8 fantasy monkeys for your campaign setting.

    A while back I read on some blog or facebook post about replacing goblins with monkeys on overland travel encounter tables to encourage more social and less murderous behavior from players, so here are some cute and interesting creatures to populate your world with inspired by cartoons like Avatar: The Last Airbender and written from the point of view of an in-world zoologist to give this the feel of an in world artifact you could edit and give to your players as a handout.

1d8 Monkeys

1) Screech Gibbons

This species is actually a type of small ape, being tailless and all. These gibbons mate for life and have specific calls that can be identified by their mates anywhere within 1 mile. These apes can emit a high pitched screech when threatened to stun potential predators allowing themselves and their family to escape.

Can be bribed with: fruit, rare flowers, insects, and eggs. 

2) Psychic Lemurs 

This one is a contender for most enigmatic species in all of The Holy Empire, hell, all of Urt!! This creature remains such a mystery not only for its unique physiology, which has left many of my colleagues scratching their heads wondering whether or not it's a primate, rodent, or marsupial, but also its only habitat being the Yld. Due to its proximity to The Wildlings and its implied religious significance to their druids it is very difficult to study the species without your brain being scraped off of a rock into a naked man's mouth. They seem to have extraordinarily slow metabolisms and only move to eat or when alarmed, but are known to jump extreme distances without warning. Their hands are unnaturally large compared to their body which help them grip tree limbs and have a widely abducted hallux which extends a single claw on each foot with which they hang from trees. There are many different mythologies that surround them, most notably that they can steal your thoughts and trade you one's they've stolen from others. They say in darkness the lemurs' eyes become discs of moonlight which can guide travelers to safety or to the secrets of The Yld if they are worthy, it is also told that they can cause anyone with ill intent to become lost in the forest forever. It is common to hear stories from men who worked logging operations in The Yld about meeting the gaze of a lemur and forgetting why they were even in the woods until they walked to the forest's edge, which is when their memory returned. I would pay near any price to be the one to unravel their mystery, the university would have to show me some respect then! 

Can be bribed with: Secrets, Lost Dreams, and Forgotten Treasures. 

3) Badger Uakari 

"Skull Badger" this common misnomer for the Badger Uakari is quite apt due to a lack of subcutaneous fat on it's bald head and badger like face markings making the face look like a gaunt skull. They most commonly have coarse black or gray fur with a white stripe down the back. Fascinatingly these blokes have 6 short stubby limbs they use for digging as much as climbing, and have sharp little nails to chip away at roots. Unlike the badgers they are named for, Uakari are quite social and live together in warrens dug beneath and into great trees, you can typically find them in small groups of between 3-12 individuals. They mostly subsist on insects, plant roots, and the occasional bird's egg. 

Can be bribed with: eggs, honey, and impressed by those who show exceptional skills in digging. 

4) Many-armed Marmosets 

These adorable little creatures can be quite hard to find in the wild due to their proclivity for dwelling in the highest reaches of the forest canopy. Due to their small size and many grasping limbs (including their tails) they are highly sought after and kept as pets by some clever thieves. They can be trained to do nearly anything for honey or sweet syrups. Compared to most other primates their hands are fairly primitive, beset with claws rather than fingernails. 

Can be bribed with: small bugs, soft fruits, Honey, and syrup. 

5) Glider Macaques 

Feathered with a body not unlike that of a large owl, save for the hands and feet of a primate, these delightful creatures can be found gliding around the mountainous region of Törm. Although they are feathered like a bird they can only glide from one mountain perch to another, probably a problem of bone density, the males have a ring of white feathers forming a collar around their neck which they puff out to enlarge themselves when threatened, it quite reminds me of the rough collars many nobles wear to court. You can often find them bathing in the natural hot springs common in mountainous regions or standing guard on the rooftops watching over the snow-stone city of Törm. Public opinion of these monkeys varies from the belief that they are the spirits of the now long dead dwarven race watching over the city they built, to being common vermin that dig through trash and steal food. Can be bribed with: Fiddlehead Fern, edible mushrooms, nuts, the pits of fruits, and seeds. 

6) Langur Bats 

Flying Monkeys! I would not have believed it if I didn't see it for myself. I was staying in Windrip during my journey to Törm and one evening I was leaning on a fence packing my pipe when I heard this otherworldly chirping. I looked out to see what looked like large bats on the horizon, until I questioned the locals about them I had no idea how large they truly were, I've heard claims of them weighing up to 3 stone! I imagine they're out hunting bloatflies at that size. Until I can recruit an expedition team to accompany me into the caves within which they dwell I must rely on rumors and folktales from the locals. The common description I get is one of a creature with large batlike ears, powerful legs connected to grasping feet, and leathery wings which are tipped with a single claw each. I assume them, like bats, to be blind and direct themself through a form of echolocation. 

Can be bribed with: Large centipedes, Bloatfly Grubs 

7) Three-tailed Howler 

These large monkeys have 3 prehensile tails which they use to support their bodies while hanging from trees or to grasp objects of interest to them. Named for the low howl they emit which can be heard from up to 3 miles away, they can often be seen guarding ancient ruins letting out a low cry when sighting trespassers to alert nearby large predators. [roll for monster encounter] 

Can be bribed with: fruit, flowers, buds, nuts, and eggs 

8) Fire Grivet 

Named for their black faces, deep red fur and their symbiotic relationship with Armadillo Bison, who notoriously stamp out the campfires of travelers in the arid grasslands they inhabit, are the most common monkeys in Greater Oren. Held sacred by local populations, they are associated with Ahmun the patron saint of travelers and you can find them sifting through garbage and fighting turf wars with rival troops all throughout the city of Oren. The little buggers have the most disturbing inclination to sneak into windows of homes in the afternoon to steal shiny objects they think might be valuable to humans and ransom them back for food. I've fallen prey to these scammers either in my home or on the street at least a half dozen times. Regardless, they are quite clever and there may be much we can learn about ourselves by studying them. [*must live near water source] 

Can be bribed with: shiny trinkets, shoes, root vegetables, eggs of small birds, and melons.

The House That Stink Built (A Mork Borg Monster)

 

    The Vodyanoy or Vodnik is a male freshwater spirit from Slavic folklore that I think has some horrifying potential in games like Mork Borg. I first came across it in The Slumbering Ursine Dunes and really enjoyed my players running into it in The Golden Barge, but sadly covid hit and the game went on permanent hiatus. So why not stat it up for Mork Borg? This encounter would be best placed around Lake Onda if you’re running the Mork Borg setting, also sorry ya’ll idk how to type a fuckin’ undulaut on my laptop.

The Vodnik

Spiteful Water Spirit

HP: 18 Morale: 9

Rubber-skin: -d2; min damage from piercing/slashing

+1 damage from blunt weapons; Immune to fire.

Tentacle: d4 + special

Special: Drowner; DR14 Agility test on hit or grappled;

take d4 damage from drowning if in water until Vodnik is dead.

Captured: 200s

Corpse: 55s

Tentacles: 25s

    From a distance The Vodnik is the silhouette of a man in a ragged coat with waterlogged hat, but that is where the similarities end. It’s skin is like that of shining black rubber, featureless save for the occasional tumor or growth. It’s face eyeless and mouth always grinning, pipe clenched between gnarled, blackened teeth. Wet. Always dripping wet no matter how far from water he is, water falls constantly from the brim of his hat and the filthy black coat onto the ground where is feet should be. The Vodnik seems float about two inches off the ground when not in his lake. His hands seem like that of a normal man, but when angered they change to grotesque tentacles and several more crawl out from beneath his coat. A puff from his pipe causes a temporary madness that allows mortals to enter his realm beneath the lake. If it is offered do not refuse, otherwise you will surely drown. His hands seem like the silhouette of a normal man’s, but if The Vodnik is angered they quickly shift into grotesque tentacles, several more crawl out from beneath his filthy brown coat.

    The people of Yevchodnik depend on the lake to survive and therefore hold many superstitions surrounding it. They both fear and revere The Vodnik, offering small sacrifices of tobacco is common among fishermen and in dire situations, when the fish have all dried up, they offer up young women to be taken as his wife. If it is dusk or dawn it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of The Vodnik floating on a log, puffing away at his pipe out of the corner of your eye.

#	What’s Happening at the Lake?
1	An emaciated fisherman weeps on the shore of Lake Onda. He has come to check his nets and they all have been torn.
2	There is an eerie and unnatural silence only broken by the occasional ripple or splash of water. Smells of fishrot, pipe tobacco, and tea.
3	A little boy fishing alone says a rhyme* and leave’s a pinch of tobacco in the lake.
4	5d20 porcelain teapots are left in meticulous stacks on top of rocks, logs, and driftwood. There is a heavy fog and the muted sound of violin seems to come from beneath the lake; somber, melancholic. Smashing the teapots will anger The Vodnik.
5	The Vodnik is there smoking his pipe, sitting on a log; in a good mood.
6	Fishmonger cultists attempt to sacrifice a young woman. She is: d4 Struggling; being violently dragged to the lake. Drugged; euphoric, incoherent babbling. Gently weeping; believes this is the only way to save her starving village. Fanatic believer; overjoyed to become The Vodnik’s wife.

#	What does The Vodnik want?
1	To trap the souls of young women into teapots in order to keep his wife eternally young.
2	A midwife to deliver his son.
3	A twisted and miserable faerie has stolen his wife and cursed him with drought. All will suffer as he suffers until her return.
4	The bones of a particularly clever fisherman that he has been unable to trick. Will make a marvelous pipe.

*Mr. Vodnik here’s your gift, now let me catch a tasty fish.*

    The Vodnik is the personification of poverty, pettiness and spite, Sisyphean drudgery, and loneliness. When The Vodnik is unhappy, which is nearly always, his misery will leak out into the surrounding area, must be something in the water. The villagers around Lake Onda have become increasingly cruel and vindictive, petty squabbles quickly turn to brawls, duels, and blood feuds. 

    Only the drunk, drugged, exhausted, raving mad, or starving may enter The Vodnik’s mirror realm beneath the lake, this is where he is most vulnerable and when he is most likely to strike up a deal. If any time is spent in the realm beneath the lake 1d10 days has passed, roll on The Calendar of Nechrubel accordingly. If The Vodnik is killed in the lake a black ichor creeps out from its body and spreads into the lake and kills all of the fish. In 1d6 days the fish will grow limbs and crawl out from the lake, their rotting bodies attack and kill all living things they come across. If any of these fish are eaten save toughness or they cause sickness.

Rolling for Race at Character Creation

I’m kind of opening up to the idea of adding fantasy races in my game world. I kind of decided one of my players was a halfling because he took the diminutive heritage and grew up in the woods. It gave me some cool ideas for how I could do halflings different. So then I thought why don’t I just structure a 3d6 table for my players to roll on when they make new characters to determine their race!

So here ya go, another 3d6 table. I also think if you had a lot of fantasy races in your world you could make tables like this by region just to determine what’s common in the area they’re in when they meet the new character. A place with some powerful magic leaking into the world might produce more sorcerers, so you could expand their position on the tables.

#	Race/Class
3	Sorcerer
4	Dwarf
5	Dwarf
6	Dwarf
7	Human
8	Human
9	Human
10	Human
11	Human
12	Human
13	Human
14	Human
15	Halfling
16	Halfling
17	Halfling
18	Talking Monkey/Dog

Sorcerer isn’t exactly a race, but It’s the only time I’d let a player start with a class template. All other magic users either need to invoke a patron or learn from a mentor. So I put it on the list for a cool “Chosen One” vibe. Humans take up the majority of the middle bit because It’s a mostly human campaign, and then dwarves and halflings get an even split of the “fairly unlikely slots.” Finally 18 gets Talking Monkey or Dog. Probably doesn’t need explanation, but hey it’s a fantasy world and I like talking monkeys.

Okay, I guess I’m putting this online in the hopes someone else finds it useful, so lets try this with some traditional fantasy and sci-fi.

This fantasy one would be a nice way to keep a consistent tone in a 5e game where you want certain races to actually feel rare, it could possibly be more useful
when generating NPC’s.

#	Race/Class
3	Tiefling
4	Elf
5	Elf
6	Dwarf
7	Dwarf
8	Dwarf
9	Human
10	Human
11	Human
12	Human
13	Halfling
14	Halfling
15	Halfling
16	Half-orc
17	Half-orc
18	Genasi

And here’s a fun sci-fi one for If I ever pick up another Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells Campaign

#	Race/Class
3	AI
4	Alien (Insectiod)
5	Alien (reptilian)
6	Cyborg
7	Cyborg
8	Cyborg
9	Human
10	Human
11	Human
12	Human
13	Mutant
14	Mutant
15	Mutant
16	Alien (humanoid)
17	Alien (aquatic)
18	Psionics User

Structuring encounter tables 3d6

Encounter tables in Oren

Here’s my attempt at formulating some 3d6 instead of two 2d6 tables for my setting. It’s a lot more work and more to keep track of, but I think that having some options be really really rare makes the world feel more dynamic, so for the kind of game I wanna run it’s worth the effort.

A few things to consider are genre and tone. For this game I really want most encounters to be with people, and the ecology of the setting, so a lot of it should be bandits and cults, villagers, animals, and plant life. After that we put the fun stuff in like dragons and wizards and faeries and monsters. You can read about the general method I’m using here, but I’m going to expand it into 3d6 for a little more nuance. My reasoning is that I want there to be dragons and faeries and I want them to be rare, but there’s only one dragon in my setting. Nick from pencils and papers lays out his tables like this.

2	Dragon
3	Something Weird
4	Weird + builds the setting
5	Weird
6	Mundane + builds a sense of place
7	Recurring NPC
8	Mundane + builds a sense of place
9	Weird + builds the setting
10	Weird
11	Weird + builds the setting
12	Wizard

So I wanna keep the same format, but lets say I want the possibility of running into a djinni or a powerful fae to be on there and I want it to be like less than 1% because getting a wish can be a world wrecking good time. So now 18 is a djinni and 3 is a dragon cause I want my one dragon to be sleeping most of the campaign. Lets see what I can come up with for my specific setting using this format stretched out.

Some extra rules I follow when structuring tables are that low rolls are potentially more dangerous and high rolls are potentially more beneficial. This allows a god to bless the characters with good fortune by adding a bonus to their encounter rolls or a witch to curse them with bad luck with a negative bonus and they could be none wiser. Also if I roll doubles I roll again and add it to the encounter, triples I roll on an encounter table from an adjacent area. This makes everything a bit more dynamic in play and it makes your setting breathe with life.

#	Plains Encounters
3	Dragon
4	Wyvern
5	Catastrophe Tree
6	2d6 Flameous Lads
7	Stumbleweed
8	Living Statue
9	3d10 Brigands
10	Dangerous Game (Owl Bear etc.)
11	Recurring NPC
12	3d10 Monkeys (Fire Grevit) 1-in-6 chance one monkey talks
13	3d10 reclaimers
14	Village d4 (1-2) hamlet (3) village (4) town
15	Forgotten Ruins (Any 1pg dungeon)
16	Wizard
17	Elf
18	Djinn

So I think this works really well for me because I feel like I can just start listing whatever sounds cool and sort it out after, where with the smaller table I felt like I needed to be really picky.

Some clarifications since this is my setting stumbleweed, flameous lads, and crypto-spiders are all from Fire on the Velvet Horizon, and monkey-rot is a disease that turns monkeys, halflings and humans into zombie/goblin/gremlin things. I’m gonna shoot another one out for y'all in this post, so here comes Idlewood Forest.

#	Idlewood Forest Encounters
3	Dragon
4	Troll
5	Changeling
6	1d4 halfings with monkey-rot
7	2d4 Langur Bats with monkey-rot
8	3d10 Masked Ones
9	3d10 Brigands
10	3d4 Wolves
11	Recurring NPC
12	2d4 Langur Bats(night) 3d10 Barons Men (day)
13	Village d4 (1-2) hamlet (3) village (4) town
14	Halfling Holes
15	Crypto-spider
16	Wizard
17	Elf
18	Djinn

On the real common ones I like to add some variation just to keep things from getting stale like a night/day condition. I hope y’all enjoyed my first blog post leave me some comments and lmk what you think.