Wandering Monster, with more malicious monsters, part 2

These are the final two monsters for the core set. There are eight in total. If you missed them, the others are:

Ogre, Ooze, Troll, Lepus, Owlbear, and Jumping Spider!

Today I would like you to meet Fungus and Triclops.

Fungus: "Want... meatfood..."

What I like about mushrooms is just when you think you understand them, they turn and get all weird on you. You might think of common mushrooms as vegetables, but they are really more the fruiting body of a vast, hungry organism living invisibly beneath the earth. That's kind of how it is for Fungus. He's hungry. Additionally, his special ability guarantees some of that mushroom unpredictability. When you play Fungus, you will start the game with a random, zero-cost ability from the deck of Powers. Plus, this is the one monster whose prototype sketch actually frightens me. What unknowable intelligence lurks behind those soulless eyes?

At the other end of the spectrum is the Triclops. He -- or they -- are pure flesh and blood and pounding aggression. So far he, I mean, they, have proven quite popular in playtesting. Where most of my monsters move 4 and have a starting attack of 3, Triclops gives you move 3 and attack 4. Movement can be challenging on the big 10x10 map, but also satisfying when you consistently wallop adventurers that are just out of reach of the other monsters, power-wise. Slow and steady wins the competitive eating race.

Triclops challenges trespassers to poke out his eyes with a sharp stick.

For his special ability, Triclops works around one of the big problems players encounter in Wandering Monster: the Choke card from the Antagonism deck. Just when you've enjoyed a square meal of honey-glazed gnomes, somebody throws this down and you spend the next turn gagging and gulping. Not so for Triclops. He can pay a couple of Sauce and ignore the effects of that Choke, leaving his other mouths to deal with the next fine-dining opportunity.

That's all for the core monsters. They're all ready now for the next playtest, which happens to be this Thursday. I'll write all about it when it happens.

Wandering Monster prototype tokens

Wandering Monster, with more malicious monsters, part 1

One thing I kept hearing from my playtesters was, "more monsters!" They also tend to say "more chocolate," in which I am happy to oblige. The original four monsters (ogre, ooze, troll, and lepus) are still on the job. Now there are four more, with interesting combinations of attributes and their own special abilities. Here are the first two with prototype illustrations for playtesting.

An early favorite is the Owlbear. As in legend, and every tabletop roleplaying game worth its salt, Owlbear is all fight. He doesn't have much capacity for bonus cards so his player doesn't bother with lots of finesse. His special ability is Rage, so when you spend more than four Sauce on your attack, you gain even more attack. This fellow can take even rather formidable adventurers head on, in a game that's all about assessing your prey's strength and approaching from their blind spot.

Owlbear: what blind spot?

In fair warning to the 30% of you who experience some level of arachnophobia, the second monster on the agenda today was specifically designed to make professional spider wranglers shriek and wet themselves. You have been warned.

The Jumping Spider is unique in the starting lineup of monsters you can play. It has a terrific movement rate and low attack, which means you'll have to make excellent use of Sauce. On the other hand, you'll beat other monsters to the initial caches of sauce more often than not.

This monster's special ability is jumping, which helps you get past other monsters who otherwise would take advantage of your low attack value and insist on a lopsided throwdown. Instead, take a flying leap and keep pattering through the dungeon on those long, hairy legs.

Jumping Spider might make you jumpy

You might be asking why the spider doesn't have a special ability more like, say, webs. It's a fair question. Just hold your questions until all the supplements and expansions roll out, and you can pair off this Jumping Spider against Daddy Longlegs and the sticky web tokens he spreads across the map. That should make things interesting. Actually I think it will include two sets of web tokens and a bonus Powers card, so any monster can add its own Web Slinger power. How about a Web Weaving Wabbit to dominate the dungeon? Or a Hasty Ogre with Ceiling Crawler and his own set of clinging webs? I look forward to all these insane combinations in play.

And you can look forward to more new monsters in my next update.