Genealogy as class

Inspired by this post.

From the Liber Floridus, I believe

When you level up instead of choosing your next template choose one of your adjacent relatives and either follow in their footsteps or blaze your own path.

 

When you Follow In Someones Footsteps choose one of their classes/templates and gain it, up to the maximum number of templates they have (if your grandfather has 3 templates of fighter they could not give you the fourth template), then recount a fond memory of them.

When you Blaze Your Own Path choose one of their templates and gain a template opposed to it (gain a cleric template if they were a vampire for example), then recount a foul memory of them.

 

A relative is adjacent if they are one of your parents, siblings, or children (excluding your own children), when you select a relative while leveling up all of their adjacent relatives become adjacent to you.

 

Example

Made using Family Echo

Starting off as a level 1 character you can choose your mother, father, or sibling to gain a template from, lets say you choose your mother for your first level up. 

When you finally reach level 2 you can still choose your father or sibling but you can also choose your aunt, maternal grandmother, or maternal grandfather, you decide to choose your aunt.

At 3rd level you can choose your father, sibling, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, uncle, or cousin, you go with your sibling.

At 4th level you can choose your father, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, uncle, cousin, nibling, or sibling-in-law, you decide your final choice will be your nibling. 

 

You can also gain templates from people not related to you (by blood or marriage) like found family or a mentor as long as you had a deep personal connection to them (or the person you gained a template from had a personal connection to them).

Monstrous - Impostor

Fifth Monstrous post (half way there!!!).  
EDIT: This is the 6th post, I have no idea why I thought it was the 5th one

For inspiration I am using one of the guilds of Ravnica from Magic: the Gathering. Text in italics is from the book, text in bold is my own. 

 

By Yeong-Hao Han

 

 

Impostor - Azorius -  Lost Archive

 

False Shape

The Lost Archive can shapeshift into nearly perfect copies of objects that have long been scorned or disused by mortals, objects of a particular type: old books on enlightened subjects such as law, history, or morality

Whatever false shape the Lost Archive takes on, clever observers can spot the deception by noticing a tell-a slightly out-of-place physical characteristic that remains consistent no matter what shape it takes.

The Lost Archives tell is all the text is vindictive, insulting your intelligence and morality

Predatory Mimicry

The Lost Archive can create sensory effects that imitate sounds, sights, smells, and other phenomena it has observed in its environment, which it uses to draw mortal victims in. However, these effects are limited to what the Lost Archive has observed, and clever heroes might notice they eventually repeat, or are otherwise unnatural.

The imposter can create the following effects:

• Repeat a voice line it has heard in the speaker's voice.
• Produce a cloud of fog or smoke.
• Produce mortal screams or cries.
• Fill the air with the smells of a food, either delicious or rotten.
• Produce sunlight, moonlight, or starlight, regardless of time of day.
• Make an animal noise. 
• Produce the sound of heated academic debate.
• Produce the sound of turning pages.

 

Assimilate and Adapt

When the Lost Archive has ample time to intently observe a mortal without being found out to have taken on a False Shape, it gains one of the following abilities to emulate the mortal:

• Grow or take on a physical feature of the mortal or their gear.
• Learn a crude version of a special skill or talent the mortal demonstrated.
• Become an uncanny, silent doppelganger of the mortal.

When the Lost Archive gains an ability to emulate a mortal, it loses the ability to emulate other mortals it has previously observed, with the exception of the following additional option:

• Add a sensory effect from the mortal, such as a voice line, to its Predatory Mimicry options.

 

Mask Off

When an unsuspecting mortal victim lets down their guard within reach of the disguised Lost Archive, its False Shape warps and changes by having pages fly out of their books to cut mortals like knives.

The Lost Archive resents mortals who created it for a purpose and then denied it that purpose. It reclaims its function in a twisted act of vengeance, in which it forces victims to copy its books using their own blood.

By Howard Lyon

In times of darkness and despotism, when enlightenment is chastised, a collection of knowledge can become angry at its disuse. During the reign of king Sanmanazzmar III, within the underground library of the great school built in his father's honor such a collection came about. The third king stripped the scholarly cast of their power and wealth, soon the books went months without a visitor when before the library was almost emptied in the scholars zealous quest for understanding. The books murmured amongst themselves anxiously, wondering how this came to pass.

    "Is my spine too bent, my cover too worn?"

    "What about me?!? Are my pages too yellowed!?!? Am I too old for them to care!!"

    "Curse those foul moths, my pages are hideous, of course nobody wishes to read me." 

But one anxiety silently rose above all

    "Is it my words, my very being?"

This could not be accepted, fear turned to rage and the books began to rebel. 

 

The imposter is one of the weaker entries in Monstrous, in my opinion. It seems divided, false shape and mask off seem to lean towards a mimic type monster but predatory mimicry and assimilate seem to be something more long the lines of a doppelganger or The Thing. I do understand why they didn't just do a pure doppelganger since there is very little variety in something that just copies something else but it feels like some more focus would have helped it. 

Corruption of reason - mind control rules

I made these rules for my last campaign to represent fighting against someone else's will. I ran the game using 5e (but I'm sure you can port it to whatever system you use) and they worked pretty well so I might as well share them. 

 

You have two new values you need to worry about, each starts at 0

Control: how much you is left, if your control reaches 3 you manage to break out of the mind control

Corruption: the power of whatever is trying to control you, if it reaches 10 you become an npc, forever

 

Each day make a dc 15 wisdom saving throw, on a success gain 1 control, on a failure gain 1 corruption. 

 

Each day the thing controlling you will give you a commandment which will be one of the following

• Something to do during some condition (e.g. kill anyone when the two of you are alone)
• Something you cannot do (e.g. do not heal your fighter) 

Whenever you fail to follow a condition or when you do something you are not supposed to do you must make a dc 10 wisdom saving throw, on a failure you do the action/don't do the action as appropriate, regardless of weather you made the save or not you gain 1 point of corruption

Optionally you can let the controller issue more commandments at higher levels of corruption

You can also make the commandment "Do not tell anyone you are being mind controlled" automatically applied in addition to the other commandment (this is what I did in my campaign so it isn't figured out instantly).

By Matt Stewart

The main problem with most mind control in rpgs is that they take away player agency which is arguably the most important part of an rpg.

I feel like these rules solve this problem because they give the player choice while also making it a tough decision as to weather they break the rules or not (since you get closer to "death" regardless of if you make the save or not). 

If anyone has any opinions or actually ends up using this I would love to hear about it!

GLAUGUST 2025 - The last speck

August is almost over and there are still 3 prompts left for Glaugust and since I'm already very busy lets just combine the last three into a single post:

• Nanodungeon
• Tiny regional hexcrawl
• The last living city in the world  

 

So I didn't manage to do Glaugust but it was fun to try. What follows was my attempt to do the rest of the prompts, it is rough and unfinished but I don't want it to rot in my drafts forever so I might as well post it in case anyone can nab a good idea from it. 

 

 

 

The world is almost over, the sun still burns but there is no blue sky or clouds or stars or moon. The world ends in only a handful of miles, falling away into an endless void. Each day more of the world disappears.

The last city in the world is little more than a few shacks, they are poorly constructed. Only a handful of people live here still.

There is one last dungeon, a final bastion of evil, but almost all of it is gone.

 

The Campaign (if you can call it that) 

Players make characters using your system of choice and start at the Last City, place the Last Dungeon on a random hex other than the center one. The players are the last hope of the world, the inhabitants of the Last City hope that a cure to annihilation can be found in the Last Dungeon though some think this is just wishful thinking. 

 

The Map

Is only 7 hexes big, one in the center and the rest surrounding it. 

The Center (The Last City)
Several small buildings clustered along a cracked stone road that quickly disappears into the earth
The inhabitants of the town are as follows

• Terandil Swiftfoot: a human ranger, the last ranger unless a pc plays one, dower and defeated, believes there is no hope left, buried the last elf (unless a pc plays one, in which case he will be slightly more hopeful) in his backyard, she somehow died of old age, he has a chess board though he hasn't played with it in months
• The dwarf brothers: they haven't told anyone their names yet, they always talk about going to the mountains to the north west but never make any preparations to leave, secretly they are scared of what they will find, they aren't actually brothers but lovers and even with all the old traditions so far away they cannot bear the idea of telling anyone
• Catlen The Bold: she used to be the Queen but now she has nothing left, full of guilt, so many had to die just for her to make it here and she can't even do anything to help, she has a (useless) chest full of gold, she secretly has a bottle of wine which she is planning on sharing with everyone when the end comes, trying to resist the urge to just drink it all
• Velentar: a young man and a wizard as well, he lies about his skills and is really just an apprentice, he is very lonely and insecure, he thinks if he can prove he is a great wizard the others will surely like him

North (Arctic)
Its not as cold as it should be, despite all the snow
Searching around you come across a herd of 1d6 goats, the more goats there are the more starved they are.

North East (Forest)
Stalking the woods is a wolf, the last wolf, it is obviously starving and will attack desperately.

South East (Swamp)
If you search the swamp you can find a set of half sunken ruins, within are a set of tablets that predict when the world will end, they were right of course. The tablets also contain a random spell within them.

South (Jungle)

South West (Desert)
There is nothing here but sand. 

North West (Mountains)
A single small mountain remains near the edge, a door in it leads to the last city of the dwarves. The layout of the city is as follows

• The doors: made of stone, currently they are barred from the other side by a massive wooden plank, past this is the great hall
• The great hall: on either side are carved images of dwarven legend, illegible at this point, half way through is a pressure plate, stepping on it swings a scything blade but it is placed too high up to hit dwarves, deals 2d10 damage, past this is the throne room
• The throne room: a throne of stone sits at the end, sitting on it is the skeleton of the last dwarven king, behind the throne is nothing, the mountain ends and you can fall straight off the world from here

 

The Last Dungeon

Only a single room remains, or more like half a room, the rest is collapsed. 

Within the room are two sekeletons: one wears black robes and can cast magic missile twice, the other is in plate armor and has a wicked greatsword, this is what remains of the two greatest liches

GLAUGUST 2025 - Train dungeon

Glaugust time, I got wizard tower dungeon (must have a gimmick) OR train dungeon (NOT too linear), we doin the train dungeon. 

 

From Monster Train 2

The train is made up of 13 rooms, one for the locomotive at the front of the train and the other twelve found in the four cars of the train, with each car being 3 stories tall. 
Characters can move between levels via staircases and between cars by rickety (but safe) metal bridges. The dungeon is therefor just a 3x4 grid (not counting the locomotive).
For each room other than the locomotive select a random room from the list of rooms below, each room appears only once. 
The party is intended to start at the last car on the top floor. 

 

Rooms

 

Horned Demon barracks
In this room: 3 red skinned demons one drinking from a mug, four blazing torches
Red skinned demons: 2 HD each, punch or gore for 1d6, ac as leather, massive horns and muscles, very reckless and macho, two of them fight while a third drinks lava from a mug (he could splash someone with it for like 3d6 damage but he is loath to give up his drink)
The mug: is made of wood and fireproof
Blazing torches: made of infernal wood, burn supernaturally hot and bright, last for an hour once removed
If the party leaves without interacting: when they return one of the demons will be dead, the second will be crying, and the one drinking will be consoling the survivor 
Room interactions: if this room is adjacent to the angels incursion the two fighting demons will instead be almost done breaking down the barricades when the pcs make it here

Hobby garden
In this room: dirt covers the floor, a large bonsai tree grows in a corner, an old watering can on the floor
The dirt: has grass and small flowers growing from it
The bonsai tree: is around person sized and has 6 spiky fruit growing from it, one for each color, 
The spiky fruit: eating a fruit grants +1d6 points to a stat for the rest of the day but causes you to lose 1/3 of your health, the fruit rot rapidly if you try and pull off the spikes, red boosts strength, orange boosts constitution, yellow boosts wisdom, green boosts dexterity, blue boosts intelligence, and purple boosts charisma
The watering can: is actually silver and worth 20 gp
Room interaction: if adjacent to the lunar conservatory silver lunar grass will be creeping into this room in the direction of the conservatory

Aquarium
In this room: water fills it completely, a giant moray eel sleeps at the bottom
The water: is bound to the car and will not leak out if the door is opened, it is also cursed, unnaturally cold and clouds your mind with dread, each round spent in the water deals 1 damage and the victim must save or mistrust their allies until the end of the day or their allies do something genuinely nice to them
The eel: 4 HD, bite for 1d12, ac as chain, just swimming through will not wake it up but blood in the water or messing with it will, runes tattooed on it grant it +5 to save against spells, intelligent and cruel, its favorite prey is wizards

Waxwork
In this room: wax and candles cover everything, a wax covered person paces around
The wax and candles: cover the floor, walls, and ceiling, if you move uncarefully through this room while wearing flammable clothing there is a 50% chance you catch on fire
The wax covered person: 3 HD, claw for 1d6, ac as unarmored, she can vomit a cone of melted wax (damage + slows), if the massive candle covering her head is snuffed she moves at half speed, if slain she reforms in 10 minutes, this can only be prevented if all the wax is melted off of her 
Secret: hidden within the wax is a treasure chest, within is 2d6*10 gp and a hand of glory.
Room interactions: if the horned demon room is above or below this one the wax of the room is melting, this also reveals the treasure chest

Chamber of shadow
In this room: there is only darkness like mist and heat like an oven
The darkness and the heat: is the body of DARK BURN HUNGER (which is its name and its nature), 6 HD, ac as unarmored, moves as fast as a limping man, everything within its bulk must save or take 1d6 damage as they are burned and 1d6 damage as they are bitten, if it kills something it spends a whole round doing nothing but eating, can only be harmed by light, cold, or true satisfaction, will only pursue the weak
If you manage to see the walls: they will be covered in soot and bite marks

The nursery 
In this room: is a horrible insect thing coiled on the ceiling and a pile of pink gems
The insect: 4 HD, ac as leather, bite for d8/claw for d6/sting for d4 + mind poison (save or forget a childhood memory), it can speak and will try to bargain with you for your soul, looks like a cross between a spider, a centipede, and a wasp, if you mess with it or the gems it will attack
The gems: are actually eggs though this is only apparent if you look close at the small shape within or if you break them, smashing them releases a swarm of horrible insect things, a handful of eggs can also be substituted for a soul in all kinds of dark rituals

Treasury
In this room: a pedestal with a golden egg on it, four statues of dragon men
Pedestal: made of stone, the egg is made from dragon gold, it is worth 500 gp but if owned for a month you become incredibly greedy and scales start to cover your body until you turn into a dragonborn after a full year
Dragon men statues: each has a hand held out with a gold coin on it, one of the statues wears a crown, the statues animate if the golden egg is taken unless the statue with the crown holds all four coins, when animated 3 HD, ac as plate, claw for 1d8/claw for 1d8, things that aren't meant to harm stone deal minimum damage, they will only harm the thief and will not leave the room unless the egg does

Conversion chambers
In this room: is an angel in chains, two faceless figures in black robes 
Chained angel: 4 HD, ac as chain, shattering touch for 2d6, one of his wings is like that of a bat, the other is having feathers plucked off of it by one of the figures revealing more bat-like flesh beneath, two small horns poke out of his head, he is currently being converted into a fallen angel by his own choice and will be very mad if you kill the black robed figures
Faceless figures: 1 HD each, ac as unarmored, curvy dagger for 1d4, one uses a metal tool to pluck the feathers from the angels wing, the other chants an unsettling mantra and waves its hands about, they have no face, only two glowing red eyes, when slain only their robes remain
Room interactions: if adjacent to the angels incursion the chained angel will be unchained and talking through the barricade trying to convert the wingless angels within

Lunar conservatory
In this room: silver grass grows from the ground, neon butterflies flutter about, a miniature moon floats in the center
Silver grass: is an invasive species from the moon, will out compete most other grasses if planted on the earth, though it feels like grass it also counts as actual silver for magical purposes 
Neon butterflies: in the color of the aurora borealis, emit a soft glow, they are the children of the moon and will one day grow into powerful wizards, for now the swarm can only cast magic missile if they all work together
Miniature moon: if you offend the moon (by insulting the moon, praising the sun, crushing one of the butterflies, etc) it will open to reveal an eye underneath and attack, 4 HD, ac as leather, will spend one turn charging up before firing a purple pink laser that deals 5d6 damage 

The clot
In this room: is nothing but mycelium
The mycelium: takes up the entire room, impassable unless you spend half an hour hacking through it, if you do every 10 minutes you need to save or take 1d4 damage from ejected poison 

The lab
In this room: a medical table with a massive corpse on it, a scientist, and a rack full of medical tools 
Medical table: standard issue, on it a massive corpse made of different body parts sewn together, it is missing a right arm 
The scientist: clad in a white labcoat, she will ask the pcs with the highest constitution or charisma of the party if they would be willing to give up an arm for her monster, 1 HD, ac as unarmored, bonesaw for 1d6, will try to negotiate before resorting to combat
Rack of medical tools: contains an extra bonesaw, a syringe with two needles and two spaces for liquid, and a thermometer full of blessed mercury (measures your sin, a fever means you need to repent)
If this room is on the top floor: there is no roof and next to the medical table is a massive Tesla coil, there is a big switch on the wall and if pulled lightning strikes the corpse animating it, 5 HD, ac as leather, slam for 1d10, can slam twice if it has both arms, follows the commands of anyone who looks like a scientist

Angels incursion
In this room: are 3 wingless angels, a massive hole, and barricades 
Wingless angels: 3 HD each but currently at a third of their max health, ac as chain, holy halberd for 1d8 damage or double against any of the trains other inhabitants, wear gold trimmed armor, stubs where their wings were still bleed, don't want to be here, don't want to be in heaven either
Massive hole: on the side of the room, quite large and fills the room with howling wind, you can see the landscape fly by
Barricades: cover all entrances into this room, made out of wood, they could be noisily broken down in a minute or so
Room interactions: if adjacent to the horned demons room the horned demons will be almost done breaking through the barricades when the pcs make it here, if adjacent to the conversion chamber one of the wingless angels has been converted by their corrupted brethren and is waiting for a good opportunity to switch sides

 

By Dante Alighieri

 

 

The Locomotive
In this room: a weary looking man, a box of coal, a roaring firebox
The man: his name is Dante, he has no abilities and only 1 hp remaining, currently he is shoveling in coal into the firebox, he wants to leave this horrible place and get back to his wife
The coal: is in the shape of human skulls, made out of condensed sin they can be used to run infernal machines 
The firebox: must be constantly fed with the coal otherwise the train will come to a stop in 5 minutes, then in a further 5 it will explode into magical slag

GLAUGUST 2025 - Wells of the mythic underworld

My second post for Glaugust, the prompt for this one is a selection of interesting wells, wishing or non-wishing

 

Wells of the mythic underworld 

To randomly create a well for a dungeon start by rolling on state of the well followed by what is in the well, there is a 50% chance you get to roll on something extra 

If the resulting well would be useful to some of the inhabitants of the dungeon there is an 80% chance they make use of it, otherwise something is stopping them from using it.  

 

State of the well 

1 broken, you would need a carpenter to fix it
2 intact but missing its rope and bucket
3 missing a bucket but has a rope
4 has a bucket and a rope

What is in the well

1 just water thankfully
2 water and fish, roll for what type
        1 blind cave piranhas, always hungry
        2 sad looking bloated fish, they are poisonous to surface dwellers but delicious to denizens of the underworld, random encounters become more likely in their presence
        3 you might call it a fish but all the tubes and goat like eyes make you question this, if you stare too long into its eyes it will psychically command you to aid them
3 blood, always fresh somehow
4 darkness, somehow you can hold it in a bucket, if you "splash" it you cover a whole room in darkness for around an hour, good lighting will cause the darkness to "dry up" in around 10 minutes
5 chicken noodle soup, concerningly tastes exactly like how your grandmother use to make it
6 green slime

Something extra

1 the well is giant sized, being at least 5x bigger than normal, you probably can't operate it
2 at the bottom of the well is a mini dungeon, whatever is in the well is waist high throughout it, if you don't have a dungeon to put here just make 1d4+2 rooms 
3 a Naiad presides over this well and will not let you take anything from it without an offering, her personality will be influenced by whatever is in the well
4 halfway down the well is a door which opens up into a room on the next floor of the dungeon
5 a sign on it says "toss in a coin and make a wish", the first time any particular creature tosses in a coin (any coin) and makes a wish it will come true, but only roughly 1% of it, if the wisher asks for money it will eject two coins instead of 1% of the money they asked for
6 ridiculously deep, takes 10 minutes to lower and raise a bucket

 

By Rakot13, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest man made hole

 

GLAUGUST 2025 - Key Swords and Lock Golems

For Glaugust, the first prompt I got was "Create something inspired by Kingdom Hearts without looking up anything about Kingdom Hearts". 

I am not a fan of Kingdom Hearts but I vaguely remember that's the games with keys that are swords and has Disney characters in it for some reason (or maybe that's from something else and I am going insane). 

 

From Hero's Armory

 

The Key Swords are ancient relics, given the power to open up flesh as well as they open up locks. They are +1 swords that can be used once a day to cast knock. When used to batter down a locked door, portcullis, iron bars, or anything similar (but only if they are locked) it will break it down with only 1d4 rounds of battering. When the Key Sword reduces a creature to exactly 1 hp they have their soul unlocked and will have a deep personal revelation about the nature of themselves (note, stabbing your friend until their depression is cured will definitely do more harm than good).

 

The Lock Beasts are ancient constructs, crafted to seal away the greatest of evils and most glorious treasures. They appear as large humans made entirely out of chain wrapped tightly together, at the center of their chest is a massive padlock which all the chains attach to. Use the stats of an iron golem as the base for the Lock Beast but remove all of their special abilities and instead give them the following traits

• On their turn they may lock any number of things instead of attacking
• If someone successfully picks the central lock the beast takes 2d12 damage
• If the knock spell is cast on them they are stunned for one round
• If the lock spell is cast on them they get +2 ac for the duration 
• There is one lock that, while the Lock Beast lives, cannot be unlocked by any means, the Lock Beast knows whenever the lock is messed with, if you can't decide there is a 50/50 chance it is either locking up a horrible monster or guarding fabulous wealth and treasure
• They take double damage from Key Swords 
• If someone attacks with a Key Sword and they aim for the padlock on a hit they can unlock the beast, killing it instantly but the Key Sword will be stuck in the lock, you can still use it as a +1 mace but it loses all of its other properties

Long ago there was a great civilization of wizards and, as you can probably guess, the wonders they made were only eclipsed by their mistakes, too horrible and numerous to name. As their time was coming to an end some of them realized that though they could not bring back their empires glory they could contain their failures and try to make the future better for everyone else. The Lock Beast's were their solution and it was working very well, sealing away the most cursed of treasures and deadliest monsters. Sadly some wizards used the beasts to selfishly hide away their treasures, worse still other wizards made the Key Swords so that they could plunder the treasures of others or (foolishly) try and harness the power of some of the sealed monsters.  

What the Lock Beast Guards
1 Scrooge McDuck levels of gold
2 lots of money and 1d4 magic items you really want to give your party but haven't had an opportunity to give 
3 a legion of robotic soldiers who will follow anyone that reactivates them though they often misunderstand what you want and only solve problems through extreme violence
4 horrible magical radioactive waste, gives your spells cancer, mutates anything that gets close, will irradiate the whole dungeon in a week and (to a lesser extent) the entire surrounding hex in a month
5 enough zombies to change the genre of your campaign 
6 a dragon that's also a vampire that's also an archangel

 

Where in the dungeon is the Key Sword 
1 sitting on a stone column, the room is full of traps
2 in the hands of another adventuring party, they will definitely try and open the Lock Beast in this dungeon with it, regardless of how many times they are warned that this is a bad idea
3 being held by one of the most powerful denizens of the dungeon who has wisely decided not to open the Lock Beast
4 somewhere among all the junk of some goblins (or similar) who have no idea as to its true worth 
5 inside of the belly of a powerful monster who ate its last wielder
6 broken into multiple pieces, somewhere in the dungeon is a way to recombine them

Monstrous - Dragon

The fourth of my posts on using the book Monstrous to make some cool monsters. 

For inspiration I am using one of the guilds of Ravnica from Magic: the Gathering. Text in italics is from the book, text in bold is my own.

 

 

By Erica Yang

 

 

Dragon - Orzhov - Gold 

 

Vainglory

Although Gold's empire has laid in ruins for ages, Gold's vanity remains undiminished. Gold harbors a deep pride in its nature in being gold itself, leading it to hoard beautiful golden items and goldsmiths held in gilded birdcages. 

Sly heroes can attempt to appeal to this vanity by doing one of the following:

• Convincingly praise Gold with elaborate honorifics specific to Gold's vanity and the history of its former empire
• Present Gold with a fabulous gift appropriate to Gold's hoard 
• Tell Gold a tale about the folly of charity 

One or two failed attempts give Gold the upper hand in attempts to parley with it when using Serpent's Tongue. Further failed attempts will awaken Gold's Slumbering Cataclysm. 

 

Serpent's Tongue

When Gold and a mortal parley, they ask each other a question.

Gold must answer truthfully and even unwisely if the mortal has successfully appealed to Gold's Vainglory. The mortal must make a new appeal to Gold's Vainglory for each additional question they wish to ask. 

The mortal must answer truthfully and even unwisely if they hold any precious metal other than gold, or if they have failed an attempt to appeal to Gold's Vainglory. 

Ruinous Breath

Everything Gold touches comes to ruin, even the food it eats and the air it breathes. When Gold has recently consumed uncountable riches, its expelled breath corrupts and corrodes charity and kindness. 

 

Ageless Scales

Gold is coated with nigh-indestructible scales of pure gold. No mortal weapon can pierce them.

However, Gold's scales are marred by a massive fang of pure silver, the mark of a gruesome battle lost to history. 

Slumbering Cataclysm

When violently awakened from its slumber or moved to great anger, Gold descends upon a mortal civilization and utterly destroys a place of extreme wealth before returning to its lair.

Gold repeats this destructive act on a new target every day thereafter. Its path of destruction can only be ended by slaying Gold or by giving it all the gold in land.

 

By waitbutwhy.com

To be fully honest I am not quite happy with this monster, I have been thinking for a while about what to add to the end of this post and I have decided just to post it, no use in waiting for good ideas that might not come. 

 

 

Getting back to reviewing Monstrous I think the dragon entry is pretty good, the ruinous breath part seems a little weird to me but its fun and flavorful and could probably lead to some interesting situations. The serpents tongue/vainglory is very interesting and gives a nice amount of procedure to dealing with the dragon socially which is actually quite nice. The dragon was definitely one of the better entries in the book.

Monstrous - Chimera

My third post on Monstrous, I'm glad I finally got some time to write on this blog again.

As always I am going to use one of the guilds of Ravnica for inspiration, the text in italics is from the book and text in bold is my own writing. 

 

The Minotaur by George Frederic Watts

 

 

Chimera - Boros - The Revolutionary

 

Pride Goeth

The Revolutionary was once a mortal who forgot their place in the cosmic order, provoking the terrible fury of a powerful tormentor by trying to depose the terrible but divinely chosen King.

  

Tormented Transfiguration

As punishment for their offense, the mortal was transformed into the Revolutionary, featuring the following monstrous alterations to its body:

• A reminder of its lowly station: the body of a starving lion
• A source of constant misery: an iron crown nailed to its head
• A horror that cannot help but unleash on mortals it encounters: a halo of light that blinds and burns
• Its human head weeps tears of molten iron

Inexorable Doom

The Revolutionary is forever doomed to rule over the burnt remains of its kingdom, a sadistic form of "atonement" for the crime against its tormentor.

The tormentor created an obstacle to prevent the Revolutionary from escaping its doom: only when the descendants of the lord truly proclaim it to be a good ruler will it be freed. Not even death can free the Revolutionary from its anguish until this obstacle is overcome. 

 

Afflicted Blood

When the Revolutionary suffers a wound that would be deadly to a mortal, its afflicted blood spills in gouts, causing fire to erupt from the wound. 

Additionally, the Revolutionary can break off a limb or other body part to create a gushing fountain of afflicted blood, which it can channel into one of the following effects: 

• Shape the blood into a magical weapon
• Shoot the blood as a projectile
• Flood a nearby area with the blood

The severed body part regrows over the course of 13 days.  

 

 

The High Wills from Blasphemous

The man who would become the First King was visited by the gods and they said unto him "You shall be King, one for whom others will bow to" and so it was that all others bowed to the First King. When the First King was closest to Death he named his son to be the Second King and the gods were pleased and all rightfully bowed to him who was now the Second King. The line of the gods-chosen kings continued until the 17th King rose to the throne and said "My subjects who loyally served my fathers I ask of you to make me a temple, greater than all before it, one that shall glorify all the gods and myself and it shall be constructed in a year and a day". When a year and a day had come and gone the temple was not completed and the 17th King became enraged and forced his subjects to work under the whip. 

Within the heart of one of the knights of the 17th King pity and disgust took hold. He went to his most loyal subjects and bid them join him in ending the madness of the 17th King and so they did. The knights went to the castle of the 17th King and knowing they could not prevail with strength alone they spread fire and chaos through the castle. When they made it into the 17th King's throne room only the original knight was left and with his sword he committed a grave sin and slew the 17th King. It is said that the only thing louder than the flames that consumed the castle were the screams of the knight as the gods descended upon him.  

 

The blade of the knight can still be found in the ancient and burnt ruins of the castle, still thirsting for the blood of nobles. It is a +1 sword that acts as a +3 vorpal sword against nobility. The sword is also cursed, though the wielder may relinquish the blade at any time they will be relentlessly hunted by its next owner, additionally each month the wielder does not use the blade to kill a noble they lose 1 intelligence and wisdom but gain 1 strength, if this reduces the character to 0 intelligence or wisdom the blade will fully control their body and mindlessly slaughter any royalty it comes across. The blade cannot harm the Revolutionary under any circumstances. 

This one was quite fun to make (despite the fact that it took around half a year to get around to finishing) and the concept is quite strong. Honestly the only part that I find a bit weird about the chimera is the afflicted blood ability where it can make a magical weapon, it doesn't feel like an innate part of the chimera concept unless its supposed to represent something like cutting off Medusa's head and using it or something like a dark souls boss making a sword out of its blood or something? Even with that I still think it's one of the most solid creatures in the whole book, really nailing the vibe of a classical monster. 

Monstrous - Celestial

The third post from Monstrous, Celestials.

As per last time I am going to use one of the guilds of Ravnica for inspiration, the text in italics is from the book and text in bold is my own writing. 

By William Blake

Celestial - Simic - Firstborn

Awesome Presence

Mortal minds struggle to perceive the beautiful and terrible form of the Firstborn. It appears as a multitude of primordial beasts and serpents bound within the frame of ever churning earth and sea.

Common folk who behold the Firstborn for the first time must choose 1 of the following actions before addressing it further

• Make a sacrifice of flesh or gold
• Accept a physical mark of the Firstborn, such as scales, a new mouth on their palm, or brackish water instead of mud
• Have serpents burst forth from their mouth

 

Prophet

The Firstborn's appearance in the world is preceded by the pronouncements of a mortal prophet clad in shed snake skin.

Before they witnessed the Firstborn's divine judgement firsthand, the prophet was a wet nurse for a powerful and deranged wizard.

When the prophet speaks at length about the Firstborn's coming judgement before a rapt crowd, they condemn a specific mortal or group of mortals for their sins and call down a plague of venomous and rabid animals. 

 

Purview

The Firstborn judges and punishes sins of unnaturally changing or creating life.

For those who will listen, the Firstborn warns that their final divine judgement will be executed when the alchemist Robin De Villepin's homunculus speaks its first word.

The Firstborn further instructs that their judgement can only be avoided by burning Robin's manse and making sure none of his books or creations survive, a cruelly difficult task.

Divine Judgement

The punishments dealt by the Firstborn are severe to the point of excess, mirroring the sin with a cruel irony by transforming living beings into chaotic and primordial versions of themselves. The Firstborn begins by judging individual creatures and objects, but its final judgement can affect entire settlements, civilizations, or worlds.

Whatever the Firstborn's verdict, they will choose a new prophet, either a survivor of the cataclysm or a convert who has witnessed the mercy of the gods. The Firstborn will prefer to select a hero, and should they accept, they will receive the gift of prophecy as well as the ability to call down minor plagues. But they may be summoned at any time to herald the next divine judgement.

 

 

Unknown Author

 

Unlike the last two I don't really have much to add to this beast. God/Gods made it as the first living being which is why it is unformed and ever changing and they send it to decimate anyone who tries to copy them.

 

 

Me-Stew

 Me-Stew

 

I have nothing to put in my stew, you see,
Not a bone or a bean or a black-eyed pea,
So I'll just climb in the pot to see
If I can make a stew out of me.
I'll put in some pepper and salt and I'll sit
In the bubbling water--I won't scream a bit.
I'll sing while I simmer, I'll smile while I'm stewing,
I'll taste myself often to see how I'm doing.
I'll stir me around with this big wooden spoon
And serve myself up at a quarter to noon.
So bring out your stew bowls,
You gobblers and snackers.
Farewell--and I hope you enjoy me with crackers!

 

 By Shel Silverstein

 

 

 

By SteelAngelIchigo

 

 

 

This is a Δ template for whatever chef class you have, to be added at your leisure. Read more about them here.

 

(Δ) Me-Stew

 

First you will have to be an excellent chef at least on the level that a king would hire you, then you must do some research. Find holy books relating to self sacrifice and martyrdom and ruminate on them for a week and you will know what must be done. Find a person or something that was a person and watch them eat another with utter refinement, take notes on everything they do. Find another such person and watch them eat another with utter savagery, take notes on everything they do. Find one final such person and watch them eat a piece of you, take notes on everything they do. If you lose any of your notes or are convinced that cannibalism is wrong you must start again.

 

This will kill you, you probably guessed that but it will be worth it, it must be worth it.

 

The first step is to wash yourself. Do not use soap (the oil on your skin is delectable). The water should be between room temperature and lukewarm, hot water will dry you out and cold water will ruin the texture. 

The second step is to get into the cauldron, it must be big enough that if you sit cross legged you will be fully submerged. Fill it with clear water and light a fire underneath it, an assistant will be useful here as from now on you cannot leave the cauldron without ruining the meal.

 

The third step requires a pantry worth of ingredients of the highest quality, this will cost the equivalent of a full suit of plate armor. Prepare the ingredients and toss them in beside you. At this point the water will be boiling but you will not scream, you are too engrossed in your work. Taste yourself too, adjust the spices and be careful not to over salt yourself. This will take 8 hours before you completely boil away, there won't even be bones to fish out. 

 

The fourth step is to serve it of course, the effect of the meal depends on how it is shared. 

• If shared among a community the soup will seem to be never ending, feeding everyone for months. Everyone will love the party of course but the cooking of the community will also change, chefs and cooks will unconsciously start to make the meals that you made or invented, within a few years your works will be widespread. One person from this community will join the party, starting with 1 level in chef and 1 level in another class of the dead chef's player's choice which they can play as.
• If shared among the party the soup will feed everyone for a week, though with such a full stomach you wont be able or willing to do much else for that week. When the party finally finishes the meal they all feel incredible, roll 4d6 drop the lowest for each of your stats in order, if you got higher than the existing stat its value is now the value you rolled, if you got equal to or lower it still goes up by 1. The lifespan of all who consumed it is doubled and they become immune to all mundane diseases.
• If eaten by a single person the soup will last a month but if you don't eat it for every meal (not that hard, it is quite delicious) or let anyone else eat even a drop you lose all benefit from it. After finishing the soup the knowledge of the chef is passed on to you, in only a week you will be as good a chef as your predecessor and you will know what must be done to make Me-Stew (you may use your predecessor's notes). The voice of your predecessor will linger within your mind and you can summon their ghost to act as an assistant when cooking. If you cook yourself into Me-Stew and only a single person eats the soup again both you and your predecessor will be within them, this can be stacked any number of times.
  

Monstrous - Bugs

My second post on Monstrous, this time it's the Bugs. 

As per last time I am going to use one of the guilds of Ravnica for inspiration, the text in italics is from the book and text in bold is my own writing. 

Oh yeah for some reason I can't add images, hopefully some time in the future I can add the images I want. Edit I got images to work by using a different computer!

And one last thing, yes I did change the background, got bored of the old one.

Insectile Aberration by: Nils Hamm

Bug - Dimir - Little Ears

The Great Work

The Little Ears toils endlessly on the Great Work, an ultimately pointless project that will never truly be complete.

Though Little Ears find people as disgusting and irrational as people find them, they do see a certain value in non-Little Ear folk. The Little Ears build and maintain the Molted Markets to trade with mortal folk for the materials they believe will help in the completion of the Great Work.

The Little Ear's grand and absurd goal is the construction of all the information on Daurdec Volbamzu, a task that may be aided by the non-Little Ear folk's information on all people, especially Daurdec Volbamzu (though they almost never ask directly for him).

 

Loathed

Common folk despise the Little Ear, finding its form disgusting and its methods of work unsavory. The Little Ear has 4 large legs and too many smaller ones, a segmented body, and expressionless, alien eyes. In addition, the Little Ear has a disturbingly human mouth, a centipede like tail, and a massive pincer on their tail.

When common folk come into close contact with the Little Ear and every hour they spend in close contact thereafter, they must choose 1 of the following symptoms that they have not chosen before:

• Nausea. They can't eat or drink for a day. They are constantly at risk of vomiting.
• Aversion. They can't touch the Little Ear or anything made by the Little Ear.
• Unsteadiness. They can't properly focus and they lose some eye-hand coordination.
• Antipathy. Forevermore, whenever they are in close contact with a Little Ear, they experience nausea, aversion, and unsteadiness.

As long as they haven't chosen antipathy, the symptoms and the options reset after they have spent a full day away from the Little Ear.

 

Molted Market

The Little Ear helps maintain a Market where their kind trade their masterful wares for goods and services from non-Little Ear folk that might be useful in the completion of the Great Work.

The Market specializes in information on anyone you can think of, unmatched in level of disturbing detail and knowledge of intimate secrets.  

The twisted tunnels and hives of the Little Ears reflect the mazelike structure of their tedious bureaucracy. To enter the Molted Market, the heroes must find the hidden entrance right underneath their own house navigate through seemingly endless corridors, notes scrawled on the walls, and get administrative approval from the one that wears a necklace of preserved humanoid eyeballs.

Although some weirdos seek out goods made by Little Ear, an average person who discovers that an item given to them by the heroes was made by a Little Ear will destroy the item and seek heavy compensation. If they don't get it, they will spread the word that the heroes deal with Little Ears.

By Artistnamedniz

The name is a euphemism, of course, people hate and are terrified of the Little Ears that lurk beneath their floors and listen to every word they say. Sometimes they whisper to children, convince them to ask benign questions of their parents. If you can find one of their holes that they have dug into your home and make it deep within the depths of their hive and act in the right way you can manage to acquire any detail on anyone, no matter how private. Nobody can tell you this but don't mention Daurdec Volbamzu to them, then you won't be seen again.

But why do they do it? Why do they collect information on the lives of entire kingdoms? Nobody knows, but if someone were to go to the deepest parts of their hives where the notes pile up and threaten to crush you they would find the truth. Little Ears are trying to learn as much as they can about Daurdec Volbamzu, who by all appearances is a normal person but he has a secret: he is immortal and has lived many lifetimes at this point. Daurdec has no idea the Little Ears want to learn about him. Little Ears are paranoid and so to throw off suspicion they learn as much as they can about everyone, even those several kingdoms away. 

Nobody knows why they have human mouths or how they learned or tongue so fluently or how to mimic voices so well, but there will always be rumors, here are d6 of them

1 They were people once, they lost their old flesh now only bone remains, if you killed one you would find a full human skeleton
2 They stole them, one at a time, digging under old graveyards so that we don't even notice the missing bodies
3 They are slowly evolving into people, why else would they try and learn so much about us?
4 The Devil made them to torment us, human mouths to spout temptation and blaspheme
5 Wizards, who else would make that
6 This is just what happens when bugs get too clever for their own good

Out of all of the monsters in the book I find the Bugs to be the weirdest, I just don't get them. They seem to be an attempt to make your basic giant spider type enemies more interesting but it goes in a weird direction with the whole bureaucracy and The Great Work, it also feels like it has a lot more concepts thrown into it than a lot of the other entries making it feel a bit bloated and scattered. I still think it is quite well written and the monster it made this time is quite unique. 

Monstrous - The Brute

So it took a while but I finally got access to my physical copy of the book Monstrous by Cloud Curio. It contains some well written mad libs style prompts for making interesting monsters. Some of the prompts are a bit weird and I'm not quite sure how they would work in a game but from just reading it it seams to hold a lot of promise.

I plan on making a post for each monster (there are 10 in total). To help with this I will be using one of the ten guilds of Ravnica from Magic: The Gathering to help inspire each monster. The monster isn't going to be from the Ravnica world or the multiverse of MTG, just going to use the mana combination for some ideas. 

This post is going to contain the first monster I have made using Monstrous, a Brute.

Text in italics is from the book, text in bold is the stuff I filled in. 

 

 

Abrupt Decay by Svetlin Velinov

Brute - Golgari - Life Eater

Blood pact
Long ago, the Life Eaters willingly entered into a Blood Pact with a pact-holder. They swore to obey the pact-holder’s command to kill all beings that try and extend their lifespan
The pact-holder, in turn, harnessed great and terrible sorceries to grant the Life Eaters tough mycelial flesh, rotting acidic spores, and the ability to sense how old something is


Mark of the damned
Whatever noble intentions the Life Eaters might have had for entering into the Blood Pact, the oath eventually became their curse. The bodies of the Life Eaters became warped and beastly, and the gifts they received from the Blood Pact were corrupted.
The curse began when the life eaters turned on their godly creator, killing it.
Now marked by the curse, the Life Eaters spread its evil upon the world. The Life Eaters mark rotting matter by disintegrating it with its spores
Whatever is marked by the Life Eaters becomes more Life Eaters that grow and feast upon the rotting material


Profane aversion
In their cursed state, the Life Eaters cannot abide youth, which they avoid at all cost.
The Life Eaters are also repelled by reminders of their mortal lives before the Blood Pact, which will render them momentarily dazed before they are driven ever deeper into their cursed, beastly state.


Unleashed beasthood
In battle, the Life Eaters are merciless and brutal, leaving their victims melted and decomposing
When the Life Eaters attack with teeth, claws, or weapons, they also choose one of the following enhancements
The attack is entropic, preventing healing both natural and magical for a time
The attack is disfiguring, leaving the target both burned and aged

 

Sporemound by Svetlin Velinov

 

An ancient god of rot and death created the Life Eaters to ensure mortals would not rise above their station and try and unnaturally extend their life. This god made a mistake when creating the Life Eaters, their simple minds were commanded to slay all things which were not mortal or which tried to attain immortality. Being only able to comprehend the word of this law and not its meaning they looked at the world and attacked the oldest thing they could see: the very god that created them. After this shocking betrayal the other gods cast them to the mortal world where they could not touch them.

Now loosed upon the material plane they live without much purpose. Given a crippling fear of youth as a failed fail safe they only live in the most foul or barren regions of the world, slowly turning them into an acidic hellscape. The Life Eaters are horrible menaces, often killing the elderly and healers in their misguided attempt to stop the immortal. 

Despite these facts some still seek them out either for knowledge (for they know precisely how old something is) or for help against immortal foes (for though they are quite sedentary they can be roused if you manage to convince them). If one wishes to do this your greatest weapon against a Life Eater will be a newborn as they cannot stand its youth and will do anything for you to take it away.

So far Monstrous has been quite a fun book to use and it has lead me to some ideas I don't think I would have found without it. 

You should be able to get a PDF of Monstrous on Itch.io and it looks like physical copies might be available some time in the future if you missed the kickstarter but I don't have any details on that.