I like the color out of space a lot, mainly because the whole idea of a completely new color (i.e not a new combination or shade, a new primary color) has always been both interesting and mind boggling to me. (I imagine if I met one in real life I'd just stare at it in utter shock until it killed me.) I've also always liked rakshasas ever since I first got interested in DND (around 2001), and the Pathfinder ones are even better as they are a whole subtype of fiends, rather than a one-off monster.
I have a "cool monsters" list to pull from, but my absolute favourite is the lowly mite. They are not only mechanically interesting (long range darkvision, scent, DR and prestidigitation at CR 1/4!), but have a distinct grumpy personality and walk the line between provoking anger and pity. The artwork also helps to set them apart from other Small sized low level threats.
Certainly not my favourite, but I derived great enjoyment from loosing an Advanced Gibbering Mouther on my level 4 party a couple of months ago. Some unfortunate confusion results and it ended up a real knife's edge combat. And they're just weird as hell too.
Sahuagin as they are an under-rated monster and wish their were used more in settings. Orcs, and Bugbears as they are classic monsters.
Tooth fairies... my poor players.
I've also created a custom tooth fairy swarm.
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It would be easier to list the monsters I don't like;)
Dragons, fey, giants, elementals, many magical beast(griffin, unicorn, chimera, nekomata, phoenix, etc.), oni, medusa, soulbound doll, protean, Lamia(noble), succubus, and non-fungus/mold based plant monsters all come to mind.
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An undead I came up with that I never got around to naming, but that I liked quite a bit: A long mass of severed, elongated human(oid) arms that crawls and climbs like a centipede, with the wrinkled head of an elderly man. It's gaze inflicts the phantom pain of a hundred missing arms on you, causing paralysis. It has six slam attacks, but it can forego any two in order to grapple or maintain a grapple (i.e. it can grapple up to 3 characters at once). If it successfully grapples a humanoid for two rounds, it automatically tears off one of their arms and adds the severed limb to its mass, gaining an extra slam for every two limbs. The creature was conceived of by a necromancer dragon as a sort of warmachine.
^ can you post the stats for it here?
Also, I keep forgetting to mention the Iathavos qlippoth as another of my favorites. I always thought it looked a lot like a Castlevania boss. Does anyone else get that impression?
My all time favorite is the Jubjub ("Jube-Jube" in French). Everything about it makes me to cackle maniacally. First, the name. I find it hillarious, I don't know why. Then, the appearance. It's a freaking giant saurian dodo. Look at the majesty of this smug beast. And those little wings.
Then, the lore. It's a ferocious, dangerous planar predator. Still, it's mainly a dumb bird. Finally, the abilities. This thing may seem ridiculous at first glance, but it's a killing machine. It has a vorpal beack. It has every attack feat a "dumb" monster can have. It has a shriek that can stun you. And if that's not enough, it has an adaptative energy resistance. The jubjub is the pinacle of the planar predator. And still, it's a dumb bird. It would probably be a terrible encounter from the PCs perspective, and I will probably never be able to use it, but as a concept, it's really funny to me.
I also quite like Kobolds, not as much as ennemies than as a whole specie. I like the Pathfinder Kobolds' lore with them being more scaly and less courageous dwarves with a knack for traps.
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My all time favorite is the Jubjub ("Jube-Jube" in French).Are you sure a French pronunciation is appropriate? The wizard who created the jubjub bird is quite English, if I'm not much mistaken.
Dunno. I just find the French name even funnier than the English one. Plus I'm French, so I'm more used to the French name.
An undead I came up with that I never got around to naming, but that I liked quite a bit: A long mass of severed, elongated human(oid) arms that crawls and climbs like a centipede, with the wrinkled head of an elderly man. It's gaze inflicts the phantom pain of a hundred missing arms on you, causing paralysis. It has six slam attacks, but it can forego any two in order to grapple or maintain a grapple (i.e. it can grapple up to 3 characters at once). If it successfully grapples a humanoid for two rounds, it automatically tears off one of their arms and adds the severed limb to its mass, gaining an extra slam for every two limbs. The creature was conceived of by a necromancer dragon as a sort of warmachine.
Hey! Simultaneous invention! Mine was called a Bone Horror that basically crawled around, shoved people into it's constricting ribcage and if people died inside of it, it's flesh was immediately stripped away and the bones were added to the creature granting it more attacks/hp/growing in size if it got enough.
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(...)
Well, as much as I know, Jabberwocky was a real challenge for translators. There's even a book about the multiple attempts to translate this poem. They had to keep the rhytmic quality, but in a way understandable for French people.
So there were multiple attempts at translations. For the Jubjub bird, I saw "JeubJeub", "Jubjube", "Jub", etc etc...
For "Jabberwocky", it either stays "Jabberwocky" or become "Jabberwock" or "Jaseroque". The most outlandish translation I saw was "Bredouloch".
"Frumjous" was translated with "frumieux". The same root ("frum"), to which they affixed one of the classical suffixes used to create adjectives ("ieux"). "Brillig" was sometimes translated by "reveneure". It still doesn't make sense. Other nonsense-words in the poem had the same treatment : either take the same root and apply a french suffix to tell your reader what type of word it is, or translate it with another senseless word.
But even with all this, in the end, "Jube-jube" is the translation created by the French translators of Pathfinder, not of the poem. They did not have to care about how well it worked in the poem, since it wasn't for the poem they were translating, but for the RPG. "Jube-jube" is probably said the same way than "jubjub", it's just a different, more "Frenchy" way to write it (the "e" at the end of words is silent most of the time, and "b" and "j" are weird letters to put one after the other in French). "Jabberwocky" and "Bandersnatch" were not translated because their pronunciation is feasible in French and there are no "weird association of letters" in their name.
English lyrical poetry tends to be structured around patterns of rhyming the last words of each line (...) Is end-rhyme scheme even a thing in lyrical French poetry?
Dude... French poetry is all about end-line rhyming and rythm. When we learn about poetry in school we learn at least about half a dozen ways to make rhyming patterns. We had our prose period, sure, but most of our greatest poets were using rhymes.
Even when you look at modern-day music, French singers will rhyme as if their life depended on it. While I saw many singers not rhyme in English and give more attention to rythm and images, or prefer words that sound like they end the same way but not exactly (chain/claim for exemple).
But in English it is typical for the adjective to come before the noun it modifies: I don't know what a bandersnatch is, but I do know it is the frumjous ones I need to be aware of. Regular bandersnatches, not so much. But in French, the adjective normally comes after, and that means that it is the frumjous that you must be aware of, particularly the bandersnatch variety of frumjous. Referring to les bandershatches frumjus seems presume meaning on words that were created to have no meaning at all!
That's a false assumption. French is more flexible than English about where to place the adjective (from what I know about the English language). You can either place the adjective before or after the noun it modified. That allows you to emphasis either on the noun or on the adjective. Sometimes it's even preferred to put adjectives before nouns because it's "more beautiful". It's just that you may not know about it because nowadays, in talked French, we mainly put adjectives after the noun because it's easier, and putting adjectives before nouns in talked French will probably make you look like a pompous person. But you can find adjectives before nouns in books, in speeches, and in any instance where you need to carefully and "beautifully" craft your sentences.
For exemple, if I were to translate "the gigantic barbarian" in French, I can either say "le barbare gigantesque" (adjective after noun) or "le gigantesque barbare" (adjective before noun). Both translations are correct. But in the first case I emphasis the fact that our character is a barbarian, and in the second I emphasis the fact that they are garguantuan.
What about iambic, trocheic, dactylic, and anapestic metrical feet?
I'm... not a poetry expert, but according to Wikipédia, yes we have those.
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Mimics! They're so fun to hide in an adventure. I recently rain a dragon's lair encounter where everything in the dragon's vault was a mimic.
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Mimics! They're so fun to hide in an adventure. I recently rain a dragon's lair encounter where everything in the dragon's vault was a mimic.
One day, I want to make an adventure where the dungeon itself is a mimic, inhabited by a bunch of mimics.
I do love me some Mimics.
Once, I had a Storm Giant chase the party into an old church... the party had a werewolf that was kind of the strongman of the group and he singlehandedly lifted the log to bar the church doors from the inside. Log was a Mimic, werewolf was stuck to it for the surprise round. Storm Giant tore the roof off the church. It was fun.
I doubt that they qualify for my favorite, though.
The Jubjub Bird is awesome, so is the Jotund Troll, and the Jabberwock... I have used all of them, and enjoyed it.
Swarms, I really like swarms... so, so many people have a problem with them... and I really like to exploit that. If you think spiders and rats are something to complain about, just wait until you encounter aerial leeches.
However, my all-time favorite is probably the Pugwampi. You can introduce them immediately, and the Unluck Aura is just fun.