What the world needs now is more monsters

Well, not really but to be honest, I've been reading, playing, talking about and dreaming about fantasy gaming for many a year. In that time, I've become a bit jaded with the standard fantasy tropes (say it ain't so). No, I'm not some disgruntled grognard or some young kid that prefers Dragonball to Dragonlords of Melnibone. No, I don't think it's the fantasy tropes in and of themselves; it is just the way that they are used that really gets me. Over the past four years or so (coinciding with my interest and involvement in the Old School Renaissance), I've become much more of a fan of humanocentric gaming (and I suspect that contributes to my growing appreciation of basic forms of Dungeons and Dragons over my life long love affair with the Advanced rule set. You see, I like my fantasy to be somewhat mysterious. The human experience of interfacing with the unknown and/or the fantastical. I can't make any authoritative comments, but it is my impression that I'm not the only one that feels this way within the OSR. So, to get to my point, I pulled an interesting book off my book shelf today with a desire to mine it for ideas. Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encycolpedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose is pretty much just what it sounds like; a catalog of critters from folk tales and legend. I really like the idea of creating unique monsters, or individualizing them to make the players not just keep guessing; but to avoid the *yawn* insert pointy end of sword into orc/goblin/bugbear/gnoll serial number 123434lbn7 and loot for 3 silver pieces and a dried lizard. I'm also not talkimng about having long monster monologs with the players, but a memorable encounter that won't make their eyes glaze over. So, to thatend, I am going to mine said book (as well as the other HUGE pile of fairy talkes, folklore, myth, Eddas, sagas, odes, myths, etc that I've amassed and try to create one new unique critter per week (or so, depending on time, motivation, alignment of the stars, phase of the moon, etc). I'm currently digging on the Labyrinth Lord rule set so I'll stat them out in that format. Oh yeah, I'll make them open content (except for accompanying art if any). Yeah, so that sounds like a good project to 1) keep my blog posting up 2) keep the fires stoked for my campaign setting 3) provide some potential beasties for my campaign setting 4) to amuse, bewilder, enrage, or provoke SOME reaction from anybody who happens to actually ever read this blog.

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