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shit

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Streets of Scáthbhaile #11: Discarded Dolls

Streets of Scáthbhaile #11: Discarded Dolls #dnd5e #rpg

Species PDF

The Bréagach are mysterious beings that very few are even aware of the existence of. To most they appear as normal, if a bit stand-offish members of society. In actuality they are the creations of an enigmatic Fey known only as “The Artisan” who toils endlessly creating dolls using unknown techniques from Arcadian clay. These dolls are made in the visage of members of other humanoid…

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[firebringeraxels-junk]

The Ferocious Pearbear! Inspired by the adventures of the folks over at Drawfee and their Drawga series. You should definitely check them out.

Homebrewed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

Artwork is from @drawfee. Homebrewing is by me.

As with all monsters I post this will be included in the updated version of the Dire Compendium to be released later.

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Spell Tattoo rules. A flavorful and interesting way to allow characters to augment themselves and gain access to limited magic.

Homebrewed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

Artist is tagged at the bottom of the page. Homebrewing is done by me.

PDF

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Cephalid Species. Be one of the autocratic dwellers of the deep ocean or use them as antagonists.

Adapted for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

Artwork is from Magic the Gathering. Homebrewing is done by me.

PDF

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Pact of Barbs. A pact for Warlocks with spiked armor thematic elements. Includes 3 eldritch evocations.

Homebrewed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition by me. Artist is tagged on the page.

PDF 

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Mercy Domain. Grant even your enemies mercy as you do you best to save lives.

Homebrewed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition by me. Artist is tagged on the page.

PDF

[firebringeraxels-junk]

Way of Orthodoxy. A western-themed monk subclass for those who crave something other than eastern martial artist mysticism.

Homebrewed for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition by me. Artists are tagged on each page.

PDF

[forged-in-paper]

Soooo I kinda passed through a black void when I got home from work on friday and don’t remember a whole lot of this weekend lol. It probably has something to do with pokemon S&S releasing late last week. Probably. 

The new campaign I’ll be starting this week is set in a very cold climate so I wanted to play around with making cold weather rules more complex. I’m in the process of authoring a full campaign module that uses hot weather rules so I’ll probably be doing a flip-side to this at some point, but this is it for now. It’s very slap-dash because I only spent like a hour or two researching and writing this, but it will get a pretty thorough test these next few weeks so I’ll come back in and tweak it as needed.

As always, questions and comments are welcome. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

(Content PDF) (Patreon)

[bailiesartblog]

The Shadhavar

I recently had the pleasure of taking part in my first gallery exhibit, which you can check out some more info here! The exhibit revolves around folklore from around the world and will be displayed at The Hamilton House in Bristol until April 18th, 2018 (so go check it out if you’re in the area, there’s some great work for sale, including this piece!) Shout-out and a big thank you to Gordy for organizing it!

The Shadhavar is a unicorn-like creature that comes from Medieval Muslim Zoological literature. Initially described as a peaceful creature, the Shadhavar has a single horn with many hollow branches, as such when the wind passes through, it plays like a beautiful flute–in which all the woodland creatures sit around and listen to the lovely tunes.

However, al-Mustawfi later depicted the Shadhavar as a ferocious, carnivorous creature that would use its sweet tunes to lure its prey. This depiction is said to be a result of combining the original Shadhavar with stories of the Siranis (similar to the Greek Sirens; creatures who sing to lure their prey); and is the depiction I opted to illustrate (cause i love me some spooky moody forest monsters)

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me Folklore suggestions! It was so helpful (how I discovered the Shadhavar) and I learned so many tales I’d never heard of before–definitely been inspired by a few of the tales so expect to see some more folklore art at some point!

[thecreaturecodex]

Shadhavar

Image © @iguanodont. Accessed at their tumblr here

[The first in a two-parter of musical Middle Eastern monsters.]

Shadhavar This beautiful, antelope-like creature has a single horn growing from its head. The horn is covered in knobs and holes, making it resemble an exotic musical instrument.

Shadhavars are magical, musical creatures that resemble unicorns. They patrol dry savannas and other arid lands, maintaining the balance of predator and prey and defending the land from exploitation. Shadhavars are social creatures that are gregarious among their own kind and with others, and their roaming herds are as much conversation circles as anything else.

The most notable feature of a shadhavar is its crest. This structure is covered in horn and studded with dozens of openings, all leading to a large central airy chamber. This allows them to play their crest as if it were a musical instrument, and shadhavars can mimic the noises of a dozen manufactured instruments, or even maintain two tunes at once. Shadhavars can harness their sonic mastery as a weapon, producing a blast of sound that can shatter glass, bruise flesh and scramble the mind. As shadhavars are herbivorous, they only use this effect in self-defense or when fighting to protect an innocent creature.

Shadhavars love music, both their own and that of other creatures. They are somewhat wary of mortals, however, as they are hunted to turn their crests into exotic musical instruments. They also hate creatures that use sonic effects to injure and kill innocent creatures, and fight crusades against harpies, siranis and other evil monsters that use music as a weapon.

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[thecreaturecodex]

Bo

“Hey y’all what if we made unicorns a bit scarier” © @steph-is-coolaf-btw. Accessed at their page here

[ “These is a beast dwelling here whose form resembles a horse but with a white body, black tail, a single horn and tiger’s teeth and claws. It makes a sound like a drum and is called the Bo.”

We’re heading back to China, for more of the creatures appearing in the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. One of the things I find particularly interesting about that book is that, even for the kind and friendly creatures, it tells you what diseases they cure or other benefits you gain by eating them.]

Bo This creature looks like a muscular horse, except that it has a single horn growing from its head, and the clawed forepaws of a predatory beast. Its hindquarters bear stripes, and it has a black mane and tail.

The bo is a feral kin to the unicorn, less intelligent, but stronger and more bestial. Despite their carnivorous nature, they are goodly creatures. A bo’s favorite meat is that of other predatory creatures, and they help to keep the populations of animals and magical beasts low enough to support villages in the forests and plains they call home.

A bo is among the fastest of all beasts, although they can reach their top speed only for short bursts. Their hide turns away weapons, and this quality is coveted by warriors of all kinds. The unscrupulous and cruel will kill bo to make armor or ointments that grant damage reduction, but a bo will also share its protection with a goodly rider. They can be persuaded to join an army if the cause is just and if they are well fed (the meat of big cats is a particular favorite).

Bo vary in size as horses do, but tend towards large and muscular forms. Although their teeth are sharp, they prefer to fight with their horns, biting at enemies only if they are held in the front claws or during feeding.

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[thecreaturecodex]

Dread Unicorn

To catch a unicorn © deviantArt user Abend.

[It’s Flashback Summer! This page isn’t the first iteration of the Creature Codex. From 2010-2013,  I released six PDFs under the Creature Codex name, roughly one per six months, with a handful of monsters in them for sale. Reviews were good, sales were not. So since they haven’t sold any units for literally years, I’ve closed up shop and will be posting revised versions of these monsters here. Some of them will have the original art from the PDFs, some won’t.

First up, this creature was originally the “twilight unicorn”. Considering that this PDF was released literally the month My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic came out, these days “twilight + unicorn” means something a bit different.]

Dread Unicorn CR 4 LE Magical Beast This powerful equine creature seems to absorb the light around it and its eyes gleam a sinister red. A single horn about two feet long grows from the center of its forehead.

A grim reflection of the magnificent guardians of the forest, dread unicorns instead seek corruption and the spread of their cruel philosophy of suffering. Unlike their exclusive, snobbish kin, dread unicorns will consort with any and all creatures, although they prefer the company of the undead, evil outsiders and the servants of evil gods. Dread unicorns are the size of horses, although they tend to reflect sturdy, muscle-bound breeds.

Dread unicorns are omnivorous, consuming plant matter and flesh in roughly equal proportion. Due to their love of inflicting pain, however, they often kill far more than they eat, littering their forests with rotting flesh and throwing ecosystems out of equilibrium. A forest inhabited by a dread unicorn will soon become twisted and overgrown, with many of the native animals having fled or been slain. For this reason, even evil druids tend to oppose the workings of dread unicorns.

Native to all manner of forests, dread unicorns prefer to establish themselves in lands that are already tainted by a history of evil. Former battlefields, temples to dark gods and woods used as hiding places for escaped criminals and madmen are soothing to the dread unicorns. Most dread unicorns are solitary or live in a mated pair—for all their wickedness, dread unicorns mate for life and form strong bonds with their partners. Unintelligent undead are strangely attracted to the aura of negative energy exuded by a dread unicorn, and a dread unicorn might be followed by a small army of skeletons and zombies. Dread unicorns are smart enough to take advantage of this phenomenon, using their mindless minions as cannon fodder to soften up travelers before striking. Due to their great wisdom, aspiring tyrants and despots often seek dread unicorns for advice on their schemes; the prices asked by the unicorns for this service no doubt draw these aspirants further into evil’s service.

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[draconym]

“Dragon” is such a vague category of creature with such a ridiculous diversity of bauplans. It doesn’t matter how big it is or how many legs it has or whether it has wings or not: you can call it a dragon if it is kind of snakey, and/or breathes fire (virtually anything that can breathe fire has the potential to qualify as a dragon).

Case in point, look at all these different things that are dragons:

[draconym]

By the same token we haven’t examined whether “unicorn” can be as broad a category as “dragon.” A lot of creatures across many cultures have been called unicorns, and are described as being shaped variously like horses, goats, deer, and cattle, among other things.

White unicorns are overrepresented in media, but unicorns can be any color. Winged unicorns are not as popular but are just as qualified. Look at this powerful, oxlike winged unicorn from the Apadana in Iran next to its fellow winged unicorn Twilight Sparkle.

Unicorns do generally seem to be ungulates. Which raises the question: is any one-horned ungulate a unicorn? How about a rhinoceros? Some rhinos have a single horn. The scientific name of the Indian rhinoceros is even Rhinoceros unicornis. Since unicorn literally just means “one horn,” I think a rhinoceros with a single horn is definitely a unicorn, and therefore the extinct elasmotherium is a unicorn.

Qilin (麒麟) may or may not be ungulates but they are often considered unicorns despite being very scaly. And since term “unicorn” does literally just mean “one horn” … why stop there ……. if unicorns can be scaly, huge, and extinct, is centrosaurus a unicorn? I think centrosaurus can be a unicorn if it wants to be a unicorn. It may not have hooves, but some qilin don’t have hooves, either.

Fuck it, you know what? Unicorn.

[dragon-inc]

[davideor94]

Living in their own dream ✨

(Source instagram.com/davideor94)

Photo by Davide Oricchio ©

[mutant-distraction]

A Jacana carrying chicks underneath its wings.

[dragon-inc]