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View Full Version : DM Help Running a monster hunting game, need monster ideas and motivations



Blackhawk748
2019-07-22, 09:14 PM
Ok, so I'm running a game in Savage Worlds in which the PCs (A 300lb combo of Waterboy and Swamp People, a Landschnekt, and Milo Thatch except as a British naturalist) are monster hunters for hire in a temperate Archipelago. Currently, they are investigating a week-ish old murder of a young woman by her boyfriend. He did do it, but he was mind-controlled by a hag. No here's my issue.

I have no real idea of why the hag did it.

As of right now, the girl's throat was ripped out and there is a strange pinhole type wound by her kidney. I had some vague idea for some hag ritual, but im not sure. Any ideas on fleshing out the hag's motivations would be nice.

Anyway, I can probably muddle through that, but since this game is a sort of Monster of the Week game, I need neat monsters to throw at them, and that means cool scenarios too. So I'd like to just make a thread to compile them.

Oh, the party has a small, and I mean small, ship with a few guns on it so sea borne enemies are an option as well. Thanks in advance.

iTreeby
2019-07-22, 10:40 PM
Maybe the hag is extracting kidney juice to make a youth potion?

I'm a big fan of intelligent ooze monsters (a la Arakune from blaze blue) and those can work well with aquatic environments.

Pauly
2019-07-23, 12:11 AM
The beast of Gevaudan, which was the basis for the super cool movie *Brotherhood of the Wolf” which added a cultist conspiracy twist.

The man eating leopard of rudrapayag. Of all of Jim Corbett’s stories about hunting man eaters this is probably the one best turned into a module. You could mix in a little of the Temple
Tiger story as well.

The man eaters of Tsavo, which was filmed as the Ghost and the Darkness. The book by John Henry Patterson goes into a lot more detail than the movie, and it’s a free download.

There’s also the Sankebetsu bear rampage, but I’ve only read the bare bones summary.

Edit to add: I highly recommend Jim Corbett’s books as a really good way to understand what monster hunting was really like.

Chauncymancer
2019-07-24, 02:40 PM
Hags, similar to many kinds of undead, are warlocks who have sold their humanity, their very souls, for eternal life. The reason they do not simply choose to become undead, is their overwhelming vanity and desire to appear always youthful and attractive. We know this, because the diabolic powers who create hags are always careful to impart eternal life, without eternal youth. The hag becomes wizened, deformed, hideous. By the end of their first decade, they are as ugly as creatures as they are abominable as people.
The hags motivation is to steal the shape of the man's beloved, bask in stolen adoration, and pin the murder on him when the disguise inevitably wears out. But something's gone wrong, the job's a botch.

Zelphas
2019-07-24, 04:06 PM
The girl went to a hag six months ago, out of desperation because she was quietly dying of a kidney disease. The hag promised to cure her, but in return she demanded to borrow the girl's voice in half a year's time. The girl, confused but grateful that it seemed to be such a low price, accepted. After she was cured, she told no one about her disease or the visit to the hag, ashamed of visiting such a foul creature and hoping to put it all behind her.

From the hag's point of view, it was just collecting on its part of the deal.

Bulhakov
2019-07-25, 06:34 AM
Well the throat-ripping and aquatic theme immediately make me think of "stolen voice" mermaid themes. The needle into the kidney could just be medical for renal failure, the ripped throat was the price paid for an earlier cured cancer?

As for a few monster of the week ideas:
- octopus mermaids that switch babies leaving changelings in the crib
- psychic jellyfish that mind-control people to commit suicide
- a were-human shark that turns into a cannibal serial killer every full moon

Blackhawk748
2019-07-28, 12:03 PM
The girl went to a hag six months ago, out of desperation because she was quietly dying of a kidney disease. The hag promised to cure her, but in return she demanded to borrow the girl's voice in half a year's time. The girl, confused but grateful that it seemed to be such a low price, accepted. After she was cured, she told no one about her disease or the visit to the hag, ashamed of visiting such a foul creature and hoping to put it all behind her.

From the hag's point of view, it was just collecting on its part of the deal.

Love it, going with this.


Well the throat-ripping and aquatic theme immediately make me think of "stolen voice" mermaid themes. The needle into the kidney could just be medical for renal failure, the ripped throat was the price paid for an earlier cured cancer?

As for a few monster of the week ideas:
- octopus mermaids that switch babies leaving changelings in the crib
- psychic jellyfish that mind-control people to commit suicide
- a were-human shark that turns into a cannibal serial killer every full moon

The Jellyfish are great and I plan on using them.

Thanks to everyone for the ideas, they have been helpful