The Sporting Life of the Mind Flayers

Maybe in this campaign setting mind flayers won’t have the Squidface-from-Star-Wars-meets-low-grade-Cthulhu vibe we’re used to.

Rather, mind flayers will be a race of weird sentient squids that mind blast their enemies, climb atop their skulls while they’re stunned, bore into their craniums and start driving their victims around like a fleshy car.

When they’re done with a particular "vehicle" they eat his or her brain and find a new ride. These mind flayers are the Grand Theft Auto players of the Far Realm.

Perhaps mind flayers even have a sort of decadent NASCAR vibe where they actively hunt people who seem like they would be particularly fast...all because there is a grand footrace in which the mind flayers race their host bodies on a track lit by fungoid light deep within the Underdark.

Three Views of the Basilisk

- Hanns Heinz Ewers, Alraune

- Paracelsus

- Jorge Luis Borges, Book of Imaginary Beings

Just Use Bears

So, the characters in your old-school D&D game go somewhere you haven’t yet prepared and you describe some cool, weird-ass monster that you don’t actually have stats for: "At the bottom of the Bone Pit of the Succulent Orb a vast form rises from the sinkhole; its reptilian body glistens with antediluvian slime and its pteroid jaw opens, revealing rows of serrated fangs in what appears to be a most unholy welcome." In situations likes these, I just use the stats for a bear and no one is the wiser. Re-skin appearance, methods of attack, and add special abilities on the fly if you absolutely must...but when in doubt, just use bears.

Death Frost Doom and the Chrono-crone

This is a repost of an old post of mine because Justin from Dragons Gonna Drag asked for it to come back. I take requests.

Death Frost Doom is one of those modules that has the potential to be a very memorable adventure, but needs a bit of modification to suit my style of play.

One of the things I like least about it (and this is a pretty minor part of the overall adventure) is the magical clock found within the cabin leading up to the accursed temple. The clock is described thusly in the first version of Death Frost Doom (I haven't read the newer rewrite of it; every time I try I just get sidetracked by how awesome Jez Gordon's art in it is): 

The clock is magical; anyone physically moving the hands forward or backward will cause a time distortion. The distortion affects only the person moving the clock hands; if two or more people try to do it at the same time, randomly determine which is affected. Moving the clock backwards will stop time for that same amount of time, and the character will be able to freely act. Objects will only move if the character moves them, so it would be possible to do things such as walk between raindrops, drop a coin, take a walk, eat a meal, and come back and catch it before it has fallen an inch (provided enough time was moved on the clock to do such things). Other people and animals and undead things will be frozen in time, unable to act. Spirits will still be active, so sleeping on the grounds will have the same effect as normal. Adjusting the clock forward puts the character forward in time by the moved amount. That character will seem to disappear if anyone is watching, and will only reappear after the set amount of time, at which point everyone other than the clock-disturber will not be aware that any time has passed at all.

What I find problematic about the clock, especially if it is adjusted forward, is that it effectively splits the party and creates a headache for the GM who now must run two adventures along two divergent timelines. (It’s also one of the many effects in LotFP adventures that makes the players less apt to touch anything that seems ”weird,” which seems contrary to the point of ”Weird Fantasy.”)

My hack for this is simple: moving the hands on the clock cause the room to suddenly go dark...an outline of a door appears against a wall in fearful luminescence...and out of that unholy portal steps...THE CHRONO-CRONE.

Chrono-crone Hag
Chrono-crones are women whose appearance is bifurcated lengthwise down their bodies; the left half of their bodies is withered and old, while the right half of their bodies is youthful and blooming. Chrono-crones are often magically linked to enchanted clocks. If the clock is tampered with—for example, if the hands of the clock are moved manually—the room first goes black, is then filled with eerie, spectral light, and then the Chrono-chrome appears. Chrono-crones summoned in this way will offer to strike a bargain with a group of adventurers, such as providing the effects of a Haste or Time Stop spell when they most need it, because any tampering with the orderly flow of time does honors their
strange, otherworldly masters.

Move: 120’ (40’) AC: 14 HD: 10 Attacks: 2 (AB +10) Dam:1d4 (claw) Mor: 6
Special Abilities:
Stasis Touch – anyone hit by a Chrono-crone’s claw attack must make a successful Saving Throw vs. Petrify or be struck with a
Hold Person effect.
Mistress of Time – A Chrono-crone can cast Haste and Slow at will,
Passwall, Dimension Door, and Teleport three times per day, and Time Stop twice per day.

* * *
The way I play it, the encounter with the Chrono-crone isn’t about combat unless the players force the issue. (At which point they’ll likely be slaughtered given the crone’s magical abilities.) Instead, it’s a chance to tempt the players into a Faustian bargain: perhaps the crone will offer to use one of her abilities to the party’s favor in return for a little of their "time" (effectively taking some of their youth). The first time I ran Death Frost Doom the players called about the crone to cast some much-needed Haste and Dimension Door spells so they could make good their escape from the zombie hordes.

Of course, the characters are free to not enter into a bargain with the crone. The last time I ran Death Frost Doom the players politely declined the crone’s bargain at first, but made a bee-line for her as soon as they had the vampire in tow in his casket. They made a case to the crone that the vampire’s eternal life was an affront to the flow of time to get her to deal with the vampire so they didn’t have to–which I thought was quite clever, actually.

Candlemen and Jay Lake

The candlemen are the degenerate descendants of engineers who were imprisoned deep below the earth in disused train tunnels. They are supplied food and candles from a mysterious benefactor (or jailer?) above. The candlemen keep thousands of candles burning at all times within their lair; indeed, the lair itself is coated with lairs of cooled, lumpen wax. The constant exposure to intense candlelight has rendered the candlemen blind, and the light within their lairs makes it difficult for non-candlemen to see as well. While their blindness renders them relatively harmless on an individual level, they tend to att‚ack in great swarms of broken-bodied madness.

* * *

I posted the above on this blog about two years ago. The "candlemen" were inspired by a particularly vivid chapter of Jay Lake's novel Mainspring. Somehow, Lake found the post and linked to it on his blog; he really seemed to get a kick out of how I adapted his idea for a game. I definitely got a kick out of him enjoying my post.

Jay Lake died later in 2014. I didn't know him, never met him, but it still felt like a loss. Of course, the best way to celebrate the life of an author is to read their works, so I'm making a point of delving into Green and Trial of Flowers this year, at the very least. 

What Guards the Purity of Melting Maids?

What guards the purity of melting maids,

In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades,

Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark,

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark,

When kind occasion prompts their warm desires,

When music softens, and when dancing fires?

- Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock

The ritual is a boon to concerned parents and a curse to amorous-minded young men (to say nothing of the feelings of the frustrated young women who may be just as amorous as their prospective lovers), but it functions like this: it is a spell cast upon a young woman; it is unbreakable by normal means, but dispels itself on the maid's wedding night; any time her honor is at stake while the spell is active, a stern celestial guardian (stats as a planetar) appears to check any errant desires--with force, if it comes to it.

A few encounter ideas:

• A stymied young Don Juan hires the party to break the ritual so that he may tryst with a beautiful young woman protected by it without having an angry angel showing up and thumping him about the body and head for his troubles.
• An adventurous coquette hires the party to break the ritual's interference in her love life as she is tired of it interrupting her intrigues. 
• The party is hired by parents who wish to marry off their daughter into an aristocratic family, but the ritual has been cast upon the daughter by a rival family trying to establish matrimonial ties with the same bachelor's house.
• The ritual has been cast upon the party's rogue, whose usual modus operendi is seduction. This, of course, cramps her style greatly, so a cure must be found.

Fullcircle

I recently had the chance to re-read John Buchan's masterful horror story "Fullcircle." The tale is about an urban couple who gradually give up their hectic ways as they're seduced--perhaps possessed--by the quiet house they've bought in the country. Their fast-paced lifestyle gives way to living according to the pagan cycle of rural England as they become uncanny, changed doubles of the people they once were.

As I thought more about the story, I began to think about how Tolkien represents hobbits. The stereotypical hobbit is much like the altered couple in Buchan’s story: simple creatures of the countryside who enjoy nothing more than putting their feet up while smoking a pipe and gazing with pleasure upon the green hills.

Of course, we can take this for a darker turn.

Now, return to Tolkien's well-known novel and imagine that hobbits--diminutive personifications of England's largely-forgotten rural life--have the same sort of power as the haunted house in Buchan's "Fullcircle." 

The uninvited dwarfs show up, as does a wizard, to tempt our hobbit into adventure. He resists, but cannot manage to eject his visitors. In the morning, before they set out, the hobbit plies them with an enormous breakfast that stretches on and on; the wizard and dwarfs know that they must set out soon, but the food is so pleasing and the company so enjoyable.

There’s always more drink to be had, more laughs to be shared, and more pipes to be lit. Soon enough, a luncheon is served. The hobbit host talks of how perfect the weather is for a little lazy fishing in a slow-moving stream by a secluded meadow. 

The dwarfs and the wizard begin to forget their quest, and instead daydream about hunting for stag, walking the hills to observe the various trees of the Shire, of trading their axes for gardening spades...

Before they realize it, the dwarfs and the wizard find that years have passed; their new lives of quiet appreciation of country life allow no thoughts of adventure, so any inkling of once more taking up their adventure quickly flits away from their thoughts. After all, the fish might be biting down by the brook, the dwarfs say. The wizard sighs, and decides to read a book of idle poetry in a wicker chair and listen to the birds’ songs. Leave the Dark Lord’s rise to others; fully seduced by a hobbit’s life in the shire, he’d rather watch the sun set.

Haunted House Encounter Table

1. Hungry Shroud (shadow)

2. Possessing Geist (ghost)

3. Dreadful Apparition (banshee)

4. Mischievous Ghost (poltergeist)

5. Tortured Wraith (wraith)

6. Vengeful Specter (spectre)

WEARING A FACE THAT SHE KEEPS IN A JAR BY THE DOOR

Add caption

(You can see the whole thing here. It's great.) 

Eleanor Rigby
AC 12, Move 120', HD 5, HP 23, bite 1d8, Morale 10
Special: 

• Eleanor Rigby can assume the facial likeness of anyone she has seen.
• Eleanor Rigby is compelled to pick up any grains of rice that are scattered before her, provided that the rice has previously been thrown upon a newly-married couple.
• Eleanor Rigby has advantage on attacks against all the lonely people. 

Made in America Monsters

The US is a weird place. A weird place that has a lot of weird folklore, urban legends, and cryptids running about. 

It's also a weird place that has fifty states, which means you can easily make a random encounter table with one monster from each state pretty easily:

d100	Monster
1-2	Monster Pig (Alabama)
3-4	Kushtaka (Alaska)
5-6	The Mogollon Monster (Arizona)
7-8	The Fouke Monster (Arkansas)
9-10	Big Foot (California)
11-12	Slide-Rock Bolter (Colorado)
13-14	Melon Heads (Connecticut)
15-16	Primehook Swamp Creature (Delaware)
17-18	Skunk Ape (Florida)
19-20	Altamaha-ha (Georgia)
21-22	Menehune (Hawaii)
23-24	The Bear Lake Monster (Idaho)
25-26	Tuttle Bottoms Monster (Illinois)
27-28	Green Clawed Beast (Indiana)
29-30	Monster Turtle of Big Blue (Iowa)
31-32	Beaman (Kansas)
33-34	Hopkinsville Goblins (Kentucky)
35-36	Rougarou (Louisiana)
37-38	Maine Mystery Beast (Maine)
39-40	Goatman (Maryland)
41-42	Dover Demon (Massachusetts)
43-44	Michigan Dogman (Michigan)
45-46	Wendigo (Minnesota)
47-48	Pascagoula Aliens (Mississippi)
49-50	Momo (Missouri)
51-52	Flathead Lake Monster (Montana)
53-54	Alkali Lake Monster (Nebraska)
55-56	Tahoe Tessie (Nevada)
57-58	Grays (New Hampshire)
59-60	Jersey Devil (New Jersey)
61-62	Spring-Heeled Jack (New Mexico)
63-64	Montauk Monster (New York)
65-66	North Carolina Sewer Monster (North Carolina)
67-68	Thunderbird (North Dakota)
69-70	Loveland Frog (Ohio)
71-72	Oklahoma Octopus (Oklahoma)
73-74	Colossal Claude (Oregon)
75-76	Green Man (Pennsylvania)
77-78	Mercy Brown (Rhode Island)
79-80	Lizard Man of Scrape Ore Swamp (South Carolina)
81-82	Taku-He (South Dakota)
83-84	Bell Witch (Tennessee)
85-86	Black-Eyed Children (Texas)
87-88	Skinwalker (Utah)
89-90	Champ (Vermont)
91-92	Bunny Man (Virginia)
93-94	Batsquatch (Washington)
95-96	Mothman (West Virginia)
97-98	Beast of Bray Road (Wisconsin)
99-100	San Pedro Mountains Mummy (Wyoming)

Monsters from British Folklore and Obscure Literature

Need some monster inspiration for your games? The Hammer House of Horror is here to help.

Still not enough? Check out this list of 31 Fairly Obscure Literary Monsters.

Because Halloween is coming, that's why.

Demons, Devils, and Death Drives

I've been revisiting some Edgar Allan Poe stories I haven't read in a while, which has got me thinking about Freud's theory of the death drive. And somehow that has filtered into thinking about Krevborna's demons and devils.

One of the grand things about making your own campaign setting for D&D is that you can choose to exclude as much of the inherited D&Disms into your world as you want or bend those D&Disms in a way that wouldn't necessarily work in an already established setting; you can pick and choose from the "canon," or discard it entirely.

Since Krevborna was my first "5e setting," I wanted to play around in D&D's sandbox without feeling beholden to the way D&D tends to do things. For the purposes of illustrating what I'm getting at here, I'm going to talk about what differentiates demons and devils in Krevborna.(1)

According to the 5e Monster Manual, demons are "the embodiment of chaos and evil--engines of destruction barely contained in monstrous form" and devils "live to conquer, enslave, and oppress." Looking at those two basic building blocks of differentiation reminded me of Freud's theory of the death drive. According to Freud, the instinct toward death, destruction, and dissolution can take a myriad of instinctual forms. As he states in "The Economic Problem of Masochism," "The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power." Demons, then, with their "embodiment of chaos" and function as "engines of destruction," are clearly manifestations of the death drive as a pure destructive instinct.(2) Devils, on the other hand, as beings who "live to conquer, enslave, and oppress," are manifestations of the death drive as the instinct for mastery and the will to power writ monstrously large.(3)

Sure, that's a neat theoretical congruence, but what does it mean in terms of world building? First, it helps explain the "Blood War" between demons and devils that was a big part of 2e's canon. As manifestations of a cosmic death drive, you might expect that devils and demons should be allies against the life-loving races of the world, but although they are manifestations of the same force each group is so focused on their particular flavor of the death drive that it excludes the methods and schemes of the other. The will to power of the tyrannical devils is simply incompatible with the demons' chaotic urge for obliteration, and vice versa. A libido divided against itself cannot stand.

Second, this strife between two supernatural forces out to either enslave or destroy mankind gives mankind a profound weapon against both: as more and more of the nature of these beings is revealed in play, it gives the characters a natural tactic that can aid them in the struggle against cosmic darkness: either side could be carefully leveraged against the other to keep both of these death instincts in check--a kind of libidinal stalemate. Even if the total defeat of demons and devils is impossible for mere mortal agents--and can the death drive ever truly be banished entirely?--the way in which they can be pitted against each other keeps things in necessary stasis. It isn't so much that the Moorcockian struggle between law and chaos is a substitute for good and evil, it's the notion that destruction and tyranny must be maneuvered into a stable state for the greater good of the continued existence of all.(4)

NOTES

(1) - The general populace in Krevborna would recognize no practical difference or theological distinction between demons and devils, of course. Superstition and inherited belief masks the real cosmological truths that govern the universe.

(2) - Since Orcus is a a demon lord associated with the undead, this also colors the setting's view of what undeath is: it isn't an orderly process, it's life inverted into deathless chaos and always already an impulse toward decay. 

A tangent: liches, then, wrest the power of undeath from its chaotic roots and transform it into a kind of perverse order to defeat the natural entropy of mortal existence. The results of this, however, ripple outwards in a fractalized, chaotic pattern, once more serving the ends of destruction.

To keep the "D&D canon" a little distant, instead of referring to demon lords by their more familiar names I think cults devoted to them in Krevborna will call them by their more obscure epithets. Blood Lord for Orcus, the Sibilant Beast for Demogorgon, etc.

(3) - Asmodeus, chief of devils, is simply referred to as the Devil by the Church of Saintly Blood.

Also, it is interesting that the Monster Manual gives a genesis point for demons (they are spontaneously generated by the Abyss) but there isn't an origin attached to the devils. For now, I'm going with the fallen angels archetype.

(4) - Of course, this doesn't have to come into play just in the late game of high levels; it can also be something that texturizes the more obvious intrigues and power struggles in the setting as well. The vampires of the von Karlok family are essentially demonic; the Graymalk witches are essentially diabolic.

What Makes a Monster Interesting?

According to the four guys at rpg.net that are still super mad that D&D 4e was replaced by D&D 5e, the thing that makes monsters interesting are the unique mechanics that express a monster's flavor. Kobolds are interesting, in this view, because they shift all over the battlefield--emphasizing what sneaky little bastards they are. Gnolls are interesting because they're pack predators and they get a mechanical bonus when fighting next to each other.

I can see how someone might see mechanics as the interesting bit about monsters in a game like 4e that uses a skirmish-level board game as its combat system. The mechanical differentiation is obvious because you see it in action as the miniatures or pogs or whatever are moved around the battle-map of one-inch squares. Certainly, it solves the "bag of hit points" problem: in practice, a bugbear isn't just a goblin with more stamina--it's got something that sets it apart. (5e seems to do this as well, at least with humanoid monsters, but I never see that mentioned.)

Also, 4e's mechanics had to do the work of making monsters interesting because whoever was writing the fluff kept committing hate crimes against flavor text like this infamous table of "Bear Lore":

Note that 4e actually made you roll to learn this stuff. Why?

I'm less convinced that in D&D games that aren't 4e mechanics can and should carry the burden of what makes a monster interesting. This is especially true for games that don't rely on battle-maps and miniatures; since the mechanics of pushes, pulls, swaps, slides, shifts, marks, blasts, and bursts are not defined in a tactile way in "theater of the mind" combat, those mechanics simply hold less weight when you're relying on shared imagination instead of object-defined positioning.

Of course, the notion of "shared imagination" always already suggests what makes monsters interesting in "theater of the mind" games: the interesting bit is how the monsters are described. After you've played in your tenth D&D campaign, goblins probably aren't that interesting anymore. But if you were to describe those goblins (without actually naming them goblins) as "diminutive, wizened, man-like fey, each wearing a cloth cap that appears to be dipped in blood" they suddenly become much more interesting than their stock description in your Monster Manual allows for.

Even a monster with a ton of mechanical options (such as the beholder) is only interesting until you've seen what it can do and it becomes familiar. Changing up the description ("re-skinning") can still breathe new life into what has become rote. To that end, I'm going to be posting a series of regular monsters from the 5e Monster Manual that have been re-flavored for use in my Krevborna setting to illustrate how new description and changing the script adds interest to the same-old-same-old. 

My method for Krevborna is to mine myth and folklore because that fits this particular setting, but you can go further afield in your own games. Get inspired by Clark Ashton Smith, comb DeviantArt for sci-fi monstrosities to be inspired by, roll on random tables if you must; re-skinning gets mileage out of the books you already have (no need to back the latest monster book coming down the pike on Kickstarter when you can DIY) and saves you the time spent crafting your own monster stats by hand (good luck doing that in 5e, by the way).

Undead Templates for 5e

I wanted to make an undead wizard for 5e that was less powerful than the lich, so I sat down with the Dungeon Master's Guide and went to work with the monster creation rules. Aaaaaaaand, I promptly got bored because it was too much accounting and looking things up on a chart for me.

And then I realized that all I really needed to do was slap a few resistances and immunities on one of the NPC wizard statblocks in the back of the Monster Manual and call it a day. 

Using the cheap-n-cheerful templates below you can make undead archmages, bandits, cult fanatics, gladiators, etc. Need an undead knight that is less powerful than the death knight? Major Undead template + Knight stats. Undead viking? Minor Undead + Berserker. 

You could also use these with regular animals, you know, for when you need a ghostly Killer Whale.

Minor Undead
Damage Resistances necrotic
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft.

Major Undead
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft.

Incorporeal Undead
Damage Resistances acid, fire, lightning, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons
Damage Immunities cold, necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
Senses darkvision 60 ft.