Going through the forum I've found some great creature write ups in fan made PDFs and looked at the various creatures in the Loremasters book, tails of the Wilderland and Lake Town.

Now I want to create some of my own and have a question.

Endurance, hate and parry, are there any guidelines to the numbers you use or do you just use what ever value you think fits the concept you have?

Creatures with the same attribute levels have wildly different amounts of endurance. Is there some kind of maths I'm too dumb to recognise or is it "This creature needs to be tough, so loads of endurance?"

In regards to the stuff I did, I eyeballed the creatures in the books and then I just did what felt right.

Badgers??? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!


Some other creatures from the Monster Manual / Bestiary from D&D/Pathfinder that would work IMO

There are giant spiders so why not some of the other giant vermin: Ants, Centipede, bees/wasps, and Scorpions. And giant bats definitely.

There are great eagles....there can definitely be great/giant owls - or talking ones at the very least.

The ankheg is a good hybrid-esque creature that is relevant to ants as ettercops are to spiders. Could even serve as a "really big neeker" Or a Stirge that drinks the blood of a victim.

The Bhargest is quite appropriate

The Bulette is an interesting one that I think could have a place in TOR.

As would a Displacer Beast

Harpy would be an excellent twisted fey-spirit-witch that bewitches the mind and lures men to their deaths. There are many such tales among Tolkien's writing.

Stories of men's blundering in pursuit of Will-o-wisps would make sense.

The purple worm and/or Polar worm would seem fitting as epic baddies - the latter in the far reaches of the Misty Mountains or in far away lands of Forochel..

For caves: The Roper is another interesting baddie that would fit with the theme - especially in a cave, or a Cave-Fisher, or Darkmantle would fit the theme of dark denizens - not dissimilar to The Watcher of the Water type of menace (but not as epic). Troglodytes would fit. As would grimlocks.

Nagas are certainly no stretch as many of the critters like the spiders have "human" like faces and can talk - no reason a snake couldn't.

Ogres would work - though not sure how superfluous they would be with so many trolls resembling them similarly.

Yetis would definitely be appropriate in the Misty Mountains.

And then there's all the the fey spirits type stuff: Sprite/pixie/nixie, nereid, Nymph, Dryad (the latter of which is what I envision for Ent-wives),

Finally there's already a precedent set within the MarshBell of a "living killer-plant" that resembles an Assassin-Vine. So other such living/killing plants would work as well; vines, thorns, briars etc that are predatory and possibly inflict thorn wounds that literally drink the blood of a victim.

I agree with the Greek-themed hybrid animals such as Minotaur, Griffon, etc as well as D&D created versions like the Owlbear would not be as fitting.



Regardless - what we really need.....is a giant wooden badger!

A giant wooden badger?

All the kidding aside, I'm still getting over Francesco stepping out of his (& mine) comfort zone & adding some unique foes to the Lake-town Sourcebook. I'll spare spoilers for those of us who haven't received the book yet, though it's a juicy addition to anyone's ToR collection.

Sir Kickley adds some great recommendations.

IMHO, Erica Balsley did a first rate job writing a couple of articles about converting monsters from another game into Middle-earth. You can locate them in Issues 15 & 16 of the Hall of Fire.

http://halloffire.org/2005/04/issue-15/

http://halloffire.org/2005/04/issue-16/

you evidently met my ferrets