FUDGE Net-Bestiary

Animals

Fantasy Monsters

Humanoids

Mystical or Enchanted Beings

Undead Things

New Races

How to use the bestiary in your game

This site was created to serve two purposes: first, to provide a source for ready-to-use creatures for FUDGE gamers, and second, as an archive for the sporadic Monster of the Day (MOTD) posts to the FUDGE mailing list. I have tried to make the creatures as easy to use as possible by providing detailed descriptions and a common descriptive format. Naturally, such a format is limited

Creature description format

This is the standard format used to describe creatures. The categories are mostly self-explanatory. Note that powers refers to supernormal gifts, and faults includes both regular faults and supernormal faults.

CREATURE NAME
  [optional introduction]
APPEARANCE
  [appearance and general description]
ECOLOGY
  [natural habitat, eating and mating habits, where it lives, etc]
MOTIVATIONS
  [behavior]
COMBAT TECHNIQUES
  [how it fights]
OTHER NAMES
  [creatures are often known by more than one name]
LEGENDS
  [may or may not be true -- let the players find out the hard way]
OPTIONS
  [variations the GM may want to try]
CAMPAIGN USE
  [ideas for the GM on how to use this creature]
ATTRIBUTES
  Strength:        fair  (scale +0)
  Dexterity:       fair
  Constitution:    fair
  Reason:          fair  [optional "scale" such as animal or superhuman]
  Willpower:       fair
  Presence:        fair
  Perception:      fair
  Damage Capacity: fair  (hits 4/10)
POWERS
  [supernatural abilities]
GIFTS
  [natural abilities]
FAULTS
  [natural weaknesses]
SKILLS
  Attack: fair
  Dodge: fair
  [other skills]
REFERENCES
  Created/Adapted by [your name]
  [optional copyight]
  [optional source reference]

Explanation of Traits

The following list is an attempt to cover the standard attributes recognized by virtually all roleplaying games. The names attempt to be as descriptive as possible. As an aside, some names, such as dexterity, are not really accurate, but they are universally understood.

Strength is just like every other roleplaying game: a measure of muscular might. Related to strength is Scale, which indicates a creature's size and weight. See the scale table for approximate values.
Dexterity covers agility, quickness, and reflexes.
Constitution encompasses health, endurance, fatigue, and toughness.
Reason is intelligence and logic.
Willpower is will, stubbornness, discipline, mental toughness, and perhaps even a hint of wisdom.
Presence is charisma and social ability, a measure of the forcefulness of who you are. It is used to impress, frighten, intimidate, win friends, and influence people. Note that a really ugly monster might have high presence due to fear, or an otherworldly being might have a mystical presence. Presence is that indefinable something about a person that you can't ignore, tha compels your attention and response.
Perception is alertness, awareness, and attention to detail. It is a combination of physical senses and mental perception.
Damage Capacity is a generic measure of how much punishment the creature can soak up before becoming incapacitated. Every GM probably has her own way of interpreting this, so no attempt is made here to quantify it. The hits sub-trait is described elsewhere.
Attack is the creatures ability to strike in combat. Usually this applies to natural weaponry, or to a preferred weapon.
Dodge is the basic defense. Some creatures have other defenses as well, but this is the default.

Using the creatures in combat

Sad but true, most creatures in a fantasy game have short lives, and meet their fate at the end of an adventurer's sword. While this is situation is slowly improving, colorful and exciting battles nevertheless are a staple of fantasy roleplay, and probably always will be. This section in intended to help the GM with each of these aspects.

Colorful

Conflict would be boring if all the creatures were the same. Here are some suggestions for keeping things interesting:

• Be sure to read the creature descriptions to understand the creature's point of view. If it is a hunter, it will not likely attack a strong party, and will break off and flee if it is losing. Some creatures will stalk their prey or use ingenious methods to surprise or trap it.
• Intelligent creatures should behave intelligently. Even animals can be amazingly cunning. Creatures with human-level intelligence should be every bit as sneaky and dangerous as players, and are likely to escape and plot revenge. Creatures encountered in their lairs or in familiar territory should use their knowledge to a tactical advantage.
• Some creatures are unintelligent. While this is a disadvantage, it can also be terrifying to be attacked by something with no fear of death. Make them ruthless and hard to stop.
• Some creatures have a hidden weakness, an achilles heel. Players don't always have to know about this! Even a minor creature can be frightening (as it should be) if you don't know how to fight it. The longer you keep the secret, the longer the creature will remain interesting. Intelligent creatures will often be aware of their weaknesses and will be careful to avoid letting characters exploit them.
• Rumors. Superstitious villagers will have all sorts of blood curdling and misleading information about the local wildlife. If the adventurers have a wrong idea about something, play it up! Give them apparent "evidence" to support their screwball theories for a while, and then surprise them with reality. Note that sometimes the rumors may be true... don't discount the possibility that the creatures in a certain valley have an unusual ability or behavioral anomaly.
• Ecology. Try to work your creatures into a larger scheme of things. Major monsters will figure prominently in local legends and tales, and will be at the center of an ecological web. They may even be an established part of local tradition and/or belief. As an example, in chapter IV of The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel finds himself in a village which is preyed upon by winged beings which swoop down and carry off villagers to their caves to be eaten. The villagers believe that these creatures are messengers of a god and convey those about to die to the afterlife through a mystic portal at the back of the cave. It is heresy to resist or to even suggest that the creatures are otherwise.
• As always, variety is the spice of life. Don't use every ability in every encounter (or at least don't make them all obvious). Let the players think they have everything figured out, and then surprise them with a new and different facet of the creature.

Exciting

All too often, adventurers cut down monsters with hardly a second thought. There is little fear or excitement, just routine. Here are some suggestions to keep combat exciting:

• Pace. Keep it moving... quickly. Real fights are very fast, with hardly time to think. Don't give players more than a second or two to think about what they want to do. If they waver, they miss their turn. In a fight, players should be hurried and confused enough to make the wrong decision. FUDGE helps here by providing a very simple combat system.

  The creature writeups provide two features to help with this. First, along with attack and defense skills, each creature has an ODF (offensive damage factor) and a DDF (defensive damage factor). These already account for scale, armor, strength, and weaponry, so you can use them without having to stop and calculate the numbers.

  Second, I borrowed an idea from Gatecrasher and provided a hits trait under damage capacity, which is simple a type of hit points. While important fights will want to use the standard damage system, the hits trait is useful for minor fights and large numbers of combatants. Simply keep track of the total number of damage points taken by a creature. When damage exceeds the first number, the creature is hurt and takes a -1 penalty to all actions. When damage exceeds the second number, the creature is incapacitated. This is entirely optional; a standard damage capacity rating has been provided so you can substitute your own system if you prefer.

• Use special abilities. Don't go easy on the players; give the monsters a fair chance.
• Play intelligent or cunning monsters intelligently. Most hunters and carnivores will have at least a wolf-like cunning; if they are loners, they'll be as crafty as a cat. Try to keep your monsters alive. If possible, they'll fight with a back to a wall, so they only have to take on one foe at a time. Most creatures will keep an escape route handy, and will not let themselves get cornered. If surrounded, they'll attempt to flee.
• Intelligent monsters are likely to pick one foe and attempt to disable it, rather than ineffectually scattering attacks between multiple opponents. A wounded character is the best target.
• Interpret damage realistically. A sword thrust or animal bite may get infected later on. A major wound may partially or totally cripple a limb, or remove a finger, or leave a ragged scar. A bleeding character will leave a trail, and may attract other carnivores or scavengers. Characters don't often die, but they get wounded all the time. Note that wounds are much more likely to get infected in a hot or humid climate! Make their wounds hurt a bit. Old adventurers should have a lot of scars...
• Kill someone now and then. It doesn't necessarily have to be a player; an important NPC will do, especially if the players are relying on them for some ability or knowledge. The important thing is for the players to realize that death is possible. (I should note that I hate to kill player characters, and I also realize that GMs have different styles).

Submitting creatures to this site

Anyone may submit creatures to this site. There are only three requirements:

1. The creature must not be copyrighted by someone else. Feel free to adapt and borrow, but don't steal. This probably won't be a problem as you have to convert it to FUDGE anyway; don't send me anything that's been published by Grey Ghost.
2. The creature must conform to the common format described above. You don't have to have all the categories, and you may certainly add to it if necessary. But at the least, I want a description, a value for each of the attributes, and attack/defense traits.
3. You agree that your submission will be governed by the terms described in the legal notice. This does not mean you have to give me rights to your work. You may either retain the copyright (see below) or place it in the public domain.

Any submission may be copyrighted by the original author (that means you). A copyright notice should be placed in the References section of the creature writeup. It would also be nice if you provide your name and email address, in case anyone wants to contact you. If you do copyright your submission, please indicate whether you will allow it to be published. If this site gets big enough it might be nice if Grey Ghost would publish a FUDGE Net Bestiary. But they could only do this if you give them permission to publish and sell your material. If you have any other provisions you want included in your copyright, be sure to state them.

If you do not copyright your submission, I will mark it as public domain. That gives anyone the right to use and modify it as desired.

Any submissions should be emailed to Mike Harvey in plain ascii form. I would prefer you do not send it in HTML format, so that I can make sure all the entries are formatted identically. If you do send HTML, make sure it follows exactly the same format as the other entries.

I reserver the right to exercise editorial control over the submissions. In general, this will be limited to correcting spelling and grammatical errors, and formatting the entry to conform to the standard layout.