D&D 5E PIBFing the Monster Manual

[Oligopsony]

Personality Trait
1. The Aarakocra repeats phrases and sounds like a parrot.
2. She constantly interprets signs and portents.
3. He carries a bag of bats to snack on, and will offer them to whoever appears hungry.
4. She has taken a vow of silence, and can only communicate through sideflip-pinionright-beakswirl-slashupleft, which is sideflip-pinionright-beakswirl-slashupleft for "the language of dancing through the air."
5. He is an afficionado, although not a particularly informed one, of human culture.
6. She is a Knight of the Air and will recommend and offer to teach Crane Style, Eagle Style, and Gull Style to any warriors she meets and respects - whether or not they have the physiology for it. However, she must keep the (redacted) Secret.

Ideal
1. The Rod of Seven Parts must be assembled!
2. The Elemental Evils must be defeated!
3. Land-dweller proprietary norms are crazy! We must enlighten them into communism somehow!
4. (Ooze crawling through brain) Yesss... Zugtmoy... your glory shall be realized...
5. What greater freedom is this: but to fly through the air, unweighed by mortal things?
6. It's easy enough to be good, and it makes you happy. Why do you need superstitions like law and religion to accomplish it?

Bond
1. The Aarakocra is in love with her trusty air elemental. But it is forbidden. Shame. Shame!
2. He is in deep rivalry with his not-so-trusty air elemental.
3. Her flock is everything to her. But not this one - for he has flown far away from home.
4. His left claw is occupied by the holding of an egg - his own stillborn child, and last remnant of his lover.
5. She has been entrusted with a secret mission by a coatl.
6. On a distant mountain peak, there is an old temple which has fallen into disrepair. Would that it could be restored.

Flaw
1. The Aarakocra is full of contempt, albeit mostly benevolent contempt, for less morally reliable races.
2. She is deathly afraid of the low places, and will not go within a tree's distance of land or bodies of water.
3. He is hyper-alert to the schemes of the enemy.
4. She secretly covets an opal, and hides it from her fellows.
5. He has his head in the clouds.
6. She assumes other races are as unpossessive - in material possessions, but so too, in love - as are her own kind.

Personality Trait
1. The aboleth eagerly explains its plans and memories, for it is lonely, and certain that the adventurers will soon be its slaves.
2. It remains out of sight when possible, communicating via psychic visions subtle enough to be mistaken for intuitions - intuitions that will lead the adventurers to their doom!
3. The aboleth is intensely curious and wishes to probe their characters' minds before devouring them, prompting a series of flashback scenes.
4. It is anxious to demonstrate its intellectual superiority and presents the adventurers with a mix of deadly puzzles and philosophical queries.
5. "Help, I'm a paladin stuck in the mindscape of an aboleth!" The aboleth has absorbed into itself a mind that was simply too strong to be dissolved, and which periodically takes over from time to time - such as now. (50% chance this is actually genuine and not just a bizarre ruse.)
6. The aboleth is too deep in contemplation to interact or respond to the outside world, but it does emanate alien thoughts on matters bizarre and profound, and it's slaves will defend it.

Sinister Aboleth Plots!
1. The aboleth keeps abreast of above-ground affairs and has a wish list of interesting personages it wishes to add to its servile menagerie. (50% chance that the adventurers are on this list and have only arrived there due to advanced aboleth scheming, 100% chance that the aboleth will insist that this is the case.)
2. It is on the verge of making a breakthrough in the sciences, but requires more sophisticated equipment in order to do so. In particular, it requires reliable agents to construct and operate an observatory.
3. Cower, mere mortals, for an aboleth seeks to raise a dark and terrible god from the very depths of nonbeing itself! Not this aboleth, though. A rival aboleth. That would make the rival aboleth too power. This outcome is unacceptable.
4. The aboleth knows that it is time to reproduce. The procedure is simple enough, but it needs to acquire more property before it trusts each of its forks to be satisfied, and/or a mediator to help arrange negotiations in advance between itself and itself.
5. Its contemplations have determined that there is true justice in the world and that, in the long run, it will surely be damned. From the perspective of its own self-interest, this is unacceptable, but to correct it because of self-interest (the only motivation currently available to it) would not correct it at all. It must discover a way out of this conundrum.
6. To become what the ignorant might label a Great Old One, able to, among other things, enter into pacts with warlocks. It is already able to grant some measure of power, and will offer this to anyone willing to allow its mind to be... graced... by its arcane caresses. It insists this is a free gift with no strings attached, acquiring practice and experimental data is enough for its side. It is also entirely sincere in this; any character stupid enough to sign on to this will get a free warlock level.
7. To become an aboliche.
8. To return to its home timeline.

Ideals
1. Survival
2. Acquisition
3. Understanding
4. (You wouldn't be smart enough to understand this one)
5. (You could understand this, but it would drive you mad)
6. (Untranslateable)

Bonds
1. The natural Gygaxian dungeon ecology of the area, which it finds charming and sculpts only as an English garden.
2. Among its slaves, the last breeding stock of a long-vanished race.
3. A memory it and it alone must have, and for which its sibling and 14 cousins must be destroyed.
4. The language of the lost Quaggoths, which it always considered beautiful, and snippets of which it periodically sends to the surface world in dreams.
5. Several inherited components of the spaceship that brought aboleths to this world.
6. A secret underground river that leads to sunken Khastoramazlàk, where it may float through the crumbling skyscrapers and gloat that it has outlasted even the greatest of its enemies.

Flaws
1. A sliver of mercy
2. A smidgen of sanity
3. A soupçon of empathy
4. Billions of years of worship by glabrous fish-men may have gotten to head
5. Actually super dumb
6. Writhes in pain when exposed to thoughts about dogs

Personality Trait
1-2. The angel only communicates by pointing its flaming sword - but there always happens to be just the right thing there, so that the meaning is perfectly clear.
3-4. The angel only speaks in vague moralistic platitudes.
5-6. The angel talks absentmindedly about whatever is on its mind whilst efficiently going through the motions of its mission.
7-8. The angel is weary, and cruising for a Fall.
9. "Myself am Hell..." Fallen, and wallowing in self-pity.
10. Fallen, and earnestly seeking redemption.
11. Fallen, and burning with a vengeance.
12. Fallen, and enjoying the hell out of life on earth.

Mission (Fallen angels still have the same Missions, and the means to do them; they're just not getting any direction to do them anytime soon)

1	Death	To shepherd a good soul as she passes.	To pour out a cup of plagues on a nation judged wicked.	To announce the Rising of the Dead in anticipation of the Last Judgement.
2	Knowledge	To offer religious teachings.	To deliver a prophecy.	To deliver the One, Holy, and Final religious text to the Last Prophet.
3	Life	To offer comfort and healing to the sick.	To heal a plague	To bear The Sperm Of The World, an alabaster cup which contains seeds and life-force to repopulate the earth after it has been scoured.
4	Light	To offer good counsel to one in the midst of temptation or despair.	To warn an evil ruler that she has but one chance to reverse course.	To watch over and, until the appointed hour, protect, the Incarnate Word of God.
5	Nature	To preach to the lambs of the field and the birds of the air.	To restore a ravaged area to life.	To populate the moon with life.
6	Tempest	To bless a drought-filled land with rain.	To cast down with thunderbolts the towers of the proud.	To open the deluge which scours the wicked from the world.
7	Trickery	To offer religious teachings.	To deliver a prophecy.	To deliver the One, Holy, and Final religious text to the Last Prophet.
8.	War	To delivery early warning to innocents about to be attacked.	To KICK SOME DEMON ASS *wicked guitar solo comes on*	To blow the trumpet which announces the final battle.

[TD="class: wysiwyg_dashes_th"]1d8[/TD][TD="class: wysiwyg_dashes_th"]Deity[/TD][TD="class: wysiwyg_dashes_th"]Deva[/TD][TD="class: wysiwyg_dashes_th"]Planetar[/TD][TD="class: wysiwyg_dashes_th"]Solar[/TD]

Ideal (Fallen angels still have the same Ideals, but may express them differently)
1. Justice
2. Mercy
3. Duty
4. No God But Good
5. No God But Law
6. The angel lacks even the sense of self to be aware of being devoted to such things.

Bond
1. An aasimar child by a mortal daliance.
2. A treasured religious metaphor.
3. The sound of a congregation in full song.
4. Its direct superior (resentment sublimated into love, or if Fallen, visa-versa.)
5. The vision of the New Heavens and New Earth.
6. The tzadikim nistarim.

Flaw: the angel hesitates, or has already failed, to perform its duty for...
1. envy of mortal freedom
2. They Know Not What They Do
3. knowledge that it only carries out tasks which are fated to be accomplished anyway
4. the sweet words and counsel of its fallen brother
5. the very fact that it cannot directly consider arguments against its duties - how rationally persuasive might they be?
6. it has looked upon the face of God - not just some deity, but the unconditioned existence of God itself - and seen only indifference

 

[Aoirorentsu]

This is awesome. Definitely subscribing.

 

[Oligopsony]

Hardly a proper entry
1. A lamp which communicates by Morse Code or by shining a spotlight on certian things.
2. A chair that awkwardly shuffles around.
3. A swinging chandelier that communicates, fights, and bargains by dropping glass or golden figurines, or by rustling.
4. A door with a combination lock that it can spin around.
5. A talking mirror, of course (but it can't speak aloud, or create its own face - you'll have to lip-read your own face.)
6. Formal attire (like animated armor, but much less intimidating in a fight.)
7. Pair of rollerblades; put them on if you daaaaaaaare
8. A crude figure that can produce farting sounds.
9. A birdcage with a live bird in it. When the bird tweets plaintively it may let it out. When it wants the bird to return it clangs as you might impatiently tap your foot.
10. A paint bucket and brush, not necessarily with any paint.
11. A wine bottle that can speak through any person drunk from its contents.
12. A board with a rusty nail in it.
13. Curtains (like Rug of Smothering, but can't follow you if you run.)
14. Torturer's chair. Torturer's tools may or may not be animated, and if so may or may not be animated by same intelligence.
15. Telescopic library ladder; can deliver you to any book on the shelf.
16. Edible chocolate statue, mostly eaten. Can cut up or break off portions of self.
17. Deluxe Japanese-style toilet.
18. A bucolic painting running a simulation of a peasant village.
19. Armillary sphere with ephemeris. Consult the horoscopes in the latter to determine what the former is trying to say.
20. An ancient machine, about the height of a man's stomach and sloping upward at its top, that makes glowing lights and beeping noises. Pulling a lever releases a metal ball into some sort of themed lanscape fascimile (full of things for the ball to bounce into and off of) placed at the top behind a pane of glass. Two additional levels connect to levers at the bottom of the landscape allow one to manipulate the ball, and prevent it from falling into a gutter located at the bottom of it. It can deposit, and accept, coins.

Personality
1. The object is eager to perform its duty; if the adventurers are uninterested in this, it will attempt to find some way of insisting.
2. The object is on strike and will resist being enlisted into its normal duty.
3. The object wishes to undo the warlock's curse and return to being a simple half-orc serving girl who is definitely not interested in stealing the property of warlocks and will certainly find some other way to repay for any material possessions she may have damaged.
4. The object attacks on sight (however pathetically this may be for most entries.)
5. The object seeks to play pranks while avoiding detection as anything out of the ordinary.
6. The object serves the malevolent dungeon creator by appearing superficially helpful, while in fact leading the adventurers to their dooooooom

 

[Oligopsony]

Personality
1. The Azer is aware that the Prime Material Plane is flammable and extremely fastidious about keeping her distance, lest she damage anything.
2. He is intensely curious - and credulous - about the techniques by which common materials were produced.
3. She is the Azer equivalent of a gourmand - Azer don't eat, but they do burn coal and oil, and she has exquisite tastes respecting the strata and vintage.
4. He is aware that most creatures on this plane reproduce sexually and that this informs a great deal of their culture and social interaction, even if he's somewhat vague on the details; he will interpret innocuous behavior as attempts to hit on him, and be thoroughly offended by this.
5. She is continually shivering and trying to protect herself from the cold.
6. In a bid to remain innocuous he is "going undercover" as a dwarf, though the details are all wrong. (If dwarves in your campaign have Scottish accents his is Jamaican, &c.)

Ideal
1. Good craftsmanship, of course! The Azer appreciates a job well done and skillfully executed - regardless of the ends it serves.
2. She is an avid Marxist-Leninist, and will happily explain how the Azer producers are waging war on their loathesome exploiters, the capitalistic Efreet.
3. He is an avid Objectivist, and will happily explain how the Azer producers are waging war on their loathesome exploiters, the looting second-hander Efreet.
4. Form over function; things should be beautiful, and may be most beautiful when they serve no function at all. She is continually devising and crafting chindōgu of some kind or another.
5. Function over form; aesthetic features - facades, unnecessary pillars, gem inlays on a mundane dagger, ritual - are in truth ugly excrescences.
6. The best part about building things is that then you get to smash them!

Bond: the Azer is here on the Prime Material to find...
1. the river-gold of the naiads...
2. the heart of an honest man...
3. alkahest...
4. a silver blivet...
5. 8 oz. of sentient, Chaotic Evil black pudding...
6. the skull of a greater gazebo...

which is the final component needed to complete...
1. his daughter (one half of an Azer hops behind him and acts like a precocious child)
2. a spelljammer
3. an even more precise wrench
4. a cryonuclear warhead
5. a perpetual-motion machine
6. an exact replica of the Lady of Pain

Flaws
1. She is continually complaining about the poor construction of things, especially natural objects.
2. He is an "idea guy" and requires "menials and apprentices" to actually build/do/implement anything for him.
3. She is missing a leg and must hop around until she can make a new one.
4. He steals without compunction, which is only sensible, since he'll be able to put it to much greater use.
5. She is extremely polite until an adventurer makes some variation on the inevitable "fire crotch" joke, upon which she will attack immediately.
6. Actually just dwarf on fire; will die in 1d4 rounds.

 

[Wik]

Man, this is the best thread in a long time. I kind of want to add to it, but feel like I'd be defacing a work of art.

 

[Oligopsony]

Personality
1. The banshee is vain and demands that all pay tribute to her beauty.
2. The feirshee is more than properly humbled and seeks to hide his beauty from the world.
3. She is repentant and seeks to bring out the beauty in everyone (regardless, perhaps, of whether they want to or not.)
4. He is wild with revenge and seeks allies agains the injustice of the Elven Gods.
5. Nobody told her that it's her new duty to warn with wail and woe those about to die, and strictly speaking nobody's telling her who's about to die, but sometimes you have to take some intiative in (un)life.
6. If for beauty was he cursed, then others' BEAUTY SHALL HE DESTROOOOOOY

Ideal: the banshee was known for, still has, and thus cannot really escape from
1. great physical beauty
2. a singing voice to melt the hearts of men
3. a mind for elegant mathematical theorems
4. incredible skill as a playwright
5. wild, mad architectural talent
6. a curse to vomit blood every 3 hours (may not seem beautiful to you, but elfgods are into some weird )

Bond: among the treasures the banshee has assembled are
1. a gossamer dress, worth a fortune, but crumbling to dust if exposed to sunlight
2. a single copper coin given freely by a starving woman to a church that had done nothing but wrong her
3. a golden bird which sings prophecies
4. a glass bottle holding a miniature castle, into which anyone looking is shrunk and fallen into
5. a monastery of anchorites who refuse to live in fear of the banshee and have cut off their ears instead
6. a jewel-encrusted, jagged sword which can only be picked up by the ugliest person in all the land

Flaw: it is said that banshees are "elves who, blessed with great beauty, failed to use their gift to bring joy into the world," or in this case:
1. resisted the advances of an elven king
2. became a mechanic or civil servant instead of runway model
3. lay with the sons of men to have only moderately pretty half-elven children
4. produced art primarily interested in conceptual disruption or political agitation in rejection of pure aestheticism
5. social anxiety disorder
6. wrote feminist essay denouncing Corellon Larethian's "turn sexy women into monsters" policy

Man, this is the best thread in a long time. I kind of want to add to it, but feel like I'd be defacing a work of art.

Deface away! The more the merrier, sez I.

 

[Wik]

Will do! Basilisk coming right up.

 

[Wik]

Basilisk

Lair Statues (1d6 statues in lair)
1. An elven wizardess, using the edge of her robe to protect a small child (who apparently escaped)
2. A dwarven priest, eyes half-closed, praying to an unknown deity
3. A human bard with a confident grin, holding a mirror out. Unfortunately, it's backwards.
4. Two young lovers holding hands, terror on their faces
5. Shattered chunks of a flying dragonling
6. Several dozen giant ants, in various poses throughout the lair
7. A Beholder, covered in vines, that looks almost like a boulder
8. A paladin hiding behind her shield
9. A tiefling imperial soldier, sword arm raised as if leading the attack
10. A young thief with a torch in one hand and thieves' picks in the other
11. Two gnome scoundrels dragging a large treasure chest behind them
12. A goblin, cowering beneath a blanket, peaking out of one corner
13. Another basilisk, hit by the reflections of a mirror
14. A tall druid, his features worn off from exposure to the elements
15. A water elemental, still slippery as if in a recent rain
16. An older thug, rappeling down the lair's cliffside entrance - even his rope has turned to stone
17. An adventuring sage, holding an open treasure map that cannot be read as the paper has petrified
18. A suicidal man, seeking his end through petrification
19. A criminal, exiled to the basilisk's lair as punishment for his crimes
20. A dragonborn, about to breathe fire.

Personality Quirks
1. The basilisk likes to rub against its statues, using sharp surfaces to slough off dead skin
2. The basilisk is blind in one eye, so always tries to position itself perpendicular to foes, to keep its good eye focused on threats
3. The basilisk is easily charmed through music, and will not target musicians
4. The basilisk has a primitive art compulsion, and tries to arrange statues to fit its macabre artistic senses
5. This basilisk has been strapped to a saddle, with a petrified gnomish rider that it can't seem to shake off.
6. The basilisk is exceptionally lonely, and will peacefully follow those who interest it... until it eventually decides to add its new "friends" to a growing collection....
7. Originally raised as a guard animal, the basilisk is basically an oversized german shepherd... and just wants to play a good game of fetch.
8. The statues this basilisk makes have veins and arteries of pure silver.