Weird Revisited: Gnomes: Magical Mystery Tour

The original version of this post appeared in 2010, the first full year of this blog. It relates to the setting I briefly ran (and wrote about) prior to launching into the City and Weird Adventures. I late stole ideas from this setting for other stuff.

 

As mentioned before, there are two types of beings called "gnomes" in the world of Arn. One is a scholarly group akin to halflings, inhabiting and maintaining the Library of Tharkad-Keln. The other are ultraterrestrials--extraplanar beings--who have been characterized as an annoying group of pilgrims, or even less charitably, as an infection of the Prime Material Plane. It is this second type of gnome that will concern us here.

Gnomes usually appear as diminutive men with nut-brown skin and large, amber eyes. There are reports of green-skinned gnomes, and youthful females, but these are more rare. No one knows if these different forms reflect real differences within the gnomish race, or are only affectations.

Their demeanor is often perplexing, as well. They often project a knowing amusement in their interactions with other intelligent species, but can at times view even the simplest and commonplace things with child-like wonder. Unless directly threatened, they often seem blissfully unaware of dangerous situations.

No one knows on what plane the gnomes arose. Some hold that it was the elemental plane of earth itself, given their connection with that element. Others hold that they hail from an alternate material plane with a higher concentration of elemental earth. Wherever they came from, they're now a race of travelers--though the purpose of their travels is mysterious.

Gnomes go anywhere there is elemental earth. They somehow dwell within--and move and communicate through--something they refer to as "tesseract networks" within the elemental particles of earth (which as all natural philosophers know are cubic in nature). Gnomes occasionally invite other sapients into their "networks," but those who return are unable to give coherent descriptions of what they have seen.

Certain species of mushrooms represent "nodes" in the gnomish network, and are places from which gnomes emerge into our plane. Consumption of these mushrooms expands the consciousness in unpredictable ways--sometimes allowing experiences of the areas around other nodes in the gnomish network, perhaps in other time periods, or allowing direct mental communication with the intellects of the gnomes themselves. The minds of other species don't always recover from these experiences.

Despite their alien nature, gnomes are generally friendly toward other intelligent races. They will often trade gems or precious stones, though the items they desire in exchange can't be predicted. They are often skilled mages and have been known to join adventuring parties for a time, when they can find one willing to put up with their eccentricities. They go and come as they please with no explanation.  Mostly, they observe with interest, as if the world was a play put on for their amusement.

Weird Revisited: The Like You for Your Brains

The original version of this post appeared in 2011...

Bored with the standard monsters? Tired of the same old thing? Here’s a couple of mechanically-unchanged stalwarts with a shiny new finish:

Moon Men
Mysterious beings that appear by night and move silently to feed upon the minds of humans. Moon Men appear as tall humanoids whose heads are hidden beneath gleaming, featureless domes. These scientist-sadists rarely make any attempt to communicate, and treat other sentients with clinical detachment, as if they were mere cattle.

These are good ol’ mind flayers--because tentacles are so last year. The only change would be to dispense with the tentacle attack--or maybe keep it and have pseudopods emerge from a Moon Man’s liquid metal head. With that option, they might literally eat brains, but otherwise its the mind they’re after, not the meat.

Though the picture is Mysterio, the name was inspired by a pulp hero with a similar look.

Brain Parasite
“The brain was in a serious state of liquefaction. Only the brain-stem had any discernable structure. A puncture in the back of the skull likely indicates where the creature insert its venom...Yes, that’s the thing in the preservative vat there. It was completely invisible--or more precisely, simply, unseen--on the victims back until it was killed.  And by then it was too late.”

These reskinned intellect devourers look like the zanti from the Outer Limits and act sort of like the mutant spiders from Metebelis 3, the titular Planet of the Spiders in Doctor Who. I imagine they inject some sort of a toxin into the skull, dissolve the brain slowly, and suck out the sweet, sweet juice over time. 

Weird Revisited: Aboard Aureate Majestrix on the Occasion of the Panarch's Anniversary

The airship Aureate Majestrix is a wonder, even by the standards of airships. It was carved by the hands of the Ancients from a single, massive stone of an unknown variety. Fitted with mirrors which serve as sails, it is pushed to its destination by concentrated magical energy beamed at it. Long ago, it was claimed by the Panarch, and now it is operated mainly to transport those of means from Imbis to the Panarch's capital. Today, it carries various dignitaries, courtiers, and seekers of influence to the celebration for the anniversary of the Panarch:

by Jason Sholtis

A hohmmkudhuk stone-shaper whose name is actually Mmungmatukt but he is not offended when called "Mung Matuk." His clan wishes to send a new Princess to establish a descendant warren in wilderness controlled by Omunth-Ech and wishes the Panarch to support their settlement. Mung Matuk bears a tableau vivant in stone that enacts a fanciful version of the Panarch's victory over the Great M'gog and the Gog Horde as a gift.

Yreul Dahut, Galardinet Officer of the Daor Obdurate armed with customary punishment rods. Her presence suggests there is a defector from her city-state's tyranny among the celebrants, and one formerly highly placed, as the Obdurs are notoriously frugal with state funds and disdain public spectacle.

Pwi dwek Abth, hwaopt senior scholar sent by the Library to record the events in that pedantic and overly detailed way hwaopt are famous for. He wears heavy perfume to mask his odor in deference to the "simplistic and unrefined" olfactory preferences of humans, but it is not quite sufficient to the most sensitive noses.

Zira Si, ostensibly a demimondaine in the entourage of--well, one noble or another, depending on who you ask. She is actually a powerful Green sorceress and prized agent of secretive Yzordadreth, Mountain of Wizards. When her mission is done, her confederates will swoop in under cover of darkness and spirit her away on a swift-winged and silent thrykee, and no one will remember she was ever there.

(more from this world.)

Weird Revisited: Zone Commandos!

The original version of this post appeared in 2017.

 

THE SETUP: In 1985, a deep space probe returns to Earth after being thought lost in a spacetime anomaly. It returns to Earth, dropping otherworldly debris in its wake. Across the globe, zones on anomalous phenomena and monstrous creatures are created!

Twenty years later, only special UN troops stand between humanity and the destruction of civilization as we know it!

It’s Roadside Picnic meets 50s monster and sci-fi movies/kaiju and 60-70s action figures like G.I. Adventure Team and Big Jim.

THE HEROES are mostly buzz cut military men like the MARS Patrol but with code names and personalities more like 80s G.I. Joe. Their ranks many be augmented by beings that appeared from an anomaly (Kirby-esque amazons, aliens) or people enhanced by barely understood and dangerous technology acquired from them (Atomic Man, THUNDER Agent sorts)

THE DANGERS are strange environments, monsters of all sorts of 50s and 60s sorts, from Zanti misfits to human mutates to giant mutant dinosaurs.

This is a refinement/re-imaging of my Rifts 1970 campaign idea, just a little more militarized and more informed by the early 60s.

My Less Popular Setting Ideas

 Not ever post is a winner, particularly in these days where blog-reading is at an ebb, but some ideas seem to garner more approval than others. It's not uncommon for a single, dashed off post not to attract an attention, but occasionally there are ideas I write multiple posts on that just don't seem to make what readers I have here and on other social media as enthusiastic as they make me. Admittedly, none of these I've actually tried to play, so maybe they just don't have what it takes despite my blogging interest in them. Anyway, here are three of them:

Scavengers of the Latter Days

Far future, rationalized ("hard"). science fantasy. I've written several posts on various permutations of this. The comments often suggest this appeals to me more than it does others. In fact, after my various riffs on uses of the the Great Wheel, this may be the D&D idea that seems to appeal to my readers the least. 

Planet of the Elves

Here, maybe it's about the presentation. I got a bit more positive reception when I presented the same idea but de-emphasized the post-apocalyptic nature and didn't mention elves in the name (and to be fair, the initial post garnered better comment than I remembered on the blog). Anyway, this is Ploog/Bakshi/Wood sort of stoner, fairytale fantasy.

Ways & Sigils

Ok, this one is admittedly a bit weird because it is really a science fiction or science fantasy thing, that just happens to borrow some elements from some classic D&D settings. Anyway, the idea is that in the future, essentially the Great Wheel is discovered via hyperspace, so it's a bit sci-fi Spelljammer+Planescape. I wrote a follow-up post, then sort of did a slightly different version of the same idea later.

Weird Revisited: Two Towns

The original version of this post appeared in 2018. These settlements go in this world, but certainly could be placed elsewhere.

Tuskinth: A village whose primary industry is nonnig husbandry. it specializes in the so-called healing breed of furry nonnig, whose purring and warmth is said to have a calming influence on the nerves which aids in healing, and of course, nonnig of any breed are highly nutritious and flavorful. The nonnig yards are composed of hill-mounds surrounded by small moats (the nonnigs avoid water). The nonnig breeders can be recognized by the mail gauntlets they wear on their left hands, to protect themselves from the sting of the mound wyrms that form a symbiotic relationship with the nonnigs and protect them from predation with the warrens. Some nonnig breeders may keep small mounds of scintilla-sniffers on the side, but the practical folk of Tuskinth look down upon treasure-seekers.

Harfo and Sons is the most prosperous of the breeders, though many in Tuskinth would opine that only the old man, Grenz Harfo has any particular head for nonnig-breeding. His eldest son, Halx, is a handsome dullard, and his youngest. Festeu, is a idler and wastrel. Of note, he does own a rare (outside of the Daor Obdurate) telesthetic hound. The poor beast is quite mad, made so by an over-sensitivity to human anxieties resulting from over-breeding. Its shrew-like snout is has a-quiver and dripping, and it's whip-like tail sways nervously.

Horbizond: Was the name of an ancient city, and also the current modest village that squats in a meager portion of it. The people of Horbizond dress in the decaying finery of the ancients and appoint their over-sized but crumbling homes in an equally ostentatious fashion. They live in holy dread of the Prismatic Man, an angular, crystalline visitant, who materializes at random intervals to isolated folk of the town. The actions of the Prismatic Man are various and strange. He has at times pointed with a glassy finger to hidden treasures. Other times, he has emitted a chiming that the hear perceived as some spiritual wisdom. Then there are the occasions when he has seemed to produce rays of color from his palms that struck an individual dead. If there is any rationale to whom the Prismatic Man favors and whom he destroys, the folk of Horbizond have yet to discern it. In fact, they believe it would be blasphemous to do so. The Hwaopt Library is willing to pay for detailed observations of the Prismatic Man, whose nature and purpose they are eager to discover.

Weird Revisited: People of the Feud

This alternate, sci-fi origins of Mind Flayers and Gith-folk first appeared in 2016...

 

There was a colony ship, sent out from Earth or a world very much like it to settle a new world. It's navigators had been genetically modified to take advantage of a new drive system allowing FTL travel. The majority of the colonist were placed into cryogenic suspension for the voyage.

Something went wrong. Inadequate shielding? Purposeful sabotage? No one remembers. The navigators began to mentally breakdown, expose to psychoactive and mutagenic properties of the manifold outside normal spacetime. The ship was stranded stuttering in an out of spacetime.

The navigators began to develop psionic powers and with them certain physical requirements. Boosted quantities of certain neurotransmitters. No synthetic source was available, but there were the stored colonists to feed on.

To help them manage the ship and their food source, the former Navigators awakened a military contingent, a few at the time. They mentally enthralled them and enslaved them. Molding them over generations.

As generations passed under the accelerated mutagenesis of the manifold, both the Navigators--calling themselves the Masters now--and their soldier caste had diverged significantly from their original genotype. The Masters had long ago authorized larger scale awakening of more of the colonists to serve as a more docile slave caste--and cattle.

The Masters grew complacent and removed from human concerns and feelings. They didn't see the revolution coming. A soldier named Gith lead a coalition of the soldiers and the menials against their oppressors they now called Mind Flayers after their manner of feeding.

The former Masters were either killed or used their power to flee into the non-space. The coalition that had brought about their downfall did not long survive. Former menials resented the soldiers as long time collaborators and the soldiers disagreed with the menials attempts to master Mind Flayer psionic disciplines.

When the ship was finally cannibalized and destroyed, two cultures had emerged as firm in their hatred of each other as they were in their former masters.

Flashback: DC at Marvel Collected Edition

The original version of this post appeared in 2018...

In case you missed the previous installments, here's a collated list of the posts I've done so far based on the idea that the staff at Marvel in the late 50s early 60s got to revamp DC's Golden Age characters (except for those that never stopped being published). The idea was introduced here.

All the characters presented so far are statted for the TSR Marvel Superheroes rpg:

The Atom The Nuclear Man!
Green Lantern Most Cosmic Hero of Them All!
Hawkman Master of Flight!
And a couple of villains Silver Scarab, the nemesis of Hawkman, and Star Sapphire--is she Green Lantern's lover or his enemy--or both?

Weird Revisited: Four Sinister Sorcerers

From the world of the City, here are five wielders of magic to challenge any party of adventurers:

The Algophilist: He’s older than current civilization, and he wants to make you hurt. His mistress is a goddess of pain, dead since the sinking of Meropis. Every tear evoked by her devoted servant, every scream and anguished cry he draws forth from his victims, brings his goddess incrementally closer to raising. Having learned (and suffered) at his goddess’ several hands for seven times seven years, the Algophilist knows numerous and varied ways to get his sacrifices. He can be met anywhere where the shadows make it easier for him to find victims, but he’s discovered a “backdoor” in and out of the alien city that overlaps with Hoborxen and often strikes from there, taking whoever mets his fancy to his sadist’s dungeon demiplane.

Hieronymus Gaunt: Lich and bon vivant (bon mourant?) currently on a world tour of debauchery and mayhem with a gang of followers in a stolen elephant-shaped hotel. In addition to his own sorcery, he's got a store of stolen magic items from all over the world.

Cheroot: Croaker (medicine man) and mugwump of a large hobogoblin tribe in the Steel League. He holds court in a large dump outside of Sunderland where he nightly incites the ‘goblins to ever greater crimes against humans. He wears a worn tophat which has the power to animate anything it is set upon (as long as it stays on it)--and Cheroot can command the animate to his service. The trash heap where he makes his throne is actually a garbage golem which will rise and fight for the shaman if needed.

The Unpleasant Woman in the Basement: What she lacks in looks, she doubly lacks in personality.  She squats like a gigantic toad amid the packages, correspondence, and pneumatic tubes in the basement mailroom of a midtown office building in the City. She's been there for fifty years and three building owners.  Those who displease her die in bizarre accidents or by suicide.  Nightgaunts fly at her whim. Scorpions will grow from her shed blood.

Weird Revisited: The Mighty

This post originally appeared in 2018...

 

Art by Jack Kirby

In the Country of Sang in the Land of Azurth, there are those born among the human tribes and city-states that have abilities beyond those of other mortals. These are the Mighty.

No one knows why the Mighty are so gifted. Some believe they bear the blood of the Ancients, who had mastered mastered sorcery and science to make themselves superhuman, while others think that they are specially chosen by forgotten gods. Often Mighty individuals will appear as normal humans until some sort of fateful trial or challenge, but these experiences are merely the catalysts of change not the source of their power.

Mighty Traits:

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. The Mighty live somewhat longer lifespans as mundane humanity, perhaps a bit over a century, but the mature at the same rate.
Alignment. The Mighty may be of any alignment.
Size. The Mighty are powerfully built and generally tall (6 to 7 feet, or sometimes more). Your size is Medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Athletic Prowess. You have proficiency in the Athletics skill.
Superhuman Endurance. You can focus your will to occasionally shrug off injury. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to roll a d12. Add your Constitution modifier to the number rolled, and reduce the damage by that total. After you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Strength Beyond Mortals. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Fearlessness. You have advantage on saves against fear.

Art by Bruce Timm

Weird Revisited: STAR WARRIORS!

In a distant part of the galaxy, on the worlds orbiting a giant blue star, a war wages between good and evil....

So begins a fairly derivative space opera saga and mini-setting for any game. Here are two of the primary factions:

The good guys:

The Lords of Light are the surviving members of the oldest intelligent species in the universe. They created the star system of the Star Warriors in the distant past. Most have become one with the Enigma Source, but are still able to advise the forces of good.

And the baddies:

The Demons were unleashed by the greatest failure of the race that would become the Lords of Light. These insectoid shapeshifters have harnessed the power of the Abyss--the entropic Anti-Source and use it to empower acolytes of their own. Their dark cult is behind much political unrest.

Weird Revisited: Hexcrawl Rann

The original version of this post appeared in 2016...

 

I've mentioned Krypton before, but that's not the only planet in the DC Universe that has a lot of crazy locations. Check out the map of Rann, I talked about in this old post. Here are some highlights:

Dancing Waters of Athline: A field of high-power geysers whose sprays are shaped by strong winds.
Flaming Sea: Flames sprout from the surface of this body of water.
Illsomar: A ruined city where Nimar, a megalomaniacal, super-intelligent energy being that resembles a gigantic, Bohr-model atom has taken up residence. He is able to animate humanoid figures of metal, stone, and sand to serve him.
Kryys: A city of ice in the polar regions.
Land of A Thousand Smokes: An area containing numerous fumaroles.
Old Reliable: A sinking island in the Sea of Ybss; a source of the rare metal orichalkum.
Samakand: An advanced city that exists outside of conventional spacetime and only appears once every 25 years.

Tower of Rainbow Doom: In the ruined city of Yardana (or Vardana), it is a sacrificial place for the primitive Zoora tribesman. When a switch in thrown in it's central room, concentric flashes of rainbow light surround a throne-like chair and transport anyone or anything in it to a neighboring planet.

Tenet and Further Meditations on a 4-D War

I saw Tenet last night, and I thought it was good, but I am typically a fan of Nolan's work. If you aren't I can't say you would like this one more than the others. It most resembles Inception with a plot involving a degree of spy fiction doings, overlaid with a science fictional conceit that is a strong, visual representation.

The film underscores nicely--and it's something I've talked about here before (this post is really just a reinforcement of those ideas, so check it out)--is how time travel/manipulation is how a temporal cold war provides a great set up for espionage paranoia. Shifts in allegiance and betrayal can have retrospective as well as prospective effects, and individuals changing over time can bring them in direct conflict with themselves in a very literal way. Your worst enemy could indeed be yourself.

Futility and fatalism, sometimes and aspect of spy stories, are played up in this sort of setting. If the best case scenario is that the world doesn't change drastically, then the protagonists are always stuck fighting for the status quo, no matter what the personal cost.

Wild Wild West Wednesday: The Night of the Skulls

This post appeared over at Flashback Universe a couple of weeks ago. Consider this a teaser and reminder that Jim and I are doing a Wild Wild West rewatch over there...

 

"The Night of the Skulls" 

Written by Robert C. Dennis and Earl Barret
Directed by Alan Crossland Jr.
Synopsis: West is a fugitive after appearing to shoot and kill Artie. It's a ruse, they leads him to a secret organization, rescuing fugitive criminals for a sinister purpose.

Jim: This episode really encapsulates some of the things we've been discussing the past few days.

Trey: That's right, folks. We talked about WWW even when not getting ready for one of these posts! But yes, I feel like it brings weirdness I like to see. Sure, a villain building a band of fugitive criminals for some caper, we've seen before, but it's the details: the skull make up and colorful robes, the kidnap hearse, the trial, and the insanity of the main villain and his motley, chosen group all lend what I view as the essential WWW touches. 

The writers are reported to have said: "We saw The Wild Wild West as a comic book type show, so we camped it up." I agree with their approach!

Jim: There is a good bit of humor in this episode. And the third act cliffhanger with West shooting Artemis (again) is one of the better ones. 

Like you,  I really liked the cloaked skull faced cabal in this episode-- though I found it amusing that the "girl of the week" Lorelei just got a domino mask.

Trey: Emblazoned with a skull, though.

Jim: I'm always impressed with the dining rooms of these secret, criminal cabals. The stylish chairs and sumptuous dinner makes a nice juxaposition with the various notorious thugs and murderers.

Trey: I feel like we may have seen that same table and chairs in a previous episode, but I'm not sure.

Outside of the camp and presentation, I think it's well done episode, with a fair amount of action and stuff for both Artie and Jim to do. There's a hint of friendly rivalry between them here which I think works. 

Jim: I was impressed with Artie in three different disguises. I found the aged minister at the funeral particularly good. It's no wonder he was nominated for an Emmy for this role, albeit not until the fourth and final season.

Trey: The only complaint I have is that Skull Judge and his crew are really quick to believe West has turned villain. I mean, even if he murdered Artie in a crime of passion, it seems a stretch that he's willing to help you overthrow the government.

Jim: That's the least of Skull's problems with rationality, I think.

Trey: True!

Jim: I have to say, seeing him rant at the end about how he's the rightful president of the United States hits a little too close to home!

Weird Revisited: When Noom Comes

This post first appeared in 2015...

There is one holiday in the Land of Azurth that can never be scheduled because it comes when it will. Loonsday, it is called, and on Loonsday, Noom, the shy, hidden face of the Moon, turns toward Azurth. When the light of smiling Noom shines down, many strange things have been known to happen.

Here are ten strange visitations that have occurred on a Loonsday, under Noom's beaming face:

1. Street cobblestones are disturbed as by ripples in a pond.
2. A strange, scintillant mist attaches itself to a person and follows them around for sometime making a soft sobbing sound.
3. People don strange hats and spontaneous start a parade, winding through the streets of the city, as if in some ecstatic trance. At some point, they cease their marching. The participants throw their hats aside and return to their previous business. They profess no memory of the events.
4. Inanimate household objects have come to life and demanded their freedom from enslavement for perhaps an hour before returning to normal.
5. A rat-king and its retinue emerge from the sewers to hold court in a city square. He will answer 3 questions about the future, promising that at least one prediction will not be a lie.
6. Someone finds a kazoo whose sound will banish lesser devils.
7. Shadows take on weight and texture of a thin piece of felt and detach from their owners with a bit of tugging.
8. A rain of frogs occur over an area of the city, but each frog drifts down slowly under a tiny parasol.
9. A swarm of small, translucent portuguese man-of-war fly through like balloons in a strong wind. They strike anyone in their path like thrown boxing gloves.
10. Small groups of people in odd clothes with their heads replaced by glowing orbs are seen in the streets. If accosted or hindered in their obscure tasks, they will search their pockets or purses and produce a few alien coins and give them to the person confronting them. The coins hum and writhe gently in the hand.

Loonsday inserts itself into the more sensible and regular calendar of Azurth without warning. The appearance of Noom in the sky will always signal that it has begun. When Noom has set (and not in the normal way but by simply drifting away like a handful of sand blown on the wind) Loonsday is over and the normal precision of time resumes.

Christmas Special Reruns

Years ago, I managed to do three "Christmas Specials" in my two Weird Adventures campaigns (though I only did 2 write-ups): "Twas the Fight Before Yule," and it's sequel, and "Another Weird Yule." In 2016, there was a holiday related cameo in my Land of Azurth game.

I at one time considered doing the reskin of Slumbering Ursine Dunes involving the Weird Adventures version of the Tunguska Event, the mysterious Siberian cauldrons, a captive Father Yule, and talking bears. I never did it, but I still think it would be great.

Weird Revisited: Encounters in A Martian Bar Before the Gunfight Started

Art by Jeff Call

01 A jovial human trader eager to unload a large, glowing jar containing squirming creatures he claims are Mercurian dayside salamanders.

02 A shaggy, spider-eyed Europan smuggler waits nervously for her contact.

03 Four pygmy-like “mushroom men," fungoid sophonts from the caverns of Vesta. They are deep in their reproductive cycle and close proximity gives a 10% chance per minute of exposure inhaling their spores.

04 A Venusian reptoid lowlander with jaundiced eyes from chronic hssoska abuse and an itchy trigger-claw.

05 Two scarred, old spacers in shabby flight suits.  They're of human stock mutated by exposure to unshielded, outlawed rocket drives.

07 A cloud of shimmering lights, strangely ignored by most patrons, dances around twin pale, green-skinned chaunteuses. It's  actually an energy being from the Transneptunian Beyond.

08 An aging, alcoholic former televideo star (and low level Imperial spy) with 1-2 hangers-ons.

09 A Venusian Wooly who just lost a Martian chess game to a young farm-hand who doesn't know any better.

10 A Martian Dune Walker shaman on his way to a ritual at a nearby Old Martian ruin, with a bag of 2d6 hallucinogenic, dried erg-beetles. He dreams of driving all off-worlders from Mars.

Weird Revisited: Tome of Draculas!

An orphaned Secret Santicore request in 2013 was for “better draculas.” This cryptic request I interpret in as referring to D&D’s propensity of turning unique creatures from mythology or fiction into a class of creatures. This blogpost was the result.

A dracula then is pretty much like the standard D&D vampire--except that they have a whole “urbane foreign noble fallen on hard times” thing going for them.  For a standard dracula, simply use your vampire stats of choice: give him (it’s going to be a him, most of the time) a foreign accent, a stylish cape, and a dilapidated castle.

With that in mind, here are some dracula variants:

DRACULA, AQUATIC
Aquatic draculas haunt sunken funeral ships or castles submerged by some natural or manmade upheaval. Draculas are restrained by running water, but relatively still lakes, inlets or lagoons provide a place where they may be active at least some of the time. Aquatic draculas are unable to summon rats, bats, or wolves, but crabs, sentient seaweed, piranhas, and unsavory otters are an option.

DRACULA, ANIMAL
Merely vampiric animals (besides bats) are impossible, but the power of a dracula’s curse is such that even beasts must succumb. Dracula dogs are the most common variety, but even cows have been known. Dracula animals have HD 7 and all the usual vampiric powers and weaknesses, plus whatever innate abilities they possessed in life. Magical animals may not be dracula-ized. (An alternate version of the hellcow appears here.)

DRACULA, LOVELORN
Some draculas ache for a love lost and often mistake some woman or another for this long dead inamorata. The charm ability of the lovelorn dracula often convinces the woman in question that she is indeed a reincarnation. Lovelorn draculas are mechanically identical to the standard version, but they are often hunkier and have flowing locks and a penchant for going shirtless. They seldom bother with summoning vermin, though they probably can.

DRACULA, NOSFERATU
These draculas are hideous and vaguely rodent-like in appearance. They lack the suave demeanor other draculas affect: they are either testy and animalistic, or creep- pathetic and lonely. They have a special affinity for vermin and can summon twice the usual number of rats. They also tend to bring plagues where they go and can cause disease. When exposed to sunlight they fade away rather than turn to dust.

DRACULA, OTHERWORLDLY
This dracula violates the "mostly male" rule. These draculas are mostly female and their foreignness comes from being from another world or plane where blood flows like water. They have none of the shapeshifting or animal summoning powers of usual draculas, but make up for it with HD 9.

DUST OF DRACULA
After a dracula dies, they turn to a reddish powder. This dust can be collected and made into a beverage when mixed with wine and human blood. When this potion is consumed, the imbiber must save vs. polymorph or painfully transform into a duplicate of the dracula whose dust was used.

Weird Revisited: Bugbear Nightmare

In dark places where nightmares thicken and curdle, bugbears are born. They're gangling things with burning coal eyes that stare out of snarled fur, black and featureless as the night sky between the stars. They haunt abodes of fear and shadow: abandoned houses, ancient ruins, sunless forests; they even squeeze into the recesses of children's closets and the forgotten world glimpsed in the gaps between floorboards. Any dark corner is a door to a bugbear. They crawl out with great sacks clutched in their spider-fingered hands. Snickering, murmuring, they snatch up children and small folk in their sacks and kill those who try and stop them. They drag the children back to their damp, subterranean otherworld, and what happens there is best not discussed.

Besides (one presumes) their kidnapped victims, bugbears subsist on such inedible provender as glass shards, potash, and the heads of rabid bats. They consider certain venomous toads an utter delicacy.

Azurthite bugbears are statted like regular 5e bugbears with the following differences:

Skills Stealth +6

Special Abilities:

Plastic. Bugbears can squeeze through spaces as small as 1 inch.

Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, a bugbear can hide as a bonus action.

Sunlight Weakness. In bright sunight, bugbears have a disadvantage to attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws.

Weird Revisted: Monster Apocalypses

The original version of this post appeared in October of 2013...

Zombie apocalypses have been done to death with films, books, and tv shows. Other classic monsters deserve their (proverbial) day in the sun, too:

Vampires: The most obvious non-zombie contender for virtually extinction of the human species. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend and it's various movie adaptations have already ventured into this territory (as has the film Stake Land and the TV show The Strain) --and the comics Planet of Vampires and Vampire Hunter D have already shown on vampire overrun post-apocalypses. Trading bloodsucking for flesh-eating is almost too obvious.

Piscoids: Cast them as Creatures from Black Lagoons, Manphibians, or walking catfish men, fishy humanoids are ready to climb from the depths and overwhelm the surface world. Perhaps a full-fledged takeover is the ultimate goal of the Deep Ones in Shadow Over Innsmouth? Global warming and rising sea levels would no doubt be part of their plan. A piscoid apocalypse might wind up looking more like Waterworld than Walking Dead.

Werewolves: Like vampires and zombies, werewolfism is passed by a bite, making them a reasonable stand-in. I don't know of any media werewolf apocalypses, but Dog Soldiers sort of does the "trapped in an isolated farm house" riff of Night of the Living Dead. Depending on exactly how the werewolves worked, things might be pretty tough for humanity: zombies are slow and dumb, while vampires have to sleep in the day time. Werewolves have neither of those limitations. Of course, their just humans in the day, trying to scourge for survival just like everybody else. Only at night would they join packs of killers to howl at the moon as they hunt through the ruins.

Frankenstein's Monsters: This seems like the biggest stretch given than Frankenstein had only one monster (or maybe two, depending on who you believe). Still, two monsters can overrun the world (unless they're giant, which still movies us out of zombie apocalypse analogous territory). Technology has advanced a lot since Frankenstein's day, though. Wein's and Wrightson's Un-Men in Swamp Thing (and Burroughs' Synthetic Men of Mars, for that matter) point the way: Mass production of monsters. In some ways, this would resemble an alien invasion apocalypse or robot apocalypse more than a zombie one--though perhaps the monsters "consume" humans by dragging them back to their secret factories to use as raw materials for more monsters?