Matthew from
Rended Press demanded that we provide a Class/Race write-up for
Irving the Shoggoth, so here it is, at least the first draft. We kept it to one page. A
lot is intentionally left to the devious imagination of the GM. We've uploaded the
Free PDF to our
Freebie-Folder over at BOX. Use at your own risk. Monsters may be hazardous to your health. Side effects may include nose bleeds, sporadic fevers, discoloration to the skin or schlera, sudden weight-gain, night sweats, mild hallucinations, uncontrollable flatulence, and brief periods of disorientation or even acute paranoia coupled with violent outbursts. Consult your local GM in case of any lingering strange rashes, itching/oozy sores that seem to move about on their own or any sort of writhing lump in your throat or belly that just won't go away. These are all temporary and nothing to worry about. Void where prohibited.
Outsanding. Again. I really hope this doesn't stop here, that it takes tabletops by storm - why not have every monster a potential PC?
ReplyDelete@Porky: We still see Irving as very much an NPC/special Encounter, but since Matthew wanted the Class/Race write-up, we decided why not? If it comes in handy for someone, then so much the better. We expect Irving to show up in Jalamere or possibly some other setting down the road.
ReplyDeletePlaying monsters was going on back in the early Seventies. People grabbed ahold of the creatures in the Little Brown books and tried them out as player characters. It's definitely an old school thing. but it is also a real mess, if not handled well or properly prepared for--something that later editions (especially 3.5's Savage Species) really strove to map-out rules-wise.
Like Gygax talked about in his Dragon column in regards to playing monsters, we thought that starting out young, vulnerable and impressionable -- even if they are still a frikkin' shoggoth -- opened the door to something different and fun.
Playing monster races doesn't have to wreck anything, as long as a setting/GM is ready for it and does some prep-work so that things are still challenging in the necessary spots and rewarding in the appropriate ways for each creature...and they keep the monstrous motivations of these things in mind...
Boo-yah! Color me impressed with the turn around time on this!
ReplyDeleteYou know, my job in the OSR is to needle people to take cool ideas one step further because hey, I got nothing creative to contribute myself.
Seriously, though, this is cool. How awesome would if be if your group stumbled across another party made up of an Impressionable Young Shoggoth, a Mule, and an Octopus ?
@Matthew: Thanks for bringing those to our attention--the Octopus as a class option is a fun idea. We have a bunch of cephalopodic monsters and race-types (species?), but to make it a Class in itself is quite inspired, in a creatively demented way. The Mule class seems like it might work better as a more open-ended Beast of Burden class...but that's just our take at the moment...
ReplyDeleteNice one Nether, the wife will be playing a young shaggoth come Sept,I'll let you know how it goes!
ReplyDelete