1. No classes, everyone starts as 1-1 HD monster (Prinny)*, which is basically the Monsterland equivalent to 0level nobodies.
2. No XP, instead: Karma. Karma is earned by beating people up, lording it over humans in nasty, capitalist schemes, but mostly by stealing, theft, robbery, larceny, etc. Steal gold from other monsters, steal it from humans, steal it whenever you can. Every piece of gold stolen earns you one bad Karma. At the first 1,000 Karma and every 2,000 after that (so at 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, etc) you earn an incremental increase. Roll on this table. At the first 2,000 Karma and every 2,000 after that (so at 2,000, 4,000, 6,000, etc), you can descend further into samsara when you next die. Of course, to earn any of these rewards, you need to die and be reborn.
(EDIT: WHOOPS! Forgot the interim increase table, my mistake)
| Roll | 1to3 HD | 4to6 HD | 7to9 HD | 10+ HD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp |
| 2 | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp | +2 to hit |
| 3 | +1 HD in hp | +1 HD in hp | +2 to hit | +2 to hit |
| 4 | +1 to hit | +2 to hit | +2 to hit | +2 to damage |
| 5 | +1 to hit | +2 to hit | +2 to damage | +2 to damage |
| 6 | +1 to hit | +2 to damage | +2 to damage | +1 to crit |
| 7 | +1 to damage | +2 to damage | +1 to crit | +1 to crit |
| 8 | +1 to damage | +1 to crit | +1 to crit | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) |
| 9 | +1 to crit | +1 to crit | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) |
| 10 | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) | retain a single special ability from current monster in perpetuity (re-roll if rolled again) |
3. When you die, the gods of death and justice check your Karma to determine how awful you've been; you may earn an incremental increase that carries through from incarnation to incarnation or you may descend further into pain, fury, nastiness, glory, sex and violence and reincarnate as a more powerful monster (ie, +1 HD, roll your new form [alternatively, use the wandering monster tables by level from B/X]). After dying, you can be reborn on the battlefield, but usually you'll wake up in a pit of stinking bodyparts back in town.
4. Monster society is run by an evil Overlord and its various princes and princesses. Day-to-day life is more or less a popularity contest to see who can be the biggest, richest asshole around, with regular monster courts being held to condemn acts of kindness an reward villainy with citations and demerits.
Gold and slaves are all well and good, but citations and demerits for acts of villainy are the true currency of monsterland and can be exchanged for magical items, and super-powerful drugs, a night out on the town with some skeleton girls or zombie boys.
So, bribe your way into a court date, then lobby the members of the court, offer bribes, threaten or kill jurors and be well-known for being a real asshole. The GM will determine the president Judge (see Judges chart). The court is composed of six jurors, a president Judge and two angels.
| Roll | Judge's Name | Title | Predilection | Monster Type | Variation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marshall | Hack-nose | enjoys eating children | Ancient Red Dragon | +2 HD |
| 2 | Bork | Rot-face | enjoys candies from other planes | Vampire Lord | +2 Damage |
| 3 | Earlwarren | Cut-tongue | cannot abide a certain color | Demi-Lich in a pimp suit | Stern gaze attack can petrify in fear (save) |
| 4 | Ow Holmes | Long-finger | always lies, all verdicts and statements must be taken as opposite | Wyvern-Hyrdra hybrid | Outraged bellow cause lesser creatures to flee in terror (save) |
| 5 | Brandeis | Shit-stomper | is addicted to secrets, always wants more, but you've got to find a way to get them the secret “intact” | Small child, world-eater | Can swallow whole anything |
| 6 | Harlan | Gut-chewer | delights in fireworks from mass Prinny deaths | Ghoul King | Has another body hidden somewhere, ready to revenge any slight should this body be harmed |
On the day of the trial, show up, state your case for how awesome a monster you are and roll a Morale check. Subtract from the roll a one for every juror present that hasn't been successfully cowed or bought. If you beat the Morale roll (ie, roll a 9+), you earn a mark of demerit and, for every point above 9, you also earn a citation of villainy. If you roll a six or less, the angels have successfully won their case and you are, to your horror and shame, considered largely a redeemable and OK person. No one will want to hang out with you and you can't get another court date until you've amassed some seriously nasty Karma and money.
5. Combat is basically B/X, but:
a. When attacking, you can choose to go "all out": this means you attack without concern for your own safety. You have a +3 chance to crit and do +3 damage, but wind up with damage equal to half the damage you ultimately cause.
b. Successful critical strikes do another attack die's worth of damage UNLESS you or someone else in the party has gone all out in a turn, in which case, critical strikes are now a team attack: you and anyone else that has gone all out that turn attack in a coordinated manner. Your attacks all hit automatically and you roll a damage die for each of your attack AND rolling the highest damage possible (ie a 4 on a d4, a 6 on a d6) explodes (ie, roll another damage die, if you get the max again, roll again, etc).
c. Note that anyone can do the same thing to you, so stay close and try to separate your foes.
d. You heal up your HP to max after resting uninterrupted for about a turn (10 min). You can also heal a quarter of your hp by eating a corpse (1 quarter/round) and doing nothing else. Prinnies leave no corpses.
e. you attack with the weapons your form has given you, unless the B/X entry says you attack with a weapon. In which case you can also attack with a weapon.
6. Magic weapons, armour and devices are all intelligent monsters, are purchased from the backs of intergalactic chevys driven by shady vampires and can only be bought with lots of citations of villainy and marks of demerit. You can sometimes flag one of these vampires down, but mostly you have to wait until they show up in town. Magic weapons, armour and devices can also be "levelled up" by clearing out these intelligent monster's brains. Basically, all magical weapons, armours and devices are split personalities of a single corporate mindgod. The mindgod is a megadungeon. Clear the monsters out of your gear's section of the megadungeon and the weapon becomes more of its former self. Watch out for pirates, though.
Getting into and out of the mindgod's megadungeon just takes a portal ticket and a portal, same as getting to anywhere outside of Monsterland. Portals are in all major cities and located throughout the mindgod's megadungeon brain and portal tickets aren't too expensive (be sure to buy one for the return trip as Charon charges you like crazy if you're stuck in humanworld or the mindgod's megadungeon without a way home [because Charon is a monster and is therefore a dick]). You can't use the item you're exploring while you're exploring it (duh).
6.a. See below for what levelling up the item does and what's going on in the item that's blocking its chakras.
| Roll | Devices | Weapons/Swords with one ability or a single +1 bonus | Weapons/Swords with +2 bonus | Weapons/Swords with +3 bonus | What's going on its portion of the megadungons? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +10 charges | +1 bonus | +1 bonus | Add a new special purpose | Dungeon is having a nightmare. Run from the invincible boogeyman, make it through to the next level without getting caught! |
| 2 | +10 charges | +1 bonus | +1 bonus | Add a new special purpose | Dungeon likes you so much it wants to make it easy for you. All monsters in the level in one room, fighting. |
| 3 | +10 charges | +1 bonus | +1 bonus | Add a new special purpose | Dungeon is being invaded! There is a portal to some humanworld here and there are heroes clearing out the dungeon. Stop them! |
| 4 | +10 charges | +1 bonus | Add a new special purpose | Add a point of intelligence | Dungeon is schizo. Two factions in a pitched, prolonged battle |
| 5 | New, alternate ability of current ability's spell level or lower | Add a new special purpose | Add a new special purpose | Add a point of intelligence | Dungeon is even more schizo. Three factions. |
| 6 | New, alternate ability of current spell level or lower | Add a new special purpose | Add a new special purpose | Add a point of intelligence | Dungeon is being invaded! Space pirates and scavenging vampires are culling its depths for treasure. Stop them! |
| 7 | New, alternate ability of current spell level or lower | Add a new special purpose | Add a point of intelligence | Add a point of intelligence | Roll again, all dungeon monsters at -1 HD, but do +2 damage |
| 8 | can be used to open portals in lieu of portal tickets | Add a point of intelligence | Add a point of intelligence | Primary power changes | Roll again, all dungeon monsters sick! Half HP but its catching! (save after combat or get sick, death in 4 days) |
| 9 | can be used to open portals in lieu of portal tickets | Add a point of intelligence | Primary power changes | Primary power changes | Roll again, all dungeon on roids, attack on sight, +2 HD, -2 to hit |
| 10 | New, alternate ability of current spell level or d3 higher | Primary power changes | Primary power changes | Primary power changes | Roll again, all treasure in dungeon is in one big hoard |
7. When you're a Prinny, the only retainers you can get are other Prinnies (prinnies come in packs of d3+2). If you're of a higher power than a Prinny, you can recruit other monsters or non-monster (human, elven, dwarven, etc) mercenaries, but note that monsters and mercenaries are dicks so for every level higher they are than you, you suffer a -1 penalty to their reaction roll. Probably a good idea to start on the small fries first.
*Prinnies are basically re-skinned goblins, look like peg-legged penguins, dual-wield machete-like daggers and have fanny packs of supplies strapped to their chests. Note the crucial difference in the creature description:
Prinny
AC 6
HD 1-1*
Move 60'(20')
Attacks 1, with weapons
Damage d6 or weapon
# appearing 3-5 (3-300)
Save as Normal Man
Morale 7 (or 10 around a Boss, who they call Dood)
Treasure Type Nil
Alignment Bad Guys
Whenever struck for more than 3 hp damage and whenever reduced to half their hp, there is a 3 in 6 chance that the Prinny explodes in a 20' radius, doing d6+1 damage to everyone in the vicinity (including other Prinnies).
pictures: Prinny by Imson, rest are from the games or promotional materials
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