Breathing New Life into your Monsters

Rolzup · Dec 8, 2007

An idea that I had recently....

Gnolls are what happens when a hyena consumes the flesh, and along with it the soul, of a living human. Over a period of several days they change, gaining sapience and learning to walk upright. They can speak instinctively in whatever language their victim once spoke, as well as their own bestial tongue.

Even so, they remain animals. Cruel and sadistic animals, at that, who kill as much for pleasure as for food.

And it's not unknown for a burgeoning pack of gnolls to take living captives, solely for the purpose of feeding them to their still animalistic brethren.

On a largely different note, a poster over at RPGnet had an utterly brilliant idea of recasting D&D's halflings as something akin to Arthur Machen's "little people"....

Halflings are the remnants of an much earlier wave of human settlement. The newer waves of humans don't even think of Halflings as other humans. They live in the wilds, hunting and living a mostly subsistence lifestyle. Although there were fierce, near genocidal battles during the last wave of colonization, those days are long gone. In the cities, "Halflings" or "The Little People" are considered nearly-mythical. But in the small villages of the country, they have come to an accord with the humans. Most households make regular offerings of milk, cheese, and butter, by placing them outside the doors at night. Halflings love dairy products, as they never developed that type of farming. In return, the Little People keep the wilderness around the villages clear of humanoids and sometimes even bring in wild game. Of course, every once in a while, a Hafling gets bored of this and decides to explore the rest of the world....

...Haflings are essentially Stone/Bronze Age folks, although they have stolen bits from later human settlers over the years. However, they still prefer their traditional domicile: they dig earthen homes in the ground. After a few years, these homes become so grown-over with vegetation, that they appear to be natural hills. Thus, humans have learned to be respectful of the sidh they find in the wild, for the Little People dwell within.

Also worth noting that not all Halflings have come to accord with cousins. There are some very aggressive communities left in the world; their bellicosity perhaps exacerbated by the generations of in-breeding to which the dwindling population is subject. Regions inhabited by these sorts of Halflings--euphemistically called "the Good Folk" to avoid attacks--are often uninhabited wilderness. Any human village so unfortunate as to be located near them, soon finds themselves cut off from trade routes (caravans frequently disappear into the woods), with cattle that disappear into the night, and crops that are destroyed. This has lead to one of the darkest secrets of the age: some human settlers have learned to offer up sacrifices, generally young girls, to the Good Folk. They try not to think too much about what happens to them.

...and this strikes me as an absolutely brilliant idea.

Kaodi · Dec 8, 2007

This idea may only be half-baked, but...

You could cast gargoyles as the ancient foes of the dwarves.

Their traditional role has been as something like guardians, where they kept things out, but instead perhaps they should be known for keeping things in... Ages ago, dwarves lived above ground. However, they were terrorized by gargoyles, trapped in their towns and cities by the hungry and cruel predators, who delighted in forcing the dwarves to carve likenesses of themselves on all of their walls and buildings. Whenever a dwarf tried to flee, they would swoop in to play, slowing tormenting until they moved in for the kill. They would then use the bones of their victims to create gruesome monuments that parodied their own statues, and set them at the outskirts of their lands. With no escape past the walls, the dwarfs were forced to dig, in secret, down into the bowels of the earth. This was the beginning of their underground culture.

Since then, the population of the gargoyles has decreased, but they still enjoy all of the same things, merely on a smaller scale. They terrorize towns and villages, swooping in to kidnap artisans who they force to work their strange creations before being devoured. Their favourite targets, and food, are still dwarves, who they slaughter and drive back underground whenever they encounter them. And in some places, there are still the statue filled ghost towns, which from time to time are filled with new inhabitants for a prolonged time of fun...

megamania · Dec 8, 2007

Tonguez said:
GHOUL

OR you can have them start to eat the toes of a paralysed PC victim describing the pain and horror of being eaten alive......

Darksun Halflings

szilard · Dec 9, 2007

Okay, here's one:

Gnolls
Gnolls are scavengers and raiders, but - despite what others think - it isn't because they are lazy. Gnolls have a deep-seated respect for life, and will not take the life of another - even a plant - unless it can fight back. Thus, their lifestyle revolves around finding enough to eat. They usually subsist on scavenged goods - already dead animal or plant matter. They'll often move into agricultural areas and pick fruits and vegetables when they can do so without killing the plant... or raid the stockpiles that farmers have. This, of course, often brings them into conflict with other humanoids... and that gives them a rare source of fresh meat.

-Stuart

wolfpunk · Dec 9, 2007

The farthest I have ever twisted a standard creature was with trolls.

They became self-loathing covetous trophy collectors. They would capture and skin creatures whom they felt were more in appearance of their own self-concept and would then skin themselves and attach the skin of their vistims onto their own bodies so as to assume the likeness of that which they desired to look like.

Their dens were full of skins stretched on crude wooden racks.

So you had some trolls that looked like giants, bears, or in one case a mangled but obviously once beautiful human girl.

Ragnar69 · Dec 9, 2007

I think of bugbears like the guys from 13th Warrior.

Tonguez · Dec 10, 2007

I un-monstered bugbears instead turning them into Mangani (Beastmen). They become neutral and get brachiation (which allows them to swing through the trees). Their behaviours is modeled on the Mangani of Tarzan fame (which means they can be savage) as well as ideas about Sasquatch and Yeti.

Wolfpunk I like that idea for Trolls, its creepy and twisted.
IMC I used a pair of heavily templated Trolls to create the twin gods of Disease and Insanity. It was implied that a fiendish race of trolls that worship these two gods exist but they were never used in game.

InVinoVeritas · Dec 10, 2007

Rot grubs are a food source for kuo-toa (and a few other races). The kuo-toa farm them by infecting a host and releasing him/her; adventurers work best for this. An adnventurer host will typically rush back to the party and attempt to find a cure. If this is somehow delayed or prevented long enough, the rot grubs overwhelm the host--and infect the rest of the party. The kuo-toa now have a corpse full of rot grubs, and a number of additional hosts for the next harvest.

JiffyPopTart · Dec 10, 2007

Some changes to low ECL DnD monsters I did in a campaign...

Setup: PCs are all from a boom industrial town that has recently dammed up a river to work metal (think the town from Princess Mononoke).

Dryad: Her tree was killed by the rising dammed waters, since the "good guy" races didn't put much worry into the effects the dam would cause. Her hatred kept her alive as a vampiric-dryad who dedicated herself to destroying the dam (and the town itself if possible). This makes the main BBEG really not even so much of an E because I like moral dilemmas.

Standard Animals: One of the dryads powers was to be able to influence the woodland animals who had also been affected by the dam. Thus at any time the PCs could be attacked by any woodland animal who was in a berserker rage and out for blood.

Goblins: A small tribe of goblins, led by a higher level goblin wizard, was uprooted by the flood and forced to move closer to the human settlement. The wizard KNOWS if the goblins upset the "good guys" the tribe is doomed, so he is doing everything possible to keep out of the fighting.

Ghoul: A recent string of cattle mutilations has occured in the city. Cattle are found with sucker/puncture marks on their body and all of their blood drained. PCs are sent to investigate. The "ghoul" responsible turned out to be a failed experiment of the goblin wizards that had escaped in the confusion of fleeing the floods.

DS

Rechan · Dec 10, 2007

I agree that there are a ton of undead that just need to get revamped (no pun intended). For one, the Mohrg is one that I just... could never take seriously. Sure, they're crazy serial killers who are brought back because they have unfinished business, but perhaps it's just the tongue thing I can't take seriously.

Were it up to me, I'd take the vampire as written, and add a few different types - but then, I'm a big fan of the Dresden Files, so I'd model them after the appropriate courts. Ahem.

Breathing New Life into your Monsters

Rolzup

First Post

Kaodi

Hero

megamania

Hero

szilard

First Post

wolfpunk

First Post

Ragnar69

First Post

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow

InVinoVeritas

Adventurer

JiffyPopTart

Bree-Yark

Rechan

Adventurer

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