TNT Character Type: Mystic

Tunnels & Trolls (TNT) is a really simple game that I like quite a bit. I don't want to over complicate the game because it doesn't need it, but I do think it lends itself well to little OSR-like hacks. For instance, I'm working on rules for massive combat called the Mechs & Monstrosities Hack.

The warrior / rogue / wizard types in TNT are already pretty all-inclusive, but I thought I'd try my hand at designing an additional character type that fills a unique role or has a unique feel. I don't think it's adding anything that couldn't technically already be done in TNT, but hopefully it's interesting enough that people want to try it out anyway.

As with most of my stuff, due to lack of opportunity, this has not been playtested and will likely need playtesting, but hopefully it's a decent framework for what might be a functional character type.

This type fills roughly three roles:

• It's a mixed magic / fighting class. It's very different from the rogue, but like the rogue, can be a multi-purpose character.


• It's meant to fill the monk / psionic character archetype. That's mostly just fluff, and honestly any of the TNT types could be made to fit that archetype, but this models it a little bit more specifically.


• Inadvertently it's become a charisma / face class. While not typically associated with the monk / psionic archetype, it just kind of made sense with how I built the type, and I think charisma really needs a boost in TNT. For every other class, charisma is the only attribute that doesn't contribute anything besides SR; it doesn't add HP or MP like CON or WIZ, nor combat adds, nor spellcasting. So this hopefully gives charisma a boost!

Mystics

Not all magic is drawn from the metaphysics of reality, or the divine. Some magic is drawn from the self, from those with presence, with an indomitable force of will. Those with the training and discipline, who hone their bodies and minds, transform themselves into something exceptional: the mystic.

Some mystics are extravagant; they wear exotic outfits and carry talismans. They often preach the divine or the occult, whether they believe this is the source of their power or not, and draw the attention of others like moths to flames. When they walk into a room, heads turn. Their very presence demands recognition. Rich or poor, native or foreign, they have an essence, a charisma, that transcends socio-cultural barriers. Their bodies may be unassuming in appearance, but they can channel their mental energies into potent psionic force. 

Other mystics choose a more austere, ascetic life. They revel in manual labor, channeling their disciplined minds to strengthen their bodies. They are wise-men; they do not demand attention when they enter the room, but when they speak, others listen. They are more so warrior monks than mesmerists or occultists, but their power essentially draws from the same place, from existential and epistemological analysis. Their orders may acknowledge the spiritual, metaphysical, or divine, but they are more concerned with ordinary affairs, or philosophies relating to individuals. Some believe that their powers come from an arcane or divine source, but to these mystics, there is no meaningful distinction between the self and these outside forces.

Mystic Stats

• Can fight unarmed or with mystic focus weapons with (1d6 * STR Multiplier) + 1d6 + combat adds
• For human characters, this would mean 2d6 + combat adds
• This is the same as the Martial Arts rules in TNT Deluxe but with an additional 1d6
• Can spend 1 WIZ to add +1d6 combat dice when fighting unarmed or with mystic focus weapons, up to mystic level times per combat round
• Can channel psionic energy / ki through hand motions or mystic focus weapon for a 2d6 + combat adds ranged attack
• Cannot spend WIZ to add additional combat dice
• Use mental stats for combat adds when fighting unarmed or with mystic focus weapons (IQ, WIZ, CHA, LK)
• Can spend 1 WIZ on a SR to change a physical stat roll to mental stat roll: Str -> IQ, Con -> Wiz, Spd -> Cha
• Body and Mind are one: CON and WIZ are interchangeable for taking damage and casting mystic spells.
• Gain one mystic spell per level of mystic level or lower, in addition to being able to learn new spells in other ways (same as wizard and rogue)
• When using regular weapons, the mystic's psionic energy causes wear and tear to the weapon. Roll SR LK for wear and tear, on fail, the weapon deals -1d6 dice, and the next SR increases by 1 level.

Mystic Spell List

Note that this spell list was partially inspired by the psion GLOG class by Angus Warman of the Meandering Banter blog.

You can potentially include some wizard spells as well, although I do think mystics should have a more limited spell list than wizards. The spells should be evocative of wuxia, or something generally psychic / psionic.

Level 1

Third Eye

Cost: 2 WIZ

Duration: 30 minutes

Range to Cast: Self

Range of Effect: Self

Power up per level: Duration x2, or -1 to SR level

Restrict one sense to enhance another, providing +3 on SR rolls related to that sense.

Iron Fist

Cost: 2 WIZ

Duration: 1 combat turn

Range to Cast: Self

Range of Effect: Self

Power up per level: x2 Duration

Forearms and fists are covered in a metallic psionic coating, providing +3 armor for one turn when making an unarmed attack or attack with a mystic focus weapon (attack and armor on same turn as casting). Damage dice count as magical for any effect purposes. Armor bonus does not stack if wearing sleeved armor, gloves or gauntlets, or carrying a shield. 

Hovering Water Lily

Cost: 2 WIZ

Duration: 1 combat turn

Range to Cast: Touch

Range of Effect: 5'

Power up per level: Duration x2, or Range to Cast x2 (i.e. 5', 10', etc.), Range of Effect x2, or increase to size or weight of object (i.e. medium, large, etc.), or walk on walls.

Small, lightweight objects can be made to hover around the mystic or psionically tossed (possibly as improvisational weapon attacks). 

Whole Cloth
Cost: 4 WIZ
Duration: 10 minutes
Range to Cast: 5'
Range of Effect: Relative visual range
Power up per level: Duration x2, or increase size of object (i.e. medium, large, etc.), or Range to Cast x2, or add additional sensory effect (i.e. sound, smell, etc.), or capable of independent motion

Creates a small illusory object. If a target is suspicious (e.g. the illusion is implausible), roll a charisma SR to maintain the illusion. If the illusion is attacked, it immediately breaks. If the illusion is given a tactile sensory effect and used as an attack, it does not deal damage or provide combat dice, although on a successful charisma SR, the defender perceives 2d6 illusory damage, which is recovered as soon as the illusion is broken.

Level 2

There is No Spoon

Cost: 3 WIZ

Duration: N/A

Range to Cast: 5'

Range of Effect: 5'

Power up per level: Increase size of object (i.e. medium, large, etc.)

Through focus, the mystic can warp or break any small non-living, non-magical object (such as a spoon). If the object is being held or worn, such as a weapon, armor, or trinket, the target rolls for wear and tear, otherwise automatic.

Crouching Tiger

Cost: 4 WIZ

Duration: Passive for 10 minutes; 1 combat turn once activated

Range to Cast: Self

Range of Effect: Self

Power up per level: Duration x2, or number of defensive uses x2

Speed or charisma SR for a stealth attack against an enemy that does not see you. Roll combat dice for an opposed combat roll, and double the results if the SR was successful (otherwise regular damage). If the SR was successful but the opposed combat roll failed, take no damage. Can also be used to defend against stealth attacks for passive duration one time.

Level 3

Diamond Mind

Cost: 10 WIZ

Duration: 10 minutes

Range to Cast: Self

Range of Effect: Self

Power up per level: Duration x2, or Range of Effect x2 (i.e. 5', 10', etc.) to encompass allies

Mystics have immense willpower and even the ability to psionically impose their will on reality. They are immune to telepathy and can even fake their thoughts to a telepath (Charisma SR roll), and are protected by a shimmering aura that provides +3 armor against any kind of elemental attack and immunity to environmental factors.

ESP

As wizard spell, but level 3, cost 10 WIZ, charisma SR roll to succeed.

Discussion

Here are some design notes / concerns:

• Whereas the rogue is more like a true generalist, the mystic uses both magic and physical combat but in a more narrow way


• Giving mystics mental stat adds for combat and the ability to substitute mental stats for physical stats on SRs at a low cost reflects the "mind over matter" nature of monks, and can be flavored flexibly. It could be that they are shrimpy noodles whose "physical" abilities are entirely psionic, or they could be a shredded washboard whose physical strength comes from their indomitable will.


• Mystics have a more limited spell list than wizards (part of that is me being lazy, but even if I added more spells I want it to be limited), and are focused around wuxia and psionic-like abilities.


• Not unlike D&D, at low levels they're generally going to be weaker, because if they want to use mental adds then they have to fight unarmed or with a monk focus weapon which only deals 2d6, or maximum 3d6 if they pay 1 WIZ. This is hopefully offset by the fact that they can pretty much ignore physical stats, so they should have high combat adds and the ability to grow in both "physical" and magical ability more quickly than a rogue, who would have to spread their stats. As they level and can add more combat dice to their unarmed / mystic focus weapon attacks, they become more comparable to a warrior, but at the cost of WIZ.
• I'm still worried that this type is either woefully underpowered or woefully overpowered, it really needs to be playtested!

High Level Games: 4 Reasons Why Your Game And Mine Are Less Different Than You Think

I wrote another HLG article! In line why my recent interest in SWORDDREAM (check out the subreddit!), this article is about defying our preconceived notions of what differentiates different kinds of games, and to what extent it's authorial intent, culture, dice probabilities, etc., and also how to go about leveraging that knowledge. Even if you disagree with the particulars, the point of this article is more about just encouraging people to think about their games more critically, or at least differently.

SWORDDREAM

So my friend Saker Tarsos from tarsos theorem made me aware of this interesting new RPG movement on twitter called #SWORDDREAM. You can learn more about it on the graverobbers guide blog.

Nobody had done it, so I took the reins and made a subreddit. In keeping in the spirit of SWORDDREAM, it's "unofficial by design". If you want a convenient, centralized place to discuss SWORDDREAM-related stuff, it's there, and if you don't want to, then you don't have to!

Fantasy Species Fuzions

NOTE: Fixed the bug that was causing the buttons not to work if run from the main page.

Working on the superheroes and villains as fantasy species table reminded me how much I missed doing Weird & Wonderful Tables. I thought that table worked out really well, and it made me want to go back to my "traditional" fantasy series, which as a reminder includes a Weird & Wonderful take on Undead, Anathema, Vampires, Goblins, and Elves. Also, whereas my Phantasmos setting is very gonzo Heavy Metal original science fantasy, my Aquarian Dawn setting that I'm currently running a campaign in is a bit more grounded in "traditional" fantasy (although growing increasingly gonzo, because I can't help myself), so I've been trying to think about more interesting takes on "traditional" fantasy.

So the theme of this table is "what if a traditional fantasy species was more like another traditional fantasy species?". Despite the name, these aren't hybrids per se (not half-elves, half-orcs, etc.), although they could be if you want to use them that way. They could also be sub-species, or they may even be able to just replace the regular version of that species, if you want to run a mostly "traditional" fantasy campaign with a twist. Certain assumptions are made in the descriptions about the nature of the primary or secondary species in each entry, or the relationship between the fuzion with one or both of those species or other species, but I think most of these could be made to work in any of the capacities suggested above, maybe just with a bit of tweaking.

For this table, we've got orcs, elves, dwarves, halflings, and goblins, so you'll get orc-elves, orc-dwarves, ..., elf-orcs, elf-dwarves, etc., for a total of 20 combinations. If people like this, I may add more traditional fantasy species fuzions down the line, or focus on fantasy species from other genres or culture like Japanese fantasy or Chinese Wuxia.

Some of the entries I would consider more original, while others are more like adaptations of other creatures from fantasy or folklore re-imagined as a fuzion of traditional fantasy species. I tried to think about thematic through-lines for the species, so that for instance there are certain commonalities between all fuzions with dwarf as the primary species, vs. dwarf as the secondary species. I didn't let that overly limit me, but this process was a useful way to think about what thematically drives each of these species.


Click through the list of fantasy species fuzions:
Go to fuzion by number (1 through 20):
Pick a random fuzion

Picture Reference

Name	Primary	Secondary	Description
1. Golden Orcs	Orc	Elf	They have saturated yellowish-green skin like an underripe mango, and glowing eyes of the various colors of the visible light spectrum. If they have hair, it is light brown or some shade of blonde, red, green, or violet. As natural forest fires are necessary to enrich the soil, destruction is as much a part of nature as creation. The golden orcs were created by the gods to cleanse the world. They are intelligent and rational, and take no joy in their task, but they will complete it with zeal. Some say they are the true first-born of the gods. Others say that they are the gods' final children, plucked from their place in time by the extra-temporal gods to correct errors in the past where needed.
2. Fireborne	Orc	Dwarf	Unbeknownst to the High Father, the lesser gods kept some of the clay of life for themselves. Unfortunately for them, some of that clay was stolen. A dark sorcerer, evil god, or god-like outsider stole the clay of life, and used their powerful magics or technologies to change its very nature. They fired their creations in their abominable kiln, creating monstrosities and aberrations of life. Their bones, claws, teeth, and tusks are made of metal. Black ichor lymph flows beneath their hard, burnt, clay-like exterior. They glow ever red-hot. They are simple creatures, more like insects than beasts, programmed necromantically like zombies.
3. Drone Orcs	Orc	Halfling	Halfling-sized orcs. They are a simple people with simple needs, mostly to consume. They are kept as low-maintenance reserves, should a dark-lord's evil plans go awry. If the horde is decimated or eradicated in an unexpected and stunning defeat, it is easier to use magics or technologies to morph the drones into new soldiers to replenish the horde than breed or craft a new horde over centuries or millenia. In a pinch, they are formidable in their own right, and some hordes are even left in drone form intentionally, for various tactical niches unsuitable for full-sized orcs.
4. Spore Orcs	Orc	Goblin	The dark lord who created this horde made them from the fruiting body of a fungal-like substance from another plane. They are green and purple-skinned, waxy and fibrous like a vegetable or fungus, covered in fruiting mushroom-like growths. The growths develop like a cancer, crushing their internal organs and obstructing or mutilating orifices, until they explode, releasing a cloud of spores. The spores carry microscopic cells like micro-orcs, assaulting the bodies of their enemies on the sub-cellular level, transforming them into full-sized spore orcs.
5. Green Elves	Elf	Orc	This is an altered / expanded version of the entry in Anathema. They are a shamanic people who pray to the spirits of the dark and nightmares, of wild beasts, spirits in the flame, and gods of the dark cosmos and stars. The forests are harsh, and they are a harsh people, but they are not necessarily evil and neither are their gods or spirits, although they may seem it. It is a balance, to appease the darkness, to harness the light of the cosmic inferno, to read the messages of eldritch beings written in the stars. They use tools of obsidian and the metals found in summoned meteorites as shamanic fetishes and foci. They are the true druids, the fomorians, the protectors of nature against civilization, civilization from nature, and the world from the elseworlds.
6. Berserker Elves	Elf	Dwarf	They are the size of elves with the muscle mass of dwarves. They have the hairiness and large noses of dwarves, and the large almond eyes and long pointed ears of elves. They are psychedelic psilocybin warrior monks. They practice martial sciences as a form of personal and spiritual development, and enjoy ritualistic violent combat, but most would prefer to spend their time learning and creating. They are natural philosopher-engineers, although they tend to prefer hand-to-hand combat or fighting with simple weapons like axes and hammers. They see tools as extensions of the body and mind, and so for physical and visceral acts like violence, they prefer tools which best enhance, rather than replace, their physicality.
7. Hill Elves	Elf	Halfling	An unusually mundane sort of elves. They live simple lives, not that unlike rural humans. Some have magical aptitudes, but no more so than the average human. They don't commune with nature spirits or live in magic trees or arcane towers. They're well-fed, tending to be even a bit pudgy. They are excellent chefs. In some ways they out-human humans, with awkwardly large hands and feet, and they're even hairier. That all being said, they're still much quieter, at least when they want to be. The few hill elves to interact with the larger machinations of the world, to become adventurers, tend to pursue magic and alchemy, usually by way of atypical means, more like magical bards, through music, or theatrics, or most of all, through food.
8. Puca	Elf	Goblin	A highly magical species of dimunitive elves, more like nature spirits than mortals. They are sometimes impish but generally well-meaning creatures that live primarily in forests or in subterranean villages under termite-like mounds. Their civilization appears technological in its complexity, with plants, animals, and other aspects of nature working in a Rube Goldbergian-parody of natural order. Their footsoldiers are redcaps, their cavalry ride large dragonflies or dragonfly unicorn ponies, and their mages are leprechauns who harness the power of rainbows through gold coins which they carry in pots, or through four-leaf clover charms.
9. Ur-Dwarves	Dwarf	Orc	Dwarves have a little-known ability, one so dangerous, so grotesque, it is carefully suppressed by the dwarven elders and scholars. Any dwarf who eats another dwarf absorbs their clay of life into themselves. As they consume more dwarves, they grow, wider than tall, like a grotesquely stretched, cylindrical dwarf, yet surprisingly limber. They become uglier, their skin harder and more clay-like, more angular, and cracked into rocky pieces. After consuming 100 dwarves, a dwarf becomes an Ur-Dwarf; a hulking beast more like a clay golem in appearance than a dwarf. In addition to growing bigger and stronger, their savant-like mechanical and engineering skills are also enhanced, as is their vicious cunning, although their social intelligence and critical thinking declines.
10. Rune Dwarves	Dwarf	Elf	They could almost be confused for halflings, if not for their musculature. Despite their mass, they are surprisingly graceful, effective in the shadows and facing off in the light. As a culture, they have contributed more to the alchemical magics and sciences, and engineering, than any other culture or species. Their runes were the first to account for the mathematical concept of zero, and to effectively incorporate numerology into their language. They are masters of finding the True Name in things, and in building tools, weapons, and golems with alchemical fires and runic encodings. They often carve runes into their own clay skin, sometimes imbuing in them unique colorings and auras in addition to whatever magical benefits they provide.
11. Homunculi	Dwarf	Halfling	Pint-sized humanoid creatures, created from the clay of life for alchemical experiments. Alchemists, wizards, and engineers tend to use them as assistants, and initially they have little sense of self or agency (although this often develops over time). They often have exagerrated features reflective of their purpose. The most common homunculi have massively, comically oversized hands and facial features on an otherwise gaunt body and narrow head. Etched into their brains, rather than the normal folds one might expect, are runic symbols of the body part that part of the brain controls. A trained alchemist can even cut open a conscious homunculus' head to make modifications to their brain.
12. Wabi-Sabim	Dwarf	Goblin	When the lesser gods crafted the dwarves from clay, not all of their creations met their homogeneous design. Whether early trials, sculptures ill-formed, or set too close to the flame or too far from it, or even experimental post-dwarven trials, some deviated from the design. They are often stunted, misshapen, or missing limbs or facial features, although some may be larger or have extra limbs or facial features. Unwilling to destroy their deviant creations, the lesser gods laced the wabi-sabim with gold to fill the cracks and glue broken parts, giving them their unique gold-veined skin and greenish-yellow tint. Either due to their atypical forms, or due to the alchemy laced in their skin, they occasionally develop unique physical, magical, or alchemical abilities.
13. Brutelings	Halfling	Orc	Abnormally large halflings with androgynous features and large hands and feet. They are nearly indistinguishable from humans, and are similar in temperament to an average masculine human. They are prone to hypermasculine aggression and displays of dominance, as well as narcissistic and anti-social tendencies, although they are not necessarily evil, and in dire circumstances make for competent and efficient leaders amongst a mixed-species group. They are generally good at manipulating humans and rising to positions of prominence and power in human civilization, for better and worse, but are generally disliked by other halflings, who find them to be too serious, too intense, and too power-hungry.
14. Gnomes	Halfling	Elf	They are to elves as halflings are to humans. They are extremely thin and narrow, with long faces filled mostly by large eyes, and pointed ears. They are magically inclined, inquisitive, and hyperactive. They focus intently on their tasks, and make for excellent tinkers, craftsmen, farmers, and engineers. What they altogether lack in strength and durability, even compared to halflings, they make up for with intelligence, in spades.
15. Pygmalions	Halfling	Dwarf	A diminutive warrior species that has learned to harness the powers of the clay of life. They have used the clay to enrich their forms, giving themselves dense muscles and skin, and rounded, full bellies. They can shape their clay, allowing them to alter their faces, and to a lesser extent their bodies. They worship a raptor-like crane god and venerate cranes. Their warriors, known as raptors, wear feathered outfits and crane-faced masks, utilize martial arts inspired by cranes, and ride domesticated war-cranes into battle.
16. Mutant Halflings	Halfling	Goblin	Sometimes called trolls or gremlins (if not already used in the setting). They have various combinations of exagerrated facial features, and exotic neon, pastel, or metallic colored hair and skin tones. They are hyperactive pranksters, often with a violent side, but not necessarily evil. They often have unique magical abilities or naturally high magical aptitudes. While they tend to get along perfectly well amongst themselves, most other intelligent species find them to be too unruly, undisciplined, and disrespectful to authority to tolerate, and so they are mostly relegated to far-away places and left to their own devices. That being said, they develop emotional attachments to individuals of other species easily, and once ingratiated in a group or civilization, will readily abandon their homes and adamently cling to their new friends, only giving up if treated to the most hateful, heinous, humiliating personal offense, one that far exceeds the magnitude of whatever perceived wrong-doing the mutant halfling may have committed. Only one who has become a true friend would know how to commit such a grievous offense.
17. Dire Goblins	Goblin	Orc	Some goblins are neither born naturally, nor created by dark lords, but are transformed. To kill 1000 goblins is to be reborn a dire goblin. They maintain their original identity, but an evil and insane voice stews inside them, goading them into evil deeds. When overcome by the dire goblin, their bodies cease and convulse, as a hulking brute the size of a bugbear punctures their mortal body. Dire goblins have green or yellow skin, their hands and feet are clawed, their bodies are covered in horns and spikes, and their eyes glow like an inferno. In addition to their sheer physical power, they also wield cosmic infernal magics. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult for the host to resist the voice, and eventually they transform fully into the dire goblin. They may have the memories of their original identity, or feign as themselves, but their soul is dead and gone forever.
18. Cherubim	Goblin	Elf	They have the proportions of a human baby, although goblin-sized, and with just enough musculature to support themselves. They can also carry themselves by two sets of bird-like wings. They have four genders, identified by their head, like that of a lion, an ox, an eagle, or a long-nosed human. The lions tend to be aggressive and animalistic, the ox stoic and disciplined, the eagle cunning and vigilante, and the humanoid social, playful (sometimes playfully mischievous), and jovial. They live in a land of primordial paradise, created by the gods to protect paradise and to serve in other ways. That being said, they spend most of their time appreciating the benefits of living in paradise. If their task forces them to leave paradise, especially in the service of mortals, there better be some fuckin' involved or they'll be ornery right up until they return to the gates of paradise.
19. Brownies	Goblin	Dwarf	Goblins who have been imbued with the clay of life. They are slightly larger than regular goblins, and much more stout. They are crafty and mechanical, and find domestic affairs like cooking and cleaning to be meditative. They are renowned architects, mindful of the structural needs, aesthetics, and ergonomics of the buildings they construct. They are a rare kind who find such inherent reward in their work, that they often forego greater monetary rewards or promotions to managerial or leadership roles. This is because, unbeknownst to most, they derive most of their sustenance magically, through domestic labor. That being said, they are also known for their... quirky sense of humor, and will often play pranks on their lords or build easter eggs into their constructions. They are also irrationally thin-skinned, and will lash out at even the slightest insult.
20. Gluttonous Goblins	Goblin	Halfling	They are round, their bones degraded beneath their fat, appearing more like frog-men than goblins. They build contraptions on wheels or treads or spiderlegs to contain their bodies and locomote. Their contraptions are usually powered by foot pedals, as they have large feet and surprisingly muscle-toned legs. They are hunter-gatherer-scavengers, and when it comes to finding their next meal, they are more pro-social, crafty, and cunning than any human civilization. If not for their singular and simplistic goal, as a group they may very well be the most dangerous intelligent species in the world.

Four "10 Monster Settings"

I really liked the idea of this challenge by 3toadstools and decided I'd take a go at this! #tenmonstersetting

TL;DR Setting 2 and setting 4 are my favorites, but let me know what you think!

So I've decided I'm going to do a few of these, each using bestiaries from different games. I wanted games that are somewhat Kitchen Sink fantasy, but with some kind of twist, and then develop a new setting with a more narrow focus. For any given setting, I roll a random number to pick a monster (with possibly some vetos), and try to assign it to a role from the below list, and if I can't figure out how to make any available role fit without radically changing the monster, then scroll through until I find the next best fit.

This list is based on Chris Hall's suggestion in the linked 3toadstools post, except that rather than mythological being specific to monsters from real-world mythology, instead I'm interpreting it as being that the monster must fit into some kind of metaphysical, mythological, or divine aspect of the setting.

There are a few bestiaries in particular that I love, but that feel already so unique, or so singular or cohesive in their vision, that I didn't think it made sense to use them for this challenge (as much as I would have liked to). Those include (but are not limited to) Fire on the Velvet Horizon, Veins of the Earth, and Lusus Naturae.

Also, I really wanted to do a scifi setting, but none of the scifi books I own seem to have actual bestiaries :(. Most of the enemies are just humanoids, or random roll tables, which I think makes sense for a spacefaring campaign especially, but is still a little disappointing. Any suggestions for a scifi bestiary would be appreciated!

Since I couldn't find a scifi bestiary to my liking and already did two science fantasy settings, I decided to compromise and do a fourth setting with elements from Gamma World, Spelljammer, and the Gith from Planescape / Forgotten Realms. Given that the other two science fantasy settings lean more on the fantasy side, I figure one leaning on the scifi side would be novel enough.

In addition to picking 10 monsters based on the list below, I also explain why I chose the bestiaries that I did, provide a brief description of the setting, and then a more detailed setting description after the monster lists.

In a few cases, I included additional creatures besides just what I rolled for, but I tried to keep it all fairly tight in scope.

Semi-intelligent humanoid:
Undead:
Ancient Fey:
Giant/Ogre/Troll:
Great Wyrm / Lizard:
Aerial:
Lurks in the Water:
Extradimensional:
Mythological:
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing:


Setting 1: Dying Zothique
Source: Ninth World Bestiary 1, Ninth World Bestiary 2
Inspiration: I love the cypher system and the numenera setting. I think it's a really cool kitchen-sink science fantasy setting, but if there's one complaint I have, it's that it's just a little too unfocused. I don't necessarily mind it in the sense that I only run my own settings anyway, so it's more a toolbox for inspiration, but I think the lack of any kind of cohesion or through-line arguably keeps it from being a "classic" setting, even if it's intentionally done that way so that GMs can make their own through-lines. So I attempted to remedy that here by coming up with a more narrow setting using elements from the Ninth World Bestiaries.
Brief Description: Even further in the future of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique Cycle, a Stonepunk world that has basically devolved into the stone age, with some technomagical artifacts of prior eras.

Semi-intelligent humanoid:  Grush (Mutated morlocks)
Undead: Rorathik (blue cloud transforms humanoids into blue Predator-like super-killers)
Ancient Fey: Roummos (purple insect cloud-like extra-dimensional space, reinterpreted as insectoid pixie cloud)
Giant/Ogre/Troll: Culova Protectors (Spider humanoids)
Great Wyrm / Lizard: Terror Bird (T-Rex bird)
Aerial: Navarac (Man-sized flying lizards with moth-like patterned wings and two sets of vertically-positioned black eyes around their wide, crocodile-like toothy jaws)
Lurks in the Water: Kroth (mult-legged, multi-eyed, mossy, amphibious ambush predator with sticky digestive enzyme on it's stone-like back)
Extradimensional: Erulian (floating brain with one cyclops eye and brainstem-like appendage)
Mythological: Torlethis Companion (Eel-like symbiants that give humanoids supernatural physical abilities as well as the ability to summon dazzling bursts of holy light, viewed as angel-like stigma)
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing: Jesanthum (Wildflower Panther reinterpreted as fungus)

Setting Description:

It is the far, far future, on the last habitable continent in the world, Zothique. Whereas human civilization as we know it has continually advanced, Zothique has continually regressed. Once a technological wonder, little by little it receded, into a superstitious world of swords and sorcery, and eventually to little more than stones and savagery.

There is a tear in the fabric of the world, where things from another universe leak into our own like a diffusive membrane. The tear brings with it life energy that had been lost in Zothique, and so massive dinosaur-like creatures and other monstrosities of life have evolved. The amphibious kroth lurk in the primordial swamps, the jesanthum packs stalk the caves and dark places, the navarac scout in the skies, and much of humanity has split off into the monstrous, mutated grush and other abhumans. Worst of all are the terror birds, like the T-Rex of the far ancient past. For as dangerous as the world is, for as out-classed as humanity has become, there is life, at least, something which had been thought long lost in the world of Zothique.

Then, there are the outsiders. The roummos, the insectoid manifestation of the tear itself, a purple pixie cloud of life energy and mutation, are the triggers of primal fear, like the spiders and serpents of the past. Those who do not flee become rorathik; blue-skinned monstrous abhumans with four-pronged jaws filled with rows of teeth, the ultimate hunter-killers, mind-controlled by the floating extra-dimensional cyclops brains known as the erulians.

Most of the surviving humanity is at the mercy of nature and those from outside, surviving as psychic-slaves to the erulians, or at the mercy of the culova protectors; hulking, cunning but simple-minded, predatory spider-men that spare humanity, at the cost of the occasional sacrifice.

And then there are the wizard-kind, those blessed with a torlethis companion. While some believe that these eel-like symbiants that provide supernatural physical abilities and dazzling powers of holy light, are themselves outsiders, this is considered taboo. Humanity believes in the altruism of the companions, because they must, if they have any hope of surviving, and those blessed are revered as heroes and demi-gods. Whereas most humans wield crude stone, the wizard-kind have the innate ability to carve and smooth the stones, to channel magical abilities through them, and slowly they work to bring civilization back to humanity.


Setting 2: Record of Machine War
Source: Anima Beyond Fantasy: Those Who Walked Amongst Us
Inspiration: Unfortunately, this system is no longer available on drivethrurpg, but if I remember correctly, it was an interesting collaboration between a Spanish creator and a Japanese creator. The game itself wasn't really to my tastes, waaay too crunchy, but the setting was very interesting, with a rich and politically-oriented mythology. It's kind of a science-fantasy setting, but much less overtly than Numenera. Anima felt consistent to me with Japanese versions of western medieval fantasy, where it has some of the tropes of traditional fantasy, but isn't afraid to put its own spin on things, add its own ideas, or randomly throw in science fiction elements.
Brief Description: Gothic horror science fantasy, somewhat inspired by the Diablo videogames, but could also be compared to Castlevania. There are heavenly and demonic factions, including a "second-wave" of fallen angels, and the factions are all morally ambiguous. I imagine it as being a medieval-esque setting, but could also work as a modern surrealist urban fantasy thing as well.

Semi-intelligent humanoid: Children of Baal (bat-like humanoids who have passed through the Gate of Hell)
Undead: Type-005 (alchemically enhanced super-zombies with bone weapons)
Ancient Fey: Shinigami (valkyries of hell)
Giant/Ogre/Troll: Humbaba (monstrous stone golems connected by floating rocks with long horns and spikes)
Great Wyrm / Lizard: Lord of the Dead / Beast of Beleth (draconic-demonic skeletons with humanoid head, scythe-appendages, sharp ankh-like tale, long horns, covered in spikes)
Aerial: Globe Frog (basketball-sized green and blue frog-like creatures with lizard wings that can inflate their belly to take flight)
Lurks in the Water: Balzak (ancient amphibious reptilian humanoids with chitinous plates, frond-like appendages on their backs, and elongated, creepy, mask-like faces)
Extradimensional: Etrian Gnosis (swirling black void with many arms and a glowing blue-indigo eye at the center)
Mythological: Praetorian (angelic insectoid cyborgs created by the queen bee-like Machine God)
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing: Lapsia (spider-flowers)

Setting Description: 

The All Father had many children, long before humanity, but his favored son was not one of his creation, but one adopted by his primordial foes. Loki the frost giant, Loki the trickster, Loki the cunning.

Loki, who defied the All Father, who gave humanity wit, and knowledge. Loki, who taught humanity the ways of fire.

Loki, who went to war with All Father, perhaps justly, but nonetheless failed. Loki, ruling the netherworld in his incarnation Hela, who threatens the tree of life with knowledge in his incarnation Jormungandr, who taught humanity the strength of social order in his incarnation Fenris.

The humans have all but eradicated the Frost Giants, and Loki's demons, and the beasts. They war now with the balzak, the amphibians of the swamplands, worthless to humanity except for extraction of magical essence. Their globe frogs and lapsia flower creations a guerrilla nuisance more than anything else. They hunt the remaining humbaba golems left behind by the Frost Giants for sport. Loki's remaining lords of the dead in the middle realm, the Beasts of Beleth, are the only true opponents to human civilization left (here be dragons).

Meanwhile, all is not well in heaven. Athena, the favored of All Father's children after the fall of Loki, the goddess of craft and wisdom, showed such promise. As sharp as Loki, but decidedly slower, and contemplative. Only once, Athena overstepped, she built a machine she could not control. It was supposed to be a gate to the netherworld, an attempt to open communication with Loki and bring peace to the lower and higher realms. Instead, she opened the gate to the Null, the Etrian Gnosis. Her soul was sucked from her physical vessel, into the vacuum of Null, leaving her little more than a cold, heartless machine.

And so now Athena, the inadvertent Machine Goddess, lives only to replicate, to spread homogeneity, to craft war for its own sake, for the base thrill of destruction, to fill the absence of soul with hot animal urges, underneath her cold metal exterior. She has come to the middle realm, a true threat humanity is not prepared for. She reanimates the dead with her alchemically enhanced Type-005 bio-machine zombies. Her angelic, insectoid praetorians are harbingers of destruction, every bit a match for the Beasts of Beleth.

Loki, seeing the carnage, has reopened Baal, the gate of hell, flooding the world with Baal's demonic children, and the shinigami death valkyries, to revel in the carnage.

Clearly out-classed, some believe it would behoove humanity to discuss an alliance with Loki, who must also be threatened by the Machine Goddess. Of course, Loki is known for his arrogance, in addition to his cunning, and would likely take offense at the claim that he could only defeat the Machine Goddess with the assistance of humanity. And of course, there are still many humans who do not believe in peace, who seek to continue to war with the balzak even as Loki's devils return and the Machine Goddess brings metal terror to the middle realm. Will arrogance and violence be the hubris of the organic and divine alike, or will cool heads prevail?


Setting 3: Oceans & Orkas
Source: Zweihander
Inspiration: I wanted at least one setting that felt a little more rooted in traditional fantasy (even if it's really more so rooted specifically in Warhammer). The system is a bit too crunchy for my tastes, although seems functional enough, and the setting was more interesting than I expected it to be, but warhammer / 40K has always impressed me whenever I dig into it.
Brief Description: Despite the fact that I chose Zweihander to do a more traditional fantasy setting, I actually think Record of Machine War ended up fitting that bill already, and with these monsters, I thought it made more sense to do more of a pre-industrial naval / pirate fantasy setting. I'm imagining the main human kingdom being like the Spanish or Portuguese. Despite leaning into the fantasy of naval travel, the world is still Grim & Perilous in Warhammer / Zweihander fashion.

Semi-intelligent humanoid: Kobold Fanatic (goblin assassins)
Undead: Havoc Conjurer (abyssal, infernal humanoids in black robes)
Ancient Fey: Fomori Huscarl (chitinous humanoids with insect mandibles and cyclopean eyes)
Giant/Ogre/Troll: Bog Thing / Grey Men (mossy swamp monsters)
Great Wyrm / Lizard: Hydra (giant many-headed fire-breathing reptiles)
Aerial: Air Sylph (insectoid pixies)
Lurks in the Water: Siabra (reptilian sea-elves)
Extradimensional: Tlaloc (technomagically advanced frog-men)
Mythological: Zoatar (gorilla-centaurs, an ancient people that have mostly passed on to the Overworld)
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing: Filthy Nightmare (massive slug-like creatures wreathed in flies)

Setting Description:

While the kingdom itself prospers, the commoners do not. Crime is rampant, and one must be harsh in order to survive. Whether seeking the riches of the oceans for a better life, or conscripted against their will, many choose to abandon the land, serving as sailors or privateers working nominally to better the kingdom.

In the open oceans, they face pirates (or become pirates themselves), the monstrous orkas and their unassuming, serpentine kobold fanatic companions, and the Wild Hunt of the siabra, the dark elves of the sea.

They face other threats as well, like the insectoid swarms of air sylphs in migration, the massive sea slug monsters known as filthy nightmares that portend the outbreak of disease, the chitinous monster-men of the depths known as the fomori, their huscarl warriors, and the abyssal havoc conjurers that harness the geothermal power of deep ocean infernos, servants of Mother Hydra and King Dagon, the god-royalty of the fomori and all creatures of the depths.

So far the kingdom has only claimed one island colony, on the other side of the world. They continue to struggle against the threats of nature on the island, like the bog things and grey men of the swamps, or the native tribes of zoatar. However, the nearby continent is the home of the tlaloc, technomagically advanced frog-men, who do not take kindly to the encroaching apes from across the ocean...


Setting 4: Song of Astralad (Song of the Astral War)
Source: Gamma World 4e, Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix I, Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix II
Inspiration: I wanted a true scifi bestiary but couldn't find a good one, and I wanted to do something with Gamma World and Spelljamers (and the Gith) but already had two science fantasy settings, so I figured I'd combine these left-overs into a more scifi-oriented science fantasy setting.
Brief Description: This is basically the Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy of these settings. The most significant feature is that the gith, rather than humans, are the primary species.

Semi-intelligent humanoid: Lensman (beholder humanoids with simian body, starfish-like arms and legs, tentacle sprouting from back, big eye in torso, toothy maw underneath)
Undead: Bionoid (necro-cyborg rastipede / gith hybrids)
Ancient Fey: Rastipede (intelligent insectoid-humanoids with bipedal upper body and arthropoid lower body)
Giant/Ogre/Troll: Hoop (large, monstrous rabbit-men)
Great Wyrm / Lizard: Blight (large white wyrm with draconic face and wings capable of invisibility and producing flashes of blinding / stunning light)
Aerial: Space Swine (boar griffon)
Lurks in the Water: Fens (fish-men that can transform into fish-like birds capable of space travel)
Extradimensional: Astro Sphinx (lion body, bronze scales, black bat wings, humanoid front limbs, head like a goat skull with thin layer of skin, empty eye sockets with small pupils of violet light)
Mythological: Yexil (intelligent orange-furred lion-bats with human-hand pincers at the ends of their wings, insectoid mandibles, and the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes, claim to be harbingers of the space gods)
Foul Crawly Underworld Thing: Asteroid Spider (globular body, ten legs, wormy eye-like sensory organs)

Setting Description:

The gith lost their homeworld long ago, having been taken from their world and ensalved by the illithids. Countless generations later, the physically hardened and psionically advanced gith rebelled, becoming the war-like githyanki. They freed themselves from the illithid, and built up their warships in the astral plane. Within the astral plane, civilizations harden from existential threats within crystal spheres, manifestations of their psionic will, sustained in the phlogisten aether of mind and matter.

The githyanki god-queen is an immortal necro-cyborg lich, in a political marriage to Tiamat, the multi-headed queen of red dragons (although it is an open secret that they are, in fact, deeply in love). Together they have bred the Duthka'Gith, red dragon-githyanki hybrids.

The githyanki have become slavers themselves, incorporating the psidhe (psionic fey) rastipedes into their empire, working them to death and then mutating their exoskeletons into necro-cyborg bionoid power armors.

With their army of red dragons, githyanki psych-sorcerers, bionoids, hoop and badder mercenaries, and Duthka'Gith elite troopers, the githyanki were able not only to maintain their independence, but to hunt the illithids seemingly to extinction, and conquer a galaxy-wide swath of the astral plane.

Many of the githyanki suffer under the cruelty of the empire as well, and although the god-queen clutches her empire tightly, rebellion is not unheard of. There are space smugglers, pirates, and vigilantes, who do what they can to free the astral-galaxy, riding the phlogisten waves in stealthy ships.

These rebels must fend against beasts of space such as the stalker-predator asteroid spiders, herds of aggressive space swine, murders of draconic blights, and gangs of beholder lensman.

The rebels are led by the githzerai, an order of gith monks and templars who wield the psionically-powered silver astral swords, capable of cutting the cord between living things and the aether itself.

They seek to organize the thri-keen, mortal cousins of the rastipedes, the giff, the hippopotamus people with the only military able to match the githyanki, the physically weak but hardy and mobile fish-men known as fens, and even the crimelord-slaver neogi, in order to overthrow the evil empire.

The tragedy of it all, is that for all the unforgivable things the empire has done, trapped in her phylactory is a loving, merciful soul, the soul that empowered the god-queen in the first place. Tiamat, too, is not truly evil, she simply has no context for mortal concerns. Long ago, as she first learned the concept of love from the god-queen, there was a possibility that all of dragon-kind would change for the better. But something happened, something that changed the god-queen forever, and set her down a dark path. And so Tiamat put those feelings behind her, a novelty to be forgotten.

Meanwhile, within the phlogisten aether, there is another war, between the extra-dimensional astro sphinxes and the yexil, the self-purported harbingers of the space gods, a celestial war on a scale beyond the comprehension of githyanki or giffs or any of the other phlogisten-faring peoples. If they have any hope of surviving in the middle of this war of gods, they'll need to put their own differences aside and raise a unifying crystal sphere of pure psionic love.

Mechs & Monstrosities Hack for Tunnels & Trolls

Intro

The intro to the M&M Hack is significantly longer than the hack itself, if you just want the mechanics, skip to the M&M Hack Section.

As I discuss in my TNT cheatsheet / houserules / impressions post (I'm referring to Tunnels & Trolls as TNT now rather than T&T, because it's way cooler), I'm really digging this system.

One thing in particular that I like is how combat works. Briefly, the way it works is that both sides roll their dice, and the difference in values determines who takes how much damage. Now on the one hand, games with flexible dice pools, opposed rolls, and exception-cases on those opposed rolls are really difficult to conceptualize in terms of probability distributions, which is really annoying because I love thinking about and tinkering with probabilities in tabletop RPGs. 

That being said, I like how opposed rolls can add tactical depth to combat, while still being fairly simple and rules-light. For instance, ranged weapons in TNT generally add fewer dice than melee weapons, and warriors don't get their bonus dice when they use ranged weapons. However, ranged weapons have a chance to deal damage even on a failed opposed roll, giving them a unique tactical role and one that I think makes practical and narrative sense. There is also a mechanic called spite damage, where any 6 on a die counts as 1 spite damage, which is also damage that can bypass a failed opposed roll. In other words, the more dice you have, the more dangerous you are, even if the probabilities suggest you will lose more opposed rolls against an opponent than win.

Tabletop RPGs with any degree of tactical granularity often struggle with combat at scale, either just making large structures, mechs, or kaiju-sized monsters massively powerful, limiting their use-case (and fun) in mixed-scale combat, or not allowing actions at different scales to directly interact at all. 

Numenera Destiny has some cool settlement building mechanics that I've talked a little bit about, but they also had some mechanics for conflict at scale. In their case, players and other individual-scale characters can't directly interact with characters at settlement-scale (defined as settlements and hordes), but they have various abilities or roleplay objectives that allow them to buff/debuff or in some other way indirectly affect settlements or hordes, or they can get these affects by achieving objectives. 

However, I think a TNT-style opposed roll with a bypass mechanic, as with ranged weapons and spite damage, could be an effective way to handle cross-scale massive combat directly.

So if you want to face off against mechs and titans and kaiju in TNT, here's my M&M Hack (this time we're going back to ampersand because candy)!

Final NOTE: This has not been tested, and probably will need some tweaking, but I think the core idea is solid.

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M&M Hack

Picture Reference

• Massive creatures always deal at minimum their personal adds in damage against non-massive creatures, even if they lose the opposed roll, unless the opponent(s) roll solely to defend.

That's it! And below are a few optional rules:

• Massive creatures have twice the HP, dice, and adds for their MR as a normal creature. 
• Non-massive characters can spend two adventure points (if using the SoftMax Hack where AP are roleplay tokens) to bypass the minimum damage, but only if they can justify it given a unique circumstance such as a narrative or environmental factor.
• Alternatively, they can bypass minimum damage by achieving some secondary objective.

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Discussion

The core mechanic of the M&M hack makes it so that massive creatures are not just extraordinarily high MR creatures; they are a unique threat. Even a relatively low MR massive creature can be a threat to a relatively high-level party. Even if the party could defeat the monster(s) in direct combat, they are encouraged to tread carefully.

For instance, an MR 9 creature would have 9 adds (if using the optional rule to double HP/dice/adds for MR), meaning that while they would only have 2 damage dice, they will always deal a minimum of 9 damage. This is essentially a level 1 monster, but considering that a starting character will only have around 10 HP on average, and given the slow rate at which HP is gained (derived from CON, so current CON * 10 XP cost per unit increase), even what is essentially a peak level 1 monster (MR 0-9 being roughly level 1) will be dangerous even to experienced adventurers. 

The optional rule to give massive creatures double the HP, dice, and adds for their MR is also meant to reinforce the idea that massive creatures are something special. You could just as easily ignore this mechanic, and give a massive creature normal stats and choose MR accordingly, but I think this rule of thumb reinforces the idea that massive creatures are more powerful, while still allowing you to apply a roughly similar logic to how you choose what MR to make your massive creatures. So if you have an idea of how your party can hold up against an MR 4 creature, that gives you somewhat of a sense of how they can hold up against an MR 4 massive creature (but again, you could just as easily make the massive creature MR 8 without this optional rule for a similar effect).

The optional rules for bypassing the minimum damage are meant to encourage GMs to design massive combat encounters in interesting ways with various environmental factors like difficult terrain, dangerous falling debris, obstructive civilian NPCs chaotically fleeing for their lives, etc., and encouraging players to interact with this environment. The core mechanic isn't just a matter of logistics, but also narrative framing, and the two should go hand-in-hand. A massive creature is more dangerous because they are massive, but narratively this could be reflected as their sheer size making them unavoidable, or it could that the debris, destruction, and general chaos they leave in their wake is nearly unavoidable, or it could be having to deal with rioters and opportunists along the way. So even if the party is strong, they need to find high ground, or get away from the crowd, or find the indestructible magic shelter, or get the civilians to cooperate, or something like that, if they stand any chance against the massive creature. 

Because I'm trying to make my Aquarian Dawn campaign a little more grounded, I don't know if I'll end up using this mechanic too soon (although knowing me it'll devolve into gonzo soon enough). If I do, it will likely be that the massive creature is intentionally way outside their weight-class, rendering these mechanics more or less moot, and focusing more on the massive creature as an environmental hazard and vehicle to tell a "grounded" story about disasters. These mechanics might be a better fit for facing off against MADs, or the Meat-Hive Mecha of the "Bees" of the Blue Moon, or the spawn of Mother at the Gate, all from my Phantasmos setting, or for gravity-bending naval / aquatic / aerial combat between pirates, privateers, massive monsters, and technomagical ships in Vortekka. 

Some of those are really old posts that may or may not actually hold up to my current standards 0.o...

Aquarian Dawn: Dwarves

If elves in Aquarian Dawn are a little different, dwarves are a lot different. Maybe even more different than the titular Aquarians themselves. If you'd like to learn more about my Aquarian Dawn campaign, check out my Tunnels & Trolls Hack / Cheatsheet / Impressions  (featured on Ynas Midgard's Excellence from the Blogosphere (March-April)), or my campaign scenario.

I ended up writing a lot more for this than the elves, now I feel like I need to do a redux on the elves now 0.o!

I realize that these seem so different from "traditional" fantasy dwarves that you might wonder why I call them dwarves at all. I'm not saying they're perfect by any means, but I promise you the decisions I made aren't totally random, and there are various bits of authorial intent and subtext for why they are the way they are, although I would encourage you to theorize about it for yourself (and share) rather than ask me. I am a firm believer that reader response is just as important if not more so than authorial intent, so tell me what you think!


The dwarves were once not so different from humans. Some believe the dwarves once were humans (although this is highly contested). They were an ancient people, a practical people, who understood systems, but only insomuch as understanding the system led to prosperity. They became smiths, engineers, and eventually merchants and financiers. But they never quite saw the big picture of the world. They were terrible at politics and interpersonal relations; always so focused on the practical, and no matter how much they prospered, when the butterflies King Oberon and Queen Titania fought and flapped their wings and chaos ensued, they found themselves at the mercy of elves, or humans, or fey, or whichever other creature came to prominence in a given era.

Eventually, miraculously, they changed. They were a practical people, a harsh people. As the High Age receded, the elves were all but gone, and the humans were destroying themselves, but the dwarves would survive, even if it meant finally changing. They dragged themselves out of their caves, many of them anyway, and climbed the tallest mountains, and wandered the tundras and deserts, and all the other harsh places humans couldn't survive. They reached a meditative symbiosis, in these tough places, their bodies adapting to their environments, their minds changing as a reaction to their new forms, and they learned, finally, to think about their place in the cosmos.

The dwarves of today are not, can not, be well understood by humans, although communication is still possible. The dwarves belief system is based on the Cosmic Reticulum, a world tree, a deterministic theory of the universe that can be explained as a system, like a series of interacting fractal models, and they seek to understand it. Their pantheon is the trinity of the Fairy King Oberon, Fairy Queen Titania, and the Formless Sleeper Tsathoggua. The myths surrounding this trinity reflect interpersonal relationships, often gender identity, sexuality, and familial structure, with the Fairy King usually representing Masculinity and Binary Sexuality (heterosexual vs. homosexual), Titania representing Femininity and Pan-sexuality, and the black ichor of Tsathoggua representing natural/biological functions, reproduction, adaptation, identity, and lucidity. They are a tool for understanding system dynamics in general, and how to recognize dysfunction. They are gods to be pitied as much as praised. They are like the nodes in a graph network, and it is the edges, the relations between those nodes, that truly matter. From a human perspective, one might argue that this reticular cosmos is just another manifestation of the practical, grounded thinking of the dwarves, on a metaphysical scale. Perhaps they have changed less than one might think.

There are primarily two kinds of dwarves that players may encounter in a campaign set in Howlston. These descriptions are for "baseline" dwarves of their kind, but their biology varies significantly on an individualistic level, as each dwarf's biology varies significantly as they adapt to their environment, like a lesser version of espers.

The Mountain Dwarves have uncannily round bodies, like an inflated lung, with pale skin and umber fur or hair. They have three fingers and toes on each hand and foot, a visor-like protrusion and membrane covering their large round eyes, and a mouth and nose like a saiga antelope, which they use to filter the air (or extract oxygen from water or from thin environments), moderate temperature, and communicate through nasally howls. Despite their uncanny appearance, their skeletons look very humanoid, just warped and compressed within an inhuman body.

The Duergar (sometimes referred to as Cave Dwarves or Gray Dwarves) never quite gave up the subterranean. They are an off-shoot of the mountain dwarves, but have chosen to live inside the mountains. They are pale, virtually translucent, with no eyes or mostly vestigial red eyes. The black ichor, the devil water that courses through the veins of all dwarves visible as it courses through their veins, giving them the appearance of the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua who they praise and pity. Except for their humanoid skeletons, they are loose in form, moving more like frogs or octopi, and have no qualms with breaking bones to fit through tight spaces. Their noses are upturned, appearing mutilated like the face of a bat. Their arms have a membrane like a wyvern, for swimming, but can also be adapted for flight or gliding. The rare duergar to adapt to the world of light often become colorful; their translucent skin becoming opalescent and their wings developing colors and patterns like a butterfly.

It is difficult for dwarves to communicate with other humanoids. They do not think of or describe time linearly, but more like one would describe the spatial dimensions. They tend not to have strong self-identities or other-identities, instead focusing on the relations between individuals, or clusters of individuals as a symbolic unit within the larger system of the universe. Their consciousness is dream-like compared to humans, internally coherent but otherwordly. The duergar, especially, act in a way that appears more like animal than human, or like a highly inebriated human. They are intelligent, but not in any way a human could really understand.