Creature Catalog now in Dragon Magazine

BOZ said:

Regarding the Yugoloths, I have to inform you that Yagdoo is indeed merely an individual least guardian yugoloth rather than a separate type. Skimming his background info, it seems he has spent 800 years wandering the wastelands and has gone insane. He has the same stats as one of his kind, but has gained a few skills and powers, including the ability to Hide and Move Silently 95% of the time (would be a skill bonus now), ventriloquism, increased Speed and Jumping bonus, and edged weapons shatter upon hitting him.

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3e is wonderful in that it's easy and consistent to advance monsters. In Yagdoo's case, I'd give him a few levels of Barbarian. It would give him the increased Hide, Jump, and Move Silently skill ranks, and improved speed. Ventriloquism and weapon-shattering could be dropped or maybe mimicked with some magic item (like amulet of natural armor instead of weapon-shattering "natural armor"...).

BOZ said:

i don't like #2 at all, and #3 leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i don't have the stats in front of me at the moment (and too tired to look at them even if i did), but i think there are two ways we could go with it. as i recall, these were ultrapowerful beings who sacrificed a lot of their power to create other creatures, got weak, and went mad. we could use the stats we were originally given to be the stats for the modern barenaloth, the one you would be most likely to encounter. the epic-level baernaloth would exist in one of two forms:

1. as an abbreviated stat block, saying "they used to be like this once upon a time but are no longer"

2. as a full monster entry, something akin to "elder baernaloth". these would be the rare few (maybe only a handful in existence, or even just one lone elder) who did not sacrifice their power to create lesser beings.

either is fine by me. it's your query, so it's up to you.

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Only problem here is that the Baern are all original creatures, if the legends around them are true. They existed at the moment of the Gray Waste's creation, and there have been no more created since that point unless you care to entertain the potential of genderless fiends procreating. Ick.

Given that, you aren't going to find them except for in horrendously powerful form, though they may be so utterly detached, insane, and/or apathetic that it might not matter for the most part. I personally have handled the 13 + individual ones that I've created, fleshed out, written out, as being on par with gods when on their home plane, reduced significantly in power when outside that plane of their birth, and being both non-divine and abhorrant to divinity at once (from the perspective of themselves and to gods).

Just as an example of how I've treated them: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=319652&

And as far as actual stats go, I've only given full stats to one of the 13 I've created, Methikus sar Telmuril the 'Flesh Sculptor', and that was largely because he was in the quasiplane of ash at the time and removed about as far as possible from the Waste.

Well, CR 9 certainly is reasonnable, considering they were weakened by their creative work *and* do not want to gain their power back the way everyone else is doing it (through faith and devotion, in other words, godhood).

It's conservation of energy -- they spent enough of their potential to create an infinite number of fiends. An infinite cost, no matter how small, is enough to drain about anything.

To represent their greater strength while on their homeplane, you can give them -- ironically -- a divine rank 0, like in the optionnal rule for all archfiends. Among the interest of the "Divine Rank" template is the disparition of the CR entry.


Finally, assuming the legends are true is an error. It's all daemoniac propaganda. Every single word of them is false.

The problem I have with CR 9 is that they can get pasted by an osyluth or bebelith. That just seems to weak, even if they did sacrifice a large portion of their power.

Shemeska, I'm glad that you responded to this thread, as you were one of the people I continually saw on the message boards challenging the weak stats granted to the baernaloths in Planes of Conflict. I agree that there should not be many of them, and they should be approaching gods in power. This should put them on a par with archfiends. Incorporating Gez's suggestions, an optional divine rank like the archfiends would help as well.

I am still convinced that we should give 'em stats. Mainly, because if we don't, someone else will, and we might not like the results. Look what happened to the ultroloth.

i think there should be two different versions. after all, as gez points out, the uber powerful versions may never have existed in the first place. and, assuming they did, it would be good to finally see some thoughts on the matter!

i'd recommend listing your thoughts on the matter, as well as reasoning why one thing should be one way or another, and putting all that in your query. the editor will be the final arbiter of how the monster comes up, anyway.

(my opinion on baernaloths: a can of worms that the PS designers should never have openend. )

Agreed on all counts.

we have a winnar. so what's your progress now?

Let me sidetrack things just a little bit. Got this e-mail last night…

“First off, let me apologize for the lateness of this reply. Thank you for showing interest in writing for Dragon magazine. I have reviewed your proposals included below and commented upon them inline. As noted below, we would like you to submit the article in question, via email, by February 21st, 2005. If you cannot meet this deadline, please let me know immediately. Please make sure to submit your name, address, and email address at the beginning of the document. As always, please continue to submit queries, as we are always interested in new ideas. Truth be told, we are interested in a number of these articles. But lets start off with just one. Top of this list for us here at Dragon is the Monsters of the Mind portion. If we could see this one by the date above, that would be great. Try to keep it to 8 monsters total. Once we take a look at that one, we will certainly be interested in more of them (probably in this order... Fairies, and then Castle Amber). I am not too sure myself that the Rilmani are interesting enough to get an article (but I could be convinced.. if you are passionate about them, tell me why and we can talk). Unfortunately, the cenozoic monster are not of interest to us at this time. I look forward to seeing the Mind Monster piece soon. Thanks again, Jason Bulmahn Associate Editor Dragon Magazine”

to be honest, I did expect the Castle Amber and mind flayer articles to go over the best. I did expect more for the prehistoric animals and less for the faeries, but then you never know what you’re going to get until you try!

Shade and I have talked things over a bit, and he’s going to shift his focus – some of the things he was working on will change. More from him later.

In the meantime, check out the poll I just posted. I added the Ustilagor, since I thought of that one just today – it hasn’t been converted yet has it?

And good news for Knight Otu, since we will be using some of his original creations in this one!

Any news on the bugbear pantheon?

i inquired about that when i wrote back a response to Jason.