On Spellburn, we don’t just interview our special guests or entertain our listeners, we put them to work! Behold this salacious selection of unique and uncanny monster for use in Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG – all created by our listeners and special guests, and shared freely with you, the discerning dungeon delving daredevil.
Episode 112 – Ice Ape
Episode 61 – The Lumonculus
This episode’s Dungeon Denizen was created by Tim White & Connor Stone for the Stefan Poag Dungeon Denizens contest (announced in Episode 58). Congratulations Tim & Connor!
A Lumonculus is a small (18” high) creature made by wizards for exploring dark passages. It can be given simple movement commands like “walk forward”, “stop”, or “turn right”. It is often used to explore caves and dungeon passages ahead of a frail wizard. Of course, since many wizards don’t survive for long, even with the lumonculus walking point, they can often be found wandering around on their own. The crystals in its head power the light that emits from its face.
Particularly clever wizards mix the crystals to enable the light emitted from a lumonculus to have additional effects. Lumonculi have been found whose light detects or neutralizes magic, reveals secret doors, opens wizard-locked doors, deters vampires, and all manner of other effects. Wizards have sent many an adventurer out to secure just the right crystal for their lumonculus.
Legend has it that wizards’ apprentices tasked with creating lumonculi have become over eager to impress their masters and spellburn during the creation process. This can result in lumonculi that can grow to enormous size or have other…properties, such as the one below.
Oaath the Living Mountain: Init: +1; Atk slam +6 melee(2d10 +4); AC 21; HD 15d10; 200’; Act 1d20; SP Immune to mind-altering spells, Energy Draining Gaze ability score damage, Will save resist DC 19 (1d4 physical ability damage per round, 120’ Cone); SV Fort +12, Ref -3, Will +0; AL N
A young, over-achieving apprentice was once tasked to create a lumonculus as a test. As such, he spellburned himself into a dire state in order to prove his ability to his master. Because of this, he created what seemed to be a normal lumonculus, but it had a great secret within it. His lumonculus was not powered by the crystals that were inserted into its head, but rather, by a small, emergent universe inside of its belly. The lumonculus had to feed the universe inside of itself and drained both the wizard and his apprentice of their life force over the course of a few days, gaining a small amount of size as it did so.
As centuries past, the lumonculus grew by feasting on the life force of the wizards and adventurers that came into possession of it. By the time that it had become nearly human size, it was captured for study by a wizarding college. Despite being in a magical container, the power of the lumonculus’s gaze still managed to drain every wizard of the college over the course of a few years, growing to the size of the entire college in that time.
It wandered the world for centuries, becoming myth and a creature of traveler folklore. It is told that it hides in plain sight as a mountain and places its head at the end of caves. It pretends to be the light at the end of the tunnel and once an unsuspecting adventurer enters the cave, it covers the entrance and drains them of their energy. If that adventurer manages to get to the mouth of Oaath, as it has come to be called in folklore, it no longer has its energy drained, but enters a field on seemingly the other side of the cave. As such, if they do not go back through that same cave, they are trapped until they do in the universe inside of Oaath.
Episode 60 – the Dreadnought, submitted by Tom Wendt
The Dreadnought is an arcane creation of some unknown sorcerer who it is conjectured conjured a creature out of dust, cobwebs and lint, and embedded it in a metal amulet bearing an eye.
Usually found in a pile of dust, anyone touching the amulet will have a sensation of panic, and have to resist the desire to flee uncontrollably. If they fail their save, a dust devil will rise from the dust, form into the creature, and pursue the character or NPC until they are successful in their saving throw, at which point the creature will leave and search for another. For each round the victim fails their save, they lose a constitution point temporarily, and continue running uncontrollably until they reach zero, where they then curl up in a ball, only reviving with full constitution points restored after 24 hours of rest.
If the dreadnought is encountered in its physical form (looking like some giant dusty cornucopia laying on the ground), if the players approach it’s closed eye, they will have the same panic experience when the eyelid opens while they are looking at it.
Attacks on the dreadnought will cause it to sink down, and when killed, it will revert to a pile of dust, cobwebs and lint with an amulet buried inside.
The dreadnought seems to sense the character with the weakest constitution, so this is a bane to wizards. It is rumored a clever wizard could use this amulet as a trap for other wizards, or fling this amulet from a container to cause real problems for any who pick it up, or for a person with a weak stamina (like another wizard) cause them to panic just at the sight of it.
Episode 45 – Mantikrex
This episode’s Dungeon Denizen was created live on-the-air. Statblock courtesy of Julian Bernick. Original art by Benjamin Marra. Check out more of his amazing work at: http://www.benjaminmarra.com/
Episode 36 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This episode’s nasty Dungeon Denizens submission is brought to you by J.V. West with his own original art.
Episode 29 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This episode’s daring Dungeon Denizens submission is brought to you by Rockin’ Roy Snyder with art by Notorious Nate Koffler. Behold, a creature with the legs for far more than a single encounter…
Episode 26 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
Continuing a perhaps untoward trend in recent Dungeon Denizen submissions, this episode’s winning entry is by Mighty Mike Loew!
Episode 24 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This episode’s winning entry is by Daniel J. Bishop! Meet The Wampler… heaven help us all.
Episode 21 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This episode’s winning entry is by DM Chasester (with able assist by DM Cojo)!
Episode 20 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
The winning entry in the write up a Doug Kovacs Creature Contest was submitted by Mar-Max!
Episode 16 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This week’s winning entry is by listener Darren Bolton. Beware the Bone Thicket!
Episode 15 – Dungeon Denizens Winner!
This week’s winning entry in our listener Dungeon Denizen Contest was Stinky1eyedogre. Behold! The Nabtimbojet…
Episode 12 – Invoke Daniel J. Bishop
Episode 3 (Invoke Michael Curtis) brought you the Discopila, and that is the last monster Spellburn has given you on-air. Never one to shirk a duty, though, or to attempt to compete with DCC luminaries Michael Curtis or Harley Stroh, I will give you two monsters for the price of one. Although created off-air, I hope you find them useful. – Daniel J. Bishop
The first monster was created using James Raggi’s excellent Random Esoteric Creature Generator. The second monster is a conversion from the fantasy ruleset I was working on (mentioned in the episode) before I discovered Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Episode 3 – Invoke Michael Curtis
On this week’s episode Judges Jim, Jobe, and Jeffrey, along with writer and game designer par excellence Michael Curtis, crafted a monster live on the air. This exercise started with a roll for a room from Michael Curtis’ book The Dungeon Alphabet to set the “feel” of the monster. The result was a spell amplification room, described as a room where spells cast have the maximum effect. Using that as a the basis, we followed the sage advice of Michael: one can never go too far wrong with a gigantic Robert E. Howard-esque snake.
