names of animals as monsters

Whip scorpion. Its stinger is a whip! Fights like Indiana jones.

Coconut crab. It’s a coconut. Kills you by dropping on your head like a drop bear. Mean and hairy coconut pincers. Delicious coconutty crab meat and milks.

Nurse shark. Only eats your diseased, gangrenous and malformed body parts that you don’t need. Protects people and is generally nice. Sedative saliva.

Lemon shark. So fucking bitter and aggressive. Lemon flesh cures scurvy.

Carbuncle. Like the classic d&d critter but also like the other definition, as a gooey open sore. Lives like a parasite on big burrowing things like bullettes and purple worms. Trades knowledge of buried things, in exchange so that you don’t kill it and sell it since its made of bloodrubies and pus-geodes.

Butterfly. Only eats fats and butter. Like a mosquito that gives you liposuction. Which sucks if your trying to survive in the elements of whatever.

Stag beetle. Fills the exact same ecological niche as deer.

Bell cricket. Same sound as church bells, and functions the same against unholy and undead things and for shattering windows and officiating weddings.

Catfish. Actually a cat. Trying to impersonate a fish to catch them. Like a wolf in sheeps clothing. Maybe the familiar of a river hag.

Shield bug. Really handy shield. Releases defensive smelly gas.

Ladybug. Like a fat geisha. Feed her aphids or god help you.

Horror frog. The original is perfect, but now its big and it acts like a 80s slasher movie villain

Urchin. Both definitions rolled into one

Antlion. Like normal but in ant culture theyre just like lions. Big brave scary things that are the kings of all animals and you fight them in the colosseum.

Spider monkey. Self explanatory

Velvet worm. Its made of velvet, so stylish, wear it around your neck. Shoots goo at people who diss your outfit

Money spider. Makes webs of gold to attract humans. Fights like a venomous pissed off cat, jumping and biting your face and not letting go. Fancy people want their gold silk to make clothes. Funeral parlors want them to wrap up rich people's bodies for fancy caskets.

Dragonfly. Same as regular dragonfly buts so big. Sees everything and moves lightning fast.

Moomins-isms

Tove Jansson loved mythology and you can smell it in her work.. I’m only barely scratching the surface of how weird and cool moomins is. all the fabulous pictures are hers. put these things on your hexcrawl or random encounter table

what more could u want..theres an abandoned ship, a comet, and pc's using stilts

A race of people that eat lightning, they chase storms their entire lives

A giant antlion and a dried up sea

A race of people that keep their ancestors under the kitchen sink

A creature that usually hibernates, has woken up early, it’s confused and horrified of the cold season it’s never seen before

Glowing flowers that contain girls, and an ominous comet

A tiny, rude and scrappy woman, mocking someone who is grieving over a dead squirrel. The squirrel died from looking at an ice-nymph.

Something that kills everything it touches. It’s very friendly, but everyone is terrified of it. It lives a lonely existence.

A gem-lizard, a giant pumpkin and a man-eating plant

A greedy and cowardly kangaroo-rat and a floating theatre

An troll obsessed with creating a flying machine and a giant heron that gives free rides

a nihilist muskrat and an invisible little girl

shipwrecked pirates terrorizing a village, and a hobgoblin magician that rides a flying panther

a boy is obsessed with becoming friends with magical seahorses. The horses are shallow, cruel but beautiful creatures.

A desolate island with a lighthouse on it, the lighthouse keeper has given up his job because the sea is sentient and spiteful

Three gender neutral siblings.A scientist who studies butterflies, a scientist that studies flowers and a scientist that studies stars, they only care about what they study and hate each other

An entire zoo has escaped and a rainforest jungle has grown overnight, in a cold northern place

A volcano that causes floods, and a dragon with bug wings the size of a cat

Someone who hates children is building an amazing playground for them, and a tiny nameless critter has fallen in love with you, it wants you to christen it

A homesick mother painted beautiful pictures of her homeland, and now shes trapped in her painting

An agoraphobic woman scared of natural disasters, and a forest of candy that can’t support a living ecosystem

A sea serpent trapped in a rock pool, and a community struck mad with gold fever

SHADOW PEOPLE

 Shadow people. They look like Asian shadow puppets. Theyre 2D organisms from the 2^nd dimension that have immigrated to the 3^rd dimension. The process of going into a bigger dimension has changed they permanently to be 2.5D, they occupy a space 3D space like anyone else but look the same from every angle. They were sent here to colonise the 3D world, and send back messages, but they failed miserably. Because they are different now they can never go home.

they can become a 2D shadow at-will and stick to a flat surface, In this form they don’t occupy space, they can slip through any small crack and can walk on walls and ceilings. they still get damaged by 3D stuff though, and anyone can grab them and rip they back into 3-d space. Think of it like turning into a super flat slug, or just like that zelda game 'link between worlds' where link can turn into a picture.

shadow people are poor immigrants. There’s big discrimination against them cuz theyre not seen as being “real” like other people are, so they can’t get married or inherit property. they can only legally work as entertainers and artists. (both of these are vague terms though, a bartender is technically an entertainer, any kind of craftsman is an “artist”)  People only want to hire them as assassins and spies.

They live in paper lanterns, their ghettos strung together and hung above the neighborhoods of 3D people. Rarely a shadow person will come into some money, build a house with paper walls and sliding doors, and let dozens of their poor relatives live with them in crowded conditions. Visitors to these shadow homes are weirded out by how there’s no furniture; and how they eat dust and cobwebs and drink light

 Shadow people like to collect things that are flat and look 2D like leaves and coins and paper. Their preferred art forms are origami, knots, silent dance and calligraphy, gentle quiet activities. They miss home, everything here is awkward and uncomfortable and hard to wrap their head around. they miss the simplicity of the 2nd dimension.

if you wanna play one do race as class, your just like a rogue or a halfling but you get the 2D form ability at will.

Elf generator

kay nielsen

Its speaks d6

1 With telepathy. Sweats sap when being social.

2 In riddles with no answers. Puffs spores when it talks.

3 In terrible limericks that badly rhyme and have no rhythm, while constantly twitching.

4 Always in quotes of people that don’t exist. Yet.

5 In slam poetry. Breathes out dandelion seeds.

6 In haikus that don’t obey the rules. It is rude to point it out.

Terribly offended by 1d8

1 little white lies. Big ones are okay because theyre all dramatic.

2 matching shoes/gloves/socks. Constantly side-eyeing you and grimacing if you break this cardinal fashion rule. Will flip a coin to decide whether to take pity on you.

3 people that eat plants. Will spit on you upon finding out, but then immediately continue as otherwise.

4 old people and the colour red. Would probably cry if the two were combined.

5 saltwater and things from the sea

6 Metal cutlery. Can smell it on you.

7 practical things

8 the male gender

Utterly charmed by d8

1 mutes and mimes.

2 fans. Both meanings of the word.

3 sand

4 forty four year olds. People on the edge of entropy.

5 things caked in dried blood

6 origami

7 sad looking people

8 things that can change colour. Mood rings, cuttlefish, chameleons e.t.c

Digimon-isms

The hieroglyphics work like a magical circuit board. Removing or changing parts of the symbols would “hack” the dungeon.

All the animals have rockets on this food chain. It still kind of works.

Torpedo-remora fish will sacrifice themselves to save the host

This creature grows stronger and nicer when exposed to positive emotion

Monstrous skeletons are a natural stage of these animals life cycles

The local authority marks their turf with giant expensive towers that brainwash

The local authority is secretly a child

All the children here live secret double lives as soldiers in an invisible war.

The slave collars can fly and chase you down

This cactus very rarely blooms warrior fairies

More evolved animals feel a sense of guardianship over their simpler relatives. i.e all birds protect lizards.

Rather than let animals evolve naturally, the local tyrant is determined to fuse the best animals into chimeras

You get a better outfit upon entering this dimension. You must leave it behind on exit.

This animal has spent its entire life here, waiting for you to arrive so it may serve you

Eggs empower you with the abilities of the animal foetus inside. Bird eggs let you fly, frog eggs lets you breathe underwater e.t.c

This world is a shadow world made up of the your worlds media, art and information. Animals look crudely like your cultural icons.

This plant is mechanical

Extinct things that aren’t remembered grow bitter and plan against everything

This thing isn’t actually a vampire, it just chose this form and these abilities because it thinks vampires are cool. The whole thing looks contrived and a little embarrassing.

This civilisation needs a princess from an alien culture

This society wants to resurrect its old ruler, they have forgot over the centuries that this ruler was actually terrible

This city is empty and is made up of landmarks and iconic buildings from other cities mashed together. The subway system could be used for teleportation.

The islands here will move and fuse together to create a glorious continent when the conflict on each island is dealt with

A time flux will be corrected under a solar eclipse. Some people like the new slower way time works and will try to prevent this. Other people want the older faster type of time.

This cat is empowered by a ring on its tail. Actually loves the person its been sent to kill. Is best friends with a wizard.

Villain is obnoxious monkey bard. Will return when defeated with a set of cumbersome super-armour.

The people here recently invaded this town and killed its inhabitants. They’re pretending to be indigenous and hide the evidence.

This mindless monster has taken someone hostage and feeds off its depression. Uses the hostage’s memories as justification for genocide.

The grim reaper is actually just a microbe turned huge. Despite illusions of grand plans and schemes it actually only wants to eat things more complicated than it.

Reptiles wearing fur to hide their shame. They hope one day to evolve into wolves.

A giant cruise ship that sails through the desert. its captain is a cockatrice.

This whole forest is mechanical and fake, ruled by a puppet who changes it with levers like a theater back drop

this villain doesnt kill anyone. turns them into tiny dolls.

a shapeshifting spider and a mummy with a gun plan to destroy this world through subterfuge

the power of evolution is controlled by a dragon, and distributed through his clone-servants.

A monster made from a tower, its looking for a fight and a purpose

this hot spring is magic soup. protected by a walking egg that vomits nightmares.

every child that witnessed this horrible event is a chosen one

plant-ninjas with elastic vine limbs

angels wear metal masks to hide their eyes. dragons are wreathed in holy chains.

a goth and a dog arrive to give you one last gift

genderless foxes

quirks of this plane

The sun literally rises from the west, and sets in the east. There is a giant lake of burning radiation in the west, that births a new sun every dawn, and every dusk the sun falls into and drowns in a giant lake of anti-magic tar in the east. Wizards worry the sun-lake is finite.

The planet has 100 moons, all perfectly lined up in space like marbles. Every millennium the next moon in line smashes the planet, getting all its water and plants and germs all over it, and the moon becomes the next life bearing planet. The left over debris from all the previous planets float out to the edge of the solar system, and merge together to form another moon. Endless conga line of rocks, each getting its turn to be alive.

Nothing naturally biodegrades as there are no bacteria, everything must be eaten or burnt. Even small birds build tiny pyres for their feces and cannibalise their dead. Luckily there’s lots of lightning and subsequently forest fires that get rid of piles of dead things. People are very careful and conservative about disposing their waste.

Gravity is provided by plants. Forests are normal, but you can jump higher in a meadow or on a mountain. The sea is weighted down by fields of algae and kelp. Deserts and the arctic are annoyingly floaty, and subsequently even more desolate. Strange animals have evolved to to take advantage of the uneven gravity of this world.

Everything is a sentient elemental. Farmers make contracts with their crops. Nations bid for the favour of the sun. people blackmail clouds into flooding their enemies.

what do elves mean by "ageless"?

-Constantly releasing spores, the resulting children have some of their parents memories. if you can collect a hundred of these children, murder them and stick em in a blender, the resulting green plant goo should biomerge into their parent, memories intact. Peasants dump their spores freely, royal families keep close track of their children as insurance. Very vain elfs murder their babies to make clones.

-Re-incarnation with full memories. your baby just got up, paid you womb-rent then walked out the door. As is the custom.

-Whatever killed an elf slowly turns into that elf, they psychologically aren’t them but for all purposes in elf society they now are them and take on all their responsibilities.

-Return to the astral dimensions as a cosmic plant ghost. not exactly enlightened or benevolent now though and still holds petty grudges and wishes.  Has tiny cosmic sway in the universe, affecting probabilities, creating breezes and knocking over vases. Perfect for revenge.

-Whenever a tree dies, it re-incarnates as an elf. When an elf dies a tree grows. The few seconds wait inbetween transition is absolute bliss and  addictive. Addicts hide entire orchards of fell trees and dead bodies that look like them, very shameful.

- All elfs have beautiful self-portraits, made of moss, that age for them dorian grey style. Rich elfs enjoy entire  green galleries of themselves, and a peaceful immortality. Peasants wither and die as they desperately try to make a shabby drawing of themselves. Artists are highly prized.

-memories and psyche go to the elfs next of kin directly on death. Sometimes the new host is just like before, just with new insight on their distant relatives weird life, or the deceased’s memories take over the host's body.

-Upon bathing in the elf-spring, elfs shed their skin and de-age. A pact makes the spring neutral territory and un-claimable, but some really mean elfs are trying to find a loophole and get monopoly on it.

-Mother’s breast milk grants eternal life, but only to her direct children, and must be drank monthly. Literally everyone is still breastfeeding, even your great great great grandmother is still alive and suckling. To be weaned is to be shamed, disowned and sentenced to a slow death.

-elfs are a terraforming tool, the seeds in an elf’s wooden bones  sprout into sentient forests.

-The bugs that feed on their bodies are changed. They bury themselves deep underground and cocoon for a 100 years like a cicada. Emerges as the same elf they ate.

halflings suck

There is no such thing as a regular domestic house cat. They’re all sentient and can walk like a man, there are just some that choose not to. But the cats that do talk, live in nomadic caravan bands, trading from town to town. They speak most languages, and a secret double cat-speak.

Cats worship the lucky number 9. Ideally everything should be in groups of 9, which is luck in its most pure, simple and powerful form; but cats will make do with lesser numbers, or multiples of 9 which are somewhat lucky. Cats believe they re-incarnate 9 times as the same gender, before switching again.  However 10 is the corrupting number and is always avoided. It is man’s curse to always want more, why settle for 9 gold pieces when you could round it up to a big juicy 10? Why settle for 9 thousand slaves? Cats settle for 9 symbolically as a humbling act. Always about the journey never the destination, today’s jobs not the career e.t.c They worship and respect all gods, and cats traditionally carry their favourite 9 idols of 9 different gods that they have collected of their travels, a personal pantheon.

There are 9 legendary cat folk heroes, each one’s slightly embellished story of adventure contains a moral and a superstition. Cats have no rulers, but if a cat could prove they are a re-incarnation of one of these folk heroes, they would be a king of cats, and would be able mobilize the cats as an army.

Gambling is culturally very important to cats, and they’re very good at it since they have learnt never to gamble more than they can afford. A cat never takes more than 99 lovers in a life time, never more than 9 of those as husbands/wives, and a cat will never miscarry on their first 9 kittens, but will always miscarry after. The 9^th kitten is always black with two tales, a bakeneko.

Cats are often associated with crime and theft, and are derogatively called Halflings (half-a-person) although never to their faces.