Monsters are a staple for pretty much all high fantasy TTRPGs, and it is no different for Forged in the Dungeon. But because Forged in the Dungeon is a fiction-first game, it doesn’t have crunchy, well-defined stats for monsters, which can make it tricky to write and use them.

Recently though, my friends at Cloud Curio launched a Kickstarter called MONSTROUS that I feel addresses this issue and gives fantastic guidance on how to create amazing set piece monsters. This post is not sponsored in any way; I just love this resource that my friends made and think it works great with Forged in the Dungeon.

So I wanted to share with you all the process I went through using part of the book and the outcome of it all. 

I decided to give the Celestial monster a go. Having a demigod-like monster roaming around always interests me. In addition, the prompts for the Celestial results in two "monsters" being created which have some very interesting interactions, and hey, only doing work once to get two things is always great.

Each monster type comes with a fill-in-the-blank sheet that you work through. The Celestials first prompt is:

Which I ended up with:

Mortal minds struggle to perceive the beautiful and terrible form of the Bloodless Jewel. It appears as a multitude of maws with infinite rows of teeth bound within the frame of a gargantuan ruby. Common folk who behold the Bloodless Jewel for the first time must choose 1 of the following actions before addressing it further: 

• Make a sacrifice of flesh or gold. 
• Accept a physical mark of the Bloodless Jewel, such as fangs that never break, a left eye made of ruby, or tears of blood. 
• Confess any intentional slaughter they have committed. 
• Offer it a vial of their own blood.

When I first started with this prompt I thought about what factions may have a celestial and chose The Goddess of the Unending. The faction is ruled by a vampire goddess that despises death and I really wanted to find out what monstrosity could be a celestial for her. I then leaned into the vampiric natures of her followers and was inspired some by Bloodborne.

The second prompt of the celestial is one where I think things start to get real exciting and create so many exciting scenarios in my mind:

I came up with: 

ADA SILVERHAND (PROPHET) 

Tier: 3 Hero 

Faction: Goddess of the Unending 

Obstacle Clock: 8 ticks (+4 tick magic armor clock) 

The Bloodless Jewel’s appearance in the world is preceded by the pronouncements of a mortal Prophet clad all in black, with a voluminous dress, a veil, and carrying a parasol. Before Ada witnessed Bloodless Jewel’s Divine Judgment firsthand, Ada was heir to the Silverhand Adventuring Company. 

When Ada speaks at length about the Bloodless Jewel’s coming judgment before a rapt crowd, she condemns a specific mortal or group of mortals for their sins and calls down a plague of unclottable blood pouring endlessly from the hands of the guilty.

SOCIAL 

Consider the following while roleplaying Ada: 

• She is highly suspicious of adventurers. 
• She despises the taking of life, and she is good at sniffing out people who have killed before.
• She is hesitant to discuss her past generally and her family history specifically. 
• If pressed, she may confess that she gave up her inheritance of the Silverhand Adventuring Company because on an adventure of her own she witnessed the Bloody Jewel rendering Divine Judgment on a pirate town in retribution for the blood they had shed in the name of money. She believes her family will never understand her choice to give up the family business. 

COMBAT COMPLICATIONS 

Creatures within arm’s reach of Ada notice that she is wreathed in a shimmering silver aura. The aura originates from the +1 medallion of protection she is wearing. If the medallion is removed from her possession, the 4-tick magic armor clock is instantly removed. 

Ada can complicate PCs’ action rolls during combat by doing the following:

• Stabbing someone with a +1 silver dagger 
• Casting a spell (all of Ada’s spells have a silver color to them if observable) 
  • Magic Missile 
  • Enlarge Person 
  • Invisibility 
  • Spider Climb 
  • Dispel Magic 
  • Fireball 
• Cause a scene that will cause locals to show up

There is so much going on with the prophet that it would take a while so I'll just highlight a few things.

I love how a prophet creates a NPC that can exist in the world that has a background, power, and relations.The Silverhand Adventuring Company is a guild of another faction which automatically creates a small web between the two different factions and the player's guild once they get involved to explore.

The prophet's plague ability has the possibility of being brutal and I chose to lean into it. Having player's observe the plague being brought down upon someone should give the players pause and inform them that what they are involved with now should fill them with fear and intrigue.

While going through the initial prompts I started thinking of how she would react in social situations and combat situations and thus created the sections Social and Combat Complications. I know not all GM's have time to think about possibilities before the game, and thinking on the fly can be hard, so having those sections to fallback on I thought was necessary. Of course one does not have to use those sections and come up with fiction that fits your game.

The next prompt was: 

I came up with:

The Bloodless Jewel judges and punishes sins of intentional slaughter. For those who will listen, the Bloodless Jewel warns that their final Divine Judgment will be executed upon the next lunar eclipse. The Bloodless Jewel further instructs that their judgment can only be avoided by reuniting the star-crossed lovers Idona the Lunar God and Dhiaos the Solar God, a cruelly difficult task. 

I went troupy with this prompt but I felt like it gives so much space to play to find out what happens. How long till the next lunar eclipse? One week? O crap we have to figure this out now. One month? We may have time to go on other adventures prior or perhaps this will be a multi adventure arc for just the purview. As for the star-crossed lovers perhaps they are two different factions that complicate things even more now with four factions and the player's guild involved!

The final prompt was:

I came up with:

The punishments dealt by the Bloodless Jewel are severe to the point of excess, mirroring the sin with a cruel irony by transforming murderers into living puddles of blood. The Bloodless Jewel begins by judging individual creatures and objects, but its final judgment can affect entire settlements, civilizations, or worlds.

I thought this fit The Goddess of the Unending's values pretty well. Those that are punished do not technically die and the vampire followers now have effectively an unending food supply of blood. Isn't it great and horrible!?

With all the prompts complete I gave the same treatment to the Bloodless Jewel that I did with Ada and thought about their stats and complications and came up with the following:

Tier: 3 Demigod 

Faction: Goddess of the Unending Obstacle 

Clock: 10 ticks (+10, see Divine Protection) 

COMBAT COMPLICATIONS 

The Bloodless Jewel can complicate PCs’ action rolls during combat by doing the following: 

• Gnashing and consuming flesh or equipment with its multitude of mouths 
• Draining blood from a target 
• Turning a target item or body part to blood 
• Muddling a target’s sight with tears of blood

DIVINE PROTECTION 

The Goddess of the Unending ensures even their own divine fury does not end, and thus has bestowed upon the Bloodless Jewel magical protection represented by a 10-tick obstacle clock that must be successfully overcome prior to progressing Bloodless Jewel’s base 10-tick clock. The heroes can shatter this protection by breaching the reliquary of the Blooded Saint of Mauxferry.

THE UNENDING FOLD 

For each level of harm dealt to a hero, the Bloodless Jewel heals that many ticks of their obstacle clock. Heroes who would be slain by the Jewel may instead choose to fall unconscious for 1 day, awakening as a vampire in the chosen coven of the Goddess of the Unending.

ARGENTUM WEAKNESS 

Attacks against the Bloodless Jewel using silver implements have increased effect.

As you can see the Bloodless Jewel is to not be trifled with! Though I wanted to give plenty of outs to make any possible combat achievable. 

The divine protection is a great way of introducing a side adventure during the possible arc that would revolve around the Bloodless Jewel. It is written as well to support the play to find out what happens. Who is the Blooded Saint? Where is their reliquary and how can it be breached? Also it gives a great opportunity to show how powerful the Bloodless Jewel can be, a 20 tick clock!

Though with argentum weakness that gives the players another foothold to discover through play so that they have a fighting chance on defeating the Bloodless Jewel if it were to come to blows. Though I think it is very poetic that the Bloodless Jewels' prophet is Ada Silverhand who specializes in silver implements. That interaction and the possibilities in play is exciting!

Finally the unending fold is there to cause so so much drama. Having a monster heal when damaging is a rarity in fiction first games from my experience. This will most likely cause players to think critically on if they take harm and the tradeoffs. In addition when the first time the ability is triggered... I can only imagine the table's reaction. Lastly, Forged in the Dungeon has a death mechanic and laying the cards on the table on what death would bring fighting the Bloodless Jewel would add so much drama if chosen.

Throughout this whole process of making the Bloodless Jewel I was coming up with so many adventure hooks! Thinking fiction first with monsters fit perfectly into Forged in the Dungeon and made my job way easier in figuring out what the next adventure or arc could be. Below are a few adventures that I wrote down and included in the monster page released with this dev log.

• The Silverhand family needs help finding their only child, Ada.
• The heroes are tasked with hunting the “monsters” that have taken over a village. (In fact, the entire village has been marked by the Awesome Presence of the Bloodless Jewel.) 
• Investigate the origin of a curse of unstoppable bleeding. 
• A death cult offers a hefty sum to adventurers willing to breach the reliquary of the Blooded Saint of Mauxferry. (In fact, the death cult wants to shatter the Bloodless Jewel’s Divine Protection so that they can circumvent its judgment.)

Overall the experience using MONSTROUS was easy and incredibly inspiring. I feel like campaigns or at a minimum arcs can be created just off of one MONSTROUS monster with ease. If you are playing a fiction-first game, a forged in the dark game, or Forged in the Dungeon, I would highly suggest you go check the MONSTROUS Kickstarter now.

Till next time, have fun!

Josh