Spes Magna Games

And here’s my final foray into into the Chinese Mythos from the AD&D Deities & Demigods. Way back in the day, the spirits of the air were among the few creatures in Deities & Demigods that I ever used as a DM. Here they are for 5E D&D.

These minions of the wind gods can be summoned by them in number of up to 100 every day…. They exist to fight for the gods. (Deities & Demigods, page 41)

Spirits of the Air
Large elemental, neutral

Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 104 (11d10+44)
Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft. (hover)
Ability Scores STR 23 (+6), DEX 16 (+3), CON 18 (+4), INT 10 (+0), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 11 (+0)

Saving Throws DEX +8
Skills Athletics +10, Perception +5
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages all
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)

Flyby. The spirit of the air doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy’s reach.

Actions

Multiattack. The spirit of the air attacks twice with its claws.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6+6) slashing damage.

Wings. The spirit of the air beats its wings. Each creature within 10 feet of the spirit of the air must succeed on a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw or take 10 (1d8+6) bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The spirit of the air can then fly up to half its flying speed.

Tags: 5E D&D, Deities & Demigods, monsters

A new threat for Mutant Future:

Manesthoid
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 150′ (50′), fly 180′ (60′)
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 8
Attacks: 3 (2 claws/1 bite)
Damage: 2d4+6/2d4+6/1d6+3 plus poison
Save: L8
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: XVII
XP: 2,560

Mutations: Chameleon Epidermis; Unique (Combat Precognition, Ootheca, Sensory Adaptations)

The manesthoids are 12-foot-tall, highly intelligent, mutant praying mantises. By means of specialized cells in its chitin, a manesthoid can instantly alter the lucidness, appearance, and color of its exoskeleton. When stationary, a manesthoid can be nearly invisible. With its ability to rotate its head 180 degrees combined with its compound eyes and frequency-sensitive organs in its thorax, a manesthoid has keen senses. It is surprised only 1 in 8 times, and its hearing extends into frequencies inaudible to the human ear.

In combat, a manesthoid strikes with its hooked forelimbs and its powerful bite. The manesthoid’s saliva is a Class 9 poison (save or fall asleep for 2d4 rounds). Due to its combat precognition, it strikes with a +4 bonus to hit in combat, and its attacks inflict +3 points of damage per damage die. Once per combat round, roll 1d20. On a 10+, the manesthoid’s perceives enough of the future in sufficient time to take defensive action against one attack. The manesthoid takes one-half damage from the attack.

Against a helpless target, a female manesthoid extrudes an ootheca, which is a porous, adhesive material containing 1d8 manesthoid eggs. It takes the female 1d4 rounds to extrude the ootheca, and it sets to concrete-like hardness in another 1d4 rounds. The eggs hatch in 1d10 days, and the immature manesthoids consume the entrapped creature.

Tags: monsters, Mutant Future

Spes Magna Games has been in business since December 2009. In that time, I’ve published more than 50 PDFs for various game systems. About two years ago, I released The Four Color Hack. At the time, I had vague plans of eventually releasing TFCH as a print-on-demand game.

Well, eventually has arrived, and TFCH is officially Spes Magna’s first real book.

You can get TFCH as a 6-by-9-inch 80-page black-and-white softcover for $10.95 (not including shipping and handling). The softcover includes the $3 PDF. If you’ve not checked out TFCH yet, start with the PDF. If you like what you see, and you want the book, use this link right here to get the print-on-demand version for $7.95. Caveat: The discount link in the previous sentence expires at the end of September 2018.

Ms. Jessica Dow deserves a big “Thanks!” for picking up the dropped ball of formatting TFCH for print-on-demand. I hope to work with Ms. Dow again on another print-on-demand job in the near future.

But enough of that. Let’s head back into the Chinese Mythos from the AD&D Deities & Demigods. Today, we meet Mu Yuan, the 70-foot-tall killer of the gods, for use with 5E D&D.

This monster has 3 eyes in his tyrannosaurus-shaped head, and has 4 large humanoid arms. He has the strength of a storm giant…. He also has a powerful magical device shaped in the form of a small triangular piece of stone that has the power to turn into any weapon [Ma Yuan] wishes, magical or otherwise. (Deities & Demigods, page 40)

Ma Yuan
Gargantuan monstrosity, chaotic evil

Armor Class 24 (natural armor)
Hit Points 615 (30d20+270)
Speed 60 ft., fly 60 ft., swim 60 ft.
Ability Scores STR 29 (+9), DEX 10 (+0), CON 28 (+9), INT 13 (+1), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 13 (+1)

Saving Throws INT +9, WIS +10, CHA +9
Skills Religion +9
Damage Resistances fire (due to Morphic Stone); bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-legendary attacks
Damage Immunities bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Senses passive Perception 12
Languages Abyssal
Challenge 28 (120,000 XP)

Amphibious. Ma Yuan can breathe water and air.

Frightful Presence. Each creature of Ma Yuan’s choice that is within 120 feet of him and aware of him must succeed on a DC 22 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to Ma Yuan’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Ma Yuan fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead.

Magic Resistance. Ma Yuan has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Magical Weapons. Ma Yuan’s weapon attacks are magical.

Siege Monster. Ma Yuan deals double damage to objects and structures.

Actions

Multiattack. Ma Yuan can use his Frightful Presence. He then makes up to five attacks: one with his bite and four with his claws. He can make a Morphic Stone attack in place of one or two claw attacks, depending on whether the Morphic Stone takes the form of a one-handed weapon or a two-handed weapon.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 48 (6d12+9) piercing damage. If the target is a Large or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 22). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and Ma Yuan can’t bite another target.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (3d8+9) slashing damage.

Morphic Stone. Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 37 (8d6+9) slashing damage plus 14 (4d6) cold damage. As an action, Ma Yuan can transform the Morphic Stone into any melee weapon, magical or otherwise, that he wants to wield. Quadruple the weapon’s damage dice since Ma Yuan is Gargantuan. The preceding attack and damage values reflect Ma Yuan using a Gargantuan greatsword frost brand.

Legendary Actions

Ma Yuan can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary option can be used at time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Ma Yuan regains spent legendary actions at the start of his turn.

Change Morphic Stone. Ma Yuan can change the Morphic Stone into a different melee weapon and then attack with that weapon.

Move. Ma Yuan moves up to half his speed.

Swallow (Costs 2 Actions). Ma Yuan makes one bite attack against a Large or smaller creature it is grappling. If the attack hits, the target takes the bite’s damage, the target is swallowed, and the grapple ends. While swallowed, the creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside Ma Yuan, and it takes 49 (14d6) acid damage at the start of each of Ma Yuan’s turns.

If Ma Yuan takes 60 damage or more on a single turn from a creature inside it, Ma Yuan must succeed on a DC 20 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of Ma Yuan. If Ma Yuan dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse by using 30 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Tags: 5E D&D, Deities & Demigods, monsters, TFCH

I’ve been watching The Prisoner via Amazon Prime. I’m five episodes into the seventeen episode run. I vaguely recall watching an episode or two decades ago, but, if so, I don’t think I liked it. Not so now. It’s a fascinating examination of the conflict of two forms of tyranny: unrestrained individualism and collectivism, both of which lead to the dictatorship of relativism.

But this post isn’t about that. It’s about Mutant Future.

The Rover
Hit Dice: 15
Frame: Armature
Locomotion: Forced Air
Manipulators: Special Use Gripper
Armor: Ballistic Nylon (AC 5)
Sensors: Nerve Web
Mental Programming: Artificial Intelligence
Accessories: AV Transmitter, Inertial Inhibitor, Internal Storage Unit
Weaponry: paralytic cnidocytoids, sonic screamer

The Rover is an advanced construct of sorts that keeps people from leaving the Island on which the Village is located. The Rover appears to be an underinflated, spherical weather balloon. A sophisticated, nearly microscopic web of artificial neurons and sensors form a web between the layers of its highly flexible ballistic nylon body. The Rover’s forced air propulsion system is loud but effective with a top speed in excess of 120 miles per hour and capable of movement across water, terrain, and even limited flight. It attacks by means of a short-range sonic screamer (range 75 feet/150 feet) that acts like a stun pistol. The Rover closes for melee combat, ramming its target, which activates thousands of paralytic cnidocytoids. These artificial stinging cells deliver a load of Class 11 poison (saving throw versus poison to avoid paralysis for 2d6 rounds with movement halves for 1d6 with a successful saving throw). The Rover can absorb a human-sized target, storing the target in its internal storage unit for transport back to the Island.

******

In other news, Spes Magna Games has a new 5E D&D product available for purchase at DriveThruRPG:

Dangerous Women presents Khatira Amrat, archer raised by fey knights, Kona Hættuleg, pirate queen of blades, and Menyw Beryglus, hell-touched outcast wizard. These strong women can challenge or assist your players’ characters as you see fit. Each NPC is CR 8, and with their special team actions, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

Tags: 5E D&D, monsters, Mutant Future, Spes Magna Products

If you follow this site (and why wouldn’t you?), you’ve certainly noticed that I’ve lately posted a bunch of material, mostly new monsters, for 5E D&D. Why? Well, because that’s the game that my Saturday group currently plays, and I tend to focus most of my writing on whatever most recently has caught our attention. I’m even enjoying 5E, which is a surprise. Nothing I read about 4E, for example, tempted me to give it a test drive. 5E, however, hits a lot of sweet spots while at the same time staying away from the number-crunching, optimal-build-fetishizing that, in my opinion, has come to dominate 3.5 and Pathfinder.

All that said, I still want to play what I started with.

I’ve already talked a bit about how I got started with D&D. That was way back around 1977 to 1978. (I feel old.) We had some great games back then. The rules we had didn’t always make sense, and we argued about what this or that really meant, but in the end we were friends getting together to pretend we were adventurers in a fantastic world that at times seemed so much more interesting than the lower-middle-class, middle school world of broken families, drugs, and even gangs that existed at least on the peripherals of our lives.

I recently hosted a comedy-of-tech-errors game that used Swords & Wizardry with The Keep on the Borderlands, originally published in 1981, about three years after I started gaming and about four years before I graduated high school. We played via a videoconference system. The first session was just my son Christopher and me, but Mike and his son joined for session two. Mike was one of the people I gamed with way back when. He’s in California now, and that too far to drive to from Texas, so I don’t see Mike much. If you’re interested, you can watch the videos over at my YouTube channel.

Thanks to the quirky benefits of technology, I got to game with Mike again. It was a lot like old times, almost as if no time had really passed, although both he and I are noticeably older. Those friends I gamed with back in middle school and high school have either died too young or else have pretty much dropped out my life (or me out of theirs) completely. My current circle of face-to-face gaming friends? I didn’t know them in high school. Some of them weren’t born or else were toddling around in diapers when I was in high school.

So, I think I’m going to keep on with the Borderlands game. I’m pretty sure I can swing the various schedules so that we can meet twice or so a month. I might have to upgrade some of my technology. Maybe headphones or earbuds or something like that to help cut down on the background noise would be a good place to start.

Who knows? I might even try to figure out how Roll20 works.

But enough of that. “How about a new monster?” you say. Sure, but first check out David Masson over at Art Station. This guy has some serious talent. Today’s new monster is based on this piece by Mr. Masson.

The secrets of building a sword golem have been lost in the foggy reaches of history. While a spirit from the Elemental Plane of Earth usually infuses a golem, sword golems differ, for it is a spirit from the Elemental Plane of Air that gives the sword golem not only life, but also remarkable speed, intelligence, and will, albeit a will subordinated to the wishes of its creator.

Sword Golem
Medium construct, lawful neutral

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 68 (8d8+32)
Speed 45 ft.
Ability Scores STR 16 (+3), DEX 19 (+4), CON 18 (+4), INT 10 (+0), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 10 (+0)

Skills Acrobatics +8, Perception +5
Damage Resistances lightning
Damage Immunities fire, poison, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with adamantine weapons
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages understands and speaks the languages of its creator
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)

Elegant Defense. At the start of its turn, the sword golem may choose to make fewer than six melee attacks. The benefits of its elegant defense depend on how attacks it forgoes:

* One Attack: When a creature misses the sword golem with a melee attack, the sword golem can use its reaction to riposte. The sword golem makes a melee attack against the creature that inflicts an extra 4 (1d8) points of piercing damage.

* Two Attacks: As above, plus sword golem’s AC against melee attacks increases by 2 points until the start of its next turn.

* Three Attacks: As both effects above, plus the sword golem’s elaborate sword maneuvers defend its allies. When a creature the sword golem can see attacks a target within 5 feet of the sword golem, the creature’s attack is made with disadvantage.

Elemental Absorption. Whenever the sword golem is subjected to fire damage, it takes no damage and instead regains a number of hit points equal to the fire damage dealt. Whenever the sword golem is subjected to lightning damage, it takes half damage and becomes energized. On its next turn, its rapier attacks inflict an extra 4 (1d8) lightning damage.

Immutable Form. The sword golem is immune to any spell or efect that alter its form.

Magic Resistance. The sword golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Magic Weapons. The sword golem’s weapon attacks are magical.

Actions

Multiattack. The sword golem makes up to six melee attacks.

Rapier. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) piercing damage. The sword golem’s rapiers score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Gust of Wind (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). The sword golem unleashes a line of strong wind that duplicates the spell gust of wind.

Tags: 5E D&D, game play, monsters, Swords & Wizardry