Monsters Monsters Monsters 3: The Post That Ruins the Franchise

Here is my third and (for now) last post on monsters. Perhaps because I already showed you most of the critters I understood well, as they came to mind first, we now have left a few that I'm not sure how to use in the City of Lives (if at all). Let me explain my difficulties, and you can sound off in the comments!


Notional Construct: Yet another "evocative-name-first-concept-second," one that, if I recall correctly, popped into my head apropos of nothing. However, what it is becomes fairly obvious given thought -- it's an idea (or "notion") given physical form (or "construct"-ed). What kind of potent ideas are likely to be capable of life and form? Justice, perhaps. Hope -- or is that an emotion? The quest for knowledge. Nationalism. Even "I think, therefore I am?" These ideas-made-flesh would be the most elemental of beings, dedicated only to advancing the cause that makes up the constructs themselves. Can one kill an idea? At best, perhaps, it dissipates and reforms again -- unless you can actually change society's mind... An intriguing idea, but perhaps this is too vague, too difficult to actually run, and too frustrating for the players? Thoughts? Yea or Nay?

Sss'ch'kinsa: This is a re-used creature, from an old Alternity game I ran once upon a time. At that point, it was an alien predator/parasite, heavily inspired by Alien and Starcraft's zergling. It is a creature with both insect and lizard features -- powerful back legs like a grasshopper, a lizard-like body, mandibles, and two great spikes coming from its front legs instead of feet or paws. In order to hunt/breed, a sss'ch'kinsa makes a springing leap of up to twenty feet, piercing the prey with its spikes and pinning it to the ground. The sss'ch'kinsa then grasps the prey's skull in its mandibles, and punctures it with a proboscis, filling the skull with eggs. The predator leisurely eats the corpse, leaving its eggs to grow in the skull and feast on the brains.

For the purposes of City of Lives, the sss'ch'kinsa almost certainly comes not from the Realm of Lives but a Near Realm -- it's obviously not the same biology as horses, birds, and fish, but neither does it break physics like those creatures from the Far Realms. It seems like this critter would be best for a horror adventure, PCs trying to survive, and/or a "bug hunt"-type mission with the PCs trying to keep a sss'ch'kinsa infestation from breaking out into the City proper.

However, there's something to consider. The sss'ch'kinsa is clearly derivative, and also more of a sci-fi/horror monster than a high fantasy one. Does it have a place in the City of Lives?

Sewer Snake: This came from the opposite direction than most of my ideas -- I considered a danger for the underground, sewer-dwelling Grate-Scratchers, then looked for a name, resulting in the not-terribly-evocative but nicely alliterative "Sewer Snake." I see it as inspired by the stories of alligators in the sewers -- gigantic serpents that nearly fill the sewer tunnels, feeding off unwary Grate-Scratchers. However, there's not much particularly original about the Sewer Snake, and it begs questions as to what such a ridiculously large creature would realistically live on in a relatively food-poor environment like the sewers. Should it stay or go into the round file, gentle readers?

Thornbearers: Another evocative name derived from a random generator. What are the metaphorical implications of thorns? Pain and hurt, often emotional as well as physical (at least, in Christian symbolism related to the Crown of Thorns), and those who "bear" things carry and put up with them. So Thornbearers might well be tortured creatures, filled with pain and sorrow -- but since thorns pierce, they probably can inflict their pain on others. They sound related to the Blightbound "zombies" or the sorrow-obsessed Pariahs. Now, I already have a few mutant humans and a few zombies/spirits, so either place to put the Thornbearers might feel redundant... what do you think, dear readers?

As a final note before I leave you for another half-week, here are some evocative names with absolutely nothing to do with. Any thoughts?
Gravesons, Hevverbird, Ragman, The Withdrawn Man, Vexful, and White Rooks

Next time, join me for an examination of Religion in the City of Lives.

Monsters Monsters Monsters 2: vs. Dracula!

Okay, I lied. There's no Dracula here. What there is a visit into my fractured psyche, as we try to create some new, exciting, and original monsters and creatures for The City of Lives.

Cedric: While writing the (unfinished) short story that started much of the City of Lives, I tossed in this line, without even thinking about it: "What have you got, a Cedric stationed to keep them in line?" Somehow, the "Cedric" immediately came to mind as a guardian golem, a kind of stone robot policeman. I can't explain that etymology, except that it might have something to do with a running gag in Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures, in which a gold golem that was obviously modeled on the Academy Awards' Oscar was constantly referred to as reminding people of their "uncle Osric." In any case, the Cedric has just sat there without finding a place in the City. On the other hand, I've recently wondered if adding golems or some other kind of automaton to the City might not make things richer and more interesting. So let's start with the Cedric. I imagine it at about ten feet tall, gray stone with crude features, no face, and a stone shield and sword. Since its purpose is to guard, it's probably not terribly bright, but extremely aware of its environment (video games guards with sixty-degree fields of vision notwithstanding, if you're not aware of what's around you, you probably won't get far as a guard). Maybe a 360-degree field of vision, hearing like a cat, and the nose of a bloodhound -- and vibration sensors. That'll do for a standing or wandering attack-on-sight security system, but a Cedric will need a few more faculties to distinguish friend from foe. Facial and voice recognition, a vocabulary of at least a few dozen words : "stop," "patrol," "show identification," and so on -- and probably at least a couple hundred if it's expected to converse with visitors.

Cobblestone Golem: The diametric opposite of the ordered Cedric, the cobblestone golem is a spontaneous construct that forms from cobbles and building pieces. I wanted to put some kind of golem in the City, and threw a few "materials" nouns together, similar to D&D's method -- which has produced an impressive number of golem types over the years. However, they never used cobblestones, which are a fundamental part of a city like mine, so I thought it'd fit well. Now, why would a golem spontaneously form? Possibly it's a form of Blightbound, a soul that makes its own body rather than returning to its corpse. I like that -- any time multiple pieces of the world can fit together under a single unifying element, it adds elegance and verisimilitude (like how virtually everything supernatural in Dragon Age eventually ties back to "the Fade" and the spirits who live there). But why would this Blightbound create a body like that, especially as we've established that being Bound is a very unpleasant experience for the poor souls. Well, let's go back to the roots of the Golem mythology: the Jewish folk tale of the Golem who protected the Ghetto of Prague from attack. Fits, doesn't it? So -- the Cobblestone Golem forms when a neighborhood is in terrible danger, and a former resident takes it upon themselves to take a body and protect their old neighbors. So, despite being utterly different from the Cedric, it's actually surprisingly similar...

Wesp: Like many of my monsters, this started as a name I liked the sound of. However, it's a pure nonsense word, so there wasn't anything I could do to derive the nature of the creature from the nature of the word. So when the phrase "vengeful fog" popped into my head, I needed a name to attach to it, and Wesp sounds kind of like "waft," so they became attached. As I'm typing this, all I have is this phrase, which has sat in my glossary for a while: "Sapient, vengeful fog that descends on the City every few decades." Well, let's move on from here. My original inspiration is probably The Mist, the Stephen King story and film, in which the titular mist is an alien atmosphere leaking in from an interdimensional rift. I like the story and Frank Darabont's adaptation, but I remember being kind of disappointed that the "mist" itself wasn't actively malicious or even hazardous, only dangerous because it hid the monsters that crawled out of the rift. I thought -- what if the mist were alive? What if it swirled around you and forced itself down your throat, choking you to death? It wouldn't really work in a visual medium, but in tabletop gaming, where everything is verbal and every sense can be invoked, I think it has a chance to be scary. After all, how do you defeat fog? Can't whack it. Can't slice it. Burn it maybe, but if the whole fog bank you're in lights on fire? Bye-bye favorite PC! I'm still not certain how the Wesp can be defeated, or what its motivations are. Perhaps it's a product of experimental Soulsharing, imbuing a natural phenomenon with emotions, which (naturally) got out of hand. Then again, perhaps it is a purely natural phenomenon, or a Far Realms creature. No answer I've found so far has felt quite right...

Still not done! Join me next time for more Monsters Monsters Monsters 3: The Post That Ruins the Franchise.

Monsters Monsters Monsters

Every fantasy world -- especially a game world -- needs some monsters. For this post, "monster" will be defined as "creatures of animal intelligence, who through hunger, natural antagonism, or manipulation by others, may end up trying to kill and eat the PCs." And starting with that definition, let's do some brainstorming with some basic monster ideas I've come up with:

Arterial Marauders: Another evocative name coming before the creature design. Arterial refers to both blood and streets -- so the Marauder must drink blood. It will therefore be some kind of variant on the vampire archetype. However, sexy tormented vamps are overdone these days, so I don't really want them in the City of Lives. So back to the roots -- a feral, tear-your-throat-out kind of vamp, ugly as sin and immune to sunlight (seriously, look it up! Vampires didn't start disintegrating in the sun until the silent film Nosferatu). Then, let's twist it. The only undead in the City of Lives setting are the Blightbound, and the feral Marauders don't seem to fit that archetype, so the Arterial Marauders must be alive. Not sure as to their origin -- maybe Bloodshifted mutants like the Perchers (see below), but that might feel redundant. Then -- they're urban, right? Evolved or designed to live in the city, so what kind of adaptation should they have? Camouflage? Wall-climbing? Living off sewer water and seeing in the dark? Hm....

Cantor Hound: Another degenerate mutant -- but this one a dog instead of man. "Cantor," a fun word I pulled from a random generator, means "singer" in Latin. So perhaps the dog, instead of barking or growling, sings? An otherworldly, mournful dirge that makes its victims too depressed to run. Sounds like an interesting challenge for PCs, stuffing their ears with wax or doing all they can to lift their spirits.

Cullis Perchers: I liked the word "perch," and looked for a synonym for "eaves" that would be more exotic and evocative. Logically, anything that "perches" can probably fly -- and things that perch on cullises can probably be mistaken for gargoyles -- that is to say, a misshapen manlike form. So -- a race of former humans, mutated by Bloodshifting into a distorted form, complete with batlike wings stretching from hand to foot. Simple, animal creatures, they ambush explorers in the Lost District, swooping in from above with fangs and claws bared.

Mold Trolls: This is a term I've had in my "random ideas" file for a very long time. I think initially it was a vaguely pejorative term for some supernatural beings that lived underneath Seattle's bridges, but I honestly forget, because it went nowhere. For the City of Lives, we'll go more literal -- a giant, semi-sentient fungus. It'll be large, 8-10 feet tall, with the proportions and basic shape of a gorilla -- very "troll"-like. Another central tenet of the troll mythology is living in a bridge or cave -- let's not hold our trolls to that, but it implies territoriality. And since molds and fungus are sort of carnivorous, the mold trolls can be dangerous. So -- basically a territorial, carnivorous fungal gorilla. Not tremendously cool, but kinda neat.

Ropewyrm: This name popped up when I was looking for a cause of destruction in a piece of prose -- this line came to me: "Why was there nothing but a rotted foundation in its place? Had some maverick dragon or ropewyrm rampaged through?" For a long while, the name just sat there, evoking a vaguely dragon-y feel. When I decided to revisit it, I thought -- what kind of creature would be renowned for destruction, with a snake/worm-type vibe? Well, I went into the "worm" aspect, and came up with something inspired by the Sand Worms of Dune and Beetlejuice -- the ropewyrm lives underground, but when it rises to the surface, its massive frame shoves any unfortunate people, vehicles, or buildings out of the way. Not an entirely original idea, I'll grant you, but a fun one, nonetheless. Where does its name come from, then? Perhaps it has a segmented body, but one that is spiraled or slanted, looking like the strands of a rope. That'll do. The Ropewyrm probably lives out in the Julian Plains or Wilderwoods, but when they encroach upon the City, all hells break loose.

Thoughtwolf: In case you hadn't noticed, I have a tendency to start with an evocative name and come up with the details second. Such is the case with the Thoughtwolves, a result of brainstorming on "wolf" with various prefixes. What kind of wolf would a "thought" wolf be? Well, why not a psychic one? A mental predator -- a pack that splits up, some attacking physically while others transform into mental constructs and attack the prey's mind. Sounds neat. Now, does this mean they have to be sapient? Maybe, but I prefer "no." But to hunt in such a complex way, they'll have to be smarter than regular wolves. So -- the brains of a money, or perhaps an ape, capable of communicating through mental images and emotion. They would live mostly in the Wilderwoods.

Well, I've got a few more monsters up my sleeve, so meet me next time for Monsters Monsters Monsters 2: vs. Dracula.