Vanishing Scout Bush

Vanishing Scout Bushes are a strange breed of creature used as scouts and spies. When they're not fighting, they appear pretty much like a large bush a little bigger than a person, all told. They can even stand up to a little investigation, though it will quickly become apparent that this is no ordinary bush: they have nasty spikes and the woody core of the creature is much thicker than it needs to be.

When they stand up for combat, they have a roughly humanoid shape, but covered in thick vegetation. Their fists are tipped in long wooden spikes, and getting hit by one tends to hurt a lot. That said, they really don't like fair fights. They can retreat quite rapidly, and they will do so if faced with serious danger: they're scouts, not warriors. They are cunning enough to appear directly behind foes to strike from behind though.

Vanishing Bushes are designed as servitors for some villain. They work well as Fae or as the creation of a wizard. They can also be used as demons or as forest servitors, all with minor adjustments.

ST	25	HP	25	Speed	6.5
DX	14	Will	14	Move	6
IQ	8	Per	14
HT	12	FP	12	SM	0
Dodge	9(12)	Parry	10	DR	8 (hardened 1)

Thorny Fist (14): 2d+3 impaling

Teleportation (12): Vanishing Bushes can simply leave their locations, appearing at another. This is utterly silent, and they can do so quickly. They can ignore up to -5 in range or time penalties. They cannot, however, leave an area within 10 yards of any part of a fir tree. A handful of dry needles or a branch of the tree will suffice, but a single needle or old twig will not. If one attempts to teleport into an area with a branch, it will be stunned until it can make an IQ check (yes, that's going to take a while), and then the dread will effect it.

Camoflauge: Vanishing Bushes look pretty much like bushes: motionless and quiet. A bystander who isn't on the lookout for non-human foes is at -5 to spot them, and even a wary adventurer looking for general trouble gets a -2 for potentially over looking bushes. Conversely, +2 can be gained by a successful Biology, Naturalist, Gardening, or appropriate hidden lore roll. If the onlooker is familiar with the area, an Per check will reveal the additional bush. A Typical example would be the neighbor's front porch.

Traits:  360 degree vision, Chameleon 2 (effects sight and sound), Dark Vision, Doesn't Breath, Doesn't Eat or Drink, Doesn't Sleep, Dread (fir trees), Immunity to Metabolic Hazards, Injury Tolerance (Homogeneous, No Blood), Social Stigma (monster), Warp (blink, weakness: fir trees, no signature, penalty cancelling 5, reliable)

Skills: Brawling - 14, Stealth - 16*, teleport - 12, body sense -14, observation -15
*includes +2 from chameleon. If the bush is not moving, this bonus is doubled, and the bush has stealth -18. See the camoflague entry.

Build Notes

This monster was created using the Monster Hunters Foe Generator, off the seat of my pants. Most of the time I take a bunch of time when using the generator. On Tuesday I needed a monster off the seat of my pants, and built the monster pretty much during play. Its based on the weak demon from monster hunters 3, plus the special abilities given. I don't think any of the players noticed, because they were busy looking through the park for the demons. I really like the way it turned out.

I beefed up the warp a lot, uncapping range, adding blink, and emphasizing the silence. I also dropped the leech (standard) I got in the roll, because it didn't really fit -- though blood sucking plants are a staple of dungeon fantasy.

The penalty cancelling 5 is the reliable enhancement, with the condition that it can't actually raise skill. I did this because I didn't want their blink defense to be sky high.

I kind of bent the rules with Chameleon. Chameleon has an "extended" enhancement that's normally supposed to apply to infravision, not sound. There is an almost identical advantage called "Silence" that applies to sound. But I wanted both Chameleon and Silence without actually stacking their bonus, so I used the extended enhancement. I'm still looking at how that worked, but I'm feeling happy with it at the moment.

Blog or Treat: Remembrance Thief

Perhaps one of my favorite posts on this blog is also my oldest: Demons and Fae. It examines the demon variety chart in Monster Hunters 3 (page 19) and talks about how it can  expanded and used to create Fae. It also talks about how a single monster concept can be used for multiple monster types, and it inspired me to actually write an expanded table and build a generator so you don't have to roll 50 dice to get answers.

This monster was generated using those tools and posts, but this time I'm not picking a monster type: I'm showing how the monster can a demon, an evil fae, or a type of vampire. I hope you find the monster evocative.

The monster is focused on Monster Hunters, as the original posts and the book that inspired the creature are focused there, but it can fit in variety of campaigns, particularly standard horror.

Adapting Collaborative Gaming to Monster Hunters

The Collaborative Gaming System is obviously made for fantasy, and skews that direction. But how hard would it be to run it with a different genre? Like say, Monster Hunters. I decided to go ahead and do that, and tell you guys about the modifications I had to make. The modifications are fairly large, but they are also fairly simple.

• Adjust Monster Type Table
• Treasure and Fame become saved lives and monster slaying
• All Adventures start off as investigation, with starting clue
• Solo 6 for What, Where, When, Who, and Why being obvious
• How far is changed to 'how fast is the investigation take place'
• 'Dungeons' are changed to 'Lairs' and 'Crime Scenes' (info areas)
• Connect Clues with Lore Points
• Peril and Monster Hunters Balance

Monster Type Table

One of the big obstacles is that the monster table given isn't appropriate. Of course, Monster Hunters has a fairly standard list of foes. These foes are different for each GM and setting: Fae may or may not be a big foe. You may or may not want aliens in your game. You may or may not want to come up with a mutant animal on the spot when asked to. Psi may dominate your game or not be included at all. You may have a full demi-human cast like Monster Hunters International or none at all. That said, as long as you know what you want, building the table is easy.

This is my own version:

	1	2	3	4	5
	Undead	Spirit	Living	Humans	Aliens
1	Vampires	Rouge Angels	Lycanthrope	Rouge Crusader	Greys
2	Vampires	In Betweener	Lycanthrope	Cultists	Nordics
3	Ghost	Demons	Lycanthrope	Rouge Psi	Alien Monster
4	Mummy	Demons	Mutant Animal	Rouge Witch	Reptoids
5	Zombie (Curse)	Fae	Legendary Creature	Rouge Experiment	Stalkers
6	Zombie (biological)	Fae	Custom Curse	Campaign Emphasis	Campaign Emphasis

On 6: Campaign Emphasis
Lycanthrope: 1-2: wolf, 3: eagle, 4: bear, 5: tiger, 6: random animal
Alien Monster: 1:Insectiods, 2: Phasites, 3: Devourers, 4: Disease, 5: Create New, 6: Campaign emphasis
Legendary Creature: Use chupacabra if you need stats premade. Or get creative and pick yetis, lake monsters, a dragon, or your local legend
Custom Curse: This is a curse on a creature or person.  It should be considered a 'living' creature.
   
The four campaign emphasis options should be picked at the start of the campaign: they show what is emphasized in this campaign. It doesn't have to be a new category, but it doesn't have to be an old category either. An entire category of 'curses' or 'demihumans' could be added. Rouge humans could be another Witch or Psi, but it could be Men in Black or a mad scientist. At this stage also prune what you don't want, and replace it with options you want to emphasize. Perhaps all psi is replaced with magic, or perhaps you don't want cultists.

Further, You should always roll on this table when picking a villain -- but don't roll on the table until you have clues that tell you what the monster is, or what its 'appears' to be. This table may very well come up more than once for a single hunt!

Treasure and Fame: Lives and Slaying

Monster Hunters don't fight for money (ok, some do, but they're exceptions) and they despise fame: it endangers the secret. They want to save people and to kill monsters. So on the rewards table replace 'rates' with 'lives saved' and Social points with 'Monster Killing': instead of Standard Rates with Fame and Glory you have a moderate number of lives at stake with the opportunity to kill an exceptional number of monsters.

Starting Adventures, or should I say Hunts

On finding Adventure, Monster hunters generally have trouble come to them rather than the other way around. The initial clue, the inciting incident, isn't just scene dressing -- its an important part of the investigation.

1:You notice a odd behavior or a monster
2:Someone is dead
3:a monster attacks a player
4:Research yields behavioral clues
5:Someone else notices an odd behavior and tells you
6:Mystical Means

Don't roll up the adventure type until you know what its going to be: the majority of monster hunter adventures start with investigation. You have five things to figure out: What, Where, When, Who, and Why. At the start of an investigation, roll the solo 6 for each, asking 'is this obvious?' This doesn't mean the answer is correct, just that it appears this way. Investigation is required to confirm each, at which point, you roll the solo 6 again to see if the fact was true...

The adventure type table is also a little skewed towards Fantasy activities and away from monster hunting ones. In particular, compete and explore tend to be rolled a lot more than your typical monster hunters would want, and we want more emphasis on investigate. Change compete and explore rolls of 5 or 16 into investigate rolls (about half of compete or explore quests become investigate adventures).

Distance and Time

The distance category is technically measured in 'Units of Time to location', but this can be tweaked to represent how easy the investigation is to follow: and as a consequence how long each step of the investigation can take. Actual distance may be involved as well, but the most important measure is the dominant unit of time.

Its also probably a good idea to increase the sense of urgency at the lowest level: Change "No Particular Rush" to "People die, but at a category one slower than expected, and it won't go away with until dealt with".

Dungeons and Crime Scenes

Monster Hunters don't really do journeys. You have special skills that let you find the danger, you don't encounter it just wandering around. The way they do dungeons is also different, but surprisingly similar. Most Dungeons are a single area: Usually a crime scene or a monster lair. Roll for the entrance if there is a chance of hostiles. Be creative about the word 'guarded': it could be a lock, could be a ward, could a security alarm. Or actual guards. When rolling for opportunities roll on the 'best' category of 'safe', 'info' or 'lair'. When rolling for mishaps, choose the least dangerous option that makes sense -- monster hunters don't do a lot of combat.

Dealing with Clues and Lore Points

Lore points are of especial interest: They are good for a +1 clue that you wouldn't have expected at the scene. Bad guys make mistakes! Roll on the table for what kind of tip was left.

1: What 2: Where 3: When 4: Who 5: Why 6: Player choice or other useful info

If the category has already been solved, treat it as a 6, and choose what kind of a clue you need.

When selecting clues, come up with an 'apparent' adventure. Why clues can be inspired by adventure types. What clues use monster types. Who clues use random pieces of NPC. When Clues use the 'What's the rush Table'. These are mined for little bits and pieces, though players should feel free to use the solo6 to confirm or disprove theories before rolling for completely new data.

Peril and Balance

The peril system isn't quite as applicable for Monster Hunters -- and sometimes you'll get responses like 2N rouge angels -- what do you do then? Well, you do your best. Let peril make things harder or easier without changing the stats

In Summary

I hope you enjoy this. In some ways, its can aid in GMing as well as in solo or collaborative play. I goofed around and quickly generated a couple of fairly interesting monster hunters plots. The system is really good, and as you can see, not really that hard to adapt to monster hunters. Happy hunting!

Monster Hunters Foe Generator

Welcome Demons/Fae Advanced Demon/Fae Crusaders Psionists Experiments Mages

Monster Generation Traits

In a previous post I talked about the tables I use to generate monsters. Here they are. As a warning, these tables are not provided with numbers to roll on, because they don't come out evenly. Either find an online random number generator or pad out your own table. Or just raid mine for ideas.

The monsters come out best when the traits are not particularly random, but with well chosen numbers of each type of trait. The two sets I use most often are

Monster Hunters: Demons and Fae

Gurps: Monster Hunters is a wonderful series of books about heroes who actively chase down vampires, were-wolves, demons, and the like. Its an engaging genre that appears to be on the rise in general.

Among the list of inspirations for the settings is the Dresden Files. Its particularly reference as an inspiration for Monster Hunters's magic system. Unfortunately, Monster Hunters only obliquely references the most common supernatural character type in the Dresden files: the fae. And while a 3e supplement of Gurps deals with faeries in general, it doesn't provide the right feel.

A few days ago, I had a revelation.