Monster Mythos

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:29 pm

I'd like to request help with a board game I'm working on. It involves people hunting (and being hunted by) various supernatural monsters. I think I've got the mechanics down well enough to start playtesting, but the monsters are all mechanically interrelated and so I'm having trouble coming up with good names for the monsters, abilities, and equipment so that their mechanical effects make thematic sense. My knowledge of monster myths is mediocre at best, so I'm hoping someone can give me some useful suggestions.

I've penciled in some names for things, but I'm willing to change any of the names if someone can make a better suggestion. I don't really want to change the described mechanics unless you can make a really good case, though.

So here's what I've currently got, and what I need...

POWERS

There are 5 monstrous abilities in the game; you get dealt two of them randomly, and each possible pairing represents a different monster. What I've currently got:

Bite - A powerful attack
Wasting - An attack that inflicts damage and also saps energy
Magic - An attack that can cause lots of weird effects
Resilience - A defensive ability
Tireless - An energy-management ability

MONSTERS

Every combination of 2 powers is a unique monster. Every monster needs to be able to pass for human. I've penciled in:

Bite + Wasting = Naga
Bite + Magic = Vampire
Bite + Resilience = Werewolf
Bite + Tireless = Revenant
Wasting + Magic = Warlock
Wasting + Resilience = Gorgon
Wasting + Tireless = Spirit
Magic + Resilience = Lich
Magic + Tireless = Fairy
Resilience + Tireless = Golem

DETECTORS
Each item in this class works on 5 monsters, and can either identify someone as being a monster from that set, or function as a weak weapon against a monster from that set. None of these can hurt humans.

The sets were chosen for mechanical symmetry, not thematic considerations: each includes exactly half the monsters with any given power, and each includes a different half of the monsters with that power. Thus, if you know a monster has, for example, a bite attack, using any of these detectors will cut the pool of candidates in half, and then using (almost) any other detector will cut it in half again (down to one possibility).

Therefore, when I write "vampire" (for example), I actually mean "whichever monster ends up getting assigned the bite and magic attacks".

The current names are pretty random; I just made a snap decision based on one or two monsters in the set.

#1: Golem, Lich, Naga, Revenant, Warlock. "Dog"
#2: Fairy, Golem, Gorgon, Naga, Vampire. "Garlic"
#3: Fairy, Lich, Naga, Spirit, Werewolf. "Iron"
#4: Fairy, Gorgon, Revenant, Warlock, Werewolf. "Silver"
#5: Golem, Spirit, Vampire, Warlock, Werewolf. "Salt"
#6: Gorgon, Lich, Spirit, Revenant, Vampire. "Mirror"

WEAPONS
Eac of the items in this class is particularly effective against one particular monster, but also works on 3 others. These weapons are capable of damaging humans, if you target one by mistake.

The symmetry rule is: one weapon is strong against each monster, and that weapon also hurts all the monsters that don't share any powers with that monster. That's a little weird, but the other symmetry rules I tested didn't work out mathematically.

I've only got placeholder names for these ("X Bane"), so I won't bother writing them.

#1: strong vs. Vampire, also works on Golem, Gorgon, Spirit, Human
#2: strong vs. Lich, also works on Naga, Revenant, Spirit, Human
#3: strong vs. Fairy, also works on Gorgon, Naga, Werewolf, Human
#4: strong vs. Warlock, also works on Golem, Revenant, Werewolf, Human
#5: strong vs. Naga, also works on Fairy, Golem, Lich, Human
#6: strong vs. Gorgon, also works on Fairy, Revenant, Vampire, Human
#7: strong vs. Spirit, also works on Lich, Vampire, Werewolf, Human
#8: strong vs. Revenant, also works on Gorgon, Lich, Warlock, Human
#9: strong vs. Golem, also works on Naga, Vampire, Warlock, Human
#10: strong vs. Werewolf, also works on Fairy, Spirit, Warlock, Human

What names can I use so that these mechanics make as much sense as possible?

PhaedrusXY · Post by **PhaedrusXY** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:13 am

Thematically, Naga and Vampire need to be swapped. Vampires drain blood/energy with their bite. That sounds like bite+wasting to me. In D&D at least, Nagas are giant snakes that cast spells. So they should be Bite+Magic.

I don't have much input for the names of your weapons at the moment. I don't really understand why you have to have so many, though... Each player only gets one weapon and one detector or something? No golf bag, eh?

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:39 am

What's the background? Modern day, 30's call of Cthulhu, D&D mock-medieval, or what?

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 5:29 pm

Somewhere between Victorian and modern; certainly not medieval. Game takes place in a big creepy mansion.

There are a lot of weapons because there's only one copy of each and they're distributed randomly. Players also have limited inventory space, but are trading out their items for new ones they find while simultaneously trying to get clues about what kind of monster they're facing (and who it is), so that they can make better item selections. It's kind of like Clue with combat.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 5:46 pm

PhaedrusXY wrote:Thematically, Naga and Vampire need to be swapped. Vampires drain blood/energy with their bite. That sounds like bite+wasting to me. In D&D at least, Nagas are giant snakes that cast spells. So they should be Bite+Magic.

Sounds like "wasting" should be called "venom" or "poison".

Some weapon ideas:
#10 is a silver dagger.
#1 is a wooden staff or spear.
#7 is a magic lamp/lantern/torch
#9 is a hammer?
#3 is a silver bow
#5 is a great big axe

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 6:43 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Sounds like "wasting" should be called "venom" or "poison".

It was originally, but as I was trying to fill out the monster list, I ran into trouble around Poison + Tireless, and thought maybe I should try to make it more generic.

I don't have any particular objection to changing it back, or swapping vampire and naga, or whatever makes the most sense. The goal is just to name everything in a way that will make the maximum amount of sense to the maximum number of players. Though I'll mention that the wikipedia article on nagas mentions particularly strong poison, and doesn't mention magical powers (that I noticed while skimming) except for disguising themselves as humans.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 7:10 pm

#2 could be a blessed somethingorother.