Thread: Tales from the Cryptozoo

I like your Whirling Wumpus write-up. My only suggestion is that rather than give it hundreds of attacks per combat round, just increase the damage it inflicts if it hits. Physical contact would be like brushing up against a buzz saw or chainsaw. I also appreciate your description of what happens if a PC attempts to attack the thing; practical physics makes it hard to hurt while in motion.

Basing the BedCats on real bedbugs is exactly the approach I would have taken. Yikes! Supposedly, they were a natural mutation that occurred at one of Paul Bunyan's northernmost logging camps. Vermin were always an issue in camp because filthy loggers had little opportunity to bathe, particularly given the chilly Canadian climate. This remote camp was especially infested. Bunyan's men were forced to abandon it, not because of bedbugs or lice but because of a run of severe winters that kept them working further south for several seasons. When they finally returned, all went well until the men prepared for sleep -- the results in the tall tale I read weren't as grisly as the ones you've logically described. Without humans to feed on, the bedbugs had survived by preying upon wildlife that took shelter in the deserted log cabins. They coped with the terrible cold by growing larger and growing fur. They were very ... happy ... to have the loggers back.

Thanks for the feedback

The multiple attacks of the Wumpus are a little OTT, I'll admit (yes, okay, VERY OTT) , but the idea was to make the attack more granular, in that it could spatter a person all over the landscape, but you could kill it if you drove over it with a tank or bulldozer without them being heavily damaged. I'm sure for a more formal write-up some kind of halfway house could be achieved...

Funnily enough my wife said the BedCat write-up was one of the nastiest things she'd ever read, and as she has a degree in Corrections and Criminal Justice, and an academic interest in Forensic Pathology, she knows all about nasty.

I always try to figure the logic behind creatures. It makes for a more believable beasty. I love monster movies, but a little part of my brain has difficulty suspending disbelief if the creature isn't at least a little plausible...

I remember in a very old campaign setting I used to have a whole species that is lovecraftian in origins. There could only be one at a time on the planet, because it's method of reproducing was to "Hollow" the souls of people into nothing, then form a body around them after the person's death, which killed the being. "Hollowed" People went into permenent brain-dead comas.

This creature was called a Void or Empty One officially, but the myths connected to them included the Jersey devil.

For that to work, you'd basically have to have the following things in place:

1: Damage done by this character is direct to the POW stat. This can be recovered up to what the undamaged value was, though the process is exceedingly difficult and requires a long time of acquiring new memories.
2: When the POW stat reaches zero, the character is "Hollowed". They're gone for good. That brain is dead, Jim.
3: Depending on the skill check for the "Howl" Ability of the Empty One, damage to POW changes accordingly.

Believability wise... That "Howl" could easily be caused by electromagnetic interference stripping away the patterns of electromagnetic activity inside the brain, leaving the neurons inactive. There would actually be no noise.

Thanks for the suggestion, Link...

I'm kind of in the middle of a VERY major project at the moment, so it may be a while before I get to 'The Void'. However, it sounds extremely creepy (excellent )..

Was this a creature of your own creation or was it taken from literature? Either way, as much info as possible is good.. I do like to get my beasties accurate

It was a creature of my own creation based on the legend of the jersey devil and, in the setting, from a non-place outside normal reality and the normal multiverse, where the timelines and universes within all were innately wrong or corrupted.

This creature showing up in a setting basically meant it was doomed.