Monster Monday: Tomtenisse - Tiny Fey that Pack a Punch

Today's Monster Monday is the tomtenisse, also known as tomte, nisse, or tonttu, an apple-sized little gnome from Scandinavian folklore which acts as a guardian spirit for a plot of land. These little guys have incredible strength for their size, able to punch out a grown man, snap a cow's neck, or carry a one ton load above their head. Why would these helpful farm spirits ever punch a cow to death? Well, tomtenisse can also be pretty dang ornery.

In the Christmas Night by John Bauer (1913), via Wikimedia

Tomtenisse help out around the farm in unseen ways, mending things, tending to the animals, and carrying loads. All they want in return is a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on it on a specific day. If they don't get their porridge, they can become enraged, breaking things and lashing out at nearby creatures to punish their lax master. The older the tomtenisse, the more particular it gets about how a farm is run, and the quicker it is to inflict corporal punishment. If a new farmer on the land starts putting his tools away in the wrong places, a young nisse might rearrange them all in the night or pile them against the farmer's bedroom door, while an older nisse might simply break every tool that is out of its place. If a farmhand urinates in the barn, they might grab a manure shovel and smack them in the back of the head. If someone eats the nisse's porridge, they will usually be found beaten to within an inch of their life.

In perhaps the most illustrative story of the tomtenisse, a farmer leaves the nisse his usual bowl of porridge, but accidentally puts the butter on the bottom of the porridge. The nisse, thinking the farmer forgot the butter, becomes so enraged that he leaps up and cracks the neck of the farmer's prized cow. He then eats the porridge and finds the pat of butter at the bottom. Remorseful, the nisse runs to all the neighboring farms until he finds an identical cow to bring back for the farmer.

The tomtenisse reserve their deadliest weapon for those who cross them severely: a nisse bite can leave its victim cursed to wither away and die.

The tomtenisse legend may come from a pre-Christian belief in ancestor spirits. The earliest tomtenisse lived in burial mounds, perhaps the spirit of the first farmer to clear and work the land. In the 14th century, Saint Birgitte of Vadstena warned people not to worship the tompta gudhi (the house-lot gods). In modern times, the tomtenisse remain popular as Christmas figures, and though tales remain of angry nisse beating people to a pulp, they are more commonly seen having seasonal fun on Christmas cards.

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

Monster Monday: Xiuhcoatl, Aztec Fire Serpent

Today's Monster Monday is the xiuhcoatl, a fire serpent from Aztec mythology. This serpentine dragon has turquoise. Waves of heat ripple around it as it vents steam and breathes fire. When angered, it can charge with lightning speed, striking its target with an explosion of fiery force.

Xiuhcoatl sculpture at the British Museum (author's photo)

In Aztec mythology, the god Huitzilopochtli used his atlatl to throw xiuhcoatl like lightning-bolt javelin. It was how he killed his sister Coyalxauhqui when she led the Southern Star Gods to war against their pregnant mother. Xiucoatl was also a form of Xiuhtecuhtli - the Turquoise Lord - Aztec god of fire. Xiuhcoatl is the lightning bolt that starts a brushfire in the grasslands, the fire that rains out of a volcanic eruption, and the heat of the sun in the dry season.

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

Monster Monday: Poludnitsa - Lady Midday

Today's Monster Monday is the polunitsa, or Lady Midday. She is a malicious fey from Slavic mythology who appears in the heat of midday to deliver heatstroke and madness to those laboring in the fields. She tends to appear as a woman dressed in white peasant clothes and bearing a scythe, and she is usually either young and eerily beautiful or old and wizened.

Faucheuse ('Girl with a Scythe') by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1872), via Wikimedia

There is more I could say, but I am afraid Lady Midday has struck me with heat exhaustion and left me unable to think clearly. Instead, please enjoy this sassy-looking poludnitsa:

via Wikimedia

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

Monster Monday: Drop Bear - Australian Tall Tale

Today's Monster Monday is the drop bear, a big mean koala that plummets out of the trees onto its hapless prey. Unlike regular koalas, these drop bears are carnivorous predators with a taste for human flesh. It's still pretty cute, though.

modified (by me) from a photo by JJ Harrison on Wikimedia

Drop bears were a joke that Australians played on outsiders, building off the fact that Australian fauna is terrifying and deadly. It is unclear whether this is an original Australian settler tall tale, or if it originated from a joke Australian aborigines played on the invading whites, or even if it might come from some Australian aboriginal myth. We know from the yara-ma-ya-who that the Australian aborigines were no stranger to reddish mythical creatures that come down from trees to mess people up.

In combat, this monster has a pretty solid opening move - it drops from above onto its presumably flat-footed prey, and if it hits with any of its three attacks it takes no falling damage and inflicts half of the falling damage it would have taken to its target. If hunting a lone target, this gives the drop bear a solid chance of knocking it out so that it can drag it up the tree to feed at its leisure. If fighting a group of targets (say, an adventuring party), the drop bear might be able to knock out the most dangerous looking one, giving it a chance to drive off the others with its clumsier, less gravity-aided attacks.

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

Monster Monday: Armored Grave - This Armor Shall Serve as My Epitaph

Today's Monster Monday is the armored grave, a knight buried in his armor, its once-gleaming plates now bursting at the seams with hard-packed grave dirt and the putrescence of decay. These are the tanks of the low-level undead world.

Buried in their armor, these ritually-prepared undead take on a new body of hard-packed grave dirt, granting them an additional layer of protection. Compared to ordinary skeletons and zombies, armored graves are invulnerable, unstoppable death machines.

Just to kick things up a notch, an armored epitaph is a slightly stronger armored grave which has Intelligence and feats and which isn't staggered.

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

Monster Monday: Zahhak - Snake-Filled Three-Headed Dragon

"When the Hero burst into the throne room, the wicked King Dahag was feeding the snakes sprouting from his shoulders - the snakes it was forbidden on pain of death to speak of or even look at. Dahag's guards rushed forward, shamshirs flashing silver, four-mirrored armor blazing with reflected flames. The Hero kicked over a brazier, scattering hot coals toward the guards, then leapt over the fire and met them blade-to-blade. His sword crackled with magic as he swept it through the servants of the divs, parting mail rings and biting into cursed flesh. 

   "Sword dripping with black blood, the Hero advanced on the throne, there to smite the wicked king. As he raised his gleaming sword, the king exploded. In his place towered a massive black serpent, bloated and venomous, with three swaying dragon heads. The creature that was the king struck. The Hero dodged the first head and parried the second, but the third struck true. Long fangs bit through his armor and acrid poison spread through his body. He rolled forward to avoid the next attack and slashed at the underbelly of the monster, opening up a huge gash in the creature's flesh. Instead of hot blood, dozens of venomous snakes poured out of the wound, swarming around the Hero. 

   "This fight would not be easy. But this was the Hero's last chance to slay the wicked king and forestall a thousand years of unholy terror."

Today's Monster Monday is the zahhak, a three-headed dragon from ancient Persian mythology whose body is filled with venomous snakes. Not only does this beast bleed snakes (metal af), but it can shapeshift into a humanoid form, the better to further its plans of conquest and domination.

Aži Dahāka, also known as Dahāg, appears in the ancient Zoroastrian text Avesta as a three-headed beast who rules the land for one thousand years until the hero Fereydun defeated him and, finding that his wounds unleashed poisonous creatures into the world, bound him within a mountain instead of killing him outright. Aži Dahāka's name, or some variation of it, became the word for dragon in many Persian-influenced Middle Eastern languages.

In the Shahnameh, the thousand-year-old Islamic Persian epic poem, the figure appears as Zahhāk, an evil king cursed with two serpents emerging from his shoulders. The epic tells how Zahhāk overthrew and sawed in half the hero-king Jamshid, took his beautiful daughters captive, and ruled for centuries until he was overthrown by the hero Fereydun.

via Wikimedia

Zahhak enthroned with the daughters of Jamshid, from a 1615 copy of the Shahnameh

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

Monster Monday: Giant Ground Bat - Nocturnal Predator

Today's Monster Monday is the giant ground bat, a wolf-sized nocturnal predator that hunts by echolocation. This is a perfect low-level monster for a campaign with a Gothic horror atmosphere. I mean, a giant vampire bat that runs like a wolf? That is 100% something you would run into after your mysterious coachman lets you off at the foot of a twisting road up a darkly forested mountain, saying "That's as far as I can take you, but I'd suggest you get back in the coach and return to town with me. No good can come from going up to that castle. It's cursed, I tell you! Cursed!"

I would have made an illustration for this creature, but nothing I could have drawn or digitally painted would be as cool or terror-inducing as this mounted vampire bat skeleton:

Photo and mounted skeleton by Mokele, via Wikimedia

The direct inspiration for this monster came from an article I was reading about a new species of fossil bat discovered in New Zealand. Check out that rad ground bat illustration in the article. Yeah, apparently ground bats are a thing. They do actually have wings though, they just also spend a lot of time on the ground. Combine that with the future predators from Primeval and maybe a dash of the Varghulf from Warhammer Fantasy and you've got yourself a giant ground bat.

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