Designing Creatures

Creatures in DnT are intrinsically linked to its economy, magic and general world-building. As such, there is much to take into account when trying to create a creature that fits well into the setting – which is why this page is here: to document and simplify the necessary steps in creating a creature.

Now, before actually starting to creature a creature, ask yourself the following:

* What type of creature do I want to make? What’s its purpose? What theme am I going for?
* Have i told my friends and family how much i love them?
* Is there already a preexisting creature that can fill this niche I’m working on? Should I still make the creature anyway?
* Should I inspire myself on another creature from DnT/another cool media and just tweak it to fit what I want to create?

After answering these questions, if you still want to create a new monster, consider the following components that you need to work on:

* Story
* Size, type, and alignment
* Tier
* Threat Level
* Ability scores and modifiers
* Condition
* Stress
* Guard
* Movement
* Saving Throws
* Skills
* Resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities
* Senses
* Languages
* Special Traits
* Actions
* Legendary Actions
* Lair Actions
* Villain Actions
* Magic and Spellcasting
* Valuables

Lots of stupid jargon, I know. Lets transform it into something your monkey brain can understand.

### **Step 1. Story**

Let your imagination run wild goddammit. Describe what makes your creature different from all others, the weirder the better (only in some cases, don’t make a weird creature if they are meant to be mundane opponents, no, seriously, don’t make no time-stealing bandit toads or something and then say they just live on roadsides, I swear to god). Open with a paragraph that gives a general overview of the monster. This paragraph describes where the monster lives, what the monster looks like, and how they fit into the larger world. Subsequent paragraphs should dive deep into specific story aspects of your monster. Keep in mind what and how the people who live in the world would write about your creature. If you feel like adding more information on their anatomy, life cycle, living habits, or to explain some part of their lore, note that information in a “Note for TWERPS” segment (TWERPS standing for the Theologian, Wizard, Explorer, Researcher and Philosopher Society).

### Step **2**. **Size, type and alignment**

How big is your little guy gonna be? What’s its type? What’s its alignment? Actually, what is a “creature type”? Does “size” really matter? And what on gods green earth does “alignment” even mean? If you really don't known, go check their pages, they're linked below. Go check them even if you know.

#### **Size**

Creatures come in a myriad of sizes and shapes, which makes it difficult to represent on a sheet or battle-map, as well as the effects they would they have on the way the creature is played. To simplify this, creatures are within a certain variation of size are assigned a Size Class. Each size class determines how much space the creature occupies and the adjustments it receives to things such as Guard and attack rolls due to its volume and mass.

#### **Creature Types**

In DnT, there are 13 Types of creature. Each creature type has its advantages and disadvantages. A creature's type is generally determined by its nature, or physical attributes, and grants certain traits to creatures of that type, and determines the creature’s hit die, as well as its base skills and saving throws. A creature's type also comes into play in the way that certain spells, magic items or abilities may affect it. Unless stated otherwise, all creatures are proficient with their own natural weapons, or with weapons and armor they are usually ascribed with.

#### **Alignment**

A creature’s alignment represents their typical response when confronted with an obstacle, and so helps to indicate as to how they will generally act. Alignment is also called for when determining the effect of certain spells and abilities on a creature.

### **Step** **3**. **Tier**

A creature’s tier is a classification of power and, more importantly, their value as raw materials and prestige. In essence, the Tier category separates magical creatures from non-magical creatures, and mundane creatures from powerful beasts. A creature’s Tier should be presented below its Name and Type in its Statblock. If it wouldn’t fit well into any of these categories, no Tier is presented.

#### **Magical Beast**

A magical beast is any creature that doesn’t belong to any playable race and is inherently capable of casting magical effects. A magical beast is further categorized into one of the existing Schools of Magic based on the effects it is capable of manifesting. However, the main difference between a magical beast and a normal creature is that parts of their body (or the entirety of it) can be processed into Magical Materials of the School they belong to. These materials are highly prized for their ability to replace Numen when casting spells of their particular School, which makes them a crucial strategic resource for any faction.

#### **Megafauna**

Any Huge or larger creature that is incapable of casting magical effects is designated as megafauna, or megabeast. Despite not possessing any obvious magical utility, the size of a megabeast means their strong bones, natural weapons and hide make for great crafting components.

#### **Titan**

A titan is the term for particularly powerful magical beast, usually of Saint and higher Stratum – a fact that leads some to be worshiped as deities by local populations. Typically, the size of a magical beasts increases with their level, leading to those that can be classified as a titan to be beyond the Size classes.

### **Step** **4**. **Threat Level and Stats**

Now that you have a solid basis for your creature, you need to define how strong it is going to be. Of course, for that creature to be usable in a session, the GM needs to have a good idea of the threat it poses to his players, how many of it they can be put against and whether the use they had in mind for that creature is at all appropriate. The GM may tune your creature in the spot to adapt it to their need, but even then they would still need to have a good idea of the power-level they are dealing it. Because it would be a pain to have to figure out a creature’s level of threat after it had already been designed, we instead try to design them around per-defined Threat levels. A creature’s Threat level establishes an appropriate amount of Condition, Guard and damage potential to be aimed at (no need to try and get the exact value) for a creature meant to go against a party of a certain level, as well as the number of creatures that the party is meant to go against at the same time. For this, a creature's Threat has two main components: their Threat Class, presented below the creature’s name, and their Pack Size, noted in parenthesis next to the creature’s Threat Class. The scaling between a creature’s threat level and the affected stats and shown in the tables below.

#### **Condition**

A creature’s condition is the first of its stats to be presented, denoting how much of a beating the creature can take before either dying or submitting. First, you assign it a number of hit-dice (the size of which being decided by its Type) equal to the creature’s level. Keep in mind the range of maximum Condition you want for your creature and look to the Threat Level tables to help determine this. After this, add its Endurance and Strength modifiers, multiplied by its level, to that total. If this exceeds the maximum Condition for that Threat level by too much, consider lowering your creature’s level or base stats. Finally, add any additional bonuses to maximum Condition the creature might have, such as those held by Undead and Constructs, and voila, you got your creature’s meat points.

You should present your creature’s Condition as shown below:

* **Total maximum Condition (***Hit-dice* **+** *Attribute Modifier bonuses* **+ [***Extra Bonuses***])**

This is necessary as there are a few spells and abilities that require the DM to check the size and number of Hit Die and a few others which can deny or reduce certain bonuses to Condition.

#### **Stress**

A creature’s Stress is how much, well, stress a creature can take before it begins to affect it. A creature who has reached its maximum stress may succumb to adverse effects, run away or even become entirely…“docile”.

A creature’s Stress threshold is equal to a base of 50, adding 3 plus its Willpower modifier per level.

A creature's Stress threshold is the second stat you present in its Stat Block.

##### ***Gaining Stress***

Creatures start with zero Stress. When a creature gains Stress, they become closer to reaching their Stress threshold. When a creature has enough Stress to reach their Stress threshold, they must roll for Maddening, as explained further below. Stress can be gained in the following ways:

* Whenever a creature suffers psyche damage.
* Whenever a creature suffers damage from a Critical Hit, they also gain Stress equal to the amount of damage dealt by that attack.
* When a creature becomes afraid of another creature, or is attacked by a creature they are afraid of, the afraid creature gains Stress equal to the creature’s level.
* When a creature becomes aware that an ally is killed, that creature immediately rolls a number of d4 equal to half that ally's level, then gains Stress equal to the result.
* Whenever a creature directly witnesses the True Form of a creature of higher Stratum, they gain Stress equal to the difference in Levels and are Stunned for as long as that creature is in their direct line of sight.

Additionally, the DM may choose for other events that cause additional stress, such as a failed attack at a critical time, encountering a particularly dreaded foe, or the sight of some horror that would leave their creatures to pause in terror.

##### ***Maddening***

When a creature has gained enough stress points to reach their stress threshold, the DM must throw a coin. On tails, the creature goes berserk, attacking the nearest creature – or the one who last damaged it. On heads, the creature becomes catatonic and incapable of acting until its Stress goes below its Stress Threshold. Alternatively, the creature might simply flee the battle.

#### **Guard**

A creature’s Guard is a measurement of how likely it is to avoid being damaged by an attack, either by blocking it with their body’s bulk, an armor or shield, clever misdirection or trough sheer reflexes. In order for an attack to hit your creature, their opponent's attack roll must exceed their Guard. To determine your creature’s Guard, simply check the Threat Class tables and fiddle with the value a bit.

#### **Everything Else**

Just check the creature type, the tables and add whatever you want to get the creature closer to the recommended stats, I’m not your dad, man. I do, however, recommend adding a healthy condition immunities to Boss and Duo creatures.

##### **Note**

* A creature's passive perception is the value you must roll your sneak check against to determine if they straight up detect your ass. If you roll higher than a creature’s passive perception, they will not detect you. A creature’s passive perception is calculated as follows:
	+ **Passive Perception =** 10 + Perception(*Detection*).
* A creature’s ability modifiers will be used together with their proficiency modifier to get the bonuses added to their attacks, spells and saves, so they should be altered to get that bonus into closer to the one prescribed in the Threat Class tables. Try to strike a balance between expressing your creature’s attributes troughs their stats and game balance. Or don’t, I dunno.

#### **Special Traits**

What makes your monster ***even*** more special, more ***unique***? Some creatures have no special traits. Others, like the vampire, have many. From walking on webs to eating fire and shit, anything special your creature can do that is not an action should be here. Features such as Legendary Resistance, which allow a creature to immediately succeed on a saving throw, also belong here, and should be given to your cute bosses to avoid them being seduced by the party’s Koltar.

If you want to use a feature that another monster has, use the same name and just tweak the feature’s wording to apply to your monster. This helps DMs everywhere not cry as they fall asleep every night.

### **Step** **5**. **Actions**

Your creature’s attacks and other actions should go under this heading. List them in this order:

* Multiattack (if the creature has it)
* Melee and ranged attacks in alphabetical order
* Other cookie actions in alphabetical order

The Threat Class tables show how to calculate the exact attack bonuses and DCs for monster actions. Once again, follow its guidelines and look at creature of a similar threat class to get an idea of what a creature’s average damage output should look like. If a creature is able to cast big damage-dealing spells, do extra damage under specific circumstances (like Sneak Attack), or can dish out a lot of non-damaging but debilitating effects (like petrification), consider give it a lower than average damage output for its regular attacks. Use creatures of a similar threat class that cast a lot of spells or those that deal out strange effects as your guide for this.

Just think of what type of attacks and special abilities your creature can do and make them happen.

#### **Legendary Actions**

Legendary actions are reserved for DnT’s coolest: vampires, dragons, titans and liches, to name a few. When you design legendary actions, take a look at other creatures of similar threat class’s legendary actions to get an idea of how much damage and the effects these actions have. A single legendary action should not be more powerful than an opportunity attack, but many creatures can spend multiple legendary actions to gain a unique action that’s more powerful. Not all legendary actions need be attacks either, they could be movement-related or grant the creature a skill check.

#### **Lair Actions**

While many creatures have a lair, only a few are powerful enough to have lair actions (these creatures usually also have legendary actions). Include an opening paragraph or three that describes the environment where your creature makes its lair and the defense they have in place.

When it comes time to make lair actions, look at creatures of a similar threat class that have them (as you did with legendary actions). Lair actions are no more powerful than an opportunity attack. Use that guideline to help you create two or three lair actions. Each lair also has at least three regional effects that occur within 2 to 10 km outside of the creature’s lair. Go wild with these, but try to keep them light in terms of mechanics. If you do give a regional effect a hard mechanic, make sure it doesn’t add to the creature’s threat class.

#### **Adversary Actions**

Villain actions are meant to represent a creature’s control over the fight, either by commanding its subordinates, changing the battlefield, transforming, etc. They are meant to add to the asthetics of a Boss creature, increasing its danger and gravitas.

All adversary actions require a trigger or condition, such as having one or more friendly creatures present, a certain number of turns having passed, a creature’s Condition being reduced to a certain amount, and so on. Once such a trigger is met, the action is automatically performed regardless of what the boss creature is doing (this is assuming the boss creature isn’t stunned, paralyzed, or whatever other bull you’ve forgotten to give it immunity to). Indeed, villain actions can be performed between the actions that the boss creature has selected to perform for that turn, without these being changed or canceled.

Like all other special actions, villain actions should not be more powerful than an opportunity attack.

### **Step** **6**. **Magic and Spellcasting**

Some creatures, such as magic beasts, titans and spellcasters, are capable of inherently using certain magical effects, which go in this heading. Magical effects can be constant, passive effects, effects that trigger upon a certain action or be cast like normal spells. In any case, you will need to define you creature’s Spellcasting Ability (i.e.the ability score they will be using to cast the spell), according to how you imagine the creature would try to cast these effects:

* If a creature must channel an inner force or attempt to wrest control of their energy to cast a magical effect, their spellcasting ability would be ***Willpower***. This is by far the most common spellcasting attribute for non-playable races.
* If the process of spellcasting would imply strenuous physical effort or rely on a creature’s constitution to be effective (or if it is freaking punching the spell into existence), their spellcasting ability would be ***Physique***.
* If the creature is reliant on an artifact or another exterior force to display their powers, their spellcasting ability would be **Wisdom** (or **Charisma**, if the variable is sentient).
* If a creature uses more traditional spellcasting methods, such a mage, their spellcasting ability would be ***Intelligence***.

Now, you might be wondering how Numen’s gonna play into this. Well, it wont. Unlike players, where every little detail can be accounted for, the DM shouldn’t have to be bothered to memorize how many milk points their magic cows can spew before being emptied. Instead, we use the good-old slot system; each magical effect will have a number of slots that can be expended before the creature is unable to further use them, as shown in the table below.

*Note that passive effects are either constantly active or are simply cast at-will, and as such should be more toned down when compared with the other types of spellcasting.*

After deciding your creature’s spellcasting ability (and whether it even can cast magic at all), you now need to actually decide what these magical effects will be. For magical beasts and titans, magical effects will belong to the school they are classified on, or will be a custom magical effect that shares a thematic with the school they are assigned to. As for more advanced spellcasting creatures, such as liches or mages, well, its entirely up to you. Regardless, check the Magic file to gain an idea on the power you should build your magical effects around.

### **Step** **7**. **Valuables**

As previously mentioned, a lot of creatures are very valuable – especially when dead. Magic beasts can be butchered, tended to or processed for very important magical materials of the schools they belong to; while most monsters are in the possession of very strong hides, bones and natural weapons, which you will relieve them off as they go for quite a pretty penny. Or not, if you’re some pansy and have moral qualms about completely desecrating the body of another being. Stupid.

Each material requires a minimum skill proficiency to be gathered dependent on its value, as shown below:

* +500 gold of maximum harvestable value for every +2 proficiency bonus to the respective skill.
	+ This would be the Strength(*Chopping*) skill to harvest materials from plant monsters or wood-like magical materials; the Strength(*Mining*) skill for stone and mineral -based creatures or magical materials; and *Wisdom*(Medicine) to harvest materials from flesh-and-blood creatures.

The type of material is dependent on the creature’s school of magic (if any), and the amount of materials on its Threat Class, as shown on the table below. Be imaginative when creating these materials; if its a magical material, try to give it special properties and/or appearance evoking that school’s theme (for example, a leumantic material harvested from an oceanic creature could be a small, black pearl that stores light and resales it all on impact – or a simple bauble that shines pretty, you’re the one creating a creature right now, not me).

 250
 500
 1000
 5k
 50k
 100k

The Dm may distribute this value trough multiple items, or assign any amount of it to a single harvestable material (assuming the creature has any such materials). The Dm may also decide to have the amount of each material that can be harvested from a creature to be random, assigning it a number of die and an accompanying skill check. If the character attempting to harvest that material succeeds on the check, they may then roll said dice to determine the amount of that material the character was able to harvest. This can allow the potential value of a creature’s materials to exceed the Maximum Total Value shown on the table above. If the character fails the check, well, they fail at gathering the material. What happens to said material (whether it is destroyed, damaged or is unaffected) is dependent on how badly they failed at the roll:

* A difference of 10 or more results in the material being destroyed.
* A difference of less than 10 results in the material losing (Skill Check’s DC – Your Shitty Roll)% of its gold value.

You can (and should) also add such a skill check to very valuable and powerful materials. I recommend adding them once the material’s value starts getting to the thousands. But hey, like with everything till here, that is also entirely up to you my boy.

### **Step** **8**. **End**

Nice, you did it! You created your very own, beautiful creature! I’m proud of you. Good job.

If the end result is bad it is not in any way my fault, like, I tried man.