Is There Then No One? Is There Then No One? (GLoGtober 2024)

 Spooky Halloween monsters for GLoGtober 2024.

Skara Woundbite- party attacked by four 1 HD orcs. After the battle, one is still alive but in pain. You gotta put her out of her misery. Every 1d4 days, she comes back, with +1 HD and a new ability based on method of dispatch. Slit her throat? That cut becomes a second mouth. She believes that killing the party will end her curse.

• Final death: buried with funeral, Remove Curse spell, or complete destruction of the body.

Grumbler: random PC dreams that a nonexistent party member, a scraggly soldier in a bright blue and red coat, sits around their fire, making a lot of petty complaints about the PCs. Why does she get a full share? She didn’t help at all when those hellhounds attacked. How come you get to pay for your rations out of the party fund? I told you guys that room was trapped and you didn’t listen. The next day, at the worst possible time, they’ll turn and see the Grumbler make some decisive action— triggering a trap, spoiling an ambush, etc. Every night a new dream, and each day more frequent interference. If challenged, will aggressively defend his actions as simply being his nature, and will claim he’s a good man, just a little chaotic.

• Final death: exorcism (counts as 6 HD undead for Turn attempts), pour holy water in the afflicted’s ears, or one-shot the grumbler when he appears.

The Bonelicker: reptile-like, muscular demon. Preferentially attacks women. (People don’t like it when the monsters are sexist.) Lair (multiple chambers in a dungeon) covered in woman bones, sucked dry. Final death if slain by a woman. Otherwise, will hatch from the next problematic book read by the person who delivered the killing blow. (There will be several in the lair.)

Needle Master: body of a bear, quills of a porcupine, legs of a horse, head of a skunk. Whenever PCs damage it, explain that you’ll be really upset if they kill it, but keep having it try to kill them.

Bellumundi: A complex creature. Resembles a naga, but the tip of its tail is connected to the heel of a warrior, gentle and bold both. Where they fight, bystanders die. Banks empty. Crops are carried away by the wind. Each has 7 HD, and if one wins their fight, the other is nourished to new life after about a week as the victor gloats and feasts.

Sirens: 3HD. Unaccountably strong for their famine-ruined frames. Not beautiful. Voices cracked with salt-pang. Can weep but never sing. Beg for rescue from war’s unjust prison, shout quick claims that the sailors’ tales are fiction and cruel lie, throw themselves on the beach in despair. Help us, help us, help us. You are killing us. On a successful bite attack, lobster antennules emerge to automatically grapple.