Monstrous Menagerie 2: That’s So Satisfying
Hi! I’m Paul Hughes, the lead designer on Monstrous Menagerie 2: Hordes and Heroes (go and back it on Kickstarter now!)
With this book, which is composed mostly of all-new monster types, we had the freedom to do things that we hadn’t done before in previous Level Up books. And as I filled out the roster of low-level monsters for Monstrous Menagerie 2, I had an idea for flipping the script on typical monster design—in a small way at least.
Most monsters, besides their standard attacks and defenses, have some special rules that make things harder for the characters: they knock you prone, set you on fire, poison you, blind you, grapple you, or otherwise gum up the works.
This is great, but super low level characters—especially level 1 characters—are often so delicate that a few negative conditions can quickly bring adventures to a halt.
What if I went the other direction? What if we built an opponent that made you a more effective combatant—that made you briefly feel like a superhero?
I also wanted this one enemy to be free of moral complexity. Just as I love a foe that messes you up with negative conditions, I also love one that challenges you with moral quandaries and opportunities for role-playing and deal-making. But for this one enemy, I wanted a complete vacation from nuance: just a chance to really kick some butt.
Enter the energy mote. It’s a mindless particle of light that leaches life from its victims. About as smart as an amoeba, and about as dangerous as, say, a town guard, it’s individually a feeble opponent even for a single first-level player. But its mechanics are simple enough that you can easily run an encounter with a dozen at a time, perhaps supplemented with other, more complex monsters.
Energy motes are like the magic version of radioactive decay. They form as long-lasting magical effects slowly leak energy over the centuries. In well-patrolled magical places like schools and temples, even apprentices and acolytes are up to the task of removing the occasional wayward energy mote. However, in unexplored dungeons and long-forgotten sub-basements, they can accumulate in deadly numbers.
Energy motes are akin to elementals, but they represent a departure from the old-standard water, fire, earth, and air. Monstrous Menagerie 2 has got chronomotes (elemental particles of time magic), necromotes (shards of negative energy) and arcanomotes (representing the energy of magic items). Really, a full stable of a dozen of these little guys would be possible—I’d love to return to them some time in the future.
The energy mote’s central gimmick is this: When killed, it gives you an immediate and palpable benefit.
When you destroy a chronomote, it releases a little burst of “bullet time” that lets you immediately move up to half of your speed and take another attack. You can do this multiple times on a turn! If your attacks are accurate enough to get multi-hit combos, you can hack your way through a dungeon like a peasant rail gun.
When you destroy an arcanomote with a weapon, that weapon becomes a magic +1 weapon for one hour. This stacks, up to +3!
When you destroy a necromote, it gives back some of its stolen life: you gain temporary hit points. These stack too!
Each of these mote types allows a different type of epic battle that’s usually not available to low-level characters. The chronomote allows characters to speed across the battlefield, hacking down multiple foes in a turn like a whirlwind of death. The arcanomote lets your first-level characters play with powerful magic weaponry, and as a side benefit incentivizes characters to charge forward into more battles to get the most out of their temporarily epic weapons. And the necromote lets you soak damage, allowing you to fight wave after wave of foes—as long as you can kill them fast enough.
My hope is that energy motes, simple as they are, unlock some unique experiences for low level characters. As you smash a mote with a satisfying splat, a first-level character briefly feels the rush of being a Big Damn Hero.
