Monster: Dhakaron's Scourge

     I love rolling up some details about a monster and just letting it tell its own story as I work out how all these pieces fit together. I love doing this with a friend even more. Usually I drag my partner into that and we have a great time doing that. there is something nice about sitting down and doing a die drop town or working out a monster or story together at the table. This time, I dragged another person into it! Going by the handle Wargles, he's a great writer and this time we sat down, rolled out the monster, and discussed the details of how the pieces fit together. Then we both took our notes back to our home systems and wrote this thing out, him in D&D 5e and myself in DCC. That is how we got this week's post. I really recommend this, it's fun to work out the details with someone else and have someone to bounce stuff off of. 

I'm actually relieved to get one of these shorter posts out this week, I've been working on a project lately that is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Good news in the direction of the Hodas Zines, keep an eye out for more news on that front. For now, here is my version of the monster I rolled up with a friend. 

 

Dhakaron's Scourge 

Monster: Steam-Blood of the Sandbars

     Haven't done one of these in a while, despite how much I love making monsters. This time we got away from the usual method of tinkering with something that comes from the Monster extractors. (Not that they aren't great sources! Seriously, check them out, they are PWYW). Instead we got our hands on a bit of an old book that we only recently stumbled on: The Random Esoteric Creature Generator! This book goes all the way back to 2008 which feels so far away now.

    So this time we moved through the tables in this book and got our flavors and abilities of the monster, then put it all together. It has a lot of the bones of DCC, use monsters once, don't give them proper names for your PCs to call them. call them things like "achie's folly" or "the beast in the dunes", and other great advice. You can really feel the philosophy of the future of DCC in this book and it's a great time. 

But this isn't a review, the title of the post says there is a monster here! Here it is for you:

Steam-Blood of the Sandbars

Monster: The Thought Collector

     It sure feels like it's been a while since I've done a monster post! A lot of long winded discussion style posts but not a lot of the usual immediately usable monsters, magic items, and classes I really enjoy putting out. So this week we are going to get back into monsters a little with the Thought collector!

 

    The thought collector can be a good hazard on a recent battlefield, or even a threat that shows up in the middle of a fight and potentially wants to claim the memories of a fallen party member before the body can be rolled over. If using this to make the idea of leaving a body behind to come back and roll over later less appealing I would suggest that there are signs of it's presence in the area before it shows up. Corpses who clearly died from one wound but then later got a fresher wound in the head should be plenty. Used in this way it can put pressure on recovering a body right away. If showing up in the middle of a fight it becomes an element that might not immediately be known and could put a little more fear into PCs, pushing them to really consider how much they want to risk.

 The Thought Collector

Monster: Bones of Balance

 This week we come back with another monster! It feels like it's been too long since I made one and the recent talk of undead and spirits got me in the mood to work on an undead.

    The below monster is a result of mechanics based on Monster Extractor II. I cannot overstate how much I love these tables to get the creative juices flowing. It gives such a good guideline to start with. 

    When using the monster extractors I strongly reccomend that you tweak your results as you go and pick and choose things you think work better than what you might have rolled. Let the monster come to you and stick with your gut as you roll out options.

 The Bones of Balance 

Monster: The Pulsecrawler

     In Hodas, deep underground deeper than where the deepest mines of man reach, is a place where even the dwarves refuse to settle. The Wurmways stretch or across the entire world in a confusing and ever changing network of tunnels and grottos, created by massive burrowing wurms. Kobold nomads walk these passageways and know their dangers and local fauna. One such creature they encounter in these passages is the Pulsecrawler. To them, it is something to be avoided, the tunnels it leaves behind are false paths and if you respect it, it will leave you alone. Harass it at your own peril.  

The Pulsecrawler

The Red Promise

     A few sessions ago the party fought a small time boss in the crime ridden part of a city they have long forgotten they traveled to. For them, this was just another day as an adventurer, slaying foes, getting paid, leaving before the consequences catch up to them or become readily apparent. 

    They left their foe alive after he surrendered, they expected that to be the end of it. They would leave the area and he wouldn't be able to reach them, even if he could somehow rebuild his empire. While in his darkest moment, when he swears revenge on the party, a voice comes to him from the darkest corner of the alley they left him in. It offers the power to get revenge, the cost is his soul... but if he gets his revenge? His soul is free and clear, the demon in the shadow will take the party's souls instead. To keep things interesting, and because demons just love being bastards, there are rules, no harm can come to those who aren't directly connected to the party. 

    Most people would turn away, even the angriest among us would surely value our own soul and autonomy more than revenge, right? Every now and then someone takes that deal, someone who has something darker in them than most of us. This is when a Red Promise is born.

     The way I recommend  using this monster, and the way I have, is to make the PC's past come back to haunt them in some way. They leave behind a trail of bodies and an absolute mess in the last settlement they stop by and someone is going to be left alive to blame them. PCs don't always stay in the same place, the nature of being an adventurer usually means seeking out new horizons and traveling further from home than anyone else in your village. They make enemies as they do this, leave loose ends. These are the sources of the Red Promise at my table.

 The Red Promise 

Brass Featherguard

Art by Lex Cazimi

 This week we've got a monster created for Hodas but usable anywhere. They are great for ambushing PCs and catching them unawares using one of my favorite tropes, statues or art that animates to attack. 

 

Brass Featherguard 

The Reconciliant

Art by: Lex Cazimi

This week I workshopped an undead using one of my favorite tools,
The Monster Extractor 2. The result is a strange type of undead that will not rest until it reconciles with its enemy. Heavily inspired by the revenant, it acts as a kind of inversion: instead of seeking vengeance, it seeks peace. That twist creates its own challenges for an adventuring party. Encountering one can turn into an unexpected side quest, or a haunting distraction from whatever the party thought they were doing.

 

The Reconciliant  

The Kelpwright

     Deep under the oceans of Hodas a horror lurks, stripping entire regions of resources as it attempts to keep itself moving for as long as it can. The Kelpwright is a danger to those adventurers brave enough to search below the waves for treasure. Already out of their element, the Kelpwright is a reminder that the world beneath the waves is a hostile and alien world.

 

Art by: Lex Cazimi

 

 

 

 

 The Kelpwright

Monster: Ghastdrake

     Today's entry is another monster for the Hodas Monster Compendium that we hope to someday publish. 

    The Ghastdrake is meant to create a little bit of adventure just by having it's presence in an area, leaving behind treasure pellets to encourage the players to hunt them down, creating undead in the places they scavenge their meals from, they really make a mess of the local area, the perfect job for adventurers. 

 

The Ghastdrake 

The Echo Servant

     This week we have a monster courtesy of the Monster Extractor IV! As always I cannot endorse this enough! It is such a wonderful play aid to quickly get something you can shape into your monster.

     Today's monster is the Echo Servant. formerly household servants in an empire that once covered much of the world and lived in absolute decadence. Now, the Echo Servant is freed from it's masters and yet still trying to fill it's programming. 

 

The Echo Servant 

The Falsemate

 This weeks Tuesday post is another monster entry being added to our growing bestiary, hopefully to be published some day.

The Falsemate is something of an alien creature that slips in among bandits, brigands, pirates, raiders, and highwaymen and pretends to be one of them until it finds something interesting to add to it's horde. It's presence in your games means that those bandits who accost the party might have one of these horrors walking among them and not even know it. 

 

The Falsemate 

Powder Walker

    "It does not hunt. It does not hate. It walks. And behind it, the world dies screaming." -Anonymous survivor

    The Powder Walker is a monster I made with some friends after making some baseline stuff on the Monster Extractor III. It started as just a big monster but eventually turned into a whole walking ecological disaster.

    My suggestion for use with this is to use it for a series of escalating encounters. Powderlings show up and seem to be nothing more than strange monsters that fight in packs. As the players follow the trail back to the source they start to find remnants of eggs and ruins, allowing them to pick up the trail of the Powder Walker itself. as they draw closer to it, the source they would start to encounter swarms, even having a chance to save a few villagers and towns people who survived the attack from the walker (maybe even pick them up as retainers who want revenge). Finally the players could get their first glimpse of the Powder walker itself, the towering threat and hopefully do some planning to bring this thing down

     The Powder Walker could be a little mini arc or adventure in a larger campaign, something that has to be dealt with or is used to eat up precious time when other matters are pressing (or to give the judge a little more time to plan out material)

 

The Powder Walker

The Retriever

 This one was rolled up by some friends a long time ago. I can barely remember what we discussed as we made it. Loved creating our own little weird dogs in the setting. Just another entry from “Monsters of Hodas”

 

The Retriever 

Aether cat

 A while back i generated this monster with my friends using some cards and tables to come up with it’s different themes. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while and finally got to use it in my most recent campaign, the players found it in a minotaur clanhold hunting the mogs that had taken over the place. They befriended it and it assisted them in dealing with the mog king. 

 

AEthercat 

Bladed Viper

 Not long ago I posted a campaign diary and mentioned a monster called a bladed viper that the party fought. This monster was created a long time ago and I never really had an excuse to use it. Finally getting to use it I had a good time and want to share it with you!

 

Bladed Viper 

Vengeance Ram

 I love random tables, I love making things from tables and work-shopping them with friends. The Vengeance Ram is the product of the Monster Extractor I, a great tool to get the creative juices flowing and start building out a monster. 

Vengeance Ram 

Portal Guardian

 My wife and i started a project to make our own little bestiary for my setting so we started to roll on charts and tables and talk with our friends. The Portal guardian is one of these creatures. Funny little guys that wizards produce to protect the portals they leave lying around or just the entrance to their home.

 

Portal Guardian