What's Your Monster Palette?

[NiTessine]

My own campaign world, in development for some six years, is home to pretty much every creature, magic item, spell, and cool idea I and my friend could find while creating it. Pretty much the antithesis of this thread. But, like SHARK's world, it has clearly defined cultural and thematic areas. There is the corrupt kingdom, the Greek-style country, the great empire, the great kingdom of the evil vrathi elves (The coolest original idea my friend has come up with.), the fey forest, the small country of kender, gully dwarves, tinker gnomes, and Pokémon...

 

[mmadsen]

Reviewing these monster palettes has helped me realize that the best monsters are in the appendices: animals, vermin, lycanthropes, vampires. It's a pity there aren't more illustrations of animals attacking a party of adventurers. Giant snakes, giant scorpions, giant insects, they're all much cooler than many exotic monsters -- and once you learn a bit about some real creatures, they're more exotic than the made up ones!

 

[Dark Jezter]

Some more ideas:

• Conan -- degenerate subhumans, ape-men, and man-apes (all Orcs with no armor and simple weapons); Dire Apes, Snakes, Tigers, etc.; an occasional Fiend/Demon.

If I may add a little, mmadsen...

In the Conan stories, he often fought against evil wizards, wiches, and priests. These evil spellcasters would often use their black magic to summon demons to do their bidding, so a Conan-based campaign would not be complete without some evil wizards.

In The Hour of the Dragon, Conan is tempted by a vampiress, but realizes her true intent when she bites his hand, so Vampires could be in the Conan campaign. In The Frost Giant's Daughter, Conan does battle with a pair of frost giants, and also encounters a beautiful woman who is impossible to resist (sounds like a fey to me). There are also encounters with the occasinal undead human. There are also mentions of were-things (lycanthropes) and serpent-men in some stories, but I don't think Conan ever encounters them (at least in the ones authored by Robert E Howard).

 

[mmadsen]

In the Conan stories, he often fought against evil wizards, wiches, and priests. These evil spellcasters would often use their black magic to summon demons to do their bidding, so a Conan-based campaign would not be complete without some evil wizards.

Certainly! I probably should've said, an "occasional summoned Fiend/Demon" to make that a bit clearer.

In The Hour of the Dragon, Conan is tempted by a vampiress, but realizes her true intent when she bites his hand, so Vampires could be in the Conan campaign.

Conan? Tempted by a scheming, beautiful woman who isn't what she appears to be? Surely you jest!

In The Frost Giant's Daughter, Conan does battle with a pair of frost giants, and also encounters a beautiful woman who is impossible to resist (sounds like a fey to me).

In this context though, "frost giant" means "very big guy from the wintery north, maybe with magic powers", not necessarily "14-hit-die killing machine".

There are also encounters with the occasinal undead human. There are also mentions of were-things (lycanthropes) and serpent-men in some stories, but I don't think Conan ever encounters them (at least in the ones authored by Robert E Howard).

Yeah, those all belong in a Conan-esque setting, along with decadent kings, jaguars guarding the temple grounds, elephant-headed "gods" trapped on earth, etc.

 

[mmadsen]

Vermen - The ancient biowizards used vermen as their soldiers / test subjects. There are hazardous vermen like Pernicons, Giant Wasps, Spider Easters, Monstrous Scorpions, etc.

Armies of giant Vermin. Ooh, I'm going to have to use that one.

Cold creatures - The ice age expanded the range of cold creatures like frost worms, white dragons, frost giants, yeti, remorhaz, and so forth.

I've been meaning to use Bugbears as "Ice Goblins" -- just make them white; they're already big and shaggy.

 

[Old One]

Re: Re: Fairly Limited...So Far

Why Gnolls and Kobolds, Old One? (Just out of curiosity...)

The main reason is that they are tied into the history of the world and campaign cosmology (although that hasn't been revealed IG yet). Plus they are fun and have more "range", IMO, than some of the goblinoid races.

~ Old One

 

[mmadsen]

I curious, who's using animals and Dire animals out there? You'd barely notice they're in the Monster Manual, but they're some of the greatest "monsters" in the game.

 

[hong]

I curious, who's using animals and Dire animals out there?

The worst thing about dire animals is that the two heads just get in the way of everything.

Plus you need an Exotic Monster Proficiency to use them correctly.

 

[hong]

Armies of giant Vermin. Ooh, I'm going to have to use that one.

"Now listen up, you primitive houseflies! This is my Raid can!"

 

[MythandLore]

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