Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

I really enjoy the values and textures on the Decempus. Great work!

Thank you.

Gerrymander*

Armor Class: 20
Hit Dice: 10*
No. of Attacks: 3 claws/1bite + poison
Damage: 1d4/1d6/1d8/1d10
Movement: 40'
No. Appearing: 1d4, Wild 1d6, Lair 1d8
Save As: Fighter: 10
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: E
XP: 1390

Gerrymanders are large lizard-like creature from the lower planes. The are sometimes found on the material plane, arriving through chaos driven dimensional rifts or summoned by high-level Magic-Users. Due to their magical nature, they cannot be harmed by non-magical weapons and take half damage from fire and cold attacks.

A gerrymander looks like a deformed lizard with 5 legs each of a different size and length. They have various colouring including red, orange yellow, brown, gray, blue, purple and pink, each appearing only once in a continuous blotch. Their head is usually large for the size of their body and they often have one eye larger than the other. Their bite carry a poison which duplicate the effect of the Confusion spell for 1d6 rounds or a single round if a save vs. Poison is made.

Gerrymanders are intelligent and most speak 1d4 languages including common, Elvish, Dwarvish and Dragon.

Just want to say, I expressly do not want real-world jokes appearing in the Field Guides. If any have slipped by me, I'm sorry...

Having said that, I'm not opposed to a Showcase item that would be entirely joke monsters. If anyone wants to put it together.

"The Basic Fantasy Fool's Guide to Creatures Whimsical and Amusing"

Solomoriah wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:38 pm Just want to say, I expressly do not want real-world jokes appearing in the Field Guides. If any have slipped by me, I'm sorry...

Having said that, I'm not opposed to a Showcase item that would be entirely joke monsters. If anyone wants to put it together.

"The Basic Fantasy Fool's Guide to Creatures Whimsical and Amusing"

We need to run through the guides then... there are Gummi Bears, Animated Cup (ala beauty & beast), and probably a few others that may subjectively fall into this category.

And, for what it is worth, I agree completely. I have never really liked, nor have ever incorporated Joke Monsters in my games, aside from a few modules that specialize in this sort of thing (but we did these as basically one-offs). There was Alice in Wonderland based modules, and there were a few Dragon Magazine adventures that go here. In general, just not my taste.

Took Solo to say something before I would have mentioned this; as I know there are vastly different tastes and I would not really have wanted to accidentally offend or hurt feelings with my opinions.

I find satire a great source of inspiration. The Gerrymander is a famous caricature.
The rust monster was something from a set of plastic toys.

In the end, I am not the judge of other people's feelings.
So I bend without resistance.
What's in a name? I don't name my creatures to the players.
They have to come up with their own names unless they spend time talking about them with NPCs.

Would the last 2 be fine if I simply renamed them?
Bouncer? Chaos Beast?
Alternatively, the gerymanders are Geryon's Salamanders.
Is anything in the description offensive?
I feel they have interesting mechanics.

As for joke monsters, I do like the Rakun.

I'm not against monster entries like the Animated Cup (though maybe it's a bit too much on point) as those aren't real-world jokes. The cup in question is from a fantasy source, after all. But the Gerrymander is absolutely a real-world joke.

Interesting discussion. I personally find satirical/camedic monsters to ruin my emersion, and avoid using them in my games. I once decided to use the master monster index for my random wandering monsters and came up with a group of hobgoblins accompanied by an animated candle stick. Not really having time to realize I should re-roll the candlestick I just played it out. My players immediately looked at each other like "WTF?". After they told me they like sticking to the good old stand-by original monsters, and found monsters like the animated candlstick a little out of "left field". So maybe a separate book such monsters would suit me better.
All that said though, the "Headtheball" and "Gerrymander" monsters are fine for my purposes mechanically speaking. It's just maybe the name should be changed. They seem like an inside joke or something that I don't really understand. "Headtheball"? what is that? Feels lame on the lips lol. Sorry I jus don't get the joke I guess.

Solomoriah wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:31 am I'm not against monster entries like the Animated Cup (though maybe it's a bit too much on point) as those aren't real-world jokes. The cup in question is from a fantasy source, after all. But the Gerrymander is absolutely a real-world joke.

I don't deny the influence. I just happened to have the caricature in front of me so I looked at the salamander stats. We have both a flame and a frost salamander. I averaged them. Which funny enough lead to having 5 legs. Everything fits perfectly. I added the confusion effect to have them replace the Umber Hulk in my campaign.
What about Chaos Salamander? or Salamander, Chaos?

It should come as no surprise that these documents will tend to resemble the Fiend Folio which had monsters from many sources--and consequently is not itself open license--and certainly could benefit from better curation. There are quite a few monsters that don't fit my campaign style and that's fine.

CptClyde wrote: ↑Tue Nov 17, 2020 9:17 am They seem like an inside joke or something that I don't really understand. "Headtheball"? what is that? Feels lame on the lips lol. Sorry I jus don't get the joke I guess.

Scottish slang.