Also sprach Schpawn:
We just finished a session, and I'm currently in a mood of "I want to post about how I'm having a good fucking time and really enjoying my fucking D&D game and how when my group got together this evening we ate really good food, drank good beer and wine, and all laughed our asses off and talked shit to each other, and killed tons of Sleestaks and three Neo-Otyughs and two Owlbears and a T Rex, while skirting past Stonehell and got a ton of loot which included a Potion of Super-Heroism that we immediately used in the T Rex fight, and almost had the War Wagon burnt to a crisp but we saved the ballista, and I used Speak with Animals to see what the horses knew and if they were okay, and Speak with Dead to interrogate the corpse of the guy that set the War Wagon on fire who me and Vivuli killed during a chase, while the rest of the party tried to put out the fire, and LATER Dak tried out the demonic fire gems for the first time while we all hung over the Neo-Otyugh caves by ropes after being ambushed, and unleashed a 3-round firestorm that incinerated them all, and then during the T Rex attack stupid Dak said 'I hope I don't roll a 1 on this d30' and OF COURSE he rolls the most mocking fucking '1', rolling up one side of the rule book and back down again, and the T Rex wins initiative and bites him almost in half, but for Super Heroism, and he's got plenty of hit points and we're all throwing the d30s in the last minutes of the session and the T Rex is killed.
And everybody left LAUGHING and SMILING and RECOUNTING WHAT HAPPENED and MAKING PLANS FOR THE LOOT."
That is why I blog about this game in this corner of the blogosphere. On the best days I'm having a hell of a good time. FUN FUN FUN.
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Arandish Trolls
I have posted before about the various types of Trolls that exist in the Lands of Ara, therefore I will not re-post their stats here. But, in response to James Maliszewski's proposal, I will now offer some background explanation about WHY I chose to customize trolls for the Arandish Campaign.
The classic D&D troll, re-dubbed the "Hill Troll" in the Lands of Ara.
There are three main influences / factors that steered me away from using standard D&D trolls as written:
(1) Crimson Blades of Ara. Trolls as they appear in Ara were first conceived for a non-D&D game, i.e., my homebrewed system Crimson Blades of Ara. The main idea put forward in CBoA that impacted my choice to expand trollkind into a whole family of related-but-different monsters was its conception of indigenous Arandish monsters vs. extraplanar, summoned ones. Trolls were one of the few indigenous Arandish monster races (along with dragons, giants, and the undead) -- and therefore seemed to need to come in many regional varieties. In fact, CBoA sported even more trollish types than I now use in the Labyrinth Lord iteration of Ara, including (in ascending order of power) mud trolls, tree trolls, hill trolls, rock trolls, and swamp trolls. (Maybe one day I'll stat out those first two types for Labyrinth Lord.)
(2) The works of J.R.R. Tolkien, wherein orcs, goblins, and trolls all seemed much more powerful and dangerous than they did as statted for D&D. To be fair, D&D trolls are not much like the trolls who appear in the "Roast Mutton" chapter of The Hobbit -- the former are thin, rubbery, regenerating things, while the latter are huge, ravenous, turn-to-stone-in-sunlight type things. But nevertheless I felt from an early age that trolls -- or at least some varieties of trolls -- should be more powerful and dreaded than the standard D&D troll.
(3) Tunnels and Trolls. Although I did not consciously realize this until quite recently, Ken St. Andre's Tunnels and Trolls surely influenced my outlook on trollkind. For example, on p. 2.7.2, in the description of the troll that inhabits the included introductory adventure "Trollstone Caverns," St. Andre writes: "This is a Cave Troll of the classic type -- direct sunlight will change him into stone." Not only does this passage align this particular troll with Tolkien's conception mentioned above (and perhaps explains why so many mythological trolls live under bridges and the like), but it subtly implies that the "Cave Troll of the classic type" is not the only type of troll available. I could also swear that the words "rock troll" appear somewhere in the T&T rulebook, though I cannot now locate the reference.
Now, where exactly I got the idea for the swamp troll and the rock troll, I do not exactly know. However, I can tell you precisely what creature from pop culture LOOKS the most like a rock troll: the H.R. Giger Alien creature.
The elongated head shape of the Alien is not quite right, nor do Arandish rock trolls have that little mouth-within-a-mouth thing, but in terms of overall stature, way of moving, and relative invulnerability, rock trolls and aliens are indeed closely related.
Swamp trolls, which dwell mostly in the Great Western Swamp, and which constitute the only trollish strain to eschew walking bipedally, remind me somewhat of oversized, aquatic bulettes. A direct influence? I cannot say now, but it is a strong possibility since bulettes are (and have always been) a particular favorite monster of mine.
The classic D&D troll, re-dubbed the "Hill Troll" in the Lands of Ara.
There are three main influences / factors that steered me away from using standard D&D trolls as written:
(1) Crimson Blades of Ara. Trolls as they appear in Ara were first conceived for a non-D&D game, i.e., my homebrewed system Crimson Blades of Ara. The main idea put forward in CBoA that impacted my choice to expand trollkind into a whole family of related-but-different monsters was its conception of indigenous Arandish monsters vs. extraplanar, summoned ones. Trolls were one of the few indigenous Arandish monster races (along with dragons, giants, and the undead) -- and therefore seemed to need to come in many regional varieties. In fact, CBoA sported even more trollish types than I now use in the Labyrinth Lord iteration of Ara, including (in ascending order of power) mud trolls, tree trolls, hill trolls, rock trolls, and swamp trolls. (Maybe one day I'll stat out those first two types for Labyrinth Lord.)
(2) The works of J.R.R. Tolkien, wherein orcs, goblins, and trolls all seemed much more powerful and dangerous than they did as statted for D&D. To be fair, D&D trolls are not much like the trolls who appear in the "Roast Mutton" chapter of The Hobbit -- the former are thin, rubbery, regenerating things, while the latter are huge, ravenous, turn-to-stone-in-sunlight type things. But nevertheless I felt from an early age that trolls -- or at least some varieties of trolls -- should be more powerful and dreaded than the standard D&D troll.
(3) Tunnels and Trolls. Although I did not consciously realize this until quite recently, Ken St. Andre's Tunnels and Trolls surely influenced my outlook on trollkind. For example, on p. 2.7.2, in the description of the troll that inhabits the included introductory adventure "Trollstone Caverns," St. Andre writes: "This is a Cave Troll of the classic type -- direct sunlight will change him into stone." Not only does this passage align this particular troll with Tolkien's conception mentioned above (and perhaps explains why so many mythological trolls live under bridges and the like), but it subtly implies that the "Cave Troll of the classic type" is not the only type of troll available. I could also swear that the words "rock troll" appear somewhere in the T&T rulebook, though I cannot now locate the reference.
Now, where exactly I got the idea for the swamp troll and the rock troll, I do not exactly know. However, I can tell you precisely what creature from pop culture LOOKS the most like a rock troll: the H.R. Giger Alien creature.
The elongated head shape of the Alien is not quite right, nor do Arandish rock trolls have that little mouth-within-a-mouth thing, but in terms of overall stature, way of moving, and relative invulnerability, rock trolls and aliens are indeed closely related.
The Bulette: inspiration for the Arandish Swamp Troll?
Swamp trolls, which dwell mostly in the Great Western Swamp, and which constitute the only trollish strain to eschew walking bipedally, remind me somewhat of oversized, aquatic bulettes. A direct influence? I cannot say now, but it is a strong possibility since bulettes are (and have always been) a particular favorite monster of mine.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Arandish Monster Roundup
Inspired by Al's excellent organizational scheme for cataloging his Megadungeon Resources posts, and by my own game-masterly need for such a thing, I have decided to consolidate the information relating to all the Ara-specific monsters here in one place. So what follows are links to all the information and stat blocks pertaining to Ara's unique monster denizens.
The Trolls of Ara
Monsters of the Great Western Swamp, including the frog-like Blaag and the dreaded Swamp Tiger.
Arandish Vampires
Three Badass Dragons
Arandish Goblins and Hobgoblins
Horned Cyclops
Dark Orcs
Four Demons
Deep Gnomes and Deep Hobbits
Four Dimetrodons
Sleestak
Eyepecker
Tree Wilden (Sloth of Death)
Undead Stirge
Undead Yeti
Monday, December 20, 2010
My 10 Favorite D&D Monsters
This post has been a long time in the making. Originally inspired by James M's posts on his favorite and least favorite classic D&D monsters, what follows is a list of my top-ten canonical D&D monsters of all time, in no particular order.
1. Giant Toad: The VERY first time I ever played AD&D, I was run through a solo adventure by my best friend Andy. I had no idea what I was doing, since all my experience playing D&D was based upon my own incomplete understanding of Holmes, which I mostly played with my younger brother and various babysitters who were kind enough to indulge me in this. (It was not until sixth grade, when I met an older kid named Michael Oshiro, that I learned how to play AD&D -- and to play T&T, and to use foul language -- properly. But I digress.) On the occasion of this first AD&D solo adventure, I was a first-level fighter in a dungeon, and one of the very first doors my character opened contained a Giant Toad! Combat ensued, and within a couple of rounds, my character was killed by the monster. While I now can look back and see that it is possible that Andy's puckish streak, which could occasionally veer into sadism, may have been at play here, nevertheless I came away from that experience -- a TPK! -- forever fearing Giant Toads in D&D.
2. Red Dragon: Although I have become fond of black dragons in recent years (perhaps because I have also become obsessed with swamps), for me, the red dragon will always be the most iconic and scariest of the evil dragons. This probably has a lot to do with the cover of the Holmes D&D set as well as this illustration of Smaug in my hardbound copy of The Hobbit:
3. Owlbear: Owlbears rule. They always have, they always will.
4. Orc: The gold standard of low-HD D&D monsters. You can have your kobolds, your gnolls, your goblins, your neanderthals, your trogs -- but for my money, the best 1-2 HD monster in the bunch is the good old dependable orc. Again, I confess a likely Tolkien influence here.
5. Beholder: Do I even need to explain this one?
6. Lich: Acererak is the key inspiration here, S1 Tomb of Horrors being the module that introduced me to the existence of liches in the first place. Now I love to use them myself. As my obsession with D&D vampires attests to, I am a big undead fan in general, and liches are like super-elite undead. What's not to love?
7. Hobgoblin: As I have previously posted, I have never had much truck with Goblins in D&D (though, thanks to James M, I am now coming to appreciate them as a PC race), but I frikkin' LOVE hobgoblins. I think this is again due to a Tolkien influence -- I have always pictured "goblins" and "hobgoblins" as something huge, strong, well-organized, and fearsome. To me, hobgoblins should be more badassed than orcs, and one of the toughest humanoid monsters regularly encountered in a low-level D&D campaign.
8. Otyugh and Neo-Otyugh: I have always loved these things, sort of a cool "abomination" type creature with weird eyestalks and tentacles. Like a mid-level, poor-man's beholder perhaps. I especially like that regular Otyughs are described as scavengers who will not typically attack PCs directly, yet their more powerful Neo-Otyugh cousins are more bold and aggressive. To me, this suggests an interesting familial relationship between the two types, wherein a single Neo-Otyugh (or perhaps a mated pair) will have a group of smaller Otyughs around to clean up the scraps after a hunt.
9. The Undead: Okay, this may seem silly, since I already listed liches separately, but dammit, I LOVE the undead. Besides humans and hobgoblins, the undead are my most favorite of all monsters, and, when justifiable, the most frequently encountered foes in my campaigns. Deserving of special mention: skeletons, wraiths, and wights. Mummies are reserved for special occasions only.
10. Human: Like noisms at Monsters and Manuals, I am a big fan of human opponents and use them far more than I use any monster or monsters -- or at least I used to. Throughout the 1990s I probably pitted my adventure parties against human foes in roughly 60% of all encounters, maybe even 70%. In those days anyway, I liked to make non-human monsters more of a rarity, plus I LOVE insane and sadistic serial-killer human types, and have a lot of fun as a referee experimenting with their twisted mentalities and antisocial behavior. Yes, mine is a campaign world filled with psychologically unhinged people. However, now that I am back playing old-school D&D (in the form of Labyrinth Lord), I notice I am using more and more non-human monsters these days, and so my "human foes used" percentage is way down.
Five More Monsters Also Deserving of Honorable Mention:
- Dinosaurs: I omitted them from the Top Ten because despite my LOVE for dinos, I don't really consider them a "classic" D&D monster -- i.e., when I think of dinosaurs, D&D does not immediately leap to mind (The Lost World, Land of the Lost and Jurassic Park III do, though). I usually throw a "Valley of the Dinosaurs" into most of my adventure campaigns at some point or another. For the record, my favorite dinos include Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, T-Rex, and (technically a non-dinosaur) Dimetrodon.
- Xorn: I've never actually used one in play, but I love their weird look and their appealing name.
- Giant Scorpion: Harryhausen!
- Kuo-Toa: An old favorite ever since Module D2, and particularly cool as revamped for B/X by JB!
- Drow: Used to be my total favorite (no doubt due to D1-2-3 and Q1), but now seem pretty blah actually.
1. Giant Toad: The VERY first time I ever played AD&D, I was run through a solo adventure by my best friend Andy. I had no idea what I was doing, since all my experience playing D&D was based upon my own incomplete understanding of Holmes, which I mostly played with my younger brother and various babysitters who were kind enough to indulge me in this. (It was not until sixth grade, when I met an older kid named Michael Oshiro, that I learned how to play AD&D -- and to play T&T, and to use foul language -- properly. But I digress.) On the occasion of this first AD&D solo adventure, I was a first-level fighter in a dungeon, and one of the very first doors my character opened contained a Giant Toad! Combat ensued, and within a couple of rounds, my character was killed by the monster. While I now can look back and see that it is possible that Andy's puckish streak, which could occasionally veer into sadism, may have been at play here, nevertheless I came away from that experience -- a TPK! -- forever fearing Giant Toads in D&D.
2. Red Dragon: Although I have become fond of black dragons in recent years (perhaps because I have also become obsessed with swamps), for me, the red dragon will always be the most iconic and scariest of the evil dragons. This probably has a lot to do with the cover of the Holmes D&D set as well as this illustration of Smaug in my hardbound copy of The Hobbit:
3. Owlbear: Owlbears rule. They always have, they always will.
4. Orc: The gold standard of low-HD D&D monsters. You can have your kobolds, your gnolls, your goblins, your neanderthals, your trogs -- but for my money, the best 1-2 HD monster in the bunch is the good old dependable orc. Again, I confess a likely Tolkien influence here.
5. Beholder: Do I even need to explain this one?
6. Lich: Acererak is the key inspiration here, S1 Tomb of Horrors being the module that introduced me to the existence of liches in the first place. Now I love to use them myself. As my obsession with D&D vampires attests to, I am a big undead fan in general, and liches are like super-elite undead. What's not to love?
7. Hobgoblin: As I have previously posted, I have never had much truck with Goblins in D&D (though, thanks to James M, I am now coming to appreciate them as a PC race), but I frikkin' LOVE hobgoblins. I think this is again due to a Tolkien influence -- I have always pictured "goblins" and "hobgoblins" as something huge, strong, well-organized, and fearsome. To me, hobgoblins should be more badassed than orcs, and one of the toughest humanoid monsters regularly encountered in a low-level D&D campaign.
8. Otyugh and Neo-Otyugh: I have always loved these things, sort of a cool "abomination" type creature with weird eyestalks and tentacles. Like a mid-level, poor-man's beholder perhaps. I especially like that regular Otyughs are described as scavengers who will not typically attack PCs directly, yet their more powerful Neo-Otyugh cousins are more bold and aggressive. To me, this suggests an interesting familial relationship between the two types, wherein a single Neo-Otyugh (or perhaps a mated pair) will have a group of smaller Otyughs around to clean up the scraps after a hunt.
9. The Undead: Okay, this may seem silly, since I already listed liches separately, but dammit, I LOVE the undead. Besides humans and hobgoblins, the undead are my most favorite of all monsters, and, when justifiable, the most frequently encountered foes in my campaigns. Deserving of special mention: skeletons, wraiths, and wights. Mummies are reserved for special occasions only.
10. Human: Like noisms at Monsters and Manuals, I am a big fan of human opponents and use them far more than I use any monster or monsters -- or at least I used to. Throughout the 1990s I probably pitted my adventure parties against human foes in roughly 60% of all encounters, maybe even 70%. In those days anyway, I liked to make non-human monsters more of a rarity, plus I LOVE insane and sadistic serial-killer human types, and have a lot of fun as a referee experimenting with their twisted mentalities and antisocial behavior. Yes, mine is a campaign world filled with psychologically unhinged people. However, now that I am back playing old-school D&D (in the form of Labyrinth Lord), I notice I am using more and more non-human monsters these days, and so my "human foes used" percentage is way down.
Five More Monsters Also Deserving of Honorable Mention:
- Dinosaurs: I omitted them from the Top Ten because despite my LOVE for dinos, I don't really consider them a "classic" D&D monster -- i.e., when I think of dinosaurs, D&D does not immediately leap to mind (The Lost World, Land of the Lost and Jurassic Park III do, though). I usually throw a "Valley of the Dinosaurs" into most of my adventure campaigns at some point or another. For the record, my favorite dinos include Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, T-Rex, and (technically a non-dinosaur) Dimetrodon.
- Xorn: I've never actually used one in play, but I love their weird look and their appealing name.
- Giant Scorpion: Harryhausen!
- Kuo-Toa: An old favorite ever since Module D2, and particularly cool as revamped for B/X by JB!
- Drow: Used to be my total favorite (no doubt due to D1-2-3 and Q1), but now seem pretty blah actually.
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