This week's fiends fit into the theme of subterranean bird-men. It was thanks to the Planet Algol blog that I even began thinking of the Dire Corby again. Fearless subterranean pack-hunting bird-men with rock-hard claws and a tendency to shriek "Doom! Doom!", the Dire Corby is a random bit of monstrosity that mechanically looks more or less like any other humanoid.
Likewise, the armored Hook Horror shares many of these traits, but in a larger, mute, and hard-to-surprise package. Though not intended to work together, they seemed to be pieces of similar design, both having flocks of scary humanoid birdiness with twin rending limbs, both emitting creepy shrieking noises, and both being high on the gonzo "WTF" monster list.As a teen, my question was always why the heck such things existed in the game world. They seemed silly to me then, but now I see them as potentially alien and surreal, real horrors that hunt the halls of an alien and terrible underworld.
Good Stuff! I had fun using Dire Corbies on my players back in the day. Think I need to use them again soon!
ReplyDeleteI never considered using either of these over the decades, until I got my hands of The Legend of Drizzt graphic novel recently (not a huge Drizzt fan, but liked the art). The Dire Corbies are presented in a very cool, scary way - shouting out "doom!" and everything.
ReplyDeleteI'm still not totally sold on the horrors, though.