• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.

D&D Monsters as T20 Aliens

I use Orcs IMTU, but they're actually a Human Minor race/offshoot. Seeded by the ancients in a small disc-shaped star cluster just above the main rim of the galaxy (Two jump-2s and a jump-3 to get there, and the system you arrive at after the first jump-2 has no fuel of any kind available
). Their world's vegetation is mostly fungal, and the humans became stout, short, and strong to deal with the various nasty animals, as well as growin dark greenish-black skin to blend in the with the environment. They also see well in the dark and dislike bright lights, as the world has a thick, hazy cloudcover most of the time.
 
I recently used Troglodytes without the stench ability as aa aggressive local lizard race.

Plastic D&D minitures work great for this too.
 
Archealer uses Orcs IHTU, off-shoot of Humaniti.....

And I recently introduced the "svirfneblin", a deep gnome race to my Traveller universe. The players in my campaign were the first to 'discover' this new sentient (and very bright!) humanoid race. Whether they can prove that the svirfneblin are an off-shoot of Humaniti is yet to be determined. ;)


Here is a BIG HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION to all of you:

Is it remotely possible for an alien race to RESEMBLE human-form (human-like head, pair of arms, pair of legs, upright, bipedal, warm blooded, etc) while still not being an off-shoot of Humaniti? Is this evolutionarily possible?
 
Actually, Maladominus, it's more a question of probability. If you assume we evolved (not everyone does), then it is absolutely possible for another to evolve just like us.

The real question is how many different ways of satisfying similar needs are there? Though I don't agree with the humans in rubber suits paradigm, if the constraints on life arising are within fairly narrow parameters you will get a fairly narrow set of solutions. After all, how else do you explain Vulcans?
file_22.gif
 
It's all a matter of gm prefference & imagination.Any Creature can exist if you think about the human tendancy to name things after what they look like from mythology!Elves & Drow would'nt be human offsoots,they would be semi-parallels.If an alien creature looks like some "monster" by the first to see it,then that's most likely to be what they'll call it.Orcs can be evolved from pigs,who coincidently are the closest genetic link to humans.
Also, all things evolve,Undead can be explained by some genetic virus(Resident Evil)or something never before encountered on earth.Who knows really what we're going to find out there.In space Vampires would never have to sleep;It's always dark,But they would have to feed more.
Sci-fi is full of creature's that could be thought of as D&Dtipical.
As for mage's;Think techno-mage as per Babylon 5.
thenologically assisted slight of hand and illusion.Magic is easy to produce in Traveller terms.
Don't over think the question just use your own judgement & imagination. :D :D
 
I do have a race of goblin-esque critters who are only barely sentient (ave. INT of only 6), who are essentially humanoid, but are in no way an offshoot of humanity. In fact, they're pretty neat... I made them partially photosynthetic. Their skin reflects a waxy purple shade, and while they are omnivorous and will eat damn near anything organic, they don't need to eat as much or breath as much as a creature their size normally would, provided sufficient light. If they were smarter, that might make them excellent starship crews. Of course, they're not smarter. They're dumb, and mean, and incredibly xenophobic. They do however have an almost universal fascination with technical bits. Doesn't mean they understand them or are any good with them, just that they love to push buttons.
 
The WOTC books Sandstorm and Frostburn have some interesting creatures that would fit in T20 too, like the Crucian (intelligent), dire vulture, dunewinder (sand worms anyone?) dustblight (intelligent) giant banded lizard.

ice toad, tlalusk, chilblian, yeti.

Mike
 
Thri-Kreen were the mantis race from Dark Sun, right? Well a high tech version of them would possibly be the Thranx from Alan Dean Foster's "Humanx" books, which would probably fit into Traveller.
 
I use D20 references from other books quite a lot. That includes the fantasy D&D3e and D20 Modern

One of my ATU races, strongly resemble D20 Hobgoblins, with a tech level coming up to modern day standards (TL7).
 
Originally posted by Mark D.:
Orcs can be evolved from pigs,who coincidently are the closest genetic link to humans.
Click to expand...
:eek:

Sorry, not even vaguely close to being right. Chimpanzes are within 2% of human DNA, other great apes almost as close. Pigs aren't even primates.

(edit: proofread prior to posting works much better!
 
The Chuul, with a slight modification of tactics (and possibly Medium size rather than Large), could be made into an Alienesque menace attacking an isolated aqua-colony. It could easily paralyze its victim, grab him discreetly, and sneak away to its feeding area or lair; with its +13 bonus to Hide checks and INT 10, it could be a very sneaky monster indeed.
 
AD&D monsters are sometimes best just left as that monsters. One of my favourite ways of running Traveller is not so much a monster a week but campaign filled with the horrors of their worst nightmares and then they wake up in the local psychiatric ward not knowing what inspired them was real or just part of a grand disillusions, after all hospitals are can hide many horrors of their own.
 
Heheh, I ahve never used D&D monsers in Traveller, but I have stolen them for use in the Star Wars RPG (specifically I used Mind Flayers, turning their magic powers into Force abilities). But I have to agree witht the OP, a lot of the creatures would make good aliens too.

An Otyugh would make a good trapper who lives in swampy areas.

Owlbears, since they combine factes of both terran birds an bears could have a very alien feel to them.

If you can think of some excuse for your traveller characters to be doing a bit of spelunking, Grick's would be useful. Or with minimal work you could make them some sort of burrower rather than cave dwellers, bursting from the ground to attack hapless PCs.

Chuul wouldn't be bad in an aquatic setting.

Digesters might be another good mosnter. Their acid is too strong to be realistic enough for a really 'hard sci-fi' type of game, but it's no worse than the whole concept of the creature in Alien, so if you aren't too much of a sticker it could work.
 
I love this thread, it started me thinking about perhaps a Beholder. Wandering monster tables would be a great extra step in Traveller world building.
 
Jabberwock is in D&D. Jabberwock is in Traveller too (unless you are one of the "unfortunates" who never had Old JTAS issues).

Mind Flayers? Could easily be transported as a fringe minor sentient race of psions. They probably would not thrive inside Imperium borders, as the Third Imperium abhors an openly psionic race. Maybe the illithids could thrive as a Zhodani-supported client state.

Abhoth? Sure, use them as psionic monsters.... with evil and unpure intentions. The Zhodani explorers encounter the abhoth race, and the Zhodani realize that the abhoth not only are powerful psionics, but are willing to engage the Zhodanis in a psion-versus-psion warfare.

Jandraka.... yes, scary!

Mongolian Death Worm? Purple Worm? Dune worm? Works in most desert planets.

Beholders.... hehe. Most Traveller explorers would pee in their pants at the sight of one.

Quetzals and other flying reptiles? Sure, why not.

Gelatinous Cube? Grey Ooze? I don't see a problem with a conglomerate giant multi-celled amoeba mass (non-sentient) existing in a SciFi setting. Might require a good deal of bio-science explaining on the part of the GM, however. How could an amoebic mass have grown so huge? Was it the planetary atmosphere? Was it the taint? Was it the density? Was it the radioactivity? Was it some crazed mad Solomani scientist with too much time on his hands?

Demogorgon? Well, maybe just maybe pushing it too far. Just maybe.
 
For what it is worth I wrote up Shoggoths and Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua as bioweapons of the Ancients (or some other Precursor race) for my CP2020 engine version of Traveller. This was many years before Cthonian Stars or similar variants came out.

D.
 
Shades of barrier peaks here......

HMMM...low grav, dense atmo...big flying lizards.....Dragon anyone?

Green slime or grey ooze on your ships hull?

Shriekers for the local flora?

Ah Yes....throw in a white unicorn to just screw with the players minds.

Lots of possabilities.

Just no Orcs with MG's in marine uniforms ala Grunts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

kafka47
Megatraveller Tidbits from HIWG CD Rom
Replies
19
Views
6K
Vargr Breath
V
Back
Top