War for the Plane of the Apes: Man-Ape, Simian Killing Machine

Today's Monster Monday is part IV of our month-long series about apes. Today, we take a look at the creature that kicked off my month-long crusade to re-stat the great apes. The man-ape is a savage creature combining the raw strength of an ape with the upright gait and fighting ability of a human. They look like something halfway between a shaved gorilla and a Silly Putty sculpture of Vin Diesel.

If you have read some of the original Conan stories, you have probably encountered a man-ape of some sort. Take, for example, this totally rad Frank Frazetta painting of Conan fighting one:

painting by the late Frank Frazetta

It is worth talking about why Conan occasionally encountered and fought these evolutionary dead ends. Robert E. Howard's worldview was very anti-civilization. He believed that civilization made men soft, weak, and corrupt, while the savage life of the barbarian kept men virile, strong, and true. He was also convinced that mankind was trapped in a cycle of civilization and destruction. His Conan stories are set in the fictional Hyborean Age that existed after the collapse of the Atlantean civilization and before the rise of historical civilizations like Egypt and Sumeria. At the same time, Howard lived in a time when evolution was not well understood, and racist pseudo-sciences like eugenics were popular (along with regular old unvarnished racism). In his description of the Hyborean Age, Howard essentially describes how each of the earth's races evolved from different types of apes at various points in prehistory (including Northern European white people, who he hilariously describes as having evolved from 'snow apes' north of the Arctic Circle).

This is problematic for a number of reasons - mostly that it is wrong and also racist. What it means for the world of Conan is that the races of mankind are: 1) different enough from each other that their closest common ancestors are not humans, and 2) that people of the Hyborean Age are barely removed from savage apes. Conan himself, as Howard's ideal man, is so powerful and brutish that he can face off against one of these gorilla-like proto-humans one-on-one and defeat it. They represent the true, sub-human savagery that Conan comes from, and that he is separated from only by his sharp wits and Cimmerian good looks.

Now you know some of the weird, racist backstory of man-apes in the world of Conan. But I trust you can come up with a decidedly non-racist reason for them to exist in your own campaign setting. It's actually way easier to do that than to follow Howard's tortuous path. Like, you can just say a wizard did it. That always works.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2018 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Fomorians - Horrific Giants of Irish Mythology

Today's Monster Monday is the dreaded fomorian, a race of deformed and hideous man-eating giants that were the inhabitants of Ireland before the Irish.  Well, they were the first inhabitants of Ireland, then the Firbolgs came, then they were both conquered by the Tuatha Dé Danann, and so on, but you get the picture.

The Fomorians by John Duncan, 1912 - via Wikimedia

Fomorians are generally depicted as having all manner of crazy mutations; some of them have one arm, some of them have one leg, some of them even have a goat head!  The king of the Fomorians back in the day was the dreaded Balor (modern Irish spelling: Balar, which I use to avoid confusion with D&D's Balrog knock-off), who had a single eye that destroyed all that he gazed upon, wilting crops, blasting through rocks, and laying waste to armies.  He was finally killed when his grandson, the half-tuatha-dé-danann-half-fomorian Lug, struck him in the eye with a slingstone so hard that it exploded out the back of his skull and killed twenty-seven warriors who were standing behind him.

Fomorians have been statted up for Pathfinder in Bestiary 4, as a type of titan.  I'm presenting my own take on them here, partly because I will never run a campaign in which a CR 22 monster shows up, and partly because my interpretation is a bit more in line with Irish mythology and D&D legacy.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Gobbits - A Swarm of Tiny Goblinoids

For today's Monster Monday, I'm adding a new member to the goblinoid family tree.  Gobbits are tiny, knee-high goblinoids that can form up into swarms and wreak havoc.

Warhammer gnoblar box art, via bibliotheque imperiale

My initial inspiration for these little guys came from the Warhammer universe.  Warhammer has a plethora of little goblinoid creatures, like gretchins, gnoblars (pictured above), grots, and snotlings.  Snotlings in particular captured my attention, because they are tiny little guys that attack in swarms.  I wanted something similar in my campaign setting, so years and years ago I statted them up under 3.5 rules as 'Glabouters'.  Glabouter comes from Klabautermann, a type of goblin or kobold from German mythology.  Upon reassessment, Klabautermänner should be nautical goblins or kobolds, which is pretty awesome, so I had to come up with a new name.  Gobbit fit because it sounds like a diminutive form of goblin, plus it is close to 'gobbet', meaning "a lump or chunk of something, especially of raw meat."

As an added bonus, the third definition of gobbet ("an extract of text, or image (especially a quotation), provided as a context for analysis, translation or discussion in an examination.") is a commonly used teaching and testing tool in history education, so naming a monster after it makes me happy.

Presented below are the stats for a solitary gobbit warrior and a mighty gobbit swarm.  I think a swarm of humanoids should feel different from a swarm of rats or vermin, so you may notice that the gobbit swarm is more versatile in combat, able to bristle with longspears and launch volleys of arrows.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars.

GotWK Campaign Part 6: Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!

This is an account of part 6 of my ongoing campaign set in my homebrewed wild west setting, Guns of the Western Kings.  Get caught up with the previous parts here.

Previously, on Guns of the Western Kings: The party was caught in a conflict between a mining company seeking to re-open the Sunbeam Silver Mine and a tribe of elves who  guarded the mountain and claimed that mining there would unleash a great evil on the world.  In the midst of this, they took a side-quest to investigate a mysterious ore coming out of a Dwarven settlement.  There they met a new party member, Theodore the adventurous businessman, but they also discovered what it was like to careen down a subterranean river on a broken-down paddle-boat.  They ended up in the desert far to the south, and worked their way northwards via an exciting and dangerous cattle drive.  As they approached the city of Templeton, where they intended to catch a train, they noticed they were being followed by a group of canine-headed humanoids who always stayed just outside of rifle range.

And now:

Wikimedia

After selling a load of accumulated goods in Templeton, including gnomish grave goods and a giant rattlesnake skin, the brave band of adventurers buys train tickets up to Fort Crawdon, hoping to finally get their plans back on track.  Heather especially was looking forward to it, since their adventures had taken her far away from the area where she was hoping to find her missing daughter.  It is a short train - two boxcars, two passenger cars, and a caboose.  Theodore's horse, Bucephalus, rides in one of the boxcars. Bjorn and Falco ride with the incapacitated Dawne and Ash in the frontmost boxcar, as the railroad wouldn't allow the tomb-cursed duo to sit in the passenger cars.  Heather, Theodore, Gudguníis, and Rusty take their seats in the passenger cars and the train chugs northward through the prairie.

Rusty was the first to notice a rider out the window - a lithe humanoid with the head of a coyote, armed to the teeth and riding with purpose.  He recognizes it as a wayaha, a race of roguish tricksters native to these lands.  Although the wayaha are a tribal people, they are quick to take up new ways of life, and many have been drawn to the way of the gun and become bandits and rustlers.  Gudguníis grabs his rifle and rushes to the back of the train, hoping to pick them off from the caboose, but as he passes into the second passenger car he sees the door to the caboose slide open and a coyote snout poke around it.  The wayaha bandit steps into the train car, brandishing a pistol, and calls out, "Your money or your life!" before Gudguníis blasts him with his rifle.  The coyote-man slumps back against a train bench, clutching his chest wound, fires off a shot at the half-elf rogue that misses by a foot, and collapses to the floor.  The door to the car slams back open and a burly, tough wayaha warrior, bristling with orangish fur, muscles his way in and blasts at Gudguníis with his shotgun.  Heather rushes into the car behind the half-elf and dives for cover behind a bench, calling out to the cowering civilians in the car to stay behind cover or flee to the next car.

PC Race - Perinin: Cunning Warrior Hares

Last week d20 Despot brought you togbins, a fierce race of cold-dwelling tortoise-men who love to hunt.  This week, continuing my collaboration with Kent Hamilton in celebration of his graduation from concept design school, we bring you perinin, the brave and cunning race of hares that are the togbins' favorite prey.

Kent Hamilton Concepts

Well, as you can see from the above picture, perinin are clearly not the timid prey that togbins wish they were.  Perinin are agile and cunning, and they use their natural knack for tactics to outsmart and overwhelm their physically superior adversaries.

Read on for more information about this Pathfinder-compatible playable race.

PC Race - Togbins: Tortoise-Men of the Wild North

Sorry for the late update; we've got something kinda big today.  Remember in my 2013 year-in-review column when I mentioned that I might start having professional illustrations on my site?  Well, here we go:

Kent Hamilton Concepts

Alright, this may require some explanation.  My supremely-talented friend Kent Hamilton is a concept artist.  For his final project at Art Center, he is looking back on some very old drawings he made when he and I used to run around in the back yard fighting orcs and dragons, and he's redesigning them with his honed and practiced skills.  Here at d20 Despot, I'll be bringing you two of these creatures statted up as playable PC races.  Today, we have the hardy, tortoise-like togbins.  Next week, we'll have the clever, hare-like perinin.

So what are togbins?

Monster Monday: Basajaun, the Basque Sasquatch. Basquatch.

Today's Monster Monday entry is the basajaun - or 'Lord of the Forest' - a hairy forest man of Basque mythology that lives in forest or mountain villages tending crops and sheep.  Long ago, according to the myth, humans stole the secret of agriculture from the basajaunak (plural of basajaun).

source

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2013 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Gegenes, the Six-Armed Giant

Today's Monster Monday entry is the gegenes, a six-armed giant that packs powerful punches in its many limbs, scales cliffs with ease, and throws over-sized rocks at its enemies.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2013 Jonah Bomgaars.