#hackmaster 5e

Image by Anthony Carpenter,  © Kenzer and Co.

[I normally dislike names that are just ordinary words, but I do make exceptions for puns. And the scowl is a perfect name for a sour-faced owl monster. The scowl feels of a kind with the blood hawk from classic D&D; it’s an excuse to have your players fight birds of prey when they’re shy and solitary in real life (and so your players don’t feel too bad about beating up an endangered species).]

Scowl CR ½ N Magical Beast This creature looks like a chimera of bird and bat, with membranous wings and a feathered body. It has the hooked beak and talons of an owl, and its face is set in a human-like expression of distaste.

Scowls are magical avian-like creatures that hunt prey large and small. If conditions are good and ample small game is available, they will happily subsist on rodents, cats and other such creatures. If these are scarce, they will happily move on to prey the size of an elephant. A scowl attacks these by latching on with its talons and pulling off chunks of flesh.  Scowls hunt larger prey in unison, flocking to the same target and overwhelming them with clawing and pecking.

Scowls are common in any land where it doesn’t snow—scowls dislike the cold. They are fairly common in cities, but are stealthy enough that they are usually mistaken for mundane owls until they start attacking horses or vagrants. Scowl roosts are decorated with pellets of indigestible material—usually bones and hair, but occasionally coins or small pieces of jewelry. Scowls are good parents, rearing two to three chicks a year who stay in the nest until they are large enough to fly and hunt on their own. Although they are fearsome hunters, they are also inquisitive and playful, although their form of play often involves destroying things with their strong beaks.

An arcane spellcaster of at least 3rd level can take a scowl as a familiar with the Improved Familiar feat.

Image by Anthony Carpenter, © Kenzer and Co.

[Exhibit B as to why I think Hacklopedia of Beasts 2 remembers its comedy roots. This monster mashes up “krill” and “calamari” in its name, and can give your PCs something called “seal meat madness”. But it’s a dang good monster, one of the best fantasy parasitoids I’ve ever seen. As an aside, does anyone working for Paizo know what size a seal is supposed to be? The default seal is Small, which is really only appropriate for the two Asian lake seals (which are shorter but heavier on average than a wolf, which is Medium). Most seals are between 1.5 and 2 meters long and weigh as much or more than a human. So they should be Medium.]

Okrillamari CR 5 N Magical Beast This creature resembles a crustacean the size of a rhinoceros, each of its forelimbs shaped like the end of a polearm.

An okrillamari, also called a seal herder, is a giant parasitoid amphipod that lays eggs in seals and guards them from other predators, up to and including humanoids. Its foreclaws are the size and shape of the business end of a bill-guisarme, but it uses them primarily for defense rather than hunting. Okrillimari are omnivorous scavengers, and much of their diet comes from seaweed, driftwood, tide pool animals and even the feces of their seal charges. Their jaws are relatively weak, but contain potent paralytic enzymes. Most creatures they paralyze they leave behind, but a seal is injected with a slurry of eggs and microbes carried in an ovipositor. Seals and other pinnipeds that consume such a mixture become hosts for the next generation of okrillimari, which grow inside the animal for three months before bloodily emerging. The eggs cannot develop inside of any other creature, but they do cause increasing irrational behavior and eventually dangerous delirium. This “seal meat madness” is most commonly experienced by creatures that eat a seal hosting okrillimari eggs.

A seal herder is treated as an alpha by infected pinnipeds, and the animals behave favorably towards it even as their young kills the animal slowly. By concentrating, an okrillimari can see through the eyes of seals hosting its young, and thus are able to monitor a wide span of beach and ocean nearby. Okrillimari are simultaneous hermaphrodites that fertilize each other when they cross paths, but otherwise usually ignore others of their own kind. They can apparently smell the eggs inside a seal, and so do not attempt to parasitize a pinniped already hosting okrillimari eggs.

An okrillimari is most comfortable on the shoreline, but can remain on land or underwater indefinitely. Rumors exist of variant okrillimari capable of infecting any carnivoran animal, such as big cats, wolves and bears, with their young.

Image by Anthony Carpenter, © Kenzer and Co.

[The tarantubat existed in Hackmaster 4e, but I didn’t pay much attention to it then. It’s not very mechanically distinctive in either edition. But this art! It’s definitely more than just a winged tarantula, and I feel like if these were real, some people would try to keep them as pets.]

Tarantubat Swarm CR 3 N Magical Beast This swarm of fluttering creatures contains hand-sized creatures that combine the features of a tarantula and a bat. Each has large ears, multiple eyes and eight legs, six of which serve as support structures for two leathery wings.

Tarantubats are forest dwelling chimeras combining features of spiders and bats. They are believed to be distant relatives of spiderbats, but their overall body plan is much more arachnid than chiropteran. Tarantubats are subsocial carnivores, nesting in trees covered with webbing and descending en masse to attack large prey. Creatures that are close to a ravenous swarm are dusted with the tiny, itchy hairs of the tarantubats, which form a cloud around them when in flight. Prey is incapacitated with venomous bites, wrapped in webs and slowly consumed. Tarantubat swarms have more males than females—males are smaller and shorter-lived, and females are large in order to produce lots of glistening eggs. Egg sacs are embedded inside of paralyzed prey, and the juveniles feed on the provisions granted to them by the colony.

A single tarantubat can be taken as a familiar. Treat it as a scarlet spider familiar, except that it has a fly speed of 30 feet (average maneuverability).

Image © Kenzer and Co, by Anthony Carpenter

[I love me an urban predator, so the rooftop prowler was right up my alley. They first appeared in Kingdoms of Kalamar: Denizens of Tellene, where the stats were somewhat strange. Despite their total lack of magical abilities and relatively mundane anatomy (they’re all mammal), they were classified as aberrations, and given an Intelligence of 13 that the flavor text really didn’t reflect. Their flavor text was also pretty gross, namely that all reproduction in the species was the product of rape, and that childbirth was universally fatal for the mother. This weirdly misogynistic background was kept in the Hackmaster conversion, but there’s no need for that, so I cut it entirely. I also went ahead and gave them some minor magical abilities, to make the stat block more unique.]

Rooftop Prowler CR 5 CN Magical Beast This creature has a lean, panther like body, and its head looks like a cross between a man’s and a bat’s. It has large ears, a nose leaf, and rows of sharp teeth. All four of its legs end in clawed toes as flexible as a man’s fingers.

Rooftop prowlers are predators of cliffs and caves that have made themselves at home in the urban jungle. They think and hunt three dimensionally, clambering down ledges, along roofs and squeezing down alleys in search of prey. They are highly active creatures and prefer fattier meals—merchants and the wealthy classes are often their targets, leading some of their attacks to be mistaken for revenge killings or a serial murderer. They will also happily hunt non-sapient prey if it is available, and rats, dogs, cats and especially pigs are all components of their diet.

Rooftop prowlers attack from ambush. They are usually solitary hunters—on occasion two siblings will share a territory, but for the most part they repel attempts of other prowlers to enter their hunting grounds. They strike from above, leaping down onto prey and biting and clawing it rapidly to death. Their senses are keen and bat-like, and they are adept at detecting those that would try to counter-ambush them with a baited trap. Most rooftop prowlers are more skittish than determined, and retreat and hide if they find a potential meal puts up a strong fight.

Rooftop prowlers call themselves “kurra”. They are mostly asocial among each other except during mating and child care, in part because of the difficulties of finding ample prey in a city. There is little sexual dimorphism among kurra. A pregnant kurra relies on her mate to hunt for both of them during the time, and she always gives births to twins. Rooftop prowlers raise their young until they are strong enough to hunt on their own, whereupon they are chased from their home territory and must find new hunting grounds. Rooftop prowlers compete for territory with gargoyles, and where the two species overlap, the gargoyles nearly always win because the kurras’ claws and teeth cannot penetrate their stony hides.

Image by Anthony Carpenter, © Kenzer and Co.

[As previously mentioned, Hacklopedia of Beasts 2 remembers that Hackmaster was originally a comedy RPG, but its jokes are of a much drier sort. Like the name of the helvetians. In Hackmaster, they’re the example given of true neutral outsiders, and “Helvetian” is the name of the Gaulish tribe that formerly lived in Switzerland. Get it, ‘cause they’re neutral? If you don’t want to use the name of a real world people for a monster, “pordkin” is the alternative that Hackmaster uses.

I have made my version of the helvetian a monstrous humanoid instead of an outsider, because the flavor text given goes a lot into their birth, child care and diet. Outsiders in Pathfinder don’t have babies (typically) or eat, so it seemed like it made more sense to make them biological. If you wanted to make them proper outsiders, the only mechanical tweak they need is two more skill ranks per HD.]

Helvetian CR 8 N Monstrous Humanoid This burly humanoid appears as an anthropomorphic porcupine, a head taller than a human. It carries a halberd and wears a metallic breastplate. Quills grow long from its back only, coated in dark metal.

Helvetians, called pordkin by outsiders, are porcupine-like humanoids dedicated to the philosophical concept of balance. Most of them venerate the aeons, and they pride themselves on being even tempered and stoic. They often fight for the causes of neutrality, sometimes acting as mercenaries and sometimes on their own volition, in order to maintain the status quo. Young helvetians are often somewhat more boisterous and playful, but they settle down as their adult quills grow in.

These quills are tipped with adamantine, and helvetians are skilled at working with this particular metal. Shed quills are saved and melted down, crafted into weapons or traded for other goods. Helvetians train with halberds and other polearms, typically fighting in formation. Their adamantine defenses protect them from harmful energy, as well as blunting the force of all blows.

Helvetians are omnivores, eating primarily bark, tubers and social insects. Termite colonies are maintained like livestock, fed on waste wood and harvested through fishing them out with a quill. Their settlements, called cantons, are typically underground, with outposts for scouts in trees at their borders. Helvetians are nocturnal and are skilled climbers.  They sleep communally in piles, quills facing outward. Personal responsibility is seen as the highest virtue in helvetian society.

Image by Anthony Carpenter, © Kenzer and Co.

[I’m trying to pull myself back into a more frequent schedule. Not sure how long it will last, but I’m feeling more focused creatively than I have in months. I’m trying to post Monday through Saturday, two monsters of each theme block per week. We’ll see how long I can keep it up.

As previously mentioned, Hackmaster 5e is a much more serious game than its predecessor, but bits and pieces of jokes, like vestigial organs, still crop up. For example, most of the canines in Hackmaster are no longer “dawgs”, but orcish wardawgs are, and other canine monsters have similarly mangled spellings. Like the fantom dog here.]

Phantom Hound CR 5 NE Undead This great black hound stands half as tall as a man at the shoulder. Its eyes are gaping pits with a pinprick of red light glowing within.

Phantom hounds, sometimes called black dogs, moor hounds, or hounds of ill omen, are cursed undead that hunt the living. They are believed to be created from the souls of mortals who were afraid of going to the afterlife to receive the punishment they had earned, and so dwell in between life and death. They are dimly sapient and hunt well together, but will gladly cooperate with a more intelligent undead master. Packs of these creatures can be found in desolate areas around the world, but prefer to lair close to caves where they can hide from the sun during the day. Being undead, they do not truly sleep, and may venture out at any time during storms or other weather that dampens the hated effects of sunlight. Many people who live in areas where phantom hounds dwell consider seeing any black dog at night, undead or not, as an ill omen.

A single phantom hound typically hunts by stealth. If packs of these creatures are present together, however, they begin combat with a howl in order to panic and flush out potential prey. A phantom hound runs along air, and so often attacks from cliff edges, over mud or quicksand, or otherwise takes advantage of terrain features to impede their targets. Their strategies are fairly simple—bite until enemies are dead—but if they cannot reach a foe, or if it proves difficult to bite onto, a phantom hound will curse it with terrible luck.

Image by Anthony Carpenter, © Kenzer and Co.

[All of the monsters in the 5e Hacklopedias come with multiple alternate names, to reflect their names in different languages or for different cultures. This means that the woolly cheetah is supposedly Miracinonyx, the American cheetah. Unlikely. The American cheetah was slightly larger than a modern cheetah, but as in “the size range of a mountain lion”, not “the size range of an actual lion”. There was a true giant cheetah, but it’s currently classified in Acinonyx, the same genus as the modern cheetah. My version is designed to help fill in the CR gap between the CR 5 dire lion and the CR 8 dire tiger/smilodon.]

Woolly Cheetah CR 6 N Animal This big cat looks like a cheetah, with a short face and long limbs, except twice the size. Its hide is dense and woolly, spotted on the upper side and plain below.

Woolly cheetahs are larger, stronger kin to the cheetah. They also live in plains environments, but prefer the cold steppe to warm savannah. They are more than capable of tackling prey as large as elk or moose, but also feed on smaller game such as hares and geese if such prey is available. Among people of the cold plains, woolly cheetahs are notorious for attacking penned livestock. Nomadic peoples are more likely to admire their strength and speed than view them as pests.

A woolly cheetah hunts in a similar fashion to its smaller kin. It attacks from ambush, charging at unsuspecting prey and knocking them to the ground. Woolly cheetahs go for the throat to subdue prey, and their strong jaws crush the larynx, preventing a humanoid grabbed in its jaws from speaking. Woolly cheetahs are somewhat skittish of fire, and flee from enemies so armed.

Woolly Cheetahs as Animal Companions Treat a woolly cheetah as a big cat animal companion, except that it gains sprint instead of pounce at 7th level.

“Deep Stalker Hunter” © Kenzer and Co., by Anthony Carpenter

[The deep stalker family first appeared in Dangerous Denizens before being converted from D&D 3.5 to Hackmaster 5e in Hacklopedia of Beasts 2. Eusocial insect monsters, with a queen and workers, are common enough, but a eusocial gill man? That’s new to me. Both of the “official” versions have three stat blocks, one each for drones, hunters and queens. But the drones are just smaller, weaker versions of the hunters, which Pathfinder handles with templates. And previously the queen might as well not have had a stat block, having no attacks or even movement ability. So I gave the queen some means to defend herself. Her signature abilities, “attack order” and “defense order”, borrow their names from the Pokemon Vespiquen.]

Deep Stalker Hunter CR 3 LN Monstrous Humanoid This creature resembles a scaly, dog-faced humanoid, taller than a man but hunched over. Its arms are longer than its legs, and all of its appendages end in clawed, webbed digits.

Deep Stalker Queen CR 7 LN Monstrous Humanoid This bloated creature is roughly humanoid, but its clawed, finned arms and legs are dwarfed by its massive abdomen. Its head is doglike and filled with sharp teeth.

Deep stalkers are aquatic creatures with a eusocial organization. Deep stalkers come in three varieties. Males, called drones, are man-sized and fertile, acting to defend the queen and fertilize her eggs. Treat a deep stalker drone as a deep stalker hunter with the degenerate simple template. Deep stalker hunters are sterile females and the form most commonly seen by landlubbers. They hunt for whales to feed the colony, and in their pursuit may come to the surface and even attack ships. The fertile female form, the queen, is the least common—each hive has only a single adult queen, who spends her life laying eggs. Young queens swim to find a new home in swarms, escorted by a subset of her siblings that form the core of her new hive.

Deep stalkers of all kind have eyes sensitive to very low amounts of light and electrosensory organs on the back of their heads. Although the senses of deep stalkers are keen, they are uncomfortable in bright light and electrical attacks are especially damaging to them. Deep stalker hunters tackle prey larger than themselves, working in packs to latch onto whales and chew holes in their flesh. Once the animal is slain, the hunters drag it back to their hive, gorging themselves on the fat and leaving the muscles for the drones and queen to eat and using the bones as construction materials. Ships are also likely targets—deep stalkers have learned that a ship doesn’t fight back as the deep stalkers chew holes in it, and the sailors within make good prey for their drones.

Deep stalker queens are slow, paddling around with their stunted limbs. They are completely incapable of moving on land and are rarely if ever found on the surface. Deep stalker queens can defend themselves with their massive, predatory jaws, but prefer to use their drones and hunters to fight for them. All deep stalkers within the hive fight far more fiercely in the vicinity of their queen, and will gladly sacrifice their life for her. A deep stalker queen will usually flee if injured, hoping to be able to start a new colony elsewhere.

A deep stalker hive is typically found on the bottom of an abyssal plain. Their hives are often the only structure for miles around, as they build barricades and overhangs out of whale bones, sodden timber and the occasional rock. Because of this increased structure, these hives often attract detritivores and scavengers, and these act as supplemental prey for the deep stalkers during lean times.

Individual deep stalker drones and hunters have short lifespans, rarely living past ten years. Queens can be ancient, surviving for more than a century surrounded by multiple generations of their offspring.