Monster Monday: Slow Loris, the Primate with the Poison Bite

Everyone turned to stare when the wizard entered the bar.  Magic types didn't often show up in this part of town, especially not ones dressed so fancy.  The spindly caster leaned on an intricately carved staff tipped with gleaming jewels.  His long blue robes were finely tailored and trimmed with gold.  His ink-black calfskin boots, lightly caked with fresh street-mud, otherwise showed no signs of wear.  And, most peculiarly, he had a furry, cat-sized creature clinging to his shoulder, gripping his robes with little human-like fingers and staring around with round eyes like silver thalers.

He didn't look like he belonged here in the Bilge and Bunyon, but he sure seemed to know what he wanted.  "Ratcatcher!" he shouted, storming toward the chubby Shadow Guild operative's table.  Three toughs stood simultaneously to bar the wizard's passage, but Ratcatcher waved them away.  One of them succeeded in taking the wizard's staff away, but the intruder didn't seem to mind.

"What brings you to my humble table today, Harmac?"

"You know damn well, Rat.  Where is it?"

Ratcatcher leaned back, his stout chair creaking like an old ship.  "I'm afraid I'm not a mind-reader, Harmac.  Maybe you fancy magic boy types forget we aren't all arcanely attuned."  The wizard seemed angry.  Ratcatcher drummed his sausage-like fingers on the table, showing off his many magic rings as a subtle reminder that he was warded against any spells Harmac might try on him.

"The idol, you greasy slop bucket!  Give me back the idol!"  Ratcatcher's bruisers shifted awkwardly behind the wizard, unsure when they should step in.

"I don't know anything about any idols.  I do know that tomb robbing is not looked kindly on by the authorities of this district, and Artaklan antiquities can only be claimed as private property with the appropriate documents of sale and provenance.  Do you have any such documents?"

Harmac reached across the table with surprising speed, hoisting Ratcatcher up by the collar.  With his other hand, he grabbed his sleepy looking pet by the scruff of the neck and shoved it in the thief's face.  "This is Lola," the wizard explained.  "She's a loris: the only species of monkey with a poisonous bite.  And once she latches on, she doesn't let go."

Lola slowly blinked.

"Urk... Don't monkeys usually got tails?"

Two of Ratcatcher's hired goons grabbed the wizard and yanked him away.  As Ratcatcher fell back into his chair, Harmac lobbed the primate at him and yelled, "Sic 'im, Lola!"

The creature, so placid a second ago, hissed wickedly and sunk its needle fangs into the thief's blubbery neck.  Ratcatcher shook his head wildly and slapped at the beast, but it only clamped down harder.  "Yeeooww!" he screeched.  Still trying to pry the simian assailant off with one hand, he reached into a leather satchel with the other and threw a jade idol across the table.  "Take the damn idol, ya crazy wizard!  Just get yer thrice-cursed pet off me!"

Harmac pushed the bruisers away from him, straightened his robes, and whistled two short notes.  Lola unclamped her jaw from the fat man's neck and waddled across the table, grabbing the idol along the way.

Ratcatcher cursed and rubbed the red swelling on his neck.  "You owe me 2500 thalers for the rock, Harmac.  I see you again and you don't got the money, you and yer little tree-rat are dead!"

Turning for the door, Harmac grabbed his staff and gave Lola an appreciative scratch under the chin.  "Pleasure doing business with you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Monster Monday is the slow loris, the world's only venomous primate!  Okay, technically it isn't venom but a toxic, allergenic compound secreted by a gland of the animal's armpit that activates when mixed with the loris' saliva, supplemented by their diet of poisonous plants, but that takes longer to say.  And technically slender lorises have the same toxic defense system as the slow loris, but people know about slow lorises because they've been in a bunch of youtube videos.  Call me when you're an internet sensation, slender lorises.

via Wikimedia

Also, unlike what certain wizards and thieves in the above story snippet may have suggested, lorises aren't monkeys; they are more closely related to lemurs.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Riding Hummingbird, the Fast Fey Flying Mount

Today's Monster Monday is the riding hummingbird, a man-sized hummingbird bred and ridden by small fey races because of their incredible speed and maneuverability.  I even made stats for giant hummingbird animal companions for druids, because why not?

Magnificent Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens), by Mdf, via Wikimedia

There aren't enough flowers in the Prime Material Plane to support these sugar-crazy beasts in the wild, but the fey realms are a different story.  The High Humming Stables of the Seelie Court are well stocked with barrels of sweet nectar from magically enhanced blossoms.  Dashing little scouts ride these magnificent ruby-throated birds in teams of three in the van of the Faerie King's armies.  And every spring, the best hummingbird riders compete in a tournament - a twisting test of speed and maneuverability where riders catch rings with their lances from bird-back along a shifting three-dimensional aerial obstacle course.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Giant Otter and Dobarcu

For today's Monster Monday, we've got two big otters.  The giant otter is a man-sized Amazonian animal known to eat piranhas, black caiman, and anacondas (and now it can be your animal companion!).  The dobarcu, or otter king, is a bloodthirsty creature from Irish folklore that hunts the most dangerous game - man!

Photo: Frank Wouters via Wikimedia

I first learned of giant otters from a professor of mine who told stories about his research studying black caimans in the Amazon.  He mentioned that it was dangerous to go bathing or swimming there, not so much because of the caimans or the piranhas, but because of the giant otters.  They're fast and deadly, and they like to gang up on larger prey.  Modern giant otters range from 3.3 to 5.6 ft. in length, but before they were overhunted for their fur, large males could reach 7.9 ft.

Dobhar-cú (water hound) is the Irish word for otter, but folklorists and cryptozoologists (folklore enthusiasts who pretend to be scientists) use it (or the anglicized form 'dobarcu') to refer to a little-known creature from Irish mythology.  Also known as otter kings or an Irish crocodiles, there are stories of monstrous otters thinly spread all over Ireland and nearby islands.  The most famous and most detailed account goes thus:

In 1722, in Glenade (County Leitrim, Ireland), a woman washing laundry in the stream was attacked by a great beast.  Her husband went looking for her and found the dobhar-cú resting on her mangled and bloody body.  He grabbed his gun and shot it, but as it died it cried out for its mate, who came rushing up from the water looking for vengeance.  The man (perhaps with his dead wife's brother) fled on horseback to a nearby town 20 miles away, but the monster pursued him (or them) and he (or the brother) stabbed it with a spear (or dagger).  

The victim's tombstone still survives, with a carving of the monster getting stabbed:

No, it's not - as I first though - a dire scotty dog:
the bit at the front is a disembodied hand stabbing the beast.

Other accounts of dobarcu give its strange white-and-black coat, the fact that it can only be killed with silver like a werewolf, the idea that the beast's hide protects its wearer from drowning, and the story that anyone who kills a dobarcu will die the next day.

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

Monster Monday: Orang Pendek - The Hairy Forest Man

Lately, in my spare time, I've been doing some research for the Southeast-Asian-themed region of my campaign setting.  As a direct result of that, today's Monster Monday is the Orang Pendek, a mythical forest-man creature from the jungles of Sumatra, which I have imagined as an intelligent orangutan-like ape capable of making and using tools.

'Orangutan Attacked by Dyaks' by Joseph Wolf, via Wikimedia

I've also made a new intelligent animal subtype that allows for animals with an Intelligence higher than 2 without making them Magical Beasts, because language and tool use are not magic.

via primatology.net

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: The d20 Despot Aviary

Hello, dear readers. I hope you like birds!  For today's Monster Monday entry, I'm bringing you five species of birds, four of which make suitable familiars for your more wizardly characters.  So strap in for excitement as I present: a cassowary, a heron, a chicken, a duck, and a hummingbird.

Keep in mind that all of these are dinosaurs          (c)d20 despot

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.