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Hi! I came back! It has been a while. Shifting priorities for what to do with free time and going to graduate school will do that to a guy. But I do definitely have fond memories, and maybe I'll be able to find a bit of time. I also wanted to self-promote shamelessly. I've got my first...

Hello all! It's been a long time, I know. Graduate school will do a number on time spent on a message board. But I've still got a bit of time left over, and I've still been spending it making monsters. And now, they're in a shiny PDF package! Demiurge Press is my little start-up, consisting...

I've been reading the 1e Fiend Folio again. And I can't help but feel sorry for the C.I.F.A.L. (Colonial Insect-Form Artificial Life). Sure, it's a stupid, stupid monster, but the basic idea of a hivemind of insects banding from a swarm to a more corporeal form was a good one. So I gave it my...

Alright. So I wanted to do more monsters, to polish up my skills and because I haven't done any in a long time. And the inspiration here is multi-fold. 1) Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles line has really sweet monsters in it. That explains the genesis of the whole "Pathfinder Bestiary" project -...

So, as half a gag, I decided to do a really nice, respectful write-up of the dire corby, James Jacobs' least favorite old-school monster, and send it into Dungeon for the wandering monster feature. I finished the conversion the day that Paizo announced they were losing the license. Oops. So...

In the current thread on cursed objects, I brought up the prehistoric campaign I ran a few years back, and was requested to elaborate. So I did. I never came up with a better name for the setting than "The Prehistoric Campaign", but the world was strongly hinted to be a Mesozoic version of...

So... in 1e, back in the Monster Manual, most devils didn't have names in the true sense - they had descriptors. Ice devil, bearded devil, horned devil, etc. In 2e, when TSR wanted to distance themselves from "devils", they all got cool new names in their own tongue- gelugon, barbazu, cornugon...

New Design and Development's up here. Don't think I agree with its central hypothesis. Although it does have the advantage of snapping the game into immediate focus, the idea of "the game always starts with a combat, whether or not it makes sense to" is kind of silly. If the last session ended...

DMs have favorite NPCs. Players have favorite NPCs. Let's hear about 'em. The favorite NPC of my Age of Worms group completely took me by surprise. This is because he's a zombie. Chumley the zombie bugbear, specifically, mindless servitor of the necromancer Filge, who the party ended up allying...

I was reminded of this one when I was reading something about sea cucumbers. Long story. You see, I'd decided on a new reoccuring villain for my Planescape game. Echidna, the mother of such creatures of import to the Olympians as Hydra, Chimera, the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, and so forth. My...

So, the MMIV Art Gallery is up. But it isn't even remotely complete. A lot of pictures that've been posted previously, in the production art preview for example, or the excerpt, or even the tie-in Steal this Hook, aren't in it. Is this a gaffe? Or is this a new WoTC policy? Because, if it is...

The controversy over the MMIV (which, like all good internet controversies, is raging without almost any of the participants having seen the book at hand) has gotten me thinking. I love monster books. Collect 'em. But how much of them actually see use in my games? I will compare and contrast...

Deleted for revision and possible upcoming publication. Sorry, folks. Demiurge out.

This might be a stretch for the topic... but the demons and devils of D&D aren't quite, you know, traditional. So here's a go at it. Infernalite Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar) Hit Dice: 6d8+18 (45 hp) Initiative: +3 Speed: 30ft (6 squares), fly 50ft (poor) Armor Class: 21 (+3 Dex, +8...

Ever find yourself giving your character a catchphrase, either intentionally or accidentally? My warlock character, Dr. Thanatos, found himself early in his career shooting open doors that nobody else wanted to touch. So I found myself quoting Invader ZIM, shooting open the door to "it's a...

So on the WoTC site today was posted the next stage in the Design and Development "Craft a Creature" polling thing, which we all know ENWorld did first. But that's not the interesting thing about the article. It includes a detailed preview of Monster Manual IV And I have to say my impressions...

Alright, this is kind of depressing. Below is the rebooted, re-copied-from-my-Word-document version of the conversion of The World of Kong - A Natural History of Skull Island to D&D stats. All the reader comments are lost, of course, but the monster-making spirit shall always prevail...

It was nearly four years ago. The rain poured down. I had been playing D&D for a couple of months now, collected Monster Manuals like they were going out of style and was even homebrewing a bit. A few monsters here, some silly spells there, nothing extreme. But then I started it - The Return to...

Wow. 3000 posts. I've been here a long time. And have enjoyed it a lot. I know I'm not exactly the most participatory poster (3000 posts in three years? Pretty slow compared to some), but I do my part. The Creature Catalog forums, mmm... good stuff. I guess I should do something to make this...

So on the Wizards website, there was a column about the idea of "traction", the ability of a monster to be memorable enough to invoke an inherent response, and one that either is or has the potential to be a "classic". In the column, they asked why the owlbear, for example, is well-known and...