Thursday, September 11, 2008

I like this DM's style

I dredged up the image below from an old post on Dragonsfoot. A previous owner customized the Wandering Monsters chart in one poster's Holmes Basic D&D rules. Click the pic to get a larger version.

Purple pigs?  Subterranean hippogriffs?I'm guessing that "Hydra 3" on the third level chart is meant to indicate a 3-headed version of that beastie.

Imagine for a moment the possibility that out there somewhere is some poor bastard whose first encounter in D&D was with a hostile dungeon chicken.

9 comments:

  1. Make chicken a very common encounter in a dungeon and cockatrice a rare encounter.

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  2. I'd be more concerned about the 1-3 purple pigs you might find on Level 2.

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  3. Anonymous10:36 AM

    Fantastic! I really like the "Giant Tick" in the right column - that would certainly terrify me in a dungeon. In fact... I may have to write about that.

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  4. What about the map devourer on level 2? Or rabid dungeon rabbits...

    Frank

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  5. Giant ticks have been a staple of D&D, since at least 1977, when both the Holmes rules and the Monster Manual included stats for them.

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  6. Anonymous9:06 PM

    I've always found Guinea Pigs to be at least a Level 3 creature. This guy was hardcore!

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  7. does anyone know what happened to Dr Holmes ?

    last i heard he was aneurologist in CA . . .

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  8. i almost thought that said 'hanky' not 'hawk' and was wondering how much an encounter finding a used hanky would be...

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  9. I'm guessing that whoever this DM was, he grew up to write MUDs or the first MMORPGs.

    Rabbits and dungeon chickens indeed.

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