A Conan "Monster Manual" ?

[Kincaid]

Are we ever going to see a Conan esque Monster Manual? Ive wanted to see one for along time and thought i heard about one in the works, but never seen anything official.

I know Conan is a low monster universe, but having more monsters than in the back of the PHB would be nice.

I think that having a seperate book would be nice for the reasons that:

1. Can tell my players to stay out of it.
2. Can surprise my players with monsters they havent seen or heard of.
3. New campaign and adventure ideas.

That being said i know that your only supposed to monsters infrequently and REH didnt have many, but for the puposes of the game, mabey we can come up with some REH type baddies to scare our players with! :twisted:

 

[Strom]

I picked up "The Iron Heroes Bestiary" from Malhavoc Press recently and really liked it. Converting monsters from that to the Conan RPG would be fairly easy since Iron Heroes uses Damage Reduction instead of Armor Class. There are some great and uniquely dark creatures that would fit nicely in the Conan RPG.

There was a big discussion on this topic awhile back somewhere on the forum.

 

[Ant]

... There was a big discussion on this topic awhile back somewhere on the forum.

There was indeed!

Here: Where's Hyboria's Bestiary?.

Ciao,
Ant

 

[Yogah of Yag]

I don't think there's a need for one.
There are plenty of statted out NPCs, animals, and monsters to suit me.
I hope Mongoose does not get into Wizard's habit of creating a lot of ridiculous monsters with dire in the name, like Dire Hamster, Dire Chinchilla, Dire Titmouse. :shock: :lol:

 

[Mark Dunder]

Some of us lesser beings have remarkable needs for lists and stats of all kinds, a Hyborian Beastiary for my game would be just great. Drat! I forgot. Mongoose doesn't make 'im for my game.

 

[Auggie]

I'd love to see a beastie book for Conan RPG, but I do know that it's a low-monster world. I can certainly get by with what we have now, but would be interested if Mongoose decided to pursue this. I'm sure Mongoose would 'do the right thing'. :lol:

 

[iltharanos]

It'd probably fit more with Conan's world if it included pregenerated stats for human antagonists (in addition to monsters), e.g.

-small-time crook
-upright man
-bandit "king"

-Hyrkanian scout
-Hyrkanian raider

etc. etc.

 

[Strom]

I don't think there's a need for one.
There are plenty of statted out NPCs, animals, and monsters to suit me.
I hope Mongoose does not get into Wizard's habit of creating a lot of ridiculous monsters with dire in the name, like Dire Hamster, Dire Chinchilla, Dire Titmouse. :shock: :lol:

There's only one "Dire" creature in the IH bestiary - a Dire Gloom. Think living ink spill that drowns you over a two week period and then animates your corpse to interact in society. 8)

 

[Yogah of Yag]

I don't think there's a need for one.
There are plenty of statted out NPCs, animals, and monsters to suit me.
I hope Mongoose does not get into Wizard's habit of creating a lot of ridiculous monsters with dire in the name, like Dire Hamster, Dire Chinchilla, Dire Titmouse. :shock: :lol:

There's only one "Dire" creature in the IH bestiary - a Dire Gloom. Think living ink spill that drowns you over a two week period and then animates your corpse to interact in society. 8)

Do any of the IH monsters have the REH/HPL "weirdness" to them?

 

[Raven Blackwell]

I've had some success with using Demons and other weird Outsider types from other games, changing their appearance, removing most of their their intelligence and 'twinky' high-fantasy elements like Magic Resistence and most 'spell-like effects' and run them way. They fit right into Hyboria.Also adapting some comic book beasties works well- lots fo weird fiction showing up in non-mainstream presses.

 

[Ant]

I'd love to see a beastie book for Conan RPG, but I do know that it's a low-monster world. ...

But several of REH's Conan tales featured unique (seemingly; hopefully!) monsters... who's to say that if REH had told more tales we wouldn't have seen more monsters! (Dire or otherwise.)

Ciao,
Ant

 

[slaughterj]

I don't think there's a need for one.
There are plenty of statted out NPCs, animals, and monsters to suit me.
I hope Mongoose does not get into Wizard's habit of creating a lot of ridiculous monsters with dire in the name, like Dire Hamster, Dire Chinchilla, Dire Titmouse. :shock: :lol:

The Hyborian world is one in which magic is rare as are monsters, yet both show up regularly in tales of adventure set in that world, thus both merit extensive coverage in the RPG supplements.

 

[Mark Dunder]

We could speculate that the next cataclysm that ended the Hyborian Age was because of too much magic and monsters. This way we could feel justified in escalating our use of magic and monsters. I mean, we can wait awhile, for the outrage to die down on the forum. Then surreptitiously, start adding magic and monsters.

Anyone else in on this?

 

[Strom]

Do any of the IH monsters have the REH/HPL "weirdness" to them?

Looking thru the bestiary many of the creatures are humanoid in appearance but many are 'weird' just not necessarily REH/HPL weird. But there are some. IH also introduces Villain classes which can incorporate many CR nasties under one villain stat class. Demonic Minion and Demon Knight are two examples of villain classes. Very cool way for DM's to make up a villain quickly with stats and feats. Just another example of creating a bestiary with substance and having cool creatures stated out. Mongoose has to be creative and do something like this for the Conan RPG - like I keep saying - any RPG worth it's weight in gold lunas needs a bestiary!

 

[LokiOne]

Every time someone like Me mentions a compendium of Conan World 'Monsters' there's a flurry of comments from those who feel no need to extend the listings!

I still have the 'basic' RPG rules book, and not AEd yet, and there's a need to expand and update things so that there's more complete Stats lists for all Creatures (I'll use this term ...).

Also such things as; Scent ability, Speed, Movement Rates, Creature abilities and Feats,etc - there are many elements missing from the mixture of Creatures Lists spread throughout the various expansions since the original RPG book. It all needs a 'shake up', review, updating and re-listing. Plus! ... I'm sure that it would sell well, from a Mongoose-point-of-view.

In the wonderful Road of Kings, there's many tasty hints of creatures in interesting lands (Such as Khitai), with names of even common regional animals, but no listings (The Vendhya chapter had the most creatures listings, I recall?). Even 'normal-ish' Creatures are a challenge in the Conan world: such as Hippos, Wild Ox, Boar, Bear, Mammoth (!), insects, scorpion (Giant?), wolves (!), not to mention the freakish 'one-offs' that can appear in some tales (Maybe a dedicated chapter at the end of the Creature Manual with smaple 1-Offs and design tables - complimentary to Scrolls of Skelos ...).

Someone once mentioned the 'Chinese-style' vampire the "Cheng Li"(?). I'd love some stats on that for my Kusan Scenario I'm currently running (The Temple of the Four Elements). Also has anyone anything on the 'Head pulling, gut-trailing' vampire creature, the Phlegamin (?spelling?)

There was a moment or two of terrible 'black-humour' when one of my Players was almost accosted by some Phelgamin 'Tuna heads' ... (It was night and the fisherman AND his catch had been bitten! Also a pack Donkey on the plains south of the Anshan River ... Can you imagine being stalked by a Phegamin donkey head ...! Tears flowed that evening!).

I love Vampires ... (Not literally...)

Comments at all from GM's, Players or Mongoose???!

PS: A Big Thankyou to the Contributor who poated the article way back on Iranistani Fire Magic. Please make contact again, as you siad you might expand on what you'd done, and it was quite wonderful.

 

[iltharanos]

Also has anyone anything on the 'Head pulling, gut-trailing' vampire creature, the Phlegamin (?spelling?)

There was a moment or two of terrible 'black-humour' when one of my Players was almost accosted by some Phelgamin 'Tuna heads' ... (It was night and the fisherman AND his catch had been bitten! Also a pack Donkey on the plains south of the Anshan River ... Can you imagine being stalked by a Phegamin donkey head ...! Tears flowed that evening!).

I love Vampires ... (Not literally...)

Comments at all from GM's, Players or Mongoose???!

You mean a Pennangalan?

It was statted out as a template in the d20 Oriental Adventures book. AFAIK that's the only place it's seen recent publication.

 

[Bregales]

Also has anyone anything on the 'Head pulling, gut-trailing' vampire creature, the Phlegamin (?spelling?)

There was a moment or two of terrible 'black-humour' when one of my Players was almost accosted by some Phelgamin 'Tuna heads' ... (It was night and the fisherman AND his catch had been bitten! Also a pack Donkey on the plains south of the Anshan River ... Can you imagine being stalked by a Phegamin donkey head ...! Tears flowed that evening!).

I love Vampires ... (Not literally...)

Comments at all from GM's, Players or Mongoose???!

You mean a Pennangalan?

It was statted out as a template in the d20 Oriental Adventures book. AFAIK that's the only place it's seen recent publication.

Ha ha! My first roleplaying character got his head chewed off by one 5 minutes after I started playing (6th grade lunchtime) and somehow I still stuck with it. If I recall, it appeared in the AD&D Fiend Folio before Oriental Adventures. ~No, I'm not voicing approval for this idea, just laughing at this creature's mentioning. :lol:

 

[Kincaid]

So other than the Iron Heroes Bestiary is their any other books that convert either wholly or very easily to Conan?

I like the idea of having more monsters at my disposal. Currently, im running the Messantia box set and the spawn of the black heart scared the crap out of them.

Id like to duplicate that effect with more Terrifying monsters than just the few in the books. :twisted:

 

[Kincaid]

Looking for an update to this question.

Has anyone heard any news on this or is it a lost cause?

 

[Valaryc]

think it's a lost cause my friend