The Mennara Menagerie - A Bestiary and Cast of Characters

By Watercolour Dragon, in Your Settings

The Mennara Menagerie - A Bestiary and Cast of Characters

and

The Genesys Index of Everything Useful In The Books And Where To Find It

:)

I'm working on going through the three main texts thus far - Core Rulebook, Realms of Terrinoth and the taster adventure 'The Haunted City' - to index the monsters and characters (both references and actual usable statsets) - at the same time as compiling a master index (I'm realising I'm always trying to re-find useful bits I've found before so figured this would help me loads and thus would be worth sharing once complete), any help welcome!

The idea is to reference anything in the books with where it can be found in the books which I know will save me a lot of time (not everything is easily find-able in the contents/index although if you have the PDF the find tool's very useful, but even that doesn't cover this can also be used for that type situations!) Then for the bestiary/ cast of characters we can compile what isn't in the books from jesters to jack-o-lanterns, Waiqar's hordes to will-o-the-wisps, unicorns to undead rook-raven-crow-vampire bat hybrids. My project has undead rook-raven-crow-vampire bat hybrids.

So as a key 'helper' in developing my campaign I'm compiling this upcoming tome of fantasy and Mennara/Terrinoth creatures, characters and other entities, if anyone's working on anything similar for fantasy we could ultimately merge the resources.

And I have quite a cool idea for a cover, I think you'll like it.

Share anything you'd like to see in such documents below and I'll prioritize that when I start the document build. Especially your favourite stock fantasy creatures and any ideas for realizing them in Genesys, any really useful bits of the books you've found that are worth highlighting not so obvious in the index/contents too. Or any ideas on ways of creating this improved, full contents (what would be most useful for your projects to help you find just the right parts).

I've got some ideas for (and from) this skeletal band of bones for the bestiary (inspired by the Runebound Miniatures, I'm a minis and maps kinda RPG'er although I've played purely vocal sessions too and enjoy both forms, my campaign will work for either- the minis and maps just help make things a bit easier as they visualise and track goings on and the current state of things. Plus of course I'm also trying to translate my ideas for Descent once the RPG's done):

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/4/3/legions-of-death-1/

I may use the standard-bearer for Lord Vorakesh (nemesis) - I think Vorakesh needs creating as an adversary as he's only mentioned not detailed in The Haunted City; along with the necromancer for Mavaris Skain (we have some info for Skain although I may need to downgrade him to Rival or even Minion, at least initially, for my needs.)

Two interesting new ideas I had were sparked by seeing the pictures of the miniatures in the above link (which I had to order after having these ideas):

Inspired by the drummer - The Manipulator of Heartbeats : This deathly drummer can either work for its allies or against its enemies- for example stirring an army up to full motivation with a rousing beat of war, intimidating an enemy with a precisely chosen heartbeat of horror, fear and shredded nerves or even slowly bringing their heartbeat to a complete..... stop.

However the drummer chooses to play it will play your heart!

- this the drummer does by choosing the target(s) of its drum beats and depending on the drummer's performance, if good enough and skilled enough, the target(s) heartbeats will match those of the drumming. Which could be lethal by escalating to an unbearable, throbbing speed or stopping altogether. If you are under the drummer's control, your heart will beat however the drum beats. Which is however the drummer wants it to beat. And potentially as loudly. If really successful your heart could join in audibly with the drumming and spread its infectious rhythm further. Some believe such drummers may be one of the ways Waiqar recruits, rallies and effectively hypnotizes some of those under his control into a zombie-like state of servitude, but nobody investigating such theories has ever returned to offer any reliable conclusion on them. By official recommendations most of Terrinoth has been warned to be very wary indeed of any drumming on its streets.

Inspired by the champion - Guardian of Waiqar - a servant (bodyguard of sorts) loyal to whichever undead entity it is in the service of protecting, should its sword pierce your flesh you may take on some of waiqar's mistborne corruption, it's shield can protect from those purer things that might harm it or that whom it is acting as guard for, and who knows what other horrible powers it has, those horned growths are rather disturbing for starters.

Any thoughts on realising these four nogoods as Genesys adversaries?

There's some good bestiary work happening out there already, so I may do mine focused on the requirements of my campaign (perhaps as a bit of a 'book content index' too and maybe pointing to other people's thoughts and where to find them), so as to not 'reinvent the whale' so to speak.

Direach's got quite a good zoo to peruse: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/265621-genesys-bestiary/

Might give something that makes a good guide for a leonx or the moosey thing that elf hero's riding (I'm not sure if its species is referenced or not) and some other things the elves can make use of.

It's something moose-like, answers on a postcard: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/9/25/ethereal-enchantress/

Edited by Watercolour Dragon

I've been calling it a Dire Moose. There's no official name for it though. Nowhere.

On 5/22/2020 at 2:57 AM, IamGazrok said:

I've been calling it a Dire Moose. There's no official name for it though. Nowhere.

Dire works but with her backstory and something I may do with the character in my adventure series, I quite like the idea of calling it an Ynfernael Moose, the horns definitely have an Uthuk look and it has red eyes, cue a song: "my Moose can have a dark side too"

So maybe 'dire' for generic, 'Ynfernael' for how it will feature in my project, where if I remember my idea, Maegan has purchased it in the past from Beastmaster Th'Uk Tar. Does Maegan have a dark side too? Cue ominous music da da daa....