The Big City
A lair is an important thing for a monster to have. Just consider our pal Woolantula the Servile. Back in the The Demonweb Pits, her kindred could cow even the mighty Miss Gestalt. Here in the King’s Arms tavern, even the humble Barmaid is her match.
Behold the power of evocative description! I mean that literally. Consider the following case studies.
Evocative: Rough hewn stones seem to merge with the living rock. It is as if this passage simply grew out of the mountain: a hideous tumor metastasizing within the earth. The way is dark, and your lantern light seems not to burn bright enough to illuminate all its black corners. (Yes, Derek. I’m aware that you have dark vision.) But when at last you come to a dead end, you find yourself wishing again for the comforting dark. For the archway glows with its own fell light, green and hideous at the cracks between the double doors which now bar your way. What do you do?
Less Evocative: You walk 30 feet down the hall and find a door. You open it, right?
Both work as suitable introductions to my own The Floor is Spiders mini-dungeon. A spider demon waits beyond those glowing green doors. The dungeon is his personal gauntlet of sadistic traps and creepy crawly horrors. And I think you can take a wild guess into which method I prefer to use when running this thing.
So for today’s discussion, what do you say we all give it a shot? Pick any monster you like. Write about “the approach to its lair.” Do your best to make it feel like you’re there at the threshold, sword in hand and trembling in fear. All clear? All set? Then GO!
ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE GREAT CLAIRE SUCKS AT DRAWING CONTEST! Thanks to all the competitors of the first (and hopefully last) Claire Sucks at Drawing Contest! Laurel’s hand is nicely healed, and Claire is back behind a keyboard where she belongs. All that’s left to do now is announce our winner. And so without further ado, with a grand total of 51 nitpicks, it is our pleasure to award the finest in quest rewards to Abigale Moore! You can check here for her astoundingly detailed analysis and marvel along with us at her eye for detail. Abigale has asked us to thank @slvrrrrrby for inspiring her with character art, and Luna for inspiring her with motivational speeches.
ARE YOU A ROLL20 ADDICT? Are you tired of googling endlessly for the perfect tokens? Then have we got a Patreon tier for you! As a card-carrying Familiar, you’ll receive a weekly downloadable Roll20 Token to use in your own online games, as well as access to all of our previously posted Tokens. It’s like your own personal NPC codex!
I’m simply too sleepy to be creative, but I think Woolantula should get a job at the bar instead. Barmaid seems like a much less violent middle manager. Love triangle but it’s fighting over a minion’s loyalties.
Anyways, I’m enjoying this arc. I don’t know that I’ve said before, but I really like this webcomic. Of all the comics I check for updates on, it’s a highlight.
Resting is an essential part of the creative process.
…
Actually, I’m a friggin’ professor now. I wonder if I could get away with a meditation day as part of my curriculum? Maybe provide coloring books and snacks….
Starting your villain arc early eh
This is an ancient place.
You marvel at the vaulted ceilings and towering pillars, cut out of the bowels of the mountain, not with dwarf-forged steel, but tools of horn and bone and flint. Carving out this vast complex must have taken them generations; you know it cost many lives, for the bones of the workers are in evidence, pounded into crevaces in the walls as macabre decorations.
The mountain seems to press down on you, its weight spiritual rather than physical. You feel it in the darkness that lurks in the corners and overhead. Your torches cast small circles of light, too small. Even the sound of your footfalls seems insignificant as you move on through great rooms and up cyclopean stairs. Without meaning to, you walk on tiptoe and hold your breath, so as not to disturb the dust of centuries.
Finally, you come to the final chamber, where the gate awaits. They told you at the guild that there used to be a guardian, a beast of living stone that posed riddles and devoured those who failed to answer, but it was slain.
It should have been slain, pounded to rubble.
But as you step into the chamber, the darkness breathes. Little things, many little things, skitter into the dark before you can get a good look at them, and the guardoan raises her face. She is scarred, but whole again. Living stone, with the mind of a riddle-master and the fangs and claws of a predator.
“Who approaches to challenge me?” she asks, and the mountain rings with the sound of her voice once again…!
https://www.deviantart.com/grendelkin/art/Wages-of-Heroism-978580861
JESUS SHIT I DECLARE THIS CANON! lol
So friggin’ good. XD
Well, that’s a feather in my cap, and no mistake. 😀
I’m glad you liked it that much.
Here we see that context is everything, even in Handbookworld.
Squashing and torment are familiar to Woolantula the Servile, but the broom, the broom is alien and terrifying! 😉
THE BROOM IS UNKNOWABLE
Woolantula is lucky he has yet to encounter the dreaded Broom of Flying.
Don’t tell her. She’ll have nightmares for weeks.
Woolantula is a girl? Or you talking about barmaid?
> Just consider our pal Woolantula the Servile. Back in the The Demonweb Pits, [her] kindred…
Non-humanoid gender is tricky since you can’t tell visually most of the time, unless it’s like Jellicent in Pokemon, where the girl ones are pink and have lipstick and the male ones are blue with huge mustaches.
That and generally with a beleaguered servant minion the tropes employ a male character more often than not.
I wonder if the male version of a Woolantula (Demon Webspinner? Woolachnid Demon?) is vastly different biology wise – e.g. being 10 times smaller (or larger) than the females, or being feral unintelligent brutes. Or maybe the entire race is female by default (something like with succubi).
I dunno, sometimes a simple description is far more emotionally evocative, especially if done as a result of a perception check.
“You barely notice it – the dolls eyes in the corner have been following you.”
“You see something move in the darkness.”
“As you go to open the door, it doesn’t budge, and the doorknob feels weird, as though you just grabbed a glob of glue. Predictably, your hand is stuck to it. The door then sprouts eyes and a toothy maw. Roll for initiative.”
“The wolfs head splits open in half, with an unsettling amount of teeth on the seams.”
“Peeking through the keyhole, you see a spherical blotch. You’re not sure you’re looking at until it blinks.”
“You identify the odd, wooly creature as a Disenchanter, a relatively docile and harmless camel-like beast that can permanently drain magic from magic items. It eyes your Holy Avenger and casually approaches.”
“The rock wall bleeds as you swing your blade at it, causing the other walls of the room to shudder. Roll for initiative.”
Good call. You don’t need to do purple prose. Sharp and startling description works just as well. The goal is an emotional response. To slam your players into the shoes of their heroes and staple them there with words. All of these examples do the trick.
“You finally reach the tunnel you’ve been pointed to, after days of travelling through the desert. The thunderstom did nothing to quell the oppressive heat, and the comparably fresh underground feels like a welcome change as you start descending – at first. As the rumbling of the storm subside, you realize how heavy and oppressive the silence is in this place. The only thing you hear, aside from your own group, is the wind being funneled down the gallery – this must be a ventilation tube – and the gentle crackling sound of grains of sand rolling on grains of sands.
Sand… How stable is this tunnel, anyway? You can feel a surge of anxiety as this question springs into your mind. As your eyes instinctively scan the sandy walls, you notice large portions of them have been turned into glass, providing solid portions that support the structure. Still, it would not be too hard to shatter those and collapse the gallery – a fact that, you are keenly aware, is most certainly deliberate, considering your target.
You press on in the tunnel. It winds and narrows down at places, before widening again, and your feet slips on the unstable floor. Despite being underground, the ozone smell from the thunderstorm is only getting stronger. Finally, after what felt like ages, but probably was less than an hour, you arrive to a large cavern. Large, transparent crystalline structures protrude from the ground and the wall, haphazardly scattered about. And, in the middle of them, the first source of colour to stand out from the dark yellow of the sand : a large mass of a deep blue color. And the white of its eyes, looking right at you. It was waiting for you. Of course it was. ‘Welcome’ says the dragon. ‘And goodbye’. With that, you hear a loud crash, as its tail smashes one of the largest crystal, followed by an even louder rumble, and the adrenaline-inducing sound of rushing sand fills the space…”
(Blue dragon)
Nice! Very evocative, and excellent tactics.
“You finally make your way out of the dense, winding trees of this forest and reach a sunny clearing. In the middle lies a simple cottage, surrounded by gardens and strange scarecrows. As you approach, you notice the straw men slowly turn to face you. A pair of big black dogs lounge amongst the plants, staring at you with gleaming red eyes. Eerily, nothing seems to try and attack you as you open the front door.
“Inside, the place is clearly larger than it seemed from without. Stairs lead upwards to a second floor that should not exist, and you hear a voice from a kitchen the definitely should be part of the garden. ‘Just a minute dearies, I just have to add this one last ingredient…’ you hear a high-pitched squeal, cut off by a splash, before a hideous, wart-covered, green-skinned Hag makes her way out of the kitchen. ‘Welcome to my humble home, dears! You may call me Agnes. What can I do for you?’ Her smile is uncannily wide, and her eyes glint with mischief… what do you say?”
Interesting!
“As the sweat pours from your body, you realize that this jungle trail has suddenly become strangely and uncomfortably quiet. All sound of birds, insects, or whatever small critters this alien ecosystem holds has now stopped, and you feel as though the jungle itself is holding its breath.
You halt your march to watch and listen. A subtle rustling in the undergrowth and whisper in the trees draws your attention and your aim. Soon, your patience and alertness are rewarded, as a loathsome alien creature bounds into view. Resembling a purple coatrack choking on a squid, it rests on four sinewy legs that end in flesh-rending talons, while two more legs wave and snap from the creature’s back. A knobby spine runs down its back and along each flank. The creature screeches at you— its many-eyed head splits in a wide Y as three rubbery tentacles writhe from the lamprey-like mouth.
Repulsed as you are by the beast’s trilateral symmetry, you still notice that it’s not alone. Two more of the strange creatures are creeping up behind you.”
Oh no not the broom!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1VjLwXqitjc&pp=ygUXR3Jhdml0eSBmYWxscyB0aGUgYnJvb20%3D
The town people had all seemed amused when you asked the way to the lair of the dragon. Telling you over and over again, “You can’t miss it.” Confused your group proceeds out of town after stocking up for the expected coming battle.
Approximately a mile out of town you see two paths leading away from the main road. One wide dirt one leading around the base of the hill you are approaching and one that looks paved and well groomed leading up and around the hill. As you reach the base of the paths you see to signs in common. The one pointing to the wide dirt path says, “Deliveries” and the one pointing attractively paved, well maintained one says, “Visitors and clients. Sage is available from 12 noon to 4 pm Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays. This sign also has a wood burned dragon figure in the upper left corner.
Actually in my homebrew, just never have managed to get any of my groups to head that way 🙁
“two signs” *sigh8
Hey, could you put the website URL at the bottom of the image itself? Makes it easier for people to discover your comic when the image is shared.
I, for one, would like to congratulate Woolantula the Servile on figuring herself out some more and wish her all the luck on her transition and any further identity exploration. Even if she’s working to put her old evil mistress back in charge, I hope she can take some of this new initiative and herself forward, as well as out of broom range.
(The joke is in the use of “he” in the comments down here: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/along-came-a-spider#comments though there are alternative interpretations, like fluidity, for others wishing to treat this as more than an author’s changed mind.)
DAMMIT! Where the crap were you when Laurel and I were poring over old comics to try and figure out if….
…
I mean, yes. Woolantula is gender fluid. Enby gang rise up! >_>