Monster Monday: Kalidahs

Kalidahs (C&C stats)

No. Enc.: 1-3, 6-36
Size: Large
HD: 6 (d8) + 6 HP
Move: 40 ft
AC: 15
Attacks: 2 Claw (1d10), Bite (1d10)
Special: Rake
Saves: P
INT: Low
Align: Neutral Evil (Neutral tendencies)
Type: Magical Beast
TR: 5
XP: 240+6

Kalidahs are forest-dwelling creatures that possess the bodies of bears combined with the heads of tigers, with long, deadly claws on their paws.  They are intelligent creatures, and speak the Common tongue as well as their own language.  Ornery and aggressive creatures, they will often attack travelers in their forests simply for the sake of being combative; they will sometimes fight among themselves if they lack opponents that can satisfy their battlelust.  Practical creatures, they are dismissive of beauty for its own sake.

Kalidahs will sometimes climb trees in pursuit of their prey, assuming the branches are strong enough to support their weight, and spaced out enough that they would have room to maneuver through the branches.  They are also good swimmers, and will pursue their victims into rivers or streams if necessary.

Combat: Aggressive and combative creatures, Kalidahs rarely bother with ambushes, usually charging directly toward their opponents.  They are well-aware of their fearsome reputation, and may be surprised if opponents do not flee in fear, but will usually charge into melee against said foes anyways.

Rake: If a Kalidah successfully bites an opponent, it can make two rake attacks with its hind legs.  Each such attack has a +3 bonus to hit, and inflicts 1d10 damage.

Weakness to Magic: Kalidahs don't deal very well with magic, and suffer a -1 penalty to any saving throws against magic attacks.

Kalidah King: If a Kalidah nest has two dozen or more Kalidahs, there will be a Kalidah 'King' present as leader of the pack.  Such a 'king' will have 7d8+7 HD, an Intelligence of Average, does not suffer the above-listed weakness to magic, and may possess some minor druidical magic (treat as a 3rd level Druid).

Source: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "The Magic of Oz" by L. Frank Baum 

This monster entry is part of the Monstrous Monday bloghop, courtesy of The Other Side blog.

Before Watchmen

(Prologue: April has pretty much been a wash, posting-wise.  Between the main computer being taken out by a particularly nasty bit of malware, the wife and I both being laid low for a couple of weeks with a virus of a more biological nature, the last-minute rush to get our taxes done, and a couple of other bits of minor drama have pretty much drained away both the time and the desire to blog on a regular basis.  I'm now shooting for May as my 'get my ass back in the game' target goal.  That said, the following link below is, to my mind, too important not to share.)

For those of you who aren't a part of comics, you probably aren't aware that DC will soon be publishing various prequels to Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen, without the input of the consent of the writer, Alan Moore.  Watchmen is one of the seminal works of the comic book medium, arguably the seminal work in the field of comics.  And now we're getting these various prequels, under the collective title of Before Watchmen, that quite frankly no one was seriously asking for.

They'll sell, of course, and sell well, because there are a certain segment of fans who don't care about any moral implications regarding this fiasco (quite frankly, a certain segment of comic book fandom is narcissistic and amoral enough that they would shiv their own grandmother to get their comics fix).  But people should care, and Heidi MacDonald over at the Beat has written an extremely detailed article about why you should care as well.

Edit: thanks to Greg Hatcher for pointing out this article, which also touches on the same topic.

STILL having computer problems...

...and while I can post from the laptop as need (as I'm doing now), most of the files I reference for the various AS related blog posts are on the main computer, which I can't easily reference at the moment.  Until this is resolved, posting will most like continue to be curtailed.

That said, while skimming through the blogosphere I stumbled across Howling Tower, where Steve has posted a rather nifty little subsystem that deals with chase scenes, easily adaptable to your system of preference.  It's a simple thing, yet easily modified to suit you individual tastes or needs.  In short, it's too good not to share.

New edition of Tunnels &Trolls this summer

Details here

Sad, but kinda funny at the same time

It never fails.  Have someone comment on one of the elephants in the room of modern American comics - the poor portrayal of female characters by the Big Two, and how that adversely affects female readership -  and the 'angry dumb' (as my friend Greg put it) come out of the woodwork, attacking the messenger for pointing out what should be obvious, with a vileness and stupidity one normally reserves for YouTube comment threads.

Don't believe me?  Check out Kelly Thompson's excellent article on the subject, and then - if you dare - wade into the comment section to see a prime example of certain male comic book fans living down to their stereotype.

Boycott Outlaw Press

It seems that James Shipman is continuing his thieving ways, blatantly ripping off the work of others for his Outlaw Press publications.  I confess that I'm not certain how much good it will do, but Paul Ingrassia over at the Troll Hammer Press blog is trying to organize a boycott, hoping to hit Shipman where it will hurt the most (the wallet).

Jim Shooter dissects Red Hood And The Outlaws #1

While I certainly don't agree with everything former Marvel E-I-C Jim Shooter has said and done, his breakdown of the now-infamous Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 really does highlight what is so very wrong with this particular comic, even aside from the questionable portrayal of the character of Starfire.  You can see the big guy laying down the smackdown here.

"The Write Agenda"

A brief post to let you know about a group calling itself "The Write Agenda", which are essentially a bunch of literary scammers.   Fortunately, Writer Beware is shining a spotlight on said scammers, documenting their various misdeeds here.



(Yes, I know I haven't posted much recently.  Yes, I need to get back on the stick.  Shut up already.)

DND character sheets for kids

While I still have a lot of stuff to write up (notes form DragonCon, two weeks worth of comics reviews, etc), I did want to link to these awesome D&D character sheets designed for 8 year olds.

T&T 8th edition?

It appears that Ken St. Andre has announced that their is work being done on an upcoming 8th edition of Tunnels & Trolls. I'm curious to see as to how it will differ, and how similar it will be, to the 7th and 7.5 editions of the game. In any case, it's good to know that the 2nd oldest published RPG still has some life in it.



Edit: or maybe not

GM Merit Badges

Stuart over at the Strange Magic blog has posted something that I find interesting, as he has designed several GM merit badges. The name may not be the best descriptive term, as 'merit' implies accomplishment or worth, and what Stuart is doing is detailing a way for gamemasters to let prospective players know what style of game they run, and what their preferences are.  Which I think is a fine idea, as much of the problems that occur during role-playing sessions is clashing game styles and unspoken assumptions.

I haven't run anything in a while grumble grumble but when I am eventually able to do so (either with the Trollslayers rules or with something else), I will use the merit badges to let the players know just what sort of game I plan on running.  In the past, different badges would have been picked, but this is what I have in mind for the eventual Trollslayers game:

Tactics are an important part of my games

My games focuses on Exploration & Mystery

I will Mirror back player ideas I think are interesting in the game

My games use a pre-made Map and pre scripted content (moreso the map than the content being pre-scripted, although rough outlines will be pre-developed)

The GM is In Charge in my games and "rule-zero" is in effect

My games rely on a lot of Improvisation rather than pre scripted content (within the already mentioned rough outlines)

I roll Dice in the open and don't fudge the results in my games

Players characters Death is a likely event in my games

My games are more of the Social, Fun and "Beer & Pretzels" style

Players in my game should be prepared to Run when the odds are against them

I frequently Tinker with the rules of the game

My game focuses on Player Skill rather than character abilities



Besides the aforementioned map/improv schism, some might also say that beer & pretzels is contradictory with tactics, death, and running.  Well, in my mind they fit together, at least.  And if not... very well, I contradict myself.

Recent superhero RPG news

Monkey House Games has filed a lawsuit against Fantasy Games Unlimited over the publishing rights for the Villains & Vigilantes RPG.  Given that for decades FGU let the publishing rights to V&V (along with their other various games) lie fallow, I hope this is resolved quickly in MHG's favor.

Also, it seems that Margaret Weis Productions has acquired the rights to publish games based off of the Marvel Comics universe.  While I'm not a big fan of the Cortex+ system, MWP has had a decent amount of success with licensed products in the past, so this looks like good news for gamers who are also fans of Marvel comics.

For everyone whining that it took George RR Martin too long to write A Dance With Dragons...

...John Scalzi is here to set you straight.

How Roy Thomas and Star Wars saved Marvel Comics

Some of you may have already read this, but if you don't normally read Jim Shooter's blog, check out his entry from earlier this week about how Roy Thomas' acquisition of the Star Wars license for Marvel Comics helped to keep the comic book company afloat.

Thoughts on the DC reboot

If you have any interest or connection to the world of comic books, then you have no doubt already heard the news about DC's rebooting of their superhero comic books.  Much has been made of this in the last few days, both positive and negative.  Personally, I wanted to wait a few days to give some thought on the matter before commenting.

Before I continue, I recommend you read Greg Hatcher's excellent analysis on the subject.  Go ahead, I'll wait.  Finished?  Good.  I'm pretty much in agreement with everything Greg says, so instead of repeating any of that, I'm just going to throw out a few extra random thoughts:

1)  52 titles?  Hopefully a decent chunk of those will be one-shots or mini-series, because as it currently stands DC simply does not have the talent pool to pull off that many ongoing monthly titles.  For the titles that have been announced so far, only Morrison taking over a Superman title is of any real interest to me, and even then there's the danger that it will wind up a watered-down version of his work on All-Star Superman (I was briefly interested in Teen Titans, until I found out that contrary to rumor Fabien Nieceza will not be writing it).

2)  Bob Wayne says it isn't a reboot, but at least some of the characters appear to be getting their origins rewritten (most notably Firestorm), so... "to-ma-to, to-mah-to".

3)  The books that Geoff Johns have been most closely associated with (Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman) seem to have the least amount of tampering with their backstories.  What a shock.

4)  The online/digital thing is a (potentially) much bigger game-changer that the reboot, but DC is straddling the fence here; they want to step outside of the confines of the direct market, but do not want to abandon the direct market just yet.  If digital sales do well, then DC may well drop the online costs further in hopes of moving beyond the comic book shop.

5)  While Greg notes that this is an excellent opportunity to get rid of some in-comic aspects that wouldn't do well when marketed to a larger audience, it should be noted that any changes to the Superman character are also probably inspired by the fact that Joe Shuster's heirs will be reclaiming some of the aspects of the character that were established in Action Comics #1.

6)  It's utterly hypocritical of me, but while I don't care much one way or the other about most of the changes that might occur, I would just as rather that the Legion of Super-Heroes and Jonah Hex books continue relatively unchanged.  LSH has already been rebooted multiple times to its detriment; if any title deserves to get a pass, it's the Legion ("that's okay, we already gave at the office").  Now that Levitz is finally starting to hit his stride on the book, I'm hoping he can work in any changes with a minimum of fuss.  As for Jonah Hex, there's no guarantee that it will even be among the 52 titles - sales for the book have never been that strong, which only goes to show just how much a large percentage of comic book fans suck - but if it is, hopefully DC will be smart enough not to muck things up too much.  

Finally, these changes don't take place until September.  We've got a good three months to see how things are going to play out; no need to go into a tizzy just yet.  Which doesn't mean some fans aren't doing exactly that...

(wonder what Hitler thinks of the new Mr. Terrific title?)

Trollslayers - Broken Swords & Shattered Shields

Note: the following is essentially a lift of an idea that Trollsmyth puts forth here, which I've swiped for my own purposes, with some tweaks and modifications.

During combat, a participant can forgo taking damage from a successful attack by sacrificing either a shield or a weapon, under the assumption that is was shattered while parrying/ deflecting an incoming attack. 

The only caveat is that it must make a certain amount of sense for the defender's shield or weapon to be able to absorb the damage of the incoming attack.  In practice, this generally means that the incoming attack must either be a blunt or cutting weapon (not counting daggers), as piercing attacks usually would not break an opposing weapon or shield.  The defending item to be sacrificed can be either a shield, or pretty much any weapon except a dagger (not counting main-gauches, daggers just usually aren't used much as parrying weapons).

If being attacked by a big monster (one that has enough mass and STR to break a defending weapon) that is attacking with its natural limbs and/or claws, if a cutting weapon is sacrificed to deflect the incoming attack, said cutting weapon in this case also does half the weapon's base damage to the monster.

Is my love for the cyclopean abnormal...

...or merely decadent and hideous, to be shunned?

A to Z Blog Challenge

And now for something a little different...


I haven't been entirely happy with my output for the blog as of late.  Granted, that's a self-imposed standard as to how much I should be writing, but it bugs me nonetheless if I feel I'm 'slacking off' in terms of posting.  However, instead of simply whining about it (which I've been called on, and therefore will endeavor not to do), I want to take a different approach.

And so, I'm joining the A to Z April blog challenge.  The idea is simple:  For every day in April (not counting Sundays), I will post something following a certain theme, starting with something based around the letter A on April 1, and work my way up to Z at the end of the month.

This will be in addition to the normal stuff I try to write here (the Trollslayers stuff, the Rush reviews, the comic book reviews,etc).  Hopefully, I will still be able to get that sort of thing out at a reasonable pace.

Because it's been something that's been drawing my attention of late, my personal theme will be based around the Villains & Vigilantes superhero RPG.  Specifically, I'll be posting a total of 26 NPC characters, ranging from A to Z.

Let's see if I can do this...

We've lost another one

Grognardia is reporting that classic D&D artist Jim Roslof has passed away.  Although his name wasn't as big as Gygax or Arneson, it's still a sad day from long-time D&D players.

I've got your 'Hot Elf Chick' right here, pal

There's been a recent... thing? meme? going round certain gaming blogs regarding posting images of 'hot elf chicks' as a ploy to increase traffic to their websites.

What the hell, I'll play:

See, she's obviously an elf, because why else would she be green?  And since she's being set on fire, that means she's hot, and... crap, I'm not doing this right, am I?







Original source of image