Age of Conan - OD&D Hyborian Bestiary Forthcoming
So as I mentioned in the blog post I put up yesterday,
I've discovered that using standard OD&D summoning tables (per
Greyhawk) loses some of the flavor of the Hyborian Age--a lot of the
flavor, in fact, when sorcerers find themselves calling forth Elves,
dwarves, harpies, and normal warriors or "evil clerics."
Sorcerers in a Conan game should call forth creatures of the Outer Dark--demons and degenerates. As such, I've revised the summoning tables (a work in progress, obviously). Unfortunately, posting the revision now would do little good as I've called upon the following sources in addition to OD&D:
Bestiary of the Hyborian Age (Mongoose Conan)
Secrets of Skelos (Mongoose Conan)
Call of Cthulhu d20 (WotC/Chaosium)
Deities and Demigods (AD&D first ed. w/Cthulhu Mythos)
Monster Manual II (AD&D first ed.)
Can't just assume that everyone has these books.
As such, I'm working on putting together quick Age of Conan stats for all the creatures in these summoning tables. It's going to take some time and likely result in a brand new Age of Conan pamphlet when complete.
As of now, it begins with general rules for summoning. Following these rules, each summoning table is listed, along with a paragraph that describes and gives statistics for each creature in the preceding table (thus, you'll get Summoning I, followed by eleven paragraphs of monster descriptions and stats).
Each table works on a 2d6 roll (yes, meaning it'll be skewed to specific median creatures, but that shouldn't make too much of a difference in the end) and includes 11 creatures. There are seven summoning tables, meaning I'll be effectively releasing a Hyborian bestiary of the Outer Dark that contains 70-odd "new" OD&D-usable monsters, ranging from 3 HD to 9 HD. "New" is in quotes because these are all adapted from other sources, but they should be relatively new to OD&D. It won't be a full 77 creatures, as some of them are simply treated as OD&D monsters with minor tweaks (People of the Dark, for example, are treated as 3-HD OD&D orcs).
Just wanted to give you all a heads' up as to what's coming down the Pike for my OD&D Age of Conan rules. As of this writing I am just over halfway done with Monster Summoning II (4 HD) monster descriptions.
God, I wish I had the cash to pursue the license and do a full licensed roleplaying game based on my Spellcraft & Swordplay rules....
Sorcerers in a Conan game should call forth creatures of the Outer Dark--demons and degenerates. As such, I've revised the summoning tables (a work in progress, obviously). Unfortunately, posting the revision now would do little good as I've called upon the following sources in addition to OD&D:
Bestiary of the Hyborian Age (Mongoose Conan)
Secrets of Skelos (Mongoose Conan)
Call of Cthulhu d20 (WotC/Chaosium)
Deities and Demigods (AD&D first ed. w/Cthulhu Mythos)
Monster Manual II (AD&D first ed.)
Can't just assume that everyone has these books.
As such, I'm working on putting together quick Age of Conan stats for all the creatures in these summoning tables. It's going to take some time and likely result in a brand new Age of Conan pamphlet when complete.
As of now, it begins with general rules for summoning. Following these rules, each summoning table is listed, along with a paragraph that describes and gives statistics for each creature in the preceding table (thus, you'll get Summoning I, followed by eleven paragraphs of monster descriptions and stats).
Each table works on a 2d6 roll (yes, meaning it'll be skewed to specific median creatures, but that shouldn't make too much of a difference in the end) and includes 11 creatures. There are seven summoning tables, meaning I'll be effectively releasing a Hyborian bestiary of the Outer Dark that contains 70-odd "new" OD&D-usable monsters, ranging from 3 HD to 9 HD. "New" is in quotes because these are all adapted from other sources, but they should be relatively new to OD&D. It won't be a full 77 creatures, as some of them are simply treated as OD&D monsters with minor tweaks (People of the Dark, for example, are treated as 3-HD OD&D orcs).
Just wanted to give you all a heads' up as to what's coming down the Pike for my OD&D Age of Conan rules. As of this writing I am just over halfway done with Monster Summoning II (4 HD) monster descriptions.
God, I wish I had the cash to pursue the license and do a full licensed roleplaying game based on my Spellcraft & Swordplay rules....
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