Writober! Morzo Moth! 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 “Morzo Moth”.

The Morzo Moth is a creature in the Gamemaster’s Guide to the Western Reaches book. It is a level 8 giant moth with a couple of abilities: Grab & Wing Dust.

Grab is a pretty standard ability tacked on its bite attack.  But Wing Dust is something different: All creatures in near DC 12 CON or lose half their current HP (round down). This can’t take creatures below 1 HP.

And really, the wonderful thing that today’s prompt highlights is a reason to dive into the Western Reaches book–the monsters section specifically because we find all sorts of talents and actions that may be useful for constructing your own creatures. Classes, magic items, and more too!

For example, on that same page the Mugdulbub (that’s a tongue-twister!) has Rubber, Mutagenic, and Dissolve actions and talents. And the other page of that spread has a Mirage creature with Delude and Leech abilities; a Monk that has Instinct, Redirect, and Tumble abilities; and a Moon Dragon with Moonlight breath, Cosmic Jaunt, Crystalize, Enchant, and Moonstruck actions/talents.

It would be great to copy these into a spreadsheet and classify and tag them along with the core book’s monsters to make monster building easy!

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.