The monographic entry about ELVES and how I run them (system neutral?)

 You found elves! number appearing? roll in this table:

1. Average elf (1HD, no armor, short bows, with the bow expertise feat granting an extra 1d6 on attacks) They can climb trees very fast.

2. two elves

3. three elves

4. druid (level=1d6, 1d3 spells, with heal and speak with plants being the most common. Speak with plants is the key to gather Sleep Powder from a specific flower: they carry 1d6-3 uses of it. Blowing onto the powder works as a sleep spell. Possible treasure to be found in elven lairs)

5. veteran hunter (no armor, level 1+1d6)

6. Roll twice. On a repeated result or another 6, raise the level of everyone by one

Elves make their lairs in deep forests, and whenever they are on that terrain, they always have advantage to surprise rolls. When on real combat, they will always try to shoot from the treetops: anyone trying to shoot them from below does it at -4 due to the height difference and concealment. Looking for a hidden elf in a tree works as looking for secret doors (5+ on a d6) with advantage if they make any noise, so is a good idea to trick them into talk even if just to locate their silhouettes.

This means that elves are pretty though encounters for their size. I've actually made them more OP each time I use them, because as a GM I enjoy monsters that are hard to kill but offer plenty space for retreat, negotiation, roleplay and using spells and other dirty tricks. As a side note, I am trying to reserve fair combat for "enraged" or "dumb" monsters like golems, but I hate when the PCs resolve and encounter with civilised humanoids and I find out a posteriori that I made them not use tactics at all.

An elven lair consists in sparse cozy shelters carefully hidden into the treetops, and the rest of the hex and the adjacent six (if suitable) are hunting grounds. Elven life revolves indefectivelly around hunting by means of their short bows, though they also carry daggers carved from horns and bones, which they call "fangs". They can prey on many things appearing on your random monster table for the area; including shit like tiger beetles or giant scolopendras. I don't imagine owlbears being edible but they are probably prized for their skins. But of course, it is a great idea to make space for the antelope and the boar, always present on b/x bestiary. Elves cook their food and make campfires to do so if they believe they won't attract too much attention (this is a good example of a good surprise roll against elves).

As opposed to Trow, whom are more proclive to hunt big game par force (that is, succintly, using dogs and coordinate tactics to pursue a catch until its tired and presents battle) elves use stealth. Trow use hunting parties as a social event, and a way to introduce young boys to the customs of riding and battle (I'd love to write an entry about that specific topic soon, cross fingers), while their elven counterparts often hunt alone, and rarely in groups bigger than three. They never use dogs (and rarely have pets that cannot fly or at least climb).

It's not just that they are hard to detect: Elves hardly ever talk, not even amongst them. When PCs arrive into elven territory, they might receive a silent warning in the shape of arrows shot in the ground before them, with the shooters well hidden in the foliage above. If that doesn't work (as always happens with PCs) they might shot a sack that can be pierced, or try to wound someone, to make the whole party turn their back (that's like their neutral reaction roll on their territory). They don't want their sacred groves profaned with bonfires and their buck deers flushed by the noisy trow. Or they are just appalled by the idea of two marching kobolds breaking the peace with constant jokes and laughters.

They do not understand why other races talk so much, like there was so many things to be said. Though they might seem serious and stupid, they do have sense of humor and keep normal relationships, but they somehow manage to do it talking much less and using a lot of implied acts, which are amplified by their surrounding lack of speech.

If required to, they will try to use a single word; two in case of need. Four consecutive words or more are considered a poem for them (and they do write four word poems. This is not an exageration); but they never use verbs in any form. For some metagamist reason, they are unable to use them or appreciate them and so, their speech sounds always precarious to trow and kobolds.



Elves are plant-like in apparence, and dress in pelts; as heavy and hooded as the climate requires. Their color is a greyish green and their hair looks like leafs. This has no more biological effects beyond that, though poison seems to affect them less virulently (bonus in saving throws vs poison) And, of course, there is the fact that a tree will grow from their corpse once they die. This trees are sacred and elves will protect them violently, with at most an awkward explanation. This tree is believed to hold the soul of the deceased for an indefinite time after his death, and the tribe's druids can partially communicate with them. Many times, elves who are about to die decide to wait for death right outside the limits of their forest; knowing that this will cause a subtle inertia for new groves to expand towards their gravetree.

Though elves are individualistic in nature, when a decision involves the whole tribe they tend to value the words of the elders: A veteran hunter that is now a potter by the river, or a venerable druid (clasically a woman). In addition, the opinion or the blessing of the departed elders, now in tree form, is also sought through the druid's abilities.

A silent elf sitting on a branch could be doing anything from sleeping, contemplating nature, listening for prey, thinking or practising meditation, all in the same unassuming position. By doing the latter, they believe that they weaken their illusory miconceptions and are innately guided to their place in the nature cycle, like the other animals do.

Elves are to be a playable race (though not used them as such yet). I've used ambiguous mechanical terms in this entry, but applied to my Trow Fortress rules, their dexterity must be high, so I will make it so they must allocate their best score onto it, and instead of getting regular HD increases as fighter, they can at certain levels increase their dexterity or magic by +1, no roll required. This will help them get into their presumed roles as veterans. As a side effect, some elves can max out dexterity and become elven monks (expertise: combat without weapons) and even have some magic buffs, related or unrelated to combat. But that is something to be written another day. I hope you liked my take on indian-dryads.

Dogs and other animals as monsters

Anybody else has felt that disphoria, when you roll up an encounter and it's just bears? I was expecting a beast; and the weird thing that a bear is actually a dreadful beast! But it falls flat. Why a bear when we got an owlbear? And, doesnt an eagle stop being an eagle (symbol of power, king of the birds) when it shares world with rocs and phoenixes?

There is no distinction in many bestiaries between real life animals and monsters: they are all listed the same, alphabetically, each with their HD and stats. But I think that in many cases they are redundant. It might only be my view on this, but let me tell you something I have slowly injected in my games:

There are no two versions of animals: wolves and direwolves. Eagles and dire eagles. Bees and Killer bees. Only one of the versions is allowed, the one that is more interesting (usually the big or magical one). I am a D&D naturalistic and I spend more time than you would guess imagining the ecology and habits of imaginary beings. On the flipside, I realized that I should not only take monsters "down to earth", but also I should make normal animals become more hyped, more "monster" if you like, in order to have a place in a D&D hexmap. Here are some examples:

Honey is distilled from killer bees. This makes it very valuable and dangerous to produce, much more when you remember that BX RAW the honey at the core of a hive works as a healing potion.
If the hive is set on a city, an accident or an attack can provoke chaos amongst the populace; though releasing the bees during an attack can also be an interesting tactic.
Hives can be wisely situated outside the cities, but this comes with it's own set of problems: being exposed to bandits, raiding parties and monsters is the first. Farmers must adapt by finding hidden havens or finding another defence strategy. The poison of killer bees is also usable through bladed or piercing weapons.

The standard size of wolves is larger than the normal one (see pic above, compared to a Trow and a Kobold), because they are more terrific that way; and I can fit 5 HP on them (on my monster conversions, normal wolves had 4 and direwolves had 6). The same problem happens with lions and tigers, when you have sabertooth tigers living a few hexes apart: There is no place for both: the existance of one makes the other lose its meaning. The concept of a lion falls apart in the moment in which an adventure finds one and says "at least is not a sabertooth tiger!!"

But what about blink dogs? RAW they have as much life and better armor than a dire wolf, just a little less average damage. Thats before we count their blinking ability in. Very tough for something that looks just like a greyhound!
Though I love blink dogs (and greyhounds) too much, I must confess that I have never achieved an interesting encounter with them. They hardly provide combat, roleplaying opportunities, not any help, despite their "lawful" nature. I have thought many times on the domestication of the blink dog. Could it be helpful? well, if a kobold could ride it and blink out of existance with it, sure. The rules are not very clear about it. But how hard would be living in a castle with the dogs blinking constantly in and out of the kitchen?
Thought its a very interesting idea to explore, I have settled giving them the traditional role of coyotes, jackals and foxes: the wild canines that, to put it in terms we all understand, chose to be rogues instead of fighters. They are highly intelligent and show great empathy, but they are not available as pets for the populace. They can be used, however, as animal companion, which in my rules is available for people with high charisma, though the animal must be feasibly befriended. This introduces more ways in which blink dogs can interact with the party: evil wizards can send them to steal your magic items and blink away; or you can get a very dope ally. As a note, I'd like to point that the pokemon Abra is a blinking fox. Coincidence? I don't think so. 

Now that we are talking about dogs; what about domestic dogs? There are few greater contrasts in D&D as between the lack of rules on their use, and the obsession of the average gaming group on using dogs (in my experience, obv). On one side, giving dogs very good bonuses on their scent and tracking abilities could be a little OP. On the other, making them meat shields at best has little flavor and doesn't paint the essence of a dog. Following the precept of "naturalizing" monsters and "monsterifying" common animals, I think that leaning on the buff-dog is the correct answer, with different power ups depending on breeds (More on this on the upcoming entry: BESTIARY) while implying that the dog breeds in the game world are also limited and not corresponding to real life current age.

In my campaign, the only crocodiles are giant crocodiles. All bears are owlbears. Monkey's intelligence is accentuated, so it can be exploited.
Ravens are a widespread communication method, and is easy to teach them words. Falcons are used to hunt, but also can be trained to kill messenger ravens. Stirges are my world's mosquitoes. Eagles don't exist, only rocs of different size. As an exception, I use spiders and snakes of all sizes, because I find uses for both.

Underground Doctors (a monster)

 

"The ones in the left and the right are doctors. They are healing the one in the middle, who was sick and had blood. The doctors have put an eye on the wound and have healed it" said my three year old daughter explaining her work.

I can't help but wonder. How many fights has the doctor on the right been on to be so toppled with eyes? What is the mysterious ball that the left doctor is holding in his/her arms?

MAGENTA SLIMES A.K.A. UNDERGROUND DOCTORS (Slime, Neutral), stats as B/X

Armor class: 9
Hit Dice: 2* (for each 1 rolled when finding HP, the doctor gets an extra HD and an extra eye)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 1 strike, 1d6
No Appearing: 1-6 (2-12). On a group of 6 or more, there will be a leader with 1+d6 eyes.
Save as Fighter 1
Morale: 8

These slimes are around 1 to 2 feet tall, but their constitution is sturdy: dense as solid mud. They do not have a mouth and are for the most part quite silent, but at the same time they are highly intelligent, able to roughly understand the PCs if they use gestures. They form small "clans" on caves, where they settle around a "cave of eyes": a location where their shaman has some kind of plantation where 1d6 (artificial?) eyes are sprout from the moist rock, and many more are in the process.

They are not violent but are territorial and may attack to keep invaders away from their lair, or just as part of their martial training. They will do hit and run attacks, covered by surprise, and then run away hoping their victims get the message and turn back. If things go bad, they trust their shaman to bring them back to health with their Eye Healing.

When the shaman puts one eye from his?/her? harvest into a fatal wound, it closes and the treated slime regains 1d6 hp instantly. One or two shamans, who carry a blue ball as if it was a symbol of their position, are always present on a lair (2 in 6 chance to be on a wandering monster group). The shaman will not attack at first, but wait and run away towards the cave and fetch some eyes if he sees that a fellow member has fallen. A PC that has been dropped to 0 hp or less can be treated with eye healing, but will only regain HP on a roll of 6; and the eye won't catch functionally into the body. Eyes will also lose their propierties if carried for more than one day.

The defining act of a shaman is developing the ability to plant eyes in stone. This is done through a (very slow) variation of the Stone to flesh / Stone to mud spells, applied to small portions of rock. This means that in case of need, they can de-petrify any being that has been turned to stone, though it will take a full day's work for a shaman, or half of it if aided ritually by the whole tribe. If attempted on a statue, it will just turn into mud.

This ability makes them relativelly unafraid of stone-turning monsters, to the point that they will try to capture cockatrices and use them as guards at strategic points, or even as a mount for the smaller slimes. Feeding the cockatrices will be a task itself, as the slimes do not need to hunt for themselves (they absorb minerals or something through osmotic exchange). But having to feed their pets might send the young slimes into bushcraft missions, to get mushrooms, carrion or loot the PCs rations.

 

I knew I had this cockatrice drawing somewhere! In my game, cockatrices are as large as a coyote. Is it hard to believe that a smaller bird can have 5 HD.

 

The blue ball also stores an alchemical compound able to cast an equivalent of "Resist fire" on an area once per day (Unharmed by non-magical heat or fire, gain a +2 bonus to saving throws versus fire-based magic or breath attacks: damage is reduced by 1 point per damage die rolled to a minimum of 1). This allows the tribe to colonize underground places otherwise blocked by magma, and gives them an edge when confronting nearby fire-based monsters.

Design notes: I wasn't sure if allowing PCs to be healed by eye therapy was a good idea, so I leaned for the middle path and made it a difficult chance. What I love about this fuckers is that they are level 2 monsters as an encounter, but together as a tribe can overcome many troubles present in their ecosystem: Magma, fire breath, petrifying attacks, gangs of goblinoids or other thugs, accessing high passages on the wings of a cockatrice, etc. Their defense is built around their intelligence, their drive to tame nature and teamwork as a society. They have reasons to be violent or friendly depending on the situation; and can be very useful some day if befriended.

Monster Lairs, Monster Treasure

I have been playing with BX's procedural dungeon generation, and it's really fun. Creating a dungeon level is such a wonderful way to spend a spring night. But there was a detail that I could not figure out about the monster lairs: Treasure was only to be found in monster lairs, yet the dungeon generation seemed to work with the smaller number of monsters only (and they don't have any assigned "% in lair" attribute like in other editions). Finally, by reading an unvaluable Delta's article this very night, I understood that there was nothing to be understood: there is an ambiguity in the rules that seems to be resolved by assuming that all monsters in the dungeon have an "% in lair" of 100%; or, which is the same, all dungeon encounters are balanced towards their own treasure by using their largest number appearing. 

Of course, it might be strange that you open a door in a dungeon and you find there 30 men guarding their #A treasure. So, maybe, it could be a good idea to assume that they have made a lair in that section of the dungeon, and they are tactically and organically disposed along a space of otherwise empty rooms. 

And now that this is settled, I want to expose my conundrum with treasure types. I already spoke about how I use the averages and make two rolls to make a small variance and decide the predominant shape of it. I found recently an anonymous chart that had done a similar work, also translating the magic item chances to d6:

I still want to find another way. Maybe is just habit, or something in me likes to find the formula that obsoletes the chart. Because, in the end, the three factors (amount of riches, amount of jewelry among the riches and amount of magic items) are kind of proportional and it feels natural to tie them to something in the monster. One OSR game for kids, DAGGER, uses monster's HD + 1d6 against this table: 1-3 no treasure, 4-5 coin purse, 6-7 sack of treasure, 8-9 treasure chest. Dungeon World did the same thing but with the monster's damage die instead:

This example looks so bad because the list is totally off from what you would expect in a D&D's treasure, even at high rolls. But serves to illustrate the concept. Probably for a BX variant the best chance would be tying it to HD; always remembering that many monsters do not carry treasure not even in their lairs. Then, adding explicative notes in monster description for special cases: Dragons always have more treasure, as do Men's lairs, to a crazy extreme. Take a look at Delta's table and be astonished:

I went to my faithful tome of Pits and Perils (Not a clone of any D&D edition, its its own thing, but similar enough to make style comparisons) and here are the notes:

Treasure types are divided into four (I, II, III and IV) in respect to treasure amount. Each one decuplicates the previous one. Those are at the same time divided into type A treasures (natural treasures such as monster body parts or spider webs that take X turns to be harvested, more info on the monster's description) and type B treasures (your classic coins and gems)

With every type increase, also the jewelry and magic item chance increase (also the magic item quality). With the table as it is, there is only the chance of 1 magic item per monster, but it is trivial to hack this to give it more variance: instead of 2, 3 and 4 in 6 chance for types II, III and IV, you roll 2, 3 or 4 six sided dice, with each roll of 1 being one item.

The four types approach is also tempting. I like that the details of treasure are provided in the monster description too, both in amount and in nature. But maybe not even those four types are needed: I think that treasure amount could be written in the monster stats as: 

Treasure: Y/N?

If yes, check how much by making a roll based on monster's HD. If there is an arterisk, check description for specifics (add or take money, items, magic...)

There is also a very different approach, which is the one that I am using at the moment. I took it from this very interesting piece by a mysterious author called Lungfungus. I actually went to print and bind that book alongside The Implied OD&D Setting by Wayne Rossi because I love to have that kind of books at home. 

The concept I am testing is to standarize the average treasure amount of a treasure room in a level 1 dungeon, taking into account monster, trap, empty and special rooms (I give special rooms 1 in 6 chance of treasure, just like an empty one). Using my own parameters, I calculated that this number is 292 gp per room containing treasure. This number is the same, no matter if the room has a monster, a trap, or neither. Then I randomize the amount with a table, ensuring that in average, the result is still 292 gp; 

1 - 25% treasure

2 - 50% treasure

3 - 75 % treasure

4 - 100 % treasure

5 - 150% treasure

6 - 200% treasure

(for example, in a d6 table, the average result will go towards 292 or any other set number, as long as all the percentages sum 600%, as 600 split between 6 results makes for the 100%)

Multiply the given number for the dungeon level you are currently at, to make it grow proportionally to danger. This progression is the same used in AD&D.

This method has the particularity that makes all monsters equal towards treasure, unless you specifically decide against it. So, for example, by giving them individual treasure. This also makes monster-guarded treasure equal in size to trap-guarded or non-guarded one. It is not as crazy as it sounds, if you picture it as that the particular monster that put it in there doesn't feel the need to be guarding it 24h, 365 days a year. The box is already on a deadly dungeon, and he might be lurking around as a wandering monster, or waiting in another room. 

Monster Territories

Im sure I'm not the only father who has tried to get his daughter to like the cartoons he liked as a kid. I tried to do so recently, and put the old Wizard of Oz anime. I think she kind of liked it (Im so tired of that Blue's Clues!) and I got to check with my adult eyes that that series still have a fucking ton of soul. 

But my gamist eyes also realized something about the Wicked Witch of the West: she surely has powers. She surely has a magic item on that hat. But in the end the threat is not as much as comparing a, say, level 3 Wizard vs some level 1 fighters (tin man and lion) and some assorted thieves. The witch is really dangerous because they are getting into her territory. Even people at Emerald City are aware of this because there is no road that goes into the west. "Why would anybody want to go there?"

Her main weapons are not her powers, but the fact that she is living behind a couple of hostile canyons and controls the local population of Crows, Wolves and Wasps, who in turn help her enslave her own army of Winkies, which are some sort of local hobbits (Though they all fail in the end and she has to resort to winged monkeys).

In the end it made me thought that monsters in D&D are most commonly found in their territories, and that intelligent monsters (and all monsters are intelligent in their own way) should have worked something up to protect their territories, or use their knowledge of that parts to their advantage, even if its just in a slight way. 

For my mathematical head, maybe a Level 3 warrior is just a little better equipped than another similar Warrior that lives at some forest. Or even a bear. You could say that the fight is more or less equated, But in the practice, PCs are going to use their edge: as PCs are commonly in the role of intruders/invasors, that edge is their unexpectedness. Monsters are not aware the PCs are there: they might not even expect them or know they exist. 

Monsters' edge, on the other hand, is that they are at home, and if even real life persons take measures to protect their homes, the GM should ponder if that monster you rolled up on that table is at their lair and what kind of measures would have taken to take away PCs advantage (detecting or predicting their appearance) mitigate their power (setting harsh environments or traps) or aquiring power beyond their own level/class (does it have allies? depending on which game you play, its not crazy that a pixie would alert a bear that there are intruders walking through the forest hex, or even have them form more complex symbiotical relationships)

So this might sound obvious to many, but it might serve as a reminder to myself and the rest to take it seriously when making encounters in lair. Taken to the extreme, a monster that can disconnect himself from the world might make a defence so fierce that its a labyrinthic amalgam of traps and hazards. We call those "a dungeon".

PD: Wizard of oz also reminded myself that one small race (hobbits) serve perfectly the role of friendly, jolly helpers when on their own; loyal retainers to noble fairies or vicious goblins, mostly when they happen to symbiotize with a dark lord. Just like humans. You don't need so many races.