New I Hit It With My Axe + Kenneth Hite, Zeb Cook & a Lizard On Maze of the Blue Medusa

-So first off, here's RPG-royalty Kenneth Hite on why our "Maze of the Blue Medusa" is his "...most dangerously close and worthy competitor" .

-Second, so apparently some Ennies votes may have gotten glitched away, so check to see if you voted for Maze in Best Adventure, Product of the Year, Best E-Book (the physical copies weren't ready by judgin' time), Best Cartography and Best Writing 

-New I Hit it With My Axe is up, with historical gnotes about gnolls and Lord Dunsany (and ball-stomping).

For some reason Laney is inaccurately captioned as Stoya. That needs to get fixed.

-Fourth: if you don't have Vornheim yet, or just want a way to check out other stuff from Lamentations of the Flame Princess on the cheap, there's a Bundle of Lamentations out now offering Vornheim: The Complete City Kit with four other books as a bundle.

-Fifth: TSR legend Zeb Cook played a session in the Maze. And liked it.  

Lizards, too.

Maze of the Vanilla Medusa

First:

Here is an interview with me talking about Jeff Grubb's Marvel Superheroes game--and why I like it better than all other superhero games. In a lot of detail.

Second:

Many of you know James Raggi, who usually publishes game books I make, but you don't know Ken Baumann of Satyr Press, who published Maze of the Blue Medusa when it became clear James had too much on his plate this year to put it out (and that's a good thing--James should get behind a variety of stuff). Here's Ken Baumann, child star and literary publisher, explaining to a non-rpg audience why he put this book out. And here's a review that compares the Maze to a city in Croatia.

Third:

It's cool that we got nominated for 5 Ennies--if you're worried about the great DIY D&D stuff that got overlooked, you have a wee bit of time left to register to be an Ennie judge next year.

Fourth:

The actual blog entry--

I've noticed that if you have a weird room and a weird monster (not just reskinned weird,  but like what it does is weird) then sometimes it's super fun but sometimes it's just incomprehensible.

Weird rooms plus nothing is sometimes spooky but sometimes just like the players are like whatevs and walk past.

Weird room plus normal monster though--that's almost always a good time. Understandable enough that players can use their heads, novel enough that they have to.

The first draft of The Maze of the Blue Medusa--based on my map/picture--had a lot of weird rooms. (Patrick talks about how we changed it over the drafts here).

My thought was: ok, so we can get away with some normalish monsters especially on the wandering monster table--things that just try to kill and eat you and don't, like, want to buy your legs and turn them into crystal in order to build a monument to their Glassfisted God or whatever. The Chameleon Women, for example, are, mechanically, just stealthy humanoids packing one spellcaster per group. However, even the relatively simple creatures, in the environment of the maze, sometimes just make people go "Ok what the fuck Quay Bros shit is it this time?"

So anyway, point is I think the Maze tastes good with a scoop of vanilla--and the Wandering Monster chart is a good place to put it, since there are a lot of unique monsters on it that will probably get killed and just be replaced with more chameleon women. It would probably make this guy happy, too (though if he wanted to look at the art why'd he get it on pdf?).

So, here's a list of vanilla monsters you can toss in as your players trip through those 300 rooms.

Bats

d100 bats. The AD&D rule for bats is there's a (# of bats)% chance of putting out torches. I think the Maze is a lot more interesting as a true resource-depleting dungeon, then when you run out of stuff you face the difficult choice of finding a hidden exit, finding a way past Lady Crucem Capelli or Mad Maxing supplies together from scraps and stolen equipment inside the dungeon.

Diseases are an option with bats but I kind of hate them in D&D because either you get rid of them and, yay, just made the cleric do a thing or you don't in which case you just hate your character for a while. Or they're "interesting" (now your piss is lobsters!) which is kind of a gonzo grotty zany Old School cliche.

Beholder

Not exactly a vanilla monster, but a standard one. Plus something where at least you know just how scary it is on sight, unlike all the other cryptic bosses hiding in the Maze. Or maybe it's just a gas spore. Maybe not wandering, maybe tucked away in one of the hidden rooms.

Arya Fucking Stark

Faceless assassin 13-year old. But who is she trying to kill? Maybe one of the statues? In which case how? And who is she pretending to be?

Blindheim

The frog so fucked looking you go blind is a good cascade-effect monster. Plus like did we do frogs? Don't think there's any frogs in there.

Carrion Crawler

Scavengers go wherever, right? 

Drow

The drow are so fucking Maze. They'd be like shit who built this lit Maze we should kick it with them this is so #goals. We should kick it with them and turn them into weird spider hate cult friends underground. Whoever built this place must've read Vault of the Drow like...twice. Definitely that. And then they'd be like whaaat? Party of adventurers? You are asleep with our sleepy dust crossbows and we don't give a FUCK. Let's find something blue to touch until it's blaaaack and then resist 25% of all yr magic.

Goblin

Goblins are, as established, bad ideas. Going into the Maze is a bad idea. They'll talk backwards and try to steal art. Players will be like "Hah, idiots" and then the goblins will punch them and then what? The players punch them back but..wait, fuck, some of them are

Nilbogs

haha. Nilbogs get hit points when you hit them. Fucking read a Fiend Folio illiterates.

Lava children

Speaking of the Folio, just like "You hear a hissing sound down the corridor and smell sulfur". And a representative of WOTC is like "We decided it was inappropriate to have players murdering things that basically look like human children" and you'll be like "Yeah we're the OSR, you're lucky you have us, huh?" and then the players fail their Wis save and hug the babies and then scalding.

NPC party

NPC adventurers are like chickens, they're good with anything and they can replace you if you die. Tom Middenmurk's are the best.

Pudding

I can very easily see a chubby blanket of custardthick ooze like the unyellow part of a sunnyside egg scouring the lonesome smooth corridors. Color indicates resistance type: red= edged, blue=fire, etc. Standard biomedical approach to oozes: trial and error it until you get the right combo, then remember which is which. unless everyone who fought oozes last time is dead...

Rats

Rats start to look pretty tasty after all your food's been eaten by rats.

Wizard

In search of exotic stuff to put in stuff and do wizard stuff with. Probably the boss of like the goblins. Accompanied by 2 or 3 at all times.

The Maze Claims Its First Victims (And Nominations)

Maze of the Blue Medusa has claimed its first local victim--dark elf thief Rosalyn, who laid eyes on the beautiful woman hanging in the vine room and was set upon by flesh-eating orchidmen.

Sendrelle the witch had just passed through the door that charms you and was smitten with Rosalyn, so decided to burn....basically the entire wing of the dungeon down in retaliation. Also broke her foot.

Emergency back-up PC I rolled for the dead Rosalyn was a Chameleon Woman fighter (spy background) which Hannah named Jenevere and decided to hold on to after the session ended. Which means I've got to make a new one...

Other highlights include Hygeia the witch playing her first game of D&D ever and realizing you could blind the snake mosaic by throwing ink in its eyes, players weaponizing a randomly found bag of flour twice (once to blind the inky eyes that hold people, once as firebomb) plus a bunch of had-to-be-there shit which lead to the Cleric of Mariah sounding like Tony Soprano on account of being really bad at remembering who's dead and who's alive and why.

On account of people being available odd days, 3 almost not-overlapping groups of players have gone in to the Maze. "You were supposed to be on guard while your friend stole a painting..." Pictures below show only the bits explored so far.

16 rooms down, 280-some to go! :)

Maze of the Blue Medusa also got nominated for 5 fucking Ennies today--one more than Red & Pleasant Land!

Best Adventure

Best Electronic Book

Best Cartography

Best Writing

Product of the Year

As is the way of such things, the harassment has started immediately, with Alex Norris / Lemon Curdistan / Lemon-Lime from Ettin's Something Awful group piling on first and storygame veterans Robert Bohl and William Nichols joining quickly after. Anna Kreider / Wundergeek has now joined in, maybe to distract from her attacks on lgbt people.

I wonder if people will walk out again if we win--and I wonder if they will do us all a favor and keep walking this time.

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Four Projects, Three Castles

Project One:

Remember Red & Pleasant Land? Winner of 2 gold and 2 silver Ennies the Indiecade judges' award and an Indie Rpg Award?

Well that went ahead and won another award: the Three Castles Award. This one is very special to me personally not just because it has a nifty trophy...

...but also because the judge panel is fucking amazing this year and consists of names I've known ever since I was a wee lad and first started thinking about going into dungeons to kill dragons:

Dennis Sustare--as in Chariot of Sustarre, the most badass druid spell in AD&D--who invented the class
James M Ward--who did Metamorphosis Alpha--the first sci-fi RPG. And who I've heard from multiple sources is literally the best GM in game history.
Zeb Cook--Whose name I know best from the cover of the Oriental Adventures book I read over and over and over and over and over as a child.
Steve Winter--Who did a lot on FASERIP, including the best superhero sandbox ever.
and Steve Perrin--As in fucking RuneQuest.

That's an amazing slate and I'm honored that the people who added druids, laserguns, ninjas, rebel superheroes and die mechanics that actually make sense to RPGs even read Red & Pleasant Land much less decided to give it an award--especially considering the other nominees this year were hella impressive.

Let's hope in a couple decades she writes a game and I get to be on a panel giving her an award.

PS if you don't have one and are going to Gen Con, LotFP, the publisher will be there. Though copies do go fast.

Project Two:

Those of you wondering about Black Metal Amazons of the Devoured Land or Amazons of the Metal North or whatever we're calling it--we're working on it:

The girls modeled as the amazons for the paintings I'm doing, here are some pics from the shoot:

Project Three:

Maze of the Blue Medusa (Yes, I plan to do a book for every color in the goddamn rainbow) is now physically manifest and I am pleased to breathe a sigh of relief and note that neither man nor machine has ever devised a finer-looking megadungeon. Not empty boasting, check it:

Also, if you want to play it at GenCon, hurry up and sign up. The games are being run by Ken Baumann,  Satyr Press' publisher and actual real-life tv actor and he's been hilarious and clever in every game I've ever played with him and cracks everyone up.

Here's an actual-play report. And a thorough review.

There will be copies at GenCon but like they will probably be gone in seconds because they're heavy so each vendor can't really carry that many so you might best just order one.

There might be a few expensive signed copies available, too, maybe. If you're into that sort of thing. And if you get an early flight. Stay tuned to this blog for details.

Project Four:

Some stuff about Project Four:

-Project Four is secret, because it will be the subject of a major and official announcement by a big game company.

-Project Four is going to make all the right people incredibly upset when it's announced. Before they even read it.

-Project Four is taking up all my time right now which is why I haven't been posting much.

-Project Four has two main creative people on it, both doing writing and art: me and a woman whose work I've admired for years.

-The necrophilia was her idea.

-Project Four is weird and experimental.

-While writing Project Four I checked into a hotel. Next to the bed was a bible and a copy of Keith Richards' autobiography. I consulted both a great deal.

-"Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased"

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And now,  a word from our sponsor:

Here

Maze Preview+Revelation in Lovecraft vs Annotated Tomb of Horrors

First--here's another Maze of the Blue Medusa preview:

Click to enlarge and...SPOILERS!

Second, here is a pair of entries for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

If you're new to the contest, it's like this: these two essays are not by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers who were both assigned to write something interesting and original about hoary old RPG topics.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the second round Thought Eater essays are up...

The rules for the second round are here.

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "MAJ" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

OK, so horror in H.P. Lovecraft's fiction comes from the revelation that things are not like you thought they were. Often – in the most famous stories – this is specifically the idea that humankind is merely a tiny speck in an infinite, uncaring – heck, possibly malicious – cosmos. Everyone's heard that; it's kind of the stock explanation of how Lovecraftian cosmic horror works. In many other stories, it comes from the idea that the main character is not who he thought he was. Specifically, in Lovecraft's fiction, it often comes from the idea that the main character's ancestry or history is not what he thought it was. Charles Dexter Ward, Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Rats in the Walls, Arthur Jermyn … you know the kind of thing. “The Shadow Out of Time” combines both themes in a way.

Now, this idea of being annihilated by having your history or group identity undermined is one that clearly resonated very strongly with Lovecraft himself. If you read about him, you can see why: “Take a man from the fields and groves which bred him—or which moulded the lives of his forefathers—and you cut off his sources of power altogether.” He wrote that in 1927, and in 1934 he said “We must save all that we can, lest we find ourselves adrift in an alien world with no memories or guideposts or points of reference to give us the priceless illusions of direction, interest, & significance amidst the cosmic chaos. Hence the natural function & social value of the antiquarian & cherisher of elder things.”

So rather than being impersonal, Lovecraft's cosmic horror is actually very personal, because to him your history is a big part of you – even if that's the history of your city, your race, whatever. That combination of the personal and the cosmic is an often-overlooked part of Lovecraft.

How do you use this kind of history-undermining or group-undermining in a game? The unfortunate thing about applying this to Call of Cthulhu is that most people don't create their CoC characters with those kind of deep ties to a group – like most modern people, and like characters in many other games, they tend to be pretty atomised, pretty individual. You can't really attack their sense of stability by revealing the secret history of humanity, since thinking that's pretty cool is implicit in sitting down to the table to play CoC in the first place. It's hard to attack the group, as opposed to individual, identity of player characters in these games – in the same way that it's hard to do that to most (but not all) modern westerners.

But I've been thinking that this does in fact apply to characters in a lot of other games. In fact, ironically, it applies to them much more than it does to characters in games that are specifically Lovecraftian. In many games, character creation is all about selecting group memberships, and there are lot of people out there who make it a habit to play Ventrue, or Orlanthi, or mutants, or Drow, or whatever. You might actually be able to get some mileage out of the history-annihilating thing by attacking those, especially if you keep the secret actually secret and don't make it part of the appeal of the character. Some people like to join groups with a dark heritage, but if someone's really proud of their sparkly eyes or elite battle skills you can probably get a little queasy realisation by revealing that their blessing is actually a curse.

That's not for everyone, of course; some people like the rug pulled out from under them and others don't. You might just piss them off. But that's the risk you take when you go for an actual shocking realisation.

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Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "UAP" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

The Annotated Adventure

Published D&D modules are typically laid out like dictionaries: dense columns of prescriptive rules, sorted by location instead of by word. They'd be more useful if they were designed more like annotated texts (text body in one column, commentary in the other). When there's no spatial way to organize room descriptions, they become untidy with digressions, commentary, and rulings on potential player actions. The important and the unimportant, the obvious and the hidden are necessarily jumbled together. 

Tomb of Horrors is famous for being a player-killer dungeon, but with its info-dump approach to tricks and puzzles, it's a bit of a DM-killer too. Take the final confrontation with Acererak. It takes up a full two-column page, and you don't get Acererak's stats until the bottom of the second column, after a description of his treasure, an out-of-place history of the Tomb, and the details of every other trick in the room. Furthermore, this monolithic wall of text gives the false impression that everything in the description merits the same level of authority. As others have remarked before, many of the methods used to damage Acererak (a haphazard list of spells, certain magic swords, a thief slinging gemstones) feel like on-the-spot rulings during a playtest, encoded by the author into rules law. There's no reason why clever players shouldn't invent new attacks and add their own exploits to this list, which should be presented as a sort of Talmudic commentary to the module's scripture that "Acererak is nearly invulnerable."

What would an annotated adventure module look like?

The main column would be primarily concerned with objects: the room and its description, its contents, its occupants, immediate traps, and other information that the DM needs up front. Objects in boldface would have  annotations next to them.

Next to each boldfaced object would be its verbs: a non-exhaustive menu of things the players might do and what happens in response. Here is where we'd move all the minor but necessary mechanical details that clog up room descriptions: the tricks, traps, and secrets that players find by messing with stuff in the room. If a player touches Acererak's skull, the DM doesn't have to search the whole page; just find the bold-faced "Acererak" in the main column and scan its annotation.

Annotations can't possibly be comprehensive and don't even have to be authoritative. They might include traps and puzzle solutions, described in the standard impersonal rulesy voice, as well as conversational anecdotes about crazy things that happened in the author's home game. After all, half of every adventure is written during play; the module author doesn't need to obfuscate that fact. 

As a proof of concept, I'll try setting up the Acererak room as one annotated page. While I'm reformatting, I'd like to fix a few other things that bug me about D&D module layout:

Space for DM annotations. A D&D module isn't a collector's item to be preserved mint, and an adventure location isn't static. PCs change every room they enter. The DM should have somewhere to record these state changes. For instance, there should always be space below a monster's stat block to track HP. If the players befriend the monster instead of fighting it, the DM can use this space to record details of that alliance. (Chances of befriending Acererak are low, but never rule anything out.) Furthermore, many DMs don't run modules as written. They make lots of notes before ever running the adventure. A densely printed page doesn't leave a lot of room for this kind of marginalia. An annotated module, with uneven amounts of text in the right and left column, will probably have lots of white space. That's a plus. 

In the case of Acererak's vault, we're going to have very little room for DM notes, because the original layout is already a full page with no white space or margins to speak of. But we should be able to carve out some room to track Acererak's and his pet ghost's HP. Furthermore, the vault's treasure includes a potentially large amount of gear stolen from players in various teleportation traps. We have to add a place for the DM to list this gear.

Artwork. Tomb of Horrors has many pages of player handouts, two of which are referred to on this page. The reference to any player handout should include a thumbnail for the benefit of the DM.

Here's my version of Acererak's Vault, with significant text changes in red.

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Maze of the Blue Medusa FAQ

Tomorrow I'll probably write about how one of our party's clerics was invited to the White House today, but she's driving right now so I don't know the details yet.

Meanwhile here's an FAQ for our new thing:  

What is Maze of the Blue Medusa?

It's a big dungeon module for any kind of D&D-like game by me and Patrick Stuart coming out soon from Satyr Press.

Who did what?

I made a big painting of a dungeon, then Patrick went through and wrote descriptions for all 304 rooms of it, then we both went in and rewrote parts of it together. In the end, I wrote some, Patrick wrote some.

The initial graphic design ideas came from Kirin Robinson who did Old School Hack, but when he got busy with real life the project was taken over by Anton Khodakovsky.

Is this Patrick any good?

Patrick is a magnificent writer. He wrote Fire on the Velvet Horizon and Deep Carbon Observatory.

Click to enlarge and spoil

What is this Satyr Press?

It grew out of Sator Press--a little literary press run by a kind-of-famous guy named Ken Baumann who is also involved in the DIY D&D scene. They have lots of experience printing books and getting them to people, but this is their first RPG product.

Why isn't this done with Lamentations of the Flame Princess--did you and James Raggi have a fight? Is there gossip?

Nah--it's just this is a massive project (3 or more years in the making) and James already had a lot going on. The Maze was going to require some very expensive graphic design and personal attention to work properly and Satyr was like "Is it cool?" and James was like "It's cool".

Plus, LotFP is consistently trying to do stuff that's a little more historical 17th C and weird-fiction and relying less on D&D tropes and this is, at the end of the day, a big fucking dungeon full of medusas and liches and shit.

Plus everybody involved is pretty excited that there's another company willing to do boundary-pushing DIY D&D projects.

When is it out?

The graphic designer has the typos and is fixing them, then we go to print, so I am guessing this spring maybe early summer. But book stuff is cray so don't quote me.

So is this coming out before Amazons of the Metal North or Black Metal Amazons of the Devoured Land or whatever?

Yes. I haven't finished all the art for Amazons yet--which LotFP is putting out.

What levels is it appropriate for?

A wide range of character levels should be able to have fun in the Maze—low level parties (1–4) may find it tough but survivable if they deal carefully with the more powerful creatures, whereas higher level parties (5–10) should be able to try to target the bigger threats without too many nuisance encounters along the way.

What system is it written for?

It's basically system-agnostic, but there are stats like so--

...it's basically on an AD&D scale but with ascending AC.

How big is it?

Hardcover, 304 rooms, pages in the high-200s, though in order to make it easier to use than the standard megadungeon, a lot of pages repeat content for convenience sake. 

Will this book be that megadungeon-done-right that follows on your critique of how these things are usually done?

Mostly. My original platonic ideal megadungeon would probably have shorter room descriptions (like the dungeons in Red & Pleasant Land) but Patrick's writing on the initial draft was sooooo good that we kept it long.

You can't run this dungeon without reading it first, but the way we wrote it hopefully makes the whole thing unfold like a story and, so, when you're running the dungeon that'll hopefully make it a lot easier to remember what a thing is and what it does and wants when you see a picture from the map.

What is you critique of how megadungeons are usually done?

Graphic and information design requiring too much page-flipping, goofy themed bullshit that's basically just dad jokes, rooms that are just monster-zoos with no real problem solving, fighting the same creatures over and over, rooms that just aren't that interesting and were written in bulk, low ratio of ideas-to-word, funhouse shit that goes way off-theme and doesn't make sense even if a wizard did it, too few factions in the dungeon, events in different parts of the dungeon don't affect each other, few ways to use the dungeon against itself, lots of other stuff.

What's the basic idea?

tl;dr there's a medusa down here and she has treasure but there's also monsters and traps and shit. 

Longer version:

SPOILERS, highlight to read

There is a rumor of an empire, ancient and lost to time. An Empire ruled by three perfect women who could never do wrong, and who would never die. And though they were beautiful, ageless and merciful, the kingdom that grew around the Triarchy was the most monstrous yet made. A tyranny of torture and pain that could never end while the three immortal sisters lay at its center like pearls in a poisoned shell. Until one day it did. The women disap- peared and were never seen again. The Empire slowly faded and fell, leaving only a memory, like a nightmare recalled at dawn.

There used to be an empire ruled by three perfect women. One could not be harmed and would never age, one was loved by everyone who saw her and one prevented anyone who met her from doing harm to another. Outside of its inner court, the empire was horrible, murderous and psychotic. People working for beings they knew to be perfect went mad. But the empire could never end because the three people at its core would collectively never age and no one who met them would, or could, ever harm them. So the world was fucked.

The Three sisters lived a kind of cosseted, disconnected existence, generally unaware of the horror that occurred outside of their direct presence, technically in charge, but with no real control.

With no way to end the empire, a group of its highest functionaries, with very mixed motives, devised a plan. They would take the three sisters to the Maze of the Medusa and hide them there. The Medusa Psathyrella was already a kind of jailer of immortal threats, her Maze is almost impossible to find, she is the only person clever and cold-hearted enough to keep the sisters prisoner without being seduced by their various perfections.

Having succeeded at their plan, everyone ends up much more trapped than they intended to.

In the world outside, the Empire fell apart and currently exists as a kind of legend of the distant past of the world the players come from.

Physical Details?

259 pages--full color--7.5" w x 9" h--that's bigger than Red & Pleasant Land so you can see the detail in the maps.

You know 'medusa' is a proper name, right? The species name is 'gorgon'?

Go fuck yourself.

Can I pre-order?

Yes:

Go to http://gum.co/motbm-pre to buy the Hardcover + PDF bundle, go to http://gum.co/motbm-simple to buy the Simple PDF.

Also, a Deluxe PDF—hyperlinked throughout for ease of use & exploration for GMs and readers—is in the works now (it'll cost $10 if you purchase it alone). If you order the Hardcover + Simple PDF bundle available today ($50 + shipping) but wanna upgrade to the Hardcover + Deluxe PDF bundle available soon, you'll pay only the difference.

I really like this art, is it available as a poster, shower curtain or high-quality printed decorative throw pillow by any chance?

Yes. Here.

Maze of the Blue Medusa Preview (SPOILERRRRRS)

click to enlarge

Pictures by me, words by Patrick Stuart, published by Satyr Press. Coming soon...

Because Bad Wizards Are Annoying

These things are true in D&D:

-Evil wizards come up a lot.

-Writing out which spells of which level they have is a pain in the ass, especially because they might die in a round.

-Always giving all of them infinite spells of the appropriate level removes an important tactical limit that makes wizard fights interesting.

So GMs might be interested to giving NPC wizards a limit on what they can cast, but one that's easier to work with than the one PC wizards have.

Here's one False Patrick and me are using in the upcoming (really upcoming: it's in layout) Maze of the Blue Medusa book. It's based on the following additional observations:

-You're going to be keeping track of the wizard's hit points.

-Even if the spell selection is written out for you like in a published module, you still are always going to have the player's handbook and/or its spell list and descriptions immediately to hand just in order to run the game normally.

A most excellent Librarian, 12' tall. Guards the SEEPING CHIMES from interference and knows what they are for.

AC: 17

HD: 8

Atk d12 bite or by spell

Can be harmed only by magical weapons--except fire, which does doubles damage.

Spells: Gruel can cast any magic-user spell of levels 1-4 at a hit point cost to herself equal to thrice the spell's level--so Magic Missile would cost her 3 hit points. The cost of healing spells is deducted after the spell takes effect.

Treasure:

800 gp in ancient bracelets.

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Notes on this:

-Obviously you can adjust the hit point cost for different kinds of wizards to like 2/level or 10/level or whatever and for different editions. This particular version of this monster was designed for Basic-style monsters, who have way less hp than 3, 4, and 5 edition monsters.

-Again, this presumes you've got the PHB and its spell list by level right there anyway, so it's no biggie to look down the list and decide what spell you'll use.

-If you're tempted to use this for PCs, there are hitches that take hold: outside combat, it gives them them infinite healing (if they have any healing spells) which in turn gives them infinite spells, which in turn means infinite growth, shrinking etc etc. It's good for combat only.

-Players playing hardcore system-mastery-as-tactic will be frustrated by this, but, really, let them be. It violates the system's rules but not the genre's.

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