Category: monsters
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Owlspider Stat Block
Beware of owl spiders, the innkeeper says as you head out for the road through the old forest. Keep your wits about you, because if one of those beasties gets you, you’re a goner. Your skull will be crushed before you can blink…
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Fighting in the Rain
“Today is sunny,” you announce. Or it’s partly cloudy or windy or there is a hail storm. Most of the time this augur is forgotten as quickly as it is proclaimed, and it has no bearing whatsoever on the day’s challenges…
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An Unplanned Visit to the Plane of Earth
What we seem to remember most in TTRPGs is not the clever setup by the game master, but rather the audacious, imaginative actions of the players…
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Monster: Ethereal Life-Draining Spirits
Picture a black, malevolent spirit with flowing tendrils and stretched-out limbs like a starfish the size of a monkey. Picture it latched on to someone’s back, slowly draining their life force away, feeding the energy to the mother creature to breed more of such spirits. And picture them invisible.
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Better Nature Themed Monsters: More Than Entangle
Friends, we all like a sinister vine that softly creeps up behind someone and snakes around their ankle. I take no issue with this. What I take issue with is that plant monsters have nothing better than entangle…
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Two-Headed Snake Stat Block
Here is the two-headed snake that I did not get to use because my players were clever enough to skip the mini boss and head straight into the serpents’ nest…
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Monster Encounters That Flopped
It is the fate of a game master that, on occasion, you plan an encounter which in your head will be immersive and dramatic, requiring the player characters to fight desperately for their lives. And then when it is played out, it is over in twenty minutes and the players…
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Campaign: Rise of the Serpentines
Many years ago the people of the Smoldering Isles were conquered and subjugated by a truly evil people of serpentine form. Here are their stat blocks and an epic adventure outline in which they seek to rule again.
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Making Monster Fights Cool
In a game that is about fighting monsters, it is surprisingly easy to have monster fights that are, well, boring. I would like to focus on making monster fights exciting, suspenseful, and memorable.