Day 7, and Hungry Ghosts
One week into the 30-Day D&D Challenge brings me to my favorite edition and another cop-out post. I don’t really have a favorite edition. I’ve played every edition of D&D up to but excluding 4E. I’ve enjoyed them all. Nowadays, if I’m GMing, I’d prefer to avoid editions later than 2E. I find them too work-intensive for game prep, and I no longer have that kind of time or energy. If I’m not GMing, but instead am actually getting to run a PC, I don’t think it’d matter to me much which edition I was playing. They all have their good and bad points.
That said, I would like to get to play in a 0E game again. It’s been more than two decades since I got to do that. I vaguely remember the last time 0E was on the table. I made up a halfling. That was it. Both his race and his class were halfling. I don’t recall the specifics about which flavor of 0E it was. I think that Jeff Dee’s picture of the long-haired human squatting to talk to one or more halflings was on the page that described what halflings could do.
Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, I’m the GM for Man Day Adventures, so the odds of me getting another chance to play that halfling seem small.
Ah, well. Next up, here’s a new monster and a spell to go with it.
Hungry Ghost
Hit Dice: 2
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Attacks: 2 claws (1d3), 1 gore (1d4)
Saving Throw: 16
Special: Clairvoyance, teleport
Move: 6
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 4/120
A hungry ghost is a horrible undead creature that appears as a humanoid with a deformed body: spindly limbs, tusks like a boar and claws, a long and slender neck, and a bloated abdomen. A hungry ghost was a person with a passion for some pleasure that ruled his life, leading him to commit all manner of crimes to sate his inordinate desires. In undeath, this inordinate desire becomes insatiable hunger, made all the more torturous since the hungry ghost cannot gulp down food through its scrawny neck without suffering terrible pain. Hungry ghosts can see through solid stone and other obstacles within a range of 60 feet. Hungry ghosts can also teleport short distances (up to 15 feet). It can do so and attack in the same turn. In most cases (75%), a hungry ghost teleports behind an opponent and attacks from the rear (with appropriate bonuses). These monsters cannot see through obstacles that have been appropriately blessed or that stand on consecrated ground. Likewise, they cannot teleport through or within such places.
Jautan’s Abhorrent Attendants
Spell Level: Magic-User, 5th Level
Range: Referee’s Discretion
Duration: 1 day
This spell conjures hungry ghosts. 1d4 hungry ghosts are conjured per level of the caster above 8th. The monsters remain until slain or until 24 have passed.
