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Friday, April 12, 2013

The Mottled Documentarian and NOD 19

First - NOD 19 is now for sale in soft cover form - $9.99 cheap (as the saying goes).

Second - the Mottled Documentarian

So, I generated this monster using the dictionary method made famous a couple days ago ON THIS VERY BLOG!!!

Let's take those threads and try to make an actual usable monster.

MOTTLED DOCUMENTARIAN
Medium Giant; Low Intelligence; Neutral (N); Pack (1d4)

HD: 7
AC: 22
ATK: 2 slams (1d6)
MV: 30
SV: F10 R12 W13
XP: 700 (CL 8)

Mottled documentarians are stout giants that stand about 7 feet tall. They are built like fireplugs and have skin a mottled white/grey in color. In their cold northern homelands, this allows them to surprise foes on a roll of 1-2 on 1d6.

Most documentarians dress in furs and when they carry weapons, they rarely carry anything other than clubs or crude spears. Mottled documentarians have no body hair. On the backs of their shoulders and necks, they have what appear to be encrustations similar to gemstones.

Mottled documentarians remember everything, but can access nothing - hence their low intelligence. Everything said in their presence, everything they have ever seen - even the thoughts and prepared spells of others in their presence - is projected from their minds into gemstones, including the encrustations on their backs. Each gemstone can hold a single fact/spaell. When one is full, their minds begin using another. When no gemstone is handy, a new encrustation appears on their backs. The typical mottled documentarian has 2d4 of these encrustations.

In combat, a mottled documentarian attacks with its giant fists. Creatures stuck by a fist and suffering more than 3 points of damage must pass a Fortitude saving throw or be knocked back 2d6 feet. A person knocked back more than 5 feet must pass a Reflex save or be knocked prone as well.

While fighting a mottled documentarian, people must beware that they don't have thoughts and memories plucked from their brains. Each round a character is within 30 feet of a mottled documentarian, they must pass a Will saving throw or suffer memory loss. For spellcasters, this causes them to lose one prepared spell (for sorcerers, one known spell is forgotten for 24 hours). For skill-based characters, one of their skills (choose randomly) becomes a knack. For warriors, they suffer a -1 penalty to hit as they forget some of their martial training. These lost memories return after 24 hours, and are also stored either on an encrustation on the monster or on a gemstone nearby (perhaps one possessed by a player).

The memories within the encrustations (or gemstones) of a mottled documentarian can be accessed. A person must hold the item in their hand and concentrate. Activation requires a successful Will saving throw. If successful, they either gain the benefit of a random piece of information (TK's choice) or, if capable, learn a new spell. Once information is retrieved from a gemstone or encrustation, it is erased from the item.

Special Qualities: Cold resistance, magic resistance 20%, surprise (2 in 6)


7 comments:

  1. I am now convinced you are in real life some sort of advanced AI, a Ghost in the Machine, that's sole mission is to produce epic win, for the OSR.

    ERIC!

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  2. That is fantastic. Very cool.
    I'm also seeing it in a Space game as well. The 70's Buck Rogers kinda game where they went all 'spy/agent' for the EDD vibe. It would be a great companion to a diplomat from another world/colony/etc. Dress it up nice and it plays dumb butler while recording everything.

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  3. Really love the direction you took with this! Excellent work as always!

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  4. Helpless Waterfowl
    Medium Magical Beast
    HD: 6
    AC: 16 (5)
    ATK: 1 Gore (1d4), 1 Bite (1d3)
    MV: 30

    Special Attacks: Trip, Rend, Occult
    Special Defenses: Tremorsense, Half Speed, Only Hit by +1 Magic Weapons

    I imagine some sort of a duck playing dead, either to avoid being attacked (good or neutral) or to draw in prey (evil) and then smacking them with a good ol' Beak Rend. Betcha that gets infected real fast.

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  5. One of these days John when I get some extra scratch I am buying all these. The few I have on PDF are all fantastic.

    ReplyDelete