All The World’s Monsters, Volume I

Part IV

That’s The Funny One With The Whales, Right?

No, This Is The One With The Killer Pinecone In It

Yes, Really

Welcome back, after a long absence, to what ought to be the last part of the first part of the walkthrough of All The World’s Monsters, Volume I. The penultimate part is here, and the antepenultimate part is here, and this useless spell checker doesn’t know that “antepenultimate” is a word. It totally is. It means “the sister of one of penultimate’s parents”. Duh.

Having just covered hybrid crabs/WW1 helmets, we move on to…

Random Horror: Insert 2016 Presidential election joke here.

An evolutionary step between the wandering monster table and the wandering damage table.

Razortongue: A gorilla-sized koala bear with steel-hard fur. Yes, really.

Just like it says on the tin.

The razortongue is one of the many creations of the prolific Clint Bigglestone, who was evidently part of the gaming circle of a certain George R. R. “Are You Finishing The Damn Series” Martin, as a character by the hardly-common name of “Clint Bigglestone” appears in one of Martin’s early stories.

Shaggy: A huge (man size, I guess, though it’s not specified precisely) tribble. Which secretes adhesive glue. And when it attaches itself to you, it sucks out life levels. Not to be confused with a monster-hunting stoner.

Shaggy Beast: A snake-headed bull with green fur. Said fur is full of stingers that will kill you in two turns if you fail a save. It can also breathe fire. Why not?

Shrew, Giant: Insert “mother in law” joke here.

Skull, Flying: The “poor man’s liche”, sometimes called the “Obamalich”, even though the program actually started under Bush. It looks “just like you would expect, a skull with wings”. I generally don’t expect winged skulls, but anyway. It can use spells, but there is a “spell level/8” chance it will be destroyed when it does. I’m going to interpret that as an “X in 8 chance”, that is, if it’s a 4th level spell, roll a D8, and if it’s 4 or less, the skull dies. Re-dies. Double secret dies.

Starling: Not a cute little bird. This starling is a giant mutant starfish, where each tentacle has a unique, deadly, power. Kind of like a beholder, except with tentacles instead of eye beams. It has seven tentacles, and their powers include constriction, petrification, cold damage, poison, and “squirting ink”. The “constricting” tentacle can extend for up to 100 feet, and this is getting way too hentai for me. Next!

Stormquill: Another of Mr. Bigglestone’s visionary creations, this is a “gorilla sized ankliosaurus(sic)”. It has 12 quills on the clublike end of the tail, which, when flung, transform into lightning bolts that attack as a heavy crossbow fired by a Champion. (You can tell the really old school stuff, from the first few years of D&D, by use of the “attacks as a (level name here)” trope.

Stun Cone: A giant killer pinecone. Look, I told you it was in here. Why did you not believe me? Why? Now look what you’ve done in your foolish ignorance and defiance!

See? Killer Pinecone. Not A Metaphor. Not An Exaggeration. Not A Dream, Hoax, Or Imaginary Story.

Thundertread: Found in the deepest levels of dungeons, it is “hideous and virtually indescribable”. And… that’s its description.

DM: You encounter a thundertread! It’s hideous and indescribable!
Player: What does it look like?
DM: I just told you, it’s indescribable.
Player: But what do our characters see?
DM: Something they can’t describe.
Player: (Sighs) Does it have hit points?
DM: Yes.
Player: Then screw the flavor text, we can kill it.

Tiger, Blink Saber-Tooth: When a blink dog and a saber tooth tiger love each other very much…

Next time someone who wasn’t even born until after AD&D 2e came out whines that they hate D&D 3.x or Pathfinder because “all the stupid templates let them make up these weird hybrid monsters instead of sticking to the glorious, sacred purity of genuine creatures from myth and legend like in the Good Old Days”, show them the blink dog/sabre-tooth tiger crossover, then laugh at them. A lot. They need to be laughed at.

Tumble Tangle: A tumbleweed-like plant that often travels among them, until it finds food. It then attacks and attempts to entangle and devour the victim. Given that I created the very similar “tumblebleed” for Earth Delta, I’ve got no moral high ground here.

Unalhit: A six legged hairy octopus demon. Heh. “Hairy octopus”. Know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more?

Voltree: Comes in five colors; when danger threatens, all the voltrees spend time getting their asses.. erm… trunks handed to them for ten minutes before finally remembering that can combine to form an all-powerful robot tree that… no, wait. This is a weeping willow with silver leaves that can electrocute passers-by. Based on a story by Eric Frank Russel.

Vuun: A fifty-foot giant bat, with psychic powers. “Very rare”, with only one colony remaining in a network of caves in the walls of a volcanic crater. I’m not even going to ask how a creature with a 50 foot wingspan navigates inside the tunnels.

War Wheel: It’s a living creature shaped like a giant wheel that will… oh, just read it.

Man, If You Could Figure Out How To Put A Saddle On One Of These…

I can kind of imagine the in-world arguments over what to call it, akin to the debate over “soda” or “pop”. (Soda, you morons) or “Sub”, “Hero”, “Grinder”, etc. (Sub or Hero. Grinder? Please.)

Water Sucker: Someone who pays 3.99 for a bottle of “Pure Glacier Mountain Spring Organic GMO Free Water” that’s bottled in Spokane from the local pipes. Also, a kind of armadillo thing that drains water like a stirge drains blood.

Weasel, Giant: Insert 2016 Presidential election joke here, too.

Were-Hellhound: There is a 25% chance it can use magic in human form and one-third of the magic-using were-hellhounds will be Priests of Roofdrak. No, I do not know what a Priest of Roofdrak is. I mean, yeah, I can guess, it’s a priest, that worships Roofdrak. That’s helpful. Not. Also, it will only work with were-coldcats if it has a good reason to. No, “were-coldcat” is not in this book. Nor could I find “Cat, cold” or “Coldcat”. Old School!

Were, Anti: At first, I read this as “were, ant”, which makes as much sense as anything else, but, no… an “anti-were” is like a were wolf, bear, etc., except that it’s immune to silver and magic weapons but is harmed by normal iron ones. This is a fairly typical trope for the era. Back when “player skill, not feats and stats” mattered, “player skill” consisted of memorizing every rulebook one could find, and ignoring things like “but your character has never met a werewolf, how does it know what’s effective?” And so, there was an eternal arms race, and “trick monsters”, which looked like typical members of a species but had altered or reversed weaknesses, were one of the primary weapons in the arsenal.

Witch Tree: Which tree? That tree! That one, right there. The one that’s trying to kill you. Forests in a typical D&D world are not exactly safe havens. I suppose the number of giant, poisonous magical scorpion-tailed creatures that roam the woodlands makes sense if you consider that “the woodlands” are themselves highly predatory.

Worm, White: A hundred-foot long worm that dwells in polar climates. It will devour anything that is not fuzzy, because, and I swear I am not making this up, it is very ticklish on the inside.

X-Ray Beast

The Next Time Someone Tells You The Flumph Was The Most Ridiculous Monster Ever, You Just Show Them This

Yes, it’s a one-eyed hippo which shoots an x-ray beam that does 3d6 radiation damage and would give a +2 on Heal checks to detect cancer, if there had been skills back then. For some random reason, it’s immune to fire.

Zanth: Six legged wolf-komodo-lizard. That is the entirety of the descriptive text. A fittingly old-school ending for this entry in the series.