Basic boring monsters as building blocks

I am playing on my computer Heroes of a Broken Land, a procedural grid based dungeon crawler and I noted that the monsters were all variations of basic boring creatures like bats, snakes, rats, slimes, zombies, etc… I wondered if it could be interesting to create a monster manual using a limited palettes of creatures as building blocks.

Why? I like low-fi basic stuff and I am intrigued by the thematic settings that may emerge out of these limited palettes. This is just a “lonely fun” experiment but it could be useful to generate local biomes. Well, I guess this link to my love of biomes too.

So for our basic palette I thought of six basic boring monsters types:

1. Flying harrowers: bats, birds, flying bugs 
2. Slow and slimy ambushers: frogs, slugs, snails, leeches 
3. Poisonous predators: snakes, centipedes, spiders, scorpions 
4. Smart scavengers: rats, crows, monkeys (ants?) 
5. Stubborn turtlers: crabs, beetles, turtles 
6. Formless dissolver: slime, ooze, jelly, moss (plants could be fun too)  

We could start with something very generic like:

1. Bats 
2. Frogs 
3. Snakes 
4. Rats 
5. Crabs 
6. Slimes 

Or we could go with something more whimsical like:

1. Fireflies 
2. Anemone 
3. Centipede 
4. Hyena (a bit too big for a basic monster but let's try it) 
5. Trilobites 
6. Jellies 

So then I created 10 types of flavors or types of creatures we find in the monster manual.
(I put exemples in broad order of HD in parenthesis)

1. Humanoids (goblins, orcs, burbears, ogres, giants, titan) 
2. Domesticated beasts (pets, messenger, hunting, burden, war, mount, cattle) 
3. Ferocious packs, lone predators or territorial grazers (wild beasts, from small to gigantic) 
4. Strange chimera (satyrs, harpies, centaurs, pegasus, griffons, manticores) 
5. Artificial construx (animated statues, clockwork beings, golems) 
6. Nature spirits (sprites, faes, blinking, nymph, unicorn, elemental, swampthing) 
7. Watchful guardians (skeletons, gargoyles, medusa, minotaur, sphynx, naga, mummies, beholder) 
8. Creatures of the night (zombies, ghouls, shadows, werebeasts, ghosts, vampires, demons) 
9. Monstrous hoarders (hydra, abomination, dragon) 
10. Mimics (doppelgangers, carnivorous traps, parasites, shapeshifters) 

Now the idea is to mix our palettes of monsters with these special flavors. I think that I would generate 6 creatures for each step of HD.

Generic palette

1HD

1. Hunting Bats (trained to hunt giant bugs) 
2. Tiny Faes riding on Frogs 
3. Cameleon Snakes 
4. Ratfolk Carpenters 
5. Collector Crabs 
6. Slimes Hounds 

2HD

1. Clockwork Bats 
2. Clawed Frogs 
3. War Snakes (warbeasts) 
4. Wolf-Rats 
5. Mule-Crabs (beasts of burden) 
6. Coins slimes 

3HD

1. Bat maidens 
2. Work Toads (beasts of burden) 
3. Snakemen shapeshifters 
4. Ghoul Rats 
5. Mace Crabs 
6. Ectoplasmic Slimes 

…9HD

1. Blind giants with batlikes features, live deep underground. 
2. Titan Toads (grumpy but gentle giants) 
3. The Watcher of the Ivory Tower (100 eyes giant snake) 
4. The Eater of the Deads (gigantic many headed humanoid rat queen) 
5. Old Molten (gigantic steam breathing Crab) 
6. War shamblers (gigantic slimes mind controlled for war) 

Whimsical palette

1HD

1. Blood Fireflies (drain blood with their light) 
2. Shoulder Anemone (pets) 
3. Temple’s Centipede (ivory carapaces) 
4. Laughing sticks (hyena made of tied sticks by witches) 
5. Trilobites Tribe (humanoids) 
6. Jellies Gloves (jellies that wrap around hands) 

2HD

1. Fireflies-Mentis (dog sized nasty hybrid) 
2. Guarding Anemone (dog sized crawling anemone) 
3. Rollers (centipede who roll on itselves and hunt in packs) 
4. Thirsty Watchers (hyena with eyes on their fur, must be summoned) 
5. Mermaid’s Masks (trilobite that sing like mermaids, their shell look like a woman face) 
6. Butterflies-Jellies (shimmering flying faery jellies, dissolve hopes) 

3HD

1. Ghost Fireflies (their ghostly light lure people like will-o-the-wisps) 
2. Shadow-Anemone 
3. Centipede-Gargoyles (take a lot of patience to sculpts the legs) 
4. Trap Jaws (clockwork big jawed hyena who eat metal bits) 
5. Crawling Masons (big land trilobites colonies who form stone structures) 
6. Jellies Ruffs (graft around neck to control host) 

...9HD

1. Balefirefly (demonic firefly that eat souls with it light) 
2. Anemone-Naga (guardian giant anemone-headed snake with multiple women heads hidden inside the anemone) 
3. The Horde (fire breathing giant centipede, named for it thousand legs) 
4. The Laughing Mother (giant centaur hyena woman) 
5. The Elder (Gigantic fossilized undead Trilobite) 
6. Carmina Jellies (vampire jelly that can take a humanoid form) 

Maybe I could use this to generate the biome of the Potoo Island.

Island and random encounters tables speciation.

This is inspired from this youtube video about how species fill vacant ecological niches on isolated islands. For exemple how kiwi birds took on the role and characteristics of rats in the absence of these mammals.

Let try to apply this on random encounter tables. Now random encounter tables are not really ecologies or biomes but since we are familiar with their content it can be fun to generate interesting variants.

Let use the the Forest/Wooded encounters from the Labyrinth Lord's Wilderness Monster Encounter Table.

Forest/Wooded encounters (1d20)

1. Bee, giant killer
2. Boar
3. Bugbear
4. Cat, Panther
5. Cockatrice
6. Dryad
7. Dragon, Green
8. Elf
9. Ghoul 
10. Hobgoblin
11. Werewolf
12. Brigands
13. Orc
14. Roc, small
15. Spider, giant crab
16. Troll
17. Unicorn
18. Wight 
19. Wolf
20. Wolf, dire

Let remove half the encounters so that the "surviving" monsters can fill their "niches".

We roll 10d20: 20 - 11 - 2 - 17 - 20 - 5 - 12 - 12 - 6 - 4 (re rolling doubles: 7, 10)

1. Bee, giant killer
2. Boar
3. Bugbear
4. Cat, Panther
5. Cockatrice
6. Dryad
7. Dragon, Green
8. Elf
9. Ghoul 
10. Hobgoblin
11. Werewolf
12. Brigands
13. Orc
14. Roc, small
15. Spider, giant crab
16. Troll
17. Unicorn
18. Wight 
19. Wolf
20. Wolf, dire

Now let see who fill these empty niches

For each absent monster we assign a random survivor who will speciate to fill it empty niche, we will combine the two monsters to create a new one. This new monster use the survivor stats bloc and switch 2d3 characteristics with the monster it is replacing.

Characteristics table (d12)

1. No.Enc
2. Alignment
3. Movement
4. Armor Class
5. HD (size) 
6. Attack type
7. Damage
8. Saves
9. Morale
10. Hoard class
11. Special ability or vulnerability 
12. Appearance  

If we make the rolls we end up with:

1. Boar wight 
2. Panther trolls  
3. Cockatrice elves 
4. Dryad bugbears 
5. Green dragon ghouls 
6. Hobgoblin wolfs 
7. Werewolf bugbears 
8. Brigands giant killer bees 
9. Unicorn giant killer bees 
10. Dire wolf wolf (??) 

What happen to the original survivor monsters?
Let roll on the adaptation table to find out:

Adaptation table (d8)

• 1-2 Dwarf variant (-1 HD, step up No Enc.) 
• 3-4 Giant variant (+1 HD, step down No Enc.) 
• 5-6 Random characteristic variant (roll on the characteristic table and modify this characteristic to create a variant)
• 7 Stunted variant (roll on the characteristic table and nerf or dilute this characteristic)  
• 8 Hyper variant (roll on the characteristic table and boost or intensify this characteristic) 

If we make the rolls we end up with:

1. Giant giant killer bee
2. Hyper Bugbear (Hyper variant: boost number encountered!)
3. Dwarf Elf
4. Giant Ghoul 
5. Dwarf Orc
6. Dwarf small Roc  
7. Giant giant spider crab  
8. High Damage Trolls (Hyper variant: boost damages!) 
9. Giant Wight 
10. Climbing Wolf (Random characteristic variant: movement type) 

Our final forest island random table: 

d20

1. Giant Wight 
2. Boar Wights (tusked wights who search the ground with their big groin) 
3. High Damage Trolls (ouch!)
4. Panther Trolls (stealthy four legged trolls)  
5. Dwarf Elves
6. Cockatrice Elves (use petrification to craft stuff out of petrified victims) 
7. Hyper Bugbear (larger No. Enc.) 
8. Dryad Bugbears (tree linked female bugbears) 
9. Werewolf Bugbears (bugbears who turn into dire wolves) 
10. Giant Ghoul  
11. Green Dragon Ghouls (greedy scaly toxic breath ghouls) 
12. Dwarf Orc
13. Hobgoblin Wolfs (weapon using bipedal wolfs) 
14. Dwarf Small Roc (mounts for the dwarf elves or orcs)   
15. Giant Giant Spider Crab 
16. Giant Giant killer bee (they are getting quite big!)
17. Brigands giant killer bees (killer bees who ambush people to hoard their stuff) 
18. Unicorn giant killer bees (white bees who produce magical honey for maidens) 
19. Dire Island Wolves (cosmetic variant Dire wolf) 
20. Climbing Wolves

Incomplete notes for a light sources dungeon

Some old notes about making a dungeon focusing on light sources and biolumincescent creatures.

(This was before I knew about Patrick Stuart's underdark project)

Possible stats for light sources:

• After a number of turns you make duration checks to see if your light source extinguish. This way you don't know exactly how many turns your light source will last. Maybe the duration check start at 5 or under on a d6 and lower by a point each turn (or each time you fail). The quality of the light source may influence the type of die you roll or the starting chance of duration. 
• Light sources have saving throws to resist being extinguished. 
• Light sources flicker during combat and light a random radius. 

What can diminish or extinguish your light sources?

• Wind
• Water/humidity
• Dust
• Gas
• Melee hits
• Dropping your light source (or falling with it)
• Magic and supernatural effects.

Light effects:

• The referee show the monsters numbers and hit points and can mention their stats.

Effect of light on monsters.

• Attract or repulse them.
• Influence their behaviors. 
• Boost, weaken or debuff them.
• Hurt or heal them. 
• Activate or deactivate their special abilities. 
• Mutate and transform them. 

Darkness effects: 

• The referee hide his or her dice rolls and the monsters hit points and stats (and everything that you can hide). 
• Players can't consult their map, books, etc. 
• Augment the chances of fumble and remove the chances of critical hits. 
• Lower the henchmen morale. 
• If the group have completely lost their light sources: roll on a lost in darkness table. 

Flora and Fauna:

• Light plants attract type A predators but repulse type B predators.
• Light plants provide light for lightless plants & creatures. Become ecosystem.
• Mobile light fruits.
• Dark plants close when exposed to light. 
• Fishing monsters or plants that grab light sources with roots or tendrils. 
• Light and dark spores that react to light sources.
• On/off bioluminescent creature. 
• Taggers that spit bioluminescent goo. 
• Creature that glow more as it is damaged. 
• Creatures that split or grow when exposed to light.
• Bioluminescent creatures that are super friendly in the dark but who turn frenzy or evil when exposed to light. 
• Creatures that blink (like a blink dog) when exposed to light. 
• Creature that travel/jump through light sources. And that can end up in your eyes. 
• Magic lights that lay their eggs within artificial sources of light.
• Light vampires that feed by draining light.
• Glow worm wizards.