The previous column, On Treasure, drew some positive comments but no written responses, so on to the new subject...
On Monsters
"The troll was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell. The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam"
-Poul Anderson, "Three Hearts and Three Lions"
Elcea, like most fantasy role-playing settings, is full of monsters. Monsters that fly, slither, walk, and crawl. Monsters with fangs, claws, beaks, tentacles, and stingers. Monsters of thousands of different shapes and sizes. Some of them emerge from pools of slime with a sucking noise and a foul stench, and others wear embroidered robes and speak in urbane tones about fine wines. Whatever their shape, all of these monsters have one thing in common; they are all embodiments of my desire to challenge the players.
Every story (and what the players and DM create together are an extended series of stories) needs an antagonist, and the monsters fill that roll. "Monster", for my purposes, is any creature that is set against a group of adventurers. This includes not only classic monsters such as orcs, trolls, and manticores, but all kinds of things. A radish farmer can be a "monster", and so can a chipmunk. A cunning but good-natured halfling thief can be a monster (in fact, halfling thieves are generally referred to as "those little monsters", at least in polite conversation). Bandits, evil wizards, or a shrubbery can all be monsters. What they all have in common is that they present some sort of obstacle to a group of adventurers.
My philosophy and use of monsters has changed a bit over the years. In the first adventures that I put together, creatures were just tossed in willy-nilly. "Let's see", I'd think, "this room will have ogres. Yeah, that sounds good. The next room will have a basilisk. Cool! And then, across the hall, I'll put some giant poisonous snakes." While it made for nonstop action, I very quickly became dissatisfied with the lack of "realism", and began developing more coherent ecologies. The hobby as a whole also began paying attention to this, reflected in the fact that the 2nd edition of the AD&D "Monstrous Compendium" actually devoted a section in each monster's description to the role the beast plays in it's local ecology.
Now, in almost every case, the creatures a party runs into have been chosen with some care. When I set up an encounter, I ask myself a series of questions to decide what monster to place. Question one is: what type of encounter is this? I divide encounters into two basic kinds, incidental encounters and key encounters. Incidental encounters are those that liven up an otherwise quiet area. Key encounters are those that advance the adventure in some way; they might allow a group access to a new area, or they might be guarding a major treasure that the group wants or needs. Incidental encounters are not usually meant to give a group too much trouble. They provide a bit of entertainment, and sometimes a little treasure.
They also help build up a reasonable food chain in the local ecology. The bottom level of a basic dungeon food chain, ordinary beetles, rats, lizards, etc., are simply dungeon dressing ("You see some 6" black beetles scurry away from your light into the darkness", or "A rat darts into a crack in the wall as you enter the room"). For your average dungeon denizen, however, these are crunchy taste treats, consumed in large numbers. When you get to the next level up, though, adventurers have to start being careful. Giant rats, osquips, giant fire beetles, and other things are able to give low-level groups trouble, as well as making excellent snacks for the dungeon's tougher monsters. Giant lizards must be gourmet meals. These creatures have 3+1 hit dice, AC 7, and do 1-8 point of damage. Most other monsters can kill them with ease, and the things are 15' long. That's a lot of meat! I've decided that these things breed and grow quickly, and are one of the foundation monsters of most underground areas. If you have ever wondered why your group runs into these things so often, that is the reason. They are there to support other, larger predators that might eat the group.
These larger predators make up most key encounters. These are meant to give a group a real fight. They are usually the apex predators in their area, and have usually cowed, driven away, or eaten other monsters in their immediate vicinity. Intelligent monsters might keep other creatures around as allies or cannon fodder, though, such as a band of minotaurs that allows a pack of giant weasels to den near their entrance to their territory. The minotaurs are too tough for the weasels, who are cunning enough to have learned to leave the minotaurs alone. The minotaurs leave the weasels there as additional security. Everyone wins, except the adventurers who get hit by the minotaurs just after finishing a draining (heh heh) battle with the weasels.
The second question is: how tough is the group that is going to face them? Monsters that a higher-level group would brush aside can annihilate a lower-level party. An owlbear might be an incidental encounter for one group, but a life-and-death struggle for another. Thus, while one dungeon might feature ogres as the apex predators, in another setting they might be servants, slaves, or hunted prey. As the wicked witch said to Dorothy, "These things must be done delicately, you know!"
This brings me to question three: what types of monsters would inhabit this area? This is partly objective and partly subjective. A ruined castle in some arid hills will have a much different mix of monsters than one on a frozen plain. I frequently realize that while the perfect creature to use for a planned encounter might be a chimera, for instance, chimeras just don't inhabit that type of area. Beyond even that, some monsters just feel right for a given adventure and some don't. I usually have an idea before I even start drawing a dungeon what sort of creatures will inhabit it. I might decide that a series of ancient crypts in the desert will feature giant snakes and giant scorpions, but not giant spiders. Giant spiders, while they would have the right number of hit dice and be right for the climate, would feel "wrong" for the place. I can't really describe this part of the process. It's an instinct, or maybe an esthetic sense. Whether this instinct or whatever is usually valid I don't think I'm in a good position to judge.
The final question is, are there any special considerations for the area? A common one is an area that has been sealed off for years behind a secret door. The only creatures that might be found here are ones that don't need to eat or breath, such as undead or golems, or things that can be dormant for a long time, like giant ticks.
This usually leaves me with a short list of several possibilities for a given encounter. And if no real possibilities suggest themselves from among the hundreds of monsters in my books, I can always craft something to fit the encounter's requirements. This has the added benefit of causing confusion and uncertainty among the players, as well as giving them something new and interesting to deal with. These self-imposed guidelines, however, are just that - guidelines. If there's a compelling game reason for me to have a certain monster in a certain place, I'll put it there, even if it bends or breaks some of the rules of common sense. I figure the players will be too busy keeping their characters from being eaten to find too much fault.
Over the course of creating and gaming several thousand encounters, I have developed some real favorites among the many monsters I have used. Players have their own likes and dislikes, and while there are a lot of individual variations among players it is possible to generalize a bit. Players tend to like straightforward encounters with large opponents. Something like giants or minotaur lizards, creatures capable of giving a good fight and worth a lot of experience points, but without a lot of spell ability of their own and without magic resistance.
Players absolutely despise monsters that I think of as "maiming" monsters, creatures capable of degrading a character's abilities or statistics permanently. This includes level-draining undead, giant slicer beetles, vargouille, and some others. Most players would much rather their characters were killed and eaten cleanly than lose an arm, hit points, or levels. Players also hate and fear "instant-kill" monsters, but I really don't think they dislike them as much as the maiming ones. Things like banshees, pyrolisks, and catoblepas I use with great care. If they are the monster to beat, it means that the players know the gloves are off and that I am out to kill a character or two.
The type of creature that really bugs players, though, are the "lethal vermin" sort of monster. These things are deadly, they rarely have treasure, and they are worth next to no experience. Rot grub, green slime, and yellow mold all fall into this category. From all these types of creatures I have my nominations for the three monsters that my players hate the most:
3. Rot grub. Little grubs that burrow into characters and worm their way to the heart in 1 to 4 rounds, causing instant death. They are more like a disgusting, wriggling trap than a monster. No real combat, no experience points, and a really nasty way to die all in one package.
2. Vargouille. These are demonic heads with bat-like wings. They aren't all that tough, but any damage they do (1-4 per bite) is permanent. Watching one of those things swoop down on a group is like watching a lone kamikaze attack an entire carrier task force. Everything that can be brought to bear on the monster is fired; the sky is filled with bolts, missiles, and spells. Gods help me, I love it so.
1. Sons of Kyuss. These are fairly powerful skeletal undead that exude a fear aura, and have these plump, nasty worms crawling in and out of their eye sockets. The worms leap onto characters, where they act like rot grub. These horrible things combine the worst of several really despised kinds of monsters. At least they are worth some experience points!
It goes without saying that I like all three of these creatures, though I use them sparingly. Among all monsters, though, there are two that I am more fond of than any others. For those that have played in the campaign for a long time, can you guess what they are? Go on, take a minute before you read on to the next paragraph. Ready?
Above all others are trolls. They are perfect. They live in all climates, so they can be placed anywhere. They have 6+6 hit dice (an average of 33 hit points), which is a really good range. One can wipe out a low-level group, and even high-level parties have to respect them if they appear in numbers. They deal an average of 20 points of damage if all three attacks hit, and can do up to 28. And they regenerate. Boy, do they regenerate. There are many tougher monsters, but none that are so flexible and useful in so many situations. The prototype for the D&D troll is the troll in Poul Anderson's fantasy novel "Three Hearts and Three Lions", one of my favorite fantasy novels, so trolls and I go back a long ways.
The other monster I really love is the giant scorpion. What isn't to like? A good AC (3), excellent damage (13.5 average if all three attacks hit, maximum of 24), virulent poison, and the same kind of useful hit point range that trolls have (they have 5+5 hit dice), where one can really threaten low-level groups and they are trouble for tougher parties. Scorpions also appear in climes from tropical to temperate, and are common deep underground, increasing their usefulness to a hardworking GM.
If you guessed spiders, give yourself half a point. I think I use spiders more than any other kind of creature. That is because they are so widespread, and come in some many different varieties. There is almost always a spider that will fit a given situation. I don't, however, have the abiding fondness for them that I do for trolls and scorpions.
Monsters serve another purpose in the game in addition to their role as antagonist. Monsters, especially in the classic sense of something big with lots of claws and teeth that wants to eat you, have deep roots in our subconscious. This is pretty understandable in a race whose ancestors were chased around the savanna by spotted lions and saber-toothed cats. When adventurers face and kill monsters, this is a cathartic experience. Our deepest fears have been faced and beaten. It is also excellent exercise for our less deeply buried frustrations. You may not be able to take your longsword and hack apart your boss, annoying coworker, or the IRS guy, but that hill giant has by god had it!
There is another aspect to monster-bashing which I subtly encourage. It is not useful for me as a DM to take an adversarial role against the players. My job is to give them a good time, not to thwart them. If, however, the players identify beating the monsters with beating me, that just adds to their fun. My job is to make sure that this is a charade and not reality. It isn't always easy. I have put a lot of time and thought into these beasts, after all, and in order to play them appropriately I have to take their point of view at least somewhat. My notes almost always include a little bit about a monster's place in the level, and it's likely strategy if attacked. This tends to generate a bit of sympathy in me for even the most repulsive monsters. It isn't always easy to watch them get hacked to pieces. It's worse when my dice get cold and a bunch of monsters that I had envisioned as a tough challenge get swept casually aside. I like for my monsters to at least earn a little respect before going down!
Of course, monsters are not just there to be killed. They are also there to be tricked, evaded, negotiated with, and forced to surrender. Sometimes I'll place monsters that I think are clearly too tough for a group in the player's way just to force them to find creative ways to deal with them. Some of my favorite encounters in the entire campaign have come about as a result of such roadblocks, such as the elaborate, detailed, and successful plan the MSU party developed to get past the "terrible gnolls" and get their treasure without fighting. It's worth noting that monsters that are defeated without violence are worth more experience than monsters that are destroyed by fighting.
So the next time your group encounters some monsters take just a second to reflect, before the poor things are hacked to pieces, on everything that has gone into putting them there. "Hmmm," you might think, "three ettins. Good choice! Just the right number of hit dice to be a challenge, realistically portrayed, and they fit perfectly in this setting. Phil hasn't lost it yet!".
Okay, so it'll never happen. More likely, you'll stop thinking about them as soon as the last one topples to the ground, in your rush to ask "What kind of treasure do they have?". That's all right, though. They've done their job.
And, lurking down the next corridor, a new terror is ready to pounce...
Do you have any comments, questions, or responses to this article? Send them in! I'd like to hear them, and if there are enough interesting ones I'll add them to this page.
Ideas and contributions to future editions of "Mere Chronicles" are also being accepted.
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