Breathing New Life into your Monsters

[Aholibamah]

Cool ideas guys...I really like the owlbear look btw.

Elves in my campaign world are more like the Daonine Sidhe of Celtic legend than they are like Tolkien's elves, and in fact I'm more or less borrowing partly from Celtic myth and Slaine for them; they aren't available as a player race because of this. Their longevity might be attributed to the fact that they really spend most of their time in another world that blends somewhat with the regular human one. The Drow are more or less simply evil elves who hate the 'young' races that ousted them from the world and actively seek to torment and destroy. They look like regular elves except for being rather pale due to their nocturnal and subterranean lifestyle.

I also have the concept in my game of a number of monster species being leftovers from an age of the gods on earth, which were either created as servant beings or as weapons of war--many of them are unique. (for instance the catoblepas, the basilisk, etc)

 

[Carpe DM]

Cool ideas. I especially liked the meat-eating orcish Nietzscheans, and the gnolls with too much respect for life to eat anything that isn't carrion or can't fight back.

 

[NealTS]

The Drow are more or less simply evil elves who hate the 'young' races that ousted them from the world and actively seek to torment and destroy. They look like regular elves except for being rather pale due to their nocturnal and subterranean lifestyle.

Reminds me of what I did with "Drow" once. The elves in this campaign were the once-great caretakers of the natural world, now confined to rapidly-shrinking forests by the burgeoning human nations. Basically bitter souls clinging to the tatters of their former glory. These forests, while not nearly as great as they once were, are considered sovereign territory, and humans found there without good diplomatic reasons are usually dealt with harshly by elven rangers.

The Drow, on the other hand, are a militaristic faction of elves who believe that humanity must be actively pushed back, rather than merely resisted. They're still rangers, but they take some "Urban Ranger"-type variants to reflect their calling. They regularly cover their faces with black paint and sneak into woods-edge settlements under cover of night, murdering the defenseless, stealing babies, setting fires and generally spreading terror.

The drow are not exactly endorsed by the elven councils. There are many influential elves who are sympathetic to their cause, though. Human efforts to get the "dark elves" brought to justice are usually met with a polite runaround. Assurances that the elves will police their own, that the atrocities will not be repeated, et cetera.

My players had quite a time tracking down an elven prince who was a leader of the local drow cell. Once initiative was rolled, they took him down with relish.

 

[Aholibamah]

Wow that's very much like what I'm doing too--not the particular cell groups just blatantly raiding human settlements though, perhaps I should up the ante?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Reminds me of what I did with "Drow" once. The elves in this campaign were the once-great caretakers of the natural world, now confined to rapidly-shrinking forests by the burgeoning human nations. Basically bitter souls clinging to the tatters of their former glory. These forests, while not nearly as great as they once were, are considered sovereign territory, and humans found there without good diplomatic reasons are usually dealt with harshly by elven rangers.

The Drow, on the other hand, are a militaristic faction of elves who believe that humanity must be actively pushed back, rather than merely resisted. They're still rangers, but they take some "Urban Ranger"-type variants to reflect their calling. They regularly cover their faces with black paint and sneak into woods-edge settlements under cover of night, murdering the defenseless, stealing babies, setting fires and generally spreading terror.

The drow are not exactly endorsed by the elven councils. There are many influential elves who are sympathetic to their cause, though. Human efforts to get the "dark elves" brought to justice are usually met with a polite runaround. Assurances that the elves will police their own, that the atrocities will not be repeated, et cetera.

My players had quite a time tracking down an elven prince who was a leader of the local drow cell. Once initiative was rolled, they took him down with relish.

oh man i love this gonna have to use that

 

[sckeener]

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

I'd prefer the players to encounter some of the left overs first to warm up the image...say steal from Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Same Time, Same Place' and have a Ghoul that likes to eat just the skin from their victims...slowly in strips....


After all...Ghouls might have a food preference.....certain organs (skin/eyes/brains/etc), certain races or sexes, obese or athletic, those with certain conditions (such as pregnant), maybe the food has to be prepared...such as defiling the food before eating...

...Ghouls do make good serial killers. I've always liked the Charisma bonus...it makes me think they can talk their victims into traps...

 

[MatrexsVigil]

I'm playing a dwarf in a game in which dwarven culture wasn't really sketched out... so I made it vaguely Amish. Among other things, they wear a large-brimmed black hat with a chip of stone sewn into the inside. This represents a cavern ceiling, as they consider it improper not to have stone between them and the sky.

-Stuart

That's so cool!

-P.C.

 

[szilard]

That's so cool!

Thanks!

-Stuart

 

[Nyaricus]

I did this with Trolls. A troll's defining features are his strength and (effective) immunity to all sorts of damage... except fire and acid. That's a pretty big chink in the armor.

I got to thinking about that. What if it was deliberate? What would be the benefit of a super-soldier with such an obvious Achille's heel?

So trolls in my campaign are the servants of dragons. Bred and selected to be powerful warriors that are uniquely vulnerable to their masters' signature weapon.

Dragons (as usual) tend to work behind the scenes, rarely leaving their massive palaces (I've never understood why a genius creature of unimaginable wealth and power would stoop so low as to sleep in a cave). The trolls are their elite envoys and servants, wearing fine masterwork armor and skilled in both diplomacy and the arts of war. Each troll bears, both on his shield or robe and across his back, the seal of his draconic lord.

Makes'em scary not only for what they are, but who they represent. A party of trolls on the road is to be given a wide berth, both physically and diplomatically.

Oh man, that is just freaking awesome! That's stolen for my game, hook line and sinker

cheers,
--N

 

[Set]

The Drow, on the other hand, are a militaristic faction of elves who believe that humanity must be actively pushed back, rather than merely resisted.

That's the way they used 'Dark Elves' in the GURPS Fantasy setting. Normal looking elves who hate humans and want to push them back, if not utterly eradicate them.

I'm pretty sure that the Moredhel (dark elves) of the Tekumel setting (shown in the Riftwar saga novels) are the same way. In one scene a 'dark elf' returns to rejoin elven society, and after changing her clothes looks no different from the 'normal elves' surrounding her.

Given the many differences between Drow and 'normal elves,' mechanically, I just ruled that the vast majority of 'Drow' have normal elven attributes (but dark skin and some different weapon proficiencies), while the members of the noble houses have interbred with demons over generations and gained spell resistance and some spell-like abilities, thanks to their fiendish heritage. Somewhere between Cambions, Fey'ri and Tieflings lie the Drow.