Sucker Punch

This new Zack Snyder film had a fairly high profile at Comic-Con.  I don't know a whole lot about it, but the trailer has samurai, mecha, dragons, biplanes, and a zeppelin, so its got all that going for it.

Check out the trailer.

Now Playing: The SRD Monster Revue

In working on Weird Adventures, I've been taking a look at the monsters in the d20 SRD, thinking about how they might fit (or not) into the Strange New World of the City.  Here, for the creatures whose names are begin with the letters A through D, are my current thoughts, subject to change without notice:

A
Aboleth: evil Lovecraftian fish, surely exist somewhere. Probably somewhere in the deep South--evoking something of the ickiness of walking catfish, and eyeless cave species. Giant, albino, eyeless catfish--intelligent, and evil.

Angel: God’s (or Gods') got these servitors, definitely, but they're not called things like planetars or devas.

Ankheg: These probably exist somewhere, but they probably haven't be seen enough to have a name.

Assassin Vine: Tropical parts of the world are probably full of these things. I bet there’s at least one in some eccentric botanist's collection in the City, too. Or maybe in some unassuming florist shop.

B
Barghest: Things like this might haunt the remote forests of the Smaragdine Mountains, and probably parts of the Old World.

Basilisk: Native to Ebon-Land. Possibly extinct?

Bugbear: Congealed nightmare stuff.

Bulette: Grizzled prospectors and old Natives in the Western Desert tell stories about a predator that moves underground...

C

Centaur: Tragically, these Ealderde natives are now extinct. There was a small preserve of tamed and in-breed centaurs in the private forests of the Sultan of Korambeck, but they are no more. A few taxidermied specimens or skeletons can be seen in Ealderdish museums, though may of these may have been damaged in the Great War.

Chimera: Such fanciful beasts are the products of thaumaturgic experimentation, if they exist at all.

Cloaker: The Ancients left weird things in their underground cities.

Cockatrice: A rare creature that can be magically created, but doesn’t occur naturally.

D
Demon: Evil beings of chaos exist, and "demon" is a catch-all, lay-term for them.

Derro: Distorted tales of the Reds, told by unfortunates driven insane by their fiendish psychic torment.

Devil: The Hells are full of these.

Dinosaur: Found in remote Ebon-Land, or unexplored tropical islands.

Dire Animals: Yokels are always telling stories about over-sized animals (remember hogzilla?). Sometimes they wind up being true.

Doppelganger: Old Country legends are full of tales of this sort of thing, and superstitious immigrants bring those beliefs to the New World with them. And maybe the creatures, too.

Dragon: Another Old World creature believed to have been driven to extinction. There are sightings every year, even tha occasional dubious, grainy photo. The scientific community remains skeptical. They certainly aren’t arrayed in a toyetic spectrum of colors and metallic finishes, though.

Dryad: Tree spirits are known to exist, but tend to stay in more unspoiled forests. They can sometimes cause trouble for logging operations in more remote areas.

Dwarf: They appear in the world's mythology, but the closest thing to exist in historic times are the Dwerg-folk.

The Hills Have Eyes...And Teeth

If the regular human and hilly-billy giant inhabitants of the Smaragdine Mountains weren’t enough to contend with, travellers in remote areas may have to face ogres. Theses misshapen brutes are criminal ne’er-do-wells at best, and man-eating psychopaths at worst.

Ogres are thought to be degenerate relatives of the hilly-billy giants, and as such descendents of the Ancients. While the giants are generally well-formed and human-like in appearance except for their size (the males being a little coarsely featured, admittedly), ogres are misshapen in a variety of ways, akin various birth defects and disfiguring metabolic conditions. Ogres are also of squatter, more Neanderthalish build--they're typically around the height of the tallest giantish females (around 9 feet), but weigh as much as a male of the race.

The cause of the malformations of ogres is a subject of some scientific controversy. Some experts hold that its a result of centuries of interbreeding, combined with possible toxic exposures from the bootleg alchemicals that have been making for generations. Others believe that ogre ancestors made pacts with dark gods, and were twisted by forbidden magics--though even this school of thoughts concedes that a degree of inbreeding occurred when they were driven deep into the hills by the giant-folk. Still others think that ogres may be related to giant-folk in a way analogous to how ghouls are related to normal humans--a view likely to result in one getting “invited for dinner,” if voiced in front of ghouls.

Ogres live in extended family units back in shacks in the backwoods, or in cave lairs. Their relations are complicated due to interbreeding, so many members of the family will have dual relationships reflected in their kinship terms--”mother-sister,” “brother-husband,” or the like. In addition to making bootleg liquor and poor quality alchemicals, they also may waylay travellers on remote roads or trails. Robbery would be the least of one's concerns, as ogres are notoriously promiscuous eaters--they eat any sort of roadkill, and have been known to have a fondness for human-flesh. At the very least, they have a reputation for torture--something like bad children tormenting small animals, but on a larger scale.

Luckily, ogres don’t exist in great numbers. Rampant abuse of substances and violence kills many, and the same genetic defects that lead to their physical deformities cause a high rate of stillbirths. What they lack in numbers, however, they make up for in pure meanness.


Random Ogre Deformity:
Roll of 1d6 determines the number of deformities posessed by each ogre, then roll d20 the requisite number of times on the following table:

1. Eyes not level (1-3 inches difference)
2. Massive jaw with widely spaced teeth
3. Two small, useless, accessory arms on shoulder blades
4. One eye (40% chance of being centrally located, cyclops-like)
5. Cauliflower or absent ear (50% chance of either)
7. fleshy tubers on upper-lip (1d4, 1-2 inches long)
8. One arm boneless (50% chance either useless, or tentachle like)
9. Snaggle-toothed tusk
10. Six-toes on one foot (total toes still 10)
11. Ambiguous sexual primary characteristics
12. Extremely hairy ears
13. Scowling face of only partially absorbed twin on some part of body
14. Horn-like growth on some part of the head
15. Body covered by weeping pustules
16. Hunchback
17. Albinism
19. Excessive wrinkles, giving the skin a baggy appearance
20. Massively oversized  forearms