same) will all carry weapons of various types. With its exceptional strength, it could do an absurd amount of damage in one round. The special ability is summoning, so bubblegum owlbears have a 50% chance to open a Gate which calls either one of their kind (30%) or 1-4 minor demons.


*****


The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and their Modern Simulacra, Tenth Anniversary Edition

by James Edward Raggi IV
from Lamentations of the Flame Princess
lotfp.com
Buy the PDF here - $9.99, the print edition looks sold out


OKAY, we'll keep tonight's party going with a club banger... the thousand-pound gorilla... the standard by which all others are judged. You know it, you love it: the RECGFCFRPG&TMS!

My copy says 'Third Printing' on it, and no wonder. This thing fucking rules, and it's almost unfair to everyone else having this ringer in the competition.

First of all: the art is fantastic. At the back of the book is a collection of the simple black & white images from the earlier printings, and you can compare page-by-page how they were reinvented in lurid full colour throughout the book. The illustrations give the sense that the artists took a real joy in their work. I imagined a dude at a drafting table rubbing his hands together, cackling to himself as he renders another hapless adventurer's disembowelment.

The tables? Oh yeah, they're really good. Hyper-detailed, Raggi leaves very little up to the DM here, in a good way. The entries are really detailed, and when you have rolled your way through you should have everything from shape, size, special attacks to even battle tactics and motivation. Sometimes the combinations are maddeningly bizarre, which might require some work to reconcile. The motivation throughout is to give your game table something it's never seen before.

At the end, Raggi rounds it off with a few pages of advice on 'Putting It All Together.' You may not agree with every single thing he says here, but I found it informative and useful.


How many rolls? Minimum 6, could be around double that if you use every optional table.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? I think I could do it while the PCs were on a smoke break if I got lucky.
Variety and reusability? Fucking TONS of both. The tables are weighted so the really exotic things (body shape: dodecahedron) won't come up too often, but there are so many entries in the 'distinctive features' and 'special abilities' tables that you'll never run out of weird combinations.


SAMPLE MONSTER - "The Lobble"

Armour Class: 17
Move: normal human + 10' (depends on the system you're playing I guess)
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 1d10+1 x 4
Alignment: C
Size: Huge
Morale: 10

I rolled: base HD 2; bipedal; combination of insect (beetle) and crustacean (lobster); huge size; illusionary features (oozing sores); 

So the 'combination' result can really get dangerous. An insect needs six limbs, but a biped stands on two legs so the other four must be arms. Add in a crustacean with claws on the end of every arm and you have four claw attacks. With its huge size, it's going to chop through adventurers in no time. I can imagine to employ its wall-crawling ability, all six limbs cut right into the rock of the dungeon as it scuttles up and down.

Tougher to imagine is the 'illusionary features' ability. This huge beast has oozing slime and pus all over it which is... just an illusion. How? Why? Is it some sort of defense against giant lobble-eating predators? Is it a magical effect or curse of some kind? Will the players ever find out? I have no idea, let's see what happens.


*****


The Level 1 Creature Generator

by Michael Raston
from Gorgzu Games
lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com
Buy the PDF here - $1


I was just browsing around on RPGnow and came across this. From the same guy who wrote Towers of the Weretoads, a short adventure I saw reviewed at Ten Foot Pole.

This tiny little pdf (only nine pages!) would be a bargain at twice the price. The monster generation is simple. Roll on the Basic Shape table, the Form table, and the Special Ability table. That's it!

These elements combine to create a weird variation on a familiar creature. Basic Shape describes the creature's overall body type, like "man," "octopus" or "elephant." Form changes the substance of the creature, like gold-plated skin or a gaseous body. These entries along with the special abilities are cool and very specific. Because the basic shapes are all things we already know, you won't get a bizarre monstrosity like the RECG. It will be a variation and twist on something you already know.

Being made of simple building blocks means this booklet is easy to mess with or add to as you like. You can pick entries if you want. Need a strange mutant fish? Just roll on the other two tables and there you go. Maybe you want a monster that charms its victims, but y'don't know what it should look like? Where it sacrifices depth and complexity, it makes up for it with lightning speed and ease of use.


How many rolls? Exactly three.
Would I use this in the middle of a session? I'd use this baby in the middle of a sentence.
Variety and reusability? Both middling. I can envision myself adding new entries in the future to replace abilities or forms I've rolled more than once. There are theoretically 64,000 combinations but you don't actually want to run 40 different monsters with the same special ability, do you?


SAMPLE MONSTER - "The Silt Sneak"

I rolled: Basic Shape: Goblin. Form: Crumbling, craggy, sandy and granular mass, can decompose into pile of grains then reconstitute. Special Ability: Will attempt to steal one target in PC party and spirit them away to some burrow or lair and torture them.

A sand-goblin that loves to steal and torture adventurers? That's bloody cool. Silt sneaks lie around in sand-pile form waiting for passersby, then they reform and attack from behind to pick off a straggler for their wicked sports! Why do they transform like this, is it a curse or a spell ability? Are they goblins who can turn into sand, or sand that's been animated in the shape of goblins?

This gets my mind working on a desert cave dungeon where they can blend into the sand underfoot. Some ankhegs, giant ants and a mummy or two to round things off. I'm into it!!


*****

In conclusion

These three generators are all great for different things. Having ultra-quick-rolling tables is handy as hell for my bad habit of last-minute prep. The denser generators are so detailed and thick with content that I find it hard to imagine exhausting them.

I would use each one of these generators. I find it hard to pick a favourite but I did call this a 'shootout'...

If I could only use one it would have to be the RECG. It sits in a middle ground between the lightning-fast generation of the L1CG and the baroque density of Appendix D. The tables are long and detailed enough that it'll be hard to exhaust them while simple enough in execution that I can roll up another monstrosity relatively quickly. The excellent production values in comparison to a lot of RPG books give it that last push over the top.


*****

Whew! After digging through my books/PDFs looking for more monster generators, I already have more than enough to do another round like this.

Until then, go roll up some brand new
SLAVES
TO
DARKNESSSSSS