Three Grimoires

    I was going to make a wizard school for each traditional school of D&D magic (Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation), but I couldn't think of that many Divination spells, or Evocation spells, or Illusion spells... or Transmutation spells... or Necromancy spells, for that matter...

    Anyway, here's three sets of spells for the three schools I could find cool spells for. Most of these are obviously classic D&D spells.

ABJURATION

Line in the Sand
R: touch T: a willing, armed creature D: indefinite
The caster draws a holy sign on the target and their melee weapon, then holds up their hands and begins praying aloud. The spell ends when they lower their hands or stop praying (it is usually impossible to cast other spells while waving your hands in the air and praying aloud). For the duration, the target of this spell projects a circular red shadow on the ground describing their weapon's reach. The target may immediately attack any creatures that step on the shadow, with bonus to-hit and damage equal to [dice].

Circle of Sanctuary
R: touch T: a valid sacred object D: [sum] hours
The caster draws a holy sign on the target. A line of light describes a circular perimeter around the target in a 100' radius. For the duration, creatures with hostile intent cannot cross the perimeter or attack a target within the perimeter without passing [dice] saves vs. fear. Creatures inside the perimeter who attack a creature outside the perimeter make [dice] saves; they take [sum] damage if they fail any of them, and are ejected from the Circle of Sanctuary at 120km/h. Demons, devils, elfs, fairies and Outsiders treat the perimeter like a wall of impermeable and opaque stone and can enter under no circumstances.
"Valid sacred objects" are most typically altars in temples, though they may be the bodies of fallen kings, small woodland shrines, or (in extremis) a patch of earth anointed with the prayers and a small amount of the blood of those it would protect.

Dispel
R: touch T: an enchanted person, place or thing D: instant
Lightning wreathes the caster's hand as they touch the target. Target's magic is undone if it was cast with [dice] MD or fewer. Attempting to dispel a magic stronger than the Dispel always fails, and the caster takes [dice] damage, no save.
If cast on a magical item, some will be destroyed, others rendered mundane, and some may regain their power as time passes or on certain events, depending on the strength of the artifact.

Counter Spell
R: sight T: a caster as he casts D: split-second
Caster raises their hand and speaks a word of power. The spell being cast by the target has its effective [dice] and [sum] reduced by [dice] and [sum], respectively. If both are reduced to below 0, the spell rebounds against the target.

Wizard Armor
R: self T: self D: [sum] hours
Caster dons an invisible suit of armor. For the duration, their AC is improved by two points per [die]. The armor is made of magical force, and so doesn't impede the caster or pull them down in water.

Hand of Peace
R: n/a T: a [dice]*60' cone, originating from the caster D: split-second
The caster holds up a hand and projects a circular, invisible, indestructible forcefield 12" in diameter. All magical projectiles in the target area violently fling themselves against the forcefield and are vaporized. All non-magical projectiles in the target area do the same, unless in the quiver of a creature who passes a save to protect them. Melee weapon attacks against the caster are made at [sum] penalty for one round; weapons that miss because of this penalty violently fling themselves against the forcefield and are vaporized.

Protection from Harm
R: touch T: a willing creature D: [dice] hours or until discharged
The caster draws a holy sign on the target's brow. Target gains a pool of [sum] temporary hitpoints, which absorb damage from up to [dice] sources of the caster's choice:

• Impacts (blunt weapons, falls, falling rocks)
• Perforations (bullets, arrows, punji pits)
• Edges (swords, claws, spinning blades)
• Blasts (dynamite, fireballs, cavedamp)
• Energies (fire, lightning, magic)
• Ghosts

Common Courtesy
R: sight T: a contiguous area up to [dice]*500' square D: variable
The caster must walk through the area as they cast this spell, reciting ancient words of warding and alarum. They may choose [dice] of the following effects:

• Sound cannot pass from within the area to without. Creatures inside the warded area can still hear sounds from without.
• The perimeter of the warded area is obscured by a 20' high wall of silver fog. Creatures inside the warded area can see through this fog.
• Doors and windows are tightly sealed, and can only be opened with a DC20 MOVE check.
• Corridors are filled with a dizzying, choking smoke. Creatures who pass through these corridors must save or become turned around and return out the way they came.
• Up to [dice] magical lights appear in designated areas. These lights shine brightly, and turn blood-red in the presence of enchantments and illusion.
• Up to [dice] magical mouths appear in designated areas. These mouths speak messages of up to 25 words upon perceiving a designated trigger.
• If a creature larger than a mouse crosses the perimeter, a loud chime sounds throughout the area.
• If a creature larger than a mouse crossed the perimeter, the caster receives a psychic premonition, which awakes them if they are sleeping.
• Scrying the warded area or a target within the area reveals only dark, ominous shadows.
• Fire does not burn within the warded area.

As they cast this spell, the caster may designate any number of creatures in their immediate presence to be immune to any or all of these effects, or choose a password which if spoken aloud renders a creature immune to any or all of these effects. The spell lasts for [sum] minutes at one MD, hours at two MD, days at three or weeks at four. If continually cast on the same area for a year, the spell becomes permanent.

Ritual Cleansing
R: touch T: various D: various
The caster scribes signs on or above the target(s) while reciting ancient words of blessing and dedication. If cast on up to [sum] small flasks of water, they become holy water, which will burn the undead and unholy like fire for [dice] rounds. If cast on up to [sum] creatures as the caster draws holy symbols on their brow, they are purified, gaining a [dice] bonus to checks, saves and morale until the next dawn. If cast on a corpse, the body is preserved for [sum] days during which time it does not decay and cannot become undead. If cast on two adults while touching one with each hand simultaneously, they are wedded, no save; effects vary.

Trackless and Traceless
R: touch T: up to [dice] creatures D [sum] hours.
The caster touches the brow of each target and recites ancient lines of safety, deception and strange belief. For the duration, the targets leave no footprints, make no sound on gravel or other noisy surfaces, pass over harsh terrain as if it were level highway, gain a +10 bonus to stealth checks, and cannot be grappled.

Banish
R: shouting distance T: a creature of up to [dice] HD D: instant
The caster levels an accusing finger and pronounces the sentence of banishment. Target saves. If they fail, they throw down their arms and flee until they are certain the caster and the caster's allies cannot reach them.
If the target is not native to this plane, they may be Banished whatever their HD, and must pass [dice] saves. Upon failing any of them they return to their home plane.

Bind
R: shouting distance T: a creature not of this world D: [worst] hours
For the duration, the caster dances around the target reciting ancient lines of domination and enslavement. The target, and anyone else, is free to try to interrupt the caster as they do so. At the end of each hour the caster must check constitution or become overwhelmed with supernatural weariness and fall asleep.
If the caster completes the spell without interruption, the target is bound to their will for a year and a day. The target will obey all commands, though if this is not in their nature they may follow the exact wording to the worst of their abilities.

CONJURATION

Unseen Servant
R: 15' T: a volume 10' high with a 5' square base D: indefinite while MD are invested
Caster summons an invisible, intangible force into the target space. This force has 1 HP and is immune to everything except magic and lightning bolts. It can lift and move objects inside itself very slowly and gingerly. It lacks the motive force to cause damage with impact alone, and it would lose a tug-of-war with a toddler, but it might be able to tip a bottle of poison into a cup or pull the trigger of a shotgun trap. The invisible force obeys the caster absolutely, and can perform simple and repetitive tasks about as well as a highly intelligent parrot could. If necessary, the force can move at a pace of about 1' per second, carrying a maximum of [dice] slots of inventory as it goes. The unseen servant dissipates when the caster dismisses it or when it moves more than 120' from the caster.
The unseen servant perceives everything inside its space. It can copy books extremely quickly, and can take dictation (though it's a bit shit at it). It would be an excellent housebreaker, but it doesn't know how to do that, so it's more like an excellent lockpick (and that only while the caster is directing it).

Mark/Recall
R: n/a T: see description D: permanent/one round
Caster gives it a moment of thought, and permanently marks their exact current position in their mind. They may later return to that point with one round of shouting, focusing and finger-waggling. If the Mark component was cast with 1 [die], the Recall must also be cast with 1 [die]; in this way, the caster may have several Marks, each coded to a separate quantity of MD. Marks can be re-cast at any time. The caster can bring exactly 1 sack of inventory with them — either their personal equipment, or a second person if both they and the caster are buck naked.

Polyscatter
R: sight T: [sum] slots of inventory and HPs worth of creature D: instant
Caster claps their hands then strikes an expansive pose. Targets appear at random positions within [dice] miles. Unwilling creatures get a save. If the [sum] didn't cover all of a creature's HP, they instead take damage equal to the portion of [sum] allotted to them as random particles of them get teleported off and lost in the Astral Plane. A set of clothing is 2 slots.

Flaming Sphere
R: 120' T: an unoccupied sphere 5' in diameter D: ten minutes of concentration
The caster snaps their fingers, and a great raging ball of fire, a sphere of 5' diameter, appears in the target space. On the caster's turn in combat they may verbally command the ball to move to another point up to 30' feet away. The ball rolls across obstacles shorter than itself, and may leap gaps up to ten feet wide. It navigates spaces about as well as a morbidly obese flaming dog. It has excellent hearing, but no sense of smell.
Creatures who are struck by the ball, or who end their turn within 5' of the ball, must [save] or take [sum] damage. The ball is physically weak and has a consistency like cotton soaked in kerosene, so can only really hurt creatures or damage the environment with its heat alone. It is doused promptly if dropped in water, and burns to nothing at the end of the duration.

Grasping Hand
R: 120' T: an unoccupied space 5' in radius D: [dice] minutes
Caster holds out their hand and focuses on the target space for the duration, causing a shimmering hand of moon-silver to materialize. The hand has 20 AC and [sum] HP. Each turn, in lieu of attacking or moving, the caster may move the hand up to sixty feet. As part of this movement, the hand may ball up and strike, open and shove, or claw and grasp. The hand strikes as an attack based on the caster's INT mod, dealing [dice]+[INT mod] damage, and shoves/grasps as an opposed grapple check, using the caster's INT instead of STR. The hand may also lift and carry [dice] inventory slots of items, open and close doors, pull levers, cut ropes, or anything else a big scary glowing metal hand could do. Experienced Conjurers can "swing" from the hand as if it were a grappling hook or "slide down" as if it were a fire-pole with a successful SKLL check.

Hound of the Far Stars
R: 30' T: unoccupied space large enough for a horse D: 8 hours
Caster waves their hand and summons forth a sidereal watchdog of [dice] HD and [sum] HP. These creatures have four backwards legs which end in six-figured hands, 18 AC pelts of silver hair, and three heads. One head is capable of "barking" like a sounding brass, one head is capable of twittering and whistling like a bird, and one head has a crocodile maw that bites like a heavy weapon +[dice]. They understand "sit", "heel", "keep watch", "sic 'em" and "help help help!" in all languages. Sidereal watchdogs are slavishly, suicidally loyal to their summoner and will ferociously attack any creature they perceive as a threat. They can carry up to 4 sacks while running like a greyhound and climbing like a monkey. When slain, sidereal watchdogs dissolve into silvery mist.

Sumptuous Meal
R: 20' T: tables or surfaces suitable to bear fine china D: up to [sum] minutes
Before this spell can be cast the caster must ensure that the area where food will be served is clean, comfortable and well lit. In a dungeon environment, this may involve sweeping floors, dusting furniture and setting up several lamps. Over the duration the caster sings, dances, jumps, claps, tells jokes, and generally attempts to amuse the spirits of good fortune and plenty. While they do this, the spirits prepare and produce [dice] rations of fairy food every minute. When the spell is over the feast may begin. The food (served on gem-studded dishes with aluminum cutlery) is filling, fresh, steaming hot (or freezing cold as appropriate) and delicious enough to heal every eater [dice] HP. Eating more than your share of the food may anger the spirits (roll reaction, trying to get 8 or better), and attempting to nick some for later always does. The spirits curse buffoons and greedy-guts with a hitpoint malus equal to [dice], healing at a rate of 1/day as with other such maluses. Particularly large and boisterous barbarians, orcs, growing boys &c may be able to avoid the penalty. Regardless, after an hour the food and all the dishes disappear.

Evil Star
R: n/a T: a sphere [dice]*10' in diameter, one pole touching caster's palm D: [sum] rounds
This is an old, old spell, taught to the College of Conjuremen many centuries ago by a friendly-but-hungry native of the outer darkness. When the caster raises their hand and speaks a word of power, impenetrable shadow fills the target volume. This is not a natural darkness, or even the oppressive "true dark" of the deep underworld, but a void flowing from the space between stars: light sources are snuffed, magical lights dispelled, powerful magical lights violently dispelled, and creatures without infravision completely blinded. Things in the darkness take [dice] cold damage every turn from exposure, and a further [dice] acid damage from being licked by long wet tongues in the blackness. Creatures who die in the darkness are consumed and are never seen again. Furniture is totally ruined. The caster may move while holding up the sphere.

Alien Terrain
R: sight T: up to [sum] 5' squares of terrain D: permanent
Target terrain grows into a thick and horrible jungle of toxic plants and sharp spines, which are 20' high and block vision and ranged attacks. Passing through the alien terrain on foot requires a STR check for each 5' square navigated; on a failure, the creature attempting to force passage is trapped and entangled and can move no further that round. Entangled creatures with exposed flesh take [dice] poison damage when they end their turn in the alien terrain. A human armed with a machete and a torch can clear one 5' square of alien terrain in one minute. The soil of our world cannot sustain the plants and they will wither and die on their own within a few weeks.

Air Bubble
R: 30' T: head or object not much bigger than a breadbox D: [sum] hours
Up to [dice] targets are surrounded by a sturdy bubble of fresh air at sea-level pressure. This bubble keeps out water and poison gas and keeps in air pressure during exposure to vacuum. The air remains magically fresh for the duration of the spell. Water-breathing creatures take must SAVE or take [sum] damage as they fight their way free of the bubble.

Wormhole
R: 30' T: unoccupied sphere of sufficient size D: one minute
Before this spell can be cast the conjuror must procure a flawless, fist-sized diamond, which is the focus of the magic. The caster claps their hands around the gem and spreads their arms wide, causing the diamond to fly to the center of the target volume and open into a spherical wormhole up to [dice]*5' in diameter. This wormhole can lead to any point on any plane which you have ever seen, or that you know of in extreme detail. Passage through the wormhole is instantaneous. If you wish, you may instead speak the true name of an individual as you cast this spell; the other end of the wormhole opens on top of them, and they fall through to your end if they're small enough to fit. This conjuring does not, in and of itself, engender strong feelings of fraternal love in them. Planar lords are immediately aware if you attempt to reach their domain with this spell, and may counter it without effort. The wormhole collapses at the end of the duration and the diamond falls to the ground; objects and body-parts halfway through the wormhole are neatly severed.

Wish
R: n/a T: n/a D: n/a
The greatest of all spells, single-handedly marking Conjuration as the queen of the arcana. When cast, you may Wish to mimic any other spell in existence, with effects of [dice]+1 and [sum]*2. You may Wish to produce an object which could have been made by [sum] master craftsmen working for a year and a day. You may Wish to fully heal, restore, purify, replace limbs of, cure, repair and remedy up to [sum] humanoids, or have a commensurate effect on other powerful creatures. You may Wish to undo up to [dice] rounds of time. You may Wish to undo a doom in a creature, including yourself. You may Wish to obtain [sum] more years of healthy life.
If you wish (heh), you may instead choose to Wish for a god to act in some way to achieve some effect more far-reaching and complex than those previously ennumerated. You may not choose exactly how the god accomplishes the task, so it may be wise to establish a good working relationship beforehand, or else risk seeing the Wish distorted in some way.
When you cast Wish you accrue a special wish-casting doom. Each wish-casting doom permanently reduces your HP by 6, and these missing hitpoints are never regained (except by another creature's Wish). If this reduction would leave your max hitpoints at some number below 0, you vanish from existence as soon as your wish has been fulfilled.

ENCHANTMENT

I couldn't find a guy that really said "enchanter", you know. Here's some generic wizard.

Vicious Mockery
R: hearing T: a creature who understands your words D: instant
Caster spouts a series of horrible insults and calumny against the target, the target's morals, the target's heritage, &c. This deals [best] psychic damage. If not in combat the target makes an immediate reaction roll with a penalty equal to [dice], possibly provoking a duel or brawl. If the player can think of a particularly funny, cutting and target-appropriate insult, the DM may rule that the target instead makes a morale check with a penalty equal to [dice], fleeing in tears if failed.

Lesser Power Word
R: hearing T: a creature who understands your words D: [dice] rounds
Caster speaks a word of power, and the target saves or obeys for the duration. The traditional words of power are translated as COME (target approaches by the quickest safe path, and waits by the caster), RELINQUISH (target drops their equipment, and does not attempt to retrieve it), FLY (target flees in terror), GROVEL (target falls to their knees, and bows to the caster), HALT (target stops moving, and takes no action), and SUFFER (target screams and writhes as if in extreme pain, and ends any magical concentration). The effect ends early if the target is attacked by the caster or takes damage from any source.

Champion
R: touch T: a creature D: one minute
Caster touches the brow of the target, which may be themselves. They gain [sum] temporary hitpoints for the duration, do not roll morale, and automatically succeed saves v. fear.

Stupefy
R: 10' T: a creature D: ten minutes
Caster surreptitiously gestures at the target, who becomes noticeably more stupider for the duration. For the duration, the target checks intelligence to disbelieve all but the most obvious lies, automatically fails checks to accomplish complex tasks, mishaps on all spell casts, fails all initiative rolls, and has a [dice]-in-6 chance to offend those they talk to.

Pedagoguery
R: self T: self D: up to [sum] minutes
Caster begins a longwinded, self-aggrandizing yet oddly hypnotic speech. Non-hostile creatures who hear and can understand this speech stop what they're doing to listen. Creatures who consider the caster to be a bastard, idiot, liar or petty criminal may save to avoid this effect. After the speech ends, creatures come away with [dice] simple concepts of the caster's choosing which they are now pretty sure are true, or at least valuable, insights about the world. Creatures who consider the caster to be a bastard, idiot &c do not fall under this effect.

Anointing
R: touch T: a weapon D: [best] successful attacks
Before this spell can be cast the enchanter must procure a slot of valuable oils and perfumes. As they anoint the target weapon in a ten-minute series of rituals, they intone prayers of victory and glory. The weapon then has bonus +[dice] damage and to-hit for the duration of the spell.

Confusing Gaze
R: self T: self D: [sum] rounds
Caster projects lunacy, chaos, and a sickly green glow from their eyes for the duration. Creatures may choose to look away, rendering the caster effectively invisible to them for the duration. Creatures who look at the caster at any point save. If they fail, they roll [dice]d8 on the following table and perform the result each round until the spell ends:

1. Scream nonsense aloud in their native language
2. Close their eyes firmly and squeal
3. Dive to the ground and bury their face in the dirt
4. Drop whatever they're holding, sharply
5. Dart 20' in a random direction
6. Make an attack against a random creature in reach
7. Attempt to eat the most palatable object within reach
8. Spin around until dizzy

Because of the frantic energy granted by the confusion, affected creatures can perform more actions on their turn than usual.

Fairy Silver
R: touch T: up to [sum] slots of items D: one week
Caster looks around, suspicious like, and rubs the target items on their sleeve or hem. Creatures of [dice] HD or fewer, other than the caster, incorrectly perceive the items to be masterworks, solid silver, particularly fine examples of their kind, collectible, or otherwise worth 10x their actual value. More powerful creatures may save v. charm to avoid this effect. Creatures who pass the save, and any affected creatures at the end of the duration, then correctly perceive that they have been duped by some fucking wizard.

Power Word: Kill
R: hearing T: a creature who understands your words D: instant
Caster speaks a word of power, traditionally translated as DIE. Targets with fewer than [dice]*6 HP die. Otherwise they take [sum] damage, save for half.

Geas
R: hearing, T: a creature who understands your words D: indefinite, or [sum] days
Caster speaks a word of power, traditionally translated as FULFILL. This places a magical command upon the target to carry out some service, or to refrain from some action or course of activity, as desired by the spellcaster. The geas may not compel a creature to kill itself or place itself on a path to certain death, but there are no other limitations. If after [sum] days the creature genuinely believes the task, as put to it exactly, cannot be completed by them, the geas ends. Strongwilled creatures or creatures with more HD than [dice] may resist this geas; each day they do so inflicts 1 point of damage to each of their stats, and this damage does not heal until they return to the task.

The Colorless Wasteland (Obol Desert)

        I'll repeat a few things here from the Bazaar of the Memorable, just for ease of reference. That post dealt with caravan management; money, trade goods, and camels. This one focuses more on the journey itself.

Travel Times

    Oases tend to be about a hundred miles from each other. Camels travel 30/20/10 miles a day carrying up to 8/10/12 sacks; humans travel 30/20/10 miles per day carrying 3 slots/1 sack/2 sacks. This means that heavily loaded caravans require about ten days to travel from one oasis to the next, moderately loaded caravans require five, and lightly loaded caravans (or hikers) arrive before lunch on the fourth day. Shortcuts may cut distance from the main route, or get you killed.

Food, Water

    Humans can go 30 miles in a day carrying three slots or less, 20 miles in a day carrying up to one sack, or 10 miles a day carrying up to two. A three-liter waterskin occupies one slot. In the desert, humans require two liters of water per day, plus one liter per 5 miles walked. At a three-liter water deficit, a human has disadvantage on all checks. At a six-liter water deficit, humans fail all checks automatically and begin to vividly hallucinate. When a human is in debt 10 liters, they die in extreme agony.

Weather

    There are two weather flowers for mainland travel in the Obol Desert. You'd have a different one if you were sailing, or if you headed far inland.
   

    Travel is particularly dangerous during the summer. A few days of roasting might wipe out a caravan, even on a well-traveled route. Monsoons are terrifyingly lethal to unprepared parties; expect the water-level in low-lying areas or dry riverbeds to rise an inch a minute, and to effortlessly sweep away even the most heavily-loaded of camels, let alone a tiny and pathetic human.

    Most traveling is done during the winter, when the heat is more bearable

Seasons

    The Obol Desert is a cold, coastal desert — a "desert" in its extreme lack of vegetation, not in its extreme dryness per se. In the rainy season (three months out of the year), great monsoons can roll a hundred miles inland and flood the dry riverbeds and fill the ancient corpses of lakes. Daytime temperatures frequently exceed 40 degrees celsius (that's "bloody hot" in fahrenheit), while nighttime temperatures drop to the frost point. In the dry season, the Obol Desert's nine-month winter, there is no rain. Daytime temperatures sit stubbornly at around 25 degrees, and nights may hit 10 below freezing. In the depths of winter, deep inland, your frozen fingers and toes may only begin to thaw around noon.

Where Do You Find Yourself?

(roll when you have an encounter, when the rain starts, or when anything happens with your caravan during your hundred-mile trek between oases)

Coast,

1. Ankle-deep in saltwater, crossing a mangrove
2. Among tall rocks thrown ashore by an ancient storm
3. By an ancient fallen tower
4. In a tiny fishing village, unworthy of mapping
5. In the ruins of a tiny fishing village, nothing but bones and driftwood now
6. On a floodplain, dry except for two days of leap tide a year
7. On a barren field, nothing on the horizon all around
8. On a winding road up a low rise, objects of interest above
9. On a winding road down a low rise, objects of interest below
10. Upon the beach, in the spray of crashing waves, picking among dead fish

Inland,

1. On the main road, other caravans in the distance in either direction
2. On the main road, all alone for the past hour
3. On a "shortcut", navigating uneven rocks that have twisted a few ankles
4. On a "shortcut", hopping an inexplicable waist-high drystone wall
5. On a "shortcut", passing a lovely little village of desert nomads who might share their tea and cookfires
6. In a gully, stone walls looming sixty feet above your heads
7. Ankle-deep in dust that must have buried the waystones in some sandstorm days or decades ago
8. In a depression that was once a lake, and will be again come monsoon season
9. Near a well-fortified but unmarked inn
10. Near the burnt-out ruins of an impressive country estate

Far Inland,

1. Passing an enormous stone dragged for hundreds of miles. The bedouins, curiously, have carved it in the shape of a (1. fruit tree 2. four-legged table 3. high-backed chair 4. ugly parody of a Hillman's head 5. hideous unnameable monster 6. bedouin tent??)
2. Passing a necropolis of unimaginable antiquity. Speed your steps, pilgrim
3. Walking through a boneyard. Dead whales, dead ships, the petrified remains of weapons in the hard earth
4. Lost in a maze of ravines and broken earth, a hundred feet deep in some places
5. In the shadow of a high, volcanic hill, smoke spewing from its top
6. On a perfectly flat field of black glass with embedded flecks of some glowing material
7. Approaching some tower with no entrance, and no windows. Religious purposes...?
8. On a high hill, with sheer cliffs and sixty-foot drops
9. Within a half-buried outskirts of a forgotten city
10. Carefully creeping through a field filled with the entrances of underground dens

Beasts

Stockwhip Asp
0.5HD (1HP), AC as unarmored, 5 morale
Long wiry tails, which they swing in circles to produce an irritating whir like a brewing storm. Not aggressive but will bite the shit out of you if startled. Tradition holds that assassins know how to delicately trick these snakes into biting fruit, injecting them with deadly venom.
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: faster than walking pace
Code: Desert (2 sins average)
Intelligence: animalistic
Attacks: -2, two bites (1 damage, HRTS or take 1d8 poison)

Mirror-Finish Tortoise
1HD (6HP), AC as leather, 11 morale
Reflective shell camouflages as black sand when partially buried, and as a little piece of sky when walking the surface. Hillmen trap the tortoises to make soup and sell the shells to Foreigners; this is considered extremely bad luck in other cultures, even notoriously cynical and pragmatic Andona. Everyone knows that when a Mirror-Finish Tortoise reaches 70 years of age it attains wisdom greater than any human sage.
No. Appearing: 1d6 (a result of 1 indicates this is actually a 4HD Ancient Tortoise)
Movement: very slow, but can dig
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: smarter than a trained monkey
Attacks: +1, bite (1d4)
Psionics: sinful characters must save vs. fear when presented with their reflection in the tortoise's mirror-finish shell
Hide In Shell — when limbs and head are retracted, mirror-finish tortoises have AC as plate.

Blood-Red Scavenger Worm Long as Your Arm
0.5HD (1HP), AC as unarmored, too stupid to check morale
Foul creatures, the bane of caravans. Color of fresh blood. Any bedouin or hermit will pay 1sp per dead worm; for one thing, destroying scavenger worms is worth a bounty, and for another, they are delicious when smoked thoroughly over a low fire.
No. Appearing: 3d6 (a result of 1 indicates an encounter with a 2HD blood-red scavenger worm long as your whole body)
Movement: pathetic hopping and flopping, but can burrow through sand faster than a man can crawl
Code: Monster
Intelligence: deterministic and easily manipulated
Attacks: +1, toothy bite (1 damage, anticoagulant venom reduces CON and STR by 1 as the torn flesh bleeds)
Powerful Nose — scavenger worms can smell flesh (living or dead) in contact with sand at a distance of two miles. They preferentially target intelligent creatures, but will eat the hooves off of a camel if nothing else presents itself.

Scorpigan, Green
1HD (4HP), AC as chain, 7 morale
Muscular arachnids as big as wolves. Green scorpigans are known to travel in harems, not fear fire, and to rot in hours when slain.
No. Appearing: 1d6 males and one Alpha Female (1HD, 6HP)
Movement: quiet creeping, or camel-speed galloping
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: pack-hunting predator
Attacks: +1, two pinches (1 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d6 poison, check HRTS or unable to benefit from food or rest for 24 hours)
Rending Charge — in combat, a scorpigan can charge a target slower than itself and automatically hit with both pinches. Only one scorpigan can charge a target per turn, and they require 30' of runup.
Alpha Female — the larger female scorpigans have larger pinchers, dealing 2 damage, and more venom, dealing 1d10 damage and applying 48 hours of debuffs on a failed HRTS.

Scorpigan, Blue
1HD (6HP), AC as chain, 7 morale
Muscular arachnids as big as wolves. Blue scorpigans are known to ambush by night, prey on other scorpigans, and hate Golden Ones with near-human levels of spite
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: quiet creeping, or 20' leaps
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: apex predator
Attacks: +1, two pinches (1 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d6 poison, check HRTS or a random limb is disabled for a number of days equal to damage rolled)
Rending Leap — when attacking from surprise (which they do every chance they get), blue scorpigans automatically hit a target with both pinches. If the stinger disables a limb, the scorpigan will attempt to drag the target off into the dunes to be eaten.
Grappler — blue scorpigans have +4 to MOVE when grappling a target affected by their venom.

Baby Black Moth
Winged insects larger than your outspread hands. Suicidally attracted to light-sources. Often believed to herald death. Can be harvested for one dose of flashpowder, if you are patient and have a good comb.
1HD (2HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: flight as graceful as a fat seagull
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: bugge
Attacks: no
Psionics: those who mean black moths harm save vs. charm to approach within melee range. If failed, suffer one minute of disgusting wracking ugly-sobs: drip snot, produce a lot of racket, and apply a -2 to any checks that require un-teary vision.
Black Dust Wings — when a black moth takes fire damage, they detonate in a 10' fireball. Save or take 1d6 fire damage.

Swarm of Tiny Jumping Lizards Who Sing at Sunrise and Sunset
1HD (4HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Dozens of tiny lizards in a puddle five-foot-square. Sing at sunrise and sunset. Delicious when eaten raw, but it's good luck to leave them be.
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: as tiny jumping lizard, can squeeze through gaps a single lizard could
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: negligible
Attacks: +0, vicious bites (1 damage)
Psionics: feeding a ration to the swarm grants the gift-giver a desert blessing, +2 to their next save. Swarms can only eat one ration at a time. Eating a tiny jumping lizard who sings at sunrise and sunset prevents one from obtaining this blessing until the offender makes an offering at a Lizard shrine.
Swarm — receives 1 damage from attacks, max damage from AoEs.

Neanderthal Brave
Young Neanderthal men, before marriage and full integration into society, live in the desert in a koryos. These bands live at a level only a little above the beasts they wear the skins of, and prey on travelers and small outlying communities of non-Neanderthals or of enemy clans. The koryos exists outside of usual Neanderthal rules of hospitality, weregild, &c — they do not follow laws and do not expect to be treated with lawfully.
1HD (4HP), AC as equipped (typically nude with shield, but may wear looted armor), 7 morale
No. Appearing: 4d6 (1s and 6s indicate the presence of a berserk) plus a captain
Movement: as human
Code: Monster
Intelligence: human
Attacks: +2, with weapon (typically light flint axes, but may carry looted weapons)
Psionics: neanderthal berserks can enter a rage once per day, taking half damage from weapons and attacking each round if able.
Tally Marks — in combat, neanderthal braves who have not struck at least one target have 11 morale. They are content to count hits on corpses, or 1-damage blows with the hilts of their weapons on cowering targets.
Skin Mask — when encountered, on a 1-in-4 chance a koryos of neanderthal braves have their animal totem masks drawn over their faces. They attack immediately with no warning or parley, and check morale only once before fighting to the death.
Captain — one member of a koryos is the captain, chosen by consulting a mirror-finish tortoise at the formation of the warband. The captain does not roll morale under any circumstances. captains have a 2-in-6 chance of ignoring mortal blows until they have struck at least one target in combat. When their captain falls, the koryos as a whole flees, even if wearing their animal masks.

Shitty Bandit
1HD (3HP), AC as leather and shield, 7 morale
The highways and hills of the Obol Desert are infested with desperate and violent criminals. Communities suffering particularly heavily may offer bounties, but it's in everyone's best interest to root out bandits wherever they hide; the worst monsters begin as men.
No. Appearing: 2d6 (results of 1 or 6 indicate the presence of a bandit heavy, 6HP and AC as chain and shield)
Movement: as human
Code: any, but many sins
Intelligence: human
Attacks: +1, with weapon (typically medium weapons of low quality)

Black Dust Moth
2HD (4HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Winged insects larger than any bird. Suicidally attracted to light-sources. Can be harvested for three doses of gunpowder, if you are patient and have a good comb. As a totemic symbol the moths represent cultivation and inner peace. Black dust moths never eat, and yet never stop growing; it's said that the terrible sandstorms that roll from the desert out to the coast are stirred up by the wings of black dust titans deep in the heart of the continent.
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: swift, silent flight
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: bugge
Attacks: +2, vicious sting (1 poison damage to HP and 1d6 to DEX with a pins and needles paralysis)
Psionics: those who mean black moths ill save vs. charm to approach within melee range. They are unable to take hostile action against black dust moths, black things, dusty things or moth-shaped things for 1 hour upon a failure.
Black Dust Wings — when a full-grown black moth takes fire damage, they detonate in a 20' fireball. Save or take 1d10 fire damage.
Silver Eggs — black dust moths lay their eggs in the carcasses of large animals or in paralyzed targets. Within 24 hours, these eggs hatch into blood red scavenger worms long as your thumb, and devour their host from the inside.

Blood-Red Scavenger Worm Long as Your Whole Body
2HD (4HP), AC as unarmored, too stupid to check morale
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: pathetic hopping and flopping, but can burrow through sand faster than a man can run
Code: Monster
Intelligence: deterministic and easily manipulated
Attacks: +2, toothy bite (1d6 damage, anticoagulant venom reduces CON and STR by the damage rolled as the torn flesh bleeds)
Powerful Nose — scavenger worms can smell flesh (living or dead) in contact with sand at a distance of two miles. they preferentially target intelligent creatures, but will eat the hooves off of a camel if nothing else presents itself.
Silver Chrysalis — once a blood-red scavenger worm is about as long as your whole body, its ravening hunger turns in on itself, literally. Following some inscrutable cycle of moon and stars and wandering planets, it flips itself inside out from the mouth, revealing its mirror-coat innards, and lays mostly buried in the desert sand like a mylar sack of rice for two weeks before bursting into 3d6 baby black moths. If captured at this stage (or immediately before this stage and fed a camel or a couple of slaves), the chrysalis can be boiled in liquid lead to produce silk-steel, a substance light as fabric but durable as metal. One chrysalis makes one set of Silk-Steel Armor, typically taking the form of a thobe, long turban and a heavy undyed bisht. Silk-Steel Armor encumbers like clothing, but protects like mail, and grants an extra save against rays or harmful radiation.

Scorpigan, Black
2HD (8HP), AC as chain, 7 morale
Muscular arachnids as big as wolves. Black scorpigans are known to eat poison, avenge the deaths of their mates, and have truck with monsters.
No. Appearing: lone adolescent (1HD, 4HP) or mated pair
Movement: quiet creeping, or camel-speed galloping
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: pack-hunting predator
Attacks: +2, two pinches (2 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d10 poison, check HRTS or the venomous wound permanently reduces max hitpoints until treated with colloidal silver)
Rending Charge — in combat, a scorpigan can charge a target slower than itself and automatically hit with both pinches. Only one scorpigan can charge a target per turn, and they require 30' of runup.

Swarm of Shadow Bugs
2HD (8HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Strange, crawling masses of shadows, as if a swarm of bugges walketh where no bugges be. Infested hosts have noticeable "boiling" effect at the edge of their own shadows.
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: insect creeping when not parasitized, as fast as their host otherwise
Code: Monster
Intelligence: quite stupid
Attacks: none
Swarm — receives 1 damage from attacks, max damage from AoEs
Shadow Sucker — swarms of shadow bugs lie waiting in small burrows in sand, or in the shadows of ruined temples of evil. Intelligent creatures who unknowingly allow their shadows to fall on the swarms must SAVE or become infested. Infested hosts require double water rations, as the shadow bugs suck moisture from their body. Infestations quickly multiply and spread throughout groups. The most readily available cure is to deal fire damage to the host; The swarm takes an equivalent amount of damage, and the light prevents them from rapidly healing. For large infestations this process may require several days to avoid killing the host.

Albino Camelroo
2HD (6HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Ghostly-white creatures, with long powerful limbs and two large humps of fat protecting the spine. Well-adapted to life in the desert, eating cacti and stomping scorpigans flat. Quality pelts may fetch as much as 10sp.
No. Appearing: 2d6 females, 1d6 adolescents (1HD, 3HP), 1 Alpha Male (10HP, does not check morale when protecting wives)
Movement: bounds and leaps as fast as a horse
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: pack animal
Attacks: +2, pair of ferocious punches (1d6 damage) or a tremendous double-barreled kick (1d6+2 damage, fly 20' back, take impact damage as if falling)
Psionics: alpha males will challenge large or ostentatiously dressed combatants, filling them with injured pride. Save vs. charm or make attacks against other targets with disadvantage.

Coyote-Mouth Cattle
3HD (12HP), AC as leather, 7 morale
Built like stone towers, with steely hooves and sharp fangs for tearing carrion or gnawing trees. Domesticated herds live in symbiosis with the Reaver culture. Wild herds live in oasis-rich regions, along the banks of the Neilos, or on the shores of the ocean, with each population being slightly different in size and hide pattern. Outside of mating season the cows travel in large related clans protected by a single massive Grandmother who may mass as much as 1000kg. Desert folklore holds that coyote-mouth cattle speak a language that they never use in the presence of bipeds, even in extreme need.
No. Appearing: 2d6 bulls (3HD, 16HP), or 5d6 cows with 5d6 juveniles (1HD, 3HP) and a Grandmother Cow (4HD, 20HP)
Movement: like a bigass cow
Code: Charnel God (1 sin)
Intelligence: cowlike in many ways
Attacks: +3, a charge at a distance (1d6+3, target checks MOVE or falls prone) or a powerful kick from the rear legs when close (2d6+3, target falls prone). Bulls with at least 20' of runup always hit slower targets with their charge.
Psionics: receptive to telepathic communication. In combat, Grandmother Cows may force an intelligent target to check SKLL or become overwhelmed with brainfog and lose their turn.
Grandmother Cow — intelligent as an old woman. Directs other cows with powerful telepathic broadcasts.

Coyote-Mouth Cattle 🙂‍

Scorpigan, Red
3HD (12HP), AC as plate, 7 morale
Muscular arachnids as big as wolves. Red scorpigans are known to be attracted to light, debate theology with desert hermits, and to hunt psions by sniffing out their dreams.
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: quiet creeping, or explosive 40' leaps
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: smarter than some people
Attacks: +3, two pinches (3 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d6 poison fire, take an additional 1d6 poison fire damage every round until you pass a difficult HRTS check)
Psionics: Red scorpigans cause any esper to save vs. fear on sight, or flee their presence in blind panic. Those who pass the save may commune with the scorpigan telepathically; these arachnids live for many decades, and can speak long on the art of slaying psions and star-demons.
Whirlwind Leap — red scorpigans can strike at two targets with their tails as they pass over them.
Grappler — red scorpigans are expert martial artists, and have +6 to MOVE.

Sandstorm Thief
3HD (6HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Strange characters from campfire tales. Taller than a man, fur like strips of ribbon, long strangling fingers. The bedouins say they were summoned by Andona's wizards centuries ago; Andonans say they are the ghosts of bedouins whose greed killed them; Foreigners say they are local superstition to explain away inefficient camel-packing protocols. Whatever you believe, keep a tight grip on your belongings and a close on your friends when the sandstorms roll in.
No. Appearing: 1d6
Movement: Careful, silent creeping
Code: Monster
Intelligence: Smarter than a human, surely?
Attacks: does not strike, but may strangle. Opposed MOVE checks until one of the two parties wins three times: if the victims wins they break free and can scream for help, if the thief wins the victim is silently throttled to death.
Psionics: invisible to the eye, and undetectable to psionics. Always surprises
Sticky Fingers — sandstorm thieves attempt to pocket 1 sack of the most valuable goods available before disappearing into the night. They are terrified of fighting-men, but will strangle lone guards if doing so gives them access to particularly shiny or tasty loot.

Flaming Wheel
3HD (9HP), AC as plate, too stupid to check morale
A ball of fire, about four foot in diameter, which rapidly expands to a ring twenty feet in diameter and a few inches wide. Said to be the vengeful spirits of murdered women, or perhaps ghastly pets summoned by star-watching wizards, or some relic of an ancient civilization unburied by the wind.
No. Appearing: 1d6
Movement: rapid roll outpacing a horse
Code: Monster
Intelligence: None?
Attacks: expands 20', dealing 1d6 fire damage to creatures in its path, then contracts around a single target, dealing 1d6 fire damage to creatures in its path and 2d6 fire damage to one target, save for half.
Immaterial Body — takes 1 damage from conventional weapon attacks.
Inscrutable Motivation — does not roll reaction; attacks on a 2-in-6, otherwise passes overhead with a great and terrible roaring. May be provoked by various metal objects and artifacts, or fended off by the same.

Succulent Mongoose
4HD (16HP), AC as leather, 7 morale
A bear-sized blue rodent, with green tendrils around its face resembling succulent leaves. Uses its enormous back legs and atrophied forelegs to burrow up to its lips in the sand, where it waits for unwary creatures to step in its fanged mouth. Can live for weeks without food, water, or any movement — barely even breathing.
No. Appearing: 1, underground
Movement: awkward stumbling
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: apex predator
Attacks: +4, a nasty bite (1d8+4). If attacking from surprise, 12 damage outright.

Succulent Mongoose 🙂‍

Flying Brittle Star
4HD (16HP), AC as unarmored, too stupid to check morale
A hideous mess of limbs and stingers, hopefully found boiling up beneath your feet ready to tear you to shreds, but unfortunately-often found whipping across the Obol Desert like a car door in a tornado right at the level of your head. They want to eat tortoises but they're happy to spill your blood.
No. Appearing: 1, or 1d4+1 in a sandstorm
Movement: slow writhing across the sand, or flying fast as a kite in a sandstorm. Can burrow 5' underground in the blink of an eye.
Code: Monster
Intelligence: vicious but not cunning
Attacks: +4, makes as many stings (1 poison, 1d6 to STR or check HRTS for 1) as it has hitpoints remaining. May make no more than four attacks per target per round. Despite its size and many limbs, is not particularly good at grappling creatures smaller than camels.
Psionics: detects dreamers and/or mystics at half a mile.

Ancient Tortoise
4HD (24HP), AC as plate, 13 morale
Ponderous reptiles, none younger than 70 years or lighter than 40 stone, prone to spending months in uffish underground thought. Powerful mystics and dispensers of wisdom. Not fond of the Stars, sympathetic to but disagreeing with the Greens, and aggressively opposed all things Albino.
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: Slooooooooow
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: Brain-ormous
Attacks: +4, a single bite from steely beak (2d6+4)
Psionics: master of all Nomad styles, with 30 psi and a Limit of 5. Knows all Generic and Nomad Disciplines, and all Talents.
Wanderer — at the beginning of autumn, when they wake, ancient tortoises may select two skills, languages or weapon proficiencies to have for the next year.
Footprints — once per dawn, when something would hurt them, ancient tortoises may teleport backwards to any location they have occupied in the last minute.
Far-Reaching — when they use a Nomad Discipline to teleport, ancient tortoises teleport twice as far.
Effortless Journey — once per minute, if a tortoise hasn't moved from place, they may teleport 120' feet.

Flaming Skull
5HD (15HP), AC as plate, never checks morale
Giant glowing heads rocketing around the desert by night, fleeing the sunrise. Insanely hostile to everything that lives. Constantly babbling in a language no one understands.
No. Appearing: 1d6
Movement: faster than an arrow
Code: Monster
Intelligence: none apparent? But it speaks in something like language
Attacks: +0, headbutt passing through the target (1d12 radiant)
Psionics: belches hallucinatory flames in a 30' cone. All creatures caught in the cone save: the lowest result(s) glow brilliantly for one round, then are struck by a bolt of light from heaven (4d6 radiant, save for half)
Meaningful Babble — a scholar familiar with the Ancient's language may check SKLL once. On success, they identify a passphrase in a flaming skull's babbling nonsense. Any given passphrase has a 2-in-6 chance of opening an Ancient door or disabling an Ancient war-machine; passphrases only work on one target.
Fake Head — flaming skulls are immune to non-laser weapons and all psionics.

Scorpigan, Mirror-Finish
5HD (20HP), AC as plate, 10 morale
Muscular arachnids as big as bears. Mirror-finish scorpigans are known to worship the dying sun, project beams from their double-eyes, and command lesser creatures like kings.
No. Appearing: 1
Movement: silent creeping, or camel-speed sprinting
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: as human
Attacks: +4, two pinches (4 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d10+4 damage from the halberd blade, plus 1d6 poison and equivalent to every stat)
Psionics: in lieu of attacking, may speak a one-word non-suicidal command. All who hear it save vs. charm or obey. Scorpigans obey its psionic transmissions without it needing to spend a turn commanding them.
Eye Beams — in lieu of attacking, may shoot up to four crackling energy beams at up to four different targets within 300'. Each target saves or takes 1d10 damage of a random type (1. fire 2. lightning 3. radiant 4. blunt force).
Valuable Parts — the plates of a mirror-finish scorpigan's exoskeleton can make eight mirror shields (as shield +1) or two sets of mirror plate (as heavy armor +1 — it's a real kind of armor, google it). Its tail can be made into a heavy halberd +1. If eyes are immediately pickled, they can be turned into a psionic wand that shoots beams for 2 psi.

Naked Mole Bear
6HD (24HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Blind, shuddering pink things three or four times the size of a man. Their faces are constructed bizarrely, with teeth outside the lips, such that they can chew through earth without filling their mouths with soil. Their colonies may have hundreds of miles of tunnels while occupying only a few square miles of surface space. Aerated tunnels promote the growth of mirror-finish bamboo, whose extensive system of salt-sequestering tubers feed the bears.
No. Appearing: 2d6 workers and 1d6 larger soldiers (30HP). If all 18 appear, then a queen bear (10HD, 60HP) is establishing a new hive.
Movement: scuttling, equally fast in any direction
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: as bear
Attacks: +4, two ferocious nibbles (1d6+4)
Psionics: queens can communicate by telepathy, and are willing to trade. Naked mole bears value concrete, vitamin pills, and mercenary service against other colonies.
Darkvision — naked mole bears have darkvision, and their delicate skin is easily burned by sunlight.
Eusociality — most naked mole bears are infertile. They form hives as bees and ants do. Their blind tunnel wars reach scales and levels of ferocity unseen on the surface in these blasted latter days; this is why mystics do not throw their third eyes beneath the sand of the Obol Desert.
Painproof — naked mole bears are immune to agony effects, and damage never makes them check morale. Their cold skin is invisible to infravision.
Scent Marking — may forgo attacking to spray identifying chemicals (and piss) on a target within 30'. other naked mole bears preferentially attack marked targets. the smell lingers for 24 hours; a bottle of scent (and piss) harvested from a corpse lasts for a year.

Eight-Legged Crocodilian
6HD (30HP), AC as plate, 7 morale
Once a year all eight-legged crocodilians (technically several related species of gigantistic amphibious catadromous rhynchocephalia, but who gives a fuck) of a certain age float down the river Neilos to breed, spawn and die just past the delta. Their eggs, buried among pebbly beaches for miles of Obol coastline and on every island, hatch into vicious, fast-growing predators with a biological imperative to reach the headwaters of the Neilos. They are always hungry.
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: lumbering on land, lightning-quick in the water
Code: Charnel God (0 sins)
Intelligence: Apex predator
Attacks: +4, a bite (1d10+4, grapples target) and a tail lash (2d6+4)
Death Roll — in lieu of attacking, an eight-legged crocodilian can force a grappled target to save vs. instant death.
Predator — two crocodilians will not share prey. If two do attempt to target the same creature, they will square off and check reaction; while the two are fighting, it may be possible to escape.

Black Dragon, From D&D
7HD (35HP), AC as chain, 8 morale
Like, uh, you know, like, uh
No. Appearing: 1d4, one adult and possibly its children (7-1d4HD)
Movement: rapid flight
Code: Ancestors (0 sins)
Intelligence: as human
Attacks: +6, two claws (1d6) and a bite (1d10+4)
Dragon Breath — may forgo attacking to spray a line of acid 60', dealing 4d6 acid damage to all creatures in the line (save for half) and half that much to any who pass through (save for none). The line lingers for 1d6 turns, which is also how long until the dragon can use the breath attack again.

Flash Flood Elemental
8HD, AC as unarmored, doesn't check morale
A moving wall of storm overflow faintly resembling a human form crackling with cosmic energy. Another good reason not to get caught in one of the Obol Desert's summer monsoons.
No. Appearing: 1, only in water
Movement: rapid but imprecise, like a pickup truck
Code: Monster
Intelligence: utterly alien
Attacks: +4, two massive fists (2d6+4)
Water Bound — cannot move more than 60' from water
Flash Flood — automatically deals 6 damage to all creatures it passes through or engages in melee
Lightning Breath — may forgo attacking to blast a line of lightning 60', dealing 4d6 lightning damage to all creatures in the line (save for half). Targets standing in water may not save, and all creatures within 30' of them not already in the line take 2d6 lightning damage, save for half.

The Rancor, From Star War
I'm going to be honest with you I'm losing steam on these monsters. You know how to do a The Rancor, From Star War. Why do I have to write it out?

Demon from the Stars
Go read some Clark Ashton Smith stories and come up with something, smart guy.

Quartermaster Role

    One member of the caravan (that is to say, one real-life player) is to be elected quartermaster. The quartermaster handles the supplies of the caravan. They track how many merchants, PCs, tourists, hirelings, mercenaries, adopted goblins, pets, camels, giant spiders, escorted nobles, &c &c are eating the caravan's food and drinking the caravan's water. They track how much food and water the caravan carries, and who's doing the carrying. In short, one player handles a bit of the paperwork and math so the DM doesn't have to. That player earns an extra 10 XP per session. If the DM checks the supplies and discovers a discrepancy, then the caravan's supplies are spoiled. You have 48 hours to reach an oasis before people start dying, and the quartermaster doesn't get bonus XP this session

Ghosts, Ghouls and Goblins of No Fixed Abode

        On the secret GLOG server, semiurge said somebody ought to write a monster post. No setting stuff, no Lore, just 'orrible monsters. Here you go. 

Source: Thomas Nast, political cartoon for "Time"

Carrion Crawler

3HD (12HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
Squamous onychophoric vermin which eat anything and everything. Despite often being in excess of 10' long and 100kg in weight, they move in complete silence over level ground (over extremely rough terrain they engage their claws for traction, which produces a characteristic click-click-click). Carrion crawlers are ambush predators who use darkness and streams of glue from glands near their fanged mouth to sneak up on and disable their prey. Their eyesight is poor, but their sense of hearing is more sensitive than a cat's.
Movement: Never faster than a speedwalk
Morality: Animalistic predator (True Neutral)
Intelligence: Unusually high for a big bug. Form complex social structures in large nests, where mothers protect and raise their live-born young. Capable of understanding traps.
Attacks: +2 to-hit. Vicious crushing jaws (2d6), or a spray of goo (applies a -4 penalty to AC and all physical checks, can be applied multiple times. Removable with alcohol. 3 uses per day)
Soft Body — Can't survive long-term in an arid environment. Loses 1 HP an hour in sunlit areas. Takes 1d6 damage from exposure to salt water, and won't deliberately step across salt spilled on the ground.
Tremorsense — Landbound creatures can't approach within 20' of a carrion crawler without alerting it to their presence.

Who Will Know

2HD (8HP), AC as leather, morale 7
A furtive man in dark clothing, hat low over his face casting a deep shadow, something long and sharp under his coat
Movement: as man
Morality: hateful and sniveling (Lawful Evil)
Intelligence: Smarter than its summoner by just a tad
Attacks: +2 to-hit, with weapon
Man is the Real Monster — a Who Will Know is born when someone dreams day and night of killing another person for weeks and weeks, months and months, years and years. With enough focus, they begin to idealize the murder itself; the Who Will Know is born. It stalks the target like a poacher until it catches them alone and brutally kills them. Who Will Knows always leave bizarre riddles and clues in their wake, at first to terrify the target (things like open windows, menacing notes on pillows, slaughtered pets) and then to mock investigators and incriminate their summoner (bloody messages on walls, poems with obvious acrostics, personal items at the scene of the crime). Until it kills its target, this monster will merely brutally maim and exsanguinate other intelligent beings. After its target is killed, it begins to hunt others, preferring those who know most about its summoner's identity.
Bad Manners — an aggravated Who Will Know will steal the best magical weapon from a party's unguarded camp on a 2-in-6 chance every night, then use that weapon in its murders.
Immortal — so long as its master is alive, when a Who Will Know is killed it returns within 72 hours

Thousand Ghost Strings

1HD (1HP), AC as plate, morale 13
Translucent hands plucking the strings of a golden harp. Always willing to play for a suitably impressed audience. Murderously violent towards philistines.
Movement: instant teleportation room by room in a structure
Morality: interested only in art (Neutral Evil)
Intelligence: maestro's taste for art, illiterate berk otherwise
Attacks: +1 to-hit, strike a chord to send a vein-severing blade of air (1d6+1). One extra attack per turn for each sequential turn it spends attacking.
Ghost Musician — characters armed with musical instruments may play a tune to roll another reaction check with a +2 bonus
Golden Harp — worth 100gp. worth 5gp if smashed or burned by AoE magic or large weapons
Spirit — takes no damage from conventional weapons, fire, poison &c

Hesitate When It

6HD (12HP), AC as leather, morale 7
Enormous brain with six sets of bat wings, twelve eyes, pitcherplant mouth and steely ovipositer. Can't talk, but you can tell it wants to.
Movement: slow bobbing float through the air
Morality: incomprehensible enlightenment (Chaotic Evil)
Intelligence: infinitely beyond yours. So smart it can hear players discussing plans in real life.
Attacks: +4 to-hit, three eye beams (1d8 fire) against three separate targets or vomiting digestive acids (1d8 in 15' cone, check strength or become grappled) once every three turns, or vicious sting against a grappled target (1d8+4, implants target with thought eggs)
Magic:  4ND, Detect Magic, Speak Language, Greater Disguise Self, Cloudkill
Implanted Thought — eggs of the Hesitate When It are immaterial. Affected creatures experience intrusive thoughts of black goats and rapid movement through dark water. After 1d6 days, brain bursts from skull and flies away on bat wings. Drink so much alcohol you must save or die and you are cured.
Exposed Brain — takes double damage from acid, poison, or fire.

Robotic Cop Statues

2HD (8HP), AC as plate, morale 10
12' tall, wielding hundred-pound iron bars and clad in armor of imperishable metal. Glowing red eye-slit clearly indicates where he is looking.
Movement: steady pace just a bit faster than a light jog, never slowing
Morality: Enforces xenia and respect of the Burgomeister (Lawful Neutral)
Intelligence: like a man, but without creativity. Falls for the same tricks every time.
Attacks: +2 to-hit, two relatively rapid swipes (2d6) or one Vom Tag with agonizing windup (2d12, but with -6 to-hit). Always attempts to Vom Tag a target who is standing still.
Hardbody — takes 1 damage when hit with a blade, half damage from hammers and maces, full damage from picks and railroad spikes
Raised Visor — if his Vom Tag misses you, you may run up his weapon (if ye be brave enough) and strike at his eyes (AC as unarmored)

Marmoreal Darling

5HD, AC as leather, 7 morale
Movement: as a man, but totally silent
Morality: bloodthirsty predator (Neutral Evil)
Intelligence: more cunning than a bear
Attacks: +5 to-hit, whiplike limbs (1d8+4, range as a thrown knife) or strangling appendages (strikes only from surprise, renders target unable to speak, opposed MOVE every round: victim escapes after three successes, falls unconscious and is dragged away after three failures)
    These beasts are said to dwell in new growth forests, where fields or towns have been abandoned and the thin young trees have sprung up. Their fat spidery bodies can fold and warp to hide behind fence posts or beneath shrubbery or other places you wouldn't think a creature the size of a cart can hide. The only rigid part of the Marmoreal Darlings are their faces, seemingly carved from marble, which depend from long wavy necks and might be taken for pareidolic tricks of the light in a sun-dappled woods. Darlings prey on lone travelers, especially lost children, though bolder ones may try to steal scullery maids from wells or gardeners from orchards when they are out of earshot from other humans. They strangle their victims with long pink tongues and bury them in shallow graves. After a few weeks, they return to the site to stick their tongues into the ground and suck up the liquid rot.
    Marmoreal Darlings have a cow-like unwillingness to cross even very low fences or pass through even very broad gates. Though they are enormously strong, they never attempt to force doors. Darlings sleep in nests of clothing stolen from drying lines or picked off of corpses. Some have been seen to wear veils or shawls, perhaps to keep warm (they quickly enter a state of torpor in cold weather or at night) or perhaps to enhance their camouflage.

Colored Vire

4–6HD avian, AC as chain, morale 7
Movement: crashing and ungainly when crawling on the earth, fast and silent like an owl while flying
Morality: apex predator (neutral)
Intelligence: turkey-stupid, but with good instincts when protecting its nest or hunting.
Attacks: +2 to-hit, two bites with low-slung jaws (1d6), or one with gnarled claws (1d8+HD). +HD to grapple attempts
Breath Weapon — per color

    Vire (rhymes with "wire") are lone flying predators that roost in rockpiles in dry locations. Despite the fact that they resemble scrawny plucked roosters with bat-wings, they are widely imagined to be a type of dragon, as they possess breath weapons whose elements are connected to the color of their wings. Peasants will call vire "old [color] men" for their distinct habit of craning their necks from a high perch while bundling themselves in their wings; while doing so they faintly resemble 12' tall humanoids with rail-thin bodies wrapped in colored rags.

    All vire have a special organ in their teardrop-shaped bodies which produces a bezoar that they may projectile-vomit 60' away. They can only do this once per hour, and won't waste it when hunting wild pigs or small farmers. A bezoar harvested from a recently-deceased vire is a valuable reagent if immediately preserved in mineral spirits.

    Red vire are the most common. Their bezoar, famously, explodes in contact with atmospheric moisture, dealing 2d6 fire damage in a radius of 10'. Red vire resist mundane fire, and prefer to prey on goats and hikers in their hillside habitats

    Blue vire make their homes in wastes and deserts. Their bezoar produces noxious blue fumes as it flies disintegrating through the air; the moment it makes contact with a target, the vire completes a circuit in its jaws and deals 2d6 lightning damage to all those in contact with the ionized smoke. Notably, Blue vire do not resist lightning damage. If they attempt to use their bezoar during a storm, both they and anyone in contact with the smoke are struck by an actual thunderbolt for 6d6 lightning damage. Vire are dumb as shit and don't know this.

    Green vire are the most feared kind, as they are sometimes encountered by monster hunters expecting easier prey. Their bezoar produces great choking clouds of pus-yellow smoke, which deal 1d6 poison damage every round of skin contact, and another 1d6 with every breath you take. Green vire are immune to the poison of their own bezoars, and resistant to other types.


STRATEGY: Vire are preferential scavengers. They avoid dangerous-looking enemies or large groups, unless protecting their eggs and chicks. During most of the year vire hunt alone but in springtime they nest together. Red Vire mate for life and return to the same nesting areas each year, which are shared between 2–12 pairs. Blue vire mate for life and build a new nest each spring, which the female will guard as the male decimates surrounding ecosystems for prey. Green vire do not mate for life. The flight displays of the gloriously green males — almost always interrupted by a vicious aerial grapple with a rival —  are reason to immediately contact several monster hunters.

TACTICS: Vire are more stupid than most birds. Their decisions in combat are fairly deterministic, which experienced hunters will exploit.
When in combat: 

• If they're in a fair fight, then they flee. Vire will break this rule to protect their nests, but are otherwise terrible cowards.
• If it is the first round of combat, then they do not use the breath attack. Vire never open with their breath attack. Perhaps they are afraid of ambush, or are just slow to react? Either way, they will attempt some other attack on their first turn.
• If 50% of enemies could be hit with a breath attack, then they use the breath attack. Vire are not smart enough to use their breath attacks in a calculated way — e.g. by electrocuting the 4th level Wizard when she's separated from her two 1st level Fighter friends, or by waiting for a better opportunity.
• Red vire will attempt to grapple enemies and drag them (up to 30') off nearby cliffs or across rocky terrain. They cannot lift more than 30 or 40 kilos, so this is their preferred method of killing larger prey.
• Blue vire will attempt to tuck their wings and drop onto targets. If they succeed in an attack, this deals an extra 2d6 damage to the target and the vire flies off. If they miss, this deals 1d6 damage to them and the same to the target, and grounds the vire. If they critically fail, they miss entirely and slam into the ground for normal falling damage. Ha!
• Green vire, the smartest and most vicious, will attempt to use bait. On the first round of combat, they circle the area to locate enemies. Then they vomit their bezoar near the most delicious-looking target and land in the smoke. The vire then grapples them to prevent escape and waits for others to attempt a rescue. If no one comes before the target dies, they're also perfectly happy to eat the free meal and fly off before the smoke clears.

The Bazaar of the Memorable (Obol Desert)

    This is a post for the Obol Desert, a setting I've been working on with friend-of-the-blog Eos of Nobless Goblige. This one mostly focuses on caravans and caravan management. Stay tuned for posts on all sorts of exciting topics, like weather, and what exactly an "oasis" is.

Coinage

    The standard coin in day-to-day life is the copper obol, or co. It's a fat little coin, about five grams (the size of a nickel), and each city mints their own. This buys you a hardboiled egg, a broadsheet, a glass of lemonade on a hot day, a lead bullet, a pinch of snuff, or a ticket to a traveling show.
    The most common coin for buying and selling goods is the silver obol, or so. It's the same size as the copper obol, but ten times more valuable. This buys you a good meal, a day of unskilled labor from the urban poor, a bed at a caravanserai, a skin full of wine, a bucket of oats for your horse, or a pouch of gunpowder.

    For large transactions, there are silver doubles, silver trebles, silver tetrobles, and the silver drachm (six oboloi make one drachm). The rarely-used gold obol is the equivalent of 1 silver stater, 2 silver drachma or 12 silver obols; a gold drachm would be worth twelve silver drachma, seventy-two silver obols, or a jingling sack of seven-hundred-and-twenty copper obols. One gold obol buys you a high-quality backpack, a pair of leather boots, a big knife, a hunting dog, or a musical instrument. Note that an unskilled laborer needs to work two weeks (with Sundays off) to afford a pair of leather boots, assuming that he doesn't need to eat and when the workday is over he falls asleep standing up at the job site. If he's buying food and lodging during those two weeks then he... never buys a pair of leather shoes. Unskilled laborers weave reeds into shitty sandals. It sucks to be an unskilled laborer.

    Six hundred obols, one hundred drachma or fifty staters (the weights, not the possibly-debased coins) take up one slot in your inventory; this is a mina, about 3000 grams of metal in a convenient-to-carry shape. Ten slots make one sack; the GLOG-standard "inventory capacity". A sack of silver is, conveniently, a talent of silver: one talent is ten minae, one-hundred librae, one-thousand drachma, or six-thousand obols. Don't try to compare these terms to historical usages. None of these align even slightly — well, actually, the talent is close enough, but I've been perusing Wikipedia pages about ancient coins until my eyes hurt and not a single one of those ancient fuckers could ever decide on how many tetradrachm to the sextertius, or how many asses make a shekel, or the relative values of an almost-tenth versus a two-tenth (closer to 3:2 than 1:2, I think), so I don't care any more. This is the system they use in the Obol Desert.

Trade Goods

    These are generic high-value low-bulk trade goods, of the kind it is economical to carry overland on camelback. Food, water, lumber, stone — these are valuable, of course, but not enough to justify the high transport costs. The price listed is the purchase price in cities that produce the goods or import them into the desert; generally, you can sell trade goods for significant premiums depending on how far the product has traveled, about 1% per mile of main roads. Specific cities may pay several times the purchase price for select goods; others may have no interest in a product at all. The wily trader keeps track of shortcuts, seasonal changes, and all the little cultural variances which make Andona pay dear for ghoul vinegar and the bedouin trade gold nuggets for an ounce of green dye.

1. Animal Skins. Leathers and furs harvested in the deep desert can be sold to the wealthy city-dwellers, if you ever make it home alive.. One sack costs anywhere between 1–10 silver minae.
2. Asbestos. A miraculous mineral, more valuable than pearls, which can be woven into fireproof shrouds or used as a perpetual wick. One sack costs 15 silver minae. 
3. Black Dye. Blacker than venom, nearly priceless, imported from far, far, far, far away. One sack costs 20 gold minae. 
4. Chrism. A strongly-scented substance harvested from certain trees and mixed with olive oil to make it liquid. Medicos use it to treat injuries and hasten the healing of surgeries, while cultists use it to fuel demon-propitiating lanterns in underground shrines. One sack costs 15 silver minae.
5. Copper. The price of copper is constant between cities, making it a poor trade good (there's no profit in moving money around in a pre-FinTech world), but a good choice as a stable resource to trade for other things. One sack costs 1 silver mina, and is 1 copper talent. 
6. Cotton. A lightweight and marvelously soft and durable textile imported by Foreigners, whose merchants were surprised to learn could sell the sails of their ships for admirable profits. One sack costs 8 silver mina.
   
7. Foreign Pottery. Faintly translucent, like fine animal bone, but hard and heavy like a bronze vessel. Particularly fine pieces may be worth alone as much as a sack of the normal stuff, which costs 12 silver minae.
   
8. Green Dye. Produced in the southern hills, beloved by the bedouin of the desert. One sack costs 5 silver minae.
   
9. Ghoul Vinegar. Explosive and poisonous. Alchemists require large amounts of this stuff for their work, and wizards use it to pickle the eyeballs of horrible things from beyond the horizon of Xater. One sack costs 20 silver minae.
   
10. Glue. Adhesive, produced from pitch or animal bone in the desert and brought to the cities to make boats and other things. One sack costs 6 silver minae.
    
11. Gold. A stable resource, not a trade good. One sack is 1 gold talent.
12. Lead. Dug up in certain desert mines, and used everywhere to cast bullets, produce reliable trade-weights, sweeten wine, counterfeit coins and assemble bizarre arcane devices. One sack costs 5 copper minae.
13. Machinery. Springs, sprockets, gears and cogs, fine chains and delicate mechanisms. Andona's primary export. One sack is 30 silver minae.
    
14. Red Dye. Cheap and easy to sell. One sack costs 3 silver minae.
    
15. Rubber. Extracted from groves of strange trees in northern cities, useful in making waterproofed clothing and containers. One sack costs 15 silver minae.
    
16. Salt. Used to flavor and preserve food, extremely cheap on the shores of the ocean but increasing in price at double the rate as you travel inland. One sack costs 1 silver mina.
    
17. Sandalwood. Maintains its rich scent for many years. Small chests of this wood are used to store fine clothing, sweet treats, or the jewels of blue-bloods. One sack costs 6 silver minae.
    
18. Silk. A wondrously rich, shining textile imported by Foreigners. Takes dye beautifully. One sack costs 20 silver minae.
    
19. Spices. Grown on far-off islands and always expensive. One sack costs 15 gold minae. 
    
20. Spirit of Wine. The most common alchemical product, created by carefully heating wine and capturing its essence in perfumery stills. Generally too cheap to be worth carrying, but a small amount of the good stuff is a valuable gift to a tribe of desert neanderthals. One sack costs 2 copper minae.
    
21. Steel. The best-quality steel is made in Dimashkus, a city which predates even ancient and mighty Andona. Blades, guns and toolheads of dimashkene have a +1 bonus. Purchased in the city itself, billets of the steel are one sack for 15 silver minae.
    

Camels

    The common pedigrees of camelids perform similarly in similar conditions. Despite this fact there are significant differences of price and availability, partly due to economic realities and partly due to desert superstitions and traditions. Pedigrees are differentiated by four factors: their sturdiness, their stubbornness, their virtues and their vices. Sturdiness determines how long a camel can survive extreme conditions. Camels have great stores of vitality, but not limitless ones, and when those stores are exhausted only food and water and rest at an oasis can replenish them. When a camel's sturdiness is challenged, roll a d6 and compare it to their Sturdiness score; if the number is higher than the score, the camel becomes weak. A camel that would be weakened twice lies down patiently in the sand and waits to die. Stubbornness is the measure of how willing the camel is to put up with its driver's stupidity. When asked to do something it does not wish to do, roll a d6 and compare it to the score; if the result is equal or lower, the camel refuses to participate until the situation meaningfully changes (and please keep in mind that camels are very difficult to deceive). Virtues and vices are unique to each breed and generally only relevant for riders, not camel-drivers.

    A brief aside — stubbornness is already scored assuming that you are doing your utmost to persuade the camel. Hitting the camel with a stick is factored in. Yelling at the camel will do no one any good. Screaming at the camel, begging the camel, threatening the camel, threatening the camel's family, insulting it, beating it over the head with a wrench, WHERE 🔧 IS 🔧 MY 🔧 MONEY, none of these things will shift the stubbornness score. Camels are intelligent enough to be vulnerable to psionic damage, but cannot be swayed by mystical techniques.

    Any normal camel can go 30 miles in a day carrying eight sacks, 20 miles carrying nine or ten, or 10 miles struggling under eleven or twelve. A rider is two sacks, and their inventory is a third. You can bump more heavily-encumbered camels up to a higher speed, but they roll for sturdiness at the end of the day. A camel can be provoked into a dash of forty miles an hour for one minute at a time, checking stubbornness at the end of each minute. Camels who have stubbornly refused to dash will not do so again until the next day, unless their lives are in danger. Camels can go a week without food or water with no issue. If running them like this, at the end of the week they'll want to drink 3 sacks of water in ten minutes and eat a sack of food over the course of a few hours.

    Humans can go 30 miles in a day carrying three slots, 20 miles in a day carrying up to one sack, or 10 miles a day carrying up to two. A three-liter waterskin occupies one slot. In the desert, humans require two liters of water per day, plus one liter per 5 miles walked. At a three-liter water deficit, a human has disadvantage on all checks. At a six-liter water deficit, humans fail all checks automatically and begin to vividly hallucinate. When a human is in debt 10 liters, they die in extreme agony. Humans are not as good as camels.

Important Camel Lineages

Baklo Line-Drawer
    Queen of the desert, charcoal-furred beauty beloved by bedouins, common in every caravan. Their ruby-red eyes are filled with ancient and malign intelligence that looks with scorn on the works of man. They take riders well, but they know what blades are, and muskets, and fear them with a rational self-interest.
Sturdiness 2, Stubbornness 3
Virtue: Intense loyalty and startling intelligence. Baklos have been known to drag injured riders to safety over fifty miles of desert; if they like you, they'll even drag you by your collar instead of your hair.
Vice: Hatred of violence. Baklos will never enter a melee, preferring to flee to a safe distance where they can keep an eye on things. Checks stubbornness before carrying a rider with a drawn weapon, or to not dash for cover if fired upon.
Price: 3 silver minae, anywhere.

Oeth Congenial
    Taller than any other camel by a head — and what a large and impressive head it is! Said to have been bred by an ancient, morbidly obese lord who ruled much of the coast of the desert in bygone days. A royal bloodline, then, and one crowned with an oilslick mane like a melanistic lion's.
Sturdiness 3, Stubbornness 4
Virtue: Noble bearing. Checks stubbornness on the first overloaded day, only checking sturdiness that day if its will fails.
Vice: Immense pride. Congenials will not carry anyone who disparages their breed, and will viciously attack any who insults them personally while refusing to carry their baggage (whatever trick you're thinking of trying, they've seen through it before). Only placated by a spa day, in town.
Price: 6 silver minae in the cities, 10 silver minae in the desert.

Midnight Cool
    Resembles its cousin, the Baklo, at a distance. Close inspection reveals the mincing step, milk-white gums, and ingratiating sneer that marks this breed like a fiery brand. The Cools are notoriously pliable — for a camel, obviously.
Sturdiness 1, Stubbornness 1
Virtue: Servile grace. Does not spit, and will not make a sound unless commanded. Some swear that Cools can walk through puddles of water without leaving a ripple.
Vice: Oily meekness. Midnight Cools must check stubbornness if left alone for more than ten minutes; on a failure they have walked off following someone, or something.
Price: 2 silver minae in the cities (or free if you steal it), 6 silver minae in the desert.

Ghoubka Canny
    Its short neck is dwarfed by a pair of tuberous humps. Slablike, sullen brow. Unique odor. No lack of disrespect. Favored by the Foreigners, for obvious reasons.
Sturdiness 2, Stubbornness 3
Virtue: Severe addiction to foreign drugs. Cannies will reroll a failed stubbornness check for an ounce of imported tobacco (36 ounces fit in 1 slot, and cost 1 gold obol), as many times as you can stand hearing it chew and seeing its eyes roll back in pleasure.
Vice: Severe addiction to foreign drugs. Requires one ounce of imported tobacco to put in a days work. Cannies carry nothing, not rider, not food, not water, without the daily ration.
Price: 3 silver minae in the coastal cities, 1 silver obol in the desert (typically from someone who has run out of tobacco).

Suus Gradial
    The bedouin war-mount. Gradials only resemble camels from some distance; desert legend says the first of the breed were somehow cross-bred with scorpigans. Anyone coming face to face with a Gradial, and seeing the twin pupils of their eyes, and their wolfish fangs, is forced to admit that old legends sometimes bear a grain of truth.
Sturdiness 3, Stubbornness 3
Virtue: Petulcus enthusiasm. Lashes out in combat, striking at +2 to-hit with a bite (1d6) as it goes or a pair of thunderous trotters (1d10) if reined up.
Vice: Plain laziness. Gradials would literally rather die than carry a fourth sack. If somehow surprised (say, by a heavy person landing on them), will front-flip and lie still until the weight is gone.
Price: 20 silver minae in the cities, 15 silver minae in the desert (if you can find a bedouin breeder who likes you)

Mirror-Finished Radical
    Radicals are held in superstitious terror by the Hillmen, who insist that feral herds of the beasts are a sure sign of evil spirits. The bedouin hold them to be sacred agents of the Green, sacrificing their own bodies to protect watering holes from defilement. City-folk believe that coats of their shining hair repel disease. Nobody will sell you one for cheap.
Sturdiness 2, Stubbornness 3
Virtue: Cleanliness that verges on godliness. Radicals produce no waste, and their milk and blood are clear citrus-scented water. They can consume any organic material and many inorganic ones. Radicals produce one liter of drinking water per day, or two on days where they have consumed something particularly dangerous.
Vice: Beacon of sin. Those who ride a Radical suffer a -1 reaction penalty with all civilized folk. You will be assumed to have leprosy, or syphilis, or both. Caravans with large numbers of Radicals will be taken for plague pilgrimages, and may require a fast-talking captain to be allowed rooms in small caravansaries.
Price: 30 silver minae in the cities, 45 silver minae in the desert.

Beasts

    These common animals can be purchased in most large bazaars. Raised in captivity, they are kept for their venom or their pelts, or simply as exotic and inadvisable pets. Met in the wild, some are quite dangerous.

Stockwhip Asp (purchasable for 1 silver drachm)
0.5HD (1HP), AC as unarmored, 5 morale
    Possessed of long wiry tails which they swing in circles to produce an irritating whir like a brewing storm. Not aggressive, but will bite the shit out of you if startled. Tradition holds that assassins know how to delicately trick these snakes into biting fruit, injecting them with deadly venom for wicked harvest.
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: faster than walking pace
Code: Desert (2 sins)
Intelligence: animalistic
Attacks: -2 to-hit, two bites (1 damage, HRTS or take 1d8 poison)

Blood-Red Scavenger Worm Long as Your Arm (purchasable for 1 silver stater)
0.5HD (1HP), AC as unarmored, too stupid to check morale
    Foul creatures, the bane of caravans. The color of fresh blood. Any bedouin or hermit will pay a silver drachm for a dead worm; for one thing, destroying scavenger worms is surely worth a bounty, and for another, they are delicious when smoked thoroughly over a low fire.
No. Appearing: 3d6 (a result of 1 on any die indicates an encounter with a 2HD blood-red scavenger worm long as your whole body)
Movement: pathetic hopping and flopping, but can burrow through sand faster than a man can crawl
Code: Monster
Intelligence: deterministic and easily manipulated
Attacks: +1 to-hit, toothy bite (1 damage, anticoagulant venom reduces CON and STR by 1 as the torn flesh bleeds)
Powerful Nose — scavenger worms can smell flesh (living or dead) in contact with sand at a distance of two miles. They preferentially target intelligent creatures, but will chew the feet off of a camel if nothing else presents itself.

Scorpigan, Green (purchasable for 5 silver drachma)
1HD (4HP), AC as chain, 7 morale
    Muscular arachnids as big as wolves. Green scorpigans are known to travel in harems, not fear fire, and to rot in hours when slain.
No. Appearing: 1d6 males and one Alpha Female (6HP)
Movement: quiet creeping, or camel-speed galloping
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: pack-hunting predator
Attacks: +1 to-hit, two pinches (1 damage). If both hit, one strike from bewareful stinger-tail (1d6 poison, check HRTS or unable to benefit from food or rest for 24 hours)
Rending Charge — in combat, a scorpigan can charge a target slower than itself and automatically hit with both pinches. Only one scorpigan can charge a target per turn, and they require 30' of runup.
Alpha Female — the larger female scorpigans have larger pinchers, which deal 2 damage, and more venom, which deals 1d10 damage and applies 48 hours of debuffs on a failed HRTS.

Black Moth, Baby (purchasable for a silver stater)
    Winged insects larger than your outspread hands. Suicidally attracted to light-sources. Often believed to herald death. Can be harvested for one dose of flashpowder, if you are patient and have a good comb.
1HD (2HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
No. Appearing: 2d6
Movement: flight as graceful as a fat seagull
Code: Desert (0 sins)
Intelligence: bugge
Attacks: no
Psionics: those who mean black moths harm save vs. charm to approach within melee range. If failed, suffer one minute of disgusting wracking ugly-sobs: drip snot, produce a lot of racket, and apply a -2 to any checks that require un-teary vision.
Black Dust Wings — when a black moth takes fire damage, they detonate in a 10' fireball. Save or take 1d6 fire damage.

Tiny Jumping Lizard (purchasable for a silver drachm, another buys a little woven cage)
0HD (0HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
    Sings at sunrise and sunset. Delicious when eaten raw, but it's good luck to leave him be.
Movement: as tiny jumping lizard
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: negligible
Attacks: +0 to-hit, ferocious nip (0 damage)
Psionics: carried in its small cage, kept fat and plump with crumbs of food, the song of this tiny lizard soothes the soul of its owner. Rest heals 1 more hitpoint than normal, or restores 1 extra point of stat damage. Those who have knowingly harmed or eaten tiny jumping lizards cannot benefit from this until they have assuaged their guilt at a shrine to the Lizard Gods out in the deep desert.

Albino Camelroo (adolescents purchasable for 5 silver drachma)
2HD (6HP), AC as leather, 5 morale
    Ghostly-white creatures with long powerful limbs and two large humps of fat protecting the spine. Well-adapted to life in the desert, eating cacti and stomping scorpigans flat. Quality pelts may fetch as much as a gold drachm.
No. Appearing: 2d6 females, 1d6 adolescents (1HD, 3HP), 1 alpha male (10HP, does not check morale when protecting wives)
Movement: bounds and leaps as fast as a horse
Code: Desert (1 sin)
Intelligence: pack animal
Attacks: +2 to-hit, pair of ferocious punches (1d6 damage) or a tremendous double-barreled kick (1d6+2 damage, fly 20' back, take impact damage as if falling)
Psionics: alpha males will challenge large or ostentatiously dressed combatants, filling them with injured pride. Save vs. charm or attacks against any other target have disadvantage.

Coyote-Mouth Cattle (a cow for six silver drachm, a bull for one gold drachm)
3HD (12HP), AC as leather, 7 morale
    Built like stone towers, with steely hooves and sharp fangs for tearing carrion or gnawing trees. Domesticated herds live in symbiosis with the Reaver culture. Wild herds live in oasis-rich regions, along the banks of the Neilos, or on the shores of the ocean, with each population being slightly different in size and hide pattern. Outside of mating season the cows travel in large related clans protected by a single massive Grandmother who may mass as much as 1000kg. Desert folklore holds that coyote-mouth cattle speak a language that they never use in the presence of bipeds, even in extreme need.
No. Appearing: 2d6 bulls (16HP), or 5d6 cows with 5d6 juveniles (1HD, 3HP) and a Grandmother Cow (4HD, 20HP)
Movement: like a bigass cow
Code: Charnel God (1 sin)
Intelligence: cowlike for example
Attacks: +3 to-hit, a charge at a distance (1d6+3, target checks MOVE or falls prone) or a powerful kick from the rear legs when close (2d6+3). Bulls with at least 20' of runup deal maximum damage with their charge.
Psionics: receptive to telepathic communication. In combat, Grandmother Cows may force an intelligent target to check SKLL or become overwhelmed with brainfog and lose their turn.
Grandmother Cow — intelligent as an old woman. directs other cows with powerful telepathic broadcasts.

Treasurer

     A large caravan might consist of a handful of wealthy merchants, two or three servants for each merchant, the same number of retainers and bodyguards, a five-man squad of mercenary guardsmen, a dozen pilgrims, a score of camel-drivers, and three or four score camels — not to mention the wizards, slaves, doctors, captured bandits, mailmen, tourists, and the Foreign cartographers and rubbernecks who inevitably end up trotting behind. Such a group needs its officers.

    One member of the caravan (that is to say, one real-life player) is to be elected treasurer. The treasurer tracks the financial holdings and obligations of the caravan. This includes the denominations and value of all the coinage and bullion and gems, the wages to be paid out to hirelings, the conversion rate between various mints, the distance that various goods have traveled, opportunities for larger profits in specific cities, &c &c &c. In short, one player handles a bit of the paperwork and math so the DM doesn't have to. That player earns an extra 10 XP per session. If the DM checks the financials and discovers a discrepancy, then the caravan was surreptitiously robbed at some point: half the money (by the DM's estimate) has vanished and the treasurer doesn't get the extra XP that session.