- Monsters of the Endless Dark – Goodman Games
- Monster Cookbook – Limestone Publishing
- Babylon 5 – Mongoose Publishing
Monster Cookbook – The Jeopard
The Monster Cookbook is made for people who enjoy highly imaginative, playable, and often amusing monsters in their fantasy games. Each monster includes stats in both the d20 and Higher Arc systems, ideas for adventures with that monster, and perhaps best of all, a delicious recipe for cooking that monster. Also included is the adventure Them’s Good Eatin’, which will give you the opportunity to put all these monsters and recipes to good use.
The Monster Cookbook is packed with a whole bunch of new monsters and races, like the undead necrómon and the shambling dungeon, as well as unique new takes on a bunch of old monsters, from beholders to unicorns, and is fully compatible with Chain of Being: The Fantasy Roleplaying Game of Epic Absurdity.
GameWyrd has a PDF copy of the Jeopard and so if you fancy a copy to take home, click here and download 386KB of epic absurdity.
The Jeopard
The jeopard is a strange creature. It is sort of leopardy and sort of something else rather hard to define. It is clearly big and nasty, and its predation habits are especially frightening, for the jeopard has it in for specific individuals. It decides on a particular person — always an intelligent mortal — that it desires. It then chases that person down relentlessly until it slays and eats him. Perhaps worse than this, however, is that the jeopard is somewhat telepathic in a limited fashion, and it always knows where its potential victim is located (in terms of distance and direction). This “homing telepathy” means it never needs to track its prey.
All jeopards have one yellow eye and one green eye. To decide to make someone a target, the jeopard must have had a chance to spy on that person for at least 30 seconds with its yellow eye. During this time, a victim often reports the creepy feeling that she is being watched, even if she isn’t aware of the jeopard’s presence. If she is aware of the jeopard’s presence, of course, the jeopard’s squinted stare is indeed chilling.
After its stare is complete, the jeopard can decide to make a person it has stared at into its victim at its leisure. When this happens, the selected person acquires a jade jeopard spot on some part of his body. Although a selected victim is not telepathically aware of the jeopard’s location, the jeopard’s telepathy is somewhat mutual and emits a kind of feedback. This allows a victim to sense the jeopard’s presence (though not its exact location) when it comes within 300 feet. This will awaken all but the deepest sleepers and is usually experienced as a slight itching or the raising of hair on the back of the neck. This feeling intensifies as the jeopard approaches.
For a non-sentient creature, the jeopard is highly intelligent. Furthermore, its green eye has further mystic powers. When the jeopard makes eye contact with a previously selected victim, it has the ability to make that person fall in love with it (Higher Arc players make a Resolve / Concentration / Resisting Urges check versus the jeopard’s Eloquence / Subterfuge / Entrancing; d20 players make a Will save versus the jeopard’s Green Eye ability). Those in love with the jeopard must make further Resolve / Concentration / Resisting Urges checks or Will saves to avoid trusting and giving affection to the creature. Once the jeopard finds its victim, it will kill him, first ripping out his heart and eating that. Then it will sate itself on the rest of the body.
Once the jeopard decides to make a person its victim, the jeopard cannot change its mind until the potential victim dies. If the jeopard is unable to kill and consume this person, the jeopard itself will starve to death, because it cannot derive nutrition from anyone it hasn’t selected as a victim, and it cannot select a new victim until the old one dies.
In order to prevent them from mating, most kingdoms have made it illegal for jeopards to hang out with one another. Not being intelligent in the same way that humans and other mortals are, however, jeopards universally ignore this directive.
Seeing a jeopard, even one that doesn’t have it in for you, is considered extremely bad luck.
Adventure Ideas: A jeopard decides to prey on a party member, an important person suddenly acquires a whole bunch of jade spots, a sphinx hosts a game show where the loser gets fed to a pair of jeopards, something goes wrong with a jeopard and it falls in love with a PC, someone is using jeopards as assassins
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Mom’s Jeopardhead Surprise
Take 1 thoroughly dead jeopard. Remove head. Cut off top of 1 small pumpkin and scoop out seeds. Mince four cloves garlic and place in pumpkin. Place pumpkin between jaws, propping them open. Prop open eyes, lips, and eyebrows with toothpicks so that head retains fearsome expression while cooking. Steam head in a large pan for 3 hours, basting eyeballs every 15 minutes with a mixture of oil, vinegar and curry. When head is done, remove pumpkin and toothpicks. Cut pumpkin into strips and arrange on a large platter with washed, shredded kale. Place head on platter, pour extra eyeball baste into mouth, and cover with opaque lid. Serve to an unsuspecting 3-5 people, yelling “Raaar!” or “Look, its a JEOPARD!” as you remove cover quickly.
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HA Jeopard Stats
Jeopard (Conscious/Huge)
XP: 4800 BERP: 3/4/1/2
PECT: 3/2/2/3 CFRS: 20/N.A./40/10
Proficiencies
Prowess Maneuver
Grappling 30 Agility 16
Strength 32 Aiming 8
Swinging 28 Dexterity 18
Thrusting 20 Wits 20
Eloquence Intellect
Creativity 6 Crafting 1
Elocution 12 Inventiveness 2
Emoting 12 Erudition 2
Subterfuge 15 Reasoning 8
Resolve Intuition
Concentration 15 Awareness 16
Endurance 20 Instinct 10
Evocation 8 Savvy 8
Resilience 12 Wisdom 6
Vision — Presence —
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d20 Jeopard Stats
Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 12d10+36 (102 hp)
Initiative: +3 (Dex)
Speed: 40 ft., swim 25 ft. climb 20 ft.
AC: 20 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +8 natural)
Attacks: 2 claws +20 melee, bite +15 melee, tail bash +15 melee
Damage: Claw 2d4+10, bite 2d6+5, tail bash 2d6+5
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce, improved grab, rake 2d4+4
Special Qualities: Scent, homing telepathy, green eye love
Saves: Fort +16, Ref +13, Will +11
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 16, Con 17, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Green Eye +8, Hide +0, Jump +11, Listen +8, Move Silently +9, Spot +3, Swim +11
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative
Climate/Terrain: Any. Prefers forest, hill, mountains, or plains
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: 9
Treasure: None
Advancement: 13-24 HD (Large)
