How does it square with your heroes when the bad guys treat their animals better than the good guys? What if your villain pets the dog?

Read the transcript and get more from the show:

https://scintilla.studio/monster-war-spider-mcdm/

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Join the conversation: www.twitter.com/SparkOtter

Meet my guests:

James Introcaso: https://twitter.com/JamesIntrocaso

Flee, Mortals! The MCDM Monster Book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mattcolville/mcdm-monster-book

Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com

Picture Return of

the King and the Ollyphants coming

in and laying waste to the white

city Gondor in Lord of the rings.

Here's the deal is that, it's like that.

But instead of an elephant bringing

in a bunch of warriors on its back,

it is a giant, enormous spider.

Huge, huge spider with this

platform on its back and goblins

firing arrows and throwing these

little rodents called skitterlings.

And then the spider can also like

flex its abdomen and fire goblins

off like warriors off into the air.

Um, the other thing is that when

it dies, a swarm of baby spiders

burst forth from its abdomen.

gross.

So, so yeah, and this

James, why have you done this?

All right.

Let's see if this works.

Giant spider chucking, goblins giant,

spider John King goblins giant, spider

Chucky, goblins jogging, goblins

stupid.

Hello, and welcome to Making a Monster,

the bite-sized podcast where game

designers show us their favorite

monster and we discover how it works,

why it works and what it means.

I'm Lucas Zeller.

Building on years of experience as a

tactical dungeon master and a frankly

uncanny ability to explain the nuances

of the game in a single take with

no audible pauses, I mean, come on,

Matt Colville has created a small

design company for original fifth

edition content called Matt Colville

Dungeon Master productions, or MCDM.

Colville's lead writer is a returning

guest on the show, James Introcaso.

He's here to talk about "Flea Mortals!

The MCDM Monster Book," which is

busily smashing its stretch goals on

Kickstarter and has, as of the time of

recording, made almost $1.3 million.

The conceit of the book is to replace

the monster manual you already

have with new and better monsters.

So I asked James about the monster I

goblins.

I'm here with James Introcaso, who is

the lead writer for M C D M or Matt

Colville Dungeon Master productions.

He has had a long career in tabletop game

design, having worked with Wizards of the

Coast, Roll20, Kobold Press other awesome

publishers before he came on to MCDM.

And he's been on the show before, for

Burn Bryte, talking about the teleporting

mischief fox the Blipp, which was a

whole lot of fun and really rounded

out the first season of the show.

Very well.

So, James, I'm happy to have you back.

Welcome back to Making a Monster!

Thanks, Lucas.

Thank you so much.

So it's a, it's an honor and

privilege to get to come on and talk

about monsters and have some fun.

My role at MCM is basically lead designer.

Matt is the design director, and he says,

here's a bunch of things I want to do.

I want to make a monster book.

I want to make a magazine.

I want to do this.

And then I go and, hire all of the

people who work on those projects, you

know, the contractors in terms of the

people writing not in terms of art.

And then I also write myself and I

edit everybody's work and I, you know,

so I sort of act as the the project

lead on all those projects and bring

those things together and, and sort of.

The final say.

So, and then Matt is there to

consult with and that sort of thing.

But he really wants to be

able to take a step back and

like big picture at some more.

So that's, day-to-day making

RPG products for for MCM.

Congratulations, man.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is it is still very strange

sometimes that this is the case.

So, but I am glad it is the case

that it seems to be working.

I wanted to talk to you about

MCDM's upcoming monster book and

I wanted to park on this because,

the working title for that work

is, or was monsters and villains.

If you've followed this show for any

length of time, or if you remember

GM edition, I've spent quite a

while parsing out the difference

between a monster and a villain.

So I think I do want to address

that with you, but you've opted for

a different name, for the project.

What does it now?

So, yeah.

So the name of the product now is

flee mortals, the MCDM monster book.

and we wanted to go that route because,

you know, obviously we have strongholds

and followers and kingdoms, and more

fair are two of the other big releases

that we've had, on Kickstarter from MCDM.

But we did realize that, we'll never

own noun ampersand noun, right?

In this space that already belongs

to somebody who, who who is very

kindly given a open game license to

us to allow us to make our things.

So we thought if you want to step away

and differentiate yourself, maybe we

should break that mold a little bit.

And and so we have gone with this

because we think it's evocative.

We think it's fun.

You see the book and it's got a monster

on the cover and flee mortals and

big capital letters and everything.

And you're like, this is great.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Well, it's a solid business

decision and it's a solid

storytelling decision as well.

But part of the reason I wanted

to bring it up is because

there's a really fascinating.

Attitude that comes with that

title that I think you've

reflected in in the book as well.

So some ground rules, or rather some,

some context in, in terms of Dungeons

and dragons, they define the word

monster as anything with a stat block.

Which is from a technical writing

standpoint, from a dungeon masters

standpoint, very useful from a

literary philosophical, analytical

standpoint, incredibly problematic,

and it makes for a rich conversation.

So by changing the title.

And also you've kind of sidestepped this

in the book, by giving a different name

to monster itself in, in that context.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we, we

generally agree with that.

You know, we write for fifth edition

Dungeons and Dragons, and so we

use their style a lot and the word

monster does appear in this book.

It's right there on the cover, but we

use the word creature a lot more because

I think often creature is also used as

like a catch all for everything from

commoner to you know, gelatinous cube.

And so we wanted to do the same thing

and, and we're doing some things to sort

of get the idea across that the stat

blocks in this book are living creatures.

And so like, you'll notice that D

and D step blocks often default to

the "it" pronouns for creatures,

which can be confusing because

we also use it for objects.

So we use "they," we default to "they"

when we the gender of a creature in

a stat block and that sort of thing.

You know, we're just sort of looking

for places where we can make it more

more accessible to people so that they

can understand like, Hey, these are

living things and they can be used

in your game in many ways, right?

They're NPCs and they're all sorts of

things, but the title "Flee, Mortals!"

is also saying, this is a book to battle.

And we take great pains to make sure that

this is the case that we're saying this.

It doesn't mean that because goblins

are in this book, every goblin is

something that is going to fight

and challenge the adventures.

On the contrary we actually go, do we

say most goblins, like all humanoids,

are normal people and they just want to

live and they're kind to their neighbors

and they're nice to everybody else.

But when there are goblins who are thieves

or murderers and they're pushed out of

society, because of that this is how they

act, and this might be what they would do.

And you might find them with, you

know, hanging out with other bandit

humanoids and things like that.

And so that is sort of the

idea behind the book, right?

Is we don't want to paint any

ancestries or sapient creatures

really with like such a broad brush.

We wanna, we want to get in there

and we want to give you the worst

of the bunch so that you can have

fun tactical encounters with.

yeah.

Yeah.

Something that triggers the

fight flight or freeze response.

And I, and I love that.

There's that, that scifi echo in

your voice calling them "sapients".

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's funny that comes from

my Burn Bryte experience.

We talked

I remember that one.

yeah, yeah.

A lot about creatures.

And and Darcy Ross who is a scientist

and was a game designer on that said,

you know, we call a lot of things

sentient and a lot of creatures

sentient, but sentient just means

you are aware you exist in the world.

So like plants aren't necessarily

sentient, but like my dog is sentient.

And, and we don't think of it that way.

Sapience is really what we mean

often when we say sentience.

And of course the way language works

now, sentience also means sapience so,

not to be too pedantic on this show.

Right.

Well, I, I mean, it is kind of my brand

uh, but now, and I did want to dig into

that a little bit before we got to our

specific monster, because being this

careful about language versus when it,

especially in terms of "creature" and

"monster" and "sapient" and "humanoid",

was there anything else that you had to

do to kind of the core style of the way

things are written for fifth edition in

order to accommodate this choice to call

things by the name "creature" more often?

No, honestly,

fifth edition does use "creature"

a lot in the core rules.

And in fact, in their mechanical language,

they use "creature" a ton, right?

If you read a spell, it says, you

know, pick a creature, you can see.

And, and they'll differentiate

between creature and object.

So, you know, for a living thing,

in a non-living thing and and they

also will, we'll use a creature

outside of that context, but they'll

use monster a lot in the lore.

So it was just using creature a lot

in lore, but like I said, we don't

shy away from the word "monster"

either because of the way it's used.

And also I think.

If people see a monster on the cover

of a book, if they're D and D players,

they know what it means, they associated

immediately and that sort of thing.

So we don't want to move to

the point of accessibility.

And we also, you know, Wizards of the

Coast is taking strides forward with

what they're doing, both in terms of

the, the sensitivity with which they

approach these things, but also within

the mechanics that that they're creating.

And so we're just trying to

also do the same thing that is

happening over wizards of the coast.

You know, we're a company of eight people

that don't have like Hasbro corporate

overlords and we don't have to answer it.

So like, we can move a little

bit faster in that sense.

But it was interesting cause we were

working on our book at the same time

as, as they were working on monsters,

the multi-verse and it was like, oh

look, we thought of a lot of the same

things that we're we're going to do.

So that was a fun.

One of the places in

which this approach to monster

is focused very intensely is at

the very bottom of the adventure.

So if you get, and I believe this is

still the case, that last mine's offend

delver is still part of the starter set.

And it's still the first

experience that most people

have with Dungeons and dragons.

And the first encounter in lost

mine's a fan delver is goblin ambush.

And if you're not careful, it

is a TPK waiting to happen.

Goblins occupy a remarkably influential

place in the game relative to how

they're treated lore wise, to my mind.

And I featured a couple of different

goblins on the show, and I think designers

gravitate to goblins for this reason that

goblins have often been used as like the

first thing you fight, you hit them and

they turn you into level two and now you

can fight something more interesting.

So I've never been entirely comfortable

with goblins for that reason.

Looking at goblins in that lens, what

was it that drew you to add a whole

bunch of goblins to flee mortals?

One of the things is, we

wanted to make goblins more interesting.

So in terms of, foes in fifth edition,

you've got the goblin and you've got

the goblin boss and then, in Volos

more goblins appear and that sort of

thing, but we wanted to make it so

that goblins could be interesting.

And maybe you would stick with

them as the villains of your

campaign for several levels.

But also to to help flesh out like this.

Tactical nature of them, so that it's

not just, they charge it, you fully and

wait to turn into bags of hit points

and that sort of thing, and give them

interesting things to do both inside

of combat and out of combat so that

you can really, have fun and have a

memorable in counter, with goblins.

That's why our preview document,

that's coming out for flee.

Mortals has a lot of goblins in it.

And the other thing is, you know,

we're, we're famous for putting a

little fourth edition into our stuff.

So.

For the addition has what are called

roles for all of the creatures, right?

And the roles are things like soldier,

which is kind of like a tank or lurker,

which is sort of like a, you know, you

hide in the shadows and then you pull out,

you come out and attack or brute, which

is your bag of hit points that hits really

hard and has some other cool features.

And so we've brought back

monster roles to to use those,

to help you build an encounter.

Because if you look at your thing and

say, oh yeah, I'm going to use all of

these creatures and you can say, okay,

well, I don't want it to just be all

artillery because when my players run up

into melee, The artillery won't really

be able to use their coolest things.

So I'm going to have some artillery back

here, and then in the frontline, I'm

going to have some, soldiers and brutes

to stop them and that sort of thing,

and goblins have that capability now.

And so goblins are dangerous,

they're crafty, and they also

can make like really good allies.

So one of the things this book has is

creatures that will adventure with you.

And so in the goblin section,

there's a goblin retainer, which

is a follower who joins your party

and we'll, we'll come with you.

that's a big, important thing for us

is again, we wanted to say like, are a

bunch of different aspects of this sort

of creature, particularly with humanoids.

And here's a bunch of different

versions of them that you

can use as allies or as foes.

And you'll create a fun and interesting

encounter with them that will be

memorable, but also will like increase

your respect for the goblin a little bit.

So that's our hope.

There is a conversation

here about how about goblins is

representations of the enemy other and,

Sure.

exotic races.

And I would love to hit on that

if you're comfortable with it.

But I

I would.

I would also like to acknowledge,

that it's two, white guys, talking

about that in that sense too.

Yeah.

And again, I wear my biases on my

sleeve with this show and part of the

ways that I try to control for it is

to talk to the people who designed the

monster itself and just look at the

conversation in the scope of how it's

represented in a single step block.

So there's a lot here that we can't do.

And there's a lot here that just relies

on kind of tracing influences and seeing

where this stuff has come from and being

honest about what we're working with.

and actually that kind of leads me

into my point because we therefore

needed need to step blocks of work

with, and I was particularly attracted

to the idea of the goblin war spider.

So paint me a picture,

James, what is this thing?

The war spider is

if you a picture return of the king

and the Ollyphants coming in, and

and laying waste to the white city

Gondor in, in Lord of the rings.

Here's the deal is that, it's like that.

But instead of an elephant, bringing

in a bunch of warriors on its back,

it is a giant, enormous spider, right?

Like bigger than a giant spider, huge,

huge spider with this platform on its

back and goblins firing arrows and

throwing these little rodents called

skitterlings And then the spider can also

like flex its abdomen and fire goblins

off like warriors off into the air.

Um, And it also has blades

tied to its legs, the spider.

Um, So as it's going through it

can, it can blade, blade you up.

And so, yeah, so that is the,

the war spider in a nutshell.

The other thing is that when

it dies a swarm of baby spiders

burst forth from its abdomen.

gross

so, so yeah, and this

James, why have you done this?

that was Matt's

idea and but I fully endorse it.

I do wanna, I do want to underline

that I'm not going to, I'm not

going to throw him under the bus

cause I was like, "That's the

coolest thing I've ever heard."

But so, and one of the things about me is

that in real life I am an arachnophobe.

And and sort of like Batman is scared

of bats and wants his enemies to

also fear bats, I want all players

everywhere to share my fear of spiders.

And so that is what the war is spider

really is, is you know, this idea

of, we wanted a lot of different

creatures to have like a war

beast, what do they ride into war?

And so the war spider is inspired by

a Warhammer figure actually that, you

know, D and D miniatures are very cool.

But if you look at like

Warhammer miniatures, there's

some weird stuff going on.

And it was you

clearly occupying a

different they're clearly playing

on a different level there or

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

Right.

Well, and that's their

whole business is minis.

And so that's, there's this miniature

that is a spider with a platform

on its back and a bunch of goblins.

And Matt used it in one of his

streamed games and we were like, we

should make that an actual creature.

And so that is what happens with the,

with the war spider, a lot of fun.

That's remarkable.

So there's two influences

already that we're working with.

One is just you as an author:

here's the thing that I hate.

And the other is like, here is the

toy that I had lying around to,

to fit it onto the table itself to

carry the game in the moment, which

I think is how we got a couple of,

some of the classic D and D monsters.

The rust monster is the most

notable example that comes to mind.

But the other thing that I wanted to bring

into this is we're talking about roles and

we're talking about mounts in artillery,

and there's a whole lot of stuff here that

has to do with the way wars are fought.

And there may be there, there,

there are certainly other

capsules for culture and value.

And the, the things that, that Groups

of people have access to., could you

look back into history and I would trust

Matt and MCD to do this and point to

real world armies or battle tactics that

relied on this kind of an engine of war?

Yeah.

Well, I think right when and taking

the elephant comparison, right?

Like thinking of Hannibal crossing the

Alps on elephants to invade Rome, I think

is probably like the most one of the

most sort of like talked about examples.

And one reason it's talked

about is I think like that's

a shock and awe tactic, right?

Elephants classically, when they get

scared are like dangerous to be around,

let alone try to ride somewhere.

So it's but, but that idea of

like, you know, we have this

really one of the things that.

Many many, many people fear, right?

Like arachnophobia easily is in the

top three fears globally of people.

We have this thing we're

riding into battle.

It's part of the shock and awe experience.

I think you see a lot, even

in modern warfare, right?

Like we, we want to have the

biggest bombs or the biggest

tank or the fastest fighter jet.

A lot of that is not necessarily

about it's it's used as

a deterrent almost right.

Of like a don't mess with us.

You might think that we're little

in small, but look at, look at this.

We have the biggest spider.

And

a value to it beyond the

intrinsically it's the fastest

fighter and the biggest spider.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So, you know, I think there

is there's a lot for that.

And obviously we do

turn to war quite a bit.

And the reason we do that is because,

you know, Dungeons and Dragons being

the game that it is, you know, look

at 90% of the class features that you

get look at there's a whole book of

stat blocks for creatures, look at

what most of the stats are telling

you that the game is about, is a game

that has a lot to do with the combat

encounter and the combat experience.

So we do look to that, but

we want to acknowledge right

in this book, that goblins.

More than going to war and often

they are, you know, like I said, most

goblins I think are just like most

people, they don't want to go to war.

They have no desire to and when they

take up arms, it's probably to defend

someone and that the goblet, but the

goblins who are going to cross swords

with adventurers are probably thieves

and murderers and bandits and you know,

all that kind of bad stuff that, you

know, again, they might be working with

humans, they might be working with any

other elves dwarves, that kind of thing.

Is there something that

you added to the worst spider stat

block that you're really proud of?

Yeah.

So I I did most of the,

the war spider stat block.

So Matt created the baby burst, which is

amazing, and that is what it's called.

But so I really love the ride

launcher which is just a trait

that they have that when a goblin

or any allied rider, actually.

So it doesn't need to be a goblin.

You can use the war spider as you

know, if you want to remove it

from goblins, you totally can.

And so any allied rider that jumps off

the back of the spider has a long jump

of 30 feet and a high jump of 15 feet.

They land safely in the first melee

attack that they make has advantage

after leaping off the spider.

And so, yeah, and that's like speaks

to the fact that this is a mount,

it's, it's trained to launch people

off of it and and, and work with them.

You know, as another trait called

wide to back, which lets essentially

lets two creatures stand in a

space instead of one, so it can

carry more creatures on its back.

And then I do, you know, the bladed legs.

I was really proud of just, just

cause I think that's pretty metal.

That's really all,

Yeah, we've got a

spider and we've got all,

this scrap metal lying around.

We're tying stuff to its legs, man.

This is, this is happening.

exactly, exactly.

You know.

Oh gosh, aesthetically,

is there anything?

Hmm.

So the trouble with the monster manuals

is that you're trying to write this

in a, in a way that any DM can use.

But is there is there an aesthetic or

or kind of a, kind of a look that you're

going for, or a genre that you're pulling

from, with the war spider and the way it's

laid out or the way it looks in your head?

yeah, so that's

a, that is a good question.

I think for me There are I used to work

for National Geographic and I promise

this is going to answer your question.

All right.

I'm on for this ride.

Here we go.

And there's a

show on National Geographic that I

helped promote called Brain Games.

And it's, you know, it's like a fun

show you watch and they do games too.

And, and you see how your brain

reacts and they tell you about it.

So one of the things they'll do is

they'll say, alright, watch your TV.

We're going to run through a

bunch of images very quickly.

And they do do, do, do, do, do,

do all these images at a clip.

And they'll say like, "Hey, did

you see the yellow umbrella?"

No, you didn't.

The images went too fast.

Did you see the, the blue pants?

No, that, you know, and then they'll say,

okay, we're going to do it again with a

different series of images and they do it.

And they have, again, a lot of mundane

images, but within it, they put images

of spiders and snakes and your brain.

I can pick those out.

And the reason your brain can pick those

out is because we evolved in a, in such

a way that people who are already scared

of snakes and spiders had a higher

survival rate when we were, you know,

humans who were living outside or hunting

and gathering more often than we are now

because we avoided venomous creatures.

And so like, there is already something

hardwired in evolution in our brains

about spiders for us to fear them,

not everybody, but, but many people

like genetically fear spiders.

And, and it's a good thing because

there might be less of us if we did not.

So that is all to say the war

spider has a look that is very

similar to a real world spider.

Because we wanted to invoke that,

like you turn the page and you're

like, oh, what is that reaction?

And I remember the first time I

saw the war spider, I had like

a like, whoa, what are we doing?

And for a while, I actually couldn't go

into the artist chat because they were

like sharing pictures of giant jury

Angela's and things like that to be like,

yeah, no, the legs should look like this.

And the mandibles should look like this.

And the but the thing that it has, right?

Like the thing that makes it iconic

is it has all of this gear on it.

So it's got this big platform on the

back and that's really iconic so that

it can hold as many writers as possible.

And then the legs you know,

it's not just a metal strap to

the legs because the goblins.

Like the spider.

They treat it well, they don't

want the spider to come eat them.

And so the, the the blades

are like first, she didn't

leather and tied to the leather.

And then it's, it's almost like the spider

is wearing little boots that allow its

feet to be free so that it can still

grip to stuff and everything, you know?

So like picture, picture of a

boot that just covered your calf

within a blade strapped to it.

So that's kind of the thing.

Now, the goblins themselves

have more of a distinct look.

So we wanted to create like

our own look for goblins.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's

some things about goblins that

people can interpret certainly

as like anti-Semitic right.

I

That's been one of the

big issues that came up before

yeah,

it's fraut.

It is, it is.

And I certainly understand it.

And so one of the things that we

did was like, okay, what if instead

of a traditional, like goblin nose

we went with goblins, have a more

pronounced sort of jaw and an almost

protrudes kind of like a canine thing.

And their nose is actually kind

of small and sits a top of that.

And then what if goblins also, like

what if instead of caves all the time

goblins were like arboreal, right?

What, what, what would that look

like if they lived more in trees?

If they had evolved from creatures

that had lived in trees, like maybe

they have like sweet prehensile

tales, or maybe they have, you know,

what, maybe they have a posable toes.

And that's where we ended up is that they

have opposable toes and these like sort

of longer arms that make them look more

arboreal and they are also, they got fur.

They have body hair.

And so there and still, you can

still look at them and you still

know that there are goblin, they

still have sort of some traditional

elf ears that goblins often have.

And, and and you know, their skin

is greenish, but it's fur covered.

And so, like, we wanted to

make our own look for goblins.

And I think it, it turned out pretty well.

So, you know, you'll see a

lot of them in the packet.

We, we have them, so, yeah, that's cool.

First of all,

who did the art on this?

Or, or did you have an artist

that was assigned to goblins and

the war spiders specifically?

Yeah.

So the war spider specifically

was made by Nick Despain.

And Nick is on staff here at MCM.

So we have three artists on staff and we

also work with contracted artists as well.

And then the goblin look all three

of our artists developed together.

So, Jason Hazenauer, who is

the art director, he's the head

of the art department here.

And Grace Chung and Nick Despain

all work together to create

the look for the goblins.

And, and we went through like

a concept art phase, right?

Like there's a lot of art that no one will

ever see of, of our, well, I mean, you

might maybe we'll release like a concept

art book or something that would be up to

the art team if they wanted to do that.

But it was really fun because

they would be like, well, what

does everybody think of this?

And then the whole staff would

weigh in and say, oh, I, you

know, I think this, I think that.

And the art team would say like, oh,

okay, well, we're going to go back where

they'd say like, you're wrong, James don't

w we're going to keep going whatever.

And and so that was you know, that

was how this all came together.

And that was how the war

spider came together too.

There was a lot of talk about like, you

know, should it be more fantastical?

Should it be more, it should, it, should

it itself have some of the features

of the goblin we were developing.

And, and all that kind of stuff.

And it turns out the answer was no, we

wanted it to be like a big old spider.

And it's the worst thing possible

that's ever happened to me.

Well, doing all this work

for a new, a new look and a new

design for goblins in general.

Did that come with a section of

lore that you guys had to write

or a new take on it that ended up

in a story section of this work?

Yeah.

So we have not a ton, you know, we have a

lot of staff blocks and we have about the

same amount of lore as you would expect

to see in like the fifth edition monster

So a few hundred words per.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

But we do, our lore is I would

say different than what you

would find in the monster manual.

You know, like I said, we start by, by

talking really not about the goblins,

you fight, but about goblins in general.

And we say like all humanoid ancestries,

many different goblins, many goblin

cultures, each with their own ideals.

We talk about that goblins

you know, are one of the most

numerous humanoids in the world.

And they can be found in trees,

ending caves and all over the place.

So we did do a little bit of our own

sort of what our interpretation of the

lore is and how we'd like to use it at

M and our worlds and stuff like that.

And then we talk, then we get into like,

you know, in the third paragraph, we

start talking about like, all right,

so the goblins who face adventures in

combat are like this, then we go down

a little bit more and we talk about

heroic goblins who who go on adventures

themselves, what are they like?

And that sort of thing.

So, and then we also get into

there's a special goblin.

So Matt did a video a long time

ago on action-oriented creatures.

I've referenced it several

times on the show actually.

oh, excellent.

So we have an, so we have a lot of

action-oriented monsters in the book.

And in our preview the idea of

action-oriented monsters is we

wanted to give you, like, not just,

Hey, here's an action-oriented

goblin, here's an action-oriented,

you know, Overmind or whatever.

We wanted to give you like, here's

the goblin boss and here is the

action-oriented goblin boss.

Her name is Queen Bargnott and here's

the lore about her and here's what

she's about and that kind of thing.

So we give you lore for this one

specific goblin leader named Queen

Bargnott then of course, you know, if

you want to change Queen Bargnott into

a different NPC, you're welcome to do

that and it's and use her stat block.

Giant is another one of those

words that gets a little bit more

mileage in the monsters monster

design space than it would elsewhere.

So what kind of scale are we talking here?

Just in terms of the monster itself and in

the places in which it's most effective?

/sure.

Yeah.

So, so the war spider is huge

in, in those terms, right?

Your traditional guy giant spider

is large in the monster manual.

So, so huge.

Our war spider is just

a little bit bigger.

And so, so these, again, this is this

is a creature that is when used in

combat, usually like being made to

either defend against a law, a group

of powerful people, or being used

to like assault a compound or, or

another army or something like that.

So you probably won't find.

War spider in every community of goblins,

goblins who are invading places might

have them or those who are worried

about being invaded might have them.

And, and that sort of thing,

it's kind of like, not everyone

owns a tank or has the space

Don't

Yeah, yeah.

Or even like tanks aren't

effective in every battle.

That's also the idea, right?

This would be in a place that

could accommodate a big

creature that can run around.

They have a an action called Trample

where they move their speed and

everything that they run over with

their bladed leg, they get to attack.

And so it's like, you, you need some

room, you want some room for the

spider and you ideally, you want

some cool stuff that can be climbed.

You know, you want ledges and, and

because that's the fun of a spider is

that they can get to places that, you

know, like an elephant can't climb up

the side of a cliff or a wall, but, oh

man, if they had these war spiders at

Helm's Deep, let me tell you things would

be a little different things would be a

little different in Lord of the Rings.

Is this meant to operate in kind

of the M CDM broader theater of war?

Is this like built for a thing that you

guys do specifically, or do you expect

people to just kind of have these big

theaters built into their games already?

It's a great question.

So this this book is a little different

from Strongholds & Followers and Kingdoms

& Warfare in that like Strongholds

& Followers and Kingdoms & Warfare are these

things that you can add on to your game.

Probably pretty obvious from the

titles, what they add to your game.

This is a book that we are pitching:

you can use it in addition to your

monster manual or in place of.

The idea here is we're not giving you

a new, entirely new creatures, right?

Every, like we said, everybody's heard

of a goblin before they've you probably

fought them if they've ever played an RPG.

So the idea behind our book

is that you could use it.

Now there are also wholly original

creatures in here as well that, to add

some fun and excitement, and you can use

our goblins with the goblins, from the

monster manual, if you want to, right?

Like you can mix match, you can do

whatever you want, but the intent,

our design intent is that you only

need this book if you want to run

the, the game as far as where are

you going to get your creatures from?

So.

That said it, of course does

some things at differently.

Because we are MCDM and we

want to add some things.

So one of the first things that it does

is we add these companion creatures

retainers for humanoids that are like,

you know, people who follow you around

and the player who is the mentor to the

retainer controls the retainer, right?

Like you have a stat block, it's much

simpler to run than a character sheet, so

you can run them along at the same time.

And we've improved the retainer

rules from Strongholds & Followers.

And so our plan is to like revise

them, you know, keep, keep going.

And then when we're happy with them,

we'll probably go back and revise,

Strongholds & Followers to do there.

We also have companion creatures.

And companion creatures are the

same thing, but for non humanoids

what you might say, sentient,

but not sapient creatures.

So, you know, owlbears and

gelatinous cube, companion,

and all that kind of stuff.

We put out a bunch of companions

already with our Beastheart

class when that came out.

So you, you get a preview of that.

We're adding more of those to

that book, new, like entirely

new in this book will be minions.

So we've been working on like

it's super fun to take on a whole.

Good zombies.

And so we wanted to be able to give you

that feel of like cutting through a field

of zombies or you know, skeletons or if

you're higher level, maybe fire giants.

And so, so this idea of

minions and how do they work?

Because in fifth edition, fourth

edition, it was, they had one hit

point, you hit them and you move

on to the next blah, blah, blah.

Pretty easy.

Fifth edition has some rules

that make that more difficult.

So like, for instance, the sleep

spell very effective against minions.

If everybody just has one hip

point, you know, things like a wall

of fire that just automatically

do damage magic missile, right?

Like you're laying waste

to millions in a way.

It's through play testing, we

have learned is not as effective.

So we have different ways

of, of tackling that.

And there is a, and then we have the

action-oriented creatures, which are

creatures meant to either be fought

alone or creatures that are meant

to be fought like as the leader of

a band in a climactic encounter.

And they have a couple of you know,

underlings around them defending them

and that sort of thing teammates.

So, you know, that's, those are the,

those are the sort of the big things

we're bringing along with a couple

of little innovations, like we're

moving CR to the top, right corner of

the stat I don't know, you know, and

creature rolls and things like that.

We'll probably have some new

encounter building rules to try to

make encounter building a little

easier and and that sort of thing,

but that's, you know, this is mostly

about giving you really cool monsters

to, to run in, in combat encounters

so that you, you and your players.

The most enjoyment there.

And one of the things that we're doing

right is we've learned some lessons.

We tried to do that in

kingdoms and warfare.

We ended up with these massive,

massive stack blocks that went

across two pages and it was like,

okay, we're going to pair that down.

We're going to, we're

going to make it simpler.

Everything you need is on one page.

But we're also committed to like, we

don't want to give you a lot of spells.

So you have to look up

to shorten a stat block.

So, you know, and again, this

is the thing that comes up in

monsters of the multi-verse.

You know, we're, we're giving people

more bespoke, custom features that

are right there in the stat block.

I want to park in the relationship

to nature because we've, you know,

you have the Beastheart, you have

companions, you have mounts and you have

your own work with National Geographic.

So, my work as a designer has spilled

over into the intersection of, of tabletop

role-playing games and natural history and

how we kind of relate to those together.

I wonder if the, the goblins and

the war spider tell us anything to

your mind and maybe to the, to the

team at M CDM about how heroes and

villains relate to the natural world.

Yeah.

I think, you know, it's, it's interesting,

especially right now we're living.

In a time where nature is in trouble

and in a way that nature is starting to

hit back against humanity to, to sort

of like, Hey, you got to stop burning

those fossil fuels or, or, or you will

be wiped from the face of the earth.

And it's scary.

And I think I like, you know, so

I think about every day sort of

humanity's relationship to nature

in that respect, but also our

relationship to nature in that.

Like, I think we often think of

ourselves, especially if we live

in cities and, and drive cars and

whatever like that, we're separate

that we are somehow not part of nature.

It's wild because we are right.

Like we're living,

breathing, farting creatures.

And, and so we have this connection

to this world that has made us.

And I think sometimes we, we separate

ourselves from that in a bad way.

Like, oh, we have to save the earth.

And we don't think about

like, we have to save us.

That's what we're talking about.

It's not like an act of good will

we're doing, it's a it's self

preservation when we save the earth.

And so I think when you think

about it that way All of

these things go hand in hand.

And so when I think about heroes and

when I like working with nature, I

think often we see in fantasy movies,

this idea that like the heroes are the

ones who they're not mining, right?

Like they're not pillaging the earth.

And and that kind of thing,

they're, they're going out there

and they're working with the ents

to destroy Isengard for instance.

That kind of thing.

And I think it's interesting to

have villains who are not the

ones who are doing that, who

are like, Hey, see this spider?

We actually treat this spider really well.

And that's why this spider works with

us, not because we're like, we're

mean to it and we're kicking it and

we're whipping it or what, like that,

that would never work a huge spider

like that, that we would just eat.

And so it means that goblins,

even the ones who are going to be

villains in this book have this

relationship with nature that is deep.

And, and one that if you're riding a war

spider you understand, and is probably

important because you have friends who

are tied to this, but it's also something

that is that, that is worth defending.

And so I think you know, there's scenarios

in this book where it could be that like,

Hey, you adventurers from the big city

who are out here defending your mine;

have you ever thought about what all of

that runoff is doing to us down here in

our, in our community here in the woods?

And it's like, wow,

that's, that's cool stuff.

And maybe you can get the players who

are playing these heroes to think twice

before they just go in with guns blazing.

And so, that's you know, I hope

that answered your question.

It did.

Yeah.

That kind of turn from applying a heroic

attribute to, to to a creature that's

functioning in the role of the villain

for the purposes of the story and all the

questions that makes you ask as a player.

So if you are

interested in Flee Mortals, the MCDM

monster book you can head on over

to MCDM productions.com, where there

will be more information there.

Also if it's afterwards, if you're

like, "Oh no, I missed the Kickstarter!"

guess what?

Backerkit's up there, and

we're taking late pledges.

So you can head on over there to

to get your sweet, sweet book.

It's like an exclusive mini and

stuff like that too, that people can

check out, but MCDM productions.com

will have all of the info you need.

Thanks for listening

to Making a Monster.

If this show has earned five of

your stars, please leave a rating on

the podcast app of your choice and

consider leaving a review as well.

It's a small thing, but it really does

help new listeners find the show and take

a chance on listening to a few episodes.

And I fully believe that if they

get that far, I can keep them.

You can learn more about the

relationship between D and D and

conservation by checking out Book of

Extinction, a monster manual of extinct

species, resurrected for D and D.

Learn more at scintilla.studio/extinction,

or follow this podcast for more

episodes in the Extinction series.

Thanks also to MCDM and James

Introcaso for being a part of the show.

Lucas, thank you so much,

really for having me really, really fun.

Yeah.

I really enjoyed our last interview.

MCDM is, doing some really clever stuff.

And you guys have your own outlook on the

game and your own way of moving forward.

So I was really excited to get

to talk about the thing that

you're putting your efforts into.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Like, yeah, it's just been it's

it's this is what my life has been

for a while now, this monster book.

So it's fun to be able to talk about

it with somebody outside of M CDM

too, and, and and see like, oh, okay.