Alternative Monsters: Different Fluff, Same Crunch
- Thread starter Terwox
- Start date
[threadnecromancy] It's alive! [/threadnecromancy]
Hives discovered in the jungle appear as miniature castle-like spires of fused ceramic, backed by the heat of the sun, with sharpened spears of bamboo sprouting out in all direction, like a prickly fortification. Bright yellow and red beetles crawl and fly about the structure, which is over a yard and a half across at the base and taller than a man.
As you approach, a few more beetles take flight, and a couple fly near you, moving forward and retreating several times, cautiously. As you make a Spot check, one hovers near enough for you to see that the beetle is slender and seems to have a massively elongated leg on one side, and a large shell-like extra carapace, similar to those on it’s back, on the other side. As you make an even better Spot check, you recognize that it is *holding* these items, one of which is a polearm-like spear and the other of which is a shield!
The beetles fly back to their fortress like home and begin circling, with others rising up and joining the growing swarm…
If the party doesn’t flee within the five rounds it takes the full swarm to assemble, treat as a Locust Swarm with an Int 6 as the tiny insectoid warriors attack with their miniscule ‘glaives.’
Hives discovered in the jungle appear as miniature castle-like spires of fused ceramic, backed by the heat of the sun, with sharpened spears of bamboo sprouting out in all direction, like a prickly fortification. Bright yellow and red beetles crawl and fly about the structure, which is over a yard and a half across at the base and taller than a man.
As you approach, a few more beetles take flight, and a couple fly near you, moving forward and retreating several times, cautiously. As you make a Spot check, one hovers near enough for you to see that the beetle is slender and seems to have a massively elongated leg on one side, and a large shell-like extra carapace, similar to those on it’s back, on the other side. As you make an even better Spot check, you recognize that it is *holding* these items, one of which is a polearm-like spear and the other of which is a shield!
The beetles fly back to their fortress like home and begin circling, with others rising up and joining the growing swarm…
If the party doesn’t flee within the five rounds it takes the full swarm to assemble, treat as a Locust Swarm with an Int 6 as the tiny insectoid warriors attack with their miniscule ‘glaives.’
Link is broke.
3e:
Beholder: Saw this suggestion on a forum. A giant floating bag of faces. Each "face" moans, screams, or curses the individual. Each vocal effect is an eye beam.
Bugbear: Low-tech Yautja-type of hunters.
Choker: Creature with snakes for fingers, reptilian features and translucent scales (story: A cult who were trying to get closer to dragons were using an artifact that was mutating themselves horribly. The subject above used to be a halfling).
Dire Ape: A beast made of half-decomposed plants and roots, hungry for flesh. The only stat change was to take the adhesive ability from a mimic, so that weapons were caught in the mushy, root-filled flesh.
Elemental-Water: Blood Elemental, on two different occasions. Each incarnation healed when it did damage, but the first one had a dual "Shield Other" and "Half-heal the caster" going.
Ochre Jelly: Vomit Monster. (Story: Fiendish infestation of a lost colony. The characters vomit gallons of black fluid, and then the stuff stands up and attcks. Tough fight that unnerved the players.) It could function just as easily as a Ward.
Owlbear: With a poisonous bite, it works as a fantastic psionicsless yaun-ti abomination.
4e:
Displacer Beast: A shadow cultist (not mine).
Ettercap: Adding a Shadowborn Stalker template, it became a creature that stole its victims shadows, allowing it to control its victims at night.
Hyena: War dogs.
Guard Drake: Hell hounds.
Orc Raider: Blade Devil; a spined devil's little brother, with blades jutting up all over the flesh.
Beholder: Saw this suggestion on a forum. A giant floating bag of faces. Each "face" moans, screams, or curses the individual. Each vocal effect is an eye beam.
Bugbear: Low-tech Yautja-type of hunters.
Choker: Creature with snakes for fingers, reptilian features and translucent scales (story: A cult who were trying to get closer to dragons were using an artifact that was mutating themselves horribly. The subject above used to be a halfling).
Dire Ape: A beast made of half-decomposed plants and roots, hungry for flesh. The only stat change was to take the adhesive ability from a mimic, so that weapons were caught in the mushy, root-filled flesh.
Elemental-Water: Blood Elemental, on two different occasions. Each incarnation healed when it did damage, but the first one had a dual "Shield Other" and "Half-heal the caster" going.
Ochre Jelly: Vomit Monster. (Story: Fiendish infestation of a lost colony. The characters vomit gallons of black fluid, and then the stuff stands up and attcks. Tough fight that unnerved the players.) It could function just as easily as a Ward.
Owlbear: With a poisonous bite, it works as a fantastic psionicsless yaun-ti abomination.
4e:
Displacer Beast: A shadow cultist (not mine).
Ettercap: Adding a Shadowborn Stalker template, it became a creature that stole its victims shadows, allowing it to control its victims at night.
Hyena: War dogs.
Guard Drake: Hell hounds.
Orc Raider: Blade Devil; a spined devil's little brother, with blades jutting up all over the flesh.
Last edited:
Terwox
First Post
Woah. Ochre Jelly: Vomit Monster... wow, that IS creepy. I like it a lot! I'm totally going to steal that for Keep on the Shadowfell and the Jelly... maybe have it spew forth from the dead rats.
So far I've also used Human Rabble as plant people, and Human Mages as druids of the plant people, with their immobilize effect resembling the entangle spell.
I will add these and any future suggestions to the front of the thread soon enough.
So far I've also used Human Rabble as plant people, and Human Mages as druids of the plant people, with their immobilize effect resembling the entangle spell.
I will add these and any future suggestions to the front of the thread soon enough.
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