Dungeon Full of Monsters

Dungeon Full of Monsters is a modular megadungeon for use with Labyrinth Lord and other old school fantasy role-playing games.

The Dungeon is Modular
The megadungeon is composed of 50 individual sections, separated into 5 different levels. You can assemble these in any configuration you like, either randomly or not, either before the campaign or on-the-fly in play. You can also use these sectiosn on their own, without reference to the larger dungeon itself.

And Full of Monsters
The second half of the book contains dozens of monsters, illustrated in full colour, often with multiple variations and types. Combined with the unique monsters located in specific dungeon sections, this book contains over 150 different monster stat blocks. There are criminal organizations, insane cultists, meddling deities, evil wizards, undead kings, infernal demons and other invaders from beyond the stars, numerous unspeakable horrors and arcane beasts, and even a few rival adventurers. Use these monsters with this dungeon or any other.

Specific conversion guidelines for The Nightmares Underneath are also provided.

Dungeon Full of Monsters was written by Johnstone Metzger and illustrated by Nathan Jones.

The digital pdf is Letter sized 5.5 by 8.5 inches, 352 pages, and also comes with a file containing only the dungeon maps, and a file containing only the monster illustrations. The print version is US Trade sized 6 x 9 inches, 352 pages, and is available in both softcover and hardcover.

Buy it at DriveThruRPG.

MP1: The End of Known Space

We’re switching things up a bit with the monster manuals produced by our patreon project. The End of Known Space is our first collection of science fiction monsters for Dungeon World (and Adventures on Dungeon Planet). It’s our first monster planet!

The Maldoran system lies at the edge of the universe, a world full of corruption and danger. Take a safari on the planet or explore the cornucopia of pharmacological substances available there. Try your hand at mining the asteroid belt, investigating the abandoned moon base, or use the system as a launch point for an expedition into the elusive darkness that lies beyond the end of known space.

Like the MM series of monster manuals, The End of Known Space contains previously-released Monthly Monsters material that has been revised and expanded, with more illustrations and rpg content.

The End of Known Space is available in print and pdf from DriveThruRPG. The pdfs are halfletter digest size (5.5×8.5″) and 110 pages. One version has full-colour backgrounds behind the text while the other has black text on white pages, with the same illustrations. The print book is US trade size (6×9″), premium full colour, and 110 pages.

You can also buy the print book on its own from Lulu.

MM3: A Market in the Woods

The Monthly Monsters project is back with a third monster manual for Dungeon World!

Deep inside the Spritewood, hidden from the sight of civilized eyes, there lies a secret market, where monsters meet to trade their ill-gotten gains. Under this canopy, the angry dead return to life and the living change , unwilling, into beasts. But if you can reach the market safely, a brand new world will open to you. What is it you seek? Alchemical wonders, history’s greatest mercenaries, or magic to challenge even gods themselves?

The only question left to ask is: what did you bring to trade?

A Market in the Woods includes 13 monster entries, describing a hidden marketplace, some of the inhuman beings that gather there to buy, sell, and trade, as well as a few schemes that may or may not be unrelated. Each entry is illustrated in full colour and may include different variations of the monster, random tables, adventures, dangers and their grim portents, custom moves, items, locations, plot hooks, secrets, and more.

Like MM1 and MM2, A Market in the Woods contains previously-released Monthly Monsters material that has been revised and expanded, and adds more illustrations and content.

A Market in the Woods is available in print and pdf from DriveThruRPG. The pdfs are halfletter digest size (5.5×8.5″) and 112 pages. One version has full-colour backgrounds behind the text while the other has black text on white pages. The print book is US trade size (6×9″) and 112 pages.

You can also buy the print book on its own from Lulu.

Wizard-Spawned Insanities

Wizard-Spawned Insanities is a monster manual for the Dungeon World role-playing game. The thirteen monster entries it contains are illustrated in full colour, along with a host of variations, random tables, adventures, dangers and their grim portents, custom moves, items, locations, plot hooks, secrets, and more.

This is NOT just a reprint of the Monthly Monsters material! Each monster has been revised, expanded, and given new illustrations. Every page contains full-colour background art.

WHERE TO GET IT: From DriveThruRPG, click this link

The pdf comes in two versions: one full-colour, the other printer-friendly (with B&W text pages and full-colour monster illustrations). Both are digest-sized, 110 pages, for US$15.
The print is US trade-sized, full colour, 110 pages, for US$30 and comes with the pdfs for free if you want them.

You can also buy the print version by itself (no pdf!) from Lulu at this link. The quality is almost identical, but some countries get much better shipping rates from Lulu.

Terrors of the Ancient World – Preview Video

I made a Youtube video of me looking through the print version of Terrors of the Ancient World, so all y’all could see it and know what it looks like. Hopefully it makes you want to buy a copy!

The Caves of Moreau County

The Caves of Moreau County is an adventure module for Labyrinth Lord (i.e. B/X). The various sections of this dungeon are random and modular — there is no mandated way for them to fit together. You can generate the actual structure of the dungeon before you play, or do it during the game, partly in response to the players’ decisions.

The dungeon consists primarily of beastmen in caves with a few twists and buried secrets. It is a fairly dark adventure, written from the perspective of murderhobo PCs. It’s gritty, horror-saturated old school fantasy, in case that is or isn’t your bag. Or just check it out for yourself, since you can get it for free if you want to.

This module was created to be a proof-of-concept prototype, to see how well this format works, and what needs to be done to make it work better. As such, the text is released under a Creative Commons license and the PDF is offered here as Pay What You Want. Monetary support goes towards creating more role-playing game materials. If you enjoy this module, you might also consider purchasing some of my other books, if you haven’t already.

LINK BELOW

The Caves of Moreau County is available in PDF from DriveThruRPG.

And in print from Lulu (6×9, staple-bound, cream pages, B&W printing, US$10).

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Some Design Notes:
Because this is a prototype made in preparation for a larger project (related to my Monthly Monsters project on Patreon), I don’t mind critiquing it or offering my thoughts on how it could be done better.

The sections in The Caves of Moreau County are fairly small, mostly limited to one room each. I think this would work better with larger sections, maybe small collections of rooms, or several rooms that comprise the lair of a particular monster, or a type of monsters. So, probably something more akin to a series of modular one-page dungeons, though many sections would be smaller than your typical OPD, I would think.

There’s only a few connections between rooms—the ritual room leads directly to the tomb of saints, for example—and only a few rooms lead back to rooms that are already on the map. I’d like to insert more connections of that sort, including secret passageways, and links between different dungeon levels.

In general, this is also a fairly small dungeon, with twenty rooms and only a few different types of monsters. More variance in the wandering monster tables would definitely be a plus.

Terrors of the Ancient World Wallpaper

Digital wallpaper of the cover art: http://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=949280

Terrors of the Ancient World

Last year, I started a Patreon thing in order to make monster manuals with a friend of mine, because he can draw real good and I can write pretty well. So we make two monsters every month, and now, finally, we’ve put some of them together into an rpg book.

Terrors of the Ancient World is a monster manual for the Dungeon World role-playing game. It has over a dozen monsters, illustrated in full colour, along with all the things that make Dungeon World unique, like fronts and dangers, custom moves, and a fiction-first focus. There’s also a new character class, the Satyr, and plenty of adventure hooks, items, NPC ideas, and even a few locations.

This is NOT just a reprint of the Monthly Monster material. Terrors of the Ancient World contains plenty of new material, corrections and edits, and new illustrations. Monsters that were originally illustrated in black and white are presented here in colour.

Please Note: Although the monsters we release every month as part of the Patreon campaign include versions for both Dungeon World and Labyrinth Lord, this book contains only material for Dungeon World and is designed to highlight the particular strengths of that game. It is not compatible with Labyrinth Lord in any meaningful way. There will, of course, be a Labyrinth Lord compatible book of our monsters that presents them in ways best suited for old school fantasy role-playing, but we are still working on that.

WHERE TO GET IT: From DriveThruRPG, click this link.

The pdf is digest-sized, full colour, 107 pages, for US$15.
The print is US trade-sized, full colour, 108 pages, for US$30 and comes with a free pdf if you want one.

You can also buy the print version by itself (no pdf!) from Lulu at this link. The quality is about the same as DriveThruRPG, but some countries get much better shipping rates from Lulu.

Vertiginous Infiltrators, a science fantasy monster

My Patreon project is producing more free monsters! This is a science fantasy monster. You can find it in pdf form with stats for Dungeon World and Labyrinth Lord on the Patreon site:
Dungeon World Vertiginous Infiltrators
Labyrinth Lord Vertiginous Infiltrators

Grown in vats by unlawful geneticists, the vertiginous
infiltrators are perfect copies of the Sargosyalan race, able to mimic
the mannerisms and behaviours of anyone they could observe.
They were deployed against the Sargosyalans and quickly took
over key positions within that race’s leadership. Not only did they
capture vital military resources for the Xalvorians, but the paranoia
these double agents created within the Sargosyalan ranks was a
setback they could never recover from. Within a few short decades,
a war that had rages and stalled for more than a century was over,
and no true Sargosyalan remained alive.

With their homeworld and all their colonies overrun by the
Xalvorian overlords, the vertiginous infiltrators are all that is left of
the Sargosyalans. Undying, they continue to serve their masters,
infiltrating the societies of other alien races—but no subsequent
success can compare to their original triumph over the beings they
were made to mimic.

Bluish Multitudes

These hideous abominations were invented by the archmage Drakdagor as a way to both punish his failure-prone minions and guard his underground storehouses. Once he had transmogrified a minion into a doughy, bluish creature with a blob-like torso that slowly absorbed the minion’s original head, he could add more minions to it and they would meld with the blob. The result was a new creature with multiple limbs and mouths, and a ravenous appetite for intruders. Those minions that failed Drakdagor would often find themselves becoming part of a bluish multitude.

Ultimately, Drakdagor created too many of them and they destroyed him, devouring his flesh and his magic. Those multitudes that ate of their master became magical themselves and have proved to be far longer-lived than the others.

Dungeon World stats:
Amorphous, Construct, Hoarder, Large, Solitary.
Teeth and claws (1d10+2 damage)
Hand, Close, Forceful
15 HP
1 Armour
Special Qualities: Infectious.
Instinct: Protect the underground storehouse.

• Grab a foe and begin to eat.
• Push and shove a group of foes apart.
• React strangely when touched by magic.

Labyrinth Lord stats:
No. Enc.: 1 (1d6+1)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Armour Class: Leather & shield
Hit Dice: 2 to 7 (1d6+1)
Attacks: 2 claws and 1 bite
Damage: 1d6 / 1d8
Save: F4
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: IV / S (XVII / F)

Art by Nathan Jones.
Text by Johnstone Metzger.

You can find more monsters, with more text and larger pictures, on PATREON.