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| No love for the RC? |
Naturally, the slaad and modrons have to be re-cast. The slaad are going to become the xaoc and retain their rubbery toadness, but with a dash of Lovecraft's moon monsters and CAS's Tsathoggau thrown in for good measure.
The modrons are going to become the polyhedroids - something I've already put together and should translate pretty easily. I picture them as skittering around in the space between dimensions, maintaining the mechanics of the universe and sometimes intervening when powerful adventurers insist on screwing with the intricate balance.
I had thought about rebranding them as the Abraham Merritt's metal monsters, but I might just include them as well - they're pretty awesome.
The hengeyokai are legendary and pretty easy to work with, and yeah, I'll make sure there's a blurb on playing them as characters.
By far, the most response was for Fiend Folio monsters, and I'm wondering if that book doesn't form a dividing line in the hobby. Plenty of people hate it, but I'm one of the folks who love it and, frankly, wouldn't play a game without it. I just run those kinds of games, I guess.
There was no response for the old Rules Cyclopedia, i.e. the "basic" Dungeons & Dragons line. Were the only unique, cool monsters in that book the nightshades, who already made it into the SRD? Or maybe I just didn't attract enough fans of the old line to comment on the thread. I don't know, but I'd love to hear some thoughts on the old D&D monsters that made it distinct from the AD&D line.
Yeah! I had thought of linking the moon-beasts and the Slaad (though for some reason, I'd never considered the equally toad-like Tsaggothua), and the modrons as universe repairers (which seems such a natural but isn't part of their basic profile). I'm eager to see you work your magic with them. :)
ReplyDeleteTotally cool idea with the Slaads - I just wonder if their will not be infringing on the kuo-toa too much (dunno if those are in the SRD).
ReplyDeleteDouble yay for the hengeyokai as player characters! That race is double cool because there is such a variety of them and they differ in stats. Some might make cool paladins or duelists even!
Modrons are awesome. I love most of the Planescape stuff, but the Mechanus and Modron stuff was something else. In older editions, I find I can take them or leave them, but Planescape really helped flesh them out. Perhaps it was DiTerlizzi's art...
ReplyDeleteI am an old AD&D guy who remembers when FF came out. I think I was 14 at the time. I remember that one of the chief complaints was that it seemed like everything was either derivative of something else or so specialized that you'd have to design an entire adventure around that one monster. I mean, okay, red white and black dragons aren't enough. We need to add crystal, spirit, magenta, maybe a nice taupe dragon (which would definitely be neutral...); can't have just air, earth, fire, and water elementals -- let's add steam and mud as well; and all intelligent species must have an underwater and underground cousin...
ReplyDeleteWhile there were some really cool things and everyone has their favorites (tentamort!) the above mentioned reasons made the FF feel as if there had been a crisis of creativity and the thing was just thrown together.
Fiend Folio! Honestly the Russ Nicholson illustrations were the best part of the thing. I have a soft spot for the Dark Creepers/Dark Stalkers - the whole dichotomy of vicious cloaked possibly-unguligrade dwarves and tall elegant sidhe noble types, technically the same species and living underground was very "Labyrinth." Calling the entire race "Dark Ones" just doesn't have the same feel.
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