30 Days of D&D Challenge: Catchup Day 15-20

 Lots of monster categories and favorites to go through.  The lack of Giant or Golem category is fairly disappointing as both of these iconic D&D monsters have plenty of variations to argue over.   Since I have another wedding this weekend I'll be posting Day 20 a day early as well.

Previous entries can be found here:

Tandem Monsters: Daigol and Ozmone

Two freak storms weekend after weekend knocking out power for miles around sure is making it difficult to maintain an regular update schedule.


One thing I've always found intriguing is monsters that work well in tandem, whose abilities complement each other (often in tactical ways) or a pair that mitigate the weaknesses of each other.  These can lead to some interesting and memorable encounters.  This time we're going to look at two monsters that are distinctly opposite and are quite capable of covering each others vulnerabilities.  In fact, the key to defeating them is to divide and conquer.

Demon's Souls Penetrator Sculpture by futantshadow

A to Z Challenge: P is for Peryton

Peryton by Una Woodruff in the book Inventorum Natura

I'm pressed for time so today will be a short post.

The Peryton is one of my favorite D&D monsters yet it is so often underused.  To me the Peryton makes for an excellent random encounter in the wilderness for two main reasons.  First off, many animals in fantasy are portrayed as benevolent majestic creatures, the Peryton of course is not but your players likely don't know that.  Secondly, Perytons are a great alternative to the Griffin and a perfect lead-in to "Mad scientist is splicing together animals in woods" if you're avoiding Perytons as strange elder beasts mythology.

For the first reason let's explore why these guys are great for a random encounter.  Your players likely don't know about these obscure creature as they aren't very prominent in D&D or common cultural mythology.  It has the body of a deer and the wings of a bird, not too frightening.  If anything it might appear inviting for any would be naive druids.  Contrast that with the Griffin who has the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, quite a vicious beast.  So your players will more than likely approach this creature out of curiosity or friendship.  Unfortunately for them, Perytons crave human hearts.  Rather than play them conventionally, using trickery regarding there human shadows, I think it'd be best to have the Peryton appear docile until it is ready to strike and carry off it's prey (a straggler.)  Now your players will have a newfound wariness of woodland creatures and you just got another excuse to throw a weird magical beast into your game of sword and sorcery.  Hurrah!

A to Z Challenge, H is for Homard

Today will be another monster post.  Homard is french for Lobster and I'm of the opinion that Lobsters are an extremely underutilized in D&D's monster ecology.  Lobsters have giant claws, can escape quickly and most interestingly:

Longevity

(. . .) It has been argued that lobsters may exhibit negligible senescence and some scientists have claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely, barring injury, disease, capture, etc.[12] Their longevity allows them to reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness World Records, the largest lobster was caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, and weighed 20.15 kilograms (44.4 lb).  --Wikipedia

A to Z Challenge, G is for Ghouls!

by DavidRapozaArt

After Delta created a poll on which aspects (history lesson ahoy!) of Ghouls he should keep in his Book of War I realized how much fun Ghouls were as a monster.  Or at least, I realized how much fun it would be to sick these undead maulers on my players.  Here's how Ghouls are run in my game of 3d6 D&D, feel free to try them out in your game.  Fortunately for me they are going to kick off the upcoming session of my LL game.


Ghastly Ghouls

• 3 HD creature & 3 attacks a round (claw, claw bite), each dealing a d6 of damage
• Rend  
• If both claws hit the target the Ghouls goes in for the kill and immediately deals 1d6 Wounds
• If the Ghouls is grappling with the target they automatically rend when they lose  that round of grappling
• Paralysis
• If the Ghoul bites the target and deals a Wound they must Save vs Paralysis or be paralyzed for 1d6 minutes
• If grappling the Ghouls bite attack deals damage to Wounds whenever they win that round of grappling
• Feast
• If the Ghouls has fed recently they move faster than normal
• If the Ghouls has fed recently it can only be killed by a called shot to the head
• Otherwise it will claw and bite regardless of limbs or damage
• Morale & Turning
• Ghouls merely wait at the edge of a Turn attempt rather than flee
• Ghouls are immune to morale effects if they have the hunger
• The hunger also decreases intelligence and thus tactics (flanking is the best they can achieve)
• Sunlight Blindness
• They are blinded anytime they are experienced to bright light for the round
• If the light persists they have a -1/die to hit (-3 typically)