Also, his royal guard were all paladins but that doesn't seem relevant to the rest of the post.

The Leprechaun King carousing with a human friend.

I had a dream the other night that there was a Leprechaun King named Zap! Yes, his name had an exclamation mark at the end. Consider the notion that all leprechauns are named liked that. And by "like that", I mean after the visual sound effects of the 1966 Batman TV show. So here are all the canonical names for leprechauns under this scheme:

Random Leprechaun Name (d87)

from Space Gamer #74, IIRC

1. Aieee!
2. Aiieee!
3. Arrrgh!
4. Awk!
5. Awkkkkkk!
6. Bam!
7. Bang!
8. Bang-Eth!
9. Bap!
10. Biff!
11. Bloop!
12. Blurp!
13. Boff!
14. Bonk!
15. Clank!
16. Clange!
17. Clank-Est!
18. Clash!
19. Clunk!
20. Clunk-Eth!
21. Craaack!
22. Crash!
23. Crraaack!
24. Crunch!
25. Crunch-Eth!
26. Eee-Yow!
27. Flrbbbbb!
28. Glipp!
29. Glurpp!
30. Kapow!
31. Kayo!
32. Ker-Plop!
33. Ker-Sploosh!
34. Klonk!
35. Krunch!
36. Oooff!
37. Ooooff!
38. Ouch!
39. Ouch-Eth!
40. Owww!
41. Ow-Eth!
42. Pam!
43. Plop!
44. Pow!
45. Powie!
46. Qunckkk!
47. Rakkk!
48. Rip!
49. Slosh!
50. Sock!
51. Splaat!
52. Splatt!
53. Sploosh!
54. Swaap!
55. Swish!
56. Swoosh!
57. Thunk!
58. Thwack!
59. Thwackel!
60. Thwape!
61. Thwapp!
62. Touché!
63. Uggh!
64. Urkk!
65. Urkkk!
66. Vronk!
67. Whack!
68. Whack-Eth!
69. Wham-Eth!
70. Whamm!
71. Whammm!
72. Whap!
73. Zam!
74. Zamm!
75. Zammm!
76. Zap!
77. Zap-Eth!
78. Zgruppp!
79. Zlonk!
80. Zlopp!
81. Zlott!
82. Zok!
83. Zowie!
84. Zwapp!
85. Z-zwap!
86. Z-z-z-z-wap!
87. Zzzzzwap!      (source)

Only native speakers of the Leprechaun tongue can clearly differentiate the subtleties of correctly pronouncing things like "Zam!" versus "Zamm!" versus "Zammm!" Turns out Leprechaunese is rife with such pitfalls, owing to its status as a language isolate, with no known relation to the linguistic family that includes the Common Tongue. Leprechauns who regularly interact with humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits constantly deal with people mangling their names. Many simply bear the humiliation in silence, but occasionally you'll find yourself in an argument with one of the wee folk and you just don't understand why they're yelling "My name's not Splaat!, you gigantic simpleton! It's Splatt!"

Some leprechaun communities are so driven to distraction by the mispronouncing of their name that they develop intricate systems for identifying a pseudonym, a "humanish name" they only use with outsiders. Here's a typical example of this sort of thing:

Leprechauns don't really get human names.

But what about the exclamation point at the end of leprechaunish names? In my dream I didn't hear the Leprechaun King's name said aloud. Rather "Realm of Zap! the Leprechaun King" was written on a map next to a set of islands that looked a little like the Misty Isles or maybe Vog Mur. It could be an aveolar click, but ending every name with the same sound seems like a dull addition to this system. I think it would be better if  the exclamation mark at the end of every leprechaunish name is not pronounced. Rather, it is a textual indicator that the word is a personal name. This allows one to easily distinguish in written communication whether you are talking about your cousin Vronk! or his hometown of Vronk@.

According to an ancient legend, every time the Caped
Crusader punches a criminal a leprechaun is born.
This is why most leprechaun communities
feature a shrine to Blessed Saint Batman.

You're probably doing ogres wrong.

Thanks to the Nameless Jedi for inspiring this post. Let's begin with a simple thought exercise.

Allow me to intriduce you to Orlando the Ogre. Formally, he's Orlando Pedgewick Ogremoore the Third, of the Crystalmist Mountain Ogremoores. He's a middle manager in the Crystalmist division of ChaosCorp and a junior officer at his country club. Orlando the Ogre wants to be your friend.

Now, before you click to read the rest of the post, imagine the color scheme you would use to turn my black-and-white illo into a full color jobbie. Do you have that image locked in? Then click away.

This is the kind of thing I do on Saturday mornings.

I turn an old piece of Battlestar Galactic concept art into an album cover.

Edit to add:

 

Q: What color is a tirapheg?

So I've been re-reading the Fiend Folio, as I am wont to do from time to time. And once again I was struck by how in the old monster write-ups you can easily tell whether the monster creator regularly used minis or not. You'll get what are effectively detailed painting instructions from the minis-users, whether a retail figure exists for the monster or not. People who use minis in their games a lot tend to think in color. 

Then there's creatures like the tirapheg. Heavy on the kind of description you need to convey to players what the hell it looks like, but not much in the way of color info. The shape of the monster tends to be top priority in the imaginations of the non-minis set.

I guess you could read the descriptors of "naked and hairless" and "human-like" to imply that you should paint your tirapheg in normal human skintones. That strikes me as a super-creepy option. But the fact of the matter is that we don't know for sure. The original vision of the tirapheg could look more like one of these:

Of course, it is entirely possible that the tirapheg might appear in later monster books I haven't read and the updated write-ups include color info. Heck, there could even be an official prepainted plastic mini for all I know. That's not really the point of the post though. Rather, I want to suggest that when you write up a visual description for a new critter, consider including both the physical shape of the thing and a color guide as well. The color info will help even the Theatre of the Mind style DMs to describe the thing, while it also greatly benefits a lot of minis painters.

And don't worry about the fact that an official mini of your monster doesn't exist. Even a DM like me, who rarely uses figures and can't paint his way out of a paper bag, can do a little kitbashing if the situation call for it. It only takes a small plastic lobster from a zoo gift shop, the wings off of a plastic dragon fly, a toothpick, and a bit of paint to make a garbug, for example. Heck you could fake the wings with cardstock if you wanted. A tirapheg probably wouldn't be too hard to mock up out of Sculpey or you could hack together parts from a couple of Reaper sculpting dollies.

No offense to whoever at Games Workshop
sculpted this unreleased tirapheg figure, but I
figure a lot of people could do at least this well.

You GUYS!

Under the headgear options Hero Forge has an option for a loop that turns any figure into a pendant or Christmas ornament!

Jesus Frog died for your amphibious sins.

An Answer to a Question No One Asked

 What is going on under wizards' robes?

Zardeth and Ogeode are the wizards from the Crystar toy/comic line. 

Under their robes you find pants with belts and matching knee-high boots.

Very classy. 8/10

Kelek and Ringelrun from the AD&D toyline wear belts, jewelry, 

short boots (or maybe Italian shoes), and nasty, tattered onesies.

Buy some new underwear, guys! 3/10

I swear to Grodd, this is an Emperor Palpatine figure. 

Apparently under his robes he dresses as some sort of bondage pervert.

That sounds about right to me. 6/10

Gandalf wears a whole civilian outfit under his robes.

Stylish, but seems like too many layers.

Too hot and cumbersome for balrog-fighting. 4/10

Other times he goes full commando.

Nice boots, dude. 10/10

Be Wary of Wizards

So I'm still putzing around with Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventures. There's a lot of them. At least 25 full-length solitaire modules were published by Flying Buffalo back in the day, as well as numerous mini-solos appearing primarily in Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine. And they continue to appear at places like drivethru. Most of these adventures are designed for one PC. A very few allow you to run a whole party.

One of these party-based solitaire adventures is "Old Dwarf Mine" by Roy Cram, originally published in Pegasus issue #7 (Judges Guild, 1982) but also available online in revised form here. The revised version says you can take a party of up to ten PCs level 1-3, so I rolled up ten PCs yesterday, bought equipment this morning, and played the adventure this afternoon.

Here's my party:

• The Other Fili, dwarf warrior  (So-called because I used my quickie dwarf name generator and got a canonical Tolkien name.)
• Stumpy McNabb, leprechaun wizard (Named using a "what's your leprechaun name" graphic from last St. Patrick's Day.)
• Framhere, nondescript human warrior
• Elenmír Starjewel, elf wizard
• Doniram Sithmore, human wizard
• Fleetfoot Jones, human warrior with excellent Dexterity and Speed stats
• Foscho Brockburrow, hobbit rogue with a 4 Str
• Brunaine Shadowsure, human rogue with astonishingly good stats
• Yuri Silvertongue, a.k.a. Yuri the Pathetic, human warrior, his Charisma was good but his Strength, Intelligence, and Constiution were all abysmal
• Vidfara the Wanderer, a mediocre human rogue 

I did pretty well at first. Other Fili and Frmahere defeated a half dozen goblins that attacked the party in a narrow confine.  A giant spider poisoned Fili but he survived to aid the rest clear out the spider nest. Things started to go downhill when a hobgoblin ambush riddled Fili's body with crossbow bolts, leaving him dead. Some gems and a couple magic items were recovered as well as a little gold. But then we fought a wizard. The party defeated the wizard's chief goon, but Elenmír and Vidhara were killed by the classic wizard attack spell Take That, You Fiend. Then I made a hotheaded move that destroyed the wizard, the party, and the entire damn dungeon.

One of these days I'm going to have a real success in one of these damn solos.