#arduin

[oldschoolfrp]

Troy Hughes cover art for Alarums & Excursions issue 30, January 1978. One notable article this month was "The Perrin Conventions" by Steve Perrin, describing his house rules for D&D that were adopted by many DMs and contributed to his development of Runequest. Also included were "The Arduin Chronicles" by Dave Hargrave, "Computers and Fantasy Gaming" by Barry Gold, rules for a "Musketeer Class" by Rand Freeman and Randy McMillin, and a couple of contributions by Steve Marsh.

[thecreaturecodex]

Nascent Demon Lord, Carchanore

Image © @chimeride

[Sponsored by @crazytrain48, from Arduin. Carchanone is one of the Arduin demons with the wildest appearances, but relatively little flavor text. Which inspired me to go off in my own direction, tying into some of my favorite topics in Pathfinder, such as the economy of souls and belief, the qlippoth/demon cold war and the machinations of divinities. The mouths in the claws are borrowed from another Arduin archfiend, Gorog-Nor the Hungry One.]

Carchanore The Death Mole, The Burrower Between CE nascent demon lord of burrows, portals and paranoia Domains Chaos, Earth, Evil, Travel Subdomains Cave, Demon, Fear, Portal Worshipers evil molekin, miners, planar travelers, doomsday preppers Minions katpaskir demons, earth elementals, skymetal reavers Unholy Symbol a molehill with a spiked ball protruding from the top Favored Weapon heavy flail Devotion spend one hour digging. At the end of the hour, while standing inside the hole or tunnel, kill a living creature and consume some or all of it. Gain a +4 racial bonus to saving throws against paralysis and petrifaction. Boons 1st—stone call 2/day; 2nd—stoneskin 2/day; 3rd—plane shift 2/day (as 6th level spell)

Nascent Demon Lord, Carchanore CR 25 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature is the size of a wagon, a cross between a mole and a lobster covered in stony armor and spikes. It has eight elephantine legs each ending in sharp claws, and a long tail tipped with a spiked ball. Its arms are long and have crab-like pinchers. It has a circular whirling maw set in its eyeless face, and similar orifices open up in the corners of its claws.

Carchanore is a monster caught between worlds. Once, the Death Mole was a qlippoth lord who lived as a simple predator, albeit of the great wrackworms that crawl between the planes. His gift at digging is such that he can bore through planar boundaries in pursuit of his prey, and his knowledge of earth and stone made him occasionally revered by subterranean humanoids such as molekin or troglodytes. Deskari, Lord of the Locust Host, considered him a nuisance and a possible competitor to the portfolio of portals, and Yamasoth resented their shared domain of Earth. After Deskari was killed in the Material Plane, the severed faith of his remaining worshipers was cast into the multiverse, and the Burrower Between happened to be its recipient. The exposure to faith and sin warped Carchanore into a nascent demon lord. It made him rather more powerful, but also more vulnerable; without a domain to call his own, Carchanore cannot rejuvenate, and now is terrified that either old enemies or new will slay him. So he roams, digging his way from plane to plane and stopping only to rest.

Carchanore is a straightforward combatant. He prefers to fight with his natural weapons than with his earth magic, although he appreciates his newly gained ability to summon demons. Carchanore’s hide is stony hard and covered with sharp spikes, and weak creatures striking him may shred themselves on his spines before he even lays a claw on the. Carchanore is a juggernaut, trampling earthbound foes before grinding them to pieces with his diamond teeth. Carchanore has three mouths—one in the normal place and a secondary one at the joint of each of his crustacean claws—and any creature killed with these weapons is ground into mincemeat. If creatures keep their distance, Carchanore has a nasty surprise—he can fire the spines on his shell like a barrage of ballista bolts. In his previous life as a qlippoth lord, Carchanore gleefully fought to the death, but now he is quick to flee as he has a newly acquired fear of permanent destruction.

Although the bulk of Carchanore’s cult is made up of survivors of Deskari’s minions, not all of them are. The Burrower Between’s survivalist paranoia makes him popular among others who believe that the end is nigh, and some of his followers are converted from Groetus or other apocalyptic religions. After all, multiple apocalyptic events have been narrowly averted on Golarion, so sooner or later one of them is bound to come to its fulfillment. Such followers are noted for their endless digging, creating vast sprawling bunker complexes for themselves and filling them with provisions and traps. "Dig forever" is a common saying among the Burrower Between's worshipers. Amoral wizards interested in planar travel and mass summoning occasionally call on Carchanore to open gates for them, but doing so is fraught with danger, as the Death Mole views them as challenging prey as often as he does as supplicants.

Carchanore in the Great Game In the Age of Monsters plotline, Carchanore has received his demonic nature as an experiment. Pale Night, who straddles the line between qlippoth and demon herself, brokered a deal with a coalition of powerful katpaskir demons to turn the attentions of the fragmented cult of Deskari to a qlippoth lord, and the Burrower Between was the “lucky” recipient. Pale Night is now observing the Death Mole very closely, to see if he can fight his way into the ranks of true demon lords, or if he will die trying. Pale Night is keeping her reasons for this trial secret even from her allies.

Carchanore CR 25 XP 1,640,000 CE Huge outsider (chaos, demon, evil, extraplanar) Init +9; Senses blind, blindsight 120 ft., Perception +44, tremorsense 300 ft. Aura unholy (DC 25)

Defense AC 42, touch 18, touch 34 (-2 size, +9 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 deflection, +20 natural) hp 546(28d10+392); fast healing 10 Fort +27, Ref +31, Will +29 DR 20/good and adamantine; Immune charm and compulsion effects, death effects, electricity, paralysis, petrifaction, poison, visual spells and effects; Resist acid 30, cold 30, fire 30; SR 36 Defensive Abilities shatter weapons, spiny defense

Offense Speed 40 ft., burrow 60 ft. Melee 2 claws +40 (1d8+14 plus grab), bite +40 (2d6+14 plus grind), tail slap +38 (2d6+21) Ranged 8 stalagmite shots +35 (2d8+14) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks adamant attacks, gatecrasher (7/day), powerful blows (tail slap), rake (2 bites +40, 2d6+14 plus grind), trample (DC 38, 2d8+21) Spell-like Abilities CL 25th, concentration +32 Constant—unholy aura (self only, DC 25) At will—chaos hammer (DC 21), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. objects only), spike stones (DC 21), stone shape, stone tell 3/day—flesh to stone (DC 23), transmute mud to rock, transmute rock to mud, wall of stone, word of chaos (DC 24) 1/day—clashing rocks (DC 26), earthquake (DC 25), repel metal or stone, stone to flesh, summon (9th level, CR 20 or less demon)

Statistics Str 38, Dex 29, Con 38, Int 17, Wis 28, Cha 25 Base Atk +28; CMB +44 (+48 grapple); CMD 68 (80 vs trip) Feats Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Deadly Aim, Dodge, Improved Critical (claw, stalagmite shot), Lightning Reflexes, Multiattack, Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical Skills Climb +45,Intimidate +38, Knowledge (engineering, geography) +31, Knowledge (planes) +34,Perception +44, Sense Motive +44, Stealth +32, Survival +40 Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, Terran, Undercommon, telepathy 300 ft. SQ nascent demon lord traits, no breath, sprint, stone stride, thagomizer, tunneler

Ecology Environment underground (the Abyss) Organization unique Treasure none

Special Abilities Adamant Attacks (Ex) Carchanore’s natural weapons count as adamantine for the purposes of ignoring damage reduction and hardness. Gatecrasher (Su) As a standard action, Carchanore can tear a hole in reality between 5 to 20 feet wide in an area within his reach. This functions as a gate spell for the purposes of planar travel except that creatures can travel in either direction through it, and remains open for 1 minute or until Carchanore chooses to close it as another standard action. This can even function in the area of a dimensional lock or similar effect, as long as Carchanore succeeds at a caster level check against the caster level of the spell. Grind (Ex) A creature struck by Carchanore’s bite attack must succeed a DC 38 Fortitude save or take 1d4+1 points of Strength and Constitution drain from having its flesh ground. A creature struck by multiple bites a round does not take additional damage, but suffers a -2 penalty to its saving throw for each additional bite. A creature reduced to 0 Strength or Constitution through this effect is slain and cannot be raised from the dead by any spell or effect that requires an intact body. The save DC is Strength based. Shatter Weapons (Ex) Any manufactured weapon that strikes Carchanore takes 4d6 points of damage. Weapons that take any amount of damage above their hardness gain the broken quality. Spiny Defense (Ex) Any creature striking Carchanore with a melee weapon, unarmed strike, natural weapon or touch attack takes 1d8+14 points of piercing damage. Weapons with the reach property do not endanger their wielders in such a way. Sprint (Ex) Once per hour, Carchanore can move 10 times his speed when making a run or charge action. Stalagmite Shot (Ex) Once every 1d4 rounds, Carchanore can fire off eight of his spines as a standard action. Treat these as ranged attacks with a range of 120 feet and no range increment. Carchanore can fire these at the same or different targets. Creatures struck take 2d8+14 points of piercing damage, Carchanore regrows spines effectively immediately, and never runs out of ammunition. Stone Stride (Su) Carchanore ignores difficult terrain and damage from natural, worked or magically altered earth, mud and stone. Thagomizer (Ex) Carchanore’s tail slap deals bludgeoning and piercing damage. Tunneler (Ex) Carchanore can move through solid rock at half his burrow speed, leaving a 15 foot square tunnel as he moves.

[doomboy911]

Theme Arduin(Tri-Color Dragon)

Prompt List Creature Codex Art Challenge

Commentary

So yeah pixel art is my passion. I had a three headed dragon and a vision. While I may have lost some detail like the red wings I think I captured what's most important. I put all my heart into making those big ol eyes perfect.

Palette picked

[tempatpklmedanyulia]

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[1-50thofabuck]

As always, this was written on the fly without research or referencing anything else. So if I say something incorrect it's because I was forcing myself to work from memory and I don't want to look anything up as I write each part. If I research or discover something in between articles I'll add that info to the next article. This one likely contains misspellings, typos, poor wording, etc as again, I wanted to write on the fly conversationally and not sit and workshop it into a prose poem. I added a few things after I wrote the article but it will be clear what those parts are. In future articles I won't explain all this, just wanted to make it clear again as I get into the monster writeups. PLEASE comment corrections, thoughts, insights, opinions, and insults. I'm lonely!

All the World’s Monsters: Readthrough Part II: Air Squid to Archer Bush(the complete “a”s!)

Finally! The Monsters!

That’s what I’m talkin’ about. All the text for the monsters is IN CAPS, SO THE ENTIRE ENTRY READS LIKE THIS. WHEN QUOTING I WILL NOT USUALLY DO THIS BECAUSE IT WOULD GET ANNOYING, DON’T YOU THINK? So if I quote “blah blah blah” it actually reads “BLAH BLAH BLAH.”

Air Squid

Starting off with a bang. I said before this is the kind of thing I love. Flying squids rule! So, let’s dive in(fly in?). 

Each chapter begins with a drop cap, which is nice. The little detail of the fighter dropping their sword is cool. I dig it.

This is a Dave Hargrave monster, and that’s one of the names we’ll see a lot. It’s an intelligent monster, with IQ range 2d6, i.e., they have Intelligence scores of between 2-12, so, from almost animal intelligence to quite bright. Chaotic, neutral is its alignment, with the comma between the two just like that. Remember, in Holmes Basic, which this was following, PCs couldn’t even choose to be chaotic neutral - it was true neutral or nothing. I’m not sure if this applied to monsters - I’ll have to look through the Holmes list again. It may even be reflecting a single axis alignment system and noting that the creature could be either chaotic or neutral. Hmm. (I’ll know by the next article, I’m trying to more or less honestly write this on the fly!) (Note: I figure it out with one of the following monsters.) I won’t go into all this with future monsters, just a note for the first one.

Hit dice from 6-12d8+1, with size ranging from 35 to 75’ long. (I did read ahead through the A’s, and I thank Hargrave for clueing us in; you’ll find a frustrating number of monsters whose size is “shrug.”) Quite a spread, but not really illogical. It seems to be one of those things that early writers did that ended up not being the standard: giving many monsters a fairly wide HD range, where most monsters in official publications didn’t have any HD range at all. 

AC of 7 seems okay, interesting that it doesn’t scale off of HD in any way, but not incorrect necessarily. Fly 12 seems reasonable. Dexterity range 1d6+6 is okay I suppose? 

The air squid is found outdoors, in water(so presumably it swims too even though only flight speed is listed?), and of course, “air.” These don’t get as specific as other D&D writeups that would include mountains, swamps, forests, hills, and not just “in the air.” I don’t believe any monster stats had an entry or “slot” like that previously, like a part of the stat block or writeup that says “environment” or “terrain” or “found in.” I think it wouldn’t be til 2nd Edition that that became a standard part of the stat block. That info still existed by way of the wandering monster tables. For example, a monster is found on the tables for hills and mountains then obviously those are the two places in which they can be found. Also, the “interpreting the monster entries” section lists cities, mountains, and so on, so they were aware of the idea. Granted, the editors came up with the explanations for the environment types, or as they phrase it, “found in,” and apparently didn’t enforce much consistency. The air squid’s lair is “on mountain peaks.” Sure, why not?

15% chance in lair, only 1 ever encountered, and they always have a type E treasure. 

Here’s where it gets really crazy: this thing has 13 attacks, and the size/HD doesn’t matter: the tentacles cause 1d8 points of damage in “constriction,” though there are no rules for this. Presumably the monster just grabs, crushes, and releases. Would it come to ground to do this? Just hover around the ground grabbing and crushing, not grabbing, holding, and flying up high to release? Meh. Plus a d10 damage with its beak. The damage not scaling isn’t really a big deal, but the attacks seem a bit wonky. 

Why no ink spit? I’d find that a lot more interesting than a ton of attacks, personally. Being described as “sky-blue,” one would also expect a surprise bonus, at least situationally. Oh, and if you wondered how it flies? Hargrave didn’t just go with “Uh, magic, like, probably an insane wizard’s experiment or something, you know?” but instead attempted to give something of a naturalistic explanation with the squids being “helium-filled.” I can’t help but imagine popping a fully-inflated air squid with a well-placed arrow or spear. It could become like a mini game, with characters trying to pop air squids as they fly by. An attraction at the most incredible carnival ever to exist. Sure only 1 is supposed to appear but let’s be serious with our lack of seriousness. 

Not much else to say about the air squid really. It’s pretty cool. With a generation of hindsight it could use some workshopping in my opinion but these were pioneers, dangit. The next entries won’t focus on some of the topics I focused on here because now they’re been addressed. 

Airfang

The second monster in the book, and the first “..wtf?” Like, what actually is this thing? It’s apparently “tiny,” with an HD range of 8-12. What is “tiny” in this context, since official “size categories” such as tiny, small, medium, and large were not to come for a while(I don’t think it was until 2nd Edition AD&D)? Is tiny how I would interpret “tiny” if someone told me something was “tiny?” Itty-bitty? Probably not. A foot? Who knows how tiny this up to 12 HD monster with 2 attacks scoring 3d4 damage each could be? 

It’s a “metallic scaled creature” with an armor class of 2+4(?) that is “mostly mouth, tentacle, and wings.” Huh. It reminds me of some of the random little enemies in old NES games that swarmed you and you had trouble even figuring out what the heck they even were. Of course, most of those didn’t eviscerate a starting character in a round or two by dealing massive amounts of tiny damage from its tiny tentacles and tiny mouth. 

Is the 2+4 representing separate areas for the tentacles and body(because a “tiny” creature should definitely have different AC ratings by location, a mechanic that was kind of trash even on the few official monsters that used it). Or maybe they meant 2-4, which should more properly be 4-2, reflecting that the AC improves as it increases in HD? 

Once again, we’re given very specific locations that these abominations can be found, such as “outdoors.” Well that sure narrows it down, thanks. Like the air squid, it’s also found in “water” and “air.” So, basically, literally everywhere. And why in Discordia’s name is it found in water anyway? It has scales and tentacles I guess? It’s faster than the air squid, with a flight speed of 24! I forgot to mention, it also “latches on with its mouth and then bites repeatedly,” so I’m not sure if this implies that it only has to attack once with its mouth and then it auto-hits, or if this is just a descriptive visual, but either way, it’s pretty lame. 

You encounter 3d6 of these, too. 3d6 tiny, indescribable monsters that inexplicably have a mountain of HP and have the potential for enormous damage, swarming a PC. Just imagine using these and explaining how their appearance is totally silly, they’re too tiny and fast to potentially make out, one of them took an entire round of hits from the entire party and didn’t die, three of them reduced one party member to bones in a round, somehow, and potentially, some of them are automatically inflicting damage after “latching on.” If your players don’t quit on you, you’ve either built up a huge Loyalty rating with them, or they’re just very, very lacking in discrimination. Or perhaps you knew they’d enjoy a good, absurdist comedy encounter.

Its alignment is “hungry,” hahahahahahahaha! :| If this was a one-off joke, or it was a monster that was otherwise good, it’d be okay. Sadly to the first one, having peeked ahead, this isn’t the first time this “gag” is done in the “a” monsters alone. 

To the second one: this monster sucks. I have trouble believing that out of 5 billion entries, this boring, overpowered, uncreative nonsense was one of the best. 

Mystery solved; turns out, this is an airfang

Ant Man

An obvious idea that would be done a number of times - and I’m not saying that as insult, at all - this version is based on creatures from a book, “Kavin’s World,” which could also be the name of a sci-fi sitcom. 

These also have a very wide HD range, from 1-14. Not having read the books or feeling that it would be worthwhile to research it, I can’t say how widely the ant men in it varied in strength. Their AC does not vary, at a very high 2. So even the single hit die ones are as tough as plate mail. They only move 6, so, fairly slow(I’ve seen some relatively quick ants). Their intelligence skews towards good - 2d6+6, varying from low to genius and averaging at high(13). Dex is average(3d6). Seems to me an ant’s might be a bit low, comparatively, but hey.

Neutral alignment is fair. Again, I have no idea how these things are in the book. They appear a lot of places, but no place unreasonable for an ant, much less an alien ant or whatever these things are. 200d20 of these appear in a lair, which even by ant standards seems pretty high, but book yadda yadda. Wandering or in lair they have the same amount of treasure, and a 100% chance of it, at that. Seems a bit odd but whatever.

Boy do they get a lot of attacks. 2 “hands”(quotes theirs), 2 stings, and a bite, scoring up to 44 points of damage plus poison from the stings which cause 4d6 on a failed save for another potential 24 damage… yikes. Keep in mind, this describes the 1 HD version and the 14 HD one. A 1 HD monster that can potentially cause 68 HP damage in one round. The bite says “HIT -2” but I’m not sure what that means. It’s a -2 to the attack roll with the bite? Or the damage is 2d6-2? I’m guessing the former, but I’m not positive.

Ant men are big-ass ant people with four arms, two which end in stingers, because sure! and two end in “hands” that score damage as a two-handed sword. They’re also immune to “mental spells,” which I assume means charm, fear, illusory magic, probably hold, and so on. They believe that other sentient species, including those with demonstrably similar intelligence, are cattle, which is not a very true neutral position to hold. Sounds neutral evil or lawful evil at best. “True Neutral. I believe that there should be a balance in all things. Nature is balanced, law and chaos must be balanced, good and evil must be balanced. And everyone not of our race are animals to be used as slaves and food.” Not seeing it.

I don’t know what to make of this one, but it’s not the strangest one I’ve seen so far, so it’s okay.

Ant, Giant

An expected monster, a classic. Is this the first time a giant ant was statted in print? I don’t know, but IT HAS FROM 1-27 HD. But it also doesn’t give an actual size range, so I imagine this is so you can stat from chihuahua sized giant ants to “Them!” giant ants up to true kaiju giant ants. This is also the first one we’re seeing that has an AC that scales to its HD, in this case “its armor class is 3 plus one third of the number of its hit dice, fractions are rounded up giving a range of 2 to -6.” Chuck Cady did well, I like it, and obviously pleasing me is everyone’s top priority. 

Its damage also scales, +1 per HD, which gets pretty high - arguably, unreasonably so - but on the other hand, one of my biggest gripes at high levels is how bad the damage often is by high level monsters(the tarrasque doesn’t do jack in damage to any party high enough in level enough to fight it), so I’m just a hypocrite. Wait. I just realized. I thought it was +1 per HD + acid, and it’s actually +1d3 per HD in acid damage. So a 27 HD giant ant doesn’t get +27 damage, it gets +27d3 damage. In acid. 

So its bite doesn’t scale, with a 1 HD rat-dog or a 27 HD kaiju ant scoring the damage of a short sword… plus or minus a few dozen d3 in acid. It seems really weird to me that the acid scales that greatly and not the bite, but… I’m kinda okay with it?

Do ants use acid? Hmm. Well, slugs don’t, so. At least there are only 3d20 of them in their lair and not 2,000+ of them like ant men.

“Alignment: any, hungry.” C’mon, Chuck. I’m introducing good-aligned giant ants and blaming you. The giant ant appears in all the same places as the Ant Man, even though this has a different creator. Ants can be found about anywhere, though…

I would be remiss not to mention the incredible description: “The generic description of the giant ants.” (In all caps of course.) Now we’ll never know exactly what an ant looks like. “I once lay awake long into the night, wondering just what kind of creature was the noble ant.”

Ape, Desert

Back to Hargrave with another pretty decent monster. Desert apes are apes with a literal third eye with accompanying hypnotic powers. I think I’d have liked to see a full-scale psionic ape, but this is cool. Movement 10 is a bit unusual for the way this game scales movement, but I don’t have a problem with it. HD spread on this one is only 4-8, reasonable for rank and file apes up to the leader. Intelligence averages low at 2d6, with dexterity being high, equaling that of the very agile giant ant and ant man(for whatever reason). AC 4 is.. all right I guess.  

Chaotic neutral is okay, though I dislike the tendency to lean towards that alignment that seems to have existed since the beginning. I’d like to see hypnotic apes that are more lawful, allowing them to better take advantage of their incredible power, but honestly this isn’t a complaint. Despite how it may sound, very few of my comments are “complaints,” merely observations, though I may make them in a sardonic way in a lame attempt at humor. The truth is I highly respect the effort and passion that is put into these kinds of works, even if I joke otherwise. 

Found in “dungeons, open, deserts.” Can we just skip listing “dungeons?” Literally every smegging monster to ever exist is found in dungeons. Pterodactyls are found in dungeons. I’m sure treants are found in dungeons. Like, literally every monster is indexed to a specific “dungeon level” for the purpose of putting them in dungeons. There’s really no need to state “dungeons” on every single monster. Also, what is “open?” Is that the same as “outside?” Or do they mean non-forested, non-mountainous regions, like plains or something? The opening explanation for the book doesn’t list “open,” so it’s another case of monster creators doing what they want and the editors not enforcing any kind of continuity. It’s not a big deal, but I have to comment on it in a readthrough.

Two attacks, one being a rather heavy club(scoring 1d8 damage) and the other, hypnosis, which is listed as an attack with no real indication of what “hypnosis” actually entails, though it lists it as a “visual” attack, I guess because it’s using one of its eyes, so perhaps it means a gaze attack? Not sure if “gaze attack” was a term cemented into D&D/AD&D yet. Either way, is hypnosis the same as charm, or…? 

These apes cannot speak a normal language, though you might imagine they could, being of low human intelligence and having hypnosis and stuff. Alas, ape biology simply doesn’t allow for the forming of words like we use, and there’s no such thing as evolution or crazy magical effects to cause this to happen, and so we’re stuck with psionic apes only communicable with through magic such as speak with animals, and we’re told these chaotic neutral scoundrels will lie 30% of the time. 

Ape, Snake

This is one of those monsters that when you look at the name you just try to guess what it might be. An ape made of snakes? An ape with snake arms? An ape filled with snakes? This is another Hargrave monster,  with the most reasonable HD spread so far, 5-7. these small spreads are okay(not saying the larger ones can’t be, they’re just uncharacteristic of what we tend to see in official writeups). Technically they exist in AD&D for various humanoid monsters as well, they’re simply expressed differently: a stronger kobold is statted as a goblin, an even stronger one as an orc, etc. By the time you get to hobgoblins, their strongest members are statted as ogres. So their HD could have been shown as “1+1 - 4,” and it would have been a greater spread than the snake ape. 

Let’s skip to the description to see what this thing actually is. One line leaps out and suckers my face with tentacles: “Also known as an octorilla.” Dave, buddy, you could have called this an octorilla and you went with snake ape instead? Octorilla is much cooler, and gives an almost immediate idea of what it might be like. Was it so it would go into the book earlier, like why people give their businesses names beginning with “a” so they get in the front of the category in the yellow pages(back when people used yellow pages)? Tentacles aren’t snakes, Dave. “But maybe people back then wouldn’t have known!” People “back then” wouldn’t have known half the stuff we put in these games, let’s move on.

So, this thing was “spawned in the vats of chaos,” which was basically the precursor to “probably the result of a mad wizard’s experiment.” Both of these are the equivalent of Marvel Comics’ “they’re a mutant.” They are what they are and we don’t have time to come up with origins and explanations, dammit. (Not even kidding - mutants were created because Stan Lee was too lazy to continue to come up with origins for characters so he basically said “what if a mad wizard(God) did it?” I’ll wait for angry responses from Stan Lee fans “correcting” me about something I couldn’t actually care less about.)

AC actually has a range, from 6-7, or as I observed previously, should probably be listed as 7-6(I won’t comment on this in the future). Move 8 seems okay I suppose for an octorilla. Swim 6, so, it’s better running around on land than swimming. Intelligence very low, but not quite animal, averaging 5, with a high dexterity averaging 16! Why exactly? 

Alignment “chaotic,” so I suppose they are going with the single description alignments. Found in dungeons and “open,” again, among other places, specifically woods and water, which makes enough sense.  

This is another with way too many attacks. I really miss OD&D with 1 attack per character or monster regardless of how many arms it has or whatever. Two of its three attack types have scaling damage, and it’s high damage. It gets 4 attacks with its arms, which I guess is a punch or slam of some type, beginning at the same damage as a two-handed sword. The largest cause double this damage. Its beak begins at 1d8 and can also double for the largest ones. It also gets four “constrictions,” which score double its “regular damage,” so, 2d10 for the smallest and 4d1 for the largest? You know that’s overkill. 7 HD giants don’t do that kind of damage in a single attack(though they should). The description tells us that if a sucker-lined arm hits twice in a row or two arms hit in one melee turn(which was probably still 1 round in Holmes and not 10?) constriction takes place and continues until either party is dead. This is when I’m noticing it actually says “1-4 constrictions,” so maybe it only gets the arm attacks unless the previous conditions are met? It’s kind of confusing, and generally, such conditional attacks aren’t listed among the regular attacks like that, but this was an early time. It would certainly make the monster more reasonable if that’s the case. It also says that there’s only a need to make an attack roll for constriction “each turn” if someone is wearing plate mail. That tells me they do mean rounds, but what is the roll for? If they’re saying if an arm hits twice in a row or two hit in a round, the constriction is automatic, then there was already an attack roll made - two of them. Are they saying that constriction isn’t automatic if someone is wearing plate mail? I don’t get this at all.

Aside from some confusing aspects, including what this abomination actually looks like(sure, gorilla and octopus, complete with octopus beak - I still have no idea what that would look like), it’s a neat monster. I like it.

After completing Part II of this readthrough, I looked up “octorilla,” and found that such a monster was published in “the Arduin Grimoire II,” by Mr. Hargrave here. Perhaps Chaosium appealed to Hargrave to change the name because the book was lacking in “a” monsters, or he only really finally decided on “octorilla” between AtWM and tAGII, but I doubt it. Also remember that the introduction expressly stated that no “Arduin Grimoire” monsters are found here, and the second volume of tAG hadn’t been released yet, so this was probably a precursor to the later Arduin “octorilla.” You can see an OSE writeup and the original monster writeup here, complete with pictures(the modern version, not by Hargrave, skips the beak!).

Arceel

It would be understandable to think this was a made-up nonsense word by emphasizing the pronunciation incorrectly, like “ar-keel” or even “ar-seal,” but it is “arc eel,” as in electric eel. It’s man sized, and 10 HD! Sheesh! 

The AC is 2+6, the same thing its creator, Steve Henderson, did with his last entry, the nonsensical Airfang. “Its AC is high due to its rubbery skin.” Thanks for the important info, why does its Dex average high though? Also, it’s “repulsive,” lest you think it was adorable. 

It has low human intelligence, but never lairs nor has treasure(I guess it’s the lack of hands?). Chaotic in alignment, it only lives in swamps - not “outdoors” or in dungeons - and its swim rate is abysmal, maybe to allow PCs to escape when they realize this thing is an inexplicable bucket of HP that does 4d6 lightning damage. It’s described as a “lightning bolt,” but clarifies in the description that it “must touch its victim.” I’m not sure if “must touch” simply indicates that an attack roll must be made as opposed to it being an area of effect power, or if it also means that someone touching it takes damage. 

These eels are a lot cooler, put them in your game instead

I wish it flew like the air squid. Water-based monsters get so little use, comparatively, in my opinion(though this could be a flaw in execution, i.e., people need to find ways to use them more). And the HD seems pretty high, really. I know it’s a nitpick, but I don’t care for the cutesy name either. Why not just call it “giant electric eel?” That’s what it is, man. It doesn’t even have acid or cold breath given to it by a mad wizard, or that it gained in the vats of Chaos, so it’s just a big-ass electric eel. 

Archer Bush

This is one we’ll see other places, such as Mystara. I suppose it’s one of those natural or obvious ideas that multiple people come up with, as mentioned before. It’s mentioned as being taken from the book “Symbiotica,” so it’s just as possible that whoever created it for Mystara was inspired by the same book.

It has no intelligence, but usually has treasure; which makes sense as it’s described as being a “guardian” creature, planted almost invariably for such a purpose. 

No alignment is given, not even a joke one like “alignment: wood.” That’s not funny, but neither is “hungry.” Speaking of which, it’s found in “open,” as well as woods. So I guess “open” must mean literally any outdoor area at all aside from cities, which are listed as their own environment, and ruins, which are actually considered part of the “cities” category for some reason. Which means technically, nobody ever plants these in the ruins in which they lair, nor do wealthy lunatics plant them around their yard for security. I’m sure the creator didn’t intend to make their use that narrow, I’m being pedantic, or something similar to it. I don’t think it actually needs an alignment, and sometimes I think systems overstat things that don’t need them. (DC Heroes was the worst for that, statting things like coins - and by the rules, the weakest human can snap one in half.)

One of the most reasonable HD attributions so far, and it doesn’t even have a spread! The AC is pretty low for something that could logically be argued to be a bit higher. Its dexterity is 12, so it’s going to act in melee a little faster than an average person; too bad it doesn’t get melee attacks, and it isn’t high enough to give it a bonus to its ranged attack, and monsters don’t really work like that anyway. It attacks with the “probability” of “a light bow fired by an eighth level fighter of average dexterity.” I don’t put “probability” in quotes to mock it, but to highlight a specific way that certain rules were often expressed early on that you didn’t see so much later. If you read the “AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide” - and I‘m going to write a short article in the future on why you should, regardless of what RPG you run, and what parts are universally useful and often overlooked - Gygax goes into dice probabilities, and describes the potential universality of die rolls and how one can be exchanged for another. I talked about this a bit in the previous part. Looking at chances as probabilities, converting them to percentages, can be very useful. I also point this out to question why “light bow” is mentioned. One could argue it’s to reflect the range or damage or something, but it expressly states that it factors into its hit probability somehow. 

It certainly doesn’t factor into its damage, which is insane: it fires 50-100 needles, each of which score 1 HP damage, so we’re talking 50-100 HP of damage potential per round from one bush alone and they average 21 appearing at a time. And that’s before poison, which is save or die, meaning an average of 1,575 possible save or die attacks PER ROUND. That assumes all 21 are within range, but still.

Well, we’re done the “a”s, and I could use a breather after that last one. K. Jones, I’ll be watching you. 

Next time we sail into the “b”s, with the Bagda and Fallowman, and, oh I don’t know, tentatively end with the writeups of beetles. See you then!

[bornofthelivingsun]

[swallowtail-ageha]

Also hm. Fascinated by the ability of silvana de mari to write stories that drag on and on and on on her pretense to write a fantasy epic while lacking the talent and culture to do so while throwing tens of new characters at you and yet being completely unable to develop any of them

[svsembedded]

Arduino Based Vehicle Accident

[athelind]

I recall that the author of one Very Unofficial Line of Third-Party Supplements in the late 1970s misread "% Lair" as "% Liar," included that stat in every single monster write-up in the line, and lacking other guidance from the source material, helpfully described it as the probability that a given monster would lie to you.

(I am fairly sure, but not 100% sure, that this was The Arduin Grimoire line.)

Those of you who have read older editions of D&D may have run into a little stat called "% Lair" in your monster books. Basically, it's a number you can roll against to check if a creature encountered as part of a random encounter is encountered in its lair.

Or so it's accepted.

This came to me when I first read Fantastic Medieval Campaigns by Traverse Fantasy: Fantastic Medieval Campaigns is a retroclone of 0D&D that seeks to present 0D&D's rules as accurately as possible, down to preserving ambiguity when the rules were ambiguous. For an example, this is what FMC says about % Lair:

% Lair is self-explanatory as far as application is concerned.

Ah thank you. So, yeah, 0D&D didn't actually bother to explain what % Lair means in its context. This is what FMC has to say about number appearing:

Number Appearing (No.) is the total number of that monster type which appear in an area. This is primarily used for outdoor encounters, and the referee may adjust this number according to the number of adventurers present.

Which appear in an area. This to me implies that the numbers given on the tables (which are usually in the hundreds) aren't supposed to reflect how many creatures the party runs into during an encounter. It should reflect how many of a given creature one could find in an area. How big an area? Who knows!

What does % Lair mean then? Well, it means how many of that number are usually found in their lair at a given time! It also makes sense that Bandits would have a low % Lair because they are most likely to be out banditrying, while orcs and goblins have relatively high % Lair, because they're more likely to be settled! It's fascinating!

These tables could be used not for the sake of creating random encounters, but for populating hexes! And if you happen to generate only 1 of a given creature (like a dragon) in a given hex, you can still use that number when the party stumbles into the dragon's lair. To check whether the dragon is currently there!

Anyway this is not necessarily what was intended by these numbers but idk I prefer my application.

[vintagerpg]

Once Little Soldier and Phoenix went belly up in 1981, Lou Zocchi’s Gamescience bought the “Book of” series. I believe either dead stock or reprints of Monsters and Demons came out with Gamescience branding. Later, all six were collected in this, The Fantasy Gamer’s Compendium (1983).

I have seen the digest versions of three of these in the wild (for frankly bonkers prices): Book of Shamans, Book of Treasure and Book of Sorcery. Shamans is a whole new class, complete with a custom spell list, that is framed around accessing the spirit world in a way that reflects I guess broad assumptions about tribal magical systems. Its OK! Treasure is what you’d expect, a collection of magic items pulled from myth and legend in the first part and from genre fiction in the second. It is pretty good! Sorcery is an interesting, if slightly unwieldy reconfiguration of the magic user class, explicitly arranged around demonology and pulp notions of Western occult traditions. Basically, it’s intended to provide mechanics that allow a class to summon all the folks listed out in Book of Demons. It also has a collection of occult-themed magic items, like the Hand of Glory, that I find delightful. That’s probably the most useful thing for me, personally, in the whole “Book of” series.

The last Book collected here is the Book of Mystery, which I am not sure ever saw print as a standalone Little Soldier product. It presents a new class (Lord of Mystery), the new skill system those characters use, and an organization they belong to, which safeguards high science for a time when humanity is ready for it (the Lords of Mystery are descended from the original humans, who crashed here [wherever that is] in a colony ship millennia ago). Many of the classes skills are trained and require quests. They seem to get access to a lot of abilities. It seems like a pain in the butt, but an interesting one, almost like a more monastic version of Dave Hargrave’s Techno class from Arduin.

[oldschoolfrp]

Horragus, a "highly magikal" ancient primeval life form, older than all other life on this world, "their evil is as ancient as the stars. They are the minions of Chulhulos and may be summoned by the Priest-Mages who worship him." (Carolyn Schultz, Death Heart: Arduin Dungeon 4 & Overland Adventure by David A Hargrave, Grimoire Games, 1980)

[thecreaturecodex]

Div, Apaush

Image © @chimeride

[Sponsored by @crazytrain48, based on the "sun demon" from Arduin. Why these are sun demons is somewhat obscure to me; their scales and boluses suggest they should be iron demons, right? The art does an excellent job making it more sunny, with the solar disk head, which I love. I leaned into it by giving them the name of one of the Zoroastrian daevas of drought, and some of their spell-like abilities.]

Div, Apaush CR 9 NE Outsider (extraplanar) This creature is a vaguely avian humanoid, with a beaked head ringed by a structure halfway between a sunburst and an owl’s facial disc. It has fan-like wings, metal talons on its hands and feet and a long whip-like tail. Its body and wings are covered with overlapping metal scales that screech horribly as the creature moves.

The apaush are sometimes known as “sun divs” or “sun fiends”, as they are devotees of drought. They are native to the hottest, driest parts of Abaddon. An apaush on the Material Plane makes sure to use its weather controlling abilities to keep things sunny and hot, and the droughts they provoke lead to widespread starvation and thirst. The head of an apaush resembles a solar disk and some apaush work with clerics of evil sun gods and archfiends. An apaush constantly emits a rasping, screeching noise from the metal scales on its body and wings. Like all divs, the apaush have a psychological weakness; in their case, apaush hate silence. They make noise almost compulsively in quiet places, and in the area of a silence spell are edgy and uncomfortable.

Apaush are incredibly fast fliers, and prefer to attack from the sky. They make hit and run attacks while airborne, spitting boluses of molten iron that entangle and scorch enemies, casting destructive spells, or merely tearing into foes with their claws. An apaush’s metal scales provide it with supernaturally powerful protection against ranged attacks, and the screeching of its metal body is so loud as to be painfully distracting up close.  If forced to land, they usually cast defensive spells like fire shield and wall of fire, to punish melee combatants as much as possible.

An apaush is tall for a Medium creature, being taller than seven feet tall on average. Their whip-like tails are often that length again, but too weak to be used in combat.

Apaush               CR 9 XP 6,400 NE Medium outsider (div, evil, extraplanar) Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +15, see in darkness Aura screeching (30 ft., Will DC 19)

Defense AC 23, touch 12, flat-footed 21 (+2 Dex, +11 natural) hp 114 (12d10+48) Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +8 DR 10/good and melee; Immune fire, petrifaction, poison, sonic; Resist acid 10, electricity 10; SR 20 Defensive Abilities fiery body,healing petrifaction

Offense Speed 30 ft., fly 120 ft. (average) Melee 2 claws +15 (1d10+3 plus 1d6 fire), bite +15 (1d6+3 plus 1d6 fire), 2 wings +13 (1d6+1 plus 1d6 fire) Ranged molten bolus +14 touch (3d10 fire) Spell-like Abilities CL 12th, concentration +15 At will—detect good, dimension door, heat metal (DC 15) 3/day—cup of dust (DC 16), empowered searing light, stinking cloud (DC 16) 1/day—control weather (cannot cause precipitation), fire snake (DC 18), wall of fire

Statistics Str 16, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 17 Base Atk +12; CMB +16; CMD 28 Feats Empower SLA (searing light),Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Power Attack Skills Bluff +18,Fly +17, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (geography, planes) +16, Perception +15, Stealth +9; Racial Modifiers -8 Stealth Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Ignan, Infernal, telepathy 100 ft.

Ecology Environment any land and underground (Abaddon) Organization solitary or flock (2-6) Treasure incidental

Special Abilities Fiery Body (Ex) An apaush is so hot that it deals 1d6 points of fire damage to any creature touching it or striking it with a melee touch attack, natural weapon or unarmed strike. It deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage with all of its natural weapons. Healing Petrifaction (Ex) Any attempt to petrify an apaush heals it of 1d10 points of damage, plus 1 per HD of the creature for supernatural petrifaction effects, or caster level of the effect for spells and spell-like abilities. Molten Bolus (Su) As a standard action, an apaush can vomit up a blob of molten metal. Treat this as a ranged touch attack made with a thrown weapon with a range increment of 15 feet. A creature struck is entangled for three rounds, takes 3d10 points of fire damage, then takes 2d10 points of fire damage the next round and 1d10 fire damage on the third round. The blob can be scraped off by dealing 10 points of damage to it with a slashing weapon, or cooled down with a chill metal or quench effect (but the entangling still lasts the full duration). An apaush can use this ability once every 1d4 rounds. Screeching Aura (Su) Whenever an apaush moves more than 5 feet in a round, it produces an awful noise. All creatures within 30 feet of the apaush must succeed a DC 19 Will save or take a -4 penalty to attack rolls for 1 round from distraction. This is a sonic mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Wings (Su) The wings of an apaush are lined with razor sharp scales and deal slashing and bludgeoning damage on a successful hit.

[lunariananime]

I found out where the Critical and Fumble came from Arduin Grimoire (Vol 1) in 1977.

Here are some old D&D charts to help with future adventures. I don't know when the crit or fumble tables were released, but the Mac Packs were released in The Dungeoneer (Issue 19) / The Judges Guild Journal (Issue 22) in 1980.

[otusshrine]

lost and lone

from the Arduin Grimoire by Dave Hargrave

[tempatpklmedanyulia]

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[1-50thofabuck]

All the World’s Monsters Readthrough

The following has not been proofread. It may contain typos, I may use the same words or phrases too many times, and so on. Tumblr also removes a lot of formatting such as underlines. Maybe I'll fix or update it in the future; maybe I won't. (Things like underlining being removed is beyond my control.) If there are serious corrections as regards facts presented, I will definitely amend such points. Please feel free to comment such corrections; or any comments at all. I want to read through with all of you!

All the World’s Monsters: 

A Readthrough, Part I

Longwinded Introduction

This is a feature I’ve been wanting to work on for quite some time. Originally I wanted to write it with another person, and had various ideas on how that would work, but that didn’t happen. It’s a readthrough of the world’s first monster collection for an RPG. That I’m aware of, anyway - there very well might be some obscure or unsung prior volumes on the same topic(at the very least, perhaps zine monster collections?). I’m talking about Chaosium’s All the World’s Monsters. It’s an interesting book for sure, in a number of ways. 

For one thing, not so much had become standardized. What information was important to know about a monster might vary by personal taste or by the specific version of the game being played. All the World’s Monsters was released after Holmes Basic but before the AD&D Monster Manual, which was the first of the AD&D books to be released(because I guess they figured people could still use the monster stats with other versions of the game while they completed the other core books). 

Holmes Basic, for those unaware(and I won’t go into it too far because you can find plenty of histories on this out there with all the detail you’d like - skip this paragraph if you know about this already), was created as a way of introducing people to the D&D game as presented in the original white box set and Supplement I: Greyhawk. It was also a way of teaching people how to put those pieces together, or at least, one of the ways to do it, since the white box game was sort of all over the place, and difficult for people to grasp - especially if they had no prior boardgame knowledge beyond Monopoly and no wargaming knowledge. It kind of assumed you knew a lot of terms of general procedures for the more advanced board games and such, and that you would otherwise fill in the blanks. Holmes Basic did that for you. Furthermore, and it’s my understanding that this was more of a “Gygax shoehorning stuff he wanted in” aspect, but there are a few references to AD&D concepts and even the game itself, such as the exhortation to purchase AD&D if you wished to know how to have exotic characters like halfling thieves, or progress beyond 3rd level. (With the OD&D books you could do that anyway, and this was just a sales pitch.) It also introduced something closer to AD&D’s alignment system, except that you couldn’t play any neutral character besides a true neutral one: no neutral good, no chaotic neutral(there goes half my players!). 

There’s a lot to say about this version of the game, and some people play this one exclusively, even coming up with retroclones such as Blueholme! And some of what I have to say on it will be relevant, because All the World’s Monsters was written with the assumption that Holmes Basic reflected the standard we would be seeing from that point on, including little oddities never to appear in any other edition or version of D&D ever again!

Another thing that makes the book so intriguing is, being the first of its kind, there were so many monsters out there that hadn’t been statted yet - at least in a published book that others could look at and draw inspiration from. So until they got statted in AD&D’s Deities and Demigods, who could argue, “officially,” how many hit dice a shoggoth should have, what its AC should be, and so on? The original books gave no stats for any kind of sphinx - what would an androsphinx’s HD be? Same as a lion? More? What’s a lion’s HD anyway? Spotted lions are listed in the OD&D encounter tables, but there are no statistics for them(in the white box set, anyway). Or how about an elephant - how many HD should it have? What should its AC be? While the white box told us that rocs are sometimes large enough to prey on elephants(an incredible concept rendered rather banal now by overuse), it didn’t tell us what statistics an elephant should have. How would you stat it, without peeking at your MM?  Guess, what would you give them? Highlight the following for the answer: 

Tumblr won't allow me to set text to white because why would it? I'm leaving the "highlight the following line" bit out of stubborness at not allowing the formatting I require. (11 HD, AC 6)

So at that time, there were a myriad animals and monsters that had never before seen print in the form of D&D/AD&D statistics. This gives a lot of room for creativity - you couldn’t look at some other book and say “Gee, I gave this monster 9 HD, but the official ones are 4/this unofficial supplement gives them 5. Did I overrate them that badly?” Maybe so, maybe not. 

Statting animals and monsters is more art than science, though there’s some of that, too. The fact is, these are fairly arbitrary measures, and if you attempt to work out the official stats and come up with some kind of formula, you’ll drive yourself insane. Many things in the game, admittedly, were varied for the sake of variation. Weapon damage, for instance, was stated to have been made up for the purpose of variety - there’s no real reason that one weapon causes 2d4 while another causes 1d8 other than providing a wide spread of different dice types and combinations for weapons. (Yes, 2d4 gives you a bell curve with average score of 5 and a minimum score of 2, but the reason for this wasn’t because the weapon itself logically should, but rather to provide a variation.) I suspect that wolves being described as far smaller than they actually are was for a similar reason - wanting lower-level characters to be able to fight creatures that low-level monsters(goblins) often ride, but also to offer dire wolves, wargs, etc as upgrades. (Which still could have been done with properly-sized wolves, so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree…)

Not only were so many animals and monsters unstatted, but again - formatting, and even rules weren’t fully codified or formulated yet. To some degree, many wouldn’t be until 3e made a concentrated effort to make everything formulaic with very specific processes and rules for everything, as well as to “balance” every monster and class, a task monumentally failed. As a good example of the lack of cohesion, look up monsters that strangle or drown and see how many different ways it’s done. I’m not saying this to knock the “old way” - there’s a reason I play old versions of D&D almost exclusively. Restricting yourself with unnecessary formulas and intricate templates is not typically of benefit, and having the flexibility to model things in different ways is superior to having to consult a list of codified formulas to make sure everything adds up. 

But at this stage, even some of the few things that became standards had yet to come into play. In most instances, there were no examples to follow to determine, say, how almost any given special ability a creature might have should be modeled. So even this had to be determined by what were essentially fans writing for their favorite game. 

As you can see, this was an exciting time, and an incredible opportunity - to set in black & white, in numbers, all the different things that D&D/AD&D classifies as “monsters” - anything that isn’t a PC! Setting down on paper, for the first time, so many different monsters. Devising rules for powers and abilities that nobody had created(at least publically available) rules for. Incorporating rules that would only exist for one basic introductory iteration of the system. (Not that they knew that!) Having the chance to determine formatting and all kinds of things that nobody had yet done.

Worlds and cosmoses full of things that still needed to be expressed in numbers and ability descriptions were waiting to be codified. This was, in fact, one of my misconceptions about the book when I purchased it - I thought it was more like Monsters of Myth and Legend by Mayfair as part of their Role Aids line, where they went through all different world mythologies and folklore in order to stat out all the various legendary monsters. All the World’s Monsters was really just a compilation of monsters submitted to Chaosium, and most of them are provided by but a handful of people - but we’ll explore that as we get into the actual readthrough.

Book Description

The first thing one will notice, besides for the eye-catching red background with stark black art, is that it’s sideways. It’s designed to be flipped or turned “up” from the bottom, so the spine is to the top. Similarly, the back cover is read sideways, spine upwards. I don’t need to do a critique or commentary on the art here; it’s pretty cool. I’m pretty uncritical of art, especially in low-budget/indie publications, and especially if the content is otherwise good. 

To the back cover, we’re told the book is “an encyclopedia of the strange, the bizarre, and the deadly,” with “265 monstrous and dangerous creatures,” all by creators from the North American continent(or at least, most of it). We’re given sample stats for a kodiak bear - remember, there weren’t(to my knowledge) stats for any bears yet. (I didn’t consult the back cover before writing the bit about bears, previously.) Actually, we’re given the description, not the full stats - so we can’t read through and critique a set of stats just yet! But there’s an interesting part even here.

For instance, the description mentions that the kodiak can “fight at full efficiency so long as it has one-fourth of its hit points left.” There were some optional rules in OD&D that included dexterity reductions and various penalties at different percentages of HP loss. Such rules are difficult to implement, particularly at low levels, when a small hit will often take 75% of a PC’s HP, and adds yet another element(or two or three or four) to track. Regardless, people surely used those rules, and I imagine this part of the description was a special ability that applied only to those using these kinds of rules. 

A kodiak mother gains bonuses in combat to protect her young and kodiaks have a chance of a hug attack, nothing too noteworthy or mind-blowing.

We end with a note about this being the third printing(it’s what I’ve got), there being another volume out, and a third on the way, and a line about the editors. Steve Perrin is one of them, and the blurb mentions that he’s the “co-author of RuneQuest,” a game I like very much, personally. Then some info about Chaosium and where you can write for info and so on.

The book itself is 109 pages, with the last 3 pages unnumbered, as they are tables, specifically, a monster level chart, to help with placing the monsters found in the book on the appropriate dungeon level, and a table for creating random monsters. Perhaps we’ll roll up a few in a future installment for fun.

The Book’s Introduction Page

Opening the cover we get a title page and introduction. If you thought the sideways book was just a feature of the cover - it’s not. The whole book is like this. And I have to say, I tried to be open minded about it. I told myself “You’re using it the same as you’d use any book except for how it’s turned, it doesn’t actually make any difference.” I hate when something is done in a new way and everyone rejects it because it’s different. While I can see the flaws in it, I really loved the Monstrous Compendium stuff made with hole-punched pages for sorting in a looseleaf binder. I feel like it failed less because of the flaws in it and more because it seemed too different, and was simply dismissed out of hand. So I try really hard not to do that.

But the format really bugs me. 

Moving on to the introduction, I have to wonder how close this is to whatever introduction was originally written, since it opens by mentioning that this is the third printing. Mr. Perrin goes on to tell us that it was made for “games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, and the Arduin Grimoire.”

I have a few comments on this. Originally I wanted to say it was neat how this early one could simply reference D&D like that without a problem, but apparently the book did, in fact, cause a stir with TSR. I have not listened to the linked podcast, but the description says that this was the case. Once this readthrough is complete, I’ll go back and listen to the podcast; I’d like to get my own impressions, and maybe make a few guesses at some things, and see if I’m right or how much my ideas mesh with what they say.

Tunnels & Trolls(another game I quite like) is interesting since it didn’t really have monster stats, so using these in that game would be more for descriptive flavor.

As for the Arduin Grimoire, for those unaware, it was originally written as a sort of expansion and add-on to OD&D. This, too, caused problems, and it eventually became its own game(despite never playing it, its monster the “vampusa” remains a favorite of mine to this day). Gary Gygax mocked it in the form of a cursed item in AD&D, a book that drives the reader insane(one might have assumed it was a Lovecraft inspired item, but its inspiration was pure spite). 

It goes on to tell us that they have 50,000 monsters, and how they might not use yours and how they chose the ones that went in here, info about the art, where to mail feedback about the monsters you want to see. What’s of real interest here is the mention that Dave Hargrave and Paul Jaquays gave them permission to use some of their own copywritten monsters, but these had to be removed due to space limitations. They then recommend Mr. Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire(I’m sure that helped endear them to TSR), among other things, as well as several publications by Jaquays. These were presumably the publications from which the monsters would have been taken, and we’re told they will be in future volumes of AtWM.

Table of Contents

Skimming through, there are some really neat looking ones. 

Archer bush? That was a later Mystara monster adapted into 2nd ed and currently 5e(not sure if it was in 3e or 4e or not and don’t particularly care). Sometimes it’s hard to say if multiple people had the same idea or one ripped the other off. Especially in this early time when lots of people were putting out monsters and few had previously, people were bound to have similar if not identical ideas. Such things have happened in much less likely circumstances. 

Some very odd ones right off the bat. Snake ape? On the other hand, things like “air squids” are why I read these kinds of collections.

Batarang. Was DC ever notified of this infringement?

Plenty of slimy monsters: blue horror(which I’m guessing is a slime-type?), red blob, maybe “brown ich?,” gelatinous blue horror(maybe the original isn’t a slime after all), green slime golem. Eh, maybe not as many as I thought. We’ll get a better idea as we read through them, I don’t want to spend all day browsing the contents. And neither do you, I’m sure!

Vampire bear. Heh. Brain stealer(geteit chemosit). Is that German? I feel like I’ve seen other monsters in here with similar names. Will have to see if that’s true and if they’re written by the same author.

Carnivorous… typo? Carnivorous typo. Typo, carnivorous. Are you serious? If this doesn’t end up being some kind of meta monster I’m going to be quite disappointed.

Here’s another thing about the formatting. It makes sense as a normal book, in that one column continues in the column to its right. But because of the formatting of the book, you expect it to continue down the column on the next page below it. It’s a small thing, honestly, but it’s noticeable. 

A lot of monsters that would see official stats later, as expected. Crocotta, cyclops, various demons - but no devils! There’s a “sun devil,” but since there’s no “devil” category I figure it’s a devil in the way a tasmanian devil is a devil - in a non-literal sense. It looks like there are some traditional powerful monsters from myth and legend among the demons, as Ymir(“Prince of Ice Demons”) is one of them, and some of these others may turn out to be similar things - it’s hard to tell from the names, such as “serpent king” and “twelfth plane,” which yes, is the name of a demon. As three demons are listed as “ice,” I imagine they were going more for a frozen Hell as opposed to a fiery one, which would be why they used Ymir instead of Surtr. The latter would have been a much more obvious choice, being a fiery giant who is to burn the universe to ashes as the grand finale of the final conflict between good and evil(yes I’m simplifying it, this isn’t a mythology lesson).

A good number of golems, including diamond, dust, the aforementioned green slime, ice(unusual but not impossible in a magical world, or in frozen places, where they’d be quite evocative), quicksilver(which would also appear in Mystara as simply “silver golems”), wood(ditto), and oddest of all - tar.

Ground octopus, like “air squid,” is the kind of thing I read these books for. Again, there’s kind of a similar monster in Mystara, the decapus, which tends to live in trees. Personally, my favorites are the octorocks of the Legend of Zelda series. While mentioning both air squids and video games, I’ll throw in that the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 featured flying squids as well. I should also mention that I haven’t played video games in 30 years, so I will routinely recall things like this and not the 3,000 instances of them that have likely appeared in video games in the interim. 

I never thought I’d see triffids in a monster book. I love it! Some Lewis Carrol monsters, some from myth and legend, such as the “three sons of Argatron.” I had to look that up, by the way, as it sounded historical but I wasn’t sure. Google corrected me to some random other word first, and then when I insisted that it search for what I actually typed, it pulled the legends right up. I didn’t read them though; we’ll do that when we get to the entry! Man-Scorpion, another monster not yet statted. As far as I know, they’re usually called “scorpion men,” so the formatting of “man” first is an unusual coincidence and I wonder if there was some famous or classical text popular at the time that used that form. At any rate, it says “see Humbaba,” who, if I’m not terribly wrong, was not a scorpion man. 

There are several Lovecraftian things, including stats for Nyarlathotep. I believe I have probably 3 or 4 sets of stats for him, for various editions of D&D, and I look forward to contrasting them all and seeing how they compare, especially this earliest one to, say, the newest one I have. Of course, being published by Chaosium, they had the rights to these monsters.

Not so much the olog-hai, which was a direct property of the Tolkien Estate. If “hobbit,” a word Professor Tolkien did not even invent, had to be removed from early versions of D&D, one must imagine that the only reason the same didn’t occur here is that this book flew under their radar. (In fact, I believe hobbits were removed by choice, in order to prevent future legal issues, but this is another point I could be quite wrong on.)

Let’s move on and not spend all day speculating and rambling about a table of contents, shall we?

Creators

I don’t want to add up the number of creators used, as many are combinations of creators and so forth. Dan Pierson created the largest number of monsters, with 28 entries printed in the book. It seems like the average is about a dozen or a bit less, just glancing at the numbers and guessing. If someone cares enough to do the math, have fun. 

One little point is the last line: “There are 265 entries and 113 cross-references.” So out of these monsters, almost half of them are related to(in some way or another, whether as biologically related, as enemies, or whatever) others. If that’s what it means, that would make some sense given that some creators contributed a dozen or more monsters, and there’s often going to be such connections(such as someone creating a number of “ice demons”). This kind of thing is good, as it can be incorporated to give the denizens of your world, and your world by extension, more of a feeling of depth and history, that these monsters have relations, alliances and rivalries, and aren’t just a set of numbers. 

“Interpreting the Monster Entries”

An explanation of what the stats mean and so forth. There are a few points of interest here. They mention that random numbers are “expressed as die rolls,” in case you played D&D and somehow didn’t know what 3d6 meant. This is great though, as it saves the trouble of figuring out what to use to determine 3-6(it’s 1d4+2). There are reasons that Gygax chose to express numbers as, say, the aforementioned 3-6 instead of 1d4+2, which was to emphasize that the numbers were important and not how they were generated, opening people up to new dice rolling conventions and so forth. Unfortunately, what it mostly did was confuse people with some of the more difficult to interpret number ranges. 

We’re told that intelligence is abbreviated as IQ(as it is in the later GURPS) and expressed as a die roll - so instead of being told “very” or given a specific number, we’re given dice to roll to determine the intelligence of any given monster. (I do this in my own games and monster stats, so it’s nice to see someone else doing this a number of years before I was capable of playing.)

Most of the rest of the explanations are mundane and not worth reviewing, it’s basic information. 

One thing it doesn’t bother to explain or mention is the fact that it has a dexterity range for each monster in the same way it has an IQ range. Here, dexterity is abbreviated DEXT., which makes me wonder if the DEX abbreviation had been used yet on character sheets or was still a little bit away? Remember, this book was released after Holmes Basic and before a single AD&D book, including the first AD&D book released, the Monster Manual.

More importantly than the abbreviation is why that was there. It was there because in Holmes Basic, the melee combatants attack in order of dexterity, regardless of who won initiative or initiated combat. The Holmes book mentions the question of “who strikes the first blow?” as one unresolved in OD&D, which seems very odd. OD&D never really explained initiative at all, and expected you to default to Chainmail order of initiative. It may have not expected you to use the combat “phases,” but just the die mechanic that determined which side acted first - that being a d6 and the higher goes first. Later versions would have the lower roll act first, with the option to positively/detrimentally modify the roll by weapon speed. There is mention that dexterity might affect various things including initiative, but there’s no exact rule explaining how. Most people just assumed that the one with the initiative attacked first, and this was how the game has been played, for the most part, ever since(and I imagine, for most, during and before, as well). Personally, I think it’s great, and would enjoy trying the rule out. I favor using phases and aspects of combat that add some amount of strategy, where “I run up and attack” can often be detrimental to waiting for a more opportune moment and so forth. I’d prefer the combat phases, and have played with them for many, many years, but I’d be quite open to the Holmes Basic version of combat. (Someone want to run it for me?) 

As yet another digression, it’s funny how often I’ve played games with people that ran their system of choice for decades, sometimes since the game was released, and never knew how initiative actually worked in said system. People get so used to it working a certain way in lots of games, and they either never consult the rule in their own game, or forget it and replace it in their mind with another. I’ve played in multiple Marvel Super Heroes games where everyone rolled a d10 for initiative, and when I pointed out it was one die per side, the judges in each case looked at me quizzically and then continued doing it how they had been doing it forever. The fact that they had been performing the most basic part of their favorite game wrong for 30+ years was too much to consider so it was simply dismissed.

And with that, I’ll wrap this first entry. I hope it wasn’t too boring - I know I ramble and digress, but it’s kind of part of the point I suppose. I hope you’ll stick with me for the monsters, even if you found this part kind of weak, and that you’ll let me know what you think, as well, because I want to go over this with you, not just read a review to a brick wall. It’s not a review, it’s a readthrough, me and you, if you please.

So.

Let’s read All the World’s Monsters together!