Monstober 2021

Here we are! Let’s see how many entries I can make for Monstober, using this prompt list by TheBurntCoin @ Twitter — I’m posting them all into this post, updating as I go, because it’s easier and so I’m not spamming up my blog (and the feeds of the folks out there watching it) with a zillion tiny posts, lol.

01. Candy
Afidaxus
3 HD
A drake of burro-size and long low frame and short broad membraneous wings, sharp of beak and cloaked in thick glittering green-violet scales — scales that cover rows of glands along flanks and spine that exude a sugary wax, sweet, spicy, and entirely edible. If you can get it.
– claws 1d4 / bite 1d8 / breath weapon 3d6 + slow, scalding syrupy mist; flight; 1d3 spells

02. Horned
Ram-in-wolf’s-clothing (Flinthorn Sheep)
2 HD
Not your average woolie beastie, this sheep sports a short, tightly curled fleece of mottled grey and dun, disturbingly intelligent eyes, and a pair of broad spiralling horns that spread wide before curling forward in wickedly sharp points.
– gore 1d6; charge — with 20′ starting room, rush to gore for 3d6 + stunned; howling bleat — causes fear within 60′

03. Fleshy
Narhistrix
6 HD
If compared to any creature, this jowly and foul-tempered beast is most like a massive, rippling hog — but a hog sporting thick claws instead of split hooves, and a snarling maw of shearing fangs instead of a hog’s upturned snout. Its arched back bristles with quills, and its speed belies its massive girth.
– 2d6 bite, 2d4 trample; crush — successful bite + trample to single target shattered bone under weight of onslaught, rendering a limb useless; ignores first 3d4 damage

04. Reptilian
Aurha
4 HD
Coiling through the air with rippling grace is a sleek viper with blue and silver scales, its tail lined top and bottom with flickering white fin like those of an eel; a good twenty feet or more of cold slitted eyes and silent judgement that watches every motion.
– bite 2d4 + 1d4 cold + paralysis; flight; call windstorm; sense intentions

05. Clawed
Yukanen
6 HD
What looked like ripples in the lake — like a cresting wave — suddenly takes to the air: a furious raptor of whirling, foam-flecked teal blue water. Its eyes are like twin pearls, and talons of razor-sharp ice flash as it dives.
– claws 2d6 + 1d6 cold; flight; elemental; invisible in water; immune to mundane weapons; cold, wind, water invulnerability; salt vulnerability

06. Tusked
Crown-of-thorns
2 HD
A strange deer-like creature, long of neck and leg, fleet of foot and rumoured to carry a jewel in its forehead beneath flesh and golden hide. Beware not its coronet of five curving horns; it defends itself with protruding fangs as long and curved as sabres.
– goring slash 1d10; fickle fate — grant Advantage or Disadvantage to target’s next action; magebane — hostile spells fail against it 4-in-6

07. Eyeless
Quivering jelly
1 HD
There’s something almost hypnotic about the way this multicoloured, prismatic jelly shivers and sparkles … – 1d4 dissolve (does not affect stone, bone); attach — automatic damage each action after successful attack; fascinate — subject loses actions until shaken or otherwise distracted

08. Multilegged
Salamandrach
3 HD
Slick, coal-black skin peppered with sulphur-yellow chitin; a creature with a distinctly amphibious look to its wide maw and round eyes and grasping toes, that conflicts in the mind with its long segmented body and hundred skittering legs —
– bite 1d8 + poison (slow); always acts first; climb sheer surfaces; burrow

09. Brutal
Gorak
4 HD
A baboon near six feet tall on its hind legs — a baboon of snowy porcelain, its too-smooth ‘hide’ still flecked with gilding here and there, that raises four forepaws in warning of violence to come.
– pummel 1d6 x4; relentless; construct; track blooded target; half-damage from magic

10. Mimic
False door
10 HD
What’s worse than a chest that tries to eat you? The moment when you realize that “door” you just waltzed through was a creature’s maw, and now you’re standing in its gullet, and here comes the digestive juices …
– bite 2d8 (if “door” closes on victim); acid — 1d4 automatic damage every minute if inside false door; cold vulnerability; metamorph — molds self to fit room contours

11. Tentacles
Blightwyrm
6 HD
The whispers from a hideous draconic creature slither through your mind and you swear you can see the beast before it approaches — a serpentine creature of venomous fang and slender, folded forelimbs that look useless compared to the twin clusters of coiling, twisting, barbed tendrils that sprout where wings should be. – bite 1d6 + 1d4 physical attribute loss; lash 2d4 + constrict, x2; telepathic, breath weapon — venomous mist 4d4; 2d6 spells; amphibious

12. Hybrid
Living Eclipse
9 HD
A spherical void cut into the world, or extruding into it; a dancing white-hot — or is it ice-cold? — coronal flame crawling eternally across its surface. None know its source. None know what it wants. – coronal burst 4d4 heat or cold, 25′ radius; black sun — blindness; create light; create darkness; swallowed whole — induces fear; devour memory; elemental null; raise black bones

13. Insectoid
Devil’s darning needle
1 HD
Just a big old red and black dragonfly, never you mind ~ Even if its long as your forearm ~ Even if its diving at your face with hooked legs and curving abdomen ~
– bite 1d2 + 1 drain/action; devil’s stitchery — sews up one orifice; eyes by preference (blind), then mouth, then …

14. Aquatic
Ii’ama (Marine-snow)
3 HD
It looks just like a few drifting clumps of snow in the water, or maybe some broken chunks of ice — then the translucent, scaly beast surges forward with a snap of its flippers to snatch prey with a fang-filled maw at the end of its long, long neck.
– bite 2d4; barrel roll — bitten target dragged and whirled around; aura of winter — cold surroundings 50′ (lose every other action)

15. Plantlike
Dandelion
6 HD
Well, yes, the name was given in jest. Less of a joke is this great golden-green feline’s long wooden fangs, or its thorny paws, or — in all honesty — it’s regal ruffled mane of golden, filamentous petals. The royal beast forgives you.
– bite 2d6, claws 1d8/1d8; create food and water; command plants; shape wood; greenblessing — luminescent tendrils of foliage banish next injury, toxin or hex

16. Armoured
Revok
5 HD
That’s a pretty, and pretty unhesitating, mirage plodding slowly your way — a tortise tall as an ox, scaled in velvety black with every plate and scute that encases it a gleaming mirror, its shell rising in tall irregular peaks of shining mirrored crystals.
– bite 2d8; acts last; magic reflection — spells cast at still work, 1d6 beam of random element ricochets back at caster; steelturn — 1-in-6 chance of melee weapon turning to mirror and shattering

17. Wet
Rainsnail
1 HD
A strange little half-elemental creature; a snail the size of one’s noggin, grey-blue with pearly striped shell, just gliding along encased in a bubble of water.
– healing waters 1d4; call stormbolt 1d6; summon clouds; summon rain

18. Fiery
Blazewing
1 HD
Beautiful, mesmerizing, but dangerous; a butterfly the size of a shield, its wings orange and crimson flame.
– burn 1d6; flight; firedance — fascinated for 1d4 minutes or until shaken; water vulnerability

19. Corrupt
Malspell
2 HD
For a brief moment there was a red-rimmed shadow of a twisted, broken glyph; but now it’s gone — and now each spell cast is warped and wounding …
– incorporeal; possession — successful ‘attack’ on spellcaster inhabits them; bleed — while inhabited, each spell casts causes 1d6 damage to caster; banished by incense smoke; silver vulnerability (even while inhabiting)

20. Construct
Balehound
4 HD
A terrible whimsy of blackened and wolfish articulated iron, hell-silver etchings across its gleaming plates. Its eyes are glowing lamps; its ragged jaws gape wide, revealing the sorcerous ghostfires inside. The jewel in its brow holds the blood of its intended prey, or that of its master, and it does not reveal which it is.
– bite 2d4 + 1d6 heat; construct; tireless; bloodbound — if for prey, will track and has advantage against, if for master will guard loyally; hellrun — howl causes hallucination of chase through damnation, 1d4 hrs

21. Devilish
Ahauit
7 HD
The pact was sealed, the contract was signed, and now a menacing figure stands guard over the threshold: flesh the colour of a bruise, gnashing tusks, bulging eyes, a lion’s ears and tail, and two swords carved from darkness.
– nightblades x2, 2d8 + paralysis; immune to mundane weaponry; ivory vulnerability; blinding snarl; telepathy; 1d6 spells; fell guardian — acts first when defending bound charge

22. Ancient
Grey bones
2-8+ HD
When a skeleton — of any kind — exists long enough, it just might develop a self and a mind and an existence of its own. With age comes wisdom, and deep time, and deeper secrets.
– undead; moonwave — 1d6 damage per 2 HD, 25′ radius; divine secrets; divine truth; 3d4 spells; telepathy; sage wisdom (1d4 topics)

23. Winged
Melocophony
4 HD
A strage sight glides through the air: a conglomeration of dozens of blades of stained glass, like a fireworks of glittering black-trimmed wings was frozen in time. As it approaches, a soothing chiming hum begins to resonate …
– bladewing 2d4; shivering shriek — every 3 actions, vibration 3d6 + blindness, 60′; calm emotions; incite fury (berserk)

24. Diseased
Urugotha
1 HD
Bad enough that the thing looks like some unholy amalgamation of slug and leech and rotting meat, but the wretched creatures spawn endlessly and spread their filth besides.
– rasp 1d4 + attach for 1/action; taint water; swim/climb/burrow; withering fever — once attached, 2-in-6 chance every action to infect with disease (lower one trait 1/day until cured; cannot fight or otherwise exert self)

25. Folktale
Old Hag
13 HD
You might catch a glimpse, in the mind’s eye, while you lie in the dark at night. Most likely all you know is the weight on your chest and the hell in your head and you can’t move —
– 4d6 spells; inflict paralysis; steal sleep; invisibility; phantom form; hagridden — receive no rest from sleep until curse lifted

26. Ethereal
Day-gone-by
1 HD
Sometimes magic or just deeply felt events leave behind such an impression on the world, they spawn an insubstantial, intangible echo of that memory or event; a phantom tangle of luminescent self-stuff just waiting for a new home.
– jolt 1d3; memory implant; disorientation — subject of memory implant cannot act on 2-in-6 for 2d8 hours

27. Faerie
Little people
1-6 HD
A glimpse of a gnarled figure barely hip-high, sporting red vest or cap — or a glimmer in the air — or a curious, magnificent, tack-less horse — or a whisper on the wind, teasing …
– 2d4 spells; shapeshift (horse, crow, fox, fey light are common); invisibility; tree-portal; grow grove; create illusion; fairy blow — 1d6 damage, wound spills fishbones, hair, twigs, Disadvantage until curse is broken and injury is healed (shaken); repelled by silver coins, religious tokens, crumbs in pocket, inside-out clothing

28. Arcane
Heqai
1+ HD
Gliding along the ground — and up walls, and through the very air itself — is a glowing, shimmering shape, as if a snake’s skeleton were formed of countless sorcerous glyphs. And it does so very wish to add ever more to its sinuous calligraphic spine.
– glyphbite 1d4 per HD; devour sorcery — each spell cast at the heqai (or sorcerous writing devoured by, elixir absorbed by, etc) adds one HD and heals all wounds; otherwise immune to hostile magic; broken sigil spawning — if more than 3 HD, destruction leaves behind 1d4 1-HD heqai

29. Decaying
Uruke (Creeping bolete)
3 HD
Glossy rusty brown mushrooms as tall as a grown adult. Well, it could be worse, right … like it they started to slowly walk about, and gather corpses. Maybe make some. Oh dear.
– cap bash 1d12; spore cloud 20′ — sleep; bone toss — 2d4, 50′; firespawn — flame damage makes two 2-HD uruke

30. Harvest
Wadjwer (Great Green)
15+ HD
A dragon — a great dragon, thick with bulk yet still sinuous in its movements as it strides, coiling, across the land. Its scales moss and malachite and jade, or jasper and copper and carnelian; its horns gnarled and branched and burnished golden brown; and both its broad back and spade-like tail are overgrown with bone-spur trellises covered with berry-vines, young trees loaded with fine fruits, and every herb and leaf and green-growing thing one could wish for —
– bite 4d8, claw 3d6 x2; breath weapons — 10d6 resinous acid spray; regenerate 1 HD/minute; 4d6 spells; healscale gift 3d6; cornucopia scale; banish disease; banish poison; mass create food and water; create non-metal goods

31. Nightmare
Fallen-from-grace (night mirror)
1 HD
They say it looks like a conglomeration of delicate refracting black prisms, at first, but no one sees it like that — what they see is a horror that reflects back horrors, before tearing them away from the screaming soul and incorporating them into its ever-shifting form.
– invoke terror; fivefold blight — blindness, paralysis, numbness, deafness, muteness; spreading horrors — Disadvantage in 100′ radius, spreads 100′ every night while remaining in place; dream theft; memory theft; immune to physical damage; immune to magic; vulnerability — roses and salt