April Fools, everyone. This week, we’ll be covering commissions from @glarnboudin, who requested a variety of monsters from different incarnations of Scooby-Doo. Honestly, I was kicking myself that I’d never thought to do Scooby-Doo monsters before: as a young child who loved monsters but was a huge coward, Scooby-Doo was an excellent training-wheels way for me to get my creature fix.
The Creeper is perhaps one of the most iconic monsters from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? series. He regularly appears in spin-offs, reboots, even a State Farm commercial. I’ve seen him referred to as a take on Frankenstein’s Monster, but I think he’s more a melange of multiple hulking brute killers from B-horror movies. The name is derived from Rondo Hatton’s character from House of HorrorsandThe Brute Man, and I feel like his look owes more to Lon Chaney Jr. in Indestructible Man than it does to Frankenstein]
Spectral Creeper This muscular humanoid is hunched over, with a dull, dead gaze and hands clenched. His skin tone is a gray-green, and he has clearly been dead for some time.
Spectral creepers are the reanimated corpses of cat burglars, pickpockets, and other non-violent thieves. Typically, a spectral creeper forms when one of these criminals dies with unfinished business—with a major heist planned, but not executed. If the creeper achieves this goal post-mortem, it continues with even bigger and bolder heists. A spectral creeper is never satisfied with the wealth they have, accumulating riches upon riches. A few creepers will even allow their treasures to be reclaimed just so they can steal them a second time.
A spectral creeper is most notable for its ability to pass through locked doors, solid walls. It can empty chests or lockboxes without opening them by reaching through their sides. They cannot do this endlessly, however. Most spectral creepers still carry thieves’ tools to help them disarm traps or open locks in case of emergencies or to assist their minions. Spectral creepers are also skilled in disguises, and may masquerade as the living in order to case a target or evade detection. Regardless of whether or not the spectral creeper was violent in life, all of them are willing to kill in pursuit of a mission. Their fists are heavy and their grip tight, but they still cannot resist rifling through the pockets of their victims even as they crush them.
[We end @glarnboudin‘s commissioned Scooby-Doo monsters with one from a DTV movie I was unfamiliar with. Apparently, it’s the ultimate source of the “Shaggy is all powerful” meme. There are several fake dinosaurs in Legend of the Phantosaur, but I went with the most outrageous, spooktacular version for my monster.]
Phantosaur This great luminous beast appears as a reptilian bipedal nightmare. Its head is massive and outfitted with great jaws and horns, its arms and legs each end in clawed appendages, and a row of spines runs down its back culminating in long spikes on its tail. The air around it shimmers.
Phantosaurs are born from the projections and expectations of mortal minds. They are composed of imaginings and nightmares about prehistoric beasts, especially dinosaurs, given solid form. As many hold perceptions that the beings of the past were savage killers, so too are phantosaurs driven to violence at random. No two phantosaurs look alike, but each resembles a patchwork of different dinosaurs and megafauna. Although they are born in the Dimension of Dreams, some make their way into the Ethereal Plane, and from there into the Material Plane.
A phantosaur’s entire life is devoted to violence, and they are exceptionally skilled at it. They attack with a variety of natural weapons—different phantosaurs may have different combinations of attacks, based on their physical appearance. Regardless, all phantosaurs have a deadly bite, which afflicts those struck by it with a regression to an imagined, feral past. Creatures so affected grow physically larger and bolder, but are incapable of even the simplest speech and are wracked with violent urges. Phantosaurs rarely encounter creatures capable of withstanding their onslaught, and as such often don’t consider fleeing until the last minute, if at all.
As creatures drawn from the mind, phantosaurs have no natural ecology. They may be corralled by dream hags and other evil creatures associated with the Ethereal Plane, but more frequently are free agents of chaos and destruction. Cults occasionally spring up around a phantosaur, seeing it as an embodiment of savagery—to these sects, surviving a phantosaur’s bite and being inflicted with its atavistic rage is a sign of the highest honor. Phantosaurs are typically solitary, but some have been seen cohabiting in sites sacred to Bokrug the Water Lizard.
Screenshot from “Don’t Fool With a Phantom”, accessed at Scoobypedia here
[Commissioned by @glarnboudin. In doing research for this set, I have been watching the relevant episodes of Scooby-Doo. And this one confuses me a little. The Wax Phantom himself is pretty standard–corporate executive disguising himself as a monster to steal from his own company–but the red herring is weird. The Wax Phantom was supposedly animated by Mr. Grisby, a disgruntled wax museum owner, who seems to genuinely believe his black magic brought the thing to life. He’s also gray, dresses like the Crypt Keeper, and has a shack full of ghosts and animated skeletons. So either Grisby actually is magic and the undead are real in this version of the Scoobyverse, or he’s just so dedicated to his craft that he lives in a Spirit Halloween Store. Either seems plausible.]
Wax Phantom This looming figure appears to be a roughly shaped humanoid made out of running wax. It is faintly luminous, and its facial features are contorted into a crude grimace.
Wax phantoms are undead-like constructs created as instruments of vengeance. They appear as rough humanoid outlines the size of an ogre, incredibly strong for their size. Wax phantoms are frequently used to kidnap chosen targets—they can scale sheer walls, burst through doors or other protections, and encase victims in a cocoon of wax to take back to their lairs. A wax phantom under control of its creator follows the master’s bidding, but free-willed wax phantoms typically kill their captives in sadistic, drawn out fashions.
Constructing a Wax Phantom A wax phantom is created by building a body around an animated humanoid skeleton. The wax is sculpted into an effigy of a person or thing the creator hates, and then melts back into a monstrous form as it animated. The wax must be infused with unholy water and rare herbs worth 1,000 gp.
CL14th;Cost101,050 gp Construction Requirements FeatsCraft Construct; Spellsanimate dead, geas/quest, false life, fear;Specialcreator must be caster level 14th;Skill Check Craft (wax) DC 22; Cost51,050 gp.
Still from “Watch Out! The Willawaw!”, accessed at Scoobypedia here
[Commissioned by @glarnboudin When I was a kid in the 90s, I thought of The Scooby-Doo Show as “the last good Scooby-Doo”. Even at seven, I hated Scrappy Doo with a passion. Through adult eyes, The Scooby-Doo Show is a decidedly mixed bag. The humor is even broader and more slapstick than the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, and Fred, Velma and Daphne are even flatter characters. On the other hand, the character animation is more fluid, and the creature design more ambitious, than the original series. There’s more monsters that are non-humanoid, like the Willawaw here, which is a rocket-powered balloon.]
Willawaw This great bird appears to be a silver-feathered, horse sized owl, with luminous eyes and an aura of sparks surrounding it. It emits a horrible screech.
A willawaw is a spiritual owl-like creature that considers itself the guardian of wild places. Each willawaw has an expansive territory which they happily share with animals, plants and fey, but they reject the trappings of civilization. They are not inherently hostile to humanoids, but do distrust them unless they pay proper respect. Humanoids intending to exploit their homelands for resources are driven away or even killed.
A willawaw is able to attune its senses with those of birds in their territory, and they can spy on their lands from afar whenever they choose. A willawaw’s lair is typically well hidden and guarded for this purpose, as the creature is comatose and vulnerable while riding inside another bird. They are frequently friendly with giant owls, who see them as smaller but more powerful cousins. They do not typically get along with thunderbirds; willawaws consider thunderbirds vain and glory-seeking, and thunderbirds see willawaws as stodgy and conservative.
In combat, a willawaw opens with its horrible shriek, scattering enemies in a panic and then targeting those who resist. Creatures that get too close to a willawaw are electrified and illuminated, as plasma from the willawaw’s body expands and covers them. A willawaw’s favorite tactic is simply to pick up an enemy, carry them far away and leave them elsewhere—dropping them from a high height if they especially annoy the beast. Against those that seek to despoil a willawaw’s land, however, it is merciless, striking with magically created thunder and lightning.
A willawaw has a wingspan of twenty feet and stands seven feet tall. They can live for centuries if not slain in combat.
[Commissioned by @glarnboudin. I’ve watched three episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Show as an adult for monster-based purposes now, and all of them feel less “horror mystery” than “adventure pulp”. The monsters are less drawn from horror tropes and more giant animals, the settings are far-flung locales, the clues are perfunctory (even by Scooby-Doo standards). This, unfortunately, also means we’re three for three with episodes with unfortunate racial caricatures. In the episode “Jeepers, It’s the Jaguaro”, the “head-hunters” that worship the jaguaro are particularly bad, but so is Casey Kasem trying to do a Speedy Gonzales-esque “latin” accent as a pilot.
Incidentally, I like this image of the jaguaro because it bothers to give the damn thing jaguar spots!]
Jaguaro CR 10 N Magical Beast This massive beast resembles an oversized ape, except for its black-furred head, which is like that of a saber-toothed cat.
The jaguaro is a powerful jungle predator infused with elemental earth. They are able to transform themselves into stone statues at will, waiting between lean seasons for food to return to their territories. With their affinity for stone, jaguaros often excavate caves into cliff sides as a redoubt to hide their slumbering statue forms. Such caves attract creatures seeking shelter, and thus ensure the jaguaro has an ample source of prey.
In combat, a jaguaro prefers to spring from ambush, transforming into flesh and blood and striking in the same motion. Their diamond-hard claws can chisel through wood and stone with ease. They are typically distrustful of large structures, and a jaguaro on the rampage will destroy bridges and houses. Jaguaros are peevish and determined, and may chase prey for hours before giving up.
Jaguaros are occasionally discovered by humanoids in their statue form. Some cultures venerate the creatures as god-like beings of destruction or hunting, and others instead domesticate the beasts. The jaguaro itself may view even the most fawning petitioners as a source of food unless it is soothed through the use of magic, wild empathy or lots of bribes of meat. The most ambitious of these cultures may carve their own jaguaro statues, hoping to attract a curious jaguaro investigating a possible rival or mate. A jaguaro can live for hundreds of years, and multiple generations may venerate or work with the same beast.
Although jaguros do not collect treasure, their very bones are laced with diamonds. A jaguaro’s carcass yields diamond dust worth half the standard treasure value for a creature of its Challenge Rating.
For a second I didn’t realize it meant “high” as in a stoner–I thought “High Geologist” was like a rank of geologist or something and he was insulted you would challenge him to naming stones
