B Movie Monsters: Mole People [Archive] - Wizards Community

B Movie Monsters: Mole People [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
R.M.G.C.L.F.
08-13-04, 09:03 PM As seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #3 of season 8, I give you, the creatures of
THE MOLE PEOPLE

Children of Ishtar
Humanoid(Human)
HD:1d8(4hp)
Initiative:+0
Speed:30ft
AC:13(+2 leather armor, +1 small metal shield)
Attacks: Ceremonial sword+0 melee or whip+0 melee
Damage: Ceremonial sword 1d6 (crit 20/x2), whip 1d2 subdual (crit 20/x2)
Special Attacks: None
Special Qualities: Light sensitivity, daylight vulnerability, low-light vision
Saves:Fort+0,Ref+0,Will+2
Abilities:Str10,Dex11,Con10,Int10,Wis11, Cha11
Skills: Spot+2, Search+2, craft(weaponsmithing)+1, sense motive+1, hide+2, move silently+2
(children of Ishtar recieve a +1 racial bonus to spot and search checks due to their sensitive eyes, and six starting racial skill points. They suffer a -3 penalty to perform(dancing) checks and saving throws against fear)
Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency(whip)
_____________________
Climate/Terrain: Underground
CR:1/4
Alignment: Often Lawful Evil
Treasure: Standard, no wooden items
Advancement: By Character

The mole people are a race of humans dressed in loose-fitting burlap-like clothing with bizzare and amusing hats vaguely resembling things such as elven caps, spiked turtle shells, and pot roasts. They have deathly pale skin and widely enlarged pupils.

Long ago the children of Ishtar in their entire civilization were cast into the darkness beneath the earth by an earthquake said to be brought about in the anger of their god, Ishtar. Over the centuries spent in the dim chemical and fungal light of the underground, their eyes became wide and sensitive, their skin pale and easily burned. Now they dwell beneath, in ignorance of any living world above, forever confined to the depths because of their fatal vulnerability to the sun.

Combat: The children of Ishtar are both poorly trained and cowardly, attacking clumsily and fleeing at the first sign of danger. They usually get their slaves, the mole people, to hunt down and dispatch with real threats.

Light Sensitivity(ex): The children of Ishtar take -1 penalty to attack rolls and armor class when in a radius of bright such as that of a daylight spell. The spineless hand-and-a-halfs usually flee from such light sources like small frightened children.

Daylight Vulnerability(ex): The children of Ishtar are extremely vulnerable to bright light and UV rays. Each round spent in sunlight or a light source of equal intensity and spectrum (such as a daylight spell) deals 1d4 damage to them.
The children of Ishtar take double damage from all light-based damage effects, such as a searing light spell or a lantern archon's light rays.

Marked Ones: The marked ones, thought to be cursed subhumans by the children of ishtar, are a rare throwback to their surface days. These have statistics identical to a normal human.

Society:
The Children of Ishtar have a tightly controlled society. Because if the limited food and resources, They must limit their population. Whenever they exceed their holy number of 180 humans, the excess are selected and prepared for their deaths. A female performs the a terrible attempt at a dance of such poor quality that it ensures the victims will greet their oncoming death with a great sense of relief. They are then lead out into an area where sunlight falls in through a shaft then locked out so they will shrivel and bake until they die, after which time their bodies are taken back in by men wearing protective hoods to be disposed of.

The Children of Ishtar have a combination of fear and reverence for sunlight, which they call the fire of Ishtar. A simply daylight spell will have them cowering in fear, and a caster who can use one may be intially thought a messenger of Ishtar. (All the preists of Ishtar are little power-hungry politicians, with no more than two levels in cleric the rest being aristocrat levels.)

The Goddess Ishtar
It is unknown whether Ishtar is an actual Goddess or if she is simply a diety made up by the priests to control the common people. For those of you who wish to include Ishtar as an actual goddess, she is a demigod, her domains are sun, earth, and law, her alignment is lawful neutral, and her portfolio includes sunlight, fire, earthquakes, caves, tunnels, and agriculture.
Adrez Nesnsid
08-13-04, 09:41 PM Horror movie creatures. Cool! Interesting concept. Nice.
R.M.G.C.L.F.
08-13-04, 11:18 PM Originally posted by Adrez Nesnsid
Horror movie creatures. Cool! Interesting concept. Nice.
Actually it's of the scifi genre with a touch of horrror, not horror, and specifically cheesy 50's scifi.

I've got two other monsters based on creatures from corny black and white scifi from the 50s, The Horror of Party Beach and The Crawling Eye
R.M.G.C.L.F.
08-14-04, 12:30 AM http://images.tfaw.com/coverst/sm/s/silverscreenmolepeople.jpg
Mole People
Medium Monstrous Humanoids
HD:2d8+4(13hp)
Speed: 30ft, Burrow 20ft
AC:13(+2 natural,+1dex)
BAB/Grapple:+2/+3
Attacks: 2 claws+3 melee
Damage: Claw 1d6+1
Face/Reach:5ft/5ft
Special Attacks: Pit Snare
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60ft, Blindsight 10ft, Daylight blindness, Scent
Saves:Fort+5,Ref+1,Will-2 (Mole people have been conditioned since birth to give in and submit and as a result have a -4 racial penalty to wills saves)
Abilities:Str12,Dex13,Con15,Int11,Wis11, Cha6
Skills:Search+4, Listen+2, Survival+1, Knowledge(nature)+2, sense motive+1
(Mole people have earthcunning, an ability similar to the dwarven stonecunning, except that it applies to all earth-based structures, be they of stone, clay, or compressed soil)
Feats: Endurance
__________________
Climate/Terrain: Underground
Organization: Solitary, Pair, dig(3-6), or command (4-8 plus 1-3 Children of Ishtar)
CR:1
Alignment: Often Neutral
Treasure: None
Advancement: 3hd(medium)

Before you labors a humanoid creature of strange and hideous visage. It's eyes are wide and multifaceted like those of a fly, its mouth a bizzare compounded mandible, its head is large and elongated at the cranium, and its hands end in wicked claws.

The mole people are a slave race of the Children of Ishtar. These poor creatures are made to take on all the back-breaking hard labor in harvesting the fungi that are eaten and digging out the system of tunnels. When any attackers that pose any real threat are encountered it is the pitiful mole people who are sent on the front lines to dispose of them under threat of slow and painful death.

Mole people have their wills broken as infants and are continually kept in line with constant lashings and threats of torture and death. They grow to accept their lot in life and endure the suffering it brings, losing all hope of freedom as they reach maturity.

Mole people can understand undercommon and common, but have great difficulty speaking the latter. Learning to adjust their vocal cords speak common requires an additional skill point.

Combat: Despite there subserviant nature, Mole people fight well. Unlike their cowardly masters they fight fiercely, bravely, and to the death.

Pit snare(ex): A mole person can snatch a person who is unaware of their presence or unable to avoid them (denied dexterity bonus) with a successful touch attack (full action) emerging halfway from a patch of loose soil. The opponent is knocked prone, and then gets an opposed strength check at a -3 penalty. If the target fails, they are dragged into the pit, rendered at a serious disadvantage if they lack any burrowing speed.

Daylight Blindness(ex): Sudden exposure to bright light blinds a mole person for 1 round. After that they still suffer a -1 morale penalty to all saves and skill checks and a -2 penalty to armor class and attack rolls.
R.M.G.C.L.F.
08-14-04, 10:53 PM Added a pic
R.M.G.C.L.F.
07-12-05, 12:07 AM Ohhh! The bump of Ishtar! =o
R.M.G.C.L.F.
07-12-05, 12:13 AM Ohhh! The bump of Ishtar! =o
blackknightatbay
07-12-05, 01:01 PM "Ahh, we're afraid of a light thats slightly brighter than our own!"
OamuTheMonk
07-12-05, 11:42 PM You've managed to reference one of maybe half a dozen MST3K episodes I missed. I'll be able to offer some criticism when you stat out The Killer Shrews, The Giant Leeches, Trumpy ("you can do stupid things!"), Proteus (from Hercules and the Captive women), The The Eye Creatures, The Phantom Creeps Robot, and one I will be waiting for with great anticipation, the Master of Manos prestige class (complete with manservent Torgo and his many undead wives). Kudos to you, good sir.

Knowing what little I do about the Mole People, I have two comments.

1: Pit snare is a little unclear. Do they drag their prey down from below?

2: The racial penalty on dance checks seems a little unkind to the Children of Ishtar...Maybe that's the kind of dancing they like! It might make more sense to just give them a penalty on perform checks to entertain non-ishtars.

CR and flavor aspects are good. Nice work.
blackknightatbay
07-13-05, 11:43 AM If I may post some humble requests (or at least bring back some good memories of a show that remains my number 1 even after being "gone" for so long)

The Moon Men and thier minions (Hercules Versus the Moonmen)

Prince of Space and Space Chief (from Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men)

Krankor's spaceship (Prince of Space, "There goes a narwhale!")

Aram Fingal (Overdrawn at the Memory Bank)

Hamlet (a little play who's name everyone has heard :D , I'm just interested in seeing what the protagonist in the greatest drama of all time would stat out like)

David Ryder (a.k.a. Smash Lampjaw and Crunch Buttsteak) (Space Mutiny)
Here's two riffs that pretty much say it all about him:
"See, if I hadnt lifted so much those rays would hurt me!"
"Why is he so impossible to hit!? How do they keep on missing the slow giant white thing?"
Also, some bonuses for that odd scream he has ("Now that I got that outta my system...")

The Bellerians (Space Mutiny)
R.M.G.C.L.F.
07-13-05, 03:54 PM The mole people do drag them under from beneath, and this I have amended. An important thing to remember is that this is all done half mocking the movie tongue in cheek and half to bring to life the creator's idea, but all with a prime focus of weaving them together into coherent and usable monsters. Believe me, those who have seen the dance understand how bad it is. It was clear that there was no choreography involved, the dance a flail of random motions ignorant of the music or taste. As a default these side with the view of mike and the bots, and believe me there is full in character explanation, being that after seeing the dance being roasted alive in the fires of Ishtar seems like a walk in the proverbial park.

I did make some earlier attempts at the the eye creatures and Trumpy, and now your encouragement has inspired me to revive them.

However, I am at heart a monster maker. I love old scifi flicks for the monsters, and so I have no plans to stat out individual characters laden with custom ability scores and class levels.

As for manos, somebody already made a manos the hands of fate vampire prestige class, though who I cannot recall, and I've never been that good with PrCs.
OamuTheMonk
07-13-05, 06:24 PM Trumpy especially. He's gotta be an aberration.

It's funny, I never realized how easily MST3K monsters could translate to D&D.

Leech woman? Undead.

Giant Leeches and Killer Shrews? Vermin.

Human Duplicates? Constructs (with incredibly fragile faces).

I may have to stat something up myself...
R.M.G.C.L.F.
07-13-05, 11:14 PM Indeed.
But my friend, you are woefully inexperienced in statting of B-movies it seems.

Leech woman I don't think even qualifies as monster. Just a woman with a pineal potion.

Giant leeches are no longer mindless and sprouted tentacles, making them aberrrations or possibly magical beasts. The killler shrews are clearly beasts, possibly animals (dire shrews or dogs with an improved bite and an armor bonus to AC from those rug things on them).
OamuTheMonk
07-13-05, 11:38 PM Those rug things on them indeed! Why, that was their shaggy, mutated hide!
blackknightatbay
07-14-05, 11:42 AM Those rug things on them indeed! Why, that was their shaggy, mutated hide!

Dont forget thier extremely venomous bite

and how about a Screaming Skull? It could knock on doors and walk around on it's little skull legs...or maybe that was the husband? :D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
R.M.G.C.L.F. 08-13-04, 09:03 PM	As seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #3 of season 8, I give you, the creatures of THE MOLE PEOPLE Children of Ishtar Humanoid(Human) HD:1d8(4hp) Initiative:+0 Speed:30ft AC:13(+2 leather armor, +1 small metal shield) Attacks: Ceremonial sword+0 melee or whip+0 melee Damage: Ceremonial sword 1d6 (crit 20/x2), whip 1d2 subdual (crit 20/x2) Special Attacks: None Special Qualities: Light sensitivity, daylight vulnerability, low-light vision Saves:Fort+0,Ref+0,Will+2 Abilities:Str10,Dex11,Con10,Int10,Wis11, Cha11 Skills: Spot+2, Search+2, craft(weaponsmithing)+1, sense motive+1, hide+2, move silently+2 (children of Ishtar recieve a +1 racial bonus to spot and search checks due to their sensitive eyes, and six starting racial skill points. They suffer a -3 penalty to perform(dancing) checks and saving throws against fear) Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency(whip) _____________________ Climate/Terrain: Underground CR:1/4 Alignment: Often Lawful Evil Treasure: Standard, no wooden items Advancement: By Character The mole people are a race of humans dressed in loose-fitting burlap-like clothing with bizzare and amusing hats vaguely resembling things such as elven caps, spiked turtle shells, and pot roasts. They have deathly pale skin and widely enlarged pupils. Long ago the children of Ishtar in their entire civilization were cast into the darkness beneath the earth by an earthquake said to be brought about in the anger of their god, Ishtar. Over the centuries spent in the dim chemical and fungal light of the underground, their eyes became wide and sensitive, their skin pale and easily burned. Now they dwell beneath, in ignorance of any living world above, forever confined to the depths because of their fatal vulnerability to the sun. Combat: The children of Ishtar are both poorly trained and cowardly, attacking clumsily and fleeing at the first sign of danger. They usually get their slaves, the mole people, to hunt down and dispatch with real threats. Light Sensitivity(ex): The children of Ishtar take -1 penalty to attack rolls and armor class when in a radius of bright such as that of a daylight spell. The spineless hand-and-a-halfs usually flee from such light sources like small frightened children. Daylight Vulnerability(ex): The children of Ishtar are extremely vulnerable to bright light and UV rays. Each round spent in sunlight or a light source of equal intensity and spectrum (such as a daylight spell) deals 1d4 damage to them. The children of Ishtar take double damage from all light-based damage effects, such as a searing light spell or a lantern archon's light rays. Marked Ones: The marked ones, thought to be cursed subhumans by the children of ishtar, are a rare throwback to their surface days. These have statistics identical to a normal human. Society: The Children of Ishtar have a tightly controlled society. Because if the limited food and resources, They must limit their population. Whenever they exceed their holy number of 180 humans, the excess are selected and prepared for their deaths. A female performs the a terrible attempt at a dance of such poor quality that it ensures the victims will greet their oncoming death with a great sense of relief. They are then lead out into an area where sunlight falls in through a shaft then locked out so they will shrivel and bake until they die, after which time their bodies are taken back in by men wearing protective hoods to be disposed of. The Children of Ishtar have a combination of fear and reverence for sunlight, which they call the fire of Ishtar. A simply daylight spell will have them cowering in fear, and a caster who can use one may be intially thought a messenger of Ishtar. (All the preists of Ishtar are little power-hungry politicians, with no more than two levels in cleric the rest being aristocrat levels.) The Goddess Ishtar It is unknown whether Ishtar is an actual Goddess or if she is simply a diety made up by the priests to control the common people. For those of you who wish to include Ishtar as an actual goddess, she is a demigod, her domains are sun, earth, and law, her alignment is lawful neutral, and her portfolio includes sunlight, fire, earthquakes, caves, tunnels, and agriculture.
Adrez Nesnsid 08-13-04, 09:41 PM	Horror movie creatures. Cool! Interesting concept. Nice.
R.M.G.C.L.F. 08-13-04, 11:18 PM	Originally posted by Adrez Nesnsid Horror movie creatures. Cool! Interesting concept. Nice. Actually it's of the scifi genre with a touch of horrror, not horror, and specifically cheesy 50's scifi. I've got two other monsters based on creatures from corny black and white scifi from the 50s, The Horror of Party Beach and The Crawling Eye
R.M.G.C.L.F. 08-14-04, 12:30 AM	http://images.tfaw.com/coverst/sm/s/silverscreenmolepeople.jpg Mole People Medium Monstrous Humanoids HD:2d8+4(13hp) Speed: 30ft, Burrow 20ft AC:13(+2 natural,+1dex) BAB/Grapple:+2/+3 Attacks: 2 claws+3 melee Damage: Claw 1d6+1 Face/Reach:5ft/5ft Special Attacks: Pit Snare Special Qualities: Darkvision 60ft, Blindsight 10ft, Daylight blindness, Scent Saves:Fort+5,Ref+1,Will-2 (Mole people have been conditioned since birth to give in and submit and as a result have a -4 racial penalty to wills saves) Abilities:Str12,Dex13,Con15,Int11,Wis11, Cha6 Skills:Search+4, Listen+2, Survival+1, Knowledge(nature)+2, sense motive+1 (Mole people have earthcunning, an ability similar to the dwarven stonecunning, except that it applies to all earth-based structures, be they of stone, clay, or compressed soil) Feats: Endurance __________________ Climate/Terrain: Underground Organization: Solitary, Pair, dig(3-6), or command (4-8 plus 1-3 Children of Ishtar) CR:1 Alignment: Often Neutral Treasure: None Advancement: 3hd(medium) Before you labors a humanoid creature of strange and hideous visage. It's eyes are wide and multifaceted like those of a fly, its mouth a bizzare compounded mandible, its head is large and elongated at the cranium, and its hands end in wicked claws. The mole people are a slave race of the Children of Ishtar. These poor creatures are made to take on all the back-breaking hard labor in harvesting the fungi that are eaten and digging out the system of tunnels. When any attackers that pose any real threat are encountered it is the pitiful mole people who are sent on the front lines to dispose of them under threat of slow and painful death. Mole people have their wills broken as infants and are continually kept in line with constant lashings and threats of torture and death. They grow to accept their lot in life and endure the suffering it brings, losing all hope of freedom as they reach maturity. Mole people can understand undercommon and common, but have great difficulty speaking the latter. Learning to adjust their vocal cords speak common requires an additional skill point. Combat: Despite there subserviant nature, Mole people fight well. Unlike their cowardly masters they fight fiercely, bravely, and to the death. Pit snare(ex): A mole person can snatch a person who is unaware of their presence or unable to avoid them (denied dexterity bonus) with a successful touch attack (full action) emerging halfway from a patch of loose soil. The opponent is knocked prone, and then gets an opposed strength check at a -3 penalty. If the target fails, they are dragged into the pit, rendered at a serious disadvantage if they lack any burrowing speed. Daylight Blindness(ex): Sudden exposure to bright light blinds a mole person for 1 round. After that they still suffer a -1 morale penalty to all saves and skill checks and a -2 penalty to armor class and attack rolls.
R.M.G.C.L.F. 08-14-04, 10:53 PM	Added a pic
R.M.G.C.L.F. 07-12-05, 12:07 AM	Ohhh! The bump of Ishtar! =o
R.M.G.C.L.F. 07-12-05, 12:13 AM	Ohhh! The bump of Ishtar! =o
blackknightatbay 07-12-05, 01:01 PM	"Ahh, we're afraid of a light thats slightly brighter than our own!"
OamuTheMonk 07-12-05, 11:42 PM	You've managed to reference one of maybe half a dozen MST3K episodes I missed. I'll be able to offer some criticism when you stat out The Killer Shrews, The Giant Leeches, Trumpy ("you can do stupid things!"), Proteus (from Hercules and the Captive women), The The Eye Creatures, The Phantom Creeps Robot, and one I will be waiting for with great anticipation, the Master of Manos prestige class (complete with manservent Torgo and his many undead wives). Kudos to you, good sir. Knowing what little I do about the Mole People, I have two comments. 1: Pit snare is a little unclear. Do they drag their prey down from below? 2: The racial penalty on dance checks seems a little unkind to the Children of Ishtar...Maybe that's the kind of dancing they like! It might make more sense to just give them a penalty on perform checks to entertain non-ishtars. CR and flavor aspects are good. Nice work.
blackknightatbay 07-13-05, 11:43 AM	If I may post some humble requests (or at least bring back some good memories of a show that remains my number 1 even after being "gone" for so long) The Moon Men and thier minions (Hercules Versus the Moonmen) Prince of Space and Space Chief (from Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men) Krankor's spaceship (Prince of Space, "There goes a narwhale!") Aram Fingal (Overdrawn at the Memory Bank) Hamlet (a little play who's name everyone has heard :D , I'm just interested in seeing what the protagonist in the greatest drama of all time would stat out like) David Ryder (a.k.a. Smash Lampjaw and Crunch Buttsteak) (Space Mutiny) Here's two riffs that pretty much say it all about him: "See, if I hadnt lifted so much those rays would hurt me!" "Why is he so impossible to hit!? How do they keep on missing the slow giant white thing?" Also, some bonuses for that odd scream he has ("Now that I got that outta my system...") The Bellerians (Space Mutiny)
R.M.G.C.L.F. 07-13-05, 03:54 PM	The mole people do drag them under from beneath, and this I have amended. An important thing to remember is that this is all done half mocking the movie tongue in cheek and half to bring to life the creator's idea, but all with a prime focus of weaving them together into coherent and usable monsters. Believe me, those who have seen the dance understand how bad it is. It was clear that there was no choreography involved, the dance a flail of random motions ignorant of the music or taste. As a default these side with the view of mike and the bots, and believe me there is full in character explanation, being that after seeing the dance being roasted alive in the fires of Ishtar seems like a walk in the proverbial park. I did make some earlier attempts at the the eye creatures and Trumpy, and now your encouragement has inspired me to revive them. However, I am at heart a monster maker. I love old scifi flicks for the monsters, and so I have no plans to stat out individual characters laden with custom ability scores and class levels. As for manos, somebody already made a manos the hands of fate vampire prestige class, though who I cannot recall, and I've never been that good with PrCs.
OamuTheMonk 07-13-05, 06:24 PM	Trumpy especially. He's gotta be an aberration. It's funny, I never realized how easily MST3K monsters could translate to D&D. Leech woman? Undead. Giant Leeches and Killer Shrews? Vermin. Human Duplicates? Constructs (with incredibly fragile faces). I may have to stat something up myself...
R.M.G.C.L.F. 07-13-05, 11:14 PM	Indeed. But my friend, you are woefully inexperienced in statting of B-movies it seems. Leech woman I don't think even qualifies as monster. Just a woman with a pineal potion. Giant leeches are no longer mindless and sprouted tentacles, making them aberrrations or possibly magical beasts. The killler shrews are clearly beasts, possibly animals (dire shrews or dogs with an improved bite and an armor bonus to AC from those rug things on them).
OamuTheMonk 07-13-05, 11:38 PM	Those rug things on them indeed! Why, that was their shaggy, mutated hide!
blackknightatbay 07-14-05, 11:42 AM	Those rug things on them indeed! Why, that was their shaggy, mutated hide! Dont forget thier extremely venomous bite and how about a Screaming Skull? It could knock on doors and walk around on it's little skull legs...or maybe that was the husband? :D