30 Day OD&D Challenge - Eldritch Wizardry Monsters (Part One) - Day Twenty-Three

Today's Topic is "Eldritch Wizardry Monsters - Part One" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month! Today we take a look into the monsters in Supplement III for OD&D titled Eldritch Wizardry.

In the Foreword, Tim Kask writes:

D & D was meant to be a free-wheeling game, only loosely bound by the parameters of the rules. We feel that ELDRITCH WIZARDRY goes a long way toward fulfilling the original premise of danger, excitement, and uncertainty. May you always make your saving throw.

A few things of note about this supplement. This is where the much maligned psionics was introduced and a few notes are made about monsters in that regard that you could use if you wanted to use psionics. Just for the record, we never used this, that whole graduating from college and getting a job thing, guaranteed that we just never got around to it. The other referee and I, talked about re-writing those rules, but as no one was asking about it we never did.

Tritons are presented as having the psionic abilities of magic-user types. Titans have some psionic abilities and are immune to psionic attacks. Liches may have psionic abilities. 

The cockatrice, the basilisk, the medusae, the catoblepas, the invisible stalker and the gorgon all extend into the ethereal and astral planes and can effect creatures on those planes.

Then a little adjustment to the clean up crew: grey ooze and yellow mold both have a form of intelligence handled differently for each and may have psionic ability. We did not use the psionics, but giving them intelligence was pretty cool. From that I gave the gelatinous cube the ability to become more intelligent as it grows beyond the normal size if it escapes from a dungeon.

For the most part we did not use any of the demons, that really did not interest us. The only exceptions that we made were these:

Succubi: These female demons are usually not found in numbers, for they prefer to act alone. A Succubus in its natural form appears very much like a tall and very beautiful human female-although the bat-like wings immediately give the observer its true character. Magic resistance is 70% and intelligence is medial for demon kind. Succubi cannot be harmed by any sort of normal weaponry. A Succubi can cause darkness in a 5' radius. The kiss of the Succubus drains the victim of one energy level and all Succubi are able to perform any one of the following feats at will: Become ethereal (as if using the oil of that name), charm person, ESP, clairaudience, suggestion (as the spell), shape change (to any humanoid form of approximately their own height and weight only), or gate in a Type IV (70% chance), Type VI (25%). or one of the Princes (5% chance) - there is only a 40% chance of such a gate opening. however.

We used these as a type of vampire instead of a demon and for powers we used everything except the gate powers at the end. I struck through those to indicate what we did.

Type V: Another of the female demons with a multi armed female torso atop the body of a great snake, they are taller than a large man and far more terrible. Their six arms are all able to use weapons. These demons are 80% magic resistant, cannot be hit by "on-magical weaponry, and their intelligence is high. When desiring to do so, they cause darkness in a 5' radius. Other extraordinary abilities, any one of which can be performed as desired are: Charm person, levitate (as an 11th level magic-user), read languages, detect invisible objects, cause pyrotechnics, polymorph self. project image, and gate in a Type I(300/0 chance), Type II (25% chance), Type 111 (15% chance), Type IV (15% chance), Type VI (10% chance), or one of the Princes (5%): but the chance of successfully opening such a gate is a mere 50%.

We used these as Nāga a highly magical semi-immortal creature instead of a demon and again for powers we used everything except the gate powers at the end. I struck through those to indicate what we did.

We never converted balrogs over to Type VI demons, but kept them as we originally treated them which was as highly magical semi-immortal creatures.

Tomorrow we will look at Couatl, Ki-Rin, and Shedu.