So, you'd think that the week that I had my first DCC session, I'd be on point with my next DCC Donnerstag post, right? No such luck. Turns out that spending your whole writing day thinking about what you've got to prep before your next session can make you forget to write the article you planned on. So anyway, here's the next few bird-type monsters from the Fiend Folio. As usual, these are inspired by Jeff Rients and informed by Aplus.
These multi-legged birds are about the size of an eagle and have a razor-sharp and needle-pointed beak. One in three gryphs encountered are female; when encountered, a female gryph has a 35% chance to be "in a family way" and ready to implant her eggs in a passing adventurer. A pregnant female gryph will attempt to latch onto her victim and inject her tiny eggs into its bloodstream. The eggs hatch in 1d3 days, killing the host and releasing 1d4 baby gryphs. Some healing spells may help alleviate this unfortunate condition.
Seriously, how many monsters in the Fiend Folio needed to have "lays its eggs in you" as an attack mode? Further, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't find a picture of this guy on the internet; these things look neat and you all deserve to see how strange it looks. Really, I think the only reason I would use this monster is to show the cool picture of it. The gryph has the distinction of being one of the few monsters in the Fiend Folio that doesn't have multiple attacks, making it much easier to convert.
Init +2; Atk +2 burning beak (1d6); AC 16; HD 3d8; MV 20" (fly 20"); Act 1d20; SP water spout breath weapon; Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +2; AL N.
A peaceful and largely benign creature if left to its own devices, the thork only fights when threatened, such as when noisy adventurers splash noisesomely through its native wetlands, perhaps in search of the valuable plumage of the thork itself (worth up to 200gp per bird). Often called a "boiler bird," the thork has a body temperature so high that it can heat water to boiling in seconds, a trait which it uses to shoot a gout of boiling water in a 40' cone in front of it instead of other attacks. This gout does 4d6 damage to all in the cone (Reflex save DC 13 for half damage); each thork can only deliver three of these attacks per day, after which a thork will try to evade any attackers.
This is my first "the monster *IS* the treasure" monster from the Fiend Folio. There are others in there, such as the carbuncle, awful monstrosity that it is, but I like the thork much better. I do have to say, I was tempted to write the entirety of its writeup with a lisp. I could easily see putting these guys on the wetlands encounter chart of a hexcrawl just to have something there that was more fun than your normal monsters.
That's it for this week. Next week's collection of Fiends will be a supplement to the Feathered Fiends series, with all of the birdfolk from the Folio collected in one place! Other DCC-related articles coming up include an in-depth look at the Luck mechanic and a write-up of a new deity and patron, the Metal Gods. And some campaign information in case you were wondering.
Gryph
Init +3; Atk +2 beak (2d6) or + 2 grapple (1d6 plus see below); AC 13; HD 3d8; MV fly 45'; Act 1d20; SP Grapple/impregnation (see below); Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +1; AL N.These multi-legged birds are about the size of an eagle and have a razor-sharp and needle-pointed beak. One in three gryphs encountered are female; when encountered, a female gryph has a 35% chance to be "in a family way" and ready to implant her eggs in a passing adventurer. A pregnant female gryph will attempt to latch onto her victim and inject her tiny eggs into its bloodstream. The eggs hatch in 1d3 days, killing the host and releasing 1d4 baby gryphs. Some healing spells may help alleviate this unfortunate condition.
Seriously, how many monsters in the Fiend Folio needed to have "lays its eggs in you" as an attack mode? Further, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't find a picture of this guy on the internet; these things look neat and you all deserve to see how strange it looks. Really, I think the only reason I would use this monster is to show the cool picture of it. The gryph has the distinction of being one of the few monsters in the Fiend Folio that doesn't have multiple attacks, making it much easier to convert.
Thork
A peaceful and largely benign creature if left to its own devices, the thork only fights when threatened, such as when noisy adventurers splash noisesomely through its native wetlands, perhaps in search of the valuable plumage of the thork itself (worth up to 200gp per bird). Often called a "boiler bird," the thork has a body temperature so high that it can heat water to boiling in seconds, a trait which it uses to shoot a gout of boiling water in a 40' cone in front of it instead of other attacks. This gout does 4d6 damage to all in the cone (Reflex save DC 13 for half damage); each thork can only deliver three of these attacks per day, after which a thork will try to evade any attackers.
This is my first "the monster *IS* the treasure" monster from the Fiend Folio. There are others in there, such as the carbuncle, awful monstrosity that it is, but I like the thork much better. I do have to say, I was tempted to write the entirety of its writeup with a lisp. I could easily see putting these guys on the wetlands encounter chart of a hexcrawl just to have something there that was more fun than your normal monsters.
That's it for this week. Next week's collection of Fiends will be a supplement to the Feathered Fiends series, with all of the birdfolk from the Folio collected in one place! Other DCC-related articles coming up include an in-depth look at the Luck mechanic and a write-up of a new deity and patron, the Metal Gods. And some campaign information in case you were wondering.