Back at it again! Here's the last entry in this series, here's a link to the first post, etc. etc., time to pick back up where we last left off!
To begin with, however, I'd like to make some notes of a couple monsters that I accidentally missed had original versions in Fiend Factory! First, my overwhelming favorite from the last entry, the SHEET PHANTOM!!! You can't imagine my delight when I was scrolling through my pdf of the Factory column and saw this delightful illustration of the undead fabric that I had somehow completely missed. Content-wise, the Factory sheet phantom is just a simpler presentation of the phantom and ghoul in the Folio; I really appreciate the economy of language on display. For instance, the sheet ghoul is just one sentence rather than a whole separate entry. I could learn a thing or two from that!
On top of that (literally), it turned out that the berbalang, a Malay vampire that we covered much earlier in this series (like four years ago, embarrassingly enough), was also first present in Fiend Factory! I really like the way they rendered the name, with those cool bat wings on either side; and while the Russ Nicholson illustration in the Folio is distinctive, this one is pretty good too! The description is very similar to the Folio berbalang, so I don't really have anything to add there. Just wanted to make sure to note it!
Shocker
★★☆☆☆
Not the... worst monster I've seen, it's definitely very usable and I think there could be something interesting here, but the way its presented here leaves a Lot to be desired. Basically, its a hazy humanoid crackling with energy that has an electrical shock attack. That's about it; the only other interesting detail is that there are 1d4 gemstones within the shocker's body that will become apparent when it attacks; I quite like that, it feels kinda videogamey in a good way. Everything else is either incredibly basic and boring or just unnecessary. The entire first paragraph is a waste of ink, taking up almost half the creature's description just to say "we don't know where it comes from, maybe this plane, maybe that plane, who knows." Boring! Just commit to something interesting, please. Would be 1 star except I do think I'd use an electricity monster with gems inside, I just would want it to be more interesting than this.
Skeleton Warrior
★★★★☆
At first glance, this one looks really generic, typical of the overly taxonomic listings of various undead types in AD&D manuals; it's basically just a fighter class equivalent of the lich. While a fighter-lich might have some abstract value for gameplay, what I find more interesting and more compelling here is the tragic quality implicit in the skeleton warrior's description. They are "clad in the rich, but faded and rotting trappings of a powerful warrior," and are constantly in search of golden circlets which hold their soul similar to a lich's phylactery. Unlike the lich, the skeleton warrior doesn't necessarily know where this circlet is, and if one puts the circlet on their head and is within 240 feet of the skeleton warrior, they control the skeleton warrior's movements and actions. If the skeleton warrior is more than 240 feet away, or one takes off the circlet, the control goes away; and if the circlet is still in the possession of the skeleton warrior's former controller, they will rush at their former controller and attempt to kill them and take the circlet for themselves; for when they put the golden circlet on their head, they immediately die, and the circlet collapses into worthless dust. It also mentions that skeleton warriors will become aware of you the moment you acquire one such golden circlet even if you don't know how it works and seek you out too. This is amazing stuff! The implicit narrative here, of a long dead once-great warrior forced to cling to a pitiful existence while constantly at risk of being turned into little more than a puppet, violently seeking out his own destruction by seizing the golden circlet from its current owner at the first chance he gets, is incredibly compelling! I think that element alone makes me interested in putting a skeleton warrior in my game, although I'd probably make it somewhat unique rather than a whole "type" of undead; and maybe he will plead for the adventurers' mercy, begging to be allowed to collapse into dust, while being controlled by one of the players.
Skulk
★★★☆☆
Just neat! Apparently, a people group known for cowardice can eventually evolve to develop chameleon-like camouflage powers (only a 10% chance of sighting one when they're not moving!). Who knew! They sneak and skulk (hehehe) around, stealing stuff to survive, using their heightened camouflage to blend into their surroundings. The note that these were once normal human beings who evolved chameleon-like powers makes them much more interesting than if they were just another demihuman race. The description is overwrought but that's to be expected I guess.
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| The five types of slaadi: clockwise from top left, Blue, Green, Red, Grey, and Death Slaadi |
SLAAD
★★★★☆
The slaadi might be one of the best, most enduring, most distinctive and fun of the "races" of entities created for the Fiend Folio. I can't help but love an army of extradimensional color-coded frog-men, drawn in Russ Nicholson's delightfully grotty style each sporting somewhere between a shit-eating grin and a toothy grimace. While they dwell in the outer plane of Limbo along with the githzerai (who I explored the implications of in this previous installment), they can also be found "roaming the Prime Material Plane on missions of woe." MISSIONS OF WOE!!!! I love missions of woe!!
Even though there are five different types of slaadi, I'm bundling them all together because they're all basically the same. This is where I struggle; while I like the kind of videogamey color-coding of the ranks of malignant slaad, they take up just about two full pages of text to basically just say that this slaad has access to this spell list while this other kind has a this other spell list. It's incredibly unnecessary, and I think could be done in a much more succinct way. All slaadi have a gemstone-like symbol embedded in their skull which, when possessed, allows the holder to give the slaad three commands (although they must be rightfully rewarded for performing the commanded actions or else they'll kill you!). In addition, blue slaadi have sharp blades embedded in the backs of their hands that give them extra attacks, death slaadi are extra powerful (only four are known to exist), green slaadi reincarnate as blue slaadi if their bodies are destroyed but their symbol isn't (weird?), grey slaadi are the Executioners sent to the material plane to do the bidding of slaad leaders, and red slaadi have toxic pellets they inject when they attack that kill the target in 3-36 hours (weird range) on a failed save. Some of these are more distinctive than others; I'm docking one point mostly for the kinda annoying over-taxonomization of it all, but in general, as a concept I love the slaad... and that concept is only strengthened by the entities that lead this merry band of atrocious amphibians.
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| WOE BETIDE BEFORE SSENDAM |
Ssendam - Lord of the Insane
★★★★★
The first of the two slaad lords is SSENDAM, a shapeshifter (the more powerful slaadi have the ability to shapeshift between their frog-like form and a human form) that appears either as a human with an accursed black sword or as a golden amoeba with a human brain instead of a nucleus. DUDE!!! That's SICK!!! In actuality, Ssendam's original form is just a golden frog-slaad unconscious in the plane of Limbo while his amoeboid form is in the Prime Material Plane, which I think is much more boring than if he was just a brain-amoeba all the time, but I gotta hand it to them for the amazing image of a shimmering slimy amoeba with a human brain floating at its center commanding an army of devil-frogs. I just love it!! He attacks with corrosive pseudopods, casts a lot of powerful spells, can summon any of the five types of slaadi, and regenerates 3 hp per round in combat, so he's a hefty opponent! Also: "When encountered, Ssendam always gives his true name, though woe betide he who tries to use it." I don't often get to the level of play where my players would be facing off against a creature as powerful as Ssendam, but in terms of high level monsters, this is a great one; I think I'd just make it so he's always in amoeba form (ooh or maybe he can shape his amoeba body into a vaguely humanoid silhouette rather than being able to shapeshift perfectly into a human).
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| COWER BEFORE "DEATH" IN THE CLAWS OF YGORL |
Ygorl - Lord of Entropy
★★★★★
It's ya gorl! Just like with Ssendam, Ygorl is a slaad lord with a delightfully incongruent design: a pitch black, skeletal, bat-winged figure wielding a large scythe on the side of which is inscribed the word "DEATH", riding on an ancient brass dragon which the description informs us is named Shkiv. Ygorl doesn't change his form, unlike Ssendam, and nobody has seen his original frog-like form in Limbo (though the description includes speculation that it is a large black-colored slaad; again, I'd much rather Ygorl just always be the dark skeletal figure atop the dragon). Ygorl's death-scythe kills instantly on a failed save, and he attacks with it twice per round (in addition to Shkiv's presumed dragon-breath), as well as having a whole litany of spells and once-per-day powers (including power word: kill; maybe a bit overboard when your scythe already does basically the same thing!). Facing off against either Ssendam or Ygorl would be incredibly difficult, with all the various powers afforded them and their ability to summon other slaadi. I'd like to think that Ssendam and Ygorl are rivals; perhaps their interminable conflict (and whatever annoyance comes from the clone-like githzerai) is the only thing stopping the slaadi from completely overrunning the world; getting caught up in a space-faring extradimensional demon-frog cold war (with the gith as a wild card element) would make for an interesting higher level game!
Snyad (aka Pestie)
★☆☆☆☆
Mischievous and violent small humanoid #1589459. The description even notes that they're a cousin of the mite, which makes it even more obvious just how similar the two are! Not even the two grotty Russ Nicholson drawings featured alongside it can save this one. They dwell in tunnels dug into the sides of corridors that are really well hidden and only emerge to steal from adventuring parties, and never attack; they sometimes work with mites to lay traps, and have no spoken language yet somehow work together. Please just use a goblin.
Son of Kyuss
★★★★★
YEAHHH!!! The Son of Kyuss always stuck out to me, like some of the really iconic and distinctly "fiend folio" monsters from toward the beginning of the book. A staggering, shuddering walking corpse, animated by some evil priest long ago whose name still clings to them, with great big green worms writhing around in their eye sockets, nose hole, and mouth. It's an incredibly striking visual!! Just the simple addition of the worms takes this from Yet Another Undead to a unique type of undead that has its own distinctive associations. Mechanically, they're relatively simple yet distinct; they attack primarily by just flailing around their rotten fists which is so unsettling and gross, feeling less like an actual calculated attack and more like them just forcing their dead bulk on you, and there's a chance that the worms in their face-holes can jump out at a target and burrow into their flesh, beelining for the brain in 1d4 rounds. The worms end up feeling like they have more agency than the corpses themselves! On top of that, the Son of Kyuss's unfeeling fists cause LEPROSY. What's not to love! I think that the Sons of Kyuss would fit perfectly in the world of King of Kings, alongside my leprosy-causing assassin-geckos and parrot-fiends.
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| Hobbitses (aka silly little guys) are constantly in danger of being in the dungeon |
Stunjelly
★★★☆☆
A relative of the gelatinous cube that trades the cube's transparent hallway-filling slime for a translucent surface that visually imitates the look of a stone wall. A lesser-known entrant into the "every single surface and object in the dungeon can and will kill you" genre! I personally find this less fun and evocative than the kinda weirder lurker above or trapper, but I guess it fills the space between those two! Paralyzes targets with a touch before trying to engulf and digest them. It's okay!
Sussurus
★★★★★
The sussurus (taking its name from susurration, a term for a murmuring, whispering sound) is another Fiend Folio classic, a weird headless ape-thing made out of knotted thorny matter (it looks like a plant but the description doesn't say it is), criss-crossed with hollow tunnels that produce a droning sound when air moves through them. The sussurus "sees" through vibrations, feeds on the air, and is rendered briefly immobile by strong enough wind surging through its passageways. The "drone song" of the sussurus causes undead creatures to become placid, to enter a "sleep of the dead" where they stand there listlessly, only breaking out of it when attacked. Additionally, it hates fire; not because it is susceptible to burning, but because fire burns away oxygen! I just love how weird all of the various elements of the sussurus are, yet they feel just right all together, and mysterious enough to prompt interesting questions from the hypothetical players: where did these things come from, and why does the droning sound of their breathing cause undead to fall into a peaceful standing-sleep? I'd also recommend checking out this really great article over at Bogleech.com all about the various forms the sussurus has taken across the different editions of D&D!
Svirfneblin (aka Deep Gnome)
★★☆☆☆
Please Gary... no more demihuman races... there's too many of them... Svirfneblin first appear in the original series of adventure modules that first introduced the Underdark, the same origin point as the Drow and Kuo-Toa. Perhaps this is just due to my inclination toward weird evil things but the Svirfneblin feel like the weakest of the new subterranean races introduced in that line of modules. And yet, the Folio takes almost a page and a half to describe Deep Gnome powers and abilities, the weapons they carry, the makeup of their parties, etc. etc. It's a lot like the overwrought description for the Kuo-Toa honestly. Notably, they can summon earth elementals, and when the going gets tough they flee into tunnels carved exactly to their size (so I guess the players wouldn't be able to follow after... unless they were halflings or gnomes themselves?), and they'll only assist the players for a fee. The Russ Nicholson illustration does have a Jim Henson's Labyrinth quality to it which I like, but Svirfneblin are kinda meh... kinda like the name though! I think I'd just prefer something more like folkloric kobolds than yet-another-gnome-variant.
Symbiotic Jelly
★☆☆☆☆
Ahh... the furtive symbiotic jelly, so easily forgotten... and for good reason! I love weird slimes and oozes, I love monsters with very particular niches and lifestyles, but there is just Too Much going on with this monster in terms of what it does. The description itself isn't particularly long, but it proscribes such a particular mode of behavior for the jelly that I can't imagine ever actually putting it into a game. In basic terms, the symbiotic jelly has to feed on a carnivorous creature at the same time as the carnivore is feeding; weird, but alright. What it does to ensure this happens is, it hangs around in a monster's lair, and when the monster returns, it charms the creature and makes it attack whatever enters the lair afterward, and then uses a magical illusion power to make the carnivorous monster look weaker than it really is, and make the lair look like its filled with treasure when it isn't. I guess, to trick players into going into the lair because it'll seem like treasure that they can easily grab without having to worry about the monster. What is even the point of this. Moreso than the stunjelly or the lurker above or whatever, this monster seems like it only exists to fuck with the players.
...strangely enough though, this player-fucking-with monster is actually our only creature in this post (not counting the ones I missed previously at the top) that has an original from the Fiend Factory; and the original name is So much better.
Now that was way more monsters than I originally planned on covering, but I didn't want to cut S into even smaller chunks. Sorry about that! I hope it's still interesting and fun to read :) Stay tuned next time for even more weirdos, starting with the letter T!
