Game Mod: Monsters Mash-up

I wrote a little bit about breathing some new life into your game by making custom backgrounds, and how if the idea of digging into mechanics is intimidating or you worry about unbalancing the game and then change the trappings around a mechanic.

While this was largely player-facing any Dungeon Master can do the same on their side with monster stat blocks. The easiest way to do this is to flip through the Monster Manual , and then find a stat block¹ you particularly think is relevant. For the Dungeon Delve mini-campaign, I had to come up with some new creatures that were being created by the otherworldly being at the dungeon’s end, and there was nothing in the Monster’s Manual that made sense for the story. Since I need a few different creatures; minions, harvesters, and soldier/guard types I thought about what other creature types fit those roles.

For instance, for the minions, I looked at the character level and then tried to think about what worked best for the story. I wanted these half-plant and half-Ghardillion-type creatures that would give off eerie creature-type packing a bit of a punch. I settled on the ogre, which had some classic fantasy vibes and was an appropriate CR. I grabbed the stat block I needed from the book and then changed the fiction. I then moved on to the next creature².

1. A stat block means the monster’s game mechanics such as attacks, hit points, saving throws, etc.Here is a link to the Thug stat block from Open5e as an example. ↩

2. If you’re interested in more intense re-skinning and creature creation, then I would recommend Forge of Foes from Teos Abadia, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, and Michael E. Shea, which brings this type of monster creation to a whole new level. ↩