Bestiary

[TheBruce]

Admittedly, I'm not up on all of the rumors of what Mongoose may or may not be releasing for Conan. Is there any chance of a Bestiary being released?

 

[Odovacar's Ghost]

Unknown at this time. Not even the dead speak abou this.

But, I do believe there are threads or sites somwhere around here that has a conversion from the pathetic and boring DND to the great CONAN.

Also, they, Mongoose, mostly created stuff from the books. So, all you have to do, is right a pastiche conan book about Terasque, Vorpal Bunnies, and Trolls, then perhaps someone will convert them. Then again, probably not.

 

[sword'n'buckler]

Nice idea, although I am a little dubious of providing much more in the way of pregenerated creature ideas. One of the great things about the CONAN rpg is that nasties are not incredibly common and not remotely predictable. Other than the few creatures from the books, the PCs really can have no idea what the GM might choose to throw at them. By contrast D&D seems predictable and trite (and, by becomming jam packed with beasties, the nasties lose any real sense of the bizarre - the world becomes a bit like an encyclopedia of creatures - not good).

If a bestiary was to be produced, I would be most in favour of a book detailing tips on GM creature design in line with the Howardian mythos. Templates are a great idea, allowing flexibility but providing guidelines. I feel the book should concentrate more on flavour, atmosphere and design tips for the creation of weird Howardesque demons etc... What does everyone else feel about this?

 

[Faraer]

I agree with that, but if I was writing such a book I'd want to draw on other Howard stories, which have many monsters suitable for the Hyborian Age: night-spirits, red blossoms, harpies, octopus-men, devil-birds, etc.

 

[Evilschemer]

A Conan bestiary would need to use Call of Cthulhu (BRP or d20) as a source of inspiration. Monsters need to be alien, exotic, rare, and deadly-deadly-deadly.

In fact, there are several monsters that are totally Lovecraftian. "Curse of the Monolith" anyone?

Some of the CoC monsters are perfect for Conan: Formless Spawn, Serpent Men, Deep Ones, Tcho-Tchos, Shoggoths, Ghasts, Ghouls, etc.

What I'd like to see more off are human opponents. Town guards, temple acolytes, cultists, thieves, assassins, prison guards, merchants, royal guard, etc.

 

[Jason Durall]

I asked a senior editor at Mongoose about it, and he said they had no plans. I'm trying to convince them.

I can think of many creatures* from The Road of Kings that are mentioned but aren't described in game terms. Adding a "central casting" list (like the one Vincent Darlage put up on this forum earlier) would make for a very solid book.

* Some of them are antelopes, mountain buffalo, giant bears, snow-dragons, wild Cimmerian bull, mammoths, condors, carnivorous trees, undines, ghouls of Ghulistan, cannibal pithecanthropoids, Remora, hairy humanoids, man-ape/abominable snowmen, snow leopards, yaks, dire wolves, mammoths, grey apes, ape men of Pathenia, jackals, desert wolves, vultures, water buffalo, komodo dragons, carnivorous plants, manticores, wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, stegosaur-like dragons, stegosaurian dragons resurrected by dark necromancy, flying wyverns, Valusian serpent men, saber-toothed cats, lamia, mermecolions, etc.

I don't have my books here at work, so I can't check to verify this list.

 

[Odovacar's Ghost]

What I'd like to see more off are human opponents. Town guards, temple acolytes, cultists, thieves, assassins, prison guards, merchants, royal guard, etc.

I believe someone has created a few, or should I say, quite a few NPC charts.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/npcsheets.zip

Then you can modify them and say, hey this guy is a temple guard, and this one is my trusty footstool, oh and that guy over there, he holds my drinks. Yes he is a 18th level scholor who specializes in tasty drinks. Care to have some?

I hope that helps. Though, if you already knew that this existed, then perhaps I'm not understanding what you are wanting.

 

[Jason Durall]

What I'd like to see more off are human opponents. Town guards, temple acolytes, cultists, thieves, assassins, prison guards, merchants, royal guard, etc.

I believe someone has created a few, or should I say, quite a few NPC charts.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/npcsheets.zip

Then you can modify them and say, hey this guy is a temple guard, and this one is my trusty footstool, oh and that guy over there, he holds my drinks. Yes he is a 18th level scholor who specializes in tasty drinks. Care to have some?

I hope that helps. Though, if you already knew that this existed, then perhaps I'm not understanding what you are wanting.

I think the notion was having small writeups of them (with equipment, potential behavior, descriptions, etc.) as opposed to a big spreadsheet.

 

[Odovacar's Ghost]

Ah, well, no one said anything about a notion. Perhaps if it was better described what the original notion was, then I'd have a notion to not post what I did.

But, I do believe there is a thread about varios NPCs.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2928&highlight=npc

But, on the otherhand, devising a book with bakers, soldiers, whores, lap-dogs, street-sweapers, and hand maidens would make a GM very lazy. Not ever having to use their brain in making it up themselves.

Then, when a book does come out, we can complain that the book isn't good enough because there are no zoo keepers, pictish fish cleaners, Cimmerian poets, Drunk Zamorians, and stygian midwives.

Oh and the number of errors, and the needed faq's which have their own faq's. Then we'd call the book "The source for all lazy GMs who need NPCs: The Mu Edition"

This by all means is not a rant. I'm just happy that I'll be playing soom billiards today.

 

[Jason Durall]

But, on the otherhand, devising a book with bakers, soldiers, whores, lap-dogs, street-sweapers, and hand maidens would make a GM very lazy. Not ever having to use their brain in making it up themselves.

On the other hand, few systems are as time consuming as d20 when coming up with NPC stats.

Many GMs would probably prefer to use that time to making cooler adventures.

As for myself, I work long hours (often 60 a week, 80 is not unheard of, and I've had a few 100-hour weeks in the last 18 months), and do freelance writing and proofreading for three RPG companies (Mongoose included). As I'm in the MMORPG industry, I need to spend a dozen or so hours a week playing online games, studying them, learning what the competition has and how we can do better. I have my share of the household duties, I like to read, and one night a week is taken up with my friend's Call of Cthulhu campaign. In addition, I'm swamped with wedding planning, and have a wonderful fiance who would like some attention, also.

Frankly, if wanting to spend less time rolling up stats for NPCs makes me lazy, that's an interesting standard...

 

[Evilschemer]

A book or at least a collection of common NPC's would be fantastic. "Enemies and Allies" for D&D has a few, but I have to convert them to Conan (armor DR, weapon damage, dodge/parry, magic, etc.).

That's probably the only frustrating part. Conan's rules are fantastic, and we're thinking of importing them all into our D&D games, but it's a pain in the butt having to convert all the NPC's and monster's stats (at least those listed above).

The spreadsheet mentioned earlier is a useful start, but I'd love to see some more variations, such as town guards, temple acolytes, commoners, hired assassins, merchants, etc. So that I didn't always have to constantly make adjustments.

 

[urdinaran]

The spreadsheet mentioned earlier is a useful start, but I'd love to see some more variations, such as town guards, temple acolytes, commoners, hired assassins, merchants, etc. So that I didn't always have to constantly make adjustments.
_________________
Christian Conkle aka Evilschemer

I would like to see the same also, but i think alot of times people are too concerned with creating high level min-maxed characters - " ... for a total attack bonus of... ". I would like to see NPCs of different levels, from differet perspective, but not min-maxed. NPCs that can be dropped into an adventure to give it some flavor.

 

[Tristan]

What I'd like to see more off are human opponents. Town guards, temple acolytes, cultists, thieves, assassins, prison guards, merchants, royal guard, etc.

I'll second the notion. It would definitely save time and allow a GM to keep things open for the players with minimal hassle, especially in a sprawling urban environment. I'm hoping some of this is done in the Shadizar sourcebook since I want to try a few urban-focused sessions at some point.

 

[Orkin]

REH mentions an animal that makes me wonder what he was thinking about. What's a "panther"?

In the States, this usually refers to a mountain lion, puma, cougar. The "black panther" is actually a black leopard. Europeans and east Indians usually mean "leopard" when they say "panther".

So what gives, can it be both, or neither?

 

[Evilschemer]

Regarding sample every-day human NPCs archetypes, Dragon Lords of Melnibone (the d20 supplement) has a chapter of exactly these: town guards, pirates, cavalry, merchants, tavern wenches, street urchins, etc., that can easily be ported over to Conan.

 

[Jason Durall]

Regarding sample every-day human NPCs archetypes, Dragon Lords of Melnibone (the d20 supplement) has a chapter of exactly these: town guards, pirates, cavalry, merchants, tavern wenches, street urchins, etc., that can easily be ported over to Conan.

I dunno how easy that'd be. I wrote the only published source material for DLOM, Slaves of Fate, and created a slew of NPCs. As Conan has different classes, feats, and different systems for creating characters, it might take a bit of work depending on how "legal" you want your NPCs to be.

Myself, I just cheat a lot and reuse different NPCs from a basic template - fudging the numbers here and there as suits my needs. But I come from a long period of minimal prep GMing (for games like Amber), which taught me how little I really needed, statwise, to pull off good adventures.

On the other hand, I'd sure like a digest like that for Conan.

 

[sword'n'buckler]

I agree that such a sourcebook would be of great value to many GMs, myself included. I resent the suggestion that my desire to save time for many routine and yet specific / colourful NPCs suited to a Hyborian campaign. I am extremely busy and roleplay an awful lot less than I would like, quite simply, because of the logistics of writing. One of the biggest timesavers would be useful NPC templates. The write ups, coupled with atmospheric excerpts from Howards works, would be excellent flavourinjg as well (often providing ideas and inspiration when I read RoK or the Core Rulebook - and before the emails start flooding in, this is not lazy, and yes I have read all of Howard's original Conan tales, as well as many of the pastiches. It's just that you don't always have time to wade through various volumes looking for a definitive description of a specific character, situation or place etc...).

Anyway, that's my twopenneth for what its worth. I'd support and buy the book if such ever came out!