Behind the Screen: Monster Making Madness I

In this next part of the Behind the Screen series, I'll be looking at homebrewing monsters. I know, not as original as making cultures, but you can never have too many viewpoints.

In this first part I will be going over the most simple way to create a homebrew monster with which to terrify your players. This method follows the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid), and it requires no playtesting balance issues, carefully adjusting AC or HP or CR, or possibly any mechanical aspects at all.

Order of the Black Arrow

Tarat gulped in breaths of air, desperately trying to refill his lungs after running as faster than he ever had. The day had started out so nicely too, he and his fellows had caught wind of a fat wagon train making its way through their stretch of woods. Best of all there seemed to be no guards.

The ambush started out well enough, the merchants stopped the wagon train when they rose out of the bush. That was when Tarat noticed that all of the merchants had the same, odd haircut, perhaps some sort of merchant's guild rule? Almost as soon as Yarvo began to tell the merchants how things were going to occur, an arrow with black fletchings buried itself in his throat. 

The merchants were all drawing black bows, knocking arrows, these were no merchants! Tarat dropped his crossbow and turned around to flee, catching sight of a monstrous spider crawling out from under one of the wagons as he did so.

Tarat didn't know how long ago that was, only that he could no longer run. He hoped that he had lost the merchants that were not merchants, he prayed to the Eternal Laughter, Erb, Tetsuor, and all the myriad of gods that he had heard of.

"Going somewhere?" a woman's voice dryly asked, the smirk obvious even if he couldn't see her. 

"Another bandit job finished, bag him and bring the proof back," a deep, male, possibly dwarven voice commanded.

The last thing that Tarat experienced was the exhaustion in his muscles as the arrow pierced his skull. The bounty hunters bagged his head and took the coin pouch from his belt before returning to the wagon train. The other "merchants" were in the process of preserving the bandit heads as proof, collecting arrows, or unstringing their bows. Another day, another bounty.

An infamous bounty hunting organization with a well-earned reputation for ruthlessness, the Order of the Black Arrow number surprisingly few for their influence and reach. Though no one knows for sure their numbers, some estimate that they have members in every part of the Green Coast and the Sylvanor colonies.

Originally founded in the year 326 of the Age of Expanding Coin as a bounty hunter's guild, the Order of the Black Arrow experienced a period of rapid growth. By the year 380 their ranks numbered in the thousands. However this period of prosperity was not to last, cultists to Lekorch, the Demon Lord of the Hunt, rose to positions of power within the Order. A small group within the Order noticed that the jobs they were receiving were becoming less and less about hunting criminals, and more and more about hunting those that angered anyone that could pay.

More than the change in targets, what unnerved this group was the growing attitude of treating targets like prey. The way that some of their fellows spoke, made them sound like predators instead of people. So this group met in secret, sharing their worries and concerns. They came to an agreement: they would work in secret to discover what had changed and fix it if they could. To identify each other at a glance, a specific hair cut and style was devised. Any with their hair cut and styled in this way could be trusted.

Thus they worked in secret, moving up the ranks until they learned the truth: all of the leaders were worshipers of Lekorch. Coming to a decision, the group settled on an appropriate way to deal with the demon worshipers and the hunters became the hunted. Hunting down the leaders one by one, the Order fractured and crumbled.

With the Order broken, the group that slew the demon worshipers chose to rebuild the Order but in a different form. Each of the four members went to a different part of the Green Coast and took on apprentices. Every five years they would meet to share the stories of their time apart, before returning. Those apprentices upon finishing their training were permitted to cut their hair in the same manner as their masters.

So the Order of the Black Arrow continued. No longer as open as it was in its founding, the only way to become a member of the Order is to be chosen as an apprentice of a current member. Today most members share a similar skill set, specializing in hunting, tracking, and archery while many take beasts as valued companions.

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Behind the Screen: Cultural Queries Part II

Whereas last time we went over the basics of culture design, here we'll be getting much more into the nitty gritty. This is not an exhaustive list of questions to answer each and every facet of your fictional cultures, such a list would far longer and might even be impossible, but it is intended to help you flesh out and think about the culture you are creating.

Are any of these question prompts necessary? No. Will they help immerse your readers/players in your world? Most certainly.

Great Coast Games: Overview

First played in the year 608 of the Age of Dragon Fire, the Great Coast Games is a two-month long competition held between every major power in the Green Coast. Excepting the hobgoblin empire, every city-state and nation send representatives to win glory, prestige, and more than a little bragging rights for their homeland. The first Great Coast Games were held between Chor Kolav, Glastig, Argoport, and the Aetherian Kingdom, after an age of war.

Behind the Screen: Cultural Queries Part I

Welcome to the first of a tips and tricks series I'm calling Behind the Screen. Not the most imaginative name, but it fits.

This first series deals with creating cultures for worldbuilding. There are dozens, if not hundreds of guides out there on the internet but all the same I thought I'd share my thoughts on the topic. One of the most important, and in some respects least looked at, aspects of creating a fictional world is devising the cultures that reside within it.

In most homebrew settings that I have seen, the designers fall into a trap. It is an all too easy trap to fall into and it is one that I have gotten caught in more than once. Heck, I would be surprised if there wasn't an example or two in this very blog. The trap is to copy and paste a real-world culture into a fictional world. Sure, there are examples of cultures like the Dothraki from Game of Thrones that don't, but I'm not talking about million dollar entertainment projects.

Cozmology: Zarth, the God-Corpse

     The easiest plane to reach after the River of Dreams, the only entities that are regularly conjured to the Material Plane are fire elementals. Despite an inability to communicate with the natives, enough has been gleaned from the rare resurrected person and interviewing other outsiders to paint a picture of the plane.

     The first thing to be understood is that Zarth is massive, as can be expected of the corpse of a god. The most knowledgeable outsider interviewed, a demon under Zorutsok called Tarnathak, described traveling from ankle to knee as having taken him more than a year of traveling without pause. This considers difficulties due to terrain and his ability to outrace a warhorse. When asked why he had traveled to Zarth in the first place, Tarnathak’s reply was a toothy grin.

Languages in the Green Coast

Dozens of languages are spoken throughout the Green Coast, and most languages have distinct regional accents and even full-fledged dialects. Though the lingua franca is Aethron, frequently called the Common Tongue or Common, most races have their own languages that they prefer to use when with each other. In addition to the civilized races, the savage races have a myriad of languages and the races that live under the ocean waves also possess their own, unique means of communicating.

Green Coast Calendar

Even with much of the Green Coast’s history lost to time, a ­long and storied history has been recorded. Though several groups claim to have created it, most scholars agree that the current calendar was put into widespread use by the priestesses of Aelma. Each year has 367 days divided into 11 months. Each month has either 33 or 34 days, split by 7-day weeks.

The first month of the year, Chazron, begins the day after the summer solstice. The following months are Aesto, Noth, Dartos, Moros, Lethis, Krynik, Estas, Vorn, Aras, and Lystmel. Chazron, Dartos, Estas, and Lystem have 34 days while the remaining months have 33. Like our world, a week is seven days, though the names for the days of the week differ: Firstday, Mythday, Valeday, Wheatday, Stormday, Aleday, and Lastday. Below you will find a calendar for the current year: 1097 of the Age of Northern Expansion.

Akkardon: Port by the Storm

Akkardon

LG metropolis

Corruption +2, Crime +0, Economy +4, Law +4, Lore +3, Society +0

Qualities academic, prosperous, tourist attraction

Danger 10

Demographics

Government Overlord (King Sargoth IV)

Population 39,531 (12,639 merfolk, 10,673 tabemisu, 7,115 squoros, 3,953 zang, 3,162 koup’ira, 1,581 dohrnii, 408 other)

Notable NPCs

Royal Mystic Advisor Gilgorthanto (LG old bronze dragon)

Grand Hierophant Hamurbai (NG tabemisu medium 9)

Zikur Albyn, Head of the Blackfin Mercenary Company (NE zang barbarian 15)

Marketplace

Base Value 13,000 gp; Purchase Limit 75,000 gp; Spellcasting 6^th

Minor Items 4d4; Medium Items 3d4; Major Items 2d4

The largest city outside of the koup’ira kingdoms in the Cyan Shelf, Akkardon is located within a large bay near two major currents from both the north and the south. The Trade Spires each stretch at minimum twenty feet above the surface, even during high tide, so as to facilitate the blue-haired surfacers that come to trade. The Royal Quarters also breaks the waterline, allowing them to sleep without fear of drowning.

     Despite what King Sargoth and the authorities would claim, several powerful crime syndicates operate in the shadowy depths of the city. A black market thrives, selling poisons, surfacer artifacts, and things taken from the dark depths of the ocean past the Long-Drop, where the Cyan Shelf ends and the ocean desert begins.

Race: Zang

Zang

Considered to be the fiercest warriors on the Cyan Shelf, the semi-nomadic zang roam the seas in large clans. Though many fear the zang due to their ferocity in defending their hunting grounds from any perceived trespassers, none would deny their dedication to fighting the sahuagin. On more than one occasion, a zang has boastfully claimed that the sahuagin would have overrun the Cyan Shelf centuries ago if not for the clans. Many scholars from elsewhere on the shelf agree.