Terwox
First Post
This thread has been edited to put the list of monsters and their alternate fluff at the front of the thread. The original message still rests at the bottom of this post. (I'm not done yet. 
)
Aboleth: A dire shark with four long tentacles that emerge from its mouth, and four open sores from old wounds emit a sickly gray slime. (Story: A shark that survived an encounter with a demon, or resisted getting slimed by a true aboleth.)
Achariel: A black bear with a pair of huge tusks, breathing smoke. (The bear emits the toxic cloud from its mouth instead of its body.) (Story: A bear corrupted by a blighter.)
Allip: Form of a clearly seen ghostly young girl, instead of wavering. (Same backstory of an allip, just has that white wolf angst to it.)
Angel-Deva: Corrupted Lizardman King, change align to evil, abilities effect good instead of evil, +3 disruption mace becomes +3 fear burst mace, or +3 shocking mace. (Story: Lizardman made a pact with vile being X, and gained these stats and became the leader of his people.)
Angel-Planetar: Make it a construct, give it construct traits. (This does alter the CR a bit.) Alternatively, make it into a plant creature, made out of wood. (Lost for ideas on this one.)
Angel-Solar: Body becomes a large ball of light, with eight flaming swords rotating around the ball. Arrows are beams of light that emit from the center of the ball. Casting as per normal. (The swords simply attack as often as the greatsword would, and the beams of light resolve as arrows.) Either of these can do fire/holy damage if needed without too much CR change. (Same story.)
Animated Object: Try using a barn, a teddy bear, a lobster's shell, a cloud of knives, a baby's crib, a blanket, all the logs in a fireplace, a coat rack, a crossbow, a suit of armor. (Story: Also try animated objects that happened on fields of travesty or holiness: ie, the coat rack in a church might attack an anti-paladin -- ie, the earth rises up to defend itself against the blasphemy that's happening.)
Ankheg: Give it a human face, keep the mandibles, and let it speak common. (Yech. Story: a human punished by the gods for X, perhaps like Medea.)
Aranea: Centipede form instead of spider form, the webbing is spit from its maw as a pale purple goo that hardens. (Story: It's a bad monster, kill it!)
Archon-Lantern: Ghostly form of a child with glowing eyes. (Story: A ghost of a child that was avenged, but the ghost stays around simply to do good in the world before passing beyond the veil of true death.)
Archon-Hound: Ancient elven spirits that guard tombs and ruins of importance from evil. (Story: Self-explanatory.)
Arrowhawk: A frozen bee, cold ray instead of shocking ray, uses its stinger instead of its beak.
Assassin vine: Symbiont of a creature like a troll or an ogre -- they share a square, and the vine may protect the creature while it is asleep. As well, an intelligent creature could feign sleep, and have the vine entangle a creature, then beat them to death.
Athach: A great treelike creature with three main branches (Credit to Ferret!)
Azer: Substitute cold for heat. (Story: People that were frozen in a magic glacier that kept them alive for a few hundred or thousand years, and they bring their ancient culture (warlike or not) to the present.)
Barghest: Evil dwarven were-panthers, benevolent gnomish were-panthers. Maybe give 5/silver for lycanthrope status, though this might up the CR a little.
Basilisk: War hounds that watched their masters they loved be slain, and become malevolent spirits with gazes of doom. (Story: Some of these could be bred on purpose by an evil spellcaster, or even just an evil fighter.)
Behir: Take the legs away, a snake that can oddly slither up walls or along ceilings is rather creepy. (Ceiling slithering might make the encounter a lot tougher, be careful.)
Beholder: I remember reading someone (don't remember who, maybe Psion) using a winged medusa with her serpentine hair breathing ten different sorts of rays, and a gaze that disrupted spellcasting, or something like that; with the stats of the beholder. (Credit to Gez for quoting Psion! hehe.)
Beholder: Would work for a modern/future setting: A droid with various rayguns, and an EMP for the main gun. (Credit to Ferret!)
Beholder: Servent of the Eye. A gaunt cloaked figure whose face is shrouded under the hoods of his fleshlike robe. Each of the creatures hands is covered in eyes that occasionally can be seen to blink. Tiny mouths on fleshy tendrils sometimes poke from under the hood. Its has various keening attacks that are the effect of a beholders ray attacks. (story -- enforcer beasty of an insane god.) (Credit to Ace!)
Beholder: The players will know what you're doing if you use these stats. (EDIT: Maybe not!)
Belker: Tufts of black smoke, these are transformed familiars of vampires that are fed blood, they turn into large wispy black versions of themselves, in mist form they turn into blood that claws the heroes from the inside out, when inhaled.
Black Pudding: I've also changed the colour of a black pudding to purple in a Forgotten Realms campaign to make it a more suitable servitor of Ghaunadaur. This really confused one of the more experienced (ie: since 1E) players who had no idea what it was. (Credit to Eremite!)
Blink dog: A swarm of teleporting rats teleports together into a swarm, which then starts blinking out and teleporting in synch. Enough damage just disrupts the swarm, and the rats scatter.
Bodak: This creature has the form of a crazed-looking goblin woman. (Story: She only appears when a goblin holds a candle and chants her name one hundred times in front of a darkened mirror. Then she appears, killing the chanter with a glance, and terrorizes the nearby area. Slain creatures rise as bodaks in service of the crazed goblin woman, but gain freedom if she is slain -- maybe even part of their own minds back.)
Bugbear: Barbaric human tribe that runs on all fours, weapons trapped to their backs. Normal looking 7'+ tall humans. (Story: They're barbarians, what else do you need? These are probably going into my game at some point.)
Bulette: A humongous bird made of stone that travels slowly through stone by merging with it, that seeks food only in metal or stone. Cousin to a xorn. The "jump" ability involves fluttering above an enemy and a flurry of claw double attacks.
Carrion Crawler: A sickly ogre clutches his stomach and feigns illness until prey closes, when the tentacles burst from his stomach and he unhinges his jaw, showing a too-big mouth full of sharpened teeth to eat his paralyzed prey. He uses his arms only to grapple foes (no extra attacks, he loses a tenatcle attack for doing this.) Might rarely get a ranged attack w/ a rock/spear, adjust CR if necessary.
Centaur: A race of half-man half-deer exists that the centaurs revile as weak, and occasionally raid (if the centaur tribe nearby is not the average NG.)
Chaos Beast: Appears as a bloody mess of humanoid hands and feet. When struck or grabbed by the beast, hands and feet start crawling out of the wound, quickly pulling the person down into a bloody mess resembling the original beast. The cha check lets the person crawl their way out of the mess and regain momentary control, failure means more limbs burst from the wound to drag them down again. (Story: It's a beast of chaos! It exists outside space and time to cause madness of mayhem!)
Chimera: A slowly levitating three-headed giant: one fanged giant head, one goat head, one dragon head (giant specific, red for fire, blue for storm, etc.) (Story: This is a prior thrall of a chimera that overthrew and devoured its master.) (Note: The bites might be visually cumbersome, might want to replace with a melee weapon.)
Choker: Normal looking halflings with soulless eyes, whose arms shoot out when they attack. (Story: Halflings that murder their families turn into these tortured killers, these are used somewhat as the boogie-man to scare children.)
Chuul: Use this as a Rusalka, although it requires a bit more effort than the others. (A Rusalka is a Russian myth, a woman who was drowned by her lover, who seeks to seduce others, only to drown them too.) Medium size, looks like a gorgeous woman, promises (campaign-specific pleasures like kisses or, well...) if someone draws near, grapples with preternatural strength, kisses them to paralyze them, then drags them underwater to drown them. Simply won't confront many people at once, loses the mandible damage as well. Rusalkas may be tamed with kindness, and permanently put to rest if a broom with a lock of their hair is beaten against their traiterous lover's grave three times, at which point their savior will have to defeat a spectre. (Or just a CR-dependant ghost, but don't tell anyone!) Fun paladin story. If you want to be mechanically sound towards the myth, give them undead traits, too. If you want to be overboard, even change their HD to d12 and that sort of thing. If slain, a Rusalka will rise again in her body of water she was drowned in in a fortnight. (Not sure if I'm true to the myth completely, but I'm going to use one of these in my game soon, I love these... quest for glory 4 nostalgia, I guess.)
Cloaker: This is the result of a 5th level spell that conjures a spirit to inhabit a cloak. (Analog of summon monster V for CR 5 creature, sounds ok.) Tail slap becomes a series of razors in the cloak (that the spirit brings with it,) and the bite is a crack from the collar full of lead. Engulfed creatures wear the cloak, which rips into them with the razors. Perhaps make the spell take at least a minute to cast. Nasty thing to wake up to. The spirit leaves the cloak after attacking for caster level rounds. This is SKETCHY balance, but it has some flavor. Might be better as a 6th level spell, YMMV.
Cockatrice: Part of the fun of these creatures is the legend about them... everyone fears the scary chickens, and a similar looking "innocent" monster could be very deadly -- give the players some warning to fear the "creepy animals" before using it. Anyway, you could use a calf born with two heads, a dog born with two tails, the result of a hawk and a fish combined in a gestalt after a wild magic surge, a sad looking pig with a ram's horns, a sparrow that sounds like a looming violen when it sings, etc. It needs a legend, otherwise the CR shoots up as they're allowed to approach without caution, though.
Coutal: Scene: A score of huge black worms slither over one another in the middle of the fountain in the ruins. When approached, they launch into the air hovering, squirming around one another, before attacking and casting in unison. Might help if they speak infernal to one another.
Darkmantle: Svirfneblin outcasts are subjected to a ritual that causes skin to grow over their eyes, and cast away. A ruthless society of these has adapted, causing flabby wings to grow between their arms and legs, and echolocation slowly becomes used. Their darkness becomes a sorcerous ability, and they cling to cavern ceilings in groups, causing darkness, then latching onto the heads of prey with their flabby bodies while biting them with their sharpened teeth. (Constrict damage results from bites, suffocation, neck-wringing, and constriction of their flabby wings.)
Delver: Drow (or any race, really) terminated by drow society (or another evil race) are sometimes scarred with acid and thrown into large pits, where an appointed hermit will chant over the pile of corpses for a fortnight. This draws the spirit of the cavern into the pile of corpses, which then animates. (Story: This can be done as a last resort to protect a home, or as sort of an intimidating dog guard -- "the soul of our land protects us through the bodies of your slain.") (Another sketchy almost-undead, YMMW, but the spirit is alive, simply incarnate in corpses.)
Demon-Babau: Archon scouts, protective aura of holiness instead of acid. These sometimes serve as forward scouts for angelic armies. 2 Claws are two shortswords, bite is an unarmed attack.
Demon-Balor: Again, negate the alignment, give these stats to a towering flaming angel with skin of platinum, and you have a good Avenging Angel, called forth to punish the wicked. Powers become good instead of evil, just drop insanity, and perhaps change the fire powers to electrical in nature if you want to disguise the stats more.
Demon-Bebilith: A giant that ate a cursed spider awoke one day to find his lower body had transformed into that of a terrible spider, and that he was able to throw webbing and spit venom. Claw attacks are instead club attacks. Sort of a giant-drider hybrid. Plane shift doesn't really fit the concept well -- perhaps the curse only allows the giant to teleport to a plane where he is punished by spider-spirits for a time, before being allowed to return.
Demon-Dretch: A specific curse turns humans from a small village who venture too close to ruins into long-armed, clawed, tusked versions of themselves. (Summoned dretch are humans from within the cursed ruins, who will reveal the nature of their curse if questioned by their summoner.) Those affected by the curse sometimes speak in hushed, sickly (abyssal) tones, and seem to know what each other are thinking. (Curse idea is that a dwarven lord's tomb is underneath the town, and does not appreciate the human filth atop him.)
Demon-Glabrezu: A big blob of flesh with no apparent senses, but with four long clawed arms dragging it along and attacking. It's maw is misshapen, and it seems to eat anything, and it tends to gibber instead of speak. (Story: This is what happens when a hundred and one dretches are thrown into a pit, melted down, and delicately boiled for a year and a day.) It still has the wish ability, but it has trouble speaking intelligently, and must be captured and coerced into giving the wish somehow.
Demon-Hezrou: Appears as a humongous frog-headed beast, and is worshipped as a deity in the jungle by jungle gnomes and/or kobolds (see UA,) who must offer it yearly sacrifices of virgins, otherwise he will raid the village. (Story: It's still a demon, it's just a big frog demon. Give it +23 jump ranks, kill the 23 listen ranks -- the villagers will note that they sneak in the dark to leave the sacrifices, because it only seems to notice if it sees them... which it tends to if it's aware, w/ +23 spot.) Let it speak croaky common, and give it a good name.
Demon-Marilith: As the alternate lantern archon mentioned above, but darkness. A dark ball of energy with six dark swords hovering around, the primary sword appears partially made of the void. The swords simply whip through the air and start attacking, and the "tail slap" becomes the ball of darkness simply moves around someone -- dealing the "constrict" damage. Any polymorphed form will give itself away as its eyes will always be blackened, if examined.
Demon-Nalfeshnee: Simply a huge winged talking bear. These are the guardians of fairy circles during the day. (Heck, this explains the weird "rainbow demon ability" a lot better anyway, hrmph!) Let unholy aura work against non-rangers and non-druids instead of goods. They enjoy conversation, and if shown pure intentions and a gift (perhaps honey, or the famed sapphire honey of the north.) This can let the adventures get something the fairies wouldn't normally give that they need. (It only uses its summoning ability to summon another one of itself.)
Digestor: Digestor = Bonasus. A Bull like creature. (claw attacks become gore, and acid attack.) quoting: Pliny the Elder (Natural History, Book 8, 16): The bonasus is found in Paeonia. It has the mane of a horse but otherwise resembles a bull. ...when attacked, it runs away, while releasing a trail of dung ... Contact with the dung burns pursuers as though they had touched fire. (Credit to Tonguez!)
Dryad: For example, in my last game the group ended up in a large, abandoned graveyard. When inspecting a very large crypt, they found two very beautiful, but creepy goth chicks, that smelled of old death. They made cobwebs and dead grass spring from the ground and entangle the party. They tried to charm the party and were resistant to melee damage. When the fight started to go against them, the goths melted into nearby tombstones, only to step out of ones across the graveyard and continue the fight. At one point, one even "disappeared" by changing herself into a grave marker that looked like a statue of an angel. I had a table full of veteran players that had no idea what they were up against.
All I did was take a completely off the rack dryad and change the description -- all the abilities were pretty much the same. Entangle just produced dead vegetation and such instead of vines and grass. Tree stride let them move between headstones instead of trees. The power that let them change to look like trees let them look like grave statues instead. Instead of a tree, they were linked to the crypt the party found them in. Totall cosmetic changes -- all "new" monster. (Credit to Greatywyrm for this monster that inspired the thread!)
Dryad: Another for Dryads--statue dryads or stone dryads that exist underground.
You could pair the statue dryad with her own statue--animated by a maedar's glyptar as an odd couple RP encounter! (Credit to VirgilCaine!)
Elemental-Earth: Based on the earth elemental, the guardian lump is a construct that doesn't move. It has a single tentacle with a reach double that of the base elemental. (Credit to DMH!)
Elemental-Water: I had water elementals that seemed to contain a multitude of lost souls and thus looked a lot like the caller in darkness from the Expanded Psionics Handbook. They rose up out of some pools and the players actually seemed to be scared. If only they had known that they were only water elementals.... (Credit to Eremite!)
Elemental-Water: Purple jelly is a opaque, purple-ish blue ooze like creature that converts living flesh into blue crystals that it feeds on (water elemental- remove water mastery and vortex, add burning from fire elemental). (Credit to DMH!)
Elemental-Water: I had these Ash Demons. Basically the came out of fire pits, ovens and burned down houses. I used water elementals for the stats and the only special ability they had that was different was the ability to go into a pile of ashes and come out of another within like a 100' radius. The party divised a way to beat them I never thought of. They poured water over the pile of ashes to try and stop the demon from jumping around. (Credit to Dagger75!)
Goblin: A fellow DM had these small orange humanoid creatures with wings. They were all over the place and quite the pain in the neck. Stats: Goblin with a Fly Speed. As you advance them, you add flying feats. (Credit to Nyrfherdr!)
Harpy: Peacemake "dove" harpy--a Calm Emotion song instead, and beautiful instead of ugly. (Credit to VirgilCaine!)
Hellhound: I used Slime Lizards, which were just hellounds with the fire-related abilities changed to acid-related. (Credit to Capellan!)
Hobgoblin: One of my friends had things called Terra goblins, which were statwise identical to hobgoblins but had more natural armor, as they were essentially made of stone. (Credit to Andrew D. Gable!)
Medusa: Prismatic Medusa: Use the prismatic spell effects instead of turn to stone. (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Medusa: Charm/Dominate Gaze--by concentrating the Medusa can dominate one of her charmed slaves. (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Medusa: Contagion instead of turn to stone--Plague Medusas, fitting as high-level clerics of Incabulos OADSTYC (Or another deity specific to your campaign). (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Shadow: Just recently I used some "Holy Ghosts" in an adventure. Exact same stats and abilities as a Shadow except I replaced their Str Drain with Wis Drain and had them exude a sort of Sanctuary Aura that caused those effected by their Wis Drain to make Will Saves or not be able to attack those bearing the Holy Symbol to which the Holy Ghosts were dedicated (they were Paladins who gave up their lives defending a holy site of their order). (Credit to Rel!)
Stirge: The carrion crow was a relative of the stirge (identical statwise) that always travelled in swarms. If you fell to the crows, one of them would burrow into and take control of your body. Idea blatantly stolen from an early episode of Inuyasha. (Credit to Andrew D. Gable!)
Sudden Brute: I recently got the new Masque of the Red Death and one of the creatures in it (sudden brute) can easily be altered to live in large trees or on cliffs. I can also see it used as a plains hunter that runs down its prey (just increase its speed to 50). For those without MotRD, just use an ogre with large bonuses to jump, climb and hide (like +15, +35 and +5). (Credit to DMH!)
Tanar'ri-Bar-lgura: I like the orang utan-like bar-lgura tanar'ri but I wanted something more appropriate for servants of Demogorgon... so I simply changed the description to green-scaled mandrill-like creatures, made them immune to acid rather than electricity and kept everything else the same. (Credit to Eremite!)
Troll: Trogs are boreal forest dwelling humanoids that use the trees to hide and ambush opponents and prey. They are large and hairy with small facial features. (Credit to DMH!)
Vapor Bore: The master sphere has hundreds of tentacles that drain chr. If something is reduced to zero, part of the tentacle breaks off and takes over the victim (vapor bore stats from Complete Minions). (Credit to DMH!)
Warforged: Specific example from my game today: The PCs ran into a warforged which had been constructed to be unusually strong, immune to fire, have metal claws and fangs grafted onto its fingers and mouth, and had a one-shot "blaster" which fired a cone of flame. Surprised the heck out of them. All I did was slap the mechanical benefits of a half-dragon template on a standard warforged (hence claws, breath attack as blaster), and I had a interesting new version. (Credit to Shilsen!)
Animal-Polar Bear: The brain buster is a bear that causes those near it to lose all their senses (polar stats from Complete Minions). (Credit to DMH!)
Animal-Crocodile: The muddweller is a large newt that ambushes those that come to the water's edge (crocodile stats; reduce bite by one die size and give paralytic slime). (Credit to DMH!)
Animal-Wolf: Most of my new monsters are just repackagings of core creatures, ususually with one or two little tweeks. For instance, the PCs have recently been fighting a lot of 6-legged wolves. I took just the normal wolf stats and added Spring Attack as a bonus feat. (Credit to Quasqueton!)
Animal-Wolf: I've used horse and wolf stats for freaky reptilian animals that live in the Bloodstone Marches of IK. (Credit to John Q. Mayhem!)
Original Message Intro:
This thread is inspired by a message from a thread awhile back that I'll find as soon as I'm a community supporter. (EDIT: I still need to do that!
)
In it, a poster created a really cool monster -- two twin creepy pale skinned women could step through gravestones into other parts of their graveyard, and cause bits of bones from the earth to spring up and hold the adventurers fast.
This was simply a variation on the dryad -- same stats, same abilities (gravestride instead of treestride, keyed to a grave instead of a tree, entangle with bones instead of twigs,) but had two important differences: a) It has the obvious flavor advantage, and b) The players had NO idea what they were up against.
If you're like me, you have players who have read the monster manual and already like to know what's going on, especially if you're changing things up just a little bit. "Oh, it's a hobgoblin with rogue levels. Ok." "Oh, that's not a were-tiger, it's a rakshasa." That sort of thing. Not bad, but it can be frustrating.
Anyway, enough rambling. This is my attempt to get started, going down the monster manual, with some alternative forms for the monsters -- unidentifiable creatures, with different flavor and backstories, that happily steal the stats and CRs of current creatures -- that is, just letting us do the fluff work without doing the crunch work.
If making a new monster implies doing all the crunch by yourself to feel like you've got a real new beastie -- please do! Some monsters will need that exactly. I think some don't. Anyway, on to the listings. (If you want to add anything, going in alphabetical order is just an idea, don't feel bound to it though.)
One last note: If there are any threads like this, a link would be terribly helpful. Thanks.
I followed the fluff changes with ideas for a specific story for the creatures.
(The monster list originally began here.)
Original message ending:
Some are still identifiable perhaps, but might just lend a sense of oddness to encounters, while still being mechanically sound. Fluff can change CRs if it changes assumptions, I've tried to avoid that in general -- the young girl allip might look more benign than an allip at first, which might change the CR of the encounter, but it might not.
Anyway, I hope some others are interested in this, and I'll come up with more ideas soon, unless I start writing weird prestige classes. Ah well.
Oh yeah, don't feel limited by the MM1, just give stories of similar creations of your own, or make some new ones, or etc. Enjoy!
)Aboleth: A dire shark with four long tentacles that emerge from its mouth, and four open sores from old wounds emit a sickly gray slime. (Story: A shark that survived an encounter with a demon, or resisted getting slimed by a true aboleth.)
Achariel: A black bear with a pair of huge tusks, breathing smoke. (The bear emits the toxic cloud from its mouth instead of its body.) (Story: A bear corrupted by a blighter.)
Allip: Form of a clearly seen ghostly young girl, instead of wavering. (Same backstory of an allip, just has that white wolf angst to it.)
Angel-Deva: Corrupted Lizardman King, change align to evil, abilities effect good instead of evil, +3 disruption mace becomes +3 fear burst mace, or +3 shocking mace. (Story: Lizardman made a pact with vile being X, and gained these stats and became the leader of his people.)
Angel-Planetar: Make it a construct, give it construct traits. (This does alter the CR a bit.) Alternatively, make it into a plant creature, made out of wood. (Lost for ideas on this one.)
Angel-Solar: Body becomes a large ball of light, with eight flaming swords rotating around the ball. Arrows are beams of light that emit from the center of the ball. Casting as per normal. (The swords simply attack as often as the greatsword would, and the beams of light resolve as arrows.) Either of these can do fire/holy damage if needed without too much CR change. (Same story.)
Animated Object: Try using a barn, a teddy bear, a lobster's shell, a cloud of knives, a baby's crib, a blanket, all the logs in a fireplace, a coat rack, a crossbow, a suit of armor. (Story: Also try animated objects that happened on fields of travesty or holiness: ie, the coat rack in a church might attack an anti-paladin -- ie, the earth rises up to defend itself against the blasphemy that's happening.)
Ankheg: Give it a human face, keep the mandibles, and let it speak common. (Yech. Story: a human punished by the gods for X, perhaps like Medea.)
Aranea: Centipede form instead of spider form, the webbing is spit from its maw as a pale purple goo that hardens. (Story: It's a bad monster, kill it!)
Archon-Lantern: Ghostly form of a child with glowing eyes. (Story: A ghost of a child that was avenged, but the ghost stays around simply to do good in the world before passing beyond the veil of true death.)
Archon-Hound: Ancient elven spirits that guard tombs and ruins of importance from evil. (Story: Self-explanatory.)
Arrowhawk: A frozen bee, cold ray instead of shocking ray, uses its stinger instead of its beak.
Assassin vine: Symbiont of a creature like a troll or an ogre -- they share a square, and the vine may protect the creature while it is asleep. As well, an intelligent creature could feign sleep, and have the vine entangle a creature, then beat them to death.
Athach: A great treelike creature with three main branches (Credit to Ferret!)
Azer: Substitute cold for heat. (Story: People that were frozen in a magic glacier that kept them alive for a few hundred or thousand years, and they bring their ancient culture (warlike or not) to the present.)
Barghest: Evil dwarven were-panthers, benevolent gnomish were-panthers. Maybe give 5/silver for lycanthrope status, though this might up the CR a little.
Basilisk: War hounds that watched their masters they loved be slain, and become malevolent spirits with gazes of doom. (Story: Some of these could be bred on purpose by an evil spellcaster, or even just an evil fighter.)
Behir: Take the legs away, a snake that can oddly slither up walls or along ceilings is rather creepy. (Ceiling slithering might make the encounter a lot tougher, be careful.)
Beholder: I remember reading someone (don't remember who, maybe Psion) using a winged medusa with her serpentine hair breathing ten different sorts of rays, and a gaze that disrupted spellcasting, or something like that; with the stats of the beholder. (Credit to Gez for quoting Psion! hehe.)
Beholder: Would work for a modern/future setting: A droid with various rayguns, and an EMP for the main gun. (Credit to Ferret!)
Beholder: Servent of the Eye. A gaunt cloaked figure whose face is shrouded under the hoods of his fleshlike robe. Each of the creatures hands is covered in eyes that occasionally can be seen to blink. Tiny mouths on fleshy tendrils sometimes poke from under the hood. Its has various keening attacks that are the effect of a beholders ray attacks. (story -- enforcer beasty of an insane god.) (Credit to Ace!)
Beholder: The players will know what you're doing if you use these stats. (EDIT: Maybe not!)
Belker: Tufts of black smoke, these are transformed familiars of vampires that are fed blood, they turn into large wispy black versions of themselves, in mist form they turn into blood that claws the heroes from the inside out, when inhaled.
Black Pudding: I've also changed the colour of a black pudding to purple in a Forgotten Realms campaign to make it a more suitable servitor of Ghaunadaur. This really confused one of the more experienced (ie: since 1E) players who had no idea what it was. (Credit to Eremite!)
Blink dog: A swarm of teleporting rats teleports together into a swarm, which then starts blinking out and teleporting in synch. Enough damage just disrupts the swarm, and the rats scatter.
Bodak: This creature has the form of a crazed-looking goblin woman. (Story: She only appears when a goblin holds a candle and chants her name one hundred times in front of a darkened mirror. Then she appears, killing the chanter with a glance, and terrorizes the nearby area. Slain creatures rise as bodaks in service of the crazed goblin woman, but gain freedom if she is slain -- maybe even part of their own minds back.)
Bugbear: Barbaric human tribe that runs on all fours, weapons trapped to their backs. Normal looking 7'+ tall humans. (Story: They're barbarians, what else do you need? These are probably going into my game at some point.)
Bulette: A humongous bird made of stone that travels slowly through stone by merging with it, that seeks food only in metal or stone. Cousin to a xorn. The "jump" ability involves fluttering above an enemy and a flurry of claw double attacks.
Carrion Crawler: A sickly ogre clutches his stomach and feigns illness until prey closes, when the tentacles burst from his stomach and he unhinges his jaw, showing a too-big mouth full of sharpened teeth to eat his paralyzed prey. He uses his arms only to grapple foes (no extra attacks, he loses a tenatcle attack for doing this.) Might rarely get a ranged attack w/ a rock/spear, adjust CR if necessary.
Centaur: A race of half-man half-deer exists that the centaurs revile as weak, and occasionally raid (if the centaur tribe nearby is not the average NG.)
Chaos Beast: Appears as a bloody mess of humanoid hands and feet. When struck or grabbed by the beast, hands and feet start crawling out of the wound, quickly pulling the person down into a bloody mess resembling the original beast. The cha check lets the person crawl their way out of the mess and regain momentary control, failure means more limbs burst from the wound to drag them down again. (Story: It's a beast of chaos! It exists outside space and time to cause madness of mayhem!)
Chimera: A slowly levitating three-headed giant: one fanged giant head, one goat head, one dragon head (giant specific, red for fire, blue for storm, etc.) (Story: This is a prior thrall of a chimera that overthrew and devoured its master.) (Note: The bites might be visually cumbersome, might want to replace with a melee weapon.)
Choker: Normal looking halflings with soulless eyes, whose arms shoot out when they attack. (Story: Halflings that murder their families turn into these tortured killers, these are used somewhat as the boogie-man to scare children.)
Chuul: Use this as a Rusalka, although it requires a bit more effort than the others. (A Rusalka is a Russian myth, a woman who was drowned by her lover, who seeks to seduce others, only to drown them too.) Medium size, looks like a gorgeous woman, promises (campaign-specific pleasures like kisses or, well...) if someone draws near, grapples with preternatural strength, kisses them to paralyze them, then drags them underwater to drown them. Simply won't confront many people at once, loses the mandible damage as well. Rusalkas may be tamed with kindness, and permanently put to rest if a broom with a lock of their hair is beaten against their traiterous lover's grave three times, at which point their savior will have to defeat a spectre. (Or just a CR-dependant ghost, but don't tell anyone!) Fun paladin story. If you want to be mechanically sound towards the myth, give them undead traits, too. If you want to be overboard, even change their HD to d12 and that sort of thing. If slain, a Rusalka will rise again in her body of water she was drowned in in a fortnight. (Not sure if I'm true to the myth completely, but I'm going to use one of these in my game soon, I love these... quest for glory 4 nostalgia, I guess.)
Cloaker: This is the result of a 5th level spell that conjures a spirit to inhabit a cloak. (Analog of summon monster V for CR 5 creature, sounds ok.) Tail slap becomes a series of razors in the cloak (that the spirit brings with it,) and the bite is a crack from the collar full of lead. Engulfed creatures wear the cloak, which rips into them with the razors. Perhaps make the spell take at least a minute to cast. Nasty thing to wake up to. The spirit leaves the cloak after attacking for caster level rounds. This is SKETCHY balance, but it has some flavor. Might be better as a 6th level spell, YMMV.
Cockatrice: Part of the fun of these creatures is the legend about them... everyone fears the scary chickens, and a similar looking "innocent" monster could be very deadly -- give the players some warning to fear the "creepy animals" before using it. Anyway, you could use a calf born with two heads, a dog born with two tails, the result of a hawk and a fish combined in a gestalt after a wild magic surge, a sad looking pig with a ram's horns, a sparrow that sounds like a looming violen when it sings, etc. It needs a legend, otherwise the CR shoots up as they're allowed to approach without caution, though.
Coutal: Scene: A score of huge black worms slither over one another in the middle of the fountain in the ruins. When approached, they launch into the air hovering, squirming around one another, before attacking and casting in unison. Might help if they speak infernal to one another.
Darkmantle: Svirfneblin outcasts are subjected to a ritual that causes skin to grow over their eyes, and cast away. A ruthless society of these has adapted, causing flabby wings to grow between their arms and legs, and echolocation slowly becomes used. Their darkness becomes a sorcerous ability, and they cling to cavern ceilings in groups, causing darkness, then latching onto the heads of prey with their flabby bodies while biting them with their sharpened teeth. (Constrict damage results from bites, suffocation, neck-wringing, and constriction of their flabby wings.)
Delver: Drow (or any race, really) terminated by drow society (or another evil race) are sometimes scarred with acid and thrown into large pits, where an appointed hermit will chant over the pile of corpses for a fortnight. This draws the spirit of the cavern into the pile of corpses, which then animates. (Story: This can be done as a last resort to protect a home, or as sort of an intimidating dog guard -- "the soul of our land protects us through the bodies of your slain.") (Another sketchy almost-undead, YMMW, but the spirit is alive, simply incarnate in corpses.)
Demon-Babau: Archon scouts, protective aura of holiness instead of acid. These sometimes serve as forward scouts for angelic armies. 2 Claws are two shortswords, bite is an unarmed attack.
Demon-Balor: Again, negate the alignment, give these stats to a towering flaming angel with skin of platinum, and you have a good Avenging Angel, called forth to punish the wicked. Powers become good instead of evil, just drop insanity, and perhaps change the fire powers to electrical in nature if you want to disguise the stats more.
Demon-Bebilith: A giant that ate a cursed spider awoke one day to find his lower body had transformed into that of a terrible spider, and that he was able to throw webbing and spit venom. Claw attacks are instead club attacks. Sort of a giant-drider hybrid. Plane shift doesn't really fit the concept well -- perhaps the curse only allows the giant to teleport to a plane where he is punished by spider-spirits for a time, before being allowed to return.
Demon-Dretch: A specific curse turns humans from a small village who venture too close to ruins into long-armed, clawed, tusked versions of themselves. (Summoned dretch are humans from within the cursed ruins, who will reveal the nature of their curse if questioned by their summoner.) Those affected by the curse sometimes speak in hushed, sickly (abyssal) tones, and seem to know what each other are thinking. (Curse idea is that a dwarven lord's tomb is underneath the town, and does not appreciate the human filth atop him.)
Demon-Glabrezu: A big blob of flesh with no apparent senses, but with four long clawed arms dragging it along and attacking. It's maw is misshapen, and it seems to eat anything, and it tends to gibber instead of speak. (Story: This is what happens when a hundred and one dretches are thrown into a pit, melted down, and delicately boiled for a year and a day.) It still has the wish ability, but it has trouble speaking intelligently, and must be captured and coerced into giving the wish somehow.
Demon-Hezrou: Appears as a humongous frog-headed beast, and is worshipped as a deity in the jungle by jungle gnomes and/or kobolds (see UA,) who must offer it yearly sacrifices of virgins, otherwise he will raid the village. (Story: It's still a demon, it's just a big frog demon. Give it +23 jump ranks, kill the 23 listen ranks -- the villagers will note that they sneak in the dark to leave the sacrifices, because it only seems to notice if it sees them... which it tends to if it's aware, w/ +23 spot.) Let it speak croaky common, and give it a good name.
Demon-Marilith: As the alternate lantern archon mentioned above, but darkness. A dark ball of energy with six dark swords hovering around, the primary sword appears partially made of the void. The swords simply whip through the air and start attacking, and the "tail slap" becomes the ball of darkness simply moves around someone -- dealing the "constrict" damage. Any polymorphed form will give itself away as its eyes will always be blackened, if examined.
Demon-Nalfeshnee: Simply a huge winged talking bear. These are the guardians of fairy circles during the day. (Heck, this explains the weird "rainbow demon ability" a lot better anyway, hrmph!) Let unholy aura work against non-rangers and non-druids instead of goods. They enjoy conversation, and if shown pure intentions and a gift (perhaps honey, or the famed sapphire honey of the north.) This can let the adventures get something the fairies wouldn't normally give that they need. (It only uses its summoning ability to summon another one of itself.)
Digestor: Digestor = Bonasus. A Bull like creature. (claw attacks become gore, and acid attack.) quoting: Pliny the Elder (Natural History, Book 8, 16): The bonasus is found in Paeonia. It has the mane of a horse but otherwise resembles a bull. ...when attacked, it runs away, while releasing a trail of dung ... Contact with the dung burns pursuers as though they had touched fire. (Credit to Tonguez!)
Dryad: For example, in my last game the group ended up in a large, abandoned graveyard. When inspecting a very large crypt, they found two very beautiful, but creepy goth chicks, that smelled of old death. They made cobwebs and dead grass spring from the ground and entangle the party. They tried to charm the party and were resistant to melee damage. When the fight started to go against them, the goths melted into nearby tombstones, only to step out of ones across the graveyard and continue the fight. At one point, one even "disappeared" by changing herself into a grave marker that looked like a statue of an angel. I had a table full of veteran players that had no idea what they were up against.
All I did was take a completely off the rack dryad and change the description -- all the abilities were pretty much the same. Entangle just produced dead vegetation and such instead of vines and grass. Tree stride let them move between headstones instead of trees. The power that let them change to look like trees let them look like grave statues instead. Instead of a tree, they were linked to the crypt the party found them in. Totall cosmetic changes -- all "new" monster. (Credit to Greatywyrm for this monster that inspired the thread!)
Dryad: Another for Dryads--statue dryads or stone dryads that exist underground.
You could pair the statue dryad with her own statue--animated by a maedar's glyptar as an odd couple RP encounter! (Credit to VirgilCaine!)
Elemental-Earth: Based on the earth elemental, the guardian lump is a construct that doesn't move. It has a single tentacle with a reach double that of the base elemental. (Credit to DMH!)
Elemental-Water: I had water elementals that seemed to contain a multitude of lost souls and thus looked a lot like the caller in darkness from the Expanded Psionics Handbook. They rose up out of some pools and the players actually seemed to be scared. If only they had known that they were only water elementals.... (Credit to Eremite!)
Elemental-Water: Purple jelly is a opaque, purple-ish blue ooze like creature that converts living flesh into blue crystals that it feeds on (water elemental- remove water mastery and vortex, add burning from fire elemental). (Credit to DMH!)
Elemental-Water: I had these Ash Demons. Basically the came out of fire pits, ovens and burned down houses. I used water elementals for the stats and the only special ability they had that was different was the ability to go into a pile of ashes and come out of another within like a 100' radius. The party divised a way to beat them I never thought of. They poured water over the pile of ashes to try and stop the demon from jumping around. (Credit to Dagger75!)
Goblin: A fellow DM had these small orange humanoid creatures with wings. They were all over the place and quite the pain in the neck. Stats: Goblin with a Fly Speed. As you advance them, you add flying feats. (Credit to Nyrfherdr!)
Harpy: Peacemake "dove" harpy--a Calm Emotion song instead, and beautiful instead of ugly. (Credit to VirgilCaine!)
Hellhound: I used Slime Lizards, which were just hellounds with the fire-related abilities changed to acid-related. (Credit to Capellan!)
Hobgoblin: One of my friends had things called Terra goblins, which were statwise identical to hobgoblins but had more natural armor, as they were essentially made of stone. (Credit to Andrew D. Gable!)
Medusa: Prismatic Medusa: Use the prismatic spell effects instead of turn to stone. (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Medusa: Charm/Dominate Gaze--by concentrating the Medusa can dominate one of her charmed slaves. (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Medusa: Contagion instead of turn to stone--Plague Medusas, fitting as high-level clerics of Incabulos OADSTYC (Or another deity specific to your campaign). (Credit to Virgil-Caine!)
Shadow: Just recently I used some "Holy Ghosts" in an adventure. Exact same stats and abilities as a Shadow except I replaced their Str Drain with Wis Drain and had them exude a sort of Sanctuary Aura that caused those effected by their Wis Drain to make Will Saves or not be able to attack those bearing the Holy Symbol to which the Holy Ghosts were dedicated (they were Paladins who gave up their lives defending a holy site of their order). (Credit to Rel!)
Stirge: The carrion crow was a relative of the stirge (identical statwise) that always travelled in swarms. If you fell to the crows, one of them would burrow into and take control of your body. Idea blatantly stolen from an early episode of Inuyasha. (Credit to Andrew D. Gable!)
Sudden Brute: I recently got the new Masque of the Red Death and one of the creatures in it (sudden brute) can easily be altered to live in large trees or on cliffs. I can also see it used as a plains hunter that runs down its prey (just increase its speed to 50). For those without MotRD, just use an ogre with large bonuses to jump, climb and hide (like +15, +35 and +5). (Credit to DMH!)
Tanar'ri-Bar-lgura: I like the orang utan-like bar-lgura tanar'ri but I wanted something more appropriate for servants of Demogorgon... so I simply changed the description to green-scaled mandrill-like creatures, made them immune to acid rather than electricity and kept everything else the same. (Credit to Eremite!)
Troll: Trogs are boreal forest dwelling humanoids that use the trees to hide and ambush opponents and prey. They are large and hairy with small facial features. (Credit to DMH!)
Vapor Bore: The master sphere has hundreds of tentacles that drain chr. If something is reduced to zero, part of the tentacle breaks off and takes over the victim (vapor bore stats from Complete Minions). (Credit to DMH!)
Warforged: Specific example from my game today: The PCs ran into a warforged which had been constructed to be unusually strong, immune to fire, have metal claws and fangs grafted onto its fingers and mouth, and had a one-shot "blaster" which fired a cone of flame. Surprised the heck out of them. All I did was slap the mechanical benefits of a half-dragon template on a standard warforged (hence claws, breath attack as blaster), and I had a interesting new version. (Credit to Shilsen!)
Animal-Polar Bear: The brain buster is a bear that causes those near it to lose all their senses (polar stats from Complete Minions). (Credit to DMH!)
Animal-Crocodile: The muddweller is a large newt that ambushes those that come to the water's edge (crocodile stats; reduce bite by one die size and give paralytic slime). (Credit to DMH!)
Animal-Wolf: Most of my new monsters are just repackagings of core creatures, ususually with one or two little tweeks. For instance, the PCs have recently been fighting a lot of 6-legged wolves. I took just the normal wolf stats and added Spring Attack as a bonus feat. (Credit to Quasqueton!)
Animal-Wolf: I've used horse and wolf stats for freaky reptilian animals that live in the Bloodstone Marches of IK. (Credit to John Q. Mayhem!)
Original Message Intro:
This thread is inspired by a message from a thread awhile back that I'll find as soon as I'm a community supporter. (EDIT: I still need to do that!
)In it, a poster created a really cool monster -- two twin creepy pale skinned women could step through gravestones into other parts of their graveyard, and cause bits of bones from the earth to spring up and hold the adventurers fast.
This was simply a variation on the dryad -- same stats, same abilities (gravestride instead of treestride, keyed to a grave instead of a tree, entangle with bones instead of twigs,) but had two important differences: a) It has the obvious flavor advantage, and b) The players had NO idea what they were up against.
If you're like me, you have players who have read the monster manual and already like to know what's going on, especially if you're changing things up just a little bit. "Oh, it's a hobgoblin with rogue levels. Ok." "Oh, that's not a were-tiger, it's a rakshasa." That sort of thing. Not bad, but it can be frustrating.
Anyway, enough rambling. This is my attempt to get started, going down the monster manual, with some alternative forms for the monsters -- unidentifiable creatures, with different flavor and backstories, that happily steal the stats and CRs of current creatures -- that is, just letting us do the fluff work without doing the crunch work.
If making a new monster implies doing all the crunch by yourself to feel like you've got a real new beastie -- please do! Some monsters will need that exactly. I think some don't. Anyway, on to the listings. (If you want to add anything, going in alphabetical order is just an idea, don't feel bound to it though.)
One last note: If there are any threads like this, a link would be terribly helpful. Thanks.
I followed the fluff changes with ideas for a specific story for the creatures.
(The monster list originally began here.)
Original message ending:
Some are still identifiable perhaps, but might just lend a sense of oddness to encounters, while still being mechanically sound. Fluff can change CRs if it changes assumptions, I've tried to avoid that in general -- the young girl allip might look more benign than an allip at first, which might change the CR of the encounter, but it might not.
Anyway, I hope some others are interested in this, and I'll come up with more ideas soon, unless I start writing weird prestige classes. Ah well.
Oh yeah, don't feel limited by the MM1, just give stories of similar creations of your own, or make some new ones, or etc.
Enjoy!
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