Vampire pumpkins and watermelons are a folk legend from the Balkans, in southeastern Europe.The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. One of the main indications that a pumpkin or melon is about to undergo a vampiric transformation (or has just completed one) is said to be the appearance of a drop of blood on its skin.
Strangling Noose (d10+3 damage 1 piercing) 24 HP 1 armor
Reach, Far
Special Qualities: Undead, Vulnerable to fire, Moves Slowly
Undead tree formed by the hanging of the innocent from its limbs. It will attempt to strangle its victim with rope and noose from it limbs and drain them of all life. Bodies that eventually fall from the tree often become undead monsters as well. Instinct: Strangles
Inuit Monsters of the Frozen North for Dungeon World
Inuit Monsters of the Frozen North for Dungeon World
ADLET
Group, Intelligent
Talons (d8 damage) 6 HP 0 armor
Close
Adlet are a race of people in Inuit legends said to have the lower body of dogs and the upper body of humans. Typically, they’re believed to be the offspring of an Inuit woman and a dog, brought about through an unnatural mating. The Adlet are typically portrayed as aggressive savages who will attack men when they cross paths.
Instinct: Devours
• Hunts
INUIT
Group, Intelligent
Spear (d8 damage) 6 HP 0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Tribal Hunter-Gathers
Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions. The Inuit have traditionally been fishers and hunters. For the Inuit there was a set way of doing things: Maligait refers to what has to be followed, Piqujait refers to what has to be done, and the Tirigusuusiit refers to what has to be avoided. If an individual’s actions went against the Tirigusuusiit, Maligait or Piqujait, the shaman might have to intervene, lest the consequences be dire to the individual or the community. Instinct: Hunt
• Survive
• Guard Community
• Welcome peaceful strangers
QALUPALIK
Group, Stealthy
Claws (d8 damage) 6 HP 0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Aquatic, Immune to cold
Qalupalik is an Inuit mythological creature. It is a human-sized marine goblin-demon that lives at the bottom of the sea, with long hair, green skin, and long fingernails. The myth is that qalupaliks wear an amautiit (a form of pouch that Inuit parents wear to carry their children) so they can take babies and children away who disobey their parents to become qalupaliks. The story was used to prevent children from wandering off alone, lest the qalupalik take those children in her amautik underwater and keep them forever. Qalupaliks are said to make a distinctive humming sound; therefore, they can be heard before they appear. Instinct: Steal Children
• Lives in the Inuit marine Underworld
• Charms children
• Make a distinctive humming sound
MAHAHA
Solitary, Planar
Nails (d10 damage 1 piercing) 16 HP 0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Immune to Cold, Immune to non-magical weapons
Mahaha is a maniacal Inuit demon that terrorized parts of the arctic. This creature is described as a thin sinewy being, ice blue in colour and cold to the touch. Mahaha’s eyes are white and they peer through the long stringy hair that hangs in its face. This demon is always smiling and giggling. It is strong, very strong and it is always barefoot. Mahaha is usually seen with almost no clothing on yet it never seems to be bothered by the cold. This cold demon takes pleasure in tickling its victims to death with sharp vicious nails attached to its long bony fingers. Many elders have remarked on the expression of the dead victims Mahaha leaves behind. It seems all of the victim have a similar expression on their dead faces – a twisted frozen smile. Although this demon is twisted and evil, Mahaha is easily fooled. Most of the stories told about Mahaha end with it being fooled. Usually Mahaha is tricked into leaning over a water hole to take a drink and is pushed into the open water and swept away by the currents. Instinct: Tortures
• Haunts
• Inuit Demon
SAUMEN KARS (TORNITS)
Solitary, Large
Claws (d10 damage) 16 HP 0 armor
Special Qualities: Immune to cold
The Inuit Yeti or Bigfoot; these solitary creatures are nomadic, roaming the wastes to settle temporarily where they are lucky enough to find food, shelter, or both. They are omnivorous, but the climate dictates that the lion’s share of their diet is meat, and Saumen Kars consumes the flesh of any creature but their own kind.
Instinct: Preys on humans
• Hunts
SEDNA AVATAR
Solitary, Divine, Magical, Planar
Skeleton talons (d10+2 damage 1 piercing) 25 HP 0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Divine, Primary Inuit goddess, Does not suffer fools, Aquatic, Immune to magic, Immune to non-magical weapons, Commands dead spirits
Sedna is the Inuit Goddess of the Underworld and the Ocean. The Inuit believe the afterlife to be located at the bottom of the sea; which Sedna rules. Sedna started existence as a simple Inuit girl. Sedna was killed by her father. Varying legends each give different rationales for Sedna’s murder. Yet, in each version, her father takes her to sea in his kayak, chopping off her fingers and throwing her into the sea. In each version she sinks to the bottom of the sea; to be worshiped by hunters who depend on her goodwill to supply marine sea creatures to hunt. She is generally considered a vengeful goddess, and hunters must placate and pray to her to release the sea animals from the ocean depths for their hunt. She is often depicted with a fish tail, like a mermaid. Inuit souls are sent to her for a year after death before they are reincarnated back into their tribe.
Instinct: Punishes
• Rules Inuit underworld and oceans
• Commands sea creatures and the dead
• Inuit Goddess; appears as an arctic mermaid with skeleton talons
SIXAM IEUA
Solitary, Divine
Arctic curse (w[2d10+2] damage) 12 HP 0 armor
Close, Far
Special Qualities: Heal travellers, Bless weapons to hit demons, Mute
A rare type of Inunit guardian shaman found in Dan Simmons’ novel “The Terror”. The shaman of a community of Inuit was not the leader, but rather a sort of healer and psychotherapist, who tended wounds and offered advice, as well as invoking the spirits to assist people in their lives. His or her role was to see, interpret and exhort the subtle and unseen. The Tuunbaq can be pacified by the throat singing of an otherwise mute Sixam ieua (special Inuit shaman), rendering it as close to docile as it can be made. This entire shaman group has had their tongues removed to gain their special powers and usually refrain from all forms of physical violence against human beings. Instinct: Protect
• Guide
• Heal
• Bless
• Inspired by Dan Simmons’ novel “The Terror”‘
TIZHERUK
Horde, Large
Bite (d6 damage 1 piercing) 7 HP 0 armor
Near
Special Qualities: Aquatic
In Inuit mythology, the Tizheruk are large, snake-like sea creatures that are believed to roam Alaska’s waters. They are described as having a head 7 feet long with a tail ending in a flipper, for a total of 12 to 15 feet long. Tizheruk were said to snatch people from docks and piers.
Instinct: Snatches
• Consumes
TUUNBAQ
Solitary, Large, Planar
Bite (b[2d12] damage) 20 HP 1 armor
Near
Special Qualities: Impervious to non-magical weapons, Demon, Immune to cold
The Tuunbaq is an Inuit Demon, a devourer of souls and eater of flesh. The Tuunbaq is encountered as a large polar bear with an extended if not elongated neck, and is impervious to non-magical weapons. The Tuunbaq can be pacified by the throat singing of a Sixam Ieua (special Inuit shamans), rendering it as close to docile as it can be made. The Tuunbaq was created by the Inuit Goddess Sedna to murder the other Inuit pagan gods, when it failed she exiled it to the far north and taught special shamans how to confine it there. Instinct: Consumes souls
• Haunts
• Ancient Demon of Frozen Wastes
• Players killed by Tuunbaq may not be restored unless it is destroyed
A rare variant version of the Crypt Thing, the Crypt Seer inhabits a distant and dangerous location; usually a crypt deep in a dungeon. It will answer almost any question or teleport a party home in exchange for a rare (often magical) item the party has which it covets. Talkative and entertaining it will never answer a question truthfully that it has not been paid for with a offering by the party. It appears as a skeleton in tattered robes with glowing blue eyes. Items given to a Crypt Seer in payment will vanish mysteriously; sometimes reappearing later in a distant hoard.It normally waits in an alcove or on a chair provided for it.
Special Qualities: Can only be seen by children and the pure of heart, appears randomly to those who have seen it and escaped, faceless, body of shadows
Moves
• Appear to those who have seen it, in reality or their dreams
• Vanish without a trace
• Lure them away
• Take them from this world
Long ago a man, who’s name has been forgotten, loved a maiden with all of his heart and soul. She did not return his affection however, which led the man to seek other methods. He went deep into the dark forest to the hovel of a witch. She told him she could help, but her magic requires at least some feelings to exist before it could take hold. She had to give him a kiss, freely, and her heart would be his. If he could not open her heart before the moon disappeared from the night sky, then his own heart would shrivel and his soul would be cursed to never find peace.
He went to his love, hopeful to at least gain a kiss from her, but yet again his advances fell on deaf ears. When the moon was but a sliver in the sky, the man grew desperate and tried to force himself upon her. He was thwarted when the lord of the town came upon them. The man was taken by guards and soon died from the curse during his torturous punishment, being stretched on a rack.
After the man’s death, the lord and maiden married. Their first child, a girl, grew to the age of seven before disappearing on a night when the moon had left the sky. To this day, people say that any who are innocent should not enter the forest on moonless nights, or else they may be stolen away by a faceless figure, tall and thin as if it had been stretched too far.
So if you see your child staring into the forest at night, or they begin to draw strangely thin men with pale, featureless heads and bodies of darkest black, heed this warning. The Faceless Man is coming for them…
The Tuunbaq is a Inuit Demon, a devourer of souls and eater of flesh. The Tuunbaq is encountered as a large polar bear with an extended if not elongated neck, and is impervious to non-magical weapons.The Tuunbaq can be pacified by the throat singing of a sixam ieua (Inuit shaman), rendering it as close to docile as it can be made.
Little by little, a monster or three every two or so days, I’m taking my Chance Encounters (written for Swords &…
Little by little, a monster or three every two or so days, I’m taking my Chance Encounters (written for Swords & Wizardry) and converting the monsters for use with Dungeon World. Depicted is a sample of dreadful, disease-eating zymotic ants.
A furred snow serpent is an immense snake covered in thick white fur. They range in length from 60 to 80 feet long, with a head sad to be “as big as an elk” or a horse. At one snow serpent skin was said to be as long as a ship’s mast was tall. They are hot blooded, mammals not reptiles. Snow serpents dwell in the frozen wastes of Nehwon. They also can be found on the higher altitudes of snow and ice-covered mountains peaks. There they feed on various specious of mountain goat and antelope (as well as any luckless travelers who happen to fall into their clutches).Snow serpents are ambush predators, counting on their coloration to render them effectively invisible amid the snow and ice of their home. They will often coil up into depressions or under overhangs, and then strike at any unwary prey that wanders into their range.Afterwards, the snow serpent will find some place secluded to sleep off and digest its meal. As prey is scarce in the mountains and icy wastes, snow snakes will try and take any likely prey item they encounter.
Special Qualities: Formed out of local city structures
Paramentals are the elemental spirits of inanimate forces. It is unclear whether they are drawn to cities because of the large quantities of “city-stuff” or created by them. When manifesting, they draw their physical substance from the materials nearby. Paramental entities are quite hostile to those unlucky enough to draw their attention, “about midway in nature between the atomic bomb and the archetypes of the collective unconscious.” The one example featured in the novel “Our Lady of Darkness” was a brown humanoid, with an eyeless triangular face and long chin that tapered to a snout.
Instinct: Destroys
Manifests
Arcane construct
“From his window there thrust itself a pale brown thing that wildly waved its long, uplifted arms at him. While low between them, he could see a face stretched toward him, a mask as narrow as a ferret’s, a pale brown, utterly blank triangle, two points above that might mean eyes or ears, and one ending below in a tapered chin … a questing mouth that looked as if it were sucking for marrow.”
