MONSTERS, MINIONS, AND MARAUDERS -- What Would *You* Like To See?

[Steve Long]

So, it's time for another "what would you like to see in this book?" threads.

 

First, a brief word of explanation. Monsters, Minions, And Marauders was originally intended to be a sort of two-sectioned book. One section would have a lot of "generic" monsters that weren't in the HSB; the other would have "named" enemies from the Turakian Age setting. I've recently decided to drop the "named" enemies section, partly because I'm leery of trying to write enemies for a setting that I only have sketchy notes for so far, and partly for various other reasons.

 

The upshot it, this leaves me some room in the book, so I thought I'd ask what people would be interested in seeing in it.

 

As it stands, the content of MMM is "generic" monsters that did not make it into the HSB (typically because they were inappropriate for that book). This includes:

 

-- a huge slew of "humanoid" monsters (orcs, ogres, giants, trolls, goblins, lizard-men, shark-men, and so on)

-- some more demons and dragons

-- "dark" (evil) versions of some standard races like dwarves

-- a few mythological or legendary creatures that weren't in the HSB

-- some more undead

 

...and so on. There will probably also be some "generic" human opponents -- generic barbarian warrior, generic knight, generic city guard, and so on -- for GMs that find such things useful.

 

So, what else would you like to see in the book? I am mainly looking for suggestions for more types of monsters and so forth. Please keep in mind that this is a Fantasy Hero product, not a book of general application like the HSB. Furthermore, I do not want suggestions about changing the nature of the product, about adding cultural or societal notes for monsters (since MMM's not a setting book), or the like. Other than that, anything that seems pertinent and useful to you, feel free to suggest. (One other "out" -- faerie-folk and like monsters. That's a subject big enough for its own book, and I intend to give it one in conjunction with Tuala Morn.)

[OddHat]

1) Monsters with solid genre-cross over potential, especially plane/dimension traveling beasts.

 

2) Cthuloid/Quipthotic Horrors, and their human/humanoid servants. Things to scare the beejezus out of my players.

 

3) Plot hooks for some of the more interesting monsters.

 

4) Comedy monsters. Small dragons that explode if you frighten them, horrible slimy things that want to be friendly, little trainable imps that run faux-technology by hiding inside and working a crank.

 

5) Low point cost beasts appropriate for summoning or shape changing.

 

6) Lots of sample familliars.

[OddHat]

Almost forgot:

 

7) Verminax and other things my mages can make deals with.

 

8) Spirits, Angels, Avatars and Loa.

 

9) Talking animals. Talking trees. Argumentative rocks. Something just between fairy tale wise fox in the woods and Warner Brothers creepy everything is alive animation.

 

10) How about some serious and less serious sentient magic items?

[TechnoViking]

That is a hard one since HSB covers so much. Here is what I can come up with.

 

1. Mythological or Legendary creatures fro,m Mid-East and Far East literature. Djinn and Ono come to mind, but there are a ton you could do. Chinesse Dragons would be cool

 

2. Monsters of the epics. Grendel and Midgard "The World Serpent" .

 

3. With any Humanoid creature you write up, you may want to include the Racial Package Deal for that creature.

 

4. Armies: Maybe mass combat writes for common fantasy units/armies.

 

5. Undead:

a. Revenauts - undead that hunt down their killers.

b. Charon/Grim Reaper/Death's Hand - Undead that collect the souls of the recently dead for the afterlife.

c. Lich - Undead Nercomancer.

You may want to make spells for making undead and bring the dead back to life in this section, if that is not already in the Grimoire.

 

Have more later,

Mike

[Tempuswolf]

Eucephalus, My Faithful Steed

 

How about some exotic draft and riding animals:

 

plane shifting horses

horses that run on air (ala Krull)

giant cave rabbits

giant flying fish

huge slugs

leafy hippocampi

 

to go with each more humanoid marauder. Iron Age and earlier tech makes extensive use of animals for transportation or muscle power in general.

[AnotherSkip]

enough stuff to run a full aquatic campaign.

 

I deas for making the critters into "Lords Of Evil" in their own right. (ie why would an Orc become te leader of an Orcish nation...)

[BobGreenwade]

I'll second the requests for comedic monsters and riding steeds.

 

Also, since the book will by default be used as a monsters book for the HERO Games three fantasy settings (whether it's intended to focus that way or not), you might consider basing the "animal-men" beings on animal-based alien species in the science-fiction settings. That would give the settings a greater sense of continuity, including some potential story hooks for how they got from their homeworlds to Earth (or vice versa).

[Steve Long]

Giant riding cave rabbits....

 

Well, I have to admit that's one I wouldn't've thought of myself....

[eepjr24]

MMM

 

I will second Epic monsters, at least a few. Always fun to throw one of those in a lull.

 

I would also like to have aquatic versions of the humanoids (sea elves, mergoblins, etc). Not necessarily entirely separate, just the stats that change and abilities added / lost.

 

Perhaps a few other environment spcific creatures? Things that live in lava, tunnel through the dirt or never leave the upper atmosphere? Maybe the odd abandoned castle / dungeon specific monster like the carrion crawler, gelatinous cube, mimic?

 

You are probably doing this already, but I would also love to see the weapons commonly used with each entry.

 

- Ernie

[OddHat]

I want tunnel building giant worms that eat rock and excrete gems and gold. Furthermore, their bodily fluids attract and nourish a wide variety of underground dwelling creatures (including orcs, trolls, bugbears, various slimes and jellys, etc.) and act as a sedative, preventing said creatures from preying on one-another. Of course, the scent of human sweat breaks the sedative effect, causing the underground dwellers to attack those adventurers foolish enough to brave the tunnels, and of course the fluids soaked into the walls raise human corpses as undead.

 

Plot Seed: The local King contacts your PCs. The land is suffering from an infestation of Dung-Eon Worms. If they're not stopped soon, the land will be overwhelmed by the dark hords attracted by the stench...

[Hierax]

MONSTERS

 

Not just monsters themselves (lots of them of course!) but also:

 

Suggestions/advice/guidelines on how to build your own Fantasy Monsters; i.e., How to make monsters feel Fantasy-like; what makes fantasy monsters different from superhero monsters, from horror monsters, from sci-fi aliens, etc.

 

Familiars, man you gotta have familiars with all kindza special powers! Just ask what kind of character would Osiris play in Fantasy Hero? As a Hero? As a villain? Turn the mundane into the fantastic. Housecat cool (well soft and warm) but mundane, hellcat familiar to diabolical necromancer lich lord supreme hellfire hot and fantastic.

 

animal (and monster) companions for all types of characters not just wizards. fantastic mounts for knights, sneaky for theives, deadly for assassins, etc.

 

Magical monsters, if magic is part of the environment that makes a Fantasy world fantastic, have monsters that have adapted to magic in usual ways. Pro-magic and Anti-magic monsters.

 

Some fantasy monsters are intelligent variations on animials, how might their kind of intelligence be different than humanoids - what sort of different outlook? Have psychological disadvantages that reflect this and make them feel different than humans.

 

Building blocks for pieces of monsters that you can assemble -- like in Champions and the USPD.

 

 

MINIONS

 

Again, tons of examples but also:

 

Present a variety of power levels of these essential NPCs that form the basis of comparison for the Heroes; Heroes will compare themselves to these everyday folk and this will determine how strong they feel in the campaign. If the average guard has characteristics of 8 and only WF it is different than if they have DEX 13 and CSLs. The more powerful the basic minions, the more power inflation will affect the Heroic PCs, offer a variety of minions for the different power levels of various Fantasy Hero campaigns.

 

Briefly revisit the discussion about the balance of power levels from 1st ed. Fantasy Hero (97f.), 1st ed. Spell Book (p.20f.), and HS Almanac (p.84f.) and update it for the 5th ed. so that GMs can carefully consider the implications of DEX, CSL, OCV, DC, DEF, rDEF, etc. as well as total points when designing monsters or other NPCs so that encounters can be more easily balanced.

 

 

Maurauders

 

Not really sure what the Maurauders part is...

 

 

OVERALL

 

Give us lots of character write-ups but also squeeze a few pages of advice in with the examples to give some context and guidelines to help in designing our own balanced write-ups and making them feel like Fantasy creatures and characters. And give options for various power levels.

 

Oh, yeah, absolutely jam-pack those side bars! -- white space looks nice but the usefulness of examples and variations far outweighs the white space.

 

I'm sure it'll be yet another great HERO book but I'm always greedy for more!

[Monolith]

I am sure I am in the minority here, but I would have preferred the Turakian Age characters myself. Having a tie-in with the campaign world is what makes the book unique to me. It is because of the little bits of information about the campaign world in the write-ups that I would want to buy it. I would much rather read about the Blood Orcs of Grunralk and the Tree Orcs of Purndar then to just see generic orcs with a plains and tree option.

 

There must be at least a couple of dozen generic “monster manual†books for d20 already in publication. That seems like more than enough source material to base generic creatures on to me. I was hoping for something with more life like CKC rather than something more plain like the Bestiary. To me it is the color commentary which makes a creature interesting, now whether it does 1d6 or 2d6 HKA.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Monolith

I am sure I am in the minority here, but I would have preferred the Turakian Age characters myself. Having a tie-in with the campaign world is what makes the book unique to me. It is because of the little bits of information about the campaign world in the write-ups that I would want to buy it. I would much rather read about the Blood Orcs of Grunralk and the Tree Orcs of Purndar then to just see generic orcs with a plains and tree option...Snipped...I was hoping for something with more life like CKC rather than something more plain like the Bestiary. To me it is the color commentary which makes a creature interesting, now whether it does 1d6 or 2d6 HKA.

 

Strongly agreed.

[Polaris]

I think this fits into this book:

 

1. I would like to see giants (hill giants, frost giants, storm giants, and the like). These are good for quick adventures, and to help newer hunting parties (kinda like some GMs use Grond in Champions).

 

2. Perhaps my favorite enemy in fantasy: Gnolls!

 

3. I am confident you are already planning on various undead creatures, but in case not, I would throw that in as a suggestion to. Undead are just too convenient to have stats for (clerics in group.. paladins... party moving through plains... want to establish an evil necromancer, etc).

 

4. I am glad that you are planning on evil versions of player races... evil dwarves, evil elves/Drow, etc.

 

5. Dragons of various kinds. In our fantasy game, dragons are extremely wise, and tend to be benevolent but a bit arrogant. There is a religion in our gameworld that worships dragons, and helps preserve the natural supply of dragonberries (which the dragons, of course eat... and some like to make into a very potent wine). Good dragons, bad dragons, and in between dragons.

 

That rounds out the top 5 of my wish list for the book. Thanks Steve for taking suggestions...

 

Polaris

[yongi]

Other Mythologies

 

Count me in for critters from other mythologies - Chinese, Indian, Samoan, Apache, whatever. Anything outside the traditional western European would make me happy.

 

Oh, and thanks for asking,

-y-

[Doctor Agenda]

Turakian, Valdorian, and so on

 

Two words: Mole Men. I'm not sure which age is what, but either way there should be some of those Lemurian Mole Men running around in the deepest caverns. In other words, tie in some Champions Universe timeline stuff.

 

Although I'm sure there won't be enough room for all my favorite fantasy critters from cultures around the world, some suggestions on using writeups to represent different critters would be welcome, of the Oni is equivalent to a Yaksha is equivalent to a Giant Hag variety.Options for customizing always welcome.

[Hierax]

I agree the setting specific flavoured ones are far better tasting than the generic ones.

 

Ideally, I'd like to see a book full of monsters, a book full of characters, and a book full of spells for each of the official Fantasy Hero settings.

 

e.g., I'd love to see an uber write-up for Takofanes where he is in his fantasy element with all of the native flavour of his own era where we can see what really makes him tick -- far better than a generic fantasy lich.

 

Steve, if you're dropping the named portions from MMaM does that mean that there might be setting-specific monster, character, etc. books for the Turakian and Valdorian Ages that expand upon the setting books themselves or will these named entries only be in the setting books?

 

That all said, I think that generic monsters, minions, etc. are great so long as we aren't losing any of the named ones. It would be best to have both. Again, I'm greedy and want all the FH stuff you can give us!

 

P.S. BTW, what is the estimated page count for MMaM?

[Hierax]

Another thing I'd like to see is racially specific/perspective monster variations:

 

In a way "monsters" are creatures that the normal races fear and become heroes by facing these personified fears and conquering them.

 

Humans have their own kinds of undead and demons that play on their own fears; how would other races undead and demons differ from the human standard? I mean you could just slap a vampire package on top of a dwarf, elf, or halfling but it would be far more flavourful to have a write-up for the race that was distinctively different.

 

e.g., If elves are immortal (or near so) would they fear death less? If so, what sort of fears would replace this and how could that be projected to create different monsters that played upon those fears that were distinctly different?

 

Not really a specific request but something to think about in making some neat new monsters seeping in fantasy flavour.

[Steve Long]

I would also like to have aquatic versions of the humanoids (sea elves, mergoblins, etc). Not necessarily entirely separate, just the stats that change and abilities added / lost.

 

Perhaps a few other environment spcific creatures? Things that live in lava, tunnel through the dirt or never leave the upper atmosphere?

 

We've already got those. Take a creature from the HSB -- or from MMM, once it's available -- and apply the appropriate templates and such from the HSB. Voila, lava worms, sea hobgoblins, infernal giants, divine manticores, whatever you want. I'd rather provide the tools for you to mix-and-match and create what you want than waste endless page space doing variations on major creatures.

 

I am sure I am in the minority here, but I would have preferred the Turakian Age characters myself. Having a tie-in with the campaign world is what makes the book unique to me. It is because of the little bits of information about the campaign world in the write-ups that I would want to buy it. I would much rather read about the Blood Orcs of Grunralk and the Tree Orcs of Purndar then to just see generic orcs with a plains and tree option.

 

This response seems to assume, at least in part, that the "named" enemies stuff won't ever appear. That's absolutely incorrect. I still have every intention of writing a book of enemies for the Turakian Age setting (and similar books for other settings, if sales justify). I'm just not going to do it now for the reasons stated in my original post.

[Eodin]

Hmm...

MONSTERS...Fleas that feed on spirits instead of blood, Animate creatures of sand that swallow whole caravans, cave of wonders (and horrors), mana mosquitos, elemental rats, and so forth.

 

MINIONS...Intelligent amulets, pinnochio-style puppets, "Mordenkainen's Hound", Spirits of departed pets, as well as the usual familiars.

 

MARAUDERS...Bandit gangs, Pirate crews, Viking raiders, Mercenary units (both all warriors and all wizards versions), Hill giant raiders, Werewolf packs, Slaver organizations, and tips on effectively and "realisiticly" (NOT B-movie style) using them.

[MisterD]

Opponents for different character 'classes'

A town guard for a Rogue class

A witch huinter for a wizard

A zeaolt for a prienst (opposite religion)

That sort of thing.

 

With plot seeds.

 

Antagonist of different levels. (Pick Pocket to Lich lord)

 

with plot seeds.

 

 

Different mounts for different classes or races.

 

Some denizens of heaven and hell.

 

 

 

A nice Dwarven woman with a beard you can.... (Surry. Flash back to the Dungeons and Dragon's movie.)

[Mr. Negative]

I'd really like to see monsters with notes as to whether they are appropriate for High, Low, and/or Swords and Sorcery Fantasy. Having done so, I'd also like to see that there are roughly an equal number of "monsters" for each system.

 

I have a real trouble coming up with specific examples here, but I'd like to see both monsters that could only exist in worlds with powerful magic, who could only be dealt with by the most puissant of heroes, and monsters who aren't totally fantastic, and could be dealt with using a crossbow.

 

To give you some ideas from Lankhmar, one of my most favorite settings:

 

Snow Serpents (long, white, furry, venomous snakes)

Intelligent, sword wielding octopi

Cloakers

Intelligent Rats

Ghost Wolves

Ghouls (humans with invisible flesh, but visible bones)

 

Not that I want to see these things in particular, but many, many "beastie books" emphasize very powerful and magical beings, and I'd like to see a good selection of lower-powered, and strange, but not necessarily fantastic monsters. Also, extended write ups of common NPC types (particularly those you encounter in combat) would be GREAT.

 

Assassins, thugs, cultists, city guards, drunken ruffians, surly noblemen, brigands, bandits, pirates, slavers, etc. All of these would be great (and would be very useful to those of us running low fantasy and Swords and Sorcery campaigns).

 

Also useful would be ideas on adapting "more fantastic" monsters to low fantasy and Swords and Sorcery campaigns. For example, you might suggest that "low fantasy" dragons might be of animal intelligence, unable to fly (or only to fly with difficulty), be limited in size (20 feet or so), and have poisonous spittle instead of a breath weapon.

 

I'd also love to see more folkloric supernatural creatures (again, useful for low fantasy and S&S). While I know that some of these are to be saved for a "fairy folk" idea, doing creatures such as the Black Dog, banshee, etc. would be very useful.

 

Finally, monsters that fit into a Horror fantasy setting (like Ravenloft) would also be appreciated. While a healthy helping of Undead is great, including creatures such as flesh golems, and giving GM tips on using monsters in a "horror milieu" rather than a "heroic" milieu would also be great.

 

So, to summarize my very long list:

 

Monsters for low fantasy and swords and sorcery

Commonly encountered opponents

Monsters from Folklore

Monsters appropriate to horror rather than heroic fantasy

[Victor]

How about making monster writeups be more easily scaled to different point levels?

 

It would be handy to have a base set of stats and powers, followed by one or more packages to upgrade them (or downgrade them, if it's easier to go that route) to other power levels. That way there would be ready made monsters for a wider variety of campaign point spreads.

[Nightfly]

Friendly Demons

 

I would like to see demonic races that aren't evil.

 

Joss Whedon, through his Buffy franchise, has succeeded pretty well at redefining demons to be very much like animal/humanoid species. (i.e., not every Demon is bad).

It'd be sweet to see some races of (clearly) demon, who've discarded their evil nature and've now become useful members of (whatever genre) society. Struggling against their evil/demonic nature(s).

 

Another example would be Martin Short's evil Gnome (who turns good) in the Sam Neill Merlin tv-movie.

 

And just as a general rule,...Dragons, Dragons & more Dragons.

 

Also, how about some traditional Alien species (such as the Roswell Grays).

 

Some parasitic (body-snatcher / symbiot) type critters could be cool too.

[tabascojunkie]

i second Oddhat's motion of Cthulhu style monsters. i'm a huge Lovecraft fan and one of these days i'll try to put together a fantasy mixed with cults trying to bring the Great Old Ones back and some sanity blasting formless spawn from beyond human understanding would be just the thing.