Creature Catalog now in Dragon Magazine

[BOZ]

Some comments:

Beholderkin! Elder Orb, Examiner, Eye of the Deep, Hive mother, Lensman, Orbus, Overseer, Searechter, Watcher. (Astereater and Kasharin from Spelljammer could also be crammed in, if space allowed).

I think the Hive Mother and her little broodlings (directors, examiners, lensmen, overseers, and watchers) really ought to have their own article. It could have a little Spelljammer flavor, but only just a bit.

Then, you could have your Elder Orb, Eye of the Deep, Orbus, Overseer, Searechter, , Astereater, Kasharin and whatnot in their own beholder-kin article.

Demons, Baby! Bulezau, Molydeus, Spider-Demons.

likewise here, the Spider-Demons need their own article, probably with the Queen of Chaos and Miska the Wolf-Spider for a nice big Rod of Seven Parts family.

if that leaves us with too few demons, we could always, oh I don’t know, add some demon lords…?

Creatures of Chaos - Slaadi!

but how many slaadi are there? Unless, of course, you’re thinking of adding the slaad lords to the mix.

Masters of the Mind: The noble illithid (can't spell it), along with creatures from the Ilithiad and the old Dragon magazine Planet of Twilight article.

I was thinking about exactly that earlier today.

Chevall

did you see that we finished converting this guy?

Kopru

sorry, that one’s already in the Fiend Folio.

 

[Hashmalum]

You know, a while ago I went on a familiar-suitable creature-creating kick. It looks like I've finally found a venue for the results. In fact, I already posted two of the results in the homebrew form. One was a conversion of the talking owl from 2nd Edition, which was created expressly to serve as a companion for lawful good creatures; the other was its chaotic evil counterpart, the two-headed talking parrot. (I'd post links, but since I'm not a community supporter I can't use search). The other two were the brown slaad (a degenerate form of slaad that resulted from red slaad implanting or blue slaad disease transformation of an immature creature or animal) and the spirit wisp (a minor incorporeal undead). I'd need to convert the critters to 3.5E, though.

 

[Alzrius]

Dragons of a Different Color: Gray, Prismatic, Albino, Purple.

Dragons From Beyond the Sky: Sun, Moon, Radiant, Stellar.

Draconian Dispositions: Protodragon, dracohydra, weredragon.

The Ferrous Dragons: Nickel, Tungsten, Cobalt, Chromium, Iron, and their ruler Gruaghlothor.

Or, a few other ideas:

The Goofy Golems: Chocolate, Chia, Marshmellow, Plush.

Weapons from War-Torn Stars: Chackchak, Bionoid, Spirit Warrior (and the Zwarth variant of that also).

The Devourers of Worlds: Witchlight Marauders (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Space, Remote).

 

[Krug]

I liked the Battlethoths featured in Dragon sometime back. More Battlethoths!

 

[Shade]

The battleloths are cool. I'm a sucker for all things yugoloth.

With beholder-themed and illithid-themed articles, we might run into some conflict with Codex Anathema. I heard a rumor that the ulitharid is in there, and I figure at least one beholderkin will make it in. Not that we can't submit a query...they'll just ask us to cut out the duplication.

 

[Shade]

This one just jumped into my head:

Lords of the Elements: The Archomentals: Ben-Hadar, Chan, Cryonax, Ogremoch, Olhydra, Sunnis, Yan-C-Bin, Zaaman Rul, and Imix (I know he was statted in RTTTOEE, but he was awfully weak in comparison to later elementals that have been released).

 

[Knight Otu]

but how many slaadi are there? Unless, of course, you’re thinking of adding the slaad lords to the mix.

You said it yourself - we're not necessarily restricted to conversions.

 

[BOZ]

Not that we can't submit a query...they'll just ask us to cut out the duplication.

exactly. we have no way of knowing what WotC is planning to do with each monster, so we might as well assume that they have no plans, until we hear otherwise.

Ok, I want to add a couple:

Prehistoric Animals: axebeak, baluchitherium, wooly rhino, irish deer, cave bear, etc.

Fey – the little people: atomie, Buckawn, korred, quickling, booka, etc.

And with that, I think I’ve seen more than enough “monsters of the same type.” How about some ideas for ecology-based, or situation-based articles? You know, a selection of monsters that live in a particular region, or work for a particular organization or something. Here’s one way to get that. Pick up one of your favorite modules, or sourcebooks, and flip through it to see what monsters are included. It doesn’t have to be limited to what monsters have stats given, if something appears on a wandering monster chart or planned encounter, we can assume they would be found there, correct?

 

[BOZ]

Let me give you an example of what I’d like to see. Let’s say, I wanted to use the classic, highly unusual module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

For “Monsters of the Barrier Peaks”, we might include such classic weirdos as the vegepygmy & thornies, russet mold, lurker above, eye of the deep, intellect devourer, strangle vines, (vampire thorn vine was in the Fiend Folio as “bloodthorn”), webbirds, purple blossom plant, tri-flower frond, snapper-saw, “horrid plant”, globe palm, brown pudding, squealer, wolf-in-sheep’s clothing, froghemoth, gasbats, trappers, yellow mold, and whatever other odd critters I missed.

Optionally, we could add in the androids and robots from the spaceship, if we want to open that can of worms.

Then, if we decided to use this theme, we would whittle down the list to a nice comfortable amount of creatures for a single article, probably adding in a few of our own creations as appropriate.

 

[BOZ]

i posted a bit in some of the WotC forums mining for ideas on that track, so hopefully someone will have one or two.