Gamer – Page 2

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Re’em

So let’s see, what’s next? Ah, we have some sort of magical ox. That’s okay, I guess, they can’t all be interesting. Some Fantastic Beasts are quite plain, or cute little critters that won’t make very deadly D&D monsters. They can’t all be be party killers after all.

Does this ox have anything special going on? Oh, it’s gold and it’s blood is useful. Not really something that affects its monster stats. It’s also pretty big and strong? I could have some fun with that at least. I guess?

Lets just check the artwork for anything out of the ordinary…

…wait…how big is this thing?!

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Red Cap

Some creatures are just angry. Most real world animals will defend themselves, or hunt and kill to survive, but there are those critters that wake up violent. Hippos, honey badgers, fire ants, they go out of their way to attack anything nearby, sometimes without apparent provocation. There’s something in their makeup that makes them mad.

The Redcap in D&D, and the Red Cap in Fantastic Beasts, are this kind of creature. Both versions are vicious to an extreme degree. The former grow from bloodstains in the Fey Realm, whilst the latter consciously choose to live in holes in old battlefields. There’s no rhyme or reason for it, the Red Cap is a bloody, barbaric beast.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Ramora

If you want to move something in Dungeons & Dragons, there’s rules for it. Whether you want to grab and shove someone around, shift heavy objects to and for, carry too much in your pack, the game has you covered. There are various magical means for moving things, though their are weight limits on these abilities. The point is, everything can be moved, one way or another.

Even the ‘Immovable Rod’ can be moved. It takes 4 tonnes of pressure to do so, but you can shift it, even if the names suggests otherwise.

I mention this, to emphasis how powerful the Ramora is. To simply ‘anchor’ a massive ship out at see, or steer that ship to safety, requires some serious physical or magical force.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Porlock

Another mini post today. Today we have a little, bipedal, goat-thing that protects wild horses. If your D&D game needs every Fantastic Beast in it, or you’re running a quest where the heroes have to wrangle horses, this is the critter for you. Otherwise… it’s kind of cute, I suppose?

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Pogrebin

There’s a creature in D&D called the ‘Intellect Devourer’. It’s essentially a big brain on legs. In terms of challenge levels, the Intellect Devourer is fairly flimsy on it’s own. Yet it also has an ability that causes permadeath.

The intellect devourer initiates an Intelligence contest with an incapacitated humanoid within 5 feet of it. If it wins the contest, the intellect devourer magically consumes the target’s brain, teleports into the target’s skull, and takes control of the target’s body.
Monster Manual

Usually when you’re knocked out in battle, you get to roll to avoid death, and if you fail, a healer might bring you back. The lowly Devourer eats your brain before any of that happens.

The Pogrebin has the same energy. A small critter that could easily be dispatched, but with a potentially character-ending ability. All it needs is a little time.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Plimpy

Some days it’s a majestic phoenix… some days it’s a fish with legs…

A fish that is mildly dangerous to snails and swimming costumes and not much else. A fish whose legs are its main mode of transportation and its greatest weakness. A fish that people would rather tie up and send down the river than catch and eat. It’s not quite flobberworm territory, but it’s bobbing pathetically alongside that line.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Occamy

As I turn each Fantastic Beast into a D&D monster, I keep bumping into differences between the brief description in the book and the extra pizzazz of the movie version.

The movie version of the Occamy has just one small/massive difference from the original description…

A creature that can change it’s size to ‘fit the available space’ is a whole mechanical conundrum in terms of creating a monster stat block.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Nundu

Finally. We’ve made it to the monster that started me on this little project.

When I read the brief description of the nundu, my instant though was: “I want this in my Dungeons & Dragons”. I’m sure other people have got here before me, but I need to make this one myself.

It’s that one line that makes this monster so compelling:

…it has never yet been subdued by fewer than a hundred skilled wizards working together.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

One. Hundred. Skilled. Wizards. The nundu is supposed to be one of the most dangerous things in the wizarding world, and if we use D&D monster challenge ratings correctly, this monster is going to be top tier in both fantasy realms.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Nogtail

In my opinion, pigs are cute. You might agree.

However, pigs with spindly legs are not as cute. You are free to disagree.

Demon pigs with gangly legs that sneak into farms and curse the land are not cute at all. That’s not really up for debate.

Fantastic Beasts and How to Slay Them: Merpeople

I’m adamant: I making every Fantastic Beast into a Dungeons & Dragons creature. Even if the differences between what I make and what was already there are negligible…

Merfolk already exist in D&D. This isn’t the first time where D&D clashes with the Potterverse; they are both pulling from mythology after all. Yet, this might be the most minor alteration I’ve made to date. Whilst some monsters have differed slightly – altered powers, swapped body parts, etc. – the D&D ‘Merfolk’ and the FB ‘Merpeople’ have more than a lot in common.