Magazine Monsters Part 2a: Creature Catalog #1 (Dragon #89) - Amitok-Flailtail

One interesting set of features Dragon published in 1984 and 1985 were the three Creature Catalogs: each a mini-Monster Manual (with 29, 18, and 24 entries, respectively), full of monsters that were largely forgotten thereafter. Many were created by master monster makers Ed Greenwood and Roger Moore, and they present the single largest untapped resource for monster ideas even today. I’m going to take a few posts to go through each, following the same format as last time.
 
Creature Catalog #1 (Dragon #89)

AMITOK – 2+HD Goblinoid
Print Status: 5e homebrews, possible inspiration for Pathfinder’s Wikkawak.
Comments: By Roger Moore. Snow-adapted Hobgoblins, though furry like a Bugbear. Some good environmental and behavioural notes (including the way in which Amitoks don’t collect treasure, except sometimes to use as bait for adventurers!). I do like these guys – because thoughtful reskins of ordinary Ancestries is a good thing. I could see myself using them in the arctic – a highly organised, predatory race of snow goblins.
Marks: 3/5
 
BEETLE, KILLER – 9HD Giant Animal
Print Status: Only in Dragon.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. Creepy gigantic beetles with psionic powers and four 20’-long tentacles with which to grab people. A very Greenwoodian creature. It is, perhaps, a bit overblown – and at 9HD AC3 a pretty rough encounter for all sorts of parties – but it’s very memorable and distinctive. It’s a good reminder that sometimes just sticking bits on to a monster really does work to freshen it up.
Marks: 4/5
 
BICHIR – 5-7HD Giant Animal.
Print Status: As “Giant Lungfish” in 2e Monstrous Compendium.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. Mudkip! I actually think these are creepy and disgusting. Flob, flob, flob they go, as they slurp across the ground towards you. They’re not exactly exciting – they’re not an “iconic” encounter like the Killer Beetle – but they’re a nice random or wanderer. Good environmental filler.
Marks: 3/5
 
BOHUN TREE – 10HD Sentient Plant
Print Status: Only Dragon.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. Carnivorous sentient trees with poisoned fruits which can induce sleep or paralysation...IF BURST. If eaten, it’s Save vs Death time. And they can fire volleys of thorns! And they have clusters of tiny eyes all over their trunk in fissures. This is pretty weird and nasty, and very Greenwoodian in its funky combo of powers. Very context dependent – it’s a tree! – but, then again, there are lots of types of forest and wood. A big treasure chest is tangled in its roots! It’s in a wizard’s screwed up garden! It’s grown in a Dryad’s Grove! Lots of seedables here (pardon the pun).
Marks: 4/5
 
CALYGRAUNT – 2+4HD Fey Animal
Print Status: Ruins of Myth Drannor and Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume One.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. A weird magic-item hoarding and using “feystag”. There’s a lot of detail here for a very situational monster. It’s not a trivial random encounter to develop, so really needs situating and contextualising: this guy has an item you want. This guy can activate magic items/learn command words, and he’s the only thing in the Feywood who can sort your newly-found treasure. You get the idea. It actually seems like an NPC idea rather than anything else.
Marks: 2/5
 
CANTOBELE – 2-4HD Animal
Print Status: MC11 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix 2.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. A six-legged mountain lion thing which can cast spells like ice storm and can attack with its tail as well as claws. This thing has what we’d now call “action economy” – an average 3HD creature with 8 attacks, at 1d4x6/2d4/1d6! It’s a strange combination of damage output and HP. Of course, as a predator, you would cast it as a lone stalker, ambushing the party (or using its weird feminine voice to lure them somewhere dangerous). I can’t quite get behind this one. There are interesting things here, but essentially it’s just a mega-lion with a lady voice. Of course, as it has Average-to-High Intelligence, the obvious thing would be to salvage it as a potential interlocutor, a dangerously intelligent horror who wants something from the PCs other than meat.
Marks: 2/5
 
CORKIE – 1+1HD Giant Animal
Print Status: Only in Dragon.
Comments: By Roger Moore. Uh. Giant rodents with two horns and a corkscrew tail. Valuable pelts, though, and their lairs might be inhabited by other beasties or shared with Gnomes. Not a complete dud concept, most usable as a morally ambiguous “target” (the furriers want a big haul, at mark-up prices, but the local Rock Gnomes are protecting them). Really environmental dressing more than anything.
Marks: 1.5/5
 
DULEEP – ½-6HD Amoeboid
Print Status: Only in Dragon.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. Wispy spider-web of identical cells that flows over surfaces and shocks those it touches. It also splits like certain other oozes! Quite creepy – a nice surprise monster. Basically right to see it as a reskin/respin on those other mobile oozes, with a good aesthetic. Stick it in yer dungeons, yer overground ruins, yer basements!
Marks: 3/5
 
EXPLODESTOOL – 1hp Fungus
Print Status: Only in Dragon.
Comments: By Alan Zumwalt. It looks like a normal mushroom! It explodes for 1d2 damage and can deafen nearby targets! This stuff is where some of the real gold is in D&D – this seems innocuous, but it’s an interlocking piece of environments you can create as a DM. The suggestions in the entry are good, including being inoculated with other mushrooms all around a castle’s walls. You sneak in – MUSHROOMS EXPLODE! – you’re deafened – GUARDS ARE FIRING! You get the idea. Oh...as they explode, they obviously spread spores – which you could collect. This is a rich idea, and a good tool in the toolbox.
Marks: 4/5
 
FACHAN – 6+3HD Ogre
Print Status: MC11 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix 2.
Comments: By Roger Moore. A one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged ogre (later also known as a Gruumskin). I’m sorry, this is stupid. This is a Dufflepud, but we’re meant not to see it as a comic prank played by a wizard. I like the way in which they’re weird ogre mutants; the seeds for harvesting parts to make magic items is good; the basic idea is bad, and silly, and is the wrong kind of funny. (Unless you’re running situations for laughs, not looking for humour to arise organically, as it always does.)
Marks: 1/5
 
FLAILTAIL – 3+3HD Giant Animal
Print Status: Only in Dragon.
Comments: By Ed Greenwood. A pretty functional freshwater manta ray. They can eat anything as large as a catoblepas! I see this in the same category as the Giant Gar – situational, and seemingly “bland”, but actually a pretty thrilling wilderness encounter. Remember, when designing beyond the encounter table, the trick with these sorts of things is to contextualise them – is this in an overland portion, and is a dangerous local predator? There could even be more than one in an area (Rare, 1d4 appearing). It could be in the marsh surrounding a Bullywug mound – think of an alternative to the Giant Frogs at the Moathouse in T1. A manta ray which smacks people into the water and then latches on is pretty terrifying, and liable to be remembered.
Marks: 4/5
 
Conclusion
A mixed bag, with a couple of genuinely weak entries (Corkie, Fachan – both Moore entries). The Amitok is one of the most flexible entries, along with the Explodestool, and the Killer Beetle, Bohun Tree, and Flailtail are all very good monsters. Not as much in the way of compelling “negotiation monsters” – the Calygraunt is a bit niche, the Fachan is dumb, the Amitok is literally just a Hobgoblin (though a good one!). The Cantobele, ironically, might be the most interesting challenge of that sort here, even though it’s not itself super-exciting.
 
I’ll do another 10 from CC1 next time.