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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8378474" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 67: January 1992part 3/5Monsters - by Network Members: Another of last year's many contests pays off. New monster submissions are the kind of thing they get a decent amount of anyway, so hopefully they had enough to be selective about the quality. Let's see how these hold up in terms of inventiveness and mechanical balance.Telexian Vine has apparently escaped from Neelix's homeworld and infested yours. With hypnotic scent, dangerously addictive fruit, and the ability to absorb & use any spells known by people it eats, you can quite see why he'd prefer to be a cook on other planets instead. Moss is the kind of thing that adventurers routinely underestimate, despite being common all around the world in many interesting forms. Not Greg Detwiler though, who gives us three different flavours of monstrous moss that are able to supplement their diet with meat by creating an organic pit and digesting anything that falls in. Yet another reason probing ahead with a ten foot pole can be a lifesaver.Armor Boars are giant pigs with porcupine level thick spiky hair to boost their offence and defence capabilities even further. Missile weapons or polearms are strongly recommended, as non reach weapons will get you punctured with every strike. Hope you remembered to pack accordingly.Death Ox (not to be confused with death sheep, which appeared in Dragon recently) are relatives of gorgons who simply kill you with their gaze instead of turning you to stone. Like many real things with extremely effective natural defences like skunks, they're actually pretty placid, and the trick is knowing not to mess with them rather than picking a fight you're really not equipped to deal with. Phase Jelly is another goopy old school dungeon filler. It'll reach out of the wall, change your phase as well, and pull you in to be digested. Unless you have constant magical detection active or a large party, this is very unlikely to be spotted and escaped. Another reason to have a whole load of hirelings or mindless undead and send them ahead to trigger the dangers if you suspect you're facing that sort of place.Skum are the only one of these that'll make it into general circulation long-term. Aboleth's amphibious minions created by mutating humans, they're not that bright, but opposable thumbs and the ability to walk on land make them useful servants for the psychic fishies nonetheless, and the ability to alter you so any kids you have will be more skum adds extra lovecraftian horror to their depiction. Can you reverse engineer the genetic manipulation to give them a chance at a better life, or will you resort to the solution the US government applied to Innsmouth?Dawnspirits are glowy balls of light from the upper planes. They're generically stalwart and true and will help anyone of similar alignment who asks nicely. Yeah, like we haven't seen that before many times with different stats. They really need to get some better creature designs if they want to make those regions adventurable. Dragites are small mole-like humanoids that are general dragon fanboys, dying their fur to the color of any dragon in the vicinity and generally obeying their every whim. They're terrible in a fight, but decent at mining, creating traps and generally being helpful to their masters. Kobolds will take all their stuff in the 3e changeover. Giant Mosquitos are another fairly mundane monster that comes in several interesting variants given their gender dimorphism and very different life cycle stages.  As in reality, the females of the species are considerably more deadly than the male, so leave your petty human prejudices and sense of chivalry at home unless you want to suffer terminal dehydration from their proboscis.</blockquote>

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