Encounter: The Dream Eater Baku

Sleep tight, buddy!

Almost all of the encounters so far in the affliction series have been pranksters at best, antagonistic at worst, and this time, I wanted to something different for the last in the series. The baku is a mythological creature from East Asia, with legends in China and Japan in particular. If a child wakes from a nightmare, it can call for the baku's help, who will then eat the nightmares and allow the child to go back to bed peacefully. Today's afflictions are Sleep and Unconsciousness.

Encounter: Red Lantern, Green Lantern

You thought I meant the
other Green Lantern?
Get your head out of the gutter,
I don't even read American comics!

Paralysis is such a mundane affliction. I don't mean that it is incredibly devastating or that it doesn't end a battle easily. I mean, it doesn't really tell a story by itself like some other afflictions do, and that means the person who creates the encounter is burdened with *gasp* being creative. I know, I basically wholesale robbed a concept from a children's game, but hey, it might be interesting mechanical fodder in GURPS. Let's see what Red Lantern Green Lantern (Or, Arreljeeal for short) is all about.

Encounters: Lightning Pug

Hue hue hue hue hue hue.

It skitters into sight. It bares a toothy maw and flashes out of vision. Rain is pouring, and the echo of the water sloshing down the gutter gives a steady timbrel to back the pricking sound of hundreds of drops, and then it appears again, much more substantially this time. The Lightning Pug. Today's affliction is seizure. And I decided it will be delivered via pug. Let's see how that goes.

Encounter: Aeromola

See attribution at the bottom.

Flying fish are a pretty typical fantasy and video game staple. Sometimes jumping out of the water to knock you off a platform or... just swimming, in the air. Probably easier to animate and more daunting or pretty than a fish flopping around and gasping for air. Today, I'm borrowing that concept for the choking affliction for an original creature I call the Aeromola. Let's take a look at putting it together.

Encounter: Prickly Pal

Boil a flower and pour me out.

Cacti! Cacti are spiky, they have spikes because they lose less moisture than leaves! They can have neat flowers, and they can grow super deep roots. They also tend to grow weird looking "arms" at right angles, making them ripe for anthropomorphism. Today's affliction theme is hallucinations, and I'm gonna riff off of desert mirages. Let's see what we get.

Encounter: Gorgon Calf

Cute

Today, I am looking at the dazed affliction, and it was crazy thinking of a good one. I talked with my brother for a long while bouncing ideas back and forth, and I decided on the "gorgon" which might be better called the "Strange Libyan Beast" or maybe Catoblepas to distinguish from the Greek mythological concept of a Gorgon. However, because of a naming used in The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, we well live with this ambiguity for all eternity. Gorgons can instantly kill with their breath, but I want something a little weaker, hence the reason we are using a calf. Let's see what we come up with for our pseudo-ungulate friend.

Encounter: Dire Bombardier Beetle

BUG!

Nature is cool, and sometimes scary, and that is great. Sometimes, a monster writes itself. Read the wikipedia article on the bombardier beetle for example. I mean, a lot of people already don't like bugs as is, but this guy can shoot a nauseating chemical at over boiling temperatures! It doesn't just make one sick; it burns! Beetles have a really cool biology all by themselves, but you put that on top of it, and now you have something crazy awesome. Today's theme is Nausea, with retching as a side effect! Let's see what we can do with this guy.

Encounters: It's a Twofer, Lotus Mold Trap and Euphoria Cap Monster

Did it just get a little funky in here?

Ha ha! Mushroom spores! They have a tendency to make people feel funky in video games; it is a gateway to a plethora of various afflictions. But today, I'm focusing on two. The irritating euphoria condition and the devastating ecstasy condition. But, the twist here is that we are working with two things in a one-two combo. Part the first: a mushroom lowers your inhibitions with euphoria. Part the second: the mold takes your weakened will and entices you to touch it, rub it all over yourself, roll around in it, eat it! Let's see how we put these two things together.

Encounter: Airman of War

Something like this, but nothing like this.

A jelly! Today, I'm posting about the pain affliction. It was kind of hard for me to think of an interesting animal or spirit that represents the concept of pure pain. So I asked a bunch of friends again, and the answer that immediately struck me was "jellyfish". Now Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 (a worthwhile book) already has a jellyfish type monster, but 1) it's incredibly powerful versus what I'm trying to go for and 2) it is more themed around the concept of electrical attacks. I am going to try to design a low level jellyfish monster around the concepts of the afflictions "Moderate Pain", "Severe Pain", "Terrible Pain", and "Agony". Let's see how that goes.

Encounter: Booze Hound

You want a drink, brother?

Continuing my concept of developing encounters using the list of GURPS afflictions as a guide and CER to balance them for low level, today we come to Tipsy and Drunkenness. A monster that can do both! A diffuse alcohol elemental in the shape of a dog!

Encounter: Dust Bunny

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Looking to create some monsters that create various afflictions, so I decided to maybe just trying to go down the list of afflictions to see what would be interesting. Just straight browsing the list, the very first affliction is "Coughing/Sneezing" and the first good idea that came from my friends when I asked them was a "Dust Bunny". So... that's where I am at. Let's try to play up the annoyance aspect and force multiplier aspect by making a monster that is easy to defeat, but also has a good possibility of ruining someone's day before it happens.

CER: Need more weak enemies with Afflictions, so Jigglypuff!

For The Life of Me, I couldn't find anything else.

I want to play a low powered Dungeon Fantasy game, but I need some weak enemies. Let's make something unusual. I don't do this often, but let's make something with an affliction!