D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Monster Mashups

[Plaguescarred]

Wandering Monsters
Monster Mashups
By James Wyatt

The connections that form between monsters serve as the topic for this week’s Wandering Monsters. Come see what examples James has provided!

What are your thoughts?

 

[Plaguescarred]

I like the direction with inspiring monster entries! My favorite monster format layout was the AD&D 2nd edition Monster Manual with Ecology, Habitat & Society etc...

 

[Kinak]

I really like the baseline idea, of linking monsters together into wider ecosystems. It's not new, but it'd be really nice to have some focus there.

As for the actual ideas... ettercaps catching pixies and trading their dust to hags is pretty cool. The aranea deserve better than to be ettercaps hopped up on pixie dust, though.

Linking a bunch of stuff to Graz'zt isn't the worst thing I've ever heard, but connecting monsters with the standard issue demon lords seems overdone. We really need more variety in big bad evil guys or less things connected to them, in my opinion.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Weather Report]

A 2nd Ed MM with 5th Ed stats is the way to go, though, I do like what they are going for: the Ettercap action is nifty, but the Lamia/Jackalwere/Grazz't action is too specific.

 

[JeffB]

More confirmation of Story Branding, with the tabletop game taking a backseat to the big $ stuff.

I totally understand from a business perspective..its IP, and since everyone and their mother has recreated all the previous versions, or completely new games with the SRD,.they know they do not have a leg to stand on in protecting the rules. So in comes a bunch of "this is the D&D universe and what makes it different from XYZ fantasy worlds."

BUT.....As a consumer, this totally turns me off from NEXT.

 

[Nymrohd]

A 2nd Ed MM with 5th Ed stats is the way to go, though, I do like what they are going for: the Ettercap action is nifty, but the Lamia/Jackalwere/Grazz't action is too specific.

TBH the lamia/Grazz't connection is nothing new.

 

[Rhenny]

I like the direction. Not only will the monster manual be a game aid/resource, but it will be a book I'd like to read and re-read because it has more than just crunch.

The connections also do help inspire possible adventures within the game world. That's awesome.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, it's a tough balance.

I quite like the ettercap/feywild/pixie dust kind of thing. Real nice. Resonates with the monster's mythopoetry (evil spider guy) really well. It's a good hook. Not necessary, but it adds and doesn't subtract and that's awesome.

But the "It turns into an aranea!" is unadulterated doofus-juice.

For one, it turns pixie dust into basically the D&D equivalent of gamma radiation/solar flares/radioactive spiders/the yellow sun/capitalist wealth: IT GIVES YOU SUPER POWERS! That's lame. It's generic and boring and it doesn't add anything to pixies or the critters that prey on them to say Pixie Dust Did It. This is D&D. If an ettercap wanted to get magic powers, stick a pointy hat on it and give it a wand and call it Harry.

If eating pixies too much changes you, sure, but changes you into a specific other kind of monster with an entirely different story? No. Stop. That's like saying that orcs that eat too much bacon turn into halflings, or that if you don't eat your vegetables and get plenty of exercise, you'll turn into a gelatinous cube. These are different creatures. They are not the same. They have their own thing. Don't cram them together.

Which is really one of the big issues with it. It's not that ettercaps shouldn't get twisted when they eat pixies. That idea's fine. Give me that souped-up Corrupted Ettercap, bristling with pernicious fey magic. It's that the aranea are not just super-magical ettercaps. They are an entirely different creature with an entirely different story and an entirely different style. Beholders are not just people who love art too much. Halflings are not just humans who didn't eat their veggies. Myconids are not just dragons who took up psychadelics. These things are not the same, and your efforts to smash them together are silly and should be abandoned.

*deep breath*

But seriously, 95% of what they're adding to the ettercap is good juju. Just please stop pretending that the aranea is just a super-magical spider-thing. This is not its defining quality. Aranea are secret sorcerer spies (and make good PC's!). Ettercaps are wilderness trap-building predators of dim intellect. There is some overlap, they are not related to each mother any more than a galeb duhr and a vrock. Aranea have more in common with changelings and doppelgangers and other charismatic, intelligent shape-changers.

Also, if we're going to go down the whole pernicious wilderness creature route, lets not tie them too tightly to being the protectors and defenders of spiders. Spiders are natural wild creatures who, like most beasts, aren't necessarily evil (again, part of the aranea's schtick). Ettercaps are evil. They love torture and torment. This is not like a treant, watching over creatures it cares for. Ettercaps don't love spiders. They won't be upset if the adventurers kill one. They don't look for lost spiders, or protect young spiders. That alliance doesn't imply a paternalism or a power dynamic. It's more of an economic relationship: they fight alongside each other because the yields are greater, not because of any emotional bond. They're spiders, they devour their mates and spawn millions of young, they don't know that caring sensation, and ettercaps draw from the same psychology.

 

[Weather Report]

TBH the lamia/Grazz't connection is nothing new.

Aside from the 3rd Ed BoVD, is it mentioned anywhere else? I do think it's cool, love my D&D demonology (D&D&D).

 

[I'm A Banana]

AND ANOTHER THING!

The Lamia/Graz'zt/Jackalwere connection is solid (and I hope it plays into the shedu/lammasu/celestial thing!). I'm actually pretty excited about it, it adds quite a bit to those creatures. Basically gonna yoink that right now.

But satements like this get a bug in my bonnet:

When players explore the Forgotten Realms setting or the rest of the multiverse, it's important that they have a consistent, coherent experience. We want to present orcs in all those games and expressions that are recognizable, so if you move from Neverwinter to the tabletop game, for example, you see orcs you recognize.

Dafuq did I just read there, Wyatt? What I need from you guys running the D&D game is not a consistent experience. What I need form you guys is the tools to give my players and I the experience WE want. Which, I can guarantee you, is going to be wildly inconsistent, because sometimes we want Tolkeinesque flowery high fantasy and sometimes we want to kill a T-rex and make wang jokes all night and even I don't know what it's going to be until I'm doin' it. That absolutely means giving us a sort of an "example orc." But the distinction I made earlier between an example and a default is critical, because that orc is not to be your assumption, it is to be your "you can do it like this, and we think this is pretty cool."

An FR elf can be a default elf for FR, but the FR elf is not a default elf for Dark Sun, or Dragonlance, or whatever weird Lost World game I want to run. You get to give me an example of an elf that you think is good and that I might use if I want. I probably will. You do not get to tell me that "All elves are like this, except when we TWIST YOUR EXPECTATIONS!" because that doesn't match how I actually play this game. All design is local. My elves are mine. They might be yours, they might not, but the quicker you realize that you do not get to brand my home games from Redmond unless I choose to bear your brand myself, the smoother this whole edition's gonna go for all of us.