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

[Cleon]

Languages [Can communicate simple concepts in their own primitive tongue?]

Not sure whether to give this language a name or not (maybe something like "Simian", "Apetalk", "Baboon Speech" or "Koddo Chatter"?).

Need to work it into the Description somehow…

 Chattering Troops. [Some stuff about their social organisation & language. Can they speak to other monkeys and apes, or is it just koddoleo and kerits they can talk to?]

 

[Cleon]

Koddoelo
Medium beast, chaotic neutral
Armor Class 13 (natural armor)

STR​	DEX​	CON​	INT​	WIS​	CHA​
12 (+1)​	15 (+2)​	11 (+0)​	6 (–2)​	12 (+1)​	7 (–2)​

The original creature was Chaotic Neutral in alignment, so the conversion might as well be too. It makes them a bit more distinctive.

After mulling it over, I concluded that AC 14 might be a notch too high. 5E beasts often have lower ACs than their AD&D version. For example, an Ape is AC 6 in 1E/2E (so 4 better than an armourless human) but AC 12 in 5E (so 2 better).

The original White Dwarf #18 critter's Armour Class is 1 point better than a Baboon. A 5E Baboon is AC 12, so AC 13 would conserve that relationship.

Would give them the same mental stats as the 5E Ape, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 7.

Much less than that and having them possess a primitive bestial language would seem unlikely.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Agree with all points actually - it'd be their own chattering language I think.

Still pondering the name - I was fond of the name "nandie" but when I think of using it am uneasy about it as explained above. "Nandie ape" rolls off the tongue somewhat easier than "koddoelo" but having two names starting with "k" is also good.......

 

[Casimir Liber]

Agree with all points actually - it'd be their own chattering language I think.

Still pondering the name - I was fond of the name "nandie" but when I think of using it am uneasy about it as explained above. "Nandie ape" rolls off the tongue somewhat easier than "koddoelo" but having two names starting with "k" is also good.......

agree with boss as separate stat block

 

[Cleon]

Agree with all points actually - it'd be their own chattering language I think.

So any preferences as to what we call the language?

I'm currently leaning towards "Koddoelo" since the species-unique languages in recent editions of D&D tend to just be the name of the monsters (i.e. Bullywugs speak "Bullywug"). Perhaps shorten it to "Koddo"?

Although maybe we should call it "Kerit" if we're going to use that name for the Nandie Bear and we're planning to have them both speak the same language?

The Nandie-Bear Kerit is a smarter creature, and in the White Dwarf version it "invariably (95%) heads a colony of nandies" so it makes sense if the language is named after the boss monster rather than the minions.

Still pondering the name - I was fond of the name "nandie" but when I think of using it am uneasy about it as explained above. "Nandie ape" rolls off the tongue somewhat easier than "koddoelo" but having two names starting with "k" is also good.......

I have no objection to Nandie-Ape if you prefer it over Koddoelo, but I think we should give them both names that start with "Nandie-" or "K", not have one of each.

Liking Kerit for the name of the "chattering language" though, assuming we give it a name. I'm thinking it's so primitive that the Koddoelo haven't given their language a name, it's just what they talk.

 

[Casimir Liber]

So....yeah....Kerit and Koddoelo ....with Kerit as the language name. vs Nandie Ape/Nandie Bear.....hmmm....decisions decisions.....

(long pause....)

okay - I actually prefer the original names to keep aligned with the original 1e monsters for the time being. Maybe I was being a bit careful. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. So calling them Nandie Ape, the 5HD boss is "Nandie Ape, Boss" and the "Nandie Bear" will be coming...and they speak Nandie. Will post stats soon. Working on the 5HD boss as being slightly larger and stronger than the normal ones....

 

[Cleon]

...and they speak Nandie.

Not in favour of that, since Nandi is an African language spoken in the region the Nandi Bear is said to inhabit.

I'd call the language Kerit whatever we end up calling the critters themselves.

Also, Fiore's Halls of Tizun Thane version hyphenated the name (i.e. "Nandie-Bear") so I'm thinking we might as well do the same, in which case the simian version would be a "Nandie-Ape" if we keep that style.

Toyed with the idea of "Nandie-Baboon", but that doesn't have as nice a ring to it.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Agree nandie-baboon sounds weird. Have hyphenated names and agree with using "kerit" as name for language.

anyway...here are boss and bear

 

[Cleon]

Agree nandie-baboon sounds weird. Have hyphenated names and agree with using "kerit" as name for language.

How about cutting the knot and just listing both in the Name, i.e. "Nandie-Ape (Koddoelo)" and "Nandie-Bear (Kerit)", then leave it up to the DM to decide which they prefer.

Will update my Nandie-Ape (Koddoelo) Working Draft with Kerit as the language.

Also read through The Halls of Tizun Thane and came up with some ideas, which I'll detail separately.

anyway...here are boss and bear

I'm thinking the Nandie-Bear should have considerably higher Charisma than a Nandie-Ape, considering how much emphasis the flavour text has on it being frighteningly horrible. Plus its Haunting Howl is presumably a Cha-based attack.

A Boss Nandie should probably be a bit more charismatic than a run-of-the-mill Koddoelo too, as they're bosses!

Anyhow, I'll hold of on detailed comments on those until we've finished with the regular Nandie-Ape.

 

[Casimir Liber]

ok - dual naming sounds prudent.

I made nandie-bear (kerit) charisma 14 to reflect its "presence", and boss charisma 12 (has to be greater than 10, right?)