Miguel Colon of Legendary Games’ Boricubos: The Lost Isles and Beyond the Horizon’s Cloudsea, a project I interviewed him about (here and here), has a new Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition book coming, Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying. We talked about the book and what powers it will open. If you’re interested in adding monster powers to your 5e characters, read on.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thanks for talking with me about your newest Kickstarter. What is Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying?
MIGUEL COLON (MIGUEL): Hi thank you for taking the time to speak with me! Monstrous Personas is an idea that myself and newcomer to the industry Ayumi Morris came up with while talking together. We decided that we were large fans of shows and other media in which the heroes did not only defeat villains but also made use of that villain’s abilities. It’s a trope classic in video games and anime. The idea was to bring it to life here in 5e. The book is essentially an entire new subsystem for 5th Edition which would allow you to do this in an easy to understand and effective manner.
EGG: Bonding with monsters, how does this work?
MIGUEL: Well, adventurers would have the power to find the spirits of deceased creatures and absorb them. The book itself serves as a tome for adventurers to do this which is why they can only do it with the creatures in the book. But after they find the spirit, they attempt to bond with it through a simple process: make an appropriate saving throw depending on the type of spirit. If they succeed, they absorb the spirit into them. If not, they suffer some sort of penalties for a day. You can bond with various monster spirits and up to the same creature three times. Each time you bond with the same type of creature, said bond grows stronger and you gain more abilities related to that creature.
EGG: Are there outward appearances of this bond?
MIGUEL: Oh yes! We hired the fabulous Phil Stone in order to do artwork for a bunch of different adventurers fused with different monster spirits as examples of what these physical transformations would look like. Each spirit in the book has an illustration such as a man fused with a kraken growing tentacles or a woman fused with a manticore growing a spiked tail.
EGG: Any level constraints related to the bond?
MIGUEL: There are no level limits on the bond. What limits it is that you only get one chance to fuse with a spirit at a time and the saving throw required. Some spirits have higher saving throw DCs and some creatures are just far more rare. You’d either have to find a creature like an aboleth dead or slay one yourself in order to fuse with its spirit. This can be its own quest as if you want to fuse with rarer monsters, you’ll have to be on the hunt.
EGG: How many monsters does this book cover?
MIGUEL: 30 creatures total ranging from all different types of monsters. Undead, oozes, fiends, and even a swarm. We want to be able to expand this to other creatures found in 5th Edition as well as a few that are not, as represented by our stretch goals.
EGG: Who are you working with on this project?
MIGUEL: I am working on this project with Ayumi Morris, Geoff Gander, Kim Frandsen, a friend who would rather not be named here because he’s also a newcomer and quite shy right now, and of course, Phil Stone.
EGG: You have a special offer with Legendary Games during this campaign, correct?
MIGUEL: Yes! Legendary Games and I have a great working relationship as I have done quite a bit of freelancing for them in the past. Speaking with Jason Nelson, he was happy to let me use one of Legendary’s books as a backer reward: Latin American Monsters. That was the companion piece to a setting I had written, Boricubos: The Lost Isles. Great people at Legendary and I’m glad this was able to work out.
EGG: The last time we talked, you were working on the Cloudsea setting. How did it go?
MIGUEL: Cloudsea was a great success. It was fun to work on, but most of all it taught me several things about how to run a Kickstarter, how to set reasonable expectations for myself, and how to go about things in a more efficient manner. It was a great experience for myself and a learning one as well.
EGG: Beyond Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying, what else are you working on?
MIGUEL: Right now I have something to look forward to in Q4/Q1. A card game that actually isn’t based on any existing TTRPG. Right now the working title is Tamaki’s Magical Studio, a collaboration with Ayumi Morris. It is a card game that looks at several tropes from anime and manga, pitting magical girls, idols, and monsters against each other in a clear inspiration from a video game that also has the acronym TMS. Or SMT. Whichever you prefer.
EGG: Thanks for talking with me. Where can fans learn more about this project?
MIGUEL: They can learn more about this project on the Kickstarter page!
Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying from Spoony Minstrel Games
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thanks for talking with me about your newest Kickstarter. What is Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying?
MIGUEL COLON (MIGUEL): Hi thank you for taking the time to speak with me! Monstrous Personas is an idea that myself and newcomer to the industry Ayumi Morris came up with while talking together. We decided that we were large fans of shows and other media in which the heroes did not only defeat villains but also made use of that villain’s abilities. It’s a trope classic in video games and anime. The idea was to bring it to life here in 5e. The book is essentially an entire new subsystem for 5th Edition which would allow you to do this in an easy to understand and effective manner.
EGG: Bonding with monsters, how does this work?
MIGUEL: Well, adventurers would have the power to find the spirits of deceased creatures and absorb them. The book itself serves as a tome for adventurers to do this which is why they can only do it with the creatures in the book. But after they find the spirit, they attempt to bond with it through a simple process: make an appropriate saving throw depending on the type of spirit. If they succeed, they absorb the spirit into them. If not, they suffer some sort of penalties for a day. You can bond with various monster spirits and up to the same creature three times. Each time you bond with the same type of creature, said bond grows stronger and you gain more abilities related to that creature.
EGG: Are there outward appearances of this bond?
MIGUEL: Oh yes! We hired the fabulous Phil Stone in order to do artwork for a bunch of different adventurers fused with different monster spirits as examples of what these physical transformations would look like. Each spirit in the book has an illustration such as a man fused with a kraken growing tentacles or a woman fused with a manticore growing a spiked tail.
EGG: Any level constraints related to the bond?
MIGUEL: There are no level limits on the bond. What limits it is that you only get one chance to fuse with a spirit at a time and the saving throw required. Some spirits have higher saving throw DCs and some creatures are just far more rare. You’d either have to find a creature like an aboleth dead or slay one yourself in order to fuse with its spirit. This can be its own quest as if you want to fuse with rarer monsters, you’ll have to be on the hunt.
EGG: How many monsters does this book cover?
MIGUEL: 30 creatures total ranging from all different types of monsters. Undead, oozes, fiends, and even a swarm. We want to be able to expand this to other creatures found in 5th Edition as well as a few that are not, as represented by our stretch goals.
EGG: Who are you working with on this project?
MIGUEL: I am working on this project with Ayumi Morris, Geoff Gander, Kim Frandsen, a friend who would rather not be named here because he’s also a newcomer and quite shy right now, and of course, Phil Stone.
EGG: You have a special offer with Legendary Games during this campaign, correct?
MIGUEL: Yes! Legendary Games and I have a great working relationship as I have done quite a bit of freelancing for them in the past. Speaking with Jason Nelson, he was happy to let me use one of Legendary’s books as a backer reward: Latin American Monsters. That was the companion piece to a setting I had written, Boricubos: The Lost Isles. Great people at Legendary and I’m glad this was able to work out.
MIGUEL: Cloudsea was a great success. It was fun to work on, but most of all it taught me several things about how to run a Kickstarter, how to set reasonable expectations for myself, and how to go about things in a more efficient manner. It was a great experience for myself and a learning one as well.
EGG: Beyond Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying, what else are you working on?
MIGUEL: Right now I have something to look forward to in Q4/Q1. A card game that actually isn’t based on any existing TTRPG. Right now the working title is Tamaki’s Magical Studio, a collaboration with Ayumi Morris. It is a card game that looks at several tropes from anime and manga, pitting magical girls, idols, and monsters against each other in a clear inspiration from a video game that also has the acronym TMS. Or SMT. Whichever you prefer.
EGG: Thanks for talking with me. Where can fans learn more about this project?
MIGUEL: They can learn more about this project on the Kickstarter page!
Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying from Spoony Minstrel Games
- End Date: Fri, August 5 2022 6:29 AM EDT.
- “Welcome to a new rules supplement for 5e which provides a new subsystem for fusing with monsters and using their powers!”
