In Praise of Monstrous Humanoids

Image by Ulisse Aldrovandi

There's a certain school of thought in the OSR that all humanoid opponents should be removed from the game and replaced with solely humans. While I won't summarize them here, the arguments are sensible, and for the right type of game I think it's a wise choice. It's a principle I adhered to myself for a good while. However, as my tastes have circled around to pulp fantasy, I've welcomed humanoid opponents back into the fold. In this post I'd like to offer my case for humanoid opponents, and discuss how to design interesting ones.

Most of the issues with humanoid opponents, I think, are directed towards the orcs and goblins of the world. Mechanically, these creatures are undifferentiated from humans, and even in their tactics they don't fundamentally operate differently than humans. All they have to offer is their flavor — and their flavor is bland. Certainly cases have been made for these monsters elsewhere, but I still find this variety of monstrous humanoid boring in general. What I'm more drawn to are beast men: fish men, bird men, insect men, jackal men and the like.

In creating my Seven Rivers campaign, I decided I needed a key conceit, something to differentiate my world from the myriad others. What I settled upon was this: the campaign takes place in the nation of Ampyrsyvad, which is composed of many tiny fortified city states with vast swaths of wilderness between them. This wilderness is predictably dotted with countless abandoned ruins, temples, dungeons, castles, ziggurats and towers. Why are they abandoned? Beast men. In ages past, humans enjoyed an unchallenged dominance, but as more and more beast men evolved and crawled from the muck, this dominance started to slip. Physically, humans are weaker than almost any beast man, and the savage nature of beast men make them fearsome opponents, especially after they acquired human weaponry and learned how to use it. As such, humans were forced to congregate in large cities, and in doing so had to abandon many dungeons which housed cultural artifacts, powerful magic items, and more. Now human society is slowly decaying and more and more men and women are driven to head into the mysterious wilds and reclaim lost treasures (think a world of lost decadent sorcerous cultures like that of Jack Vance's Dying Earth, but with less science fantasy and more anthropomorphic fish).

In my campaign, beast men are typically more beast than man. They use weapons, yes, but they are weapons stolen from men (and each type of beast man prefers different types of weapons). They also rarely build anything, preferring instead to inhabit pre-existing structures making minor modifications as needed.

I'm very satisfied with this campaign idea, as I think it will provide endless opportunties for adventure hooks and dungeons. However, with beast men being such a primary focus, I knew I had to take care and diligence in designing them. A bunch of identical statblocks with superficially different appearances wasn't going to cut it; not by any means. As I set about creating these monsters, I arrived at certain key issues and points that I wanted to consider. I've unpacked them below.

1. Granularity - This is a simple question, but an important one: how granular should the categories of beast men be? In my opinion, the more granular the better. Instead of lizard men we ought to have skink men, chameleon men, and iguana men (likely reading each name you got an idea of how one race would differ from the other). Instead of fish men we ought to have angler men, axolotl men and piranha men. Ibis men and bird of paradise men instead of bird men. And so on. I prefer this method because each animal has certain personality traits and symbolic resonances, and these can be used to generate ideas. Piranha men go into a frenzy when blood is spilled, ibis men have mystical abilities, chameleon men have wondrous powers of disguise, etc. This works in a game designer's favor as well because there are so many animals out there that haven't been statted up in this manner, and thus creativity isn't inhibited.


2. Mechanical Differentiation - I began to veer into discussion of this in section 1, but it's really the crux of the issue. While beast men will obviously differ in tactics and personality, if they are similar mechanically this only accomplishes so much. As such, I like to make my beast men mechanically different whenever possible. In the Seven Rivers campaign, there are monstrous lobster men in one of the first ruins the players explore. If a lobster man rolls a high number on its damage die (a 7 or 8), it cripples one of its opponents limbs with the crushing force of its claw. Alternatively, it can use this claw to mangle its opponent's weapon (lobster men love to grab swords and bend them into unusable shapes). As you can see, this isn't anything revolutionary — it doesn't need to be. But it will provoke a tactical change in the players, as they'll know when exploring ruins inhabited by lobster men they better carry extra weapons, or find weapons too durable for lobster men to damage (a quest in of itself). Mechanical differentiation is easy enough to implement: for piranha men, perhaps once blood is spilled they go into a frenzy and are forced to focus all of their attacks on the wounded opponent. Maybe hawk men get to roll two initiative checks and take the better of the results because they are so fleet-footed. Frog men can have prehensile tongues which they use to deploy a small weapon such as a dagger. Certain types of insect men might spray their foes with pheromones, increasing wandering monster checks.
   
   By honing in on the defining characteristic of an animal and using it as the springboard, this process becomes dead simple. Studying nature reveals a whole host of unique defenses that can be mined for ideas. And this isn't even getting into magical abilities, which are likely appropriate for certain types of beast men which have pre-existing mythic connotations.


3. Gender Dimorphism & Color - This is more a sidenote than a main consideration, but a great trick to pull on your players is making certain species of beast men gender dimorphic. Typically I deploy this by first exposing the players to the weaker gender, then having them encounter the stronger later on: oh, you thought male lobster men were bad? Just you wait (female lobster men in my campaign are bigger than males, and when they score a 7 or 8 on their damage die they sever a limb). An even more shocking trick to pull is to have one of the gender's able to cast spells, and the other not. Maybe male frog men aren't too challenging, but the females with the ability to cast basic shamanistic magic certainly are!
   
   In the same vein as gender dimorphism, it can be interesting to give different abilities to different colored beast men. In my campaign, white ibis men cast cleric spells, black ibis men cast magic-user spells, and the rare and near-mythical scarlet ibis men can cast both.


4. Personality & Behavior - I expounded upon mechanical differentiation earlier, but defining each species' distinct personality and behavior is essential. As I like to be utilitarian when I design, I only concern myself with behavior that will have direct effects on the PCs. Here's an example: the ruin I mentioned earlier as being inhabited with lobster men contains many pools throughout. When the lobster men came to reside there, they made tunnels connecting certain pools together. This gives them (and the fish men who live alongside them) a distinct tactical advantage when navigating the ruin. Generally I like to consider how a beast man might treat its surroundings: some beast men will make modifications to existing structures, some will not. Some beast men collect treasure (crow men!), some have no interest in it. Some are fascinated by human weaponry, some eschew it. Some are more intelligent than others, and some have even grown fond of human culture and attempt to emulate it. Bat men, for example, worship vampires, and are willing to provide their unwavering fealty to one (a vampire is essentially an angel to a bat man).
   
   Different varieties of beast men should employ different tactics. Some should capture their opponents live to devour them later. Some should perform hit-and-run maneuvers. Some should have pets they fight in concert with. The more you differentiate one species from another, the more tactically interesting each becomes. At their most ideal, once the players learn the tactics of, say, skink men, they should have a whole routine for dealing with a skink man lair.
   
   In time, players will also learn what type of treasure certain beast men like to gather, and can use this to tailor their decisions. Crow men obviously collect shiny objects, so they will hoard coins, but art and magic items mean nothing to them — whereas ibis men will clearly be in possession of magic items. Alligator men love collecting human weaponry and their lairs are richer than any armory. Treasure type is just a further method for establishing the distinct nature of each beast man.
   
   Some beast men, in mimicking humans, will have their own unseemly religions, complete with bizarre rituals. Deploying these can be a great way to unnerve players: after the bestial nature of iguana men are established, the players stumble upon an iguana man enclave. Therein the iguana men are conducting a clearly human holy ritual, complete with robes, candles and guttural chanting: a horrific scene, to be sure! How much of the significance of their actions do these iguana men understand?
   
   Though I stated earlier that beast men live in ruins, it may be interesting to allow certain beast men to build their own structures (see this post which may very well have inspired my love of beast men!). Insect men are certainly good candidates for this, and structures built by non-human intelligences always make for good adventure locales — doubly so locations that were once constructed by men and have now been altered by their new occupants.
   
   Here's where I'll divulge a little secret: the players don't know it, but there are actually many varieties of beast men that are equivalent in intelligence to humans (jaguar men are particularly cultured). But the PCs aren't aware of this at the start; it's a complicating factor to add a wrinkle to the campaign. Far outside of Ampyrsyvad certain colonies of beast men are beginning their own societies, using human society as a springboard but deviating in very odd ways. I won't discuss this too in depth because it's beyond the purview of this post, and if I started discussing beast man culture it would easily double in size.


5. Tone - This is down to personal taste, but I find some beast men simply don't work for the tone of my campaign (typically beast men based off of "cute" animals such as mice and rabbits). Those, to me, evoke too much of a fairy tale nature. Generally, I find beast men work best when based off of animals humans tend to fear, or exotic animals we don't interact with often (a beast man based off an animal your players have never heard of would certainly catch them off guard — behold the binturong man!). Each DM will have to tailor the beast men he or she uses to his or her proclivities.

This post grew longer than I expected. I didn't know I was so passionate about the topic until I sat down to write! I certainly hope some of these ideas are inspiring and will help others in designing monstrous humanoids. I may detail my campaign in greater depth in a later post if there's interest.

Thanks for reading.