So I've been writing like I used to--just sitting down and writing for 5 hours straight.
This shit is exhausting. I don't know how I used to do this back in 2015.
Anyway, I decided to start putting some of my monsters into a proper bestiary. It's ~35 pages.
I have a lot of opinions about the best way to write an entry in a monster manual, but I figured I would try to lead by example instead of writing a silly proscriptive post. It's unformatted, so it looks like shit, but I like the content and don't hate the structure.
There's currently only a few monsters in there. Crazy how long it takes to write up a good monster entry.
- Ankheg
- Giant Worm
- Bone Needle Man
- Corpse Balloon
- Ghouls, Geists, Ghasts, and Drowners
- Terophidians
I left comments unlocked. Feel free to tag any typo that annoys you.
It's kind of a mess, but I wanted to publish something tonight. (If I don't keep momentum, I never finish anything.)
Worms (and worm steaks) strike me as a problem similar to whale hunting in pre-industrial cultures. It's an infrastructure problem. It encourages community interaction.
ReplyDeleteLove the corpse balloons. Grab+drop monsters are always fun. They interact well with complex environments (bridges, rigging, gearwheels, etc.)
This is great and quite useful. I'm running the Dolmenwood setting right now, and have been using your death and dismemberment table to great effect.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to yoinking some of these. Thanks!
Oh the corpse balloons are so much fun. I'll be using them for sure. I like the refined Bone Needle Man as well, more mysterious and evocative.
ReplyDeletelove these monsters, i gotta use them somewhere. heads up, the pageless version has a duplicate of the ankheg environment/ecology section in the giant worm entry.
ReplyDelete