Non-D&D or at least non-MM Monsters

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) How much do you either A) Create your own monsters or B)Incorporate monsters into your game that are not from the system you're playing?

It depends. Mostly, I use things as written, but I'd guess that at least 1/3 of what my players face is tweaked, altered, lifted from other games/genres or made up by yours truly.

And that's pretty much across all systems. I have a War of the Worlds type campaign in which the aliens were Mind Flayers...and another one I ran in another city in which the aliens were Beholders. The Beholders were a bit watered down, though, and had fewer "powers".

2) What are they/have they been?...and Where did you pull them from? (obviously)

Over time, in various campaigns I've done things like:

I made a race of minor- but numerous- demons called The Dark for the main foe in a campaign once, but I screwed up in their design. I had Dwarves who were living stone, and Elves who were alien "Greys."

I tweaked Warforged to be more like Cybermen (with Dwarven brains & culture), and had Elves that were plantlike Fey.

I've also lifted the Seshayans from Alternity/D20 Modern, Wolfen from RIFTS, Nehwon Ghouls from Fritz Lieber.

One campaign had standard PHB races get trapped in a world where all the major races were Anthropomorphs.

Outside of D&D, I've done things like have Martians who were affected by opium like a combination of PCP and zombie powder (HERO rules, Space:1889-based setting).

3)How did it go over with your players?

The Dark were fatally flawed, but nobody noticed anything except how easy they became to beat over time. So it was kind of an anticlimax when they were ultimately defeated.

Others have been moderately well received. But a lot of my current group like their D&D to be plain vanilla.

The Mind Flayers/Beholders as Martians in War of the Worlds campaigns went over pretty well.

 

[David Howery]

I created quite a few monsters/animals/critters for my games back in 1E/2E days... among them are:

statted out monsters from the Predators and Aliens movies for a SJ campaign.
a whole line of feathered dragons for a sorta-Maztica setting
a pair of 'demonic reincarnated witch doctor' lions, based on the Tsavo maneaters
all kinds of big game and prehistoric animals that never made it into the MM (some of which ended up in Dragon)
a lot of mythological African monsters (some of which ended up in the Nyambe source book)
the deadly velocihamster (of which I shall never speak again) and the Great Black Flumph of Doom (ditto)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

the deadly velocihamster

I bet THAT was hell on...A...wheel...that never went anywhere.

a pair of 'demonic reincarnated witch doctor' lions, based on the Tsavo maneaters

That story has inspired a LOT of DMs- one of ours ran a "Tsavo maneater" type adventure for us. My NE Ftr/Th suggested covering the Mage in blood and using him as bait. It worked.

 

[Smoss]

Since I designed my own system, I had to create my MM from scratch. So a lot of nifty monsters were needed - some reskinned or reflavored. I liked a lot of the little touches - Like my lizardfolk that live near fumeroles that spew out sulfur. Their nasty smell gave way to the legend of the "troglodyte".

Another are the Rock Falcons. Large ugly falcons that look like stone and can sit perfectly still watching for prey. A lot of "gargoyle" legends come from that. And the Carver Beetles - My PCs thought they had come into a zone of beautiful rock carvings - But it was actually just natural signs that the beetles were around to drill through them as well.

But my favorite critter is what my elves call the Baer Tain Soggoth (Roughly translated to "Eater <of> Magic Abomination"). For most purposes it is a friendly fearless dog, more than happy to be around humans and be nice. One character fell into a den of them and found them so cute and fluffy and wanted to keep them. Until they sniffed the air and made a beeline for the party sorcerer - AKA dinner. Out came their tongues - several feet long and barbed with poison. It was a fun battle as they pretty much ignored the mundane characters unless they had no choice.

Check out my blog on critters if you want to see a little more of my design philosophy on that.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/smoss/6429-design-blog-2-creatures-myth-legend.html

Smoss

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I almost never make my own monsters (apart from templates/tweaks/refluffing).


However, I'll convert monsters from adventures I like to more suitable other monsters if there's a genre switch.


I ran a call of cthulu adventure for my D&D fantasy group (midnight setting).

There were supposed to be hellicopters firing high powered guns...they turned into hippogriffs with ballista mounted below them, cocked and loaded when the beasts kicked back. The riders fired em.

 

[Jimlock]

Personally, I believe that the more Monsters a DM makes on his own... the better for the game.

ESPECIALLY if you have to do with experienced players who know all five MMs by heart.

Its really hard to avoid meta-game thinking for a player who knows what the monster does/is capable of.

 

[meomwt]

I have been going outside the box a bit recently, mainly because some of the group know the MM1 pretty much off by heart. Throwing a beastie from the Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors is a good way to unsettle them.

I also have re-skinned a bit, changing physical descriptions without amending the stats. This also plays with their minds.

It hasn't been played through yet, but I've just finished converting DCC54 Wyvern Mountain from 4E to 3.5E. There's a stone ogre in there (a half-stone ogre golem but with a smidgin more stone), a minor Dragon Lich (taking a Young Adult dragon and turning it into a ghost, before making it more hittable with common-or-garden weapons), an ice dragonne and wyverns with the zombie template applied.

MonsterForge for 3.5E is a great resource for tinkering with monsters from the manuals, and has served me well over the years.

 

[Jhaelen]

In 1e/2e I created lots of monsters from scratch. Inspirations were mostly movies and my dreams (or rather nightmares).

In 3e at first I didn't feel I had fully grasped the monster creation (or rather how to assign an appropriate CR), and later didn't see any need since advancing monsters, applying templates, and/or adding class levels seemed sufficient to create anything I'd ever want.

In 4e I just reskin monsters and add or replace one or two powers.

 

[David Howery]

I bet THAT was hell on...A...wheel...that never went anywhere.



That story has inspired a LOT of DMs- one of ours ran a "Tsavo maneater" type adventure for us. My NE Ftr/Th suggested covering the Mage in blood and using him as bait. It worked.

the velocihamster was a variant Giant Space Hamster (remember them?) that was built a lot like a velociraptor. If you think that's dumb, the same adventure had the mighty massive tinker-gnome built Mechahamster.

I remember reading a synopsis of the story of the Tsavo maneaters, which mentioned that the locals thought they were reincarnated witch-doctors... so that's what I did with them. I drew up a whole complicated system for them which basically boiled down to "evil sorcerers are reincarnated as lions, they kill and eat humans to gain power, eventually get reborn as humans"... the idea eventually ended up as the Barozi template in the Nyambe handbook...

 

[Argyle King]

This was actually sparked by Boz's Demon Lord thread.

1) How much do you either A) Create your own monsters or B)Incorporate monsters into your game that are not from the system you're playing?

2) What are they/have they been?...and Where did you pull them from? (obviously)

3)How did it go over with your players?

For me, the one that comes first to mind is a "Storm Demon" which I culled from a Talislanta book, iirc. Not-so-ironically, it was a dark grey or black female-appearing humanoid with billowing storm clouds for hair...Being an avid X-Men (and Storm, in particular) fan, I scooped her/them right up! hahaha.

My players LOVED them! Well, "hated" them because of their powers )which I basically made duplicate to Storm the X-man and was not so far off from how they were written) and how hard they were to defeat...but thoroughly enjoyed the concept and got to a point where every rain storm or change in temperature they encountered had them on edge as to when/if a "storm demon" was up in the clouds getting ready to attack.

What're your best/favorite "You've never encountered THIS before" creatures?

--Steel Dragons

1A) Honestly, I probably have enough homebrews to build my own monster manual.

1B) depends on the system


2) If we're speaking only D&D 4E, some of the things I've created have included Gummy Bear Golems, various sharks, and Bunnodiles (half crocodile/half bunny monsters.) I've also written up 4E stats for Oldimarra. In 3rd Edition I had created a wide variety of creatures as well, but I don't remember what all I had built.

When it comes to D&D, I have sometimes -but not often- taken creatures from other systems and converted them. More often, I tend to go the other way though. I've converted a large portion of my D&D 3rd Edition library into GURPS statistics.


3) Quite well; the Gummy Golems were especially popular.