Café de Nuit

Howdy all. Now and again I've mentioned the "revised RL Denizens of Dread" I've been working on for my own use. Basically, it's a collection of Word files containing all of Ravenloft's monsters, so I don't have to go flipping through a dozen hardcovers.

In putting this together, I though it would be interesting to have the "read aloud" blurb that WotC started using with 3.5 not be a simple visual description (since I find those to be generally less detailed than the old style). Instead, each "blurb" would be a short mood piece, as if quoting a snippet from a survivor's account, a journal entry, or a horror tale in which the creature appears.

Here's a couple of examples:

Abomination
“Behold this freak among freaks, this monster in the eyes of monsters. I defy you to tear your eyes from the mass of roiling, noisome flesh at the bottom of this dank pit. A true horror, is it not? So malformed, one would never suspect that the shapeless fiend you look upon was once a man like any one of you.”
—Professor Archemo Pacali, Carnival barker

Allip
“In the corner of Garner’s barn, where a frayed rope hung from the rafters, I could see a cloud of tattered rags twist and float. Rags… or were they shadows? I cannot say. Sighs, words, sobs rustled through the darkness. In a rush, the thing in the corner came at me, gibbering. I heard Allyk and Rosanna shout, but faintly as my world filled with onrushing blackness, the touch of rotten cloth and the shade’s cold cries.
“I hear it still…”
—Journal of Thomasson, Dementlieuse farmer

Assassin Vine
“Assassin vine instructions: One goat per week for each patch plus fertilizer. Weed regularly. Harvest berries at eight to ten weeks. The largest (“Vyniknot”) gets a goblin, kobold, other, in place of goat. Variant vines in underground garden receive silver-laced fertilizer. Use oil of quessence when near vines.”
—Gardeners’ log-book at Veneficus

Doppelganger Plant
“Proof of the fecundity of these wretched swamps is that while the meteor only struck two days ago, the crater is already infested with vegetation. One specimen in particular might be of interest to those dirt-grubbing botanists in Il Aluk — a mass of entangling vines, with gigantic, oblong pods smothered between them. We’ll have to clear them out to recover the fallen star — those lackwits from the village who tagged along might be of some use after all. It will keep until tomorrow, though; our guide suggests that we sleep here tonight and get an early start.”
—Last entry in the journal of Hendrich von Brahen, Professor of Astronomy at the Bratslava Institute

Elemental, Grave
“As the incantation peaked, the earth shuddered beneath us, and then rose into a mountainous form of hideous construction. Shaped from moldy earth and crumbling tombstones, coffins’ wood and dead men’s bones, it quaked with barely constrained power and hatred, both for the hallowed earth of the temple nearby, and for we puny beings that dared call it forth and bind it.”
—The Occultist’s Apprentices, Friedrich and Hilda Kreutzer

Elemental, Pyre
“Out of the depths it burst forth, as though a chasm had opened into the Infernal Regions. A column of crimson fire, it lashed out with ghostly blue tentacles of flame. All around it withered in the monstrous heat, and within, I saw bones and skulls forced to dance like ashes and embers on a hot wind.”
—Memoirs of Aradain Mournseworth, paladin of Ezra

Goblin, Dread (Bugbear)
“The beast beat the last of the smaller creatures against the boulder until the goblin was little but a sack of blood and shattered bone. Turning, it tossed its victim amongst the other corpses. Now I could see it clearly. It was both taller and broader than I, hirsute, much like a bear but with elements human, porcine, and... other. A filthy loincloth of uncured animal skin and a rope belt adorned with three severed hands were the beast’s only garments. Drool glistened amongst its jutting fangs. The beast squatted to retrieve a large sword, scarred and pitted with long use, probably scavenged from some barrow mound. Suddenly, the creature snuffled and licked at the air. A feral light came to its eyes and it took a step toward my hiding place. It had scented me and would be on me in moments.”
—Research notes of Eldgar Fionwick, goblin hunter and researcher

Death's Horseman (Famine
“A sudden chorus of terror erupted ahead of me in the marketplace. Mad panic flashed through the crowd. People trampled each other to flee and rushed the outer stalls, savagely tearing food out of each other’s clutches and desperately stuffing it down their own throats. Nearer at hand, I watched a row of smoked ducks blacken and shrivel before my very eyes. As the crowd thinned, I saw the source of everyone’s terror. An emaciated corpse sat slumped in the saddle of an equally wasted horse. The horror snatched up a halfling child, dragging him kicking and screaming onto the saddle. Just like the smoked meat, I watched the flesh shrivel from the child’s bones! The monster defiantly addressed the panicked crowd.”
“‘We seek a fiery eye,’ it said. Its voice was horrible. ‘Give it to us, and the suffering of this innocent will end.’”
—Witness account, Rivalis, August 755 BC


Vampyre
“At first, I took them for beautiful and depraved humans, their depravity made all the more loathsome by their beauty. Several long seconds passed before I noticed the salient details — the clawlike nails, the feline cast to their features, and the fiery gleam in their eyes. As I staggered back against the door, they stalked towards me, like wolves closing on a cornered hare.
“Alanik, of course, was already on the move…”
—Arthur Sedgewick, “The Nest of the Vampyres,” The Casebook of Alanik Ray


Wolfwere
“The wolf growled, and then, to our shock and amazement, it stretched, standing upright like a man. Its paws lengthened to cruel, clawed hands. Its limbs popped and shifted, bending in ways that no beasts ought to. Its back arched and curved, so that as it rose on its misshapen legs, it kept its gleaming yellow eyes fixed on us.”
—From the tales of Matthew Swiftsinger of Skald

Zombie Fog
“The mist blanketed the graveyard, its white tendrils caressing the tombstones. Slowly, the opened graves began to tremble, and the bodies stirred within the coffins. One by one, they shambled forth, their eyes veiled in fog, called by the siren spell of the fog that lured the living toward slow death and the dead toward a mockery of life.”
—Mist of the Living Dead: A Tale of Horrific Love, fifth sequel to The Dead Travel Fast

(Kudos to Matthew L. Martin and Chris Nichols, who wrote the lion's share of these.)

Anyway, here's the deal: Ideally, I'd like one of these for nearly every monster in the collection. But I also find that I don't have nearly the time or the creative energy for such an undertaking. Thus, I've decided to cast a wide net and put the proposal to you, members of the Fraternity. As you can see from the examples above, Im looking for two or three sentences per monster, with an emphasis on atmosphere rather than simple depiction.

I'm kind of hat-in-hand on this one; sharing these files with anyone would be such an egregious copyright violation it's simply out of the question, so really all I can offer is a creative outlet. I'll take first-come, first-served. And tell ya what -- if I get a blurb for a monster, and I've done errata for it, I'll post my conversion notes, where I can. And, naturally, you guys can
share each others' blurbs for your own use.

And since I know a lack of focus can kill these sorts of projects, I'll kick off with the letter A. (If there's interest in this, I'll move on to a new letter each week.)

Here's the first batch of monsters (out of 26) I need blurbed:

Done! Afflicted beast [new]
Done! Akikage [RL Monstrous Compendium III; Denizens of Dread]
Done! Albesadow (a.k.a. elven vampire) [RLMC I; Denizens of Dread]
Done! Alchemical child [Van Richten's Arsenal]
Done! Alhoon (a.ka. mind flayer lich) [Lords of Madness]
Done! Ancient dead (dread mummy) [R3E, Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead]
Done! Angel of Decay [Libris Mortis]
Done! Anguilian [Stormwrack]
Animated object [Monster Manual]
Done! Animator [RLMC III; Denizens of Dread]
Done! Aquatic ooze, bloodbloater [Fiend Folio]
Done! Aquatic ooze, flotsam ooze [Fiend Folio]
Done! Aquatic ooze, reekmurk [Fiend Folio]
Done! Arak, alven [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, brag [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, fir [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, gwytune [RL Gaz V]
Done! Arak, muryan [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, portune [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, powrie [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, shee [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, sith [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Arak, teg [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]
Done! Aranea [Monster Manual]
Done! Arayashka [Denizens of Dread, Dark of the Moon]
Done! Arcane head [The Nightmare Lands]
Done! Ashen Husk [Sandstorm]
Done! Assassin bug, giant [Denizens of Dread]
Astral construct [Expanded Psionics Handbook]
Done! Avanc [The Shadow Rift; Ravenloft Gazetteer V]

I know I'm asking a lot, and I'm appreciative of whatever I get.

Albesadow (elven vampire) [RLMCI, Denizens of Dread]

Alas! Child of light,
No more shalt thou see the stars
Wheeling in Heaven.

Crooked hands; the rose
Withers at thy touch, the tree
Turns her face, shudders.

From Narthang eolinde, trans. Malcolm Hopper

Alchemical child [Van Richten's Arsenal]

Take care to use all of the best & freshest of these Things, most especially in the matter of Blood; for the expense of a spoilt child of the ordinary persuasion, in both money & grief, is as nothing compared to that of a spoilt Alchemical Childe.

Notes on the Alchemie, Paridon, published 567 BC

Arak, powrie [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]

There was a buzzing, as if the King of Flies was there, and the sharp reek of blood even before we entered the room. Throwing open the door, we saw the thing crouched over its victim, knife in hand; a creature like a starved child with wasp wings. Dabbling its cap at Mistress Hartree's slit throat, it clapped it on its head and gave us a hangman's grin.

Bertram Mac Laren, Sixty Nights in Tepest


Avanc [The Shadow Rift; Ravenloft Gazetteer V]

Shading my eyes, I stared down into the water while Harespex readied the harpoon and line. Suddenly, something moved beneath us--a shadowed form passing beneath us perpendicular to our course. It moved deliberately but by no means slowly, and for three long heart's beats I waited for its form to pass entirely. By my rough estimate the creature was thirty feet in length.

Turning to Harespex, his preparations now complete, I signaled to him to stow the harpoon. At a loss to convey what I had just seen, I finally said only, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

Bertram Mac Laren, Sixty Nights in Tepest

Arak, Shee (The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey)
"She dances like no tomorrow under the silver moon, her feet never touching the pool. Her music is the evening wind, her rhythm the gentle rippling of water beneath her delicate toes. Her hair is as steel, yet it trails white and fades away in gossamer. She is as a swan, illuminated by her own inner light. One glimpse of her true form and she disappears; one touch of her fingers, and you fade away."

--Gaston d'Ouevire (of Port-a-Lucine), Romance of the Countryside

Ashen Husk [Libris Mortis] – John, I don’t find it in Libris Mortis?

Angel of Decay [Libris Mortis]

“We arrived too late: Jezebel was able to complete her foolish summoning of an abyssal creature. The stink near the wood clearing was nearly unbearable. What few remained of Jezebel’s body rested in a pool of foul smelling liquid rot. Erik fainted. But suddenly this monstrosity flew over us, tainting us by its mere presence. We fled this horrible place. Erik is still missing.”
Jorane Amos, Letter to her superiors

Nothing coming to mind just yet, but I just wanted to say these are really great, and I'm saddened that the idea didn't make it into the actual book. Fantastic idea.

Arak, Sith [The Shadow Rift, Van Richten's Guide to the Shadow Fey]

His moon-bright hair fell over me; the wind sighed as it passed through the cemetary trees, and the long grass danced, but far less gracefully than he and I. The touch of his fingers at my back was a burning promise of ecstasy--not the insipid ecstasies of Life, but the fuller and deeper pleasures of Death.

Fellow-Travelers: Love and Death in Darkon, second sequel to The Dead Travel Fast

(I love this idea!)

Anguilian [Stormwrack]

We had reports from fisherman about an abandoned merchant boat drifting about a mile south-west of the Mordentshire Bay. Me and a few other fellow Lamplighters boarded the small Lamordian ship later this very day. All 6 crew members were dead, often with signs of violence in the area where their body stood. Their dead face expressed fear. They appear to be drained of all blood, and oddly they all bear the same round leech-like mark. This mark puzzled us, since it’s very large: about 6” to 8”. Usual body precautions with blood suckers have been used prior to putting the sailor men to their last rest in the cemetary.

Deposition of Mordentshire Sheriff, on the HMS Valiant affair

Assassin bug, giant [Denizens of Dread]

N. deV. claims to have heard "clicking" directly before attack and claims that the digestion/exsanguination of Powellers (poor fellow!) is remarkably similar to feeding of the beetle A. matador on mice. Pointed out that this is ridiculous--would require that "bug" be the size of a horse! Some kind of vampire? Variant were-rat?

Nathaneal Dent, grimetrekker, Pont-a-Museau, case notes on expedition 7/7/754

Aranea [Monster Manual]

"Please, come in," my hostess said, smiling. "Step into my parlor." It was a beautifully appointed room, with elaborate silk hangings on the walls and the chairs and sopha decorated with exquisitely knotted doilies of every sort. Seeing that they had caught my eye, she said, "Do you like them? I made them all myself."

I hastened to assure her that I thought her work the height of elegance; that Arachne herself could hardly have outdone her.

In the House of Silk, from Twelve Tales of the Macabre by Jean Lafolie

Wow, this is great!

And sorry about the ashen husk -- it's actually in Sandstorm.

Arak, Muryan [The Shadow Rift, Ravenloft Gazetteer Volume 5]

The dancing-man glided forward, its eyes fixed on my companion. "Come, bright son of Summer," it commanded in its sweet voice. "We dance. Dance well, and you shall tread the measures with me in Endless Twilight." Harespex made no reply, but drew his longsword and stepped forward. As he did so, I saw that his eyes were as blank and unfocused as a sleepwalker's.

Bertram Mac Laren, Sixty Nights in Tepest

I don't mean to hog all the fun; it's just a combination of insomnia and unemployment that has led to this outpouring. BTW, if anyone else wants to use an author or book I mention as a "source", please feel free to do so!

Nathan of the FoS wrote:I don't mean to hog all the fun; it's just a combination of insomnia and unemployment that has led to this outpouring.

And I believe if a topic got more then one TTTT, it's not a problem

BTW, if anyone else wants to use an author or book I mention as a "source", please feel free to do so!

Fun idea!

Arak, fir

My blood froze in my viens as I saw the creatures surounding Ashlein's pale form. Her life bood stained the long delecate fingers of the child like beings and thier large heads noded in silent agreement as they dug deeper into the gaping wound. I could see flashes of silver and copper as thier fingers flew over the tattered remains of her heart. After several agonising moments the creatures pulled back and I could hear a faint ticking of moving parts and the bitter sweet sound of Ashleins moans...

Sir Pipin Powderhill, The tale of the Clockwork Heart

I overlooked three "A" creatures for the list:

Afflicted beast [new]
Ancient dead (dread mummy) [VRG to the Ancient Dead, R3E]
Arayashka (snow wraith) [DenDread, Dark of the Moon]

I'm not quite done with the afflicted beast yet, but basically it's an option for what happens when a lycanthrope bites a normal member of its phenotype (a werewolf biting a wolf, for example) and afflicts it with lycanthropy.

The afflicted beast doesn't become a true lycanthrope and can't spread the Dread Disease, but when exposed to its trigger it adopts the alignment of its progenitor and becomes somewhat more powerful and more aggressive.

Arayashka (snow wraith) [DenDread, Dark of the Moon]

Clever Ivan stayed in the tree, singing and throwing snowballs at the wolves while he waited for them to get bored and go away; but then the sky grew dark, and the wind began to howl, and the wolves fled into the woods, as well they might, for the zilinya neshka brings worse things than wolves with it when it comes.

The Story of Clever Ivan and the Arayashka, traditional Voros

Animator [RLMCIII, DenDread]

"Well, Arthur. The matter is settled; no-one could or did leave the room after Master Despain was stabbed. Therefore, there can only be one conclusion."

"That his murderer is still here," I said. The reader can imagine my emotion at that moment--to be present with the person or thing that could effect so brutal a murder, all unknowing! "But, then, where...?"

As I spoke the greatsword which had transfixed Despain moved, shuddering as if attempting to free itself of the corpse which burdened it.

Arthur Sedgwick, "The Man Who Wasn't There", The Casebook of Alanik Ray