Design a monster.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

This time I'll try something a bit more brawny and conventional.

 

Name: Rubble Golem

 

Description: The mortar golem is a sand colored demi-human creature composed of various shifting gradients of sand, cement, and stone. The creature is generally formed from the long derelict ruins of a cumbling magical structure such as a wizard's tower. Scholars theorize that it is a manifestation of lingering enchantments which preserved the structure while in use to reassemble itself back to its former glory.

 

Abilities:

• Gravel Spray: The rubble golem may discharge a cone shape blast of rubble and sand, inflicting X physical damage to all in its path.
• Brick: Any physical attack has an X% chance that it will fall apon the harder stone composites its shifting body, inflicting no damage.
• Mortar: Any melee weapon which successfully strikes the rubble golem has an X% chance that their weapon will become trapped in a mortar mixture where it will remain for Y rounds until the mixture shifts and the weapon falls out or the creature is destroyed.

Attributes:

• Low: Speed, Agility, Intelligence
• Med: Health
• High: Durability/Damage Resistance, Strength

[JFSOCC]

Suicide fly swarm.

 

Suicide flies are found vast stretches of the warmer forests, most of the time they are harmless enough, even if unpleasant.

All suicide flies are female, their eggs develop without any male dna necessary. Suicide flies become pregnant as soon as they change from maggot into fly form. Suicide flies are  small, between the size of a pea and a marble.

But every few years, maybe once per decade an unusually hot year occurs, and Suicide flies change, they become a plague killing vast numbers of forest animals before finally succumbing to a lack of prey and inevitable starvation.

 

(plague)Suicide flies attack any animal which comes near them. The swarm finds, say, a deer, or an adventurer, and launch themselves headlong to a whatever is the softest flesh exposed.

Upon impact, they inject the victim with their offspring and then explode in order to soften the flesh and encourage their young to eat towards the impact. In 5 seconds between 10 and 50 maggots burst out of the flesh still eating the meat. About ten seconds later they drop off and metamorphose into new suicide flies. Within instants they will attack whatever victim is nearby, injecting them with their offspring, exploding and so the cycle continues.

 

And unprepared party encountering the suicide fly swarm will be torn to shreds before you can say "Please god no! no!, ah! they're eating me! they're eating me! ahhh!"

And if maggots busting out of your gut may remove any appetite you had, it doesn't remove theirs. A swarm of 20 flies could easily become a swarm of 700 flies in 5-20 seconds.

 

If a victim dies, all nearby flies converge and inject the dead flesh without sacrificing their lives. This leads to a population boom even faster.

it's no wonder then that some forest animals have developed thick scales and don't have any soft spots. Nor is it strange that every 10 years or so the forest wildlife populations of those unadapted collapse.

 

The flies are incredibly small and impossible to damage with conventional weaponry, because for obvious reasons that's incredibly impractical.

Only full body armour is an effective defence against these flies, but due to their small size, even then they can find the cracks through which to charge.

Magic damage, area damage like fire, or a gaseous toxic cloud, or acid vapour are really the only ways to deal with the suicide flies. In which case they would.... drop like flies.

 

A terribly unlucky traveller might find himself injected with the offspring of an orange suicide fly. This is painless, and goes unnoticed until two days later some three hundred suicide flies burst from the gut. Only the strongest survive this, and those who do are in immediate need of medical attention.

This delayed effect is the evolutionary tactic of the suicide flies to spread beyond the confines of their domain.

 

suicide flies keep following their targets across any distance. they're practically impossible to get rid off without killing them. save finding water deep enough and holding your breath for a minute or so. Even then, you may be unlucky as you surface.

Suicide flies stay in the shade except to fulfil their one role in life: to reproduce. So word to the wise: it's better to prevent than to cure, better to avoid than to engage. (unless you're prepared to deal with them) Stay in the open.

[Dragoonlordz]

A 200ft long flying centipede with dragons wings, a spiders eyes, elephants trunk and tusks, seven mile long barbed tounge, spews acid, each leg has thousand needles which will paralyse and it is carrying a million eggs, which if you kill their mother they all hatch at once and you have a million tiny little bugs eat you instead. Oh and it's made of titanium.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Dragoonlordz

[rjshae]

^^^ Fortunately it's normal diet consists of Russian Mig fighters.

[TRX850]

Living Tunnel

A geographic anomaly that drips acid and splashes travellers with bubbling sulphur.  Rockslides and falling stalactites are also known to target passers-by. A deep, gusty wind wheezes back and forth, like the trachea of a living, breathing mountain.


Half Man / Half Cave [boss Level]

Living walls of flesh, grafted with a fearsome array of slashing sword arms and abhorrent limbs, all controlled by the transplanted head of an experimental but misguided vivisectionist.

 

"Sincere apologies, but I'm all out of anesthetic..."
 

[BruceVC]

Living Tunnel

 

A geographic anomaly that drips acid and splashes travelers with bubbling sulphur.  Rockslides and falling stalactites are also known to target passers-by. A deep, gusty wind wheezes back and forth, like the trachea of a living, breathing mountain.

 

 

Half Man / Half Cave [boss Level]

 

Living walls of flesh, grafted with a fearsome array of slashing sword arms and abhorrent limbs, all controlled by the transplanted head of an experimental but misguided vivisectionist.

 

"Sincere apologies, but I'm all out of anesthetic..."

 

 

Living Tunnel

 

A geographic anomaly that drips acid and splashes travellers with bubbling sulphur.  Rockslides and falling stalactites are also known to target passers-by. A deep, gusty wind wheezes back and forth, like the trachea of a living, breathing mountain.

 

 

Half Man / Half Cave [boss Level]

 

Living walls of flesh, grafted with a fearsome array of slashing sword arms and abhorrent limbs, all controlled by the transplanted head of an experimental but misguided vivisectionist.

 

"Sincere apologies, but I'm all out of anesthetic..."

 

 

 

These monsters remind of me creatures that I read about in an issue of the  AD&D Dragon magazine called Hut Hunters( I think thats what they were called)

 

Anyway these creatures looked exactly like houses with windows, doors and chimneys. They traveled in groups and typically lived in remote area's like forests and mountain valleys. There were different sizes to the Hut Hunters  based on there age so they could create the appearance of a real village with churches, Inns, houses and small huts . Wary travelers would come across them and think they had found a deserted village. They would start exploring and would be drawn towards the middle of the "village" as the Hut Hunters could make noises

 

The adventures would then try to open the door to the  "Inn" and the attack would begin. A large tongue would come out of the door and this tongue would then wrap around the person who tried to open the door and drag him into its mouth. At the same time every other Hut Hunter would attack, so the party would suddenly find themselves surrounded and assailed by every single house in the village. The Hut Hunter can only use there tongues to attack and only from the front but they rely on the element of surprise so you can imagine a party of 8 adventurers being quickly overwhelmed as the Hut Hunters  tongues appear from everywhere.

 

This may sound like a bizarre encounter but I did incorporate it into one of my campaigns as I use to DM. It really worked and provided some good entertainment

Edited February 11, 2013 by BruceVC

[JFSOCC]

Doublers

 

Found in a dungeon.

A group of at least 12 creatures with strong illusion magic.

 

Doublers only attack groups of 4 or more (unless attacked). When they do, each of them uses illusion magic to look like a member of your party. Next, they provide 2-3 illusionary doubles each. During combat with this foe, you cannot select your team mates other than by clicking on their portraits, but won't be able to see where they are positioned. (the distinguishing circle of friend or foe will be obfuscated) you won't be able to distinguish between friend or foe or illusion.

 

Doublers attack your party, but also the illusionary doubles of their other members, in order to sow maximum confusion. An illusionary double deals and takes damage, but very little of each, and vanishes when their caster dies. (or after 2 minutes)

[Jarmo]

The Foragers

 

Sent to gather supplies by a mercenary company passing by. Finding a settlement, the foragers will force the inhabitants to bring out all their food reserves including farm animals and seed grain. On resistance the settlement will be burnt and the settlers put to the sword. All non-elderly females who haven't managed to hide will be taken along, or right there.

 

The group consists of a supply sergeant and about a dozen footmen with supply wagon (or couple of horsemen and half a dozen footmen, if PE has horses).

 

If the foragers are met with force, there will be a punitive strike from the main company. The whole settlement will be wiped out.

The foragers and the mercenary company are above the law, protected by the authority of the ruler employing them.

 

---

Oh.. monster monsters, don't really care for those.

Edited February 11, 2013 by Jarmo

[JFSOCC]

I too, prefer to see most encounters be against ordinary people, still, an occasional monster, especially one which is unique and actually scary seems to be a nice change of pace.

 

And your company is certainly monstrous.

[maggotheart]

---

Oh.. monster monsters, don't really care for those.

 

You don't care for monsters? JS really wasnt kidding when he said we old school RPG fans all have radically different tastes! Seeing some cool and unique monsters would be on my top 3 list of things I want to see in PE.

[BruceVC]

I too, prefer to see most encounters be against ordinary people, still, an occasional monster, especially one which is unique and actually scary seems to be a nice change of pace.

 

And your company is certainly monstrous.

 I agree they do indeed have a questionable moral code

[Jarmo]

I even start to lose interest in all the Fallout games as soon as it's no longer raiders or such, but supermutants or robots or other metal armors.

Yeah, wild variety of opinions, there's no pleasing everybody and I'm pretty much a lost cause as far as trying to please goes.

 

But yeah, have to admit an occasional different monster can liven things up quite some ways,

but as fast as it's "oh, another 5 grunkins", is as fast as the fun value slides.

[BruceVC]

 

---

Oh.. monster monsters, don't really care for those.

 

You don't care for monsters? JS really wasnt kidding when he said we old school RPG fans all have radically different tastes! Seeing some cool and unique monsters would be on my top 3 list of things I want to see in PE.

 

I concur, I love the idea of meeting and fighting different beasts. Thats one of the reasons I love the whole AD&D\D&D universe, the huge variety of monsters.

Edited February 11, 2013 by BruceVC

[Dragoonlordz]

I hope there is part of the game which can take a boat somewhere and have to face a Leviathan / Krakken or just some truly massive scale oceanic monster.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Name: Blink-scink

 

Description: Named by ruefull fishermen, the blink-scink is a large octopus-like creature with evasive tactics and mesmerizing skin. With its magical ability to teleport short distances, it has a feared reputation for stealing bait and then blinking away from the hook, net, or trap. Large specimens are even known to occasionally utilize this tactic on small prey along the shoreline--or even boats.

 

Abilities:

• Blink: As a magically ability, the blink-scink can teleport itself and any creature it has grappled X meters. This can be done once every Y rounds.
• Ink: The blink-scink may project a heavy mucous-like ink at any enemy with X% chance to blind them for Y rounds, or at the ground for Z chance to cause anyone to move slowly or slip and fall for Y rounds.
• Scintillate: The blink-scink has the incredible ability to change the appearance of its skin at will. Aside from camoflauge, the blink-scink is known to display a rapid oscillation of color and light across its body distracting and disorienting its opponents. While active, all within sight incur X% chance to be mesmerised. Those who resist still suffer Y penalty to targeting the blink-scink.

Attributes:

• Low: Health, Durability
• Med: Strength, Stamina, Agility
• High: Intelligence

[maggotheart]

This monster is part of a quest:

 

A newly constructed and colonized port city becomes deserted and no one knows why. A contingent of royal troops sent to investigate and garrison the deserted city goes missing. The party is either sent to investigate or travels there hoping to plunder some unguarded loot. (or stumbles upon it by exploring)

 

While there, they find a few surprises but nothing to explain the disappearance of all the missing people. That is, until the night of the tentacle.

 

During certain nights of the year, a vast deep sea monster comes close to the surface and casts its feeder tentacles onto the surface to devour everything they can reach. These nights of the tentacle strip the beaches and nearby vegetation clean of any animal life. Naturally, the party is present for such an event and must fight through the streets and houses of the abandoned city to avoid being eaten. The feeder tentacles are fibrous and green like flowing seaweed. Some are featureless and are used to grab things, others have hundreds of tiny gnawing mouths that pursue meat with relentless voracity. They can smash through doors, discard large chunks of rubble and grab anything that tries to run away. The party can buy themselves some breathing room by cutting off or crippling the individual feeder tentacles, but they cannot prevail against the monster, only survive.

 

After they escape, the party can use this information however they please, including warning factions they like of the danger, or encouraging a faction they dislike to send men there, or even figuring out some means of destroying the beast.

[JFSOCC]

maggotheart, I imagine some sequence where you're party must dash through the city to reach the far side, away from the feeding arms of the monster? that's really cool. I can see buildings being smashed as you run past them, tentacles grabbing on to a team member who you must now free wasting valuable running away time.

 

Fleeing as a challenge sounds real cool

[maggotheart]

maggotheart, I imagine some sequence where you're party must dash through the city to reach the far side, away from the feeding arms of the monster? that's really cool. I can see buildings being smashed as you run past them, tentacles grabbing on to a team member who you must now free wasting valuable running away time.

 

Fleeing as a challenge sounds real cool

 

Like I mentioned in the other monster thread, I'm hoping they give us some really exciting and different combat situations - a chase scene is something they haven't done before, but I think could work really well, especially if combined with elements of horror and suspense. I made an argument somewhere that respawns could work in this regard too: you reach the bottom of some evil crypt and disturb a certain tomb, and an endless undead mob starts spawning - too many to fight, you have to escape and bar the door behind you.

 

Indiras post about Deathtrap Dungeon got me thinking about another monster in that book (the one on the cover)

 

 

How about a scenario where the monster is gigantic but mostly immobile, protected by (acid pools/minions/whatever) with only one vulnerable spot - the leviathan could turn over in its pool periodically, moving the target area (and splashing those nearby with acid) and so forth.

[Dragoonlordz]

Heh, I read that fighting fantasy book like few days ago though my edition is the wizard published edition so cover is different.

 

My cover looks like this.

 

 

However I do remember that creature from the book. I had some lucky rolls and managed to run around it slashing at it's tentacles.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Dragoonlordz

[JFSOCC]

 

maggotheart, I imagine some sequence where you're party must dash through the city to reach the far side, away from the feeding arms of the monster? that's really cool. I can see buildings being smashed as you run past them, tentacles grabbing on to a team member who you must now free wasting valuable running away time.

 

Fleeing as a challenge sounds real cool

 

a chase scene is something they haven't done before,

I present to you my favourite scene from my favourite game

[BruceVC]

 

maggotheart, I imagine some sequence where you're party must dash through the city to reach the far side, away from the feeding arms of the monster? that's really cool. I can see buildings being smashed as you run past them, tentacles grabbing on to a team member who you must now free wasting valuable running away time.

 

Fleeing as a challenge sounds real cool

 

Like I mentioned in the other monster thread, I'm hoping they give us some really exciting and different combat situations - a chase scene is something they haven't done before, but I think could work really well, especially if combined with elements of horror and suspense. I made an argument somewhere that respawns could work in this regard too: you reach the bottom of some evil crypt and disturb a certain tomb, and an endless undead mob starts spawning - too many to fight, you have to escape and bar the door behind you.

 

Indiras post about Deathtrap Dungeon got me thinking about another monster in that book (the one on the cover)

 

 

How about a scenario where the monster is gigantic but mostly immobile, protected by (acid pools/minions/whatever) with only one vulnerable spot - the leviathan could turn over in its pool periodically, moving the target area (and splashing those nearby with acid) and so forth.

 

 

Yeah, classic cover and monster. I think that Deathtrap Dungeon as my favorite book. Later on you get a chance to return to Deathtrap dungeon in "Trial of the Champions" which was also excellent. I also enjoyed " Creature of Havoc " where you awake as a monster and need to defeat Zharradan Marr( its amazing I still remember his name). This book was unique as you need to use a code to understand what people are saying, as initially you  can't speak common tongue as you are a monster. I remember how hard it was.

 

Do you guys remember the 4 part book series called  Sorcery by Steve Jackson? That was my ultimate gaming book experience at the time , book 3 rocked!! The Seven Serpents was brilliant

Edited February 13, 2013 by BruceVC

[maggotheart]

 

 

Indiras post about Deathtrap Dungeon got me thinking about another monster in that book (the one on the cover)

 

 

Yeah, classic cover and monster. I think that Deathtrap Dungeon as my favorite book. Later on you get a chance to return to Deathtrap dungeon in "Trial of the Champions" which was also excellent. I also enjoyed " Creature of Havoc " where you awake as a monster and need to defeat Zharradan Marr( its amazing I still remember his name). This book was unique as you need to use a code to understand what people are saying, as initially you  can't speak common tongue as you are a monster. I remember how hard it was.

 

Do you guys remember the 4 part book series called  Sorcery by Steve Jackson? That was my ultimate gaming book experience at the time , book 3 rocked!! The Seven Serpents was brilliant

 

Pn lzb tr vfnf rdcb nrfbdt hj s!

 

I used to collect the FF series and I have them all, including the Sorcery books - very unique flavor to them and not forgiving at all!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Guys, what a trip down Memorylane!

 

I've read dozens of those FF-books. My own copy of "Deathtrap Dungeon" is so worn out. Also my NWN 2 module "Trial and Terror" was loosely inspired by that fantastic book.

 

Here are two of my other favorites in me bookshelf, especially the first one - so deadly:

 

 

 

They were often extremely well written , the suspense was real, and your choices sure did matter.

[Oner]

An old classic, done differently:

Astral Vampire

If someone has his soul ripped out, that person dies. Should he only have part of his soul ripped, tearing it in half, he becomes an astral vampire. Feeling the emptiness where his very being is supposed to be, he starts craving something. That "hunger" becomes worse and worse, robbing him of logical thought, reducing him to a beast, until he sates his appetite and consumes somebody else's soul. His own soul is complete again...for a time. His normal personality returns, though possibly distorted by the absorbed person's. After a while the new soul is "used up", announced by the return of the hunger.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Here is my idea.

 

A skinless humanoid creature that kills people and wears their skin in order to impersonate them. It has a photographic memory and is incredibly good at impersonation, allowing it effectively pass as a person that it has killed. It is not supernaturally adept physically, but does have advanced mental abilities. It would be likely to be adept at magic or have Cipher like skills.

 

It would be included in a quest where the party has to find out who in a tavern/town is the creature it attempts to kill them in their sleep. If the party discovers the creatures identity, it offers them something if they spare it. If the party does not discover its identity, it attempts to kill them in their sleep. If the party accuses the wrong person, the creature does not attack them, but will kill one person in the area every 7-30 days.