Writober! Dire Wolf! Shadowdark Post-a-Day In October

This month is Drawtober: 31 drawing prompts related to the Shadowdark RPG, 1 a day, throughout October. But I’m borrowing the prompts for short essays. Today’s prompt is “Dire Wolf”.

How does a Dire Wolf in Shadowdark differ from the other wolves in the book: A regular wolf or a winter wolf? Seeing these differences helps a GM decide how to customize their own foes.

Our dire wolf is level 4 vs. level 2 for a regular wolf and other than extra hit points and a slight bump to a couple of abilities (plus a related attack bonus) the only other change is an extra attack.

For our winter wolf we go to level 5 and this grants the standard hit point bump, as well as a couple of winter themed abilities: Impervious (Cold Immune) and Frost Breath (near sized for 3d8 damage, subject to the save and recharge). But the winter wolf pays for that a bit (maybe the designer felt it was a bit strong) by bumping its bite attacks back down to 1d6 each.

I love building new monsters (as our Rock & Roar projects–the second one is Kickstarting now–will attest). And doing so in Shadowdark isn’t difficult when you start with a similar monster then add in a few abilities related to the monster’s concept.  Say I wanted to make a “Demon Dog” (inspired by Thundarr)… I’d look at the demon abilities and add one or two. We identified a few back in our Writober entry on day 3. For example, we could add:

Carrion Mist. Each time the demon dog is hit, 3:6 chance of carrion mist in near-sized cube centered on the demon dog. All enemies DC 12 CON or violent vomiting 1d4 rounds.

I’d likely just use the Winter Wolf’s stats and swap Carrion Mist for its Frost Breath (although maybe restore its bite attack to 1d8) because Carrion Mist doesn’t do damage on its own. We’d also swap the cold immunity for an energy type based on its home realm.

So you can see how easy and fun it is to create monsters in Shadowdark!

Here are our previous Writober posts so far:

1. Torch – Rules for magic torch items (each is a single use magic effect spell like alarm or detect magic).
2. Skull – Goblin shaman who can turn victims’ skulls into ways to store spells.
3. Fiend – Lists of talents that Devils & Demons typically have for making your own.
4. Shadow – Easy ways to make other creatures into shadows.
5. Contagion – Discussing the purpose of diseases.
6. Valkyrie – A new 3rd party class.
7. Toadstool – A new 3rd party ancestry.
8. Witchlight – Alternate sources of “witchlight”.
9. Luck Token – Alternate ways a GM may allow a luck token to be used.
10. Rage – The signature ability of a Barbarian class.
11. Altars – Ways to amplify priest spells into rituals when using an altar.
12. Pit Trap – Several ideas to spice up the good old pit trap.
13. Death Slug – Looking at the Death Slug’s deadliness and how that’s similar to old-school and low fantasy games.
14. Evil Eye – Various types of “Evil Eyes”: magic items, monsters, or curses.
15. Morzo Moth – A look at the Morzo Moth’s talents/actions makes one see the variety of the Western Reaches book’s monsters.
16. Diamond – Three subtopics: diamonds impacting economy; as spell components for rituals or spells not-yet-accessible; and a enhancements for magic weapons.
17. Slime – Game-able aspects of mundane slime as well as a green slime monster for Shadowdark.
18. Wyrdling – Shows how different and fun Shadowdark can be with this unusual class as an example of how much design freedom a creator of GM has.
19. Stingbat – Renaming (or even not giving creatures names) re-establishes the sense of wonder players had when fantasy was new to them.
20. Poison – A list of how poison is used in the core book, grouped by use & types of effects, plus a few new ideas.
21. Grumby Billows – A tribute to Shadowdarklings, the online free character generator (and more!) for Shadowdark.
22. Blood – Varying & unsual ways to use blood in your game.
23. Green Knight – A look at the Green Knight from King Arthur and how that differs from the one in Western Reaches. Plus stats for the mythic version.
24. Fear – Speculating on new ways to use fear in your game.
25. Drow – A stat block for a level 6 drow fighter.
26. Fireball – How you should allow your players to flavor the world and aspects about their background and abilities–and in Shadowdark that can even include spell effects.
27. Minion – What are minions and several unusual ways to use them.
28. Glass Cannon – What they are and how likely they happen in Shadowdark.
29. Tooth – Magical effects that can be brought about from the tooth of a creature when the tooth is used for a pendant.