Original DF Monster Ideas

[vitruvian]

Okay, this is the new thread for everybody to chime in with ideas for *original* (even if closely inspired or serial numbers filed off to some degree) monsters for Dungeon Fantasy. Think in terms of things that would make interesting dungeon (or wilderness) encounters, either singly or in groups. Either sketches or full writeups welcome, and please, if based even loosely on something in another game, make at least some small twist on the idea.

Here are my first three, from the "Future of DF Fantasy" thread:

1) Stoneworms - gigantic (yard across, 8 to 10 yard long) earthworm-like creatures that have a Fixed Magic version of Earth to Air and/or Earth to Water at a high enough level that they are not fatigued by tunneling through a cubic yard of stone each turn. They tend to leave round tunnels a yard in diameter, winding aimlessly and slick with bits of mud, water, and worm excrement, in whatever area they frequent, sometimes undermining the foundations of whole dungeon levels. They get most of their nutrition from the stone they convert to mud as they tunnel, but if attacked or especially hungry they can definitely do some damage with their circular jaws. Some tribes of dwarves and kobolds may have discovered the secret of 'taming' these creatures to help them with their mining operations. Others may lay down poison for what they see as major pests, prone to consuming whole seams of precious metal ores. ST 15-20, DX 9, IQ 3, HT 12, Basic Speed and Move 3 (surprisingly fast!), Tunneling Move 1 (magically transforms one cubic yard per turn of earth or stone to air, mud, or water, as most convenient), DR 2, Injury Tolerance: Homogenous (well, they're nearly so!), Bite at 9- for 1d+1 Cutting.

2) Goldeaters aka Drossmakers - These strange little crab-like creatures are the bane of treasure-seeking dungeon delvers. Although frequently warded away by simple pest control spells around any significant store of treasure, once the adventurers remove the gold or other precious items from storage, the goldeaters can detect and zero in on it with swift precision, congregating from every hidden corner of the dungeon. While not personally dangerous unless you have gold pieces too close to sensitive areas of your skin, they can be quite annoying as they swarm up your body to chew through pack or pouch leather and get at the shiny tasty, gold. They leave behind little lead pellets whenever they get a good meal....

3) Trapdoor Horror - This may be a species of giant trapdoor spider, although according to some accounts it has too many legs that are too flexible and too many eyes suspended on longish eyestalks. In any case, like the trapdoor spider but at a much larger scale, this creature builds a hiding space for itself in floor, wall, or even ceiling, concealed by a cunningly contrived false stone (or actual stone pasted together with creature saliva) trapdoor. Sensitive to vibrations, it jumps out to gather in its prey just as it gets within inches of the trapdoor - roll to detect a Trap at a significant negative TDM, or to Dodge if not surprised, or get snagged by at least 4 to 6 hooked, tentacular arms, dragged into the alcove by a ST 20-30 creature, and then slowly nibbled to death.

[vitruvian]

4) Fisher of Men/Headhunter - this monstrosity, when seen in full, looks like a huge (12' to 18', SM 2 to 3) lobsterlike thing with a eight scuttling legs, a large grinding maw on the bottom of its steel-like carapace, softly glowing eyes on antenna stalks, and at least a dozen many-jointed appendages rising from the top of the body. That's not all, though - at any given time 1d6+1 of these nasty clawed arms will be tipped with the heads of humanoids (humans, elves, goblinoids, any type that has been in the dungeon) that the creature has killed and eaten. What's worse, the heads appear to be alive, with open, staring eyes, and garbled, unintelligible, whispering voices. The Headhunter consumes the rest of the body, then inserts the ends of its claws into the base of the brain and is able to manipulate the head until it decays too greatly. With great effort, the horrible beast can even make its captive heads mimic the speech patterns used while alive, in an effort to draw more prey closer to where they can be snatched and eaten as well.

It is conceivable that a severed head could, with a Will roll at at least -10, 'awaken' with the personality of the person it came from, and even be able to cast spells that don't require gestures or speech (the Headhunter controls the flow of air into the larynx, making independent speech impossible). Of course, as soon as the beast realizes that one of its grisly trophies won't puppet properly, it is likely to make a tasty snack out of it.

Edit: As somebody later pointed out, what I thought was a pretty original idea seems to be based on a half-remembered entry from an old Runequest supplement - Gloranthan Bestiary or some such.

[sjmdw45]

(Wow, the Headhunter is grisly cool.)

A Colony Crab may appear, on first glance, to be a large (4' to 6' long) stony shellfish with huge pincers and a blindly aggressive disposition. A successful Per roll reveals that its form is curiously jagged and blocky, like a crude sculpture (or a creature constructed out of Lego blocks, if a delver has ever seen a Lego block).

A Colony Crab is not, in fact, a single creature. It is a crab-shaped amalgamation of hundreds of stony-headed fish called Colony Trout. When nutrition becomes scarce in the underground lakes which they frequent, the fish come together and form themselves into Colony Crabs in order to hunt for prey on land. Each fish's head, facing outward, becomes part of the armored integument, and their tails intertwine to provide what is effectively solid muscle fiber.

Colony Crabs are notorious (in locales where they are found) for both their strength and resilience, and their poor taste. Worse than ground sloth, if you can believe it.

Key stats

ST 16 (4' crabs) to 24 (6' crabs)
DX 13
IQ 1 (Per 8)
HT 13 (4' crabs) to 12 (6' crabs)
DR 5
Dmg. thr +3 cut
Injury Tolerance: Diffuse
Extra Attack 1
Blind
Brawling (15)
Blind-fighting (11)

A failed death check represents a failure of the aggregate nervous system. Individual Colony Trout may still be alive and wriggling, but the Colony Crab itself disintegrates into a mass of slippery fish bodies.

-Max

[LoneWolf23k]

Here's my idea, loosely inspired by the Beholder.

The Orbiteye: A gigantic floating sphere with one large eye on on side, it is constantly surrounded by anywhere from three to a dozen smaller floating and orbiting around it. These eyes not only grant it 360 degree vision, it allows it to fire blasts of magical energy at anything it sees. It is completly sustained by ambiant magic, and will wither and die if in an area devoid of Mana.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I want to create the Exploding Prootwaddle I had in my first TFT campaign. Prootwaddles were about the stupidest sentients in the setting, and the exploding variety was enchanted to explode (with force roughly equal to a keg of gunpowder) when struck.

One could substitute any less-intelligent sentient being for the Prootwaddle in the enchantment; key to the thing is that the critter had no idea it was a bomb and would act as though it wasn't (even wading into combat).

[Lonewulf]

I'm slowly listing these out in the GURPS World's Largest Dungeon, assuming I have your permission. If you don't wish it to go up, please remove it and PM me or say you don't wish it in this thread. Or just tell me, and I'll remove it myself, naturally.

My end goal is to have all of your monsters available for anyone to see.

I'm only copy/pasting what you put in here first, but I intend to put them in stat blocks later. If anyone here is willing to put them in stat blocks like the other monsters, that would be appreciated, but it is not demanded or required.

[Phantasm]

Here's a particular nasty I came up with for my Ranoc setting. Feel free to reduce to a basic critter stat block.

Hell Hound
0 points

Hell hounds are the demonic pets of the demonic planes. They are savage creatures, delighting in killing and eating their enemies. Mortal mages often summon them as guard animals or attack creatures. Because of their demonic nature, they can be held at bay through the wielding of holy symbols, and can be damaged by silver and holy water.

Hell hounds appear as large, jet-black dogs with glowing red eyes, extremely sharp teeth, sharp claws on all four legs, and sharp, bony spines running along their backs. Most stand about 4 feet high at the shoulder, are around 6 feet long from snout to hindquarters, and weigh about 150-200 pounds of pure, demonic muscle.

Attributes: ST 15 (No Fine Manipulators, -40%) [30]; DX 14 (No Fine Manipulators, -40%) [48]; IQ 4 [-120]; HT 14 [80].
Secondary Characteristics: Dmg 1d+1/2d+1; BL 45 lbs; HP 15 [0]; Will 4 [0]; Per 14 [50]; FP 14 [0]; Basic Speed 7 [0]; Basic Move 10 [15].
Advantages: Absolute Direction [5]; Acute Hearing 2 [4]; Acute Taste/Smell 3 [6]; Claws (Sharp Claws) [5]; Combat Reflexes [15]; DR 2 (Tough Skin, -40%) [6]; Discriminatory Smell [15]; Enhanced Dodge +2 [30]; Enhanced Move 1-1/2 (Ground Move 30) [30]; Fit [5]; Flexibility [5]; High Pain Threshold [10]; Regeneration (Regular) [25]; Spines (Short Spines) [1]; Teeth (Sharp Teeth) [1]; Ultrahearing [5]; Universal Digestion [5].
Perks: Fur [1].
Disadvantages: Chummy [-5]; Dread (Holy Symbols) [-10]; Fragile (Unnatural) [-50]; Frightens Animals [-10]; Impulsiveness (6) [-20]; Lifebane [-10]; Light Sleeper [-5]; Odious Racial Habit (Eats Enemies) [-15]; Quadruped [-35]; Supernatural Feature (No Body Heat) [-5]; Vulnerability to Silver (Occasional, ×4) [-40]; Weakness (Holy Water; Rare; 1d/minute) [-10]; Wild Animal [-30].
Skills: Brawling (E) DX+2 [4] - 16.
Active Defenses: Dodge - 13; Parry (Brawling) - 12.

[blacksmith]

I have a interesting idea for demonicaly infested foes, the interesting part is that they eat their way through the body while excreeting substances to increase healing rate and strength.

At higher rates of infestation, they attack nearby foes on their own as well.

[Lonewulf]

*Copy/Paste, Copy/Paste, Copy/Paste, Copy/Paste*


Oh yeah, baby. I'm so lazy.

Note: I apologize, but I didn't bother to attribute which monster was thanks to which poster.

I will do so now.


If I miss anyone in the credits, please edit accordingly. I really don't want to be the only person working on this. :)

[vitruvian]

I'm slowly listing these out in the GURPS World's Largest Dungeon, assuming I have your permission. If you don't wish it to go up, please remove it and PM me or say you don't wish it in this thread. Or just tell me, and I'll remove it myself, naturally.

Hey, public forum as far as I'm concerned. Just as long as you go back and get those attributions, and nobody tries to turn a profit on these guys (or sue me if I actually use my own in a published novel some day).