I am a compulsory doodler. A clear sign of the ADHD missed for so many years, childhood margins were filled with twinkling lines and dashes, pictographs and comics. Perhaps compelled by the gallery books of Waterson and Larson I scribbled and scrabbled so much that I am happy to say I have filled a good chunk of a journal with absurd drawings.
However, a special book I have, custom made by mi amour, of spiral binding and dotted background, that I fill with my monsters. Most are, to me at least, original or else grounded in folklore. Some are reinterpretations of classic one's, my own spin on them. One stands out, one I am especially fond of.
The Malfectorix. A name that would strike terror into the hearts of anyone, if I had ever run it as a monster in my games.
D&D has its beholders and dragons and mindflayers on the front of its bestiaries. My own would have this guy:
Born of a boring virtual training class, the Malfectorix whose name means "very bad" and "you don't understand Latin" is a great beastie that should have one more HD than is reasonable in your system. I have written in my book here HD equivalent to "15 men" but perhaps it would be better off at 11 HD, many more than I would ever give a creature in a system where a HD tops off at 10+.
It is the pinnacle of awful monsters. Incredibly strong, it runs faster than a horse, and with an immense appetite, it will sunder entire country sides seeking food, that being anything it thinks could be food. Unlike its contemporaries, dragons and beholders, it is frightfully unintelligent. Nature has conversely given it a head harder than granite to protect the precious few bundles of neurons it has. This is good (for it) because its primary form of locomotion is straight, with no care for lies in its chosen path. It can and will sunder an entire castle wall with minimal brain damage, though this is more because the castle was in the way of the direction it chose a few miles back than any issue with the wall itself [1].
Killing it confers no benefits to the killer, beyond its absence. No part of it is valuable. Its shaggy pelt will leave you freezing and its meat is vile and toxic. Its claws are brittle in death, losing their razor sharpness quickly. Its stony head could be of use it you had enough men to carry it, and its mouth's edge is vorpal sharp, but it will begin to crack and crumble by next winter. Unlike many monsters with stomachs and crops just for holding swallowed treasure, the Malfectorix's stomach will only contain 2d3 bowling ball sized stones. It is theorized these allow them to break up the horrible things they eat. There's another theory that the Malfectorix confuses them for eggs and that this causes its troublesome indigestion and is the primary cause of its bad temper.
Their corpses, not unlike whales, explode after, unlike whales, 1d3 hours, making bringing a head in for reward difficult. The explosions can send the stony craniums upwards of half a mile away or, half a meter through your buddy.
Interestingly, its eye stalks are on the side of its head. Perhaps a distant ancestor grew tired of smashing them to a pulp during its preferred ramming attacks and divested itself from its brothers' kiddy gene pools, searching for deeper waters. The resultant effect was the stretching of its already thin brain. As such the eye stalks sometimes fight, confusing the other for another Malfectorix. This makes breeding, thankfully, a challenge and breeding pairs hate each other, compelled by mother nature to get along long enough to well, get along.
In truth the creature's true purpose in my games is perhaps to befuddle and annoy players. It has no reasonable loot, is difficult to kill and easy to trick. Therefore, its favorite food is power gamers and it should always fall for the first ruse provided by the shyest player. In a world where my monsters' lives are measured in rounds, the Malfectorix stands apart. It seeks instead to challenge their notions of a monster's purpose. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd give the monster negative XP, taking a level per player on death. It is the "BANG!" flag that comes out of a loaded clown's revolver. It exists for its own sake and not the sake of any player. Cleverness will suffice for defeating it and not even much is required. If it by some miracle it is killed, it can take a player out with an explosion and the resultant noise summons every monster in the area. Perhaps even, another Malfectorix.
Some Stats for the Foolhardy
HD: 21 Men (learned though much trial and error); or 1 more than is standard for the system you use
AC: Stone Maw like plate, body like chain
MV: Easily outruns a horse on its disturbing chicken legs, but only in straight lines
#1°: 1, 1d2 (mated pair, angry) + 1d4 chicks (ravenous bastards)
Sp: Vorpal Maw, its crits decapitate heads and remove limbs in one hit. It ignores armor. It is famously stupid.
Noxious gas. Can be emitted from its nostrils, varying in potency: 1. Deadly 2. Acidic 3. Anoxic 4. Paralyzing 5. Confusing 6. Sleep inducing. The latter three can affect the creature itself, if it stands in its own cloud for a round.
WANTS: to eat (anything)
NEEDS: to fight that other Malfectorix
AVOIDS: nothing
DESIRES: to eat large rocks
TREASURE: those very same rocks
Meta: It targets power gamers first and the last thing to hit it second and falls for the first trick proposed by a quiet player. On its death, it takes one level of XP per player with it. The level can be retrieved with an arduous series of interconnected fetch quests that form an ouroboros back to the first quest giver.
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| The other picture didn't capture his regal nose smoke |
1. Foes have tried to use this to their advantage, luring the beast over, having it smash a hole in a wall to end a siege early, only to fail when the monster put a hole in the wall on the other side allowing their quarry to escape.
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