d50 Monster Powers

Use these when you want to make monsters tougher without resorting to upping their HP, AC, or damage. These aren't the weirdest powers I can think of - I've left them relatively "standard" so they can be broadly applicable. Combine with this d50 Puzzle Monster Death Requirements table to make a d100 table.

1. Sings foes to sleep
2. No one can lie in its presence
3. Magically charms foes
4. Transmutes metal to glass
5. Immune to (fire, ice, electricity, acid, poison, magic, nonmagic weapons)
6. Reflects spells back at the caster
7. Only susceptible to (fire, ice, electricity, acid, poison, magic, silver, gold, lead, mercury, etc)
8. Redirects spells to random targets
9. Attackers must save or lose all motivation
10. Exists in the spaces between seconds: takes an extra turn every round when it chooses
11. Blood corrodes metal
12. Inspires suicidal thoughts in foes
13. Poison bite causes (sleep, hallucinations, paralysis, retching, STR damage, CON damage, DEX damage, INT damage, WIS damage, CHA damage, level drain, death)
14. Always wins initiative
15. Grows scales, improves by 1 AC for every hit taken
16. Can disappear behind anything and reappear anywhere else within sight
17. Certain pieces of music can control it/cause it pain
18. Shatters armor
19. Spells against it must be cast twice to take effect
20. Can't be charmed
21. Has one form during the day and another at night
22. 100' radius of magical silence
23. Cannot escape wells
24. Power tied to the phases of the moon
25. 100' radius of magical darkness
26. Healed by the wounds it inflicts
27. Knows its foes' past
28. Causes people to switch bodies: players must play each others' characters without referring to character sheets
29. Commands shadows to betray their owners
30. No one can tell the truth in its presence
31. Skin coated in poison
32. Controls metal like Magneto
33. Bursts into flames
34. Emotions affect the weather
35. Can move on walls and ceilings
36. Flies
37. Can give a command (as the spell) once per HD per combat
38. Staring directly into its eyes causes blindness
39. Can't be seen when perfectly still
40. Explodes in poison gas when killed
41. May age or regress its opponents by d10 years instead of attack
42. Claws/teeth/horns/etc made of diamond, very valuable but every hit is critical
43. Moves through solid objects
44. Transfers consciousness to another creature just before death
45. Projects up to d8 images of itself in its foes' minds
46. Becomes more vicious when wounded: one more attack per round for each hit taken
47. If a spell or other special ability is used against it, it may now use that ability
48. Grows or shrinks at will
49. Hides its true form behind an ordinary/beautiful exterior
50. Eats foes' identities: attacks do INT, WIS, or CON damage (or all three at once) and cause the victim to forget an important fact about itself

d50 Puzzle Monster Death Requirements

Thanks to +Garrett Fitzgerald, +Jon Salway, +Whidou, +Gordon Cranford, +rich fraser, +Dice Quixote, and +Zak Sabbath for your contributions.

The creature can only be killed...

1. if separated from its weapon or other small object
2. if its wounds are rubbed with (salt, elf urine, holy blood, unicorn bone powder)
3. if you know its true name
4. on a moonless night
5. if it believes itself to be vulnerable 
6. if fully incinerated or vaporized; otherwise, it will regenerate
7. by a whore and virgin simultaneously
8. by a weapon of (living wood, silver, lead, gold, black iron, virgin steel)
9. without pain
10. while it sleeps
11. if cut into four pieces and buried in four different lands
12. once it has passed on its curse
13. in honorable single combat
14. through treachery
15. by decapitation, though the head will go on living
16. if buried in the roots of a yew tree
17. if its blood is drained
18. at a crossroads
19. in the rain
20. over water
21. outside its place of power
22. if kept from contact with the ground
23. in its true form
24. while feeding
25. when it cannot commune with a new willing host
26. if the one who deals the fatal blow dies at the same instant
27. in a certain, small geographical point/place
28. by its own willing suicide
29. if its death can never be confirmed with certainty afterwards
30. by a true friend
31. by mistake
32. by death penalty pronounced by an impartial judge
33. if the planets are correctly aligned
34. during the twelfth minute of the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month
35. if a certain poem is spoken while the creature is attacked.
36. if someone agrees to take its place
37. by a scorned lover
38. by its creator
39. by removing it from the planet
40. by reading a children's book to it
41. by a blade that has slain the creature's sire
42. by an immortal
43. in the place of its birth
44. through ritual sacrifice
45. by eating it
46. if it does half of its HP in damage to its slayers
47. by the tools of its trade
48. by the moon
49. if entombed in ice
50. on its birthday

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Beyond Vornheim

Read these:

Mandy:
Facebook
Google+

Zak:
Blogger

In the absence of hard evidence on either side, you need to decide for yourself whose words are more credible. For my part, I find Mandy more credible because I can see Zak's great incentive to lie, but I can't see hers. I've decided to withdraw my support for Zak - through both my money and my blog - unless I can be absolutely certain that I'm not supporting the person Mandy describes. I wouldn't send someone to jail based on this level of evidence, but I'm not sending him to jail so that standard doesn't apply. The only things I know for sure about Zak are that he makes good RPG material and is unnecessarily combative online, and those things neither condemn nor exonerate him.

Horror Creature Generator

I'm running a LotFP campaign set in the Balkans a little while after the reign of Vlad Tepes. I want to invoke the feeling of black and white monster movies (Nosferatu, Frankenstein) but mostly with novel, unfamiliar monsters in the Flame Princess tradition (though Voivodja is out there for the players to find in all its vampiric glory). I put together an inspiration generator to quickly produce creatures that seem like movie monsters pulled from folklore but slightly askew.

Thinking about real animals that freak people out, I developed a pet theory that they can be categorized into four modes of creepy behavior: crawling, slithering, swarming, and stalking. So that's the first step:

d4:
1. crawl
2. slither
3. swarm
4. stalk

Then you roll an inspiration creature, taking the inspiration as literally or figuratively as you like:

Crawl - d8:
1. beetle-like
2. centipede-like
3. crab-like
4. lobster-like
5. roach-like
6. scorpion-like
7. slug-like
8. snail-like

Slither - d8:
1. eel-like
2. fog-like
3. leech-like
4. lamprey-like
5. octopus-like
6. snake-like
7. squid-like
8. worm-like

Swarm - d8:
1. ant-like
2. bat-like
3. bee-like
4. fly-like
5. locust-like
6. maggot-like
7. rat-like
8. microbe-like

Stalk - d8:
1. crocodile-like
2. mantis-like
3. plague-like
4. shark-like
5. spider-like
6. raptor-like
7. vulture-like
8. wolf-like

Then determine the creature's M.O:

d20 (roll 1-2 times):
1. feeds on body fluids
2. it follows, like It Follows
3. feeds on fear
4. infiltrates dreams
5. hypnotizes/charms
6. loves (and is immune to) poison
7. hates (and is immune to at least some) magic
8. radiates hallucinations
9. causes plants to wilt
10. is radioactive
11. exists outside space-time
12. is the result of an ancient curse
13. feeds on madness
14. is the result of man's folly
15. feeds on hedonism
16. has one form in the day and another at night
17. is from hell or the nether regions of the earth
18. desires power over men
19. is a summoned servant
20. wants to eradicate men

And weaknesses:

d20 (roll 1-2 times):
1. sunlight
2. holy blood
3. silver
4. lead
5. mercury
6. salt
7. elf urine
8. flowing water
9. virgin tears
10. vanity
11. stupidity
12. it cannot lie
13. its own reflection
14. a superiority complex
15. a sweet tooth
16. its spirit is tied to a small object
17. baby's laughter
18. being tossed down a well
19. decapitation (other attacks futile)
20. powdered bone of a magic creature

Then I cheat by rolling on the d100 Guest Attributes and Powers tables on pp. 49 and 50 of A Red & Pleasant Land. The tables are there and great so I'm gonna use them, dammit.

It's fast because you can roll all the dice at once or click here (only 10 entries from the R&PL tables are given in the online generator because I got tired of typing) and produces a fairly complete piece of inspiration that works for me. So it meets the Cardinal Rule of generators by being faster than making it up from scratch.

I would then recommend drawing the generated creature and statting it right on the drawing, like so. Ideally, there should be something both human and inhuman about the creature.

Skull Crab

Armor 14, Movement 60’, Hit Dice 1, 1 barbed leg attack 1d6 plus poison, 1 bite attack 1d4, Morale 9.

The skull crab lives alone in some remote swamp, forgotten underground region, or sea cave. It crawls around on chitinous, segmented legs and uses a decomposing head for a shell. Specialized musculature allows the crab to control the head’s jaw bone as a claw. Ocular stalks protrude from the hollowed out eye sockets. Depending on the crab’s age, the shell may still have rotting flesh attached or may just be a skull.

The skull crab reproduces by mating with your face. It knows who your true love is, and will assume that form. You must succeed in a save against magic or be taken in by the illusion and compelled to kiss it. If kissed, the crab will transmit a microscopic larva into the mouth of the new host. After transmission, the illusion fades.

You won't notice anything at first, but will complain of a growing headache over the next 2d12+12 days as the larva gestates and prepares to sever your head from your body. During the first third of this time, the larva can be killed by casting Cure Disease. It will slither out through the mouth, nose, or ear. After that, the larva has grown too large and must be removed surgically. If allowed to reach its full gestation period, the crab’s sharp legs will extend and slice the head clear of the neck.

This will kill the body, but your brain won't die. The skull crab feeds on living brain tissue, which it dissolves a little at a time. The host’s optical and auditory nerves are connected to the crab’s nervous system, so you can observe its surroundings while being helpless to act. You will also be aware of disappearing memories and diminishing brain function as more of the brain is consumed. In this way, the crab can live for hundreds of years.

Skull Crab Cult

Some of the few even aware of its existence consider the skull crab to be a divine vessel for preserving the brain after the usefulness of the body has been exhausted. Someone, often a powerful cleric or magic user, may allow herself to be infected with a skull crab larva. She then spends the gestation period in meditation while being tended to by other cultists. These cultists burn fragrant roots and herbs around the host and feed her tinctures and elixirs. All these have the cumulative effect of permitting the host’s brain control over the crab once gestation and bodily separation is complete. The host may move with the crab’s legs, speak with a rasping voice and cast spells. The crab will still slowly dissolve the host’s brain, however, and over decades or centuries this will drive the host quite insane.