Do the Monster Mashup
It is a truth universally acknowledged that monster design is not dissimilar from mixology, the art of crafting cocktails. Chris McDowall has explained how taking the mixologist mindset to monster-crafting can twist classic monsters (e.g., the lich) into new monsters by altering certain aspects. But what if you aren’t replacing gin with whiskey in your cocktail recipe? Imagine a deranged bartender who combines half of a Martini and half of an Old Fashioned into one glass? It may be awful and reminiscent of a Jersey Turnpike (also known as a Bar Mat Cocktail, a drink produced by pouring all of the liquid spilled onto the bar mat at the end of a night into a shot glass), but maybe it is more like an Arnold Palmer. But what does this have to do with TTRPGs?!
Taking a similar approach to monster building, I will mashup a few combinations of class Halloween monsters to produce new monsters. Combining two things is a tried and true method for monster creation. The owlbear may have been invented because of an oddly-shaped child’s toy, but it is an enduring and classic monster. I will be using the Universal Classic Monsters for my vile experiments: Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Wolf Man, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Dracula
In my opinion, Dracula (the poster boy for vampires everywhere) is Halloween’s most iconic monster. But what is at the core of Dracula? It is a parasitic entity. In the classic formulation, this is represented both metaphorically (Dracula is a member of the nobility, who are societal leeches) and quite literally (Dracula drinks blood). Everything else is a bit of set dressing.
Count Francula
Mix Frankenstein’s Monster with Dracula and you get Count Francula. Please don’t laugh at the terrible names I have for these monstrous hybrids. I am doing my best. For this monster, imagine an entity similar to Count Dracula, except instead of drinking the blood of the peasants dotting the countryside, Count Francula is constantly kidnapping unsuspecting commoners and taking their body parts to replace its own. Imagine an NPC from the town that the players have a relationship with goes missing. When they meet Count Francula, they notice its eyes are identical to the missing NPC. Perhaps at dinner, if one of the players has too much to drink, Count Francula compliments them by remarking what a strong liver they must have. The Count will visit them that night.
Count Wolfula
The noble Count Wolfula is a cross between Dracula and the Wolf Man. Honestly this mashup is one of the hardest because vampires and werewolves are pretty similar. They are shapeshifting creatures of the night, the main difference is whether they control the shift and if they mostly turn into wolves or bats. (Complete aside: it is weird to me that the vampires in Twilight never turn into bats. Unless you count one of them getting cast as the new Batman.) Werewolves are often cast as losing control and perhaps not even remembering their transformation, whereas vampires are always in complete control. So Count Wolfula differs from your standard vampire by transforming into a wolf, not a bat. But it also differs from your standard werewolf by being in control of this transformation. To emphasize this point, I think I would make it capable of human speech while in full-wolf form. Hopefully that comes off as scary, but I suspect it comes off as adorable. Who doesn’t love a talking dog?
Frankenstein
The core identity of Frankenstein (I am going to start just saying Frankenstein and not Frankenstein’s monster; please be chill about this) is the method of its creation. It is an amalgamation of the dead brought back to life via science. Frankenstein has a special place in my heart because too often monster stories position the magical and mystical as the source of all evil. Frankenstein says, nah man, science can be used for spooky stuff.
Frankenwolf
Honestly, Frankenwolf has many possibilities. It could be a typical Frankenstein that gets bit by a werewolf. Or it could be a Frankenstein created out of the corpse of one or more werewolves. My preference is that it is the process of a science experiment gone wrong in which the scientist was trying to develop sentient wolves. So they took an especially vicious and deranged wolf and began replacing its body parts, bit by bit, with human parts. Human arms, human legs, and human heart and eventually a human brain. Without human vocal cords (that’s right, we are done with talking dogs for this blog post; no more talking dogs) the human consciousness trapped in the wolf-human hybrid body is filled with murderous rage, particularly for its creators.
Experiment from the Black Lagoon
Cold War era scientists, in an effort to drastically improve the underwater fighting skills of their soldiers are hard at work on developing a new type of Marine, one that can exist underwater (so, a submarine?). Similar to the above example, they reanimate a valiant soldier who died in the global fight against communism but first give them all manner of fish parts: gils, fins, fish eyes. The works. And, for good measure, they inject the resulting creation with super serum (which was lying around in bulk at the time in question). In a completely unforeseeable turn of events, the resulting monstrosity escaped its captivity. Now it haunts a nearby lake (perhaps even this lake town).
Mummy
The Mummy is defined by where it is found. It is a tomb monster. Just like people say “Frankenstein’s Monster isn’t the monster; Dr. Frankenstein is the monster,” the Mummy isn’t the monster; the person breaking into their tomb is the monster. Note that I am drawing from the common cultural impression of mummies in modern America, which doesn’t necessarily reflect certain historical mummies with any level of accuracy. A historical Mummy would make a bad D&D monster, owing to the fact that they are an inert corpse, not actually the living dead.
Pharaoh Dracula
Count Dracula and the typical Mummy share the trait of being nobility (in the popular conception at least; in reality Egyptian mummification is believed to have been practiced by members of various social ranks). So I am making their mashup a famous varietal of Egyptian nobility: the Pharaoh. However, I don’t think the bat motif of vampires fit as well for the Mummy vibe. A different animal, however, was a frequent subject of mummification: the cat. Perhaps this Pharaoh is entombed beneath their pyramid not because they died but because they were cursed. It isn’t the tomb of a noble, it is the prison of a monster. And the Pharaoh was still, of course, buried with their servants who in unlife serve the Pharaoh as thralls. Like typical vampires, the Pharaoh can transform, either into a partially feline monstrosity or into a simple cat (ideal for catching its victims off guard).
Plague Doctor Frankenstein
What if Dr. Frankenstein was not simply a man of science but also an Egyptologist? What if instead of the good doctor and his loyal servant, Igor, collecting bodies from the local graveyard, they were on a more daring expedition? This monster has much the same origin as the typical Frankenstein’s monster, but owing to his mummified heritage, it needs to be more. What if by splicing together parts from Mummies, Dr. Frankenstein incurs the wrath of the Egyptian pantheon? Perhaps this Mummy-Frankenstein is able to call down divine power, bring forth plagues like rivers of blood, storms of locusts or rainstorms of frogs? Dr. Frankenstein didn’t just construct an undead horror this time, he brought home a series of divine plagues.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The original screenplay of the Creature from the Black Lagoon was inspired by the fairytale of the Beauty and the Beast. And the romantic connotation for the fishperson is still alive and well today, as exemplified by Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. The author of that original screenplay, who would go on to produce the eventual film, described the Creature as a “sad, beautiful monster.” So for the core, we are going to consider the Creature a tragic or romantic monster first and foremost.
Leech from the Black Lagoon
This is either the most creative or least creative monster in this entire bunch. It was just too obvious to pass up. What do you get when you cross a blood-sucking vampire with a mysterious demon-fish that lurks in unsafe waters? A leech! Maybe to make it a bit more interesting than a mundane blood-sucker, when these Leeches suck the blood from their victim they either turn into an exact duplicate of the victim or the victim will turn into a Leech. What about the sad and or romantic angle? Well, if getting bitten by the Leech turns you into a Leech, what was the Leech before they were the Leech? Perhaps you meet a child whose parent was near the lagoon but never came back. Or a person whose lover went missing near the lagoon.
Mummy from the Black Lagoon
What curse caused the pyramids to be underwater? First off, it would be an excellent premise for a dungeon. This mashup isn’t incredibly distinct from your run-of-the-mill Mummy. Except the tomb is underwater and perhaps that has changed the Mummy somewhat as well. This Mummy is incredibly adaptable. It develops gills and replaces its bandages with seaweed for camouflage. The Mummy is obviously unkind to tomb robbers, but it also has a curse to break. Like Beauty and the Beast (and so many curses over the years), this one is broken by—you guessed it—true love. However, this is difficult for the Mummy due to its lair at the bottom of the Black Lagoon. It can’t as easily kidnap a French woman and wait for her to develop Stockholm syndrome. But, if the player-characters are prepared to find a way to have a nice, candle-lit dinner under the sea, perhaps they can romance this monster instead of coming to blows. That’s my problem with the D&D monster manual—not enough romanceable monsters!
Wolf Man
The Wolf Man is all about duality: human and beast. It isn’t really a metaphor for disease (despite how lycanthropy is portrayed by the authors of certain children’s books), but it is flexible enough to be used as a metaphor for all sorts of things in fiction. In D&D, however, the main use for a werewolf is a classic not-what-it-seems monster. D&D is rife with such creatures. The mimic, the doppelgänger, animated objects, ropers, piercers. And, yes, the werewolf. The werewolf first lulls characters into a false sense of security in its human form. But then it turns out to be a wolf! It reminds me a bit of Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf in that story isn’t a werewolf, but it might as well be one. Red Riding Hood talks with the wolf like it is just a fellow traveler in the woods. It is only by eating the grandmother that the wolf’s bestial nature is revealed. So, to me, the core of a werewolf is: you don’t think it is a wolf, but it is a wolf.
Tombwolf
Why do adventurers go into a tomb? Why would they go into a pyramid filled with traps? Loot, of course! The great success of the mimic (or of the bait and switch element of my favorite trap) is that it uses the players’ greed against them. “Player skill” is a frequent refrain in OSR circles, and it typically translates to cautious play. But nothing makes the cautious player into a reckless lout quite like dollar signs in the eyes. So the Tombwolf begins play as loot. In the pyramid, after they’ve defeated whatever mummy or other beastie stands guard, they get all manner of treasure: gems, gold, goblets, designer shoes, magic or even cursed artifacts. But one of the treasures in this hoard should be what appears to be a fur rug made from a flayed wolf, the head still attached. Or, even better, it could be a cape. But the kicker for this monster is that, when the players are not on guard, the wolf pelt “comes alive” to kill its victim. This would be either while the party is sleeping or while they are busy fighting another enemy.
This is an actual mummified wolf!
Seawolf
In some translations of Beowulf, Grendel’s mother is described as a “seawolf” (brimwylf). But this sea wolf is less a vengeful mother and more a cursed prince. Referring back to the Creature from the Black Lagoon’s origin as a Beauty and the Beast knock-off, the Seawolf is a prince cursed to transform into a hideous monster whenever a full moon is out. This monstrous form appears almost like a wolf with fur and fangs but also gills and fins. Truly, it is a hideous beast. This causes the Seawolf to be as distant and aggressively aloof as the Beast in the fairytale. But to subvert the “surprise, it’s a wolf” aspect of the Wolf Man, this monster is not encountered in human form, but as the monster. It uses hit-and-run tactics, retreating to the lagoon when cornered. Meanwhile, the player-characters hear rumors of the mysterious forlorn prince. Learning the Seawolf’s secret and ending the curse (probably true love, but maybe just a kiss like the Frog Prince) is then an alternate victory condition against the monster. Monsters with multiple win-conditions (as opposed to just hitting it enough times with a sword) can be real boons to player-agency.
Perhaps one of these monster mashups piqued your curiosity. But more likely, you have formulated a different monster mashup! One far better, spookier or devious than whatever I presented. Maybe you even cracked one of the combinations I didn’t cover. If so, I’d love to hear about it. I generally find calls-to-action to comment (like, comment and subscribe! hit that bell icon!) disingenuous, but seriously, if you want to toss your own monstrosities in the comments, I would love to read about them!
