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

[ilgatto]

Don't like the "always male." If they only propagate using their Curse on already pregnant women they technically can't be male or female, since they don't reproduce sexually.

It makes more sense saying they have the appearance of males, but are either not actually male or are incapable of natural procreation (the option I went for).

OK, but I still think that "While their chest and shoulders might resemble male humanoids and giants in form, these cyclopes are incapable of natural procreation." doesn't sound right. Maybe a matter of taste, though, and no biggie if it stays.
Can't think of a way of avoiding it without mentioning "Amiraspian" mid-sentence, though, even if it would include something along the lines of the original "there are no female cyclopes".

How could this work? Does the curse turn girl babies into boys! Surely some of the babies the curse doesn't affect are girls?

Ah, yes. I suppose the curse does that, for the cyclopes seem to have no use for female infants. Hmm..., that suddenly makes me think that perhaps the "curse" is an attempt to create female cyclopes but never works in that way?
Too contrived?

Anyway. What if some infants are girls? Are we gonna mention what happens to them? Or is that yet another can of worms?

Don't like the curse being performed after birth. That'd motivate a cyclops to kidnap infants to turn into cyclopes, and the original did not do that.

I see your point. But maybe not really if the curse is performed directly after the birth? Or moments earlier? I'm saying this because maybe performing the curse during delivery would be too graphic?

That's impossible if the curse is performed after the infant is born.

Heh. Missed that.
"Pregnant women who escape or are rescued from a cyclops lair before they have been cursed and their child is born give birth to normal children."?

 

[Cleon]

How's this:

 Cursed Births. Amiraspian cyclopes appear to always be male, but are incapable of natural procreation. Instead, they multiply by cursing pregnant human women they have captured so their offspring are sometimes born as cyclopes. Little is known of this "Amiraspian Curse", but it seems certain that it requires the woman be devoured after giving birth. It is also clear the curse does not always work. Instead of a cyclops whelp, the newborn may be fully human (in which case it is eaten too), or a one-eyed humanoid hybrid (see Amiraspian Hybrid), which is cast out of the lair once its kinsfolk realize it is not a true cyclops. The type of baby can be randomly determined with a d10 roll: 1-4 is a cyclops, 5-7 a human, 8-10 a hybrid.
 Pregnant women who escape or are rescued from a cyclops den are freed from the curse and give birth normally.

 

[ilgatto]

How's this:

 Cursed Births. Amiraspian cyclopes appear to always be male, but are incapable of natural procreation. Instead, they multiply by cursing pregnant human women they have captured so their offspring are sometimes born as cyclopes. Little is known of this "Amiraspian Curse", but it seems certain that it requires the woman be devoured after giving birth. It is also clear the curse does not always work. Instead of a cyclops whelp, the newborn may be fully human (in which case it is eaten too), or a one-eyed humanoid hybrid (see Amiraspian Hybrid), which is cast out of the lair once its kinsfolk realize it is not a true cyclops. The type of baby can be randomly determined with a d10 roll: 1-4 is a cyclops, 5-7 a human, 8-10 a hybrid.
 Pregnant women who escape or are rescued from a cyclops den are freed from the curse and give birth normally.

Why, I do believe we're getting somewhere now.

Not really happy with "whelp", "baby", and especially "kinsfolk", but, again, that may be a matter of taste.
Still: "(...) which is cast out of the lair once the cyclopes realize it is not (truly?) one of their own kind."?

Should we mention how escaping/rescued women are freed from the curse simply by escaping/being rescued? Or leave it as is?

Prepping the Amiraspians as Humanoids?

 

[Cleon]

Anyway. What if some infants are girls?

Let's see, we've got baby ratios of 40% cyclops, 30% human 30% hybrid.

If it's 50/50 male/female and ONLY male babies can become cyclopes, then perforce almost all the humans and hybrids must be girls, since there's only 10% of boys unaccounted for. If evenly distributed that'd be 25% each for girl humans & hybrids, but only 5% for male.

If, however, Amiraspian Cyclopes only appear to be male, any number of girl babies could be turned into cyclopes.

Heck, they could ALL be transformed girls for all we know, in which case the majority of human and hybrid babies would be boys.

One advantage of saying the Cyclopes appear male is we don't have to worry so much about such details!

Anyway. What if some infants are girls? Are we gonna mention what happens to them? Or is that yet another can of worms?

Don't think we need say girl babies are treated any differently to boys.

Presumably the cyclopes don't care, so eat the human-looking ones and cast out the hybrid ones whether it's a girl or boy.

 

[ilgatto]

Let's see, we've got baby ratios of 40% cyclops, 30% human 30% hybrid.

If it's 50/50 male/female and ONLY male babies can become cyclopes, then perforce almost all the humans and hybrids must be girls, since there's only 10% of boys unaccounted for. If evenly distributed that'd be 25% each for girl humans & hybrids, but only 5% for male.

If, however, Amiraspian Cyclopes only appear to be male, any number of girl babies could be turned into cyclopes.

Heck, they could ALL be transformed girls for all we know, in which case the majority of human and hybrid babies would be boys.

One advantage of saying the Cyclopes appear male is we don't have to worry so much about such details!



Don't think we need say girl babies are treated any differently to boys.

Presumably the cyclopes don't care, so eat the human-looking ones and cast out the hybrid ones whether it's a girl or boy.

I suddenly realize that you've managed to make our cyclopes genderless without actually mentioning it. Kudos.
Anyway. Too late to start complaining now and AFK coz early rise tomorrow.

 

[Cleon]

Not really happy with "whelp", "baby", and especially "kinsfolk", but, again, that may be a matter of taste.
Still: "(...) which is cast out of the lair once the cyclopes realize it is not (truly?) one of their own kind."?

I really like "whelp" for a baby cyclops.

Used "cyclopes" in the previous draft but for some reason you didn't like it, so switched to kinsfolk.

As for your dislike of babies, that may be a matter of taste. If it really bothers you, I guess we could use "The curse's result" instead.

e.g. "The curse's effectiveness can be randomly determined with a d10 roll: 1-4 is a cyclops, 5-7 a hybrid, 8-10 a human."

Should we mention how escaping/rescued women are freed from the curse simply by escaping/being rescued? Or leave it as is?

Presumably the curse only works in a limited area and/or while the cyclops are alive, so if they leave the den they stop being cursed.

Could tweak the wording to say that easily enough.

 

[Cleon]

…and here we go again!

 Cursed Births. Amiraspian cyclopes appear to always be male, but are incapable of natural procreation. Instead, they multiply by cursing pregnant human women they have captured so their offspring are sometimes born as cyclopes. Little is known of this "Amiraspian Curse", but it seems certain that it requires the woman be devoured once she gives birth. It is also clear the curse does not always work. Instead of a cyclops whelp, the newborn may be fully human (in which case it is eaten too), or a cyclopean humanoid hybrid (see Amiraspian Hybrid), which is cast out of the lair once its elders realize it is not a true cyclops. The curse's effectiveness can be randomly determined with a d10 roll: 1-3 is a human, 4-6 a hybrid, 7-10 a cyclops.
 Pregnant women who escape or are rescued from a cyclops den are free of the curse and give birth normally. The curse only covers the lair and ends if all the cyclopes are dead or incapacitated.

 

[Cleon]

Just changed "one-eyed" to "cyclopean" in the above post.

By the way, I prefer cyclopean over the cyclopian used in White Dwarf #21, and Merrian-Webster (Cyclopean & Cyclopian) seems to too, or at least only cyclopean is in their abridged online dictionary.

Both spellings are correct though.

 

[ilgatto]

Just changed "one-eyed" to "cyclopean" in the above post.

By the way, I prefer cyclopean over the cyclopian used in White Dwarf #21, and Merrian-Webster (Cyclopean & Cyclopian) seems to too, or at least only cyclopean is in their abridged online dictionary.

Both spellings are correct though.

WTL?
I could have sworn that the original read "cyclopean".

Anyway. I rather liked the "one-eyed" where it was, since I think many folk will read "cyclopean" as "huge, massive" rather than "one-eyed".

Otherwise, it seems the section is now vanilla enough so as not to offend anyone?

 

[Cleon]

WTL?
I could have sworn that the original read "cyclopean".

Just as well you're not on oath then!

Anyway. I rather liked the "one-eyed" where it was, since I think many folk will read "cyclopean" as "huge, massive" rather than "one-eyed".

I like "cyclopean humanoid hybrid" since they are hybrids of a cyclops and a human.

Maybe add a "one-eyed" to the bit afterwards, such as:

Instead of a cyclops whelp, the newborn may be fully human (in which case it is eaten too), or a cyclopean humanoid hybrid (see Amiraspian Hybrid); this one-eyed humanoid is cast out of the lair once its elders realize it isn't a true cyclops.​

Also wondered whether it should be "cyclopean human" instead of "cyclopean humanoid" and whether to hyphenate the hybrid—i.e. "cyclopean-humanoid" or "cyclopean-human"—to place more emphasisis on it being part-cyclops and part-human(oid).

Like so:

Instead of a cyclops whelp, the newborn may be fully human (in which case it is eaten too), or a cyclopean-human hybrid (see Amiraspian Hybrid); this one-eyed humanoid is cast out of the lair once its elders realize it isn't a true cyclops.​

Hmm, I like the above "human hybrid" version a bit more, but I'd be OK with either.

What is thine preference?