5E: Converting Monsters from White Dwarf Magazine for Fifth Edition

[Cleon]

Okay, that Jarl Picture is nice. It's good enough I'll add it to the Index in due course. Could do with a buckled-on sword or quiver of darts if that's possible, but I like the staff it's carrying.

The Resin-Hound Picture is iffy, think I'd leave that out. The chap looks like furry pretending to be scary! Guess there's only so much you can do with Hero Forge. Presumably it's set up to model Humanoids rather than Canines.

The Thane Picture is pretty good, but I'd prefer it to have a scimitar or jagged sword and maybe add on a bit more jewelery & ornament?

Contrariwise, if you gave the current Thane Pic a dart instead of a staff it'd make an improved replacement for the Pine Kindred Picture (if HeroForge doesn't do darts, the fletched spear of the current Thrall Portrait would do I guess, but that seems a better fit for the Fircarl if we end up doing a D&DBeyond version of that).

That said, it might be tricky making a visually distinction between the Thane and standard Kindred. Maybe give the Thane a short cloak as well as extra jewelery?

As for a Thrall Pic, it now only has a Slam attack and is basically a Zombie, so remove the weapon and have it dressed in scraps & remnants of cloth. Maybe tweak the colour so it's more "rotten zombie" and less "green man". If you can have a few exposed bones it'd help too. The Fircarl could have some of that discolouration and maybe an exposed bone, since it's an intermediate stage.

 

[Cleon]

Dang it, we forgot to think of Skills for the regular Pine Kindred!

Regular Wights have Perception and Stealth.

Druids tend to have Nature and Religion, but these are evil twisted necromancer-druids so I think Arcana works too.

Maybe it's only the Jarls who have Arcana since they've delved into the deeper mysteries, but the Thanes have Religion because they help organize the Pine Kindred's rituals? That sort of makes sense.

We could cut out the Stealth, since they have a decent Dexterity so are pretty stealth at default, but I imagine these green-skinned creatures are quite adept at stalking victims through the woods.

Pine Kindred Skills Nature +, Perception +, Stealth +?
Pine Thane Skills Nature +, Perception +, Religion +? Stealth +?
Pine Jarl Skills Arcana +, Nature +, Perception +, Religion +? Stealth +?

So that'd revise the kindred to the following. I noticed a couple of minor typographical inconsistencies to fix while I was at it (colons that should be full stops, for example).

I'm going to cut out this "waffling about Skills" text from the Pine Kindred since it's served its purpose and clutters up the post.

Also updated the Fircarl, Jarl, and Thane posts with "Some pine kindred know spells from outside the druid's spell list (see Dark Druidic Mysteries in Pine Kindred)."

 

[Cleon]

That'd be:

Necrotic Sap Infusion. The sap that pine kindred use for blood contains a necrotic venom the kindred call the Sift of Nidhogg (see Pine Kindred) whose outre energy can be used in various necromantic practices. A pine kindred thane's blood contains [four?] doses of this gift and it can spend up to two doses per round.

A pine kindred thane can touch a target and infuse their circulation with sap from the thane's own veins. Treat this as a touch attack spell, the kindred does not need to spend any doses if the attack misses. The thane can touch two targets and infuse each with a single dose, or infuse one target with a double dose. The thane takes 1d6 damage per dose from the blood-sap it loses. If the target is an undead, it regains 1d8 + 2 hit points per dose. If the target is a living creature, it takes 1d10 necrotic damage per dose plus 1d10 poison damage per dose.

The thane can also use Necrotic Sap Infusion to assist a pine kindred jarl when it casts Initiate Pine Kindred.

I decided "Gift of Nidhogg" is better than "Sap" as Nidhug's a dragon not a plant, plus it serves as a pun since "gift" means "poison" in some Germanic/Norse languages.

Interestingly, that page's Etymology shows the "poison" meaning began as a euphemism. The word originally was gipta "given away in marriage" and hence "gift or present", eventually gained the additional meaning of "dose of medicine" which was then used as a euphemism for "poison" (as in, a harmful dose of medicine). In some languages it lost the earlier non-poisonous meanings, and in others it stuck at "present", like in English.

Apparently in Swedish it can mean "poison" (from German) AND "married" (from the original Norse), which seems a bit awkward!

 

[Cleon]

Okay, I've updated the Pine Kindred with the bare-bone titles of the Descriptions I'm thinking of giving them, to be fleshed out when I have the time and inclination.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Okay, I've updated the Pine Kindred with the bare-bone titles of the Descriptions I'm thinking of giving them, to be fleshed out when I have the time and inclination.

Cool - we can always do it bit by bit - would like to get this finished before polishing enslaver. Am also adapting Halls of Tizun Thane for 5e, which has 3 original WD FF monsters in it too.

Intro:

"Pine Kindred are a foul form of undead/plant hybrid, created vai a dark ritual where freshly-dead or still living bodies have their blood replaced by pine sap. They live in dark pine forests and work to lure or catch unsuspecting humanoids to be converted into more of their kind. This foul procedure is carried out by the Jarl of the tribe..

They appear as sinewy humanoids with dark green-brown dry skin with prominent blackish pulsing veins, and a strong, almost overpowering, smell of conifer. They have a menacing demeanour and feral piercing yellow or green eyes. They wear remnants of clothing they wore in life."

 

[Casimir Liber]

here are some jarl and thane images I tried to jazz up a bit, but was hard with limited options...

 

[Casimir Liber]

Here's a thrall

 

[Casimir Liber]

O-kay...how's this for resin-hound...original was a commerically free image from wikimedia commons

 

[Cleon]

The new Thrall Portrait and Resin-Hound Portrait look fine to me, I'll add them to the White Dwarf Conversion Index.

The Thane Portrait should have a scimitar according to its stats, not a regular sword, and maybe could do with a little more ornament. Maybe the same crossed breastbands or shoulderguards as the Jarl? The blade you gave the first draft Kindred Portrait is at least serrated and somewhat curvy as per the White Dwarf #21 original's "jagged sabre", although it looks too heavy to be the scimitar we gave the Thane and Pine Kindred.

As for the Jarl Portrait, can you put the current Thane Portrait's sword in its raised hand instead of it just being a fist? Apart from that I like it, the antlered headgear is a nice way to make clear it's the boss monster. If HeroForge won't allow that, I'll be OK adding it to the Index as-is.

 

[Cleon]

I've updated the Index.