The spirit of the season has compelled me to join in that grandest of traditions: a Secret Santa, by way of the noble art of blogging. I drew PRIMEUMATON of the Madman's Menagerie as my target, and so I present a supplement to his Straight Flush series of bestiary entries in his MORNING STARS setting.
Town Guard
1 HD (4 HP), AC as chain, 5 morale
A bandit by any other name.
Movement: Can maintain a purposeful stroll along a familiar patrol route for 8 hours, but can only sprint for 10 minutes before having to rest.
Morality: Motivated in equal measure by their local social bonds and a reliable wage. If either is threatened, they will respond with municipally-sanctioned violence.
Intelligence: Uncreative but possess a deep well of local trivia.
Attacks: +2 to hit. All are issued with a standard-issue melee weapon (1d6). One in a patrol has a crossbow (1d6, range 120’, requires a full round to reload.)
Indistinguishable: Players can only target town guards who have been described with a unique feature (such as a crossbow) or have had such a feature inflicted upon them. Attacks against any other town guard hit a guard of the GM’s choice.
Orcneas Bannerman
2 HD (12 HP), AC as worn armor, 12 morale
The allegiance of the war-dead is a fleeting thing, but an Orcneas that still bears even a tattered flag becomes a rallying point for lost causes. On eternal battlefields, souls find a measure of lucidity in the symbol they died for and will follow the bannerman until it inevitably falls.
Movement: Shambles on shattered limbs. Wields a great flagpole as a crutch and weapon alike. Despite this, the bannerman is no slower than it was in life.
Morality: Fanatically patriotic, as an impromptu officer among the irregular war-dead.
Intelligence: Remembers the heraldry of lost ages and the grudges of its ancient lord with monomaniacal clarity. All else clouded over in a bloody haze.
Attacks: +2 to hit, one attack with their flag (counts as a polearm).
Battle-Scarred: Roll 1d6 to see how the Orcneas Bannerman died. 1-3. Roll on the regular Orcneas table. 4. Trampled. All bones shattered in a bag of bruised skin, cannot be further maimed. 5. Volley fire. The hundred arrows that took its life now protect it in death. Attacking it in melee incurs 1 damage. 6. Betrayed. Whether poisoned by disgruntled troops or stabbed in the back in the heat of the battle, its undying paranoia always detects ambushes.
Rallying Cry: Its shattered mandible mangles battle cries and marching songs alike. Other Orcneas that can hear it or see its tattered flag do not need to roll morale and will follow its orders without question.
Undead: The war-dead share none of life’s basal needs. Their wounds scab, but never heal nor rot.
Catarrhic Ooze
3 HD (12 HP), AC as unarmored, 8 morale
The body’s answer to all problems is mucus, especially if the problem itself is mucoidal in nature. In extreme cases, the sinuses autocannibalize and convert the body’s entire mass into mucus, resulting in this miserable half-living creature.
Movement: Sedate unless lunging for prey. Climbs walls and ceilings with ease.
Morality: Resentful and hungry in equal measure.
Intelligence: Single-minded ambush predator.
Attacks: +0 to hit, or +4 if undetected. Attacks grapple rather than dealing damage, see Post-Nasal Drop.
Semifluid: The Catarrhic Ooze takes half damage from all physical attacks except those made with cloth or other absorbent materials, which deal damage to the ooze as if they were iron. Can squeeze through gaps as small as the human mouth/nose.
Post-Nasal Drop: Instead of dealing damage, attacks Grapple target. Grappled creatures must save vs. suffocation at the start of each of their turns and whenever the ooze takes damage. Grappled creatures take 1 damage whenever they act or fail a save. Whenever either the ooze or its captive attempts to move, everyone involved must save or be dragged along.
Goblin King
4 HD (20 HP), AC as unarmored, 7 morale
As a goblin is a loathsome creature of amalgamated garbage, so too is a goblin king a far more loathsome entity of amalgamated goblins. Rotten stick-limbs wrap and snap about each other, tumorous wart-eyes bubble together, maws press together into slavering cavities attempting to devour each other. A vindictive intelligence emerges; a lord-mind that hates the world and its constituent goblin-organs in equal measures.
Movement: Scuttles and rolls at break-neck speed, but has minimal ability to turn or stop.
Morality: A goblin may have infinite capacity for spite, but there are yet greater infinities and the Goblin King seeks to comprehend them all. Preferably by enacting them upon hapless creatures. Especially other goblins.
Intelligence: As a town council of squabbling children, but with the determination and grudges of their great-grandparents.
Attacks: +0 to hit. Roll six times on the following table. It makes all the corresponding attacks in any order, and prefers to target either the weakest or those who have most recently captured its attention.
- Autocannibalize. (1d4 to itself).
- Many bites (2d4).
- Garbage shiv. See original goblin entry.
- Huck refuse (1d6, can be thrown 30’).
- Vomit filth (1d4 to all non-goblins within 10’. +10’ radius for each time this result has been rolled this turn.)
- Gleeful charge (scuttles 60’ and attacks everything it passes by or over during this movement for 1d6-1).
Rapacious: As the goblin’s Ruin ability, but counts as 6 goblins.
Tactical War Elephant
5 HD (24 HP), AC as chain, 8 morale
The elephant’s sinuous trunk made it the preferred beast of burden for the snakemen whenever they lowered themselves to modify the mammalian branches of the tree of life. Some changes were required: a smaller, denser frame; a more muscular and dexterous trunk; tusks that grow ceaselessly around into the eyes and brain if not regularly trimmed.
In this latter mammalian era, petty kingdoms have captured feral lesser elephants and trained them as tactical siege weapons. These creatures are too small to fit the howdahs or siege towers sized for their greater kin, but carry an entire platoon’s equipmentt and batter down village gates with ease. Military arborists have even coppiced their tusks into endless sources of ivory hilts, or trained their ceaseless growth into battering rams scrimshawed with histories of the platoon’s dead. Few lesser elephants enjoy this role, but their grander kin have not forgotten the indignities that created them, and have cast them off as sympathizers with the ancient serpent oppressors.
Movement: Purposeful strides. Cannot be slowed. Very fast if it deigns to run, or charge.
Morality: Defeatist and unsympathetic.
Intelligence: Smarter than their military handlers, as a rule.
Attacks: +4 to hit. Three attacks per round: one trunk slap (1d8 OR target saves vs. grapple, range 10’), one stomp (2d6, target saves vs. knock down), one gore (1d6+3 vs. two enemies in front of the elephant).
Charge: The Tactical War Elephant may spend its entire turn charging in a straight line up to 120’. It makes a free stomp attack against everyone it passes over, including its allies, and gores targets at the end of its movement.
