Bestiary Notes

While many creatures are presented, you will often find it useful to choose only a few at any time, and add further detail to your chosen creatures’ lives in your world. You can add to or create their culture (if they have one), their eating, mating, and sleeping habits, create special legends about them specific to your world’s peoples, and even modify them slightly, perhaps adding special powers on occasion or special goals.

Creature Statistics

Reactions and Survival

Creatures do not usually gain levels by adventuring but rather have a maximum number of levels, which they acquire through natural growth to maturity.

Intelligent monsters may also acquire archetypal levels in some circumstances. When doing so, their creature level counts in their total number of levels for experience costs. They also do not gain initial skills or an initial specialty when taking an initial archetypal level. Their first archetype was monster, and that was their specialty.

Creatures gain bonuses to survival potential, combat bonus, and reactions for their “creature level”. The archetypal reaction of most creatures is as given above, unless otherwise specified in the description.

Non-player characters and creatures always regain level survival each night, no roll required. Once their survival is at maximum, they lose injuries at one point per night. All non-player characters go unconscious or are incapacitated, unless otherwise specified, on a standard Health roll. They die on an Endurance roll, at a penalty of their injuries. (Assume an endurance of 10 plus half level, as below.)

Remember that flying creatures attacking creatures who are land-bound will usually get a “high ground” bonus in combat.

Unintelligent creatures such as walking corpses, skeletons, and moss will not be affected by attacks or divinations that work on or control the mind. Creatures of alien disposition, such as ash-shubab al-muthlimum, will gain a bonus of 2 to reactions against such effects.

Ability and Reaction Rolls

Sometimes you’ll need to make ability rolls for creatures. If you have a good estimate of a creature’s ability score and skill, you can use it. If you don’t, a good rule of thumb is that the creature will roll against 10 plus half level plus any appropriate bonuses the creature has. Use this rule of thumb wisely, and remember that most creatures already have an estimate of intelligence and charisma. When wisdom is necessary, assume the lower of intelligence or charisma. Reaction rolls will be 4 plus half level, or 4 plus level for their archetypal reaction. Remember that a creature’s size will affect fortitude rolls for large or larger creatures, and if they have any bonuses on their level numbers these affect strength, endurance, fortitude, and health rolls.

Darkness

Many monsters have underground or night vision, and are able to see as well--or better--in the darkness as in light. Unless otherwise noted, such monsters have underground vision and are at a penalty of only one in normal darkness.

Terminology

Many of the statistics listed for creatures are there to assist rather than dictate. For example, the “number” and the “morale” may be used when you just didn’t have anything planned and need to let the dice determine what’s happening. They should not be used to restrict you if you do have something planned.

Activity Cycle

Charisma

A creature’s charisma, like a character’s, is its force of personality and leadership capability. When in a hurry, a creature or group’s morale may be rolled on d20 vs. charisma, to determine if the creature is willing to stand its ground. Morale will usually be rolled for whenever something major happens: a fight breaks out or two sides stare each other down, more than half the creatures’ comrades are down, or some super-powerful force is used by the enemy.

Of course, a creature that is willing to stand its ground might still not necessarily do so. There needs to be a reason to face death courageously. The creature’s intelligence and wisdom will affect that decision.

Class

Most creatures are either “animal” or “fantastic”. “Fantastic” creatures tend to be magical in either ability or origin, or fantastic in some other way. For example, humans are “animal” and orcs are “fantastic”. “Undead” and other creatures often have special benefits (and penalties) because of their class.

Defense

A creature’s defense bonus or penalty is based generally on their tough hide or agility, but can also reflect magical bonuses.

Intelligence

Creatures do not by default have all of the ability scores that player characters have. This would be tedious over the long-term. But intelligence and charisma are useful enough to be separated out into general categories.

Level

Creatures without archetypes have a level based on their species. They grow into this level as they mature. A creature with a level of “5” will have the benefit of fifth level as a creature if full grown, and less if not full grown. Some creatures have a bonus or penalty after their level. This is the number of additional survival points that creature receives (or that the creature loses) per survival point die. This modifier also applies to Health, Fortitude, Endurance, and Strength rolls.

For example, orcs have 2+1 listed for level. This means that the average orc will get two dice for survival points, and another +1 per die, for a total of 2d8+2 survival points (fantastic creatures gain d8 survival points per level). The average orc will also gain a bonus of 1 on Health rolls, Fortitude rolls, Endurance rolls, and Strength rolls.

Individual creatures may have greater or lesser bonuses as desired. Note that no survival die can produce less than 1 point, regardless of penalties.

When level is listed as 1/2 or 1/4, this means a d4 or a d2 for survival points, respectively. The creature is otherwise treated as a level one creature.

Moral Code

In general, most creatures are not bound to be this moral code, but the species as a whole either has a cultural or archetypal affinity for this moral code. In some rare cases the nature of the creature will require a specific moral code.

Movement

Movement is the same for creatures as it is for characters. Many creatures will have more than one means of moving, such as walking and flying, or walking and swimming.

Flying creatures can move more easily than walkers: long-distance movement for fliers is movement miles per hour rather than miles per day, which lets them move eight times further in a day than a walker of the same movement could go.

Organization

Some creatures tend to live in packs, in organized groups, others tend to live alone. Some might prefer hierarchical structures and others anarchic structures.

Number

This estimates how many creatures are usually found together in a lair or village.

Size

Creatures have a general size of Fine, Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gigantic, or Titanic. Size affects the Fortitude roll of large or larger creatures: +2 for Large, +4 for Huge, +8 for Gigantic, and +16 for Titanic.

If you’ve given any of these creatures levels in warrior, they adjust combat movement differently. Small, Medium, and Large warriors are all able to add 3 to combat movement per combat bonus point used. Tiny creatures can add 2 per point, and Fine creatures 1 per point. Huge creatures can add 6 per point, Gigantic creatures 12 per point, and Titanic creatures 24 per point.

Special Defenses

Some creatures will have as their “special defense” that “+1 or better required to attack”. This means that any attacks on the creature will be unsuccessful unless the weapon used has at least a bonus of 1 to attack. The bonus must be a magical or divine bonus.

Magic Resistance

Some creatures, especially demons and powerful spirits, will cause havoc with magic simply by their presence. Magic Resistance is rated from one on up. Whenever a spell is cast or targeted within range of a resistant creature, the Guide should roll a d20; if the result is less than or equal to the creature’s Magic Resistance, the spell fails. For every yard beyond the first yard, the creature’s Magic Resistance drops by one.

Magic Resistance applies to any spellcasting devices as well, such as wands. If the magic resistance that blocks a spell affects the caster (or the spellcasting device), spells are not lost from the caster’s mind, charges are not lost, and verve is not used. But if the magic resistance only takes effect at the target, spells and charges are lost, and verve is used.

Magic resistance does not affect prophet spirits or psychic powers.

Environments

Where the creatures generally make their home. Some creatures are common, some are rare, some are one of a kind. These ratings are especially variable from world to world and campaign to campaign, and can be only seen as the vaguest of guidelines.

This is all meant as a guideline only. Within your own stories, these creatures may have widely varying goals and desires, inhabit different areas, and be more or less common.

Badlands

Barking Spiders

Bobcats

Carrion Worms

Cougars

Grey man

Lizards, Giant

Orcs

Caves

Barking Spiders

Bear, Black

Crickets, giant

Dwarves

Hill giants

Ogres

Orcs

Mountain giants

Petraiads

Rats

Snakes, poisonous

Spiders, large and huge

Trolls

Xolome

Chaotic Mist

Bandersnatch

Beaked Sweeper

Borogoves

Crazy Crabs

Cyclopeata

Fire Spiders

Hooded Dasher

Jabberwock

Jubjub Bird

Leech, giant

Mist Wraith

Pink Horror

Pink Trumpets

Raths

Spinneretts

Toves

Violents

Cities and Towns

Brownies

Elves

Halflings

Humans

Restless Dead

Revenant

Wererats

Death Havens

Barrowmen

Ghosts

Ghouls

Phantoms

Restless Dead

Vampires

Vampire Slaves

Deserts

Bobcats

Cougars

Grey men

Ogres

Saurians

Spiders, giant

Spiders, large and huge

Lizards, giant

Rocs

Dry City

Echo

Greythorn Vines

Headless Men

Memory Moss

Not Flies

Oblivion Fleas

Poltergeists

Prayer Bees

Scissormen

Trivial Pursuits

Forests

Bears

Bloodthorns

Bobcats

Brownies

Buzzflies

Carrion Worms

Centaurs

Cougars

Dire Wolves

Dryads

Gnomes

Gorillas

Grey-hooked Bats

Hop Snakes

Jaguars

Naiads

Ogres

Orochs

Pigasi

Pixies

Snakes, poisonous

Snakes, large and giant

Spiders, giant

Spiders, large and huge

Squirrel, Faerie

Treeherders

Unicorns

Werebears

Werewolves

Wolverines

Wolves

Hell

Bat, Screeching

Blood Puddle

Crown of Eyes

Death’s Head

Emotional Demons

Gargoyles

Gorgons

Perytons

Shadows

Strigae

Jungles

Bloodthorns

Buzzflies

Gorillas

Ground sloths, giant

Jaguars

Leeches, giant

Lizards, giant

Mold Zombies

Pigasi

Pixies

Snakes, poisonous

Snakes, large and giant

Spiders, large and huge

Treeherders

Lakes

Dunkleosteus

Ghouls

Naiads

Snakes, poisonous

Mountains

Bats, giant

Bears

Bobcats

Blood hawks

Cheimon

Cougars

Dire Wolves

Dwarves

Goblins

Grey-hooked Bats

Grey men

Gryphons

Hill giants

Hippogriffs

Manticores

Mountain giants

Ogres

Pegasi

Petraiads

Phoenix

Pixies

Rocs

Snakes, poisonous

Storm giants

Trolls

Werebears

Wolverines

Wolves

Wyverns

Xolome

Yeti

Plains

Bobcats

Buzzflies

Hop Snakes

Horses, wild

Orochs

Snakes, poisonous

Snakes, large and giant

Spiders, large and huge

Prehistoric Lands

Ankylosauri

Archaeopteryxes

Beetles, giant

Brontosauri

Burrweeds, giant

Butterflies, giant

Capybara, giant

Centipede, giant

Crocodile, giant

Deer, dwarf

Dire Wolves

Dragonflies, giant

Dunkleosteus

Great Lizard

Ground sloths, giant

Horned gophers

Leeches, giant

Lizards, giant

Mosquitos, giant

Moths, giant

Octopuses, giant

Pterodactyls

Saurians

Stegosauri

Swinging chain cacti

Triceratops

Tyrannosaur

Venus Flytrap, giant

Wetas, giant

Special environments

Cloud giants

Summoned

Ash-shubab al-Muthlimum

Bat, Screeching

Blood Puddle

Crown of Eyes

Death’s Head

Perytons

Shadows

Skeletons

Strigae

Walking Corpses

Swamps

Buzzflies

Jaguars

Killer Toads

Leeches, giant

Mold Zombies

Pixies

Saurians

Underground

Aeagarsut

Bats, giant

Brilliarch Wights

Bubbling Eyes

Carrion Worms

Creeping Slimes

Crickets, Giant

Cucumbers, giant

Gakemai

Gangai

Gas Mold

Great Lizard

Grey men

Hanging Vines

Kamekkipialo

Karuat

Ketelekrae

Kugesum

Lizards, Giant

Oruat

Sakmat

Spiders, giant

Spiders, large and huge

Tentamort

Trolls