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View Full Version : Request: Wendigo [D20 Modern / D&D 3.x]



Berenger
2013-11-28, 08:29 AM
Hello Playground,

I need a monster for a running D20 Modern: Urban Arcana campaign and don't have the skill to do it myself. Since I realize that many people are not familiar with the system: it is pretty interchangeably with D&D 3.x, with the exception that magic use (spells and items) on behalf of the characters can not be presumed.

The creature in question is the Wendigo (Link 1 (http://warriorsofmyth.wikia.com/wiki/Wendigo), Link 2 (http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Wendigo)), for which I can't find any stats. There is an Urban Wendigo, but that thing doesn't come very close the the myth.

What I imagine:

- CR: A party of level 3 characters must have a reasonable chance to defeat / delay / imprison the Wendigo. This does not necessarily have to be possible by straight combat, but there should be mechanics to take advantage of the Wendigos weaknesses once these have been figured out.

- I'd like to go with the "emaciated, pale giant" look, not the stag- or werewolf-like ones. The Wendigo should be both a physical creature and some kind of spirit / "concept" of cold & famine.

- The Wendigos spirit must be able to possess greedy / starved / cannibalic human beings as described in the myth to turn them into new Wendigos.

- I imagine some MacGuffin (perhaps a native american ritual mask, if there is such a thing) that is able to imprison the spirit of the Wendigo after his physical manifestation has been destroyed (in the beginning of the adventure, the spirit is accidentally released from the mask when it is dug up during construction works). The destruction of the body should use the methods described in Link 2 (salting & burning the body or chopping & hiding the body parts).

- There are many descriptions of the Wendigos powers, and using all of them would make him some abominable uber-monster. Im only particularly attached to the following ideas: evil spirit of darkness / cold / famine / cannibalism, takes possessions of humans during their dreams to "procreate / spread", has physical form of a pale gaunt giant, has some weakness in form of a literal "heart of ice" (so immunity against cold, vulnerability to fire, I guess) and lives in the woods. As with the White Walkers of GoT, it is unknown if he comes with the cold or causes the cold, so a mechanic is not absolutely necessary. The ability to control starved predators (like wolves) in a limited way as "minions" might be cool and useful to produce a series of weak encounters on the way.


So... if anyone takes interest in this idea and gives me some thoughts, tips or even an actual stat block, this would be most appreciated. :smallsmile:

Eldan
2013-11-28, 08:57 AM
There's a Wendigo Template in the Fiend Folio that you might use.

BWR
2013-11-28, 10:09 AM
Pathfinder has this (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/wendigo.html#_wendigo)variant.

LOTRfan
2013-11-28, 11:53 AM
I have a "Wendigo Spawn" creature somewhere; emaciated humanoids who have been transformed into cannibalistic monsters as a result of being possessed by an actual Wendigo.

It's a little higher than CR 3 (I think it was in the 5-7 range), but if you want I'll see if I can dig it up.

Berenger
2013-11-28, 12:58 PM
Wow, thanks. I'm not sure how I was able to miss both that template and the Pathfinder version. Both versions are grossly overpowered for my group and would likely auto-hit and auto-kill any character, but those special abilities are really neat.

I guess I could use a CR 5 Troll, slap DC-nerfed Dream Haunting (Su), Howl (Ex), Wendigo Psychosis (Su), Wind Walk (Sp) and Cannibalize (Ex) on it and add an immunity to cold. That would be the physical manifestation. The "spirit" consists of the simple ruling that once a year during winter, Dream Haunting (Ex) is cast on a person somewhere in the county unless a proper dream catcher is hung over the place where the Wendigo was slain. This leaves a typical horror ending, as in "Twenty years from now some slob is bound to remove the dreamcatcher and restart the cycle."

What remains is the issue of "weaknesses" - I can't expect the party to pepper this thing with torches and crossbow bolts till it drops, since it would win such a "fair" fight. Any ideas in this department would be welcome, as would a copy of those wendige spawns. :)

BWR
2013-11-28, 04:45 PM
You can power the wendigo down.
You can also just roll up another undead of some sort, call it a wendigo and be on your way. Allips are supposedly CR 3 (hah!), and have the maddening babble thingie which could be refluffed to Howl or Psychosis. Just remember that the allip is quite a bit more powerful than its CR indicates.

Eldan
2013-11-29, 04:46 AM
For a level 3 party, as yo usaid, the troll alone would probably already be very tough. Regeneration, that strength and natural attacks are dangerous even before you add in wind walk. I'd expect a troll wendigo to simply kill a level 3 character in a round.

How about going with an ogre instead, if you want a giant? It's just slightly less bad for lack of regeneration and if you drop the club for some claws, the damage isn't quite so terrible.

Your goal, of course, is to make a straight combat impossible, which is fair. But even then, I don't think you want something that just flies in from a hundred feet away, eats a PC, takes all their attacks for a round and then vanishes again, unhurt.

Now, ideas for weaknesses... perhaps something like vampires? Make it really strong, if you must, but give it a few weaknesses it can't overcome. Perhaps it is afraid of fire to such a degree that it can't approach to within 10 feet of a bonfire? That would give the PCs a small safe spot to operate from and make knowledge checks to find that out really useful.

Perhaps it can be turned like an undead, if the cleric studies how? Just to run it off for a short time while they are running for their lives.

Berenger
2013-11-29, 07:06 AM
There is no cleric... there is an aasimar dedicated (wisdom) hero level 2 that's going acolyte in two levels when she fullfills the prerequisites. In fact, the party consists of older high school kids armed with two magic weapons (bow and sword), a crossbow and a pistol without the matching weapon proficiency, so... yes, toning it down to ogre might well be in order.

I was worried that the CR 2-3 guys from the sheriff's department might just shotgun my Wendigo with extreme prejudice if they are called in by the party, but I just realized that this is no problem at all. Those officers aren't shadow aware and won't recognize the Wendigo as a supernatural being, so they will put the corpse in a nice, cold drawer in the morgue and most definitely not proceed to burn the evidence and disperse the blackened bones all over the countryside, unless this is a local custom in Idaho. :smalltongue:

That bonfire idea is nice.

There is also a part of the myth that the Wendigo will vomit his heart and ice and perish if he is forced to drink hot tallow... but I have no idea how to implement this mechanics-wise, successfully grappling such a beast seems unlikely... (bot from the description in the mythos and the ogre stats).

They have silvered weapons. Perhaps the silver can paralyze the beast for long enough to use the tallow or something, acting like a stunning poison against the creature...

Eldan
2013-11-29, 07:21 AM
Oh, right. D20 modern. Derp. With modern classes, I'd definitely go to ogre. I don't think they can even make up for a troll's regeneration otherwise, so it would just outheal their damage.

Oh, and just give them the tallow detail. If your players are the type that likes to put overcomplicated plans with too many details into action, it will keep them occupied for at least half an hour. I know a group that would immediately try to build a tallow catapult, tallow slingball or tallow pump and try to find a way to both aim for the mouth and force it to swallow.

Berenger
2013-11-29, 07:40 AM
They play highschool kids, I trust them to go to great lengths for the chance to pull of some lame "Do you spit or swallow!?"-joke. So it will be an 40-HP-ogre with the Special Abilities from Pathfinder (the DC lowered by 8-10, I guess). If their own plans don't work, I might say that every hit with a silvered weapons lowers the Wendigos dexterity by 1.

Does this seem challenging, but fair?