FIVE MORE THINGS THAT WANT TO KILL YOUR ADVENTURERS

Players eventually become familiar with the usual monsters.

They know which ones regenerate, which ones explode, which ones conceal themselves as furniture and which ones should absolutely not be allowed anywhere near the cleric’s brain.

Familiarity breeds confidence.

Confidence breeds carelessness.

Carelessness is where Fistful of Foes #4 comes in.

This instalment in the Schlocktoberfest series provides five quick-and-dirty monsters for fifth-edition-compatible fantasy games. Each creature is ready to drop into a dungeon, wilderness expedition, coastal encounter or outbreak of revolutionary agricultural violence.

No enormous bestiary.

No forty-page natural history of the troll.

Just five new ways to make the players regret believing they understood the situation.

FIVE NOVEL MONSTERS

PICKLINGS

Miniature constructs assembled from discarded flesh and preserved specimens.

Picklings are what happens when somebody looks at the remains of several experiments and decides that throwing them away would be wasteful.

Small does not necessarily mean harmless.

It merely means that more of them can fit beneath the furniture.

Picklings are suitable for laboratories, surgical workshops, alchemical cellars, ruined academies and the homes of anyone whose professional ethics have been repeatedly questioned by their peers.

Use them as servants, guards, escaped experiments or the scuttling evidence that their creator has been much busier than anyone realised.

FLAMING TROLLS

Everyone knows that trolls are dangerous.

That familiarity is precisely what makes a mutated troll so entertaining.

A Flaming Troll takes an already disagreeable creature and introduces a further complication for adventurers expecting the usual weaknesses, tactics and reassuring certainties.

It is large.

It is angry.

It is on fire.

Any plan involving close combat may require revision.

BILIOUS TROLLS

The Bilious Troll offers another unpleasant mutation of the familiar regenerating brute.

Where the Flaming Troll brings heat, the Bilious Troll brings something altogether more sickly and disgusting.

Games Masters can use it to surprise players who believe that recognising a monster means they already know how the encounter will unfold.

The broad shape may be familiar.

The details are going to be revolting.

CLIFF GIANTS

Inscrutable guardians of the shore.

Cliff Giants belong among towering sea cliffs, isolated beaches, rocky islands and ancient coastal places where something important has been left under extremely large protection.

Are they watching over sacred ground?

Guarding against something from the sea?

Preventing something upon the land from reaching it?

Nobody seems inclined to explain.

The Cliff Giants can serve as opponents, obstacles or mysterious presences whose hostility may depend upon what the characters are doing—and whether they possess the wisdom to stop doing it.

Not every guardian is evil.

That does not mean it will allow adventurers to wander past carrying picks, rope and several suspiciously empty treasure sacks.

CORN DOLLS

The peasants have endured the tyranny of their lords for long enough.

Now the harvest is fighting back.

Corn Dolls are the animated retribution of the rural poor against despotic rulers, transforming traditional figures of straw and grain into instruments of vengeance.

They can appear as eerie guardians, supernatural assassins or the visible expression of anger that has been cultivated over generations.

Use them in fields, barns, manor houses and villages where the local nobility insist that everything is perfectly under control.

The Corn Dolls may be the tools of rebellion.

They may embody a curse.

They may have begun with a clear purpose and continued long after those who summoned them lost control.

The harvest has come in.

Now it is coming for the landlord.

FAMILIAR MONSTERS, UNFAMILIAR PROBLEMS

The creatures in Fistful of Foes #4 are designed to give Games Masters something recognisable enough to understand quickly, but strange enough to disrupt the assumptions of experienced players.

The collection includes:

• Grotesque little flesh constructs

• Two dangerous troll mutations

• Mysterious coastal giants

• Supernatural instruments of peasant revenge

• Five complete creatures ready for play

• Fresh material for fifth-edition fantasy encounters

Use them individually as unexpected encounters or combine them into larger adventures.

Perhaps the Picklings were constructed by the same alchemist responsible for the mutated trolls.

Perhaps the Cliff Giants guard a shoreline where something poisonous is leaking into the land.

Perhaps the Corn Dolls have risen because the local lord has been feeding unwanted bodies to an experimental workshop.

Five monsters can produce a surprising amount of trouble when introduced to one another.

QUICK, DIRTY AND READY TO USE

Fistful of Foes #4 is intended for Games Masters who need new opposition without buying an encyclopaedia or preparing an entire campaign setting.

The creatures can be used as:

• Wandering encounters

• Dungeon inhabitants

• Guardians and servants

• The central threat in a short adventure

• Unusual additions to an established campaign

• Surprises for experienced players

• Inspiration for new locations, villains and mysteries

Take the monsters as presented, modify them to suit your game or use their central ideas as the beginning of something larger.

The statistics do the immediate work.

The consequences are left to you.

DESIGNED FOR THE SCREEN

The supplement uses a screen-friendly size and format for easy reference from a tablet or laptop during play.

Keep it beside your campaign notes, choose an appropriate horror and introduce it when the players have become dangerously comfortable.

This is a PDF electronic download for use with fifth-edition-compatible fantasy role-playing games.

You can find the other Fistful of Foes and fifth-edition supplements here.

Five monsters.

Several terrible mutations.

One agricultural uprising.

And the players still think this will be a routine encounter.