Design a Monster ( or more) Contest!

[Incorrigible]

Monster name: Thunderhead Shark

Description:  These sharks are big and as mean as they are ugly. The skin of the Thunderhead is coarser than most sharks and a brilliant aqua with dark blue stripes. Other than coloration this shark visibly looks like a hammer head.

Abilities: Aura of minor electric damage, more of a nuisance. 3 casts of Lightning Bolt. One cast of ball lightning. One cast of Haste, which it would do when out of electricity or if prey is fleeing. Slow movement speed.

Her only weakness would be she can't get far from her tree.

Appearance: Shark, large model if able.

Regions: Deep underwater in seldom traveled areas, probably best as a boss spawn.

Comments: It's a shark. A big prehistoric shark that is scary as hell, and then some. Damn sharks. At least it can't fly. Or can it? Friendly Parrot Island, hmm... It uses electricity to hunt its prey underwater, blasting stronger food objects with bolts of electricity before engaging or using ball lightning to stun a school of smaller fish (or adventurers!). Although its size keeps it from much mobility the Thunderhead is capable of quick bursts of terrifying speed.

[TTH]

Monster Name: (Dire) Humpback Frog

Monster Description: The omnivorous Humpback Frog is proportionally large for a frog and a most unwelcome visitor to any region, able of travelling great distances over land and water. The red pores on its skin exude a poisonous substance, covering its entire body in a protective layer and will burst and spray when hit. They are known to be extremely aggressive.


Monster Abilities: OnHit (when hitting Frog): DC18 Poison [str/con/dex, may vary], Immunity: Poison

Monster Appearance: Dire Frog (small sized will do too).

Region: Forests/Underwater

[Vlaid]

Monster Name: Mist Nightmare
 Monster Description: Mist swirls about the area, coalescing together into a slender humanoid  form with hateful red glowing dots for eyes. As soon as you are sure the  creature has finished forming, it dissipates into the mist once more.
 Monster Abilities: Mind Fog 1/day, Confusion, Fear, Melee Touch Attack* (See Extra Comments), Hide in Plain Sight* (See Extra Comments), True Seeing, Undead template (minus undead vulnerabilities)
 Monster Appearance:  Using the model of a shadow as a base, shaded to be more blue-ish/white if possible.
 Region: Any area with concentrated mist.
 Extra Comments: The Mist Nightmare has the Undead immunity set but does not share the vulnerabilities of the Undead template. The Mist Nightmare can not be slain in it's normal form, but it can be forced back into mist temporarily. Anything that would reduce the Mist Nightmare to 0 hit points or lower, instead dissipates the Mist Nightmare for a number of rounds.

Remove Fear, Dispel Magic and similar affects instantly dissipate the Mist Nightmare. The "dissipation" effect is achieved via the Hide in Plain Sight feat, after a number of rounds the Mist Nightmare re-emerges from the mist fully healed. This is the only functional purpose of Hide in Plain Sight for the creature (it does not actually Hide in Plain Sight, it is only for mechanical purposes to represent the dissipation ability).

The Mist Nightmare engages in combat with a combination of Mind Fog, Confusion, and Fear before engaging with it's touch attack. The touch attack causes no damage. However it causes wisdom damage and forces a Will save on successful touch (balanced around low AB). If the victim fails, the Mist Nightmare becomes a nightmare copy of the touched victim. Once this happens, the Mist Nightmare loses all of it's previous immunities abilities, and can be truly slain, once transformed the Mist Nightmare pursues the victim until it or the victim is slain. The transformation only gives the Mist Nightmare the appearance, statistics, equipment, spell casting ability, and all combat relevant abilities of the victim. The newly transformed Mist Nightmare does not act, talk, or move in a way that would be unique to the victim, and in fact due to hateful glowing eyes, it is quite easy to discern the real one from the fake.

Obviously this makes it sound extremely scarey, but it is not intended to be mechanically threatening on it's own (as it has no way to actually cause damage in it's base form), merely extremely annoying to deal with and dangerous if allowed to successfully transform into powerful character or when paired up with other monsters/creatures. Does not drop loot unless slain in it's transformed state.

Possibility of some kind of lore attachment/rumor that those who die to Mist Nightmare's are consumed, become part of the mist, or become Mist Nightmare's themselves.

It's possible I got over-zealous with making it a nightmare to deal with.

<_<

[Mort]

Thanks to those who submitted. I`ve picked the submissions I liked and will run something short for the winners.

2 People have won so far.

I will contact you on IRC when I`m available if I picked your submission.

Cheers.

P.S. You can continue to submit ideas if you have particularly good ones, I`ll keep on skimming the thread from time to time, and maybe run you something if you have a good idea that I would steal.

[The Old Hack]

Monster Name: Pallid Stag

Monster Description: This once noble and pure creature still stands tall and proud, carrying itself with a lingering dignity and majesty reminiscent of what it once was. Yet pain and despair show all too clearly in its eyes and it moves jerkily, its hooves pawing the ground in restless unease.

Monster Abilities: +20% movement speed, slowing aura, summon various H'Balan undead.

Monster Appearance: White Stag model with green aura.

Region: H'Balan Heartlands.

Extra Comments: The Ymphian white stag has long represented the purity of nature and a symbol of hope for the people of nature on the island. Obviously, this made it a prime target for the Lich's malice. It is not certain how many times she tried before she succeeded, but succeed she did -- she managed to capture a living white stag and corrupt it with her power. Now it walks her heartlands in unending pain, yearning to be released from its mockery of existence yet helpless to do aught but dance like the Lich's puppet. If attacked, it will summon undead and flee, often alerting other clusters of H'Balan creatures in its path. It is seldom seen outside the Lich's heartlands and some say that when it is, it is to herald some new act of great malice on H'Bala's part. Currently there is only believed to exist one of these creatures, though little is certain where H'Bala is concerned.

[Vlaid]

Monster Name: Treasure Troll

Monster Description: Treasure Trolls are a scourge on the adventuring community. They are known for their vile and cunning at the art of trickery, deception, irony, sarcasm and ability to confound and annoy while escaping unharmed.

Monster Abilities: +50% movement speed, tanglefoot bags, throws rotten fruit, high taunt (with scripted speech taunts). Very high AC and Reflex/Will saves. Always flees after annoying adventurers when found solo, will often attempt to harass people in combat with other creatures before fleeing. Has little to no combat abilities unless found in a group.

Monster Appearance: A miniature cousin of the troll, the Treasure Troll is often mistaken for mishapen goblins by the less knowledgeable. It armors itself in a wide array of decorative and shiny objects (some valuable, some not) that it has hunted from ill-fated adventurers. While making it look quite valuable it does little to protect itself and makes it quite easy to hear coming.

Region: Swamps and areas frequented by adventurers in the wilds

Extra Comments: The treasure trolls come in two varieties. Treasure Trolls by themselves near a "lair" and Treasure Troll Adventuring Bands.

Solo: Treasure Trolls will idly stand about waiting for an adventurer to come along, when one is spotted it will pretend to not see them while repeatedly uttering speech-scripts along the lines of "I sure hope no strong manly adventurer comes along and takes my HUGE TREASURE TROVE". The Treasure Troll will then attempt to disable them with tanglefoot bags, thrown rotten fruit, hurling taunts, and fleeing into it's "lair" (a transition to a small area specific to the creature). Once inside, the adventurer(s) are sealed inside and most go forward through a number of irritating traps intended to annoy, slow, disable and taunt the would-be adventurers (entangling, level drain, diseases, non-damaging poisons, laughing gas, ect).

Only with the help of a cunning individual (someone with high search/open lock/disable device) can the traps be navigated through without setting them off. If no trap is set off, a secret door may be discovered that the treasure troll escaped through, finding the creature dead under one of it's own trollish-traps, along with a map to it's REAL treasure trove (a small QA that is entirely focused on traps and cunning akin to Bilby's). If not, the adventurers must endure through the cooridor of annoyance and irritating to escape the other end alive, but entirely irritated.

Group: In a group the treasure trove form a pack-like mentality, finding themselves filled out by at most, four members that fall neatly into the adventuring group cliche of warrior, priest, mage and rogue variety Treasure Trolls. As a group, they become quite deadly and are far less inclined to flee. They have a cunning ability to heal and buff each other.

Regardless of the variety, if slain or found dead the Treasure Troll will have a map to a REAL treasure trove (small highly trapped QA akin to Bilby's).

Side Note: Treasure trolls would be a great place to drop inside-joke items that refer to prominent old characters from the past that do nothing mechanically but are funny/cool to read the description of.

[Vlaid]

Monster Name: Needle Demons

Monster Description: These small needle-ball creatures are always found in large packs if not in swarms. The Needle Demon can fling the needles that cover it's body to devastating effect and accuracy. The Needle Demon will always individually flee from melee combat while the rest of it's pack bring down foes with their own barrage of needles. The Needle Demons are raw unthinking creations of demonic lust for slow toturous pain in others and itself. They may even sometimes kill themselves in their lust to inflict pain on others. The Needle Demon is only a minor nuisance in small numbers but in large numbers they become a deadly force to be avoided at all costs.

Monster Abilities: +20% movement speed, immune to mind effects, entangling/rooting effects and has the demon and undead templates for immunity/vulnerabilities. Low AC, Low HP, High AB, High DC dexterity damaging poison on needles. Spams called shot leg. Each Needle Demon may use Caltrops at will (Needle Demon is resistant to piercing damage and immune to Caltrops specifically). Each "needle" flung at foes causes the Needle Demon 1 point of damage, it is possible for the Needle Demon to kill itself in this fashion. However each time the Needle Demon deals damage with it's needles, all nearby Needle Demons are healed for 1 hit point. This healing can raise a Needle Demon's health above it's maximum health. If at any point it reaches double it's normal health, it will split into another Needle Demon, losing the excess hit points in the process.


Monster Appearance: A small ball-like creature, the entirety of the creature is covered in a complete layer of needles that the creature seems able to control with it's body. It moves about using the needles in place of legs and appendages. It has two red hateful glowing dots for eyes buried between the needles that cover it's body.

Region: The Needle Demon breeds out of control in anyplace pain and suffering have been inflicted. Most notable they are attracted to crypts of restless undead (which they seem uninterested in and vice versa), cemeteries and sites where especially large or bloody battles have taken place.

Extra Comments: Popular rumor suggeststhe Needle Demon is a harmless arcane experiment gone horribly wrong from ages past on the Isle. A rather eccentric wizard was attempting to create a simple magical item that could conveniently provide an endless and steady supply of needles for his wife's needlepoint. However it went horribly wrong and his creation killed both him and his wife. It feasted on their pain and suffering. As the emotions of suffering and pain filled the creature...it began to grow in size. Fueled by the raw emotions, it began to split apart into many smaller versions of itself. Thus giving birth to the Needle Demon. If any of this rumor of it's creation is true is anyone's guess.

Needle Demons are often friendly or kept as pets to pious Garagos followers and priests. Leading some to believe the deity may have had something to do with the creation of them.