The Red Lantern

Older and Fouler Things (Forgotten Beast Generator)

Dwarf Fortress is a very, very, very complex game. The learning curve is a cliff and your little alcoholic peons are all idiots. It's also home to the Forgotten beasts, deliciously weird randomly-generated monsters that emerge from the depths to reduce your fort to smoldering rubble. I decided it would be a fun idea to make a way to generate these horrors in an OSR setting.

To make a forgotten beast, roll once on body shape, once on material, 1-2 times on extra features (more for otherwise mundane fleshy beasts), and once on special attacks. The basic stats are as follows:

12 HD (60 HP)
Appearance: Incredibly varied.
Voice: Whatever noise the base template makes, but louder and more unholy sounding. Alternatively, roars or eerie silence.
Wants: To silence annoying, digging creatures. To feast. To follow whatever task was given in the time before time, if there even was one.
Morality: Pure animal desires, tinged by a strange cruelty.
Intelligence: Animalistic at best. Some may be constructs.

Armor: As leather. As chain if scaled or chitin, as plate if shelled. Modify based on body type and material. Non-fleshy beasts are immune to poison, disease, and anything else that only affects flesh-and-blood creatures.
Move: Normal, modified by body type.
Morale: 11
Damage: 2d8 bite, or active special attack. Body types can add additional attacks.

Treasure: Varies. Treasure-seeking or cult-having beasts likely have a small hoard. The parts of the beast itself may be valuable, such as its unique ivory, armored scales, or the metal from which it is formed.

Body shape (2d4)

  1. Blob (uniform body is not subject to critical hits, bite becomes a crush with the same damage, half speed)
  2. Slug/worm/snail (half speed, snail has a shell from the extra features by default)
  3. Humanoid/ape (Bite reduced to 2d6, gains a claw/claw or slam/slam for 1d8/1d8, can grasp)
  4. Quadruped (Bears, cats, and similar creatures gain claw/claw/bite 1d8/1d8/2d8. Hoofed beasts and the like gain a 2d8 trample and a d8/d8 strike/strike. Specific animals can be whatever, roll or pick one randomly.)
    1. Generic, does not resemble a specific vertebrate.
    2. Specific mammal (Panther, bear, horse, porcupine, etc.)
    3. Specific reptile (Has scales, turtle has a shell. Lizard, snake, crocodile, turtle, etc.)
    4. Specific amphibian (Frog, newt, salamander, etc.)
  5. Grounded arthropod/insect (chitinous by default, can crawl up walls)
    1. Generic insect
    2. Spider
    3. Beetle (Armored back grants armor as chain+shield)
    4. Crab (Thick chitin grants armor as chain+shield)
    5. Other arachnid (Scorpion, tick, etc)
    6. Other crustacean (Armor as crab. Lobster, sand flea, etc.)
  6. Bird (50/50 specific or generic. Bite is a peck, gains either flight and d6/d6 grabbing talons or flightless and d10/d10 vicious talons, or neither if you want a kiwi or something.)
  7. Flying insect (chitinous, can fly)
    1. Generic
    2. Wasp
    3. Fly
    4. Beetle (same armor bonus as flightless beetle)
    5. Dragonfly
    6. Other specific (butterfly, cicada, etc)\

Material (2d6)

If regeneration is listed, heals 1d6 HP per round.

  1. Fire (Half HP, damage is fire damage, explodes violently on death for 6d6 damage, regenerates, half damage from nonmagical weapons)
  2. Gas/dust (half HP, does half damage, regenerates, half damage from nonmagical weapons)
  3. Liquid (half HP, regenerates, half damage from nonmagical weapons)
  4. Brittle material (coral, ice, thin mineral, etc. 25% less HP, AC as chain, double damage from blunt weapons.)
  5. Normal flesh (roll d20 on extra features twice instead of d12 once, lacks immunity to poison and the like. Add a descriptor to the skin/fur/chitin/feathers/scales for extra flavor.)
  6. Still flesh (the formatting makes a 6-7 entry a pain to use).
  7. Rock (Heatproof, half damage except from hammers and picks, AC as plate. 1 in 4 of the rock being valuable, such as an ore.)
  8. Wood (nothing special)
  9. Soft Metal (half damage except from magic weapons, AC as chain.)
    1. Copper
    2. Tin
    3. Lead
    4. Zinc
    5. Silver
    6. Gold
  10. Glass/gem (Heatproof, half damage from edged weapons and AC as plate, but also half HP.)
  11. Tough metal (Heatproof, Full damage only from Magical Dwarven steel or better metal, half if magic mundane metal or nonmagic Dwarven steel, no damage if neither. AC as plate.)
    1. Brass
    2. Bronze (Not heatproof)
    3. Iron (AC as plate+shield)
    4. Dwarven steel (Dwarven steel no longer counts for dealing better damage, buff attack, damage, and AC by 1)

Extra Features

Roll 1-2d12 for inorganic materials, 2-3d20 for fleshy beasts. If this would be redundant with the body type, feel free to reroll.

  1. Squirms, twitches, and fidgets constantly
  2. Movements all seem to be set to an unheard rhythm
  3. Abnormal number of eyes (if the base creature already has that many eyes, it has two eyes now)
    1. Eyeless
    2. One-eyed
    3. Three-eyed
    4. Eight-eyed
  4. Whispers the names and secrets of those it encounters
  5. Can smell treasure, and covets it
  6. Winged (can fly if not made of rock or metal)
  7. Regal bearing. Definitely has at least a small cult of cavern-dwellers worshipping it as a god.
  8. Horned (roll 1d4 for number and another for type)
    1. Long, straight horns
    2. Spiral horns
    3. Curved horns
    4. Antlers
  9. 1d4 extra limbs
  10. Truesight, illusions mean nothing to it.
  11. Strange mouth (reroll if it has this already)
    1. Buglike mandibles
    2. Elephantine trunk
    3. Huge tusks, bite flavored as gore instead
    4. Beak
    5. Mouth splits open four ways
    6. Lamprey-like tooth disk
  12. Construct. If fleshy, reroll feature with 1d8+12. If not, roll on the subtable:
    1. Etched with arcane runes, may be weakened if they are disrupted.
    2. Visibly artificial in nature (gears, axles, etc)
    3. Has a very specific instruction it will not deviate from no matter what (kill intruders in the site, allow no one to take a certain item, do not harm X group, etc)
    4. Is a spirit bound to this form. 2 in 6 chance of being grateful and offering a favor if freed.
  13. Has a shell. Reroll if the creature is already a snail, turtle, or other shelled beast.
  14. Has a different outer layer. Reroll if you get a redundancy.
    1. Leathery skin
    2. Fur
    3. Scales
    4. Feathers
    5. Chitin
    6. Skinless
  15. Bloated body
  16. Regeneration, 1d6 HP per round. Can regrow lost limbs.
  17. Exposed ribs. If boneless, reroll.
  18. Strange color (mint green, fiery orange, impossibly black, etc)
  19. Grasping tentacles all over its body. Save or be grappled when attacking in melee.
  20. Limbs and neck bend and twist in all directions. Impossible to restrain, can fit into weirdly small spaces.

Special attack

  1. None. Your players are lucky. If the creature type has a special attack already (poison bite on a snake, webs on a spider) then give it that attack anyway.
  2. Noxious secretions. Skin secretes a random poison.
  3. Hunger for warm blood. Bite does an extra 1d6 damage, which also applies as healing to the beast.
  4. Poison bite. Bite also applies a random poison.
  5. Poison sting. Gain a sting attack that applies a random poison.
  6. Acid spit. Can spit up globs of acid at will that deal 2d8 damage plus an extra 1d6 per round until washed or 3 rounds pass. If blocked by shield or armor, permanently damages them instead.
  7. Fire breath. Glows at the end of turn, then breathes a 60’ cone of flame that deals 6d6 fire damage as its next action, save for half (or none if you have a big shield). Not dragon fire.
  8. Fireball spit. Glows at the end of turn, then spits a fireball at a target within sight that explodes for 5d6 damage in a 10’ radius, save for half.
  9. Toxic blood. When struck with an edged melee weapon, attacker is hit with a random poison, save to avoid completely.
  10. Toxic fumes. Surrounded by horrid fumes constantly, inhaling inflicts a random poison.
  11. Webs. Can web nearby targets on a successful attack vs unarmored AC, immobilizing them and inflicting disadvantage on all actions until a full turn is spent cutting free.
  12. Deadly dust. Starts shedding dust at the end of turn, then spews a 60’ cone of deadly dust that inflicts a random poison and forces a save to avoid being knocked prone to the end of the cone. The dust lingers for 1d6 rounds, one round in wind, or not at all in very strong winds.

Random Poisons

Most poisons were taken from Archons March On. Toxic blood and toxic fumes roll 1d10, other poisons roll 1d12.

  1. Mild poison. +1d6 damage.
  2. Agonizing poison. Inflicts agony for 1d6 rounds, causing targets to take d6 damage any round they do anything but scream and writhe, and preventing them from doing more than a single simple action at all. If only a limb is affected, save to resist amputating it if you have the means.
  3. Draining poison. Damages an ability score by 1d4 points (roll the score randomly now, adjust to your system as needed), targets heal one point per day.
  4. Twisted healing. For 1d6 days, natural healing does nothing and any other form of healing is converted to equivalent damage.
  5. Paralysis of the mind or body, with the victim choosing which at the beginning of each round. A paralyzed mind must act out without improvisation or adaption the course of action it was set to at the beginning of its paralysis.
  6. Berserking poison. Target immediately starts attacking the nearest creature with no concept of tactics, mercy, or sanity. Attacks deal +1d4 damage while the effects last.
  7. Shunned by the living. -5 to all reaction rolls for 1d6 ten-minute turns.
  8. Liquid damnation. Target is treated as a demon, undead, or other fundamentally unholy and evil creature for the purposes of effects like evil detecting, turning the unholy, hallowed ground, etc. Can only be cured by a priest performing a proper ceremony.
  9. Horrendous flammability. For 1d6 days, target catches fire from the tiniest spark and can only be extinguished via total drenching.
  10. Guardian toxin. No effect initially, but must save or be struck with agony when attempting any action to hinder or harm the beast.
  11. Petrifying toxin. Slowed for a round, then save or be petrified for 1d12 hours.
  12. Horribly deadly poison. Save or die.