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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 486007" data-attributes="member: 3087">Interesting.Them looking like elves does allow them to be good infiltrators with saying the have shapechanging powers. (I wonder if that's why Virduk has such a mad-on for elves? because nobody can tell them from Virtigen....Obviously they have to have some control over their powers or else it won't be very easy to sneak around a city.Guard 1: Where'd he go?Old sargent: Jes follow the spew and the folk 'at look drunk.I'm thinking gaze attack (IMC).... so they cover their eyes no problem, but they can't really look at each other deeply. Hmmm.... What else have you done that's more light and doesn't get mentioned? (come on, pimp, we're all waiting... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) I don't want to discourage you from making lighter creatures. To make a sweeping generalization: no matter how cool the bad monster is, when the players kill it, its dead.I get more utility out of good/neutral creatures. Time and times again because they keep coming back. They talk to the PCs, encourage, feud, challenge, etc.I think some of the best monsters in the CC were the Abandoned, The Albadian Battle Dog, the Forsake Elves and Dwarves and the Charduni, the Moon Cat, the Hollow Knights, Bat Devils, Jack-of-Tears, Amalthean Ram, Huror. (the thing is that most of them wouldn't be refered to as Titanspawn, all points about life originating on Scarn being from the titans aside... so they don't naturally come to mind when someone askes your favorite titian spawn)Generally they can be friend, or foe and switch back and forth. Most naturally and easily involve plots that are more complex than some variant on "its bad, kill it". As a DM I am perpetually fighting the tendancy to get into the "seak and destroy" mode. Lighter and more mixed creatures help balance that out for me.I'm not saying that bad creatures are bad.... There were some great opposition creatures too, Hags, the Unhallowed, the Asaath, Belsamaug, Slarecian-types, Wrack Dragons. Gorgons.But there are also lots and lots of "spooky dark monsters" nobody talks about. Anybody remember the Blight Wolf? Dweller at the Crossroads? Fleshcrawler? Manster? Memory Eater?(Every monster book need a few dark things that go bump but I had to look them up.)I think it was a testiment to the original CC that there were less "things for PCs to beat up and get XP" and more interesting things.The CCII was just teeming with eeeevil (and I realize that was the premise and the point of the book) .I'm getting a bit unclear here. I wouldn't focus purely on dark stuff and I wouldn't presume that because the monsters that people have been posting about recently are sort of dark that that's all that people remember. I've gotten a lot of utility out of Hamadryads recently.</blockquote>

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