dungeon23 week 30 - pirate sphinx mandrakes monster overhaul

See the archive of all Dungeon23 pages here

This week I had heard about The Monster Overhaul and bought that and decided to use it, rolling up some monsters and then using the details in the book to elaborate on them. I rolled a pirate, a sphinx, and mandrakes. (Did I also roll killer seagulls? I forget. I may have just invented those.)

There's a complex interaction here which is not represented in the pages which I'm a bit shocked that I didn't write down. The basic environment is a deserted island with a fertile, magical forest in the centre. A pirate - Sibilla Oakheart, ex of the "Red Revenge" - has set up camp and is living on the north-west corner of the forest. She was shipwrecked here but in fact is quite happy to stay undiscovered, as she has many enemies, and is now tired of a life of piracy, and the forest provides.

In the hills to the north-west there are the ruins of a temple, guarded by a sphinx, Lur-Barouch, for reasons that only a sphinx would understand. Sphinxes ask riddles and gut those who fail to answer them correctly, but there is a mutual understanding between the two of them - Sibilla walks up to the hills to chat with the sphinx regularly and talk about her past, but never quite gets to the point of answering a riddle. They are both happy with this arrangement as they are both very intelligent and easily bored. If Sibilla were to be harmed, Lur-Barouch would likely rip the offenders to pieces - it isn't just failing the riddle that might cause a sphinx to attack.

There really isn't anything in the ruins of the temple. Perhaps some very abstruse archaeological detail. Sphinxes feel a need to guard things and ask riddles. It's in their nature.

The forest is a thick jungle, almost un-navigable by anyone unfamiliar with it (say, a pirate who has lived there for years). Sibilla knows the way to groves of mandrakes of two different species - one lethal and one not.

In the south-east corner of the island is an ancient library building connected to the ruined temple, which has some folk from the mainland who feel that it is their duty to preserve the books there. They are dedicated but unhappy - it's no great fun being stuck there, they don't know the way through the forest well (when they try they often get lost and suffer some unfortunate fate), they don't know the answer to the riddle even if they do get to the temple ruins, and the sphinx finds them dull so will not engage with them outside of riddling. It's a wonder there are any left here at all. They don't know someone else is living on the other side of the forest, but they might have boats to let them (or PCs) leave.

Oh, and on the north coast is a community of vicious seabirds, dominated by the current King Gull, a position which changes frequently. Sibilla bribes them with fish recipes when she needs to go to that area, but apart from that they will attack anyone there and drive them off the rocks into the sea. They fear only the sphinx, whose wingspan dwarfs theirs, and they think of as a god, but who thinks of them as just irrelevant seagulls.

Monster Overhaul is really good by the way.