Homebrew Diary: More On Monsters

Last time I talked about factions. Back in the old days of D&D there was some interplay in the creatures that existed within a dungeon, and their affiliation or lack thereof to several powerful creatures residing in the dungeon. That is not the whole of what inspired me but it was a starting point. The end result is not much like that. Rather the end result is much like designing a Magic: The Gathering creature type. Instead of disparate creatures with no thematical interaction joined together by the narrative of the dungeon, I’m building factions of creatures with ready-made interplay, thematically and in the narrative of the game. Each faction has a bit of fluff to it, distributed across the descriptions of its member creatures, and they each fit into themes.

The current planned factions have been expanded a bit. Here’s the current plan:

•Goblins: Pretty self-explanatory. Goblins are small, dumb, violent creatures. They are led by a Goblin Boss.

•Undead: Vampires, ghouls, ghosts and “spawn” (my term for zombies/skeletons). Led by a Lijk, an undead wizard.

•Abominations: Lovecraftian horrors and cultists, led by an ancient evil with numerous names.

•Wilderness: Magical animals, elven druids, and other things that want you dead in the magic forest.

•Mercenaries: The faction where you can find your flavors of “human bandit” or stock NPCs.

•Demons: Diabolical creatures and their followers, seeking to revive their evil monarch on the material world.

•Dragons: A greedy, tyrannical dragon, its children and related fauna, and its minions.

Each of these factions is composed of three types of monsters.

Mook: Mooks have the lowest momentum, least traits, worst attacking ability, and some may not even be able to deal damage at all, but they serve an important function to the other two types, and can “mob” creatures to gain bonuses.

Foes: Standard monsters, fighting somewhat even footing with the PCs. These are the ones you look to in a typical combat to put the hurt on PCs, and the ones you use in stories when you need relevant enemy NPCs.

Leader: The glorious leader of each faction is stronger than two PCs more or less. It has several traits that empower it through its faction – typically the most common is that a Leader can spend any allied creature’s Edge to make attacks, rather than have to generate its own edge. So all those zombies clawing at the PC’s knees can create an opening (generate edge) for the Lijk to attack. The Leader is more durable, has more abilities and has the weirdest traits. For example, the Ancient Evil of the Abomination faction has a “Scheme” ability that puts a “Scheme Point” on the battlefield, that, given time, will give the Abominations a huge advantage.

When designing monster factions, I look toward creating monsters that have obvious tight interplay in both stories and in combat. I want the GM to have that ability, to be able to say “Okay, gonna make a Goblin Dungeon, Goblins have these or that creatures, and I can think of these strategies,” and so on, and then the PCs in turn, if they’re clever, can also discover that interplay and find ways to counter it. And in the story of the game, the GM can find mild inspiration in the short descriptions and attitudes of each faction to quickly design adventures and get playing – or break out of the mold, and take the PCs by surprise.