Conversion To-Do List

[Cleon]

I thought it'd be worthwhile to have a thread dedicated to which monsters are next in our conversions queue.

We occasionally talk about doing a particular conversion next but often forget it by the time we finish one of our current conversions, but if we have a list of the critters we were thinking of doing next in a dedicated thread it'd be easier to remember them all!

If anyone has a monster they'd like done, please post it in the Current Conversion Requests thread rather than here.

So without further ado…

To-Do Lists
Kraken Variants
Shapeshifters
Infinite Staircase Creatures
Unique Dragons
More Missing Dragons
Monsters of Nehwon
Dragon Magazine Monsters

 

[Cleon]

Kraken Variants

A few of the monsters in Echohawk's ENCyclopedia have variants that aren't currently in the Creature Catalog, so I fancy converting them.

Firstly, as I mentioned in the Lamia thread, we don't have a CC conversion for the Sa'ir.

Secondly, I spent a large chunk of Sunday comparing the various Kraken and Giant Squid entries, and we are missing four variant Krakens:

1. In original OD&D, the Kraken is the monster in A Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage, not the sea monster.
2. In BECMI, Kraken are quite different from the AD&D/3E+ version, so I fancy statting it as a "Mystaran Kraken".
3. In AD&D's Birthright setting, The Kraken is an awnshegh in Blood Enemies (1995)
4. Birthright also has an Undead Kraken in Legacy of the Hero-Kings (1996)

So does anyone have any preferences which of the above to convert first? If no one objects, I'm inclined to just go through them in the order they're presented in - so it'd be the Sa'ir first.

We've finished the Sa'ir already so it'd be the "Mirage Kraken" next.

EDIT: Adding link to the Sa'ir Working Draft.

Update:
Mirage Kraken [finished as Khalk'ru (with Aspect of Khalk'ru)]
Mystaran Kraken
Awnshegh Kraken
Undead Kraken

 

[Cleon]

Shapeshifters

And we've got another batch of Shapeshifters we've started work on:

We've still got enough obscure lycanthropes for another batch of werecreatures - including yet another jaguar variant.

Incidentally, I've discovered there are a few Lycanthropes from the Ravenloft supplement Children of the Night: Werebeasts that aren't in Echohawk's list, together with some other lycanthropes that don't appear to have official conversions, namely:

Catwere, Weredog, Werecobra, Weredolphin, Weredragon, Weregorilla, Weremole, Wereowl, Werepanther, Werespider.

The Bold Ones are from Children of the Night and aren't in Echohawk's Index, the remainder are in the Index and mainly originate from "New Lycanthropes in the Realms" in FR7 Hall of Heroes. Most of those have some 3.0 stats in the fan supplement Bestiary of the Realms but as far as I've been able to find they don't have any official 3E stats.

For clarification, the "Weredragon" above is not the same as the Song Dragon "Weredragon" of the Realms - it's a genuine lycanthrope, not a shapechanging true dragon.

Yeah, I'd happily leave the Bestiary of the Realms ones for last. The main reason I'd fancy eventually doing our own conversion of them is that the Bestiary doesn't include any sample creatures, so it's not that "DM ready". Plus, it's D&D 3.0 of course, which uses a substantially different Lycanthrope template to 3.5.

The Bestiary doesn't have the FR7 "Weredragon", so we could consider that on the assumption that it's different from the Song Dragon. If we add the Catwere, Werecobra and Weregorilla from Children of the Night that's still only four monsters, not a "full batch". I suppose there are a few more Mystaran/BECMI "lycanthropes", like the Devil Swine.

Mystaran Note: I remember that the additional Mystaran "lycanthropes" referred to above include a mako shark version of the "wereshark" as well as the aforementioned Devil Swine.

Additional Note: I also recall there being a Weregannet in an old issue of White Dwarf, but that (a) was a unique "joke monster" and (b) isn't an "official D&D monster".

Additional Mystaran Note: Just noticed the Werefox in BECMI is different to the AD&D "Foxwoman" version. We'd better add that to the queue!

Another Mystaran Note: Do we want to do "Greater Versions" of any of the other lycanthropes to match their PC4 versions like we did with the Wererats? See details here.

Yet Another Note: There are two varieties of Werebat
who differ noticeably from the official 3E Werebat [Dire Bat] from Lost Empires of Faerûn. There's the Giant Werebat (Shadkyn) from Dragon #266 and the "Deep Werebat" from Dragon #90 and MC11/FOR2. The Giant Werebat has a shriek special attack like the "advanced ability" of a Mystaran Werebat (see above). The Deep Werebat has a blood draining bite.

Update:

Catwere [finished as Meeka]
Weredog [finished as Lycanthrope, Weredog]
Werecobra [finished as Sheneya]
Weredolphin [finished as Lycanthrope, Wereporpoise]
Weredragon
Weregorilla [finished as Arcanus Ape (adds Wereape & Dire Wereape)]
Weremole
Wereowl
Werepanther [finished as Panther Lord]
Werespider

plus

Devil Swine
Simorgyan
Werebat, Deep
Werebat, Giant (Shadkyn)
Werefox [Mystaran]
Wereseal (Fur & Harbour) [not sure if they're worth separating]
Weresealion
Wereshark (Weremako) [finished as Weremako]

Questionable?
Greater Versions of Lycanthropes (bat, bear, boar, rat [done], seal [pending], shark [pending], tiger, wolf)[based on PC4 Night Howlers]

 

[Cleon]

Infinite Staircase Creatures

Back in the old What Conversions Shall We Do Next? thread that got shifted over to the 5E forum during our latest database problems Oryan77 asked for some creatures from Tales of the Infinite Staircase which we started in Converting monsters from Tales From The Infinite Staircase.

I asked about these conversions in the Planescape thread. Cleon suggested that I post my requests here.

I'm preparing to run the Tales from the Infinite Staircase adventure and there are a few monsters in it that I have not found 3.5 conversions for yet. If anyone could convert these, that would be great. This is the order that I'm most interested in getting converted first. But of course, I'll take what I can get.

Kamerel pg. 110
Taker of Life pg. 49
Dark Dweller pg. 50
Valgoss pg. 48
Slaiyith pg. 48
Maturing Baatorian pg. 127
Shard pg. 15
Silver Golem pg. 15

I've finished Homebrew stats for all of the above in Infinite Staircase Thread.

So far we've finished CC conversions of the Kamerel, Maturing Baatorian, Nightmare Rat and Phlegamor's Servant in said thread. See this Infinite Staircase Conversions post for links.

 

[Cleon]

Unique Dragons

I fancy doing Mystara's Dragon Rulers some time once we've finished converting Ahi the Steel Dragon (see Will The Dragons Rise Again? post on Converting True Dragons).

These are:

Diamond (The Star Dragon), Ruler of Lawful Dragons​

Great One (The Great Dragon), Ruler of All Dragonkind​

Opal (The Sun Dragon), Ruler of Neutral Dragons​

Pearl (The Moon Dragon), Ruler of Chaotic Dragons​

 

[Cleon]

Monsters of Nehwon

There are a fair few creatures in various D&D sources based on Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar books that haven't been converted.

I'll compile a list of them when I can find the spare time, but off the top of my head I'd give priority to the following:

Death Coral (since we've already done the coral it's a Nehwon-only subentry for)
Simorgyan (since it's connected to the Sea Cloaker and Pungi Ray we've already converted)

[EDIT]
Anyhow, here's a fairly complete list based on everything in Echohawk's index with the setting tag of "Lankhmar":

Animals & Monsters
Askhalite
Skeletal Bat*
Behemoth*
- Behemoth, Black
- Behemoth, Snow
- Behemoth, Swamp
Bird of Tyaa
Ice Cat
- Ice Cat, Spotted
Cat, War
Cloaker, Sea [converted]
Cold Woman
- Cold Spawn
Coral, Death Coral
Coral, Giant Coral [converted as Coral Worm]
Deadly Smog
Devourer
Hamadryad*
Eater of Souls
Eel, Poison
Ghoul, Kleshite
Ghoul, Nehwon
Gnome, Ice
Hydden
Invisible of Stardock
Marsh Leopard
Leviathan*
Gladiator Lizard
Monolisk
Night Gaunt*
Ray, Invisible Flying Rayfish
Ray, Pungi [converted]
Shree-kah
Simorgyan
Snake, Water Cobra
Snake, Snow Serpent
Spectral Hound
Spider, Salt
Stalking Death
Vampire, Lankhmart
Marsh Vulture
Astral Wolf
Wolf* [just a wolf]
Wolvern
Worm, Giant

The above merits a few notes, indicated by *asterisks.

1. The Skeletal Bat is different from Ravenloft's Skeletal Bat.
2. The Behemoth is basically "an orca with legs", so different from D&D's Behemoth (Giant Hippopotamus).
3. The Coral was a MC entry in LNA2 Nehwon (1990) that included a "Giant Coral" that was reprinted in the MCA4 as the Coral Worm and a "Death Coral" that only appears in LNA2.
4. The Hamadryad has different powers but is similar to the Forgotten Realms Hamadryad.
5. The Leviathan is a giant cephalopod, not a whale like a standard D&D Leviathan, although the whale version also exists in Lankhmar — i.e. the Deep Rusher in the short story The Mer She and D&D's Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1993).
6. The Night Gaunt is the HP Lovecraft monster, so is covered in the d20 version of Call of Cthulhu.
7. The Wolf is simply an ordinary Wolf so is already covered by the SRD.

It might also be worth considering the gods & demigods from the Lankhmar section of Deities & Demigods or Legends & Lore to decide if any of them are worth converting. I would be tempted to do the manifestation of Hate and some of the others (i.e. the Gods of Lankhmar) are worth considering.

Deities & Demigods
Aarth (Demigod)
Death (Greater God)
Gods of Lankhmar (Demigods)
Gods of Trouble (Lesser Gods)
Hate (Lesser God)
Kos (God of Dooms)
Issek of the Jug (Demigod)
Nehwon Earth God (Lesser God)
Rat God (Lesser God)
Red God (Lesser God)
Spider God (Demigod)
Tyaa (winged goddess of evil birds) (Lesser Goddess)
Votishal (Demigod)

 

[Cleon]

Dragon Magazine Monsters

There are quite a few creatures from Dragon Magazine that still haven't been converted, plus some with 3.0 conversions in the CC that ought to be upgraded to 3.5 sometime.

Of those, I'd prefer to focus on those from Bestiaries that we have already done a bunch of conversions.

Most notably, the first Creature Catalog in Dragon Magazine #89 has 29 monsters but we only have 3E stats for 20 of them.

Here are some of the creatures I am considering. It is not a complete list:

Dragon #46
The Temple of Poseidon
Sand Squid (Subsilicate Cephalopod)
Screamer
Efreet Pasha
Carrion Crawler, Salt-Water
Myconymphs
Priests of Ythog-Nthlei

Dragon #89
Creature Catalog
Corkie
Fachan
Flailtail
Ihagnim
Millikan
Seastar
Scallion
Shrike, Giant
Sind

Dragon #101
Creature Catalog III
Dracones
Gargorian
Righteous Clay
Tundra Beast

Dragon #190
In Poseidon's Lair
Tube Worm, Carnivorous
Dragon Fish

Dragon #199
Opening the Book of Beasts
Calopus
Orc, Sea
Sea Bishop/Sea Monk
Serra

Dragon #238
Spawn of the Sewers
Albino Crocodile
Plague Moth
Water Cat

Dragon #265
Earthstokers - Children of Fire and Earth
Lacunae Ghost
Living Lahar

Dragon #267
Designing Dungeon Monsters
Stalking Catfish
Tunnelmouth Dweller

Dragon Annual #2
Arctic Monsters
Growler
Snow Spider
Tundra Lizard

Dragon Annual #3
Urban Pests
Acid Pigeon
Piranha Ant
Polyroach
Rat Burglar
Stone Termite

 

[Cleon]

Giant Whale?

There are a fair few monsters with have versions that are substantially different from the "standard variety" (i.e. the Mystaran Kraken and the standard Kraken or have MC entries which include creatures that are not covered in their existing conversions.

For example, the 2E AD&D Whale entry that appears in Monstrous Compendium Volume 2 (1989) and the Monstrous Manual (1993) has stats for "Common Whale", "Giant Whale", "Leviathan", "Killer Whale (Orca)" and "Narwhal".

Of these, the Giant Whale lacks a 3E conversion so I'm wondering whether to add it to the to-do list, but it seems a lot lower priority (or less interesting) than some of the other creatures.

You could approximate this creature as an SRD Cachalot Whale that has received an awaken spell and been advanced to Colossal size.

Note: Echohawk's Index lists the Rule Cyclopedia Great Whale as being synonymous with the Giant Whale but I believe it's synonymous with the BECMI version of the Sperm Whale since their stats are identical.

 

[freyar]

We should let [MENTION=9849]Echohawk[/MENTION]; know about your speculations re: the giant whale. Hopefully he gets this.

I'm all for converting the Nehwon monsters, but we might need to leave them in the forum and leave them off the actual CC web page for copyright reasons, like we're doing with the goatfolk. On the other hand, I know we did some other proprietary monsters, like the gebbeth from Le Guin's books, and that's in the CC.

 

[Cleon]

We should let @Echohawk; know about your speculations re: the giant whale. Hopefully he gets this.

I'm all for converting the Nehwon monsters, but we might need to leave them in the forum and leave them off the actual CC web page for copyright reasons, like we're doing with the goatfolk. On the other hand, I know we did some other proprietary monsters, like the gebbeth from Le Guin's books, and that's in the CC.

Some of the monsters on the Nehwon list don't appear in Mr Leiber's original stories, at least as far as I know. For example, the Death Coral only appears in LNA2 Nehwon (1990) appears to be a D&D-only creature, and the Pungi Ray in Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar (1996) is a standard AD&D Monster Manual creature despite the name of that source.

Anyhow, we've got plenty of other possibilities on this list as well as the Nehwon monsters, so we can work on some of those first.

At the moment the ones I'm most interested in doing are the "original Creature Catalog" monsters from Dragon Magazine, the Kraken variants and the Shape-Shifters.

 

[Echohawk]

We should let [MENTION=9849]Echohawk[/MENTION]; know about your speculations re: the giant whale. Hopefully he gets this.

Indeed I did. I've fixed this entry in my copy of the increasingly-outdated-and-in-dire-need-of-a-major-overhaul index.

 

[Cleon]

Indeed I did. I've fixed this entry in my copy of the increasingly-outdated-and-in-dire-need-of-a-major-overhaul index.

Yes, it's almost like we have thpse terrible monsters known as "real life" and "work" eating in to the time we have for RPG related activities.

 

[graven13]

I can't help but ask are there plans to convert this full list of 3e monsters to 5e? I would really love that!

http://www.enworld.org/creaturecatalog/Conversions/( CCIndex ).htm

 

[Cleon]

I can't help but ask are there plans to convert this full list of 3e monsters to 5e? I would really love that!

http://www.enworld.org/creaturecatalog/Conversions/( CCIndex ).htm

Freyar and I are only doing 3E conversions on this forum for the immediately foreseeable future.

 

[Cleon]

Snakes Alive!

I've been amusing myself listing all the Snakes & Serpents I could find in D&D and there are a fair few in Echohawk's Index that might be missing 3E conversions.


Standard Snakes
These are amply represented by SRD Snakes.

Constrictors
Anaconda (Large Constrictor)
Giant Anaconda (Giant Constrictor or Titanoboa)
Boa Constrictor (Large Constrictor)
Giant Boa Constrictor (Giant Constrictor)
Rock Python (Large Constrictor)

Vipers
Cobra [Medium Viper since a King Cobra is a Large Viper]
Baby Cobra [=Tiny Viper]
Black Cobra [=Cobra => Medium Viper]
White Cobra [=Cobra => Medium Viper]
Musoke Fitina (Rainbow Viper) [=Cobra => Medium Viper]
Tik Polonga [=Cobra => Medium Viper]


Variant Snakes
These have minor variations from the SRD Snakes, such as unusual venom.
Attack Viper [Small Viper with weak poison from Wand of Wondrousness]
Spitting Cobra [Medium Viper with the CC Spitting template?]
Blacksnake [Forgotten Realms subterranean snake, nonvenomous but dangerous-looking.]
Boomslang [Viper with “illusory recovery” venom]
Bushmaster [Viper with potent nauseating venom]
Fer-De-Lance [Viper with potent agonizing venom]
Flying Snake [Gliding Viper]
Gaboon Viper [high bite damage, Imp crit, potent venom that causes rapid death/gangrene]
Ice Viper [a cold-resistant Viper]
Pharaoh's Ruling Snake [snake form of a magical staff, a 4 HD Large viper with speed 40 ft.]
Pit Viper [Medium Viper with heat sense & super initiative]
Prairie Giant Snake [from Elmister's Ecologies, prob. just a Large Constrictor]
Ram Python (Large Constrictor with a surprise slam ‘headbutt’ attack)
Rattlesnake [Viper with venom that can asphyxiate/paralyze]
Sea Snake? [‘pinprick’ bite with paralysing venom, the official Stormwrack template isn’t close]
Undead Python [just a Corpse Creature Large Constrictor]
Water Cobra [Medium Viper with Chameleon skin]


Unique Snakes
Black Mamba [high speed, multiple bite attacks, coagulatory venom]
Black Snake [Legendary viper from Finnish folklore]
Cave Cambo [Albino aquatic snake that breathes paralyzing vapors]
Cryoserpent [giant snake with powers similar to Otiluke's freezing sphere]
Flame Snake [OD&D/Legends&Lore version significantly different from the 3E one]
Flying Viper [Hollow World Mystaran winged spitting viper]
Heway [Well-poisoning magical serpent]
Herald Serpent [intelligent talking snake with incredible speed and spell-like abilities]
Mahogany Constrictor [Huge intelligent constrictor with displacement and a venomous bite]
Racer Snake [Large non-venomous non-constrictor that "is faster than most other snakes".]
Sea Snake, Giant [Has constriction AND venom, is fast on both land and in water]
Snow Serpent [furred serpentine mammal, aka White Furred Serpent]
also mention of:
Black Furred Serpent [jungle-dweller with air-filled fur to aid swimming (somehow)]
Brown Furred Serpent [desert-dweller with poisonous fur]
Quarrel Snake [a magic arrow that turns into a winged snake to attack its target]
White Cobra Tree Spirit [undead spirit that bewitches victims into starving to death]
Winged Serpent (OD&D) [the Sup4 original spits contact poison and guards treasure]


White Dwarf Snakes
Death Snake [a level-draining undead snake. Not an official D&D monster so we can skip it.]

 

[Echohawk]

Unique Snakes
Black Mamba [high speed, multiple bite attacks, coagulatory venom]

Out of curiosity, why is this a unique snake? Black mambas are the second most common snake we have to deal with where we live (a distance second to the pervasive Mozambican spitting cobras), and we're pretty sure there is a very large individual resident in one of our fields. It is at least 3 meters long, which makes for a relatively scary encounter. Fortunately black mambas roam over a very large hunting area, so we only run into "our" mamba every couple of years or so.

 

[Cleon]

Out of curiosity, why is this a unique snake? Black mambas are the second most common snake we have to deal with where we live (a distance second to the pervasive Mozambican spitting cobras), and we're pretty sure there is a very large individual resident in one of our fields. It is at least 3 meters long, which makes for a relatively scary encounter. Fortunately black mambas roam over a very large hunting area, so we only run into "our" mamba every couple of years or so.

It's in that category because the AD&D stats in question are sufficiently different from a "normal poisonous snake" that I thought it might merit converting as a separate creature rather than simply saying "treat as a size X Viper Snake from the SRD".

It is one of the more questionable ones - some of the "real world" snakes in the Unique category owe more to their depiction in folklore and rumour than their actual abilities.

 

[Echohawk]

Aha! Unique as in separate creatures, rather than unique as in one of a kind. Gotcha.

Of all the snakes we encounter, mambas are certainly unique in how we deal with them. All other venomous snakes get caught, put in a box, and delivered to the regional snake park. That only happens for baby mambas. Adults get left well alone .

 

[Cleon]

Aha! Unique as in separate creatures, rather than unique as in one of a kind. Gotcha.

Of all the snakes we encounter, mambas are certainly unique in how we deal with them. All other venomous snakes get caught, put in a box, and delivered to the regional snake park. That only happens for baby mambas. Adults get left well alone .

That's right, it's not "Unique" in the AD&D "Frequency" monster stat sense.

The AD&D Black Mamba in Dragon #237 can move faster than a riding horse in open ground (30 vs 24) faster than a heavy warhorse in other circumstances (18 vs 15) and bites so rapidly it gets two attacks per round. The AD&D version in Dragon #115 has three bites per round, but at least it's a bit slower at move 15!

The Dragon #237 Black Mamba also has special rules for its venom.

Oh, incidentally, while going through your index to match the snakes I noticed a few missing entries:

• Aeserpent - we've done a CC conversion for this since your last Index update.
• Mystaran Cobras - the Index has Vaults of Pandius conversions of the Black Cobra and White Cobra but not their BECMI originals. The Black Cobra is on page 58 of Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark [Explorer's Manual]. The White Cobra's on page 33 of HWA3 Nightstorm (which also has a standard Cobra and Baby Cobras on p 32).
• The 3E Minor Flame Snake and Lesser Flame Snake are both missing their "Fiend Folio + 3.5 update" entries.
• The Ice Viper just has its 3E Bestiary of the Realms 2 conversion, the original is in Ruins of Undermountain [Undermountain Adventures] page 25.
• The Quarrel Snake also originally appeared in Ruins of Undermountain on page 117 of the Campaign Guide.
• The Pharaoh's Ruling Snake originally appeared in Pharaoh (I3) on page 32. It's also in the Desert of Desolation reprint but I'd have to do a bit of digging to find the page number of that.

Both the "Ruling Snake" and "Quarrel Snake" are actually magic items, like the Staff Snake on page 1295 of Encyclopedia Magica Volume IV. That's also missing its original appearance (the Encyclopedia lists its source as the Rules Cyclopedia, but it also features in other BECMI rulebooks' magic item descriptions).

If you're listing the monster form of the snake staff, shouldn't you be listing the monster form of the python staff form of the staff of the serpent? That's basically the same creature and is in multiple D&D books, including multiple editions of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

 

[Debby]

It's been a long time since I've visited these forums. Glad to see you are still working on 3E conversions. Will these be in 3.5 edition rather than 3.0? And may I offer my services to help as well?