Monsters and Other Childish Things - Arc Dream Publishing

Want a monster? You got a monster! This page is based on the "One-Roll Monsters" charts from the game Monsters and Other Childish Things, except you don't even need to roll. Just click "reload" and get a new monster.

Rolling 10d10: 7, 8, 9, 5, 9, 4, 4, 10, 4, 7.

Phase One: Hit Locations

(1x5) Uncanny Modes of Movement: Burrowing Claws (3d, Useful [tunnel], Awesome x2). One hit location.

(1x8) Viscera and Organs: Scent Glands (3d, Useful [targets marked by scent can be tracked anywhere], Awesome x2). One hit location.

(1x10) Sense Organs: Knowing Nose (2d, Useful [tracking], Useful [smell lies], Awesome x2). One hit location.

(2x7) Body Weapons: Fiery Gullet (6d, Attacks, Burn 1, Gnarly x1, Wicked Fast x2). Takes up two hit locations.

(2x9) Mouth Parts: Big, Savage Fanged Grin (6d, Attacks, Wicked Fast x2, Gnarly x2). Takes up two hit locations.

(3x4) Body Segments: Huge, Barrel-Thick Torso (8d, Attacks [ear-splitting bellow], Area x3, Tough x4). Uses three hit locations.

Phase Two: Appearance and Personality

Appearance: (9) Cthonic Mass of Tentacles (combine up to two loose dice into a single location to form Writhing Mane of Tendrils which has 3 or 8 dice and is Useful [open gateways to the elder realms], Attacks, and has Area 1).

Personality: (8) Helpful (burn one die from the monster's largest body part, adding the Sharing extra; if the monster already Shares this bit, then add Sharing to the next biggest one; if they're all already Shared, then add Wicked Fast to the biggest one so it can Share faster).

Favorite Thing: (7) Secrets.

Way to Hide: (4) Hide in plain sight.

In Monsters and Other Childish Things, each monster has 10 hit location numbers. Each hit location number is assigned to a specific hit location. A hit location might have only one hit location number, or it might have more than one. So a monster might have hit locations like "Scuttling Little Legs (1)," "Freaky Feelers (2)," "Elongated Wormlike Body (3–4)," and so on. If the monster gets hurt in location 1, its Scuttling Little Legs take damage; if it gets hurt in location 2, its Freaky Feelers take the hit; if it gets hurt in location 3 or 4, its Elongated Wormlike Body takes it.

Each hit location is rated by the number of dice it has. Whenever the monster uses that location, it rolls that many dice. So if your Scuttling Little Legs have 4d, that means you roll four dice to use them.

A monster gets five dice on a location for each hit location number it takes up. So if you have Pulsing Viscera on location numbers 6 and 7, that's two hit location numbers so you get 10 dice in the Pulsing Viscera location.

You can trade in dice on a location to get fancy special abilities. But be careful, because if the monster gets hurt, it loses dice from the hurt location. So if you have a location with a ton of fancy abilities and only two dice, it will be very cool but very fragile.

The program rolls 10 dice. Each die is worth five monster dice on one hit location number. A single, unmatched die gets you some kind of weedy body part with only five dice assigned. A set of matching dice means a particularly tough hit location with more than one hit location number assigned to it. The program then assigns dice and special abilities to each hit location.

If you find your monster lacks some basic function — you get no sense organs or legs, for example — don't panic. You can assume your monster can see, hear, and walk around, but it can't roll dice to do them in some difficult way. In other words, it can't do these things well enough to beat a character or monster that has body parts or a skill dedicated to doing them. A monster with no body parts dedicated to locomotion couldn't outrun someone with the P.E. skill or a monster with hundreds of legs.

Once you have your body parts and know their stats and how many hit location numbers they occupy, arrange them on the 1 – 10 hit location scale. For tactical purposes, it's usually best to arrange the locations by size. (That makes it easier to protect them with defensive actions.) Place body parts with single hit location numbers lower than those with two or more hit location numbers. Doubles should be placed lower than triples. And any parts with four hit location numbers should be the highest.

Tweak anything that needs tweaking — any locations or appearance notes that say "remove a die from a location and add Burn" or something like that.

Monsters and Other Childish Things © Benjamin Baugh. The One-Roll Engine © Greg Stolze. "One-Roll Monster Generator" by Benjamin Baugh (his dreams and nightmares wrestled the text into shape, except where the programmer tweaked things for the program). PHP scripting © Alvin Frewer, who is more afraid of the dark after making this tool: The blame for any errors in the text, stats, or results is mine, not my monster's or anyone else's.