What's Your Monster Palette?

[Pielorinho]

I've got a mix of Turkish palettes and lovecraftian going on: djinn, spirit-folk, and ghuls, plus ghouls, illithids, and other monstrosities. Honestly, teh Lovecraftian stuff is a lot more fun for me, so I've been leaning in that direction pretty heavily.

Great thread!
Daniel

 

[mmadsen]

A fun scenario/setting might be...

Vuron, you might want to check our Little Changes with Big Flavor. It's full of variant setting suggestions.

 

[Desdichado]

I've been thinking of an Ice Age campaign, except with a race of "Atlanteans" or some such that has brought iron age (if not dark ages) technology to the world, so you can still have mail, longswords, etc. instead of just stone weapons and hide armor.

Unfortunately, the Monster Manual seems to have lost all of the saber-tooths, wooly mammoths and such, so I'd have to build them from scratch working off of earlier editions, or existing animals and dire animals.

Humanoid races would include Neanderthals (convert from either dwarves or half-orcs?), Cro-Magnon (humans) and "Atlanteans" (elves?)

For a slightly more supernatural feel, lots of arctic creatures from the MM could be introduced. Also, could make the whole Ice Age thing a plot based on some Outsider intervention. In that case, the cold para-elemental template from Manual of the Planes could get quite a work-out as well.

 

[paqman]

Protogith: The histories of the illithid and the gith races speak of a time when great illithid empires ruled whole planets until the gith rebelled. A setting where the gith are freedom fighters against illithid overlords would be fun. Lots of psionics and martials arts etc. Maybe the illithid empire is under pressure from other monstrous races such as orc slaves of a mighty beholder empire.

I already hinted at something like this in my current Dragonstar campaign. The players are on a newly saved planet, it was completely covered by 2 km of ice and through player actions, the ice melted very fast to reveal a planet with ancient artifact that were stuck in the ice.

A Mindflayer battle ship has been waiting at the outskirt of the system (The melting was a prophecy). the crew was in hibernation and recently woke up and are preparing to take the planet that is suposed to contain many secrets. But the githyanky and the Githzerai are in the area and don't want the Mindflayers to succeed. So the players are on the planet and in the middle of a battle that is about to errupt between the Mindflayers and the Giths.

Just thought I'd write this here since it made me think about that.
No thread highjacking is intended.

 

[Blacksad]

3 Empires: Orc (Half-Orc, Mongrelman), Dwarf (Giants, Griffon, Dragon), Human (Asian creatures).
Where the Empires touch each other: kaiju and dire anything and humanoids (PC races).

The campaign is set in the zone where the Empires touch each others, you'll guess that I don't like encounter with many small creatures.

 

[Hummingbird]

I use a wide variety of creatures in my world. It takes place on the inner surface of a Dyson sphere with a radius of approx. 1AU so there are HUGE amounts of land, and huge oceans etc. Each continent that the players have discovered has a different flavor. I have an oriental continent, a lost world etc. There is also a moon that hangs over the same land at all times creating a "dark zone" in which there are tons of undead. the moon is only about 1500 ft. above the dark zone, so I suppose it would be possible to go there. i know the physics on this are all messed up, but hey its magic!

-- Hummingbird

 

[mmadsen]

A related question: Have you modified any existing creatures' descriptions (not mechanics) to fit your monster palette?

For instance, many people have mentioned grouping all the goblinoids into one race, maybe of different tribes, but all of the same species. Little goblins are Goblins; bigger ones are Hobgoblins; really big ones are Bugbears.

Perhaps you find the whole notion of reptilian kobolds odd. Maybe the "kobolds" of your campaign world are the same as "goblins" -- and they're both D&D Gnomes!

Or maybe you use Kobold stats for your race of rat-men. And you use Orc stats for ape-men.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Yeah, mmadsen my friend, I have changed the descriptions of a good number of creatures and races. For example:

(1) Ogres! My Ogres are very different from the MM Ogre. I have developed a full write up of their culture, physiology, society, psychology, and religion, that are all distinctively different from what is in the MM. I can post it if anyone is interested.

(2) Elves: My elves are very different from what is in the MM. As noted in my culture post about changing cultures, my High Elves average 6'-7' feet in height. They are highly magical, and significantly more powerful than a typical human. I think I EL them at 4. Wood Elves are 5'6"-6'6" in height, and are magically powerful in different ways.

(3) Beastmen: My Beastmen have many different attributes, with bizarre inhuman, animal, and monstrous mixtures. They worship the Dark Gods, and are more arganized and fanatical than anything in the MM.

There are perhaps many more, but these are some examples from my campaign.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Privateer]

I want to hear about your Ogres, SHARKy!

Now, to make my thread useful...

Quasi-Victorianish-y (Can't get more general than that, eh?): Mad scientists, flesh golems, angry mobs, and all of the "what the heck are those things?" monsters (once again, created by the scientists)

 

[mmadsen]

Unfortunately, the Monster Manual seems to have lost all of the saber-tooths, wooly mammoths and such, so I'd have to build them from scratch working off of earlier editions, or existing animals and dire animals.

Well, the Elephant entry specifically mentions that it's for mammoths and mastodons too. I'd like a specific Saber-Tooth entry, but Dire Lion should work fine.

Humanoid races would include Neanderthals (convert from either dwarves or half-orcs?), Cro-Magnon (humans) and "Atlanteans" (elves?)

Dwarves for Neanderthals? Half-Orcs (or full Orcs) sure, but Dwarves?