Fiend Factory Freaks that Failed to Fill the Fiend Folio

Over a year ago, I finished up my series of posts reviewing monsters from the FIEND FOLIO! And YET, something is missing! The Fiend Folio gathered together monsters from the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf, but not every monster made it in! I figured, as a (very belated) postscript to the Goin' Through the Fiend Folio series, a follow-up was in order wherein I highlight my favorite unused monsters submitted to White Dwarf magazine for the Fiend Factory column. Do keep in mind that Fiend Factory kept going well after the Fiend Folio went to print, and I'm not the most interested in creatures from that period. This post will only include highlighted monsters from before the Fiend Folio (1981) and immediately after (because Don Turnbull ran a short series of Fiend Factory segments that included submitted creatures which didn't end up in the Fiend Folio for one reason or another- usually for copyright reasons). 

Early Fiend Factory

 

Spinescale

★★★☆☆

Technically predating the Fiend Factory column proper, the spinescale is the first custom monster in a dedicated new monsters column in White Dwarf, as well as being a creation of Fiend Folio alum and Games Workshop founder Ian Livingstone. I am mostly featuring it here for its incredible illustration, so nasty and mean; the description is otherwise pretty basic! Spinescales are mutated frogs created by magical chemical runoff from an evil wizard that I assume was a named character in Ian Livingstone's campaign, with scaly leathery backs, needle teeth, venomous fangs on the hard palate of the mouth (???), and a tendency to lie in wait for humans who cross the water to tear off their legs. Its a classic ambush predator, and a pretty fun one! I do always just have a soft spot for amphibians though, especially ones that are the D&D equivalent of a toxic waste mutant. There's a note about them being 1 HD out of water for combat purposes due to their clumsiness which is pretty good, as well as a note about their vulnerable spots (underside and eyes).

Droll

★★☆☆☆

In a subsequent issue of White Dwarf, a new column appeared that would come to be the predecessor to the Fiend Factory: "Monsters Mild and Malign." The Fiend Folio ended up using a remix on this for its subtitle, "Monsters Malevolent and Benign." I'm spending so much time talking about the publication history here because the Droll is an incredibly simple creature. Nothing much is written about its behaviors, nor is it complicated mechanically, just being a 6 HD AC 9 melee monster with 3 claw attacks (from its two feet and one central clawed arm) and 1 bite attack per turn. Definitely nasty, but not that interesting mechanically. BUT LOOK AT THIS THING!!! I can't not love something that looks this messed up. If this creature was just a bit more evocative of anything at all it'd be great. As it stands, its just a cool drawing with 4 attacks per combat round.

Goldeater

★★★★☆

The goldeater is the last monster ever printed in the "Monsters Mild and Malign" column, before it became Fiend Factory, and its actually so sick. Don Turnbull felt the need to insert the (very spooky) illustration into the middle of the text, so for the curious reader you can read the whole description in the image above. I love the image of grasping greedy hands searching for gold, slurping whole coins up through the palms like a literal pickpocket. I'd be much less into the hand flying, but the bleeding wrist stump in the illustration makes it SO much better, leaving a trail of spattered blood as it hurtles through the dungeon. I want to use these already!! ...And you'd think, being a severed hand and all, that the goldeater would be undead, but its not??? Not only can they be charmed (which undead can't), they reproduce by mitosis when they have enough gold. That's INSANE! I love these things so much.

Silly Gimmick Monsters 

 

Withra

★★☆☆☆

A prominent category in the Fiend Factory column are silly gimmick monsters, often built around a mechanic that someone really wants to squeeze in or a name pun on some other monster. Some of these actually genuinely work as monsters in my opinion, and since they're such a prominent part of the column I figured they deserve at least some mention! The withra is a creation is Fiend Factory editor Don Turnbull, and, as its name implies, it is a remix on the infamous wraith, the most powerful of the "lower" order of undead in OD&D (for more on that, check out Dungeon of Signs, or my own post on wights and wraiths from last Halloween). The main difference here, however, is that the withra is bad at its job. The only physical difference between a withra and a wraith is that the former has the word "REJECTED" stamped on the back of its neck (this is silly but the idea of a factory that turns out monsters could be compelling), that the withra is terrible in combat (-4 to attack rolls), and that the hit of a withra raises the target's level by 1. This is the first monster I've ever seen that has the opposite of level drain! From Turnbull's comments after the description, this seems to be mostly done as a gotcha monster by mixing a withra with a group of wraiths, so the players let their guard down and are brought low by the wraiths with real level drain. But I just can't not love this bit here:  "Perhaps a trio of Wraiths could be showing a Withra around, trying to tell him how to behave in normal Wraith-like manner, when the party bumps into them?" Isn't that just darling?

Stinwicodech

★★☆☆☆

This is another one centered on one weird gimmick mechanic. The stinwicodech is a frog-headed hairy humanoid with a long frog-tongue attack that can raise a randomly determined ability score on the target by 1 (giving the creature its name: the first two letters of each of the six ability scores). However, if the same target is attacked again, and the same ability score is rolled again, then the tongue attack deals 1d6 damage directly to the ability score. This cycle repeats with each attack, until any ability score reaches 0, upon which point the victim dies. What a cumbersome system! The way this works, it's basically impossible for someone to be killed by a stinowicodech. They are encountered in small enough numbers and have low enough HD and such a low chance of making any given score reach 0 that it feels a bit moot. BUT I just love the look of this guy. This would be a silly 1 star monster I'd never use if it weren't also a frog-headed bigfoot. Reminds me a lot of my favorite guy, Ro-Man, from the 1953 movie The Robot Monster! Maybe make a version of this that just targets one ability score (or maybe a swarm of frog-things where each individual frog targets the same ability score each time?) and then it'd be better, but still not great. 

Stair Stalker 

★★★★☆

HEAR ME OUT!!! The stair stalker is a hairy humanoid that lingers on a particular staircase, silently ascending and descending the stairs incessantly, only attacking if somehow stopped or if someone barges past them. Yes, this is silly, even Don Turnbull says so in his commentary below the creature's description, but I think that this is such a surreal image that I can't help but love it, and I strongly believe that there is a version of the stair stalker that could be really effective. Its basically a boogeyman type monster, right? Just like how there's monsters under beds and in closets, so too are there monsters on staircases! Most of the time that's in the form of monsters that can grab at your feet when you're walking up one of those staircases with gaps between the steps (I hated those as a kid). Leaning in that direction (namely by just putting the stair stalker on the underside of the staircase) would make it a very effective horror monster. Otherwise, it serves as a good living obstacle to a dungeon crawl, since a stair stalker could very easily block a crucial passageway through the dungeon, or even a staircase between dungeon levels. Make it an NPC you can interact with! One with an obsession with this particular stairwell, a paranoia around all other parts of the dungeon! That's a compelling character! Maybe it isn't hairy because its a non-human creature adapted to the staircase, but because it's an adventurer who became traumatically stuck on the stairs and has degenerated into a wildman of sorts? IDK! There just really is something good here I swear!

Dahdi

★☆☆☆☆

This one is a stupid pun monster that I'm sharing entirely just to highlight how bad these can get. Half of the "Dahdi's" description is just a bunch of boomer-tier jokes about marriage, while the other half is just a description of how the Dahdi is the opposite of the mummy in every way (i.e. it is immune to magical weapons but takes damage from mundane weapons, any fire launched at it will be sent back at the players, high-level clerics are worse at turning it, etc). Any alcohol given to the dahdi increases its HP though which is admittedly kinda funny. Otherwise, this sucks!!!

Russian Doll Monster

★★★☆☆

A turducken of a monster, the Russian Doll Monster at first looks like a stone giant, complete with all the powers and statistics of a stone giant, but as you damage it its skin peels off to reveal progressively weaker and weaker monsters. Under the stone giant there's a hill giant, and under that an ogre, under the ogre is a bugbear, then a gnoll, a hobgoblin, an orc, a goblin, a kobold, and finally a leprechaun, which has been operating (???) the whole thing like a mecha pilot. Once revealed, the leprechaun turns invisible, nabs the closest most valuable item, and then does its best to skedaddle. Once again, just like the stair stalker, I think there's a kernel of an interesting idea here. A monster that peels back layers to reveal new forms as it takes damage is such a good idea, and tying that to D&D's humanoid stack is interesting even if that's not my favorite thing. It's just the natural endpoint of D&D having a hierarchy of increasingly stronger and stronger humanoids. I think I'd love this more if it was animals instead, and with something stranger than a leprechaun operating it. Imagine an onion of dinosaurs, elephants, and livestock operated by a teeny tiny grey alien... 

 

 

Nasnas

★☆☆☆☆

Wait a minute... where have I seen this monster before... I reviewed this version of the nasnas, an Islamicate folkloric creature that is the product of the union of a human and a jinni, at the bottom of my own rendition of the monster. If I do say so myself, I vastly prefer the more legendarily inspired version I wrote up. Roger Musson's nasnas is a silly gimmick monster that has half hit dice but hits as a higher hit-dice monster and deals 6d6+1 damage, except you only count the 1s on the dice roll. Nothing is mentioned of its weird metaphysical stuff. Mentioning it here only for completeness, since the nasnas has come up before!

Just a Bunch of Monsters I Like 

Turung

★★★☆☆

The turung is another one that's very mechanically simple. These are huge (7 feet tall and 4 feet wide) hairy humanoids that can cast the spells Web and anti-Magic Shell. Their fur is bright red and sheds constantly, leaving obvious hints at their presence in areas they haunt (a very very good detail to include!! Love a monster that comes with an obvious "spoor"/hint for the players!), and they tend to prefer not attacking whole groups of people, preferring ambushing isolated victims, otherwise being reluctant to fight. There's no physical description other than the fur and dimensions, so the illustrator that decided to make the turung eyeless except for two thrashing tentacles was truly inspired. Don Turnbull comments on this too and assumes the turung has displacer beast tentacles, which I genuinely don't know where he got from. Tentacle-eyed constantly-shedding hairy giants are so good. 

 

Whipper 

★★★★☆

For the most part, the whipper is just a mobile carnivorous plant (admittedly a personal favorite type of monster), complete with a central toothy maw and two whiplike vines it uses to ensnare prey. It has separate AC and HD for the tendrils and main body, since the latter is harder to hit, but if the main body is killed first then the whip-like vines thrash about uncontrollably for one melee round, slashing at all around. That's so sick!!! A monster with a final almost self-destructive adaptation like that makes a lot of sense with a sort of dungeon ecology, and the imagery of the whips flapping around like a dying snake or fish is just too sickly and weird to pass up.

Gurgotch

★★★★★

The gurgotch, or DEMON ELEPHANT, is one of the sickest monsters put on print in the Fiend Factory column. It's an evil elephant from hell summoned to do the bidding of darkness in the world, and appears as a dark-hued elephant with huge bright saucer eyes, a trident tail, long tusks, a prehensile trunk, and a "funnel-like" tongue from which it can release a nerve gas that paralyses those caught in its blast who fail a save (it also deals ability score damage, whether you fail the save or not). Interestingly, the description here leans a lot on saving throws against ability scores, which I have seen in other contexts (its briefly implied in a few places in OD&D but is more common in later editions), but which was evidently rare enough that Don Turnbull takes a paragraph to explain it here. I love this thing's whole vibe. It feels like something out of a gothic 90s JRPG. The nerve gas attack is delightfully awful, and the combination of that with typical trampling and tusk attacks that you'd expect an elephant to have makes for a nasty combo. There should totally be more fiendish versions of regular animals... devil giraffe next?? Don Turnbull, in his blurb at the bottom, says this is best suited as a wilderness encounter, but that encountering it in a tight dungeon would make for an interesting challenge, and I say PLEASE put a giant black evil elephant in your dungeon. More huge monsters in tight spaces!!

Wrecker

★★☆☆☆

The wrecker (great name) is essentially a D&D-ified guard robot, a "specialized iron golem" with a super fanciful and elaborate exterior that guards a specific spot, warns interlopers not to approach, and (if ignored) engages in combat with two fists that deal 1d20 damage and a 1d8 bite attack (the idea of this robot biting is kinda crazy tbh). It can also levitate and use detect invisible. Pretty basic, but having a guard robot statted up is pretty good to have! I kinda wish it was more overtly sci-fi. The levitate is basically small thrusters that can lift it up, and maybe detect invisible are infrared sensors. Don Turnbull doubts some inconsistencies, like the wrecker being listed as unintelligent but being able to speak to warn interlopers, and says that it could be a prerecorded message but that that would stretch the credulity even of D&D (literally why???). This is a 2 because its a bit too simple and not sci-fi enough, but its got a great illustration :)

Heat Skeleton

★★★☆☆

This is just a souped up skeleton (higher HD, stronger attacks, turned as a spectre) that has the ability to heat metal per the spell effect of the same name. Normally I don't really love these like, "low-level monster but tougher" monsters but IDK why this one works for me. I think the image of these bones (maybe blackened by the heat coursing through their bony tips) boiling a plate-clad fighter is just too striking to not love. Sometimes combining evocative enough incongruities makes for really interesting critters! 

Removed for Copyright Reasons 

 

Plantman

★★★★★

Although not specifically called out in the text (Don Turnbull's commentary just says it will be immediately recognizable to fans of fantasy), this is a monster pulled straight from the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom novels! It's actually not from the final Fiend Factory entry that deals entirely with copyrighted monsters, but it fits this category nonetheless. Described as "plant/human mutations," this is one of the most inventive takes on a humanoid plant monster I've ever seen. Rather than appearing like any recognizable plant, the plantman is a huge looming humanoid stalk with sinuous limbs tipped with razor-fanged mouths, a single large ever-staring eye, and a mob of writhing worm-like hairs (!!!) on top of its head. ERB really deserves the credit for the look of the thing, but it really is such a perfect D&D weirdo! Mechanically, the plantman here is pretty simple! A combative vegetarian humanoid monster with two hand-mouth attacks that have a chance to suck bodily fluids on a hit, thus also dealing damage to Constitution. They will avoid attacking clerics and never attack druids; the latter is so stereotypical for any vegetable creature, but the idea of these half-mindless stalks revering clerics is very interesting. Love this guy! 

 

Spice Worm
★★★★☆

 This is just straight up the sand worm from Dune! Notably, however, these are specifically the slightly smaller, young stage in the life of the sandworm, not as small as the larval worms mentioned in Herbert's novel but not so gargantuan and mature as the ones that the Fremen ride around. Every successful attack of a spice worm results in the swallowing whole of the victim, leading to their death inside the worm within 2 melee rounds (although until then, the victim is able to attack from within the worm) (this is a pretty simple yet effective worm ability IMO!). They are attracted to vibration and avoid water, just like the Dune worms. Where this gets interesting, however, is in how Dave Tant, the creator of this D&D-ified version, integrates the titular spice melange into his spice worm. There are four glands at the tail end of the spice worm, which are destroyed by critical hits (rolls of 20 on the to-hit roll), fireballs, etc., but which contain "one draught of a Potion of Inescapable Location," which allows the drinker to "proceed unerringly to any location or to any object or person the location of which may be unknown." That's such a good, simple D&D-y way to implement the special Navigator powers that the spice provides in Dune! On top of that, if the drinker continues to imbibe this potion (twice in one day, thrice in one week, or four times ever) then they go blind and develop permanent clairvoyance. It misses some of the weird ubiquity of the spice melange in Dune, but it gets the salient points across in a genuinely effective and interesting way! Plus, I just love a monster with a very particular and weird sort of built-in treasure!

Phung

★★★★★

The phung is a creature from Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series, namely the book City of the Chasch. As the description states, these mantis-headed insectile humanoids are "by human standards, insane." I just love that phrasing. This is an intelligent race of universally mad mischief-makers who love to torture and terrorize passersby and innocents. "Nothing gives a phung greater pleasure than to terrify its prey," as Simon Tilbrook's description puts it. I'm personally much less familiar with Vance's Planet of Adventure than I am with either Barsoom or Arrakis, but this is such an evocative combination of features (and paired with a very nasty naughty scheming illustration, hunched over and on its haunches!) that I can't help but love it. Don Turnbull, in his commentary, notes that this would not be every DM's monster; they are light on specific powers, don't use magic, and lean more on trickery and toying with the players, complete with thief and monk skills, so they're maybe more of the "thinking DM's" creature. I don't know if I personally would always be the best at running that, but aspirationally its very much my thing.

 

Couerl 

★★★☆☆

The displacer beast is already itself based on the couerl, the strange black feline intelligence from A.E. Van Vogt's short story "Black Destroyer." This description even calls attention to that fact in the first line, noting its "visual similarity to the displacer beast." And yet, this is a notably different enough take on the monster that it doesn't feel totally redundant. I have unfortunately not read "Black Destroyer" (I really oughta) so I can't comment on which version is closer to the original, but seeing this as an alternate take with different emphases is such an interesting thought experiment. Where the displacer beast has two long rasping tentacles, this take on the couerl has a mane of short prehensile tentacles with which it can use technological devices and manipulate doors and latches. Where the displacer beast has its visual distortion power, this take on the couerl instead has electricity/energy manipulation powers, with which it completely weakens fireballs, magical swords, any sort of sci-fi technology, magic missiles, etc.; this varies from lowering the damage dealt, to a 50% change for a given effect to just not work. Otherwise, this is a strong intelligent big cat that kills a bit too well, by draining "a chemical crucial to life," which renders attempts to revive its victims futile. Pretty good! IDK if I'd rather use it over a displacer beast, but I do like it.

 

---------------------

 

And with that, this appendix to the Goin' Through the Fiend Folio series is done! This might not end up being the last time we dive into the Fiend Factory (some of the later monsters, after the release of the Fiend Folio, are genuinely interesting in their own right), but as a look into what went in, and what didn't make it, into the Fiend Folio, the series is now doubly complete! 

Post-it Dungeon for October

There's been lots of talk among the OSR of character sheets, monster stats, or even whole dungeon maps that can fit on a typical 3x5 index card. But what about something EVEN SMALLER!!! Just on a whim, I drew up a dungeon map on a post-it note and stocked it as basically a funhouse dungeon (albeit with factions) as an exercise of sorts. Its fun to see what sorts of shapes you can just shove into such a small-square area! There's only one entry/exit to this particular locale, so it wouldn't work very well as a modular dungeon morph or anything, but I think you could easy make a modular dungeon out of small post-it chunks too (I'm pretty sure someone else has done that before but I don't recall who). I'm planning on running this as a duet game with my girlfriend so if you're her DON'T READ THIS!

 

ALSO ITS OCTOBER NOW !!!! So the donjon is mildly spooky themed

 

ROOM KEY

1: Heptagonal chamber (where an eighth side would be is instead the entry to a hallway, southeast). Each wall has a carved figure of a martyred saint, representing the seven virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and charity). Their injuries correspond to their respective virtue (prudence has been gored through the brain (seat of rationality), justice sits on the executioner's block, etc.) A fully articulated human skeleton (1 gp worth of silver wire holds the whole thing together) with one hand held upwards and the other downwards stands in the center of the room, its feet buried into the dark clay of the floor.

2: Square chamber, both door entrances to room 2 are locked, and will lock behind the players if not propped open. The sound of moving liquid can be heard through the walls, vaguely echoing throughout the chamber. The northern wall sports a large red devil head, mouth agape, tongue outstretched, and sporting two gemstone eyes (opals worth 25 gp). The tongue is the most obvious platform from which to pry the opals out, but stepping on the tongue opens pipes that begin to pour viscous blood into the room, steadily flooding it until the whole chamber is filled with blood, floor to ceiling, in 1 exploration turn.

3: The north wall of this chamber bows out in a gentle curve, patterned on the inside like the spine and ribcage of a great turtle. A mass of rusty metal pipes crisscross this room, primarily north-south, leading into the trap in room 2. A rag-man (vaguely humanoid form whose features are indistinct under piles of rags, stats as hobgoblin) with long pallid arms has set up camp in the far northwestern corner of the room, hanging up a dirty cloth over the pipes like a shelter. His name is Yarfan Loam and he wants nothing to do with the fight between the scientist and the ghouls. He is certain that one of the pipes in this room is full of sweet yogurt but is too afraid of breaking open the blood pipes to find it.

4: An abandoned library full of ancient books that crumble to dust when touched. A skeleton lays slumped on the desk in the center of the room, with a large wasp stinger buried in its spine. One book on the shelf on the eastern wall is made entirely of silver, every page a thinly hammered sheet, and written on in blood. This tome is worth 1,000 gp. The southern wall of this chamber is very thin and can be easily broken through with the right tools, leading you to the narrow passageway between rooms 1/5/6 to the west and rooms 14/15/16 to the east.

5: Rectangular chamber with a steep, narrow corner on the northeast edge. A flickering flame behind a pane of stained glass in that steep corner casts multicolored lights in an arc across the room. Stepping too close to the stained glass causes a trap door, hidden under a rug, to collapse, dropping the victim into a cistern full of whale oil (the fuel for the flame behind the glass pane). High risk of drowning follows, and a major difficulty in retrieving anyone who fell in due to the slipperiness of the oil.

6: Small square chamber. Two sets of empty suits of armor flank the room on the north and south walls. An empty husk of human skin lays on the floor.

7: A pond in the center of this chamber is home to 5 pale crocodiles. They are attracted to light, and lay strewn about the edges of the body of water. Going through this room inevitably involves skirting by the edge of the pond. One half-submerged skeleton has a jewel-encrusted gauntlet worth 1,000 gp. The skin of an individual pale crocodile is worth 150 gp to the right buyer.

8: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls, a community that has made this dungeon home. There are 36 ghouls total living in the dungeon, including their leader, the Ghoul Princess Hyrcania Forsooth. They live in mud-daub huts built directly into the sloping triangular walls of rooms 8, 9, and 12, with the exception of the aforementioned Ghoul Princess (who wears a cape made from moth's wings) and some of her subordinates in their tribe, who live in family mausolea carved directly into the walls. The bodies of the formerly interred inhabitants are left leaning up against the wall with gold coins on their eyes and under their tongues. The ghouls farm giant ticks, which subsist on blood from giant flightless vampire bats, which themselves subsist on blood from pale crocodiles, which eat pale eyeless fish (who in turn scrape pallid algae off the rocks, or eat pale crayfish that scrape pallid algae off the rocks). Many of the ghouls yearn for the taste of human flesh, and would do anything for a bite, even though the Ghoul Princess hasn't allowed them to eat their enemy, The Scientist. The ghouls wield spears and their own paralytic touch, and look like shrink-wrapped corpses with unusually long faces and long silvery mops of hair.

9: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls. Nothing notable except for more ghoul huts and disinterred corpses leaning on the walls. A secret door (the entire wall can rotate when the right brick is pressed) connects this room to room 14. The ghouls aren't aware of the secret door.

10: Behind the stuck door that connects this room to room 8, this room is crawling with 5 black puddings on the floor and dripping green slime on the ceiling. There is no treasure; indentations in the wall where rich wooden artifacts would have been placed have been eroded by the oozes.

11: There is a tall mirror on the wall opposite the entrance to this room (i.e. the eastern wall), which shows an idealized version of anyone who looks into it. One party member (randomly determined) will not appear in the mirror at all, no matter what, seemingly implying the world would be better off without them in it. As mentioned below, under random encounters, if The Robot is roaming, this room will be full of roosting giant flightless vampire bats.

12: Part of the home base/lair of the ghouls. This room is the location of the grand mausoleum of Ghoul Princess Hyrcania Forsooth. She has a peacock feather fan in pride of place in her mausoleum, worth 350 gp. Directly opposite is the largest giant tick pen where the ghouls farm tick blood.

13: This room is completely empty except for a beautifully carved antique chair, complete with handwoven upholstery in the style of a Persian rug. The feet of the chair are nailed to the floor. This chair is worth 600 gp.

14: This room has the appearance of a throne room and banquet chamber for some long forgotten evil lord. There are tattered tapestries on the walls, cornices in the shapes of bats and spiders, and a central banquet table with fragile, nearly collapsed chairs. There are no cups nor silverware on the table, and no treasure of any kind.

from (I'm pretty sure) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

15: The laboratory of The Scientist. He is a recent arrival to the dungeon and has taken over what appears to have been formerly an armory or pantry of some kind (complete with crumbled barrels and rusted polearms leaning against the walls) as an impromptu laboratory, having set up tables covered with all manner of alembics, bunsen burners, diodes, electrical equipment, glass containers of sulfuric acid, etc. A humanoid robot stands off to the side, with a door in its torso open to reveal unfinished mechanisms and wiring. The Scientist wants to study the ghouls' paralytic powers, to determine whether it is a venom or a psychosomatic effect; he also looks down on the ghouls, and considers them beneath him, in a manner similar to a scholarly colonialist. He is working on the aforementioned robot to break into the ghouls' lair, but it needs silver wiring to be complete and he currently doesn't have any. In the meantime, he has bred a race of mutated two-headed and two-stingered wasp things that act as his more brutish underlings.

16: Nest of some of The Scientist's wasp things. There are 10 wasp things that dwell in this strangely circular chamber, complete with a domed ceiling. The floor is sticky with their secretions.

17: Circular chamber with a domed ceiling. The ceiling sports tiled mosaics depicting hell scenes, including scenes of sinners having to march into a gaping hellmouth. The mosaic tiles are worth 2 for 1 gp to an artist. 2-in-6 chance that 1d6 wasp things from room 16 will also be present in this room.

18: Circular chamber with a domed ceiling. The ceiling clearly used to sport tiled mosaics, except now most of the tiles have fallen to the floor, and there are some bricks missing in the walls. The fallen tiles obscure pressure plates in the floor which, when pressed down on, activate a pneumatic trap that launches bricks out of the walls straight at head-height. Victims take 1d6 damage per brick for 1d6 bricks launched. Halflings and other diminutive types are immune.

from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS

Roll 1d6

1: 1d8 giant flightless vampire bats

2: 1d4+1 wasp things (allied with The Scientist)

3: 1d6 ghouls with 2d6 giant ticks on leashes (part of the Ghouls faction)

4: 2d6 black puddings

5: 2d6+1 moss-encrusted skeletons (controlled by a mute necromancer in the next room; if the necromancer is killed, replace this entry with 10d6 dermestid beetles)

6: 1d6 pale crocodiles (if 4 are rolled, one pale crocodile is wearing a black cape)

7: The Robot (stats as iron living statue)

If (and ONLY if) The Scientist is able to finish creating The Robot in his laboratory in room 15, add +1 to random encounter rolls. The Robot is his latest attempt to one-up the Ghouls and find access to their secret chambers. It is impossible to encounter giant flightless vampire bats when The Robot is about, because its slow shuddering footfalls scare them, leaving all of the remaining giant flightless vampire bats to roost in room 11 (as far from The Scientist's laboratory as possible).

wasp-thing photocollage by me

Wasp Thing

No. Encountered: 1d4+1 (up to 2d6+1 in lair)

Hit Dice: 2

Attacks: 2 stings (1d6+1 and venom, see below)

Armor: as chain and shield

Morale: 7

Flying: Wasp things can fly, albeit clumsily. Given the cramped quarters of the dungeon, they don't do that often outside of combat, where it gives them a height advantage.

Venomous sting: Each individual target stung must make a save vs. poison (only one save is made, even if stung twice; receiving 2 stings gives disadvantage on the saving throw) or swell up uncontrollably, making any armor uncomfortable to wear and making any pressure or weight put on the body (like opening a door, pushing an object, lifting treasure, etc.) deal 1d4 damage. This effect lasts for 2d6 exploration turns.

The stats for all the other monsters can be either inferred or are described using equivalents from OSR games, mentioned above :)

This dungeon ended up being a bit less Halloween-themed than I initially intended but its still kinda spooky and I feel like it all came together very satisfactorily :) Hope y'all like it!

The DOUBLEGANGSTER

I was having a conversation earlier today with my girlfriend (check out her blog, Half Again As Much! She has a great post on there about spells collected by her dad Mike Gunderloy from the early days of D&D!) and in the course of that conversation she used the phrase "doubleganger" rather than doppelganger, and when confronted about that made a joke about not wanting to use loanwords. That snowballed into a bit between us about a "doublegangster," and I said I'd write it up as a monster on my blog, so here's that!

photocollage of John Dillinger made by yours truly

DOUBLEGANGSTER

Number Encountered: 1d3

Hit Dice: 6+1

Attacks: 2 punch (1d4) in close quarters OR 1 pistol (single target, save vs. Getting Shot or take 1d4 HIT DICE damage) OR 1 Tommy gun (up to 6 targets in a cone or swipe, save vs. Getting Shot or take 1d8 HIT DICE damage) (see below).

Armor: Unarmored (0)

Morale: 7

Double vision: Doublegangsters look like two people at the same time, hazy and indistinct on top of one another, like persistent double vision. Ranged attacks against them always have disadvantage. Doublegangsters can be seen in two places at the same time. 

Firearms: Doublegangsters wield guns, EITHER 1 pistol OR 1 Tommy gun. Only the mob boss of the doublegangsters (which appears in doublegangster lairs) wields multiple firearms (two Tommy guns, one in each hand). When a firearm is fired, there is a 2-in-6 chance of the gun jamming or running out of ammo, which takes a full combat round to resolve. 

GREED: Doublegangsters are horribly greedy sumbitches. They're after gold, jewels, deeds to rich estates, inheritances, life insurance policies, Rolls Royce cars they can refinance, big cartoonish bags marked with dollar signs. They're open to a deal if the players offer it. 

Uncanny countenance: The doublegangster looks exactly like another character present, or a (randomly determined) NPC that the PCs know (if you have a recurring NPC table, roll on that). The only difference is that, instead of their normal garb, the doublegangster is clad in a pinstripe suit, slacks, and a wide-brimmed hat.

 

DOUBLEGANGSTERS are uncanny supernatural creatures that take on the appearances of innocent men and woman to frame them in delinquency, crime, murder, burglary, scandal, gambling, racketeering, and WORSE. They enter the world from stage right, cast in shadow, the steel of their Tommy guns glistening in the moonlight, go on a Bonnie and Clyde gun moll rampage, then exit just the same. Their lairs, torch-light caves, often half-flooded, full to the brim with stolen cars and piles of gold and dollar bills (marked with the faces of presidents you've never seen nor heard of before), are always in the last place you expect. And yet, for the poor saps that a doublegangster has mocked by stealing the face of, such dark corners feel uncannily familiar. Nobody knows why they steal innocent faces or frame them in the court of their peers, and even fewer know why you can never quite focus your eyes on them, why a doublegangster always appears to have two heads, four arms, four legs, two black ties on white dress shirts in pinstripe jackets. Their voice comes out in terrible stereo, issuing forth from two mouths. Their guns fire out twin streams of bullets, but leave only one set of wounds. One of the gangsters ain't real, you dig? But the mobster will reach out his pinstripe-sleeved arm and invite you to touch, like whatshisname with the real hole in his hand, to show you just how real the whole thing is.

 

COWARDS would say this is a monster for Call of Cthulhu or similar, or maybe Gamma World (it would really work great in those kinds of contexts, of course). But real ones will be BRAVE ENOUGH to drop a two-headed ghost gangster from the 1930s into a D&D game. Put a doublegangster on the random encounter table for your dungeon!!! Let your players steal a weirdly hazy double vision Tommy gun from the cold dead hands of a mobster with your best buddy's face!!! It'll be fun!! 

Observatory of the Beyond: A Dungeon for GAMMA WORLD

I set a goal for myself of making at least one post a month every month this summer. It's now the tail end of September, and I've got one post to show for it. Shameful! My RPG juices have been really not flowing, busy with personal life events (moved in with my girlfriend which is lovely!) and NOT running or playing in anything has really done a number on my creative output. I'm still plugging away on MORTUARY ON MOTH MOUNTAIN, an adventure location zine for King of Kings that I announced last year; a few months ago I lost all of the image files I used in doing the graphic design, so I've had to start over on that. BUT I will not naysay overmuch. Below is an adventure location for GAMMA WORLD and other post-apocalyptic type roleplaying games that I put together just to get something to go from brain to paper to computer screen, so to speak. Hope you like it!

 

OBSERVATORY OF THE BEYOND

Sitting atop a grassy hill, looming from between the sickly copses of trees that dot the landscape, is a concrete construction that, from afar, looks almost like a slate grey flying saucer, or perhaps a faceless turtle. Once a traveler ventures closer, however, they begin to hear it: the awful, awful buzzing. This is a place of no honor.

Far from any village, mutant or otherwise, this uncanny brutalist structure is a strange type of observatory, built for inscrutable reasons by the ancients. It is not a typical telescope observatory, not like the kind that Amish astrologers use. It was instead a radio observatory, its sensors and dishes tuned into a particular frequency, in this case the frequency that all other observatories do their best to ignore, drown out, and go past: the staticky sound of cosmic background radiation. It is said that the ancients that built this unseemly place wished to meditate on the waveforms of the very sounds of the universe itself, and on the impacts that this sound has on the minds of mortal men. What impact that is, from whispered rumors, is one that surely nobody would like to experience for themselves. It's no wonder the grand civilization of the ancients collapsed into ruin and ash, if they were such perverts who fixated on the evil noise between the stars.

But, perhaps that sound could be put to better use today. Or perhaps the technological wonders rumored to be on the other end of the uncanny sound entice you. Or maybe you just want to be the first to push past superstition and get all the copper wiring out of the walls of the place. The Observatory of the Beyond buzzes uncaringly atop that wretched hill all the same.

 

 

 

Room Key

The Main Facility

1: After entering through the still-operating airlock (marked with a set of two doors ('D') on the map above), this room was originally storage for personal items and hazmat suits worn outside the facility. There are 12 hooks for suits on the walls, all but two of which are empty. One of the hooks has a filthy rag on which is written a confession, while another has a hazmat suit sized for an unmutated human (resistance to toxins and radiation).

2: The main hub of the facility. A short desk faces the doorway leading to room 1, while a circular table set in the center of the room served as a dining table, complete with skeletons seated in the chairs. Ffarad Ssef, Hisser scholar, has set up camp in this room. He has a circular tent pitched off to the north side of the room, between the doors that open to rooms 8 and 14. He has an electric stove, battery-powered, as well as a cassette recorder (also battery-powered).

3: Supply closet. Full of brooms, mechano-mops, rusted hypertechnological vacuums, etc. One hypervacuum is in working order (complexity C, can be operated to suck in 1 human-sized opponent within range or blow air to knock over 1 human-sized opponent).

4: Kitchen. Full of (now long broken) stoves, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, and dirty plates.

5: Hallway. Lights are flickering on low power in this room, as well as rooms 6 and 7. Visible damage to the walls, caused by Jeb Gorn.

6: Electrical and HVAC room, door locked (this isn't noted on the map above). Any damage done to the electrical system will knock out all of the lights in the entire facility (the speaker system and radio array will be unaffected, since they are on a separate electrical grid). Jeb Gorn really wants to get in here. Hidden in a ventilation pipe is a human skeleton wearing a set of ultraviolet goggles (complexity A).

7: Large pantry. Food is all rotted away, turned to dust, or eaten long ago by now. One crate is full to the brim with 16 stargazing rats.

8: Bathroom with four stalls, no urinals. There is a skeleton seated on one of the toilets. A doorway leads to room 9, while a small tube (only smaller-than-human-sized characters can fit) out the back wall (not noted on the above map) leads to rooms 10 and 11.

9: Multi-purpose room that once did double duty as a shower and storage room. The water still functions just barely.

10: Hydroponic self-cycling garden under a set of fluorescent lights. The garden beds are overflowing with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, and watermelons. The watermelons explode when agitated, dealing 4d6 damage to those in range and possibly setting off a chain reaction. Living amongst the plants are 24 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 11.

11: Another garden room. The garden beds are overflowing with squat stalks of corn, beans, oversized squashes, and potatoes. Living amongst the plants are 32 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 10. There is a water pump and hose attached to the wall (complexity D) which when operated and placed into a source of liquid can issue forth a blast of water.

12: Office/laboratory. Rows of desks, desktop computers and word processors, knickknacks. Door north leads to room 13, the radio array control room. The narrow passage to room 13 is monitored by the Securitron, a mobile robotic security unit that will not leave room 12 but will attempt to destroy any who attempt to enter room 13.

13: Radio array control room. Door is locked and reinforced. This is the only room in the facility that can turn on and off the radio array, lower or raise the volume of the loudspeakers, etc. A skeleton sits in the command chair, wearing a pair of headphones. Ffarad Ssef really wants to get in here.

14: Sitting room. A skeleton sits in an armchair, holding a rusted knife.

15: Men's sleeping quarters. The ancient mystic-scientists who lived here were gender segregationists for some reason. Some of the 12 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has a single stun ray (complexity C) hidden under perfectly tucked in sheets.

16: Preparation room for the maze. Boots and pairs of goggles left strewn across the floor and benches.

17: Women's sleeping quarters. Some of the 10 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has keys to a hover car stashed under the pillow (whereabouts of the car itself unknown).

18: Secondary bathroom. No shower. Visible damage to the walls caused by Jeb Gorn.

 

The Hypno-Maze

The Hypno-Maze was originally used by the ancient mystic-scientists to study the effects of the cosmic background radiation signal on addled minds. Test subjects (usually volunteers) would be sent through the dimly lit maze, sometimes drugged, made to wander the winding halls until they became confused, and the signal would be played over the loudspeakers to add to their confusion. When wandering the Hypno-Maze, when you roll for a random encounter, roll 1d6:

1: Sources of light go out.

2-3: The players are confused and have been twisted around. Turn them to walk in the opposite direction without their knowledge.

4-5: Hallucination (see below).

6: Exhaustion.

 

Room 19: The only actual room in the Hypno-Maze. Octagonal, with an opening that connects to two passageways in the Hypno-Maze, this served as a resting area and meditation room for those who completed one round of traversing the maze. A ratty rug has a single skeleton in a crumbled lotus pose leaning against the wall. Inside the area where the skeleton's stomach would have been is a keycard to room 13. There is a pile of bottles of purified water on the floor against one of the walls.

 

Random Encounters (for the Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1-2: 2d6 Stargazing rats

3: 1 confused and agitated Soul besh

4: Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

5: Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

6: Rogue soundwave

Ffarad Ssef and Jeb Gorn are unique characters, and killing them removes them from the encounter table. There are 2 soul beshes total in the observatory; killing both removes them from the encounter table. Replace any removed entries with another result for 2d6 stargazing rats.

A rogue soundwave is a sudden glitch and power surge in the observatory's radio array and internal speaker system which sends out a surprise blast of cosmic background radiation signal through the area the players are currently in. Track the number of rogue soundwaves rolled; after 3 rogue soundwaves, each subsequent one prompts a save vs. mental effects (or a roll against a character's MS score) or else each character experiences a randomly determined hallucination:

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1: A piercing migraine roils through your skull, as the world around you plunges into the darkest night. Pinpricks of light, stars off in the far, far distance, stab through your eyes like porcupine quills. Collapse to the ground in pain.

2: A looming planet hangs over you, casting a terrible shadow as you fall to your knees in awe and majesty.

3: You feel your skin begin to burn to a crisp. It's only a sensation, not the real thing, but the pain is debilitating until something snaps you out of it.

4: You don't see anything, but you hear the unmistakable rustling sounds of something whooshing past you, the unshakable feeling that you are being watched that won't go away until you leave the room.

5: Rhythmic beeping in your ears that keeps going even after the rogue soundwave falls away, growing louder and louder and louder until you can't function.

6: The walls fall away, revealing a faceless crowd of silhouetted figures just outside of your field of vision. The anxiety caused by this revelations prompts you to flee at high speeds, even though you can't see your surroundings; 3-in-6 chance you hit a wall.

 

hallucinatory horror from between the stars

 

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Hypno-Maze) 

All hallucination rolls on the random encounter table when in the Hypno-Maze prompt a roll on the table below. 

Roll 1d6:

1: A shuddering hallucinatory horror from between the stars melts out from the wall, or suddenly appears when you turn a corner! A pile of shivering visceral tendrils and uncertain limbs, this star vampire lunges at you, you feel its teeth digging into your flesh, but the whole experience never occurred.

2: Suddenly, you collapse to the floor under the weight of gravity on a world you've never set foot on, crushing you, pushing all the air out of your lungs, pinning you down, practically breaking your bones. Once the hallucination is dispelled, it becomes apparent this never occurred.

3: The maze itself falls away, leaving you floating in a formless void. It isn't exactly pure darkness. You are floating among the cosmic background radiation signal, visual noise so dense and confusing it leaves your brain unable to process any of it.

4: You see a large-headed, wide-eyed humanoid peering at you from behind the nearest corner in the maze. A feeling of complete and terrible dread sinks into your body. You are unable to progress further until the feeling has been shaken.

5: There is no air around you. You are in a vacuum. Your body begins to burst at the seams, depressurizing, expanding, exploding, so painful, so excruciatingly painful. You cannot move until the feeling has been shaken, when it becomes apparent this never occurred.

6: An eerie floating light silently hovers at high speed through the maze, colliding with you or flying so close overhead that the sudden whoosh of air painfully explodes in your ears. The heat put off by this floating light blinds and burns you, leaving no real marks.

 

(One possible way to run some of the physically damaging hallucinations could be tracking damage on player characters but making them return to their previous HP upon leaving the maze or the hallucination being dispelled).

 

Stargazing Rat

No. Encountered: 2d6

Hit Dice: 1d6

Attacks: 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: none, but fast reflexes (AC 9 or ascending AC 11)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6    IN: 1d4

DX: 2d6    CH: 1d4

CN: 3d6    PS: 1d4

Mutations: none (see below)

Stargazing rats are an isolated population of rodents that have been living isolated within the observatory of the beyond for centuries. The cosmic background radiation signal has directed their evolution. They have large, upward-facing eyes tinted pink, coarse black-haired bodies that splay flat on the ground, and long wormlike tails. They are immune to all psychic effects and mental mutations, but radio transmissions tuned to the wavelength of the cosmic background radiation signal can control their movements. They attack all at once as a swarm with 2d6x1d6 HP and 2d6 bite attacks per combat round.

(Doing a new statblock format for these GW posts that mixes the stuff in my typical D&D statblock with info from the GW 1e and 2e statblocks, to make it essentially edition neutral for Gamma World)

 

I'll always love the GW7e monster art... for comparison, the GW2e Soul Besh below (they're both good in different ways!)

Adapted from GW1e and 2e:

Soul Besh (Skeeters)

No. Appearing: 1

Hit Dice: 10(d6)

Attacks: see description

Armor: 8 (ascending AC 12)

Morale: (7 for 2d6 morale, 1d4+1 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 1d4        IN: 1d4

DX: 3d6        CH: 1d4

CN: 1d10+2  PS: 1d10+2

Mutations: Chameleon powers, intuition

From GW1e: "This is a flightless, mutated mosquito with chameleon powers. It often attains a length of over 1.3 meters and inhabits swamps, marshes, grasslands, and forests, where its powers of concealment enable it to ambush prey. It has a 2 meter long coiled proboscis, which is inserts (preferably into a sleeping victim) causing an immediate 1d6 damage and, in the same melee round, the soul besh begins sucking blood at a rate of 12 hit points per melee turn. The exoskeleton of the soul besh, when boiled down in a large cauldron, will yield 150 cc of syrupy antidote to intensity 18 poison. 10 cc is the required dose for humans."

(The two soul besh in the observatory of the beyond became trapped in the facility when Ffarad Ssef entered some time previous. They are agitated (disadvantage on reaction rolls) because they haven't been able to escape the facility. They will react positively to being ushered out through the facility's front door.)

 

Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

HP: 66

Attacks: 1 sword (1d8, 1d12 vs large enemies) and 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: 3 (ascending AC 17)

Morale: (8 for 2d6 morale, 7 for 1d10 morale) 

MS:  14    IN: 14

DX: 9       CH: 9

CN: 16     PS: 26

Mutations: Mass Mind, Sonic Blast, Telepathy, Repulsion Field, and Multiple Body Parts (arms)

Ffarad Ssef is a scholar from a desert colony of Hissers, a psychic race of matriarchal colonial snake people. He is in the observatory to record the original cosmic radiation signal sound directly from the radio array, in order to amplify his glorious mother's sonic blast with cosmic super-signal. He has a bulging brain tumor that is the source of his psychic abilities, which he dresses up in a miniature set of ritual robes and refers to as his little sister. Like all Hissers, Ffarad Ssef is immune to lasers and sonic blasts.

 

Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

HP: 39

Attacks: 1 knife (1d4) and 1 quill-throw (1d12) OR 1 quill strike (1d6)

Armor: none (AC 10)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale) 

MS: 9    IN: 9

DX: 14  CH: 13

CN: 13  PS: 13  

Mutations: Vision defect, Quills/spines, Body structure change (one eye), Weather manipulation, Life leech

Jeb Gorn is a wandering copper-burglar who ventures into ancient structures to strip them of their copper wiring and copper plating. She uses weather manipulation to, in the leadup to her expeditions, create stormclouds that dissuade other copper-burlgars from venturing into her chosen quarry. She has set up camp somewhere in the forests around the observatory of the beyond, but has been staying in the observatory for a couple days trying to get access to the insides of the walls. She does not get on well with Ffarad Ssef.

  

Moldlings

No. Appearing: 6d6

Hit Dice: 3(d6)

Attacks: 1 bludgeon (1d4) OR 1 fungal touch (see below)

Armor: 9 (ascending AC 11)

Morale: (9 for 2d6 morale, 8 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6        IN: 1d6

DX: 3d6        CH: 2d6

CN: 1d8+2    PS: 1d6

Mutations: see below

The moldlings are mildly intelligent mutated soil mold that has lived for hundreds of mold-generations in the two hydroponic garden beds of the facility. The two moldling communities in each individual garden bed absolutely despise one another. They tend to be friendly to outsiders, unless they see you collaborating with the enemy. They are limited to areas with mold growth, confining them to the two garden rooms. Their touch communicates a sickening fungus that acts as a strength 6 poison. 

 

Securitron
Power source: Broadcast Power 
Sensors: Standard, infrared, ultraviolet

Control: Vocal (admin ID), programmed

Construction: 2 meters tall, radially symmetrical cylindrical upper body with three tri-jointed arms, two ambulatory lower limbs. Its three arms can lift and move up to 150 kilograms. Two arms end with metallic tentacle-fingered hands, while the third features a metallic claw.  The metallic tentacle-fingers are tipped with paralytic nodules, while the red nodule atop the unit's head is able to emit a high-temperature laser beam that deals 3d10 damage. 12 HD (72 HP), armor 3 (ascending 17).