Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

JimLotFP wrote:

Just starting a topic here so I have someplace to direct people who want to share.

Here's one I did but didn't submit as it was too gamma world/Numenera-y:

Targeted Nano Load

This will be found within a corpse of some kind and will adhere and be absorbed into any human that gets within a few inches. It's original design was to move from various hosts, keeping them alive in the process, to it's target and assassinate based on the target's genetic code.  This set of nano machines is in error as their original target is long since dead and they simply moves from host to host.

Upon infection, the character gains 18 constitution and heals 1 HP per round, regardless of the severity of injuries. Injuries healed have a hexagonal lattice across the flesh upon close inspection. However, when 25 HP have been healed in this manner, the nanobots run out of material unless the character eats quantities of silicon dioxide (they won't know this but may have compulsion to do so on account of the machines, they will never consciously know--just have a compulsion to eat dirt of some kind, loam, quartz). The healed areas, overtime, begin to break down if there is no ingestion of quartz.  The character cannot heal normally ever again.

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

The Spores of a Fallen Star

Ten years ago, an asteroid fell about a mile away from a small backwater village. This “fallen star”, as
the peasants called it, bore spores of an alien fungus, which survived the crash. Soon, a strange
mushroom of a greenish purple color started growing where the asteroid had landed. At first, the
villagers did not notice the mushroom's appearance, but over the years, it grew to gigantic proportions,
until it became visible from the village's fields. By and large, the peasants were wary of the alien
mushroom and, suspecting witchcraft was to blame for its growth, dared not approach it, but a few
curious, brave or foolish ones went close enough to see it. By their accounts, it had now grown to a
height of over ten feet, and smelled of a sweet yet unknown odor. Herbalists and other scholars came to
the village to examine the fungus every now and then, but none could identify it. Indeed, there were no
others of its kind on our world. All of them agreed that the mushroom was harmless, but there was one
thing they never guessed.

The mushroom's roots had grown far and wide underneath the earth, and last year, they reached the
village's fields. The roots contaminated the land under which they had spread. All food grown on the
blighted land infected the adult males with a peculiar disease. The sick would not suffer any symptoms
at all, and would not even notice they were ill in any way, until they conceived a child. Indeed, within a
year after their birth, the body of the diseased men's offspring would dissolve into a sentient, flesheating,
greenish purple ooze. Quite a few of these abominations appeared throughout the village in the
last several weeks, driving their parents to despair and insanity, and the population at large to panick
and violence, until most of the people left their cursed village, never to return. Only the poorest of the
poor remained, having nowhere to go, to fend off the ooze creatures coming out of the fallen star's
crater after nightfall. Some of the remaining women are pregnant, and nobody knows what to do about
them, let alone that the men among them are to blame. They correctly suspect the alien mushroom is
the cause of their village's woes, but those who tried to destroy it never came back...

Any adult male who eats food grown on the contaminated fields must make a saving throw versus
Poison or contract the disease described above. Sick characters will not know that they are sick, and iff
asked, will insist that they are feeling fine. Any child they conceive next will become an ooze creature
1d6+6 months after their birth. The mushroom itself is just that, a huge, ten foot tall greenish purple
mushroom. It is immune to all damage from cold- or fire-based attacks, as well as blunt weapons such
as maces, clubs and hammers. All other attacks will cause damage as normal. Once a day, usually after
suffering damage, it will blow a cloud of spores upon all characters within melee range, who will be
forced to make a saving throw versus Poison to avoid breathing the spores (characters who cover their
mouth and nose in advance are safe and do not need to roll). Those who breathe the spores will be
forced to defend the mushroom, going as far as fighting to the death to protect it from destruction.
Victims can make another saving throw if their comrades restrain and try to reason with them. The
mushroom is a Chaotic entity, and reacts to magic and holy water accordingly.

The ooze creatures share the same immunities and weaknesses as the mushroom, but they do not blow
spore clouds when damaged. They are also Chaotic entities, and react to magic and holy water in the
same ways as the mushroom. During the day, they gather around the mushroom, and prowl the village
at night in search of prey.

The Alien Mushroom: Armor 15, Move 0', 6 Hit Dice, 20hp, Morale 12, Alignment Chaotic. Spore
cloud once a day, 10' radius. Infect land, 1 mile radius. Immune to blunt weapons and cold- or firebased
attacks. 500xp.

The Ooze Creatures (3d10): Armor 15, Move 60', 2 Hit Dice, 10hp, digestive secretion 1d6, Morale 6,
Alignment Chaotic. Immune to blunt weapons and cold- or fire-based attacks. 50xp each

(Posting this kinda late. I thought I did, but I guess I never got around to it tongue )

Last edited by barondutremblay (2015-09-10 05:47:04)

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

JimLotFP wrote:
Falcatta wrote:

Will the new Ref Book expand on the Grindhouse edition's advice on creating unique monsters for one's games? I thought I'd read there may be more monster creation tools...

Yes, there will be a full-scale monster generator.



How will the Ref Book's monster generator differ, say, from the Random Esoteric Creature Generator?

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

Falcatta wrote:
JimLotFP wrote:
Falcatta wrote:

Will the new Ref Book expand on the Grindhouse edition's advice on creating unique monsters for one's games? I thought I'd read there may be more monster creation tools...

Yes, there will be a full-scale monster generator.



How will the Ref Book's monster generator differ, say, from the Random Esoteric Creature Generator?

The RECGFCFRPGATMS spits out mostly physical D&D-ish monsters. Owlbears and fishfoxes that suggest ecologies and all that, with some outlying possibilities of strange stuff. The new monster generator focuses on the weirdshit WTF impossibilities worthy of creatures from other dimensions.

Also, less rolls resulting in quicker creation.

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

Might as well post mine.

The Broken Glass

Armor 14 (12 if grappled or otherwise restrained), Movement 120', Hit Dice 4, Slashing Glass attack doing 1d6 damage at up to 20' range, Morale 12, Takes the consciousness of those slain to serve as apparitions, 1 in 4 chance of surprise

This creature appears to made of shards of broken glass tied together with bits of wire.  When moving, the creature seems to take on a shape with a vaguely discernible body, head, and limbs.  It moves absolutely silently.  It attacks by lashing out with glass, the wire tied to the shards allowing it to reach out up to twenty feet away.  If it grapples or is grappled by a creature, it deals 1d3 points of damage per round to any and all creatures grappling it.

If the Broken Glass is within sixty feet of a creature when that creature dies, it imbues the consciousness of the dead creature within one of its glass shards and may summon a ghostly reflection of that creature.  Unlike the Broken Glass, these reflections can make noise and speak, and can communicate telepathically with the Broken Glass.  These reflections willingly serve the Broken Glass, attack as 1 hit die creatures, and drain one level of experience on each attack.  These reflections cannot be attacked directly.

The glass shards of the Broken Glass containing the consciousness of a dead creature glint with an odd light.  If a shard is successfully hit with a called shot (Armor 16), the apparition disappears as the dead creature's consciousness is released.

If the Broken Glass is killed while it still houses at least one dead creature's consciousness, a randomly determined consciousness is drained from a shard to reanimate the Broken Glass and the Broken Glass knits itself together in 2d6 rounds, fully healed.

It is unknown where the Broken Glass came from originally, but it does seem to understand spoken languages that its reflections speak.  It seems to take the counsel of the reflections on actions it takes.

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

Goblinshenchman wrote:

To my mind, there is a place for monsters like orcs in RPGs, they are like the Storm Troopers in Star Wars movies. They are the canvas that makes the big baddy like Darth Vader look better.  If every Storm Trooper was a Darth Vader then where do you go from there?  Likewise, you can't have a comedy that is one punchline after another, and where each punchline must be funnier than the last.
...
PS – Dragons do give me joy!!

I think you may misunderstand the prime reason for the absence of henchmonsters. Why do you think the soldiers of Sauron are pig-faced, decaying hunks of pure evil? Why do you think the Stormtroopers wear identical armor and masks? It's to make them non-human, faceless and fair game for extermination.

Orcs are monsters not in a sense of "evoking horror and dread". They are monsters in a sense of "unworthy of mercy or compassion". When was the last time you experienced horror and dread from an orc (in a way that stemmed from it being an orc as opposed to a human savage or robber)? Probably when you first read the Hobbit when you were 11 or something.

In fact, having orcs makes the situation far LESS horrific and dreadful, as it removes the horror of murder - turning it into, well, pest control.

LotFP monsters are monsters in a sense of "oh my God help me, how can such a thing even exist", and "I shall never be free of the nerve-gripping terror from what I have seen", and not in a sense of "my lawful good paladin procerds to go from hut to hut, killing them all... WHAAT,  come on, they are just orcs".

Re: Rejected LotFP Referee Book Monster Submissions

If I were to write The Broken Glass again, aside from correcting some typos that escaped editing, I'd include a "How to Use" section.

Let's say the party comes upon a village that is dead silent.  When the party checks the homes, they find nothing but corpses; some obviously hacked to death, but others look to have died of a very advanced age.  Some of these aged corpses, by height and proportion, look to be very old children.  Upon coming to the center of town, the party spots many, many ghostly apparitions wandering around a thing made of wire and broken glass.

The ref has several options for interpreting what happened and what The Broken Glass really is:

1. A creature actively hostile and predatory toward thought, this is its most recent stop on a cross-dimensional trip of killing sapient creatures and digesting their consciousness.  The apparitions move as if being pulled by strings, and their faces contort in obvious pain.  Every once in awhile, they appear to scream silently as the creature pulls out and consumes one of their memories, gaining their knowledge.  They can only actually make noise when permitted to by the creature.  When The Broken Glass is sufficiently dismembered, it can just choke down one unfortunate mind to reanimate itself.  The apparitions surrounding it will slowly disappear over the course of several weeks as the last parts of their mind are consumed by the creature.

2. A communal mind of sorts, the creature is actively controlled by the last mind it drained from a shard to reanimate.  The mind controlling the creature really does take the counsel of each of the minds in its shards, and they're happy to do so (for the most part, anyway).  Not only do these minds no longer have physical ailments, they no longer have the swath of brain chemicals that deal with fear, anger, grief, depression, and other negative emotions.  Instead, their presence in the shards has them tend toward a state of calmness or happiness with little variance.  This is for the best, as they all now have access to the memories of each other, which allows The Broken Glass to coordinate and think far faster than any mortal creature.  The minds of these shards, for the most part, are enjoying their new pain-free, immortal existence, and they would like their friends and family to enjoy said existence as well.  If a PC knew one of these apparitions in life, there's a good chance they may actively be sought out by The Broken Glass to be absorbed.  Reducing The Broken Glass to 0 hit points kills the controlling mind, which causes lament from the now perfectly empathetic apparitions, as they've all lost a piece of themselves.  There are only so many shards that The Broken Glass possesses.

3. Something else I hadn't thought of.