Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 17 (FINAL!!! Umpleby to Yellow Musk Creeper)

It is time... the FINAL part of the unnecessarily long-running Fiend Folio saga on this here blog! Won't take too much time here, check out the first entry in this series, and here's a link to the most recent!

 

Umpleby

★★★☆☆

The umpleby is a real weirdo, and I know that's saying something with Fiend Folio monsters! An 8 foot tall hairy humanoid that will ally with anyone that gives it food, drink, and treasure (it loves precious metals and gems, for some reason), and with two hyper-specific powers: it is able to discharge strong static electricity, and it ties knotted nets out of its own fur that it stores around its waist (which aren't electric at all, seemingly). I really like the idea of a static electricity hair monster! For every day, the umpleby has 50 points of damage that it can distribute among the static attacks it makes as it pleases. This resets to 50 whenever it rests; I'd like to think that they have to rub themselves on something to get the static charge back up. The umpleby demanding a cut of treasure (on top of food and water) does prompt the question (on the part of the players) of how long you want to keep it around, if its electrical power and nets and (presumably) knowledge of the dungeon is so good but it means you take less treasure. I just struggle to really understand the point of the umpleby's treasure fascination otherwise, it isn't really described. Is it like a magpie-style fixation on shiny things that they take back to a nest?

 

The umpleby first appeared in the Fiend Factory column, and with a much more dramatic illustration. The description is similar, although it notes that umplebies are of low intelligence (also noted in the Folio description), but are "swift and calculating" when it comes to treasure. Also, the Factory umpleby with accompany an adventuring party whether they want it to or not. A much more unwanted presence, this version of the umpleby! The Factory umpleby also has a lair which it stores treasure in (answering at least some of the unaddressed questions from the Folio version), the location of which it will never reveal unless charm monster is cast on it; even when threatened with death, the umpleby will only... giggle. Don Turnbull's description says that the "travelling companion" type of monster was apparently becoming very popular, although this is the first time I've encountered it. Turnbull liked it more than Little Old Men and LOLITS (little old lady in tennis shoes) which... sure are specific images to refer to!

 

For some reason, a version of the umpleby illustration without a net was used later in the Fiend Factory as the illustration for a completely unrelated monster, the Time Freezer, whose powers you can probably guess.

 

Urchin

★☆☆☆☆

Not gonna lie, this whole time I was under the impression that the urchins in the Fiend Folio were literal sea urchins, and they do look like normal sea urchins, but they are actually urchin-like predatory monsters that shoot spines as ranged weapons and have precious gems inside of them. There are five different colors of urchin that increase in deadliness and gem value as you go up. IDK, I want to like urchins with mysterious gems inside of them but this just feels more video gamey and less interesting than IRL sea urchins. Sea urchins are fascinating animals!! And anyway, sea urchin eggs are a delicacy in Japan and other places so why not just make the treasure that nice slimy yellow stuff instead of mystery gems.

 

I didn't want to take a picture of the whole (unnecessarily long) stat block, so here's just the fun title font that they used in the Fiend Factory

Urchins also were first featured in the Fiend Factory, in an identical form. At the very least, the description is mercifully short. Don Turnbull notes that the guy who submitted them should hopefully realize that the silver urchin is an incredibly difficult and dangerous beast for players to have to deal with!

 

Vision

★★☆☆☆

The creation of a high-level illusionist gone wrong, the vision is a being that looks like a shadow (which, well, there's already a monster called a shadow, so why this needed to Also exist is beyond me), and which doesn't attack physically but rather makes characters (on a failed 3d6+3 vs INT roll) believe that they have aged ten years! EGAD!! To be completely honest, I actually love that power, and I almost wish the shadow already had it to begin with. I don't think a vision can kill you in any way though? You don't keep aging until you believe you're dead and then keel over, no end point is described other than the effect dissipating if the vision is killed (which is only possible through the use of silver, magical weapons, or certain cleric or illusionist spells). Really, this is a 1 star monster, but I like the power enough to bump it up, just wish it was done more interestingly.

 

Vodyanoi

★★☆☆☆

Vodyanoi, or wodniki, or a bunch of different names, are Slavic water spirits that appear in the folklore of a bunch of different eastern European countries (vodyanoi is the name in Russia, while wodnik is the name in Poland). Here, for some reason, they are rendered as slimy aquatic relatives of the umber hulk. I don't really understand why they did this? Mechanically they are uninteresting; big hefty brutes that have multiple hard-hitting attacks. Their only mildly interesting power is being able to summon 1d20 electrical eels once per day... but only with a 50% chance of success. Boooooo, just let them summon the eels goddammit!! I loooooove the Russ Nicholson illustration, it is an incredibly iconic and nasty looking fish-man with pincers around the mouth, but vodyanoii could have been so much more interestingly. Just like the vision, gets an extra star, in this case for the drawing.

 

Volt

★★★★☆

Here we go!! While not one of the most iconic weirdies in the Folio, the volt is a pretty nasty little bugger that I just love the vibe of. A shaggy grey ball with two big bulbous eyes, a mouth full of fangs, and a long sinewy tail tipped with an electricity-producing organ! ...What's with the electrical creatures toward the end of the Folio? Anyway, the volt attaches to the neck of its victim and sucks their blood while simultaneously striking the victim's head with a jolt of electricity from its tail. It doesn't even need an attack roll once its attached! One of the two illustrations for the volt features the tail shocking a helmeted warrior, which brings to mind whether wearing a helmet would actually make the attack worse (since it would be, presumably, made of metal), but that isn't touched on in the description. I just love how terrible this thing is!

 

The volt is also our next Fiend Factory original! These last several monsters sure have a high density of Factory features! The Factory volt is more or less the same, with simpler wording than the version in the Folio. In his comments, Don Turnbull compares the volt to stirges (another favorite classic D&D monster!!) in terms of being a useful low-level enemy, albeit in this case with a fun electrical theme, and also notes that one strategy to fighting a volt could be having someone in the party grab onto the tail (with a "heavily-gloved hand") while the others hack away at the head latched onto the victim's neck. I also just like the delightfully scuzzy illustration it has in the Factory column :)

 

Vortex

★★★★☆

A pretty interesting take on an air elemental, the vortex is what it says on the tin: a living whirlwind that can catch a poor victim in its gusts and spin them around until they die. The vortex only deals a small amount of damage per turn to the guy caught in it, with the sole exception of the growing change (+5% each round) of the speed of rotation growing so quickly that the victim dies instantly. The vortex's real form is a small grapefruit-sized sphere that bobs and weaves around the center of the whirlwind, and which is very hard to hit; plus, it cannot be killed by the person caught inside of it, only by someone outside. This is honestly way more interesting than the normal air elemental! I'd be much more inclined to include vortices in my game than the vague cloud-creatures that usually pass for air monsters. 

 

In Fiend Factory, the vortex is instead called the WHIRLER, which is a much more fun and whimsical name. The second sentence in the whirler's description notes that "it has a deep hatred for human-kind," which is always good to see. The description doesn't mention the little grapefruit-sized true body like the one in the Folio does, but otherwise it is pretty much the same. Don Turnbull says it would be very fun to require players attempting to attack the whirler while a buddy is caught inside be very careful with their rolls lest they hit their companion! "Characters with dexterity lower than 13 need not apply..."

Whipweed

★★★☆☆

A plant-like (but not a plant, which the description basically wastes an entire paragraph to note) monster that has a central spheroid body with eight small legs and roots as well as two long thin whip-like stalks. They dwell underground and don't photosynthesize, instead absorbing nutrients from meat through their roots. This is honestly pretty basic for a mobile carnivorous plant (despite the description claiming otherwise). Nothing super notable mechanically other than the whipweed not dying until the central body is killed (because it can regrow its stalks). I think the idea of a mobile subterranean plant-monster is really cool, but it isn't executed especially interestingly here.

 

Also going by a slightly different name, the Fiend Factory's "Whipper" is... wait a minute, in the Fiend Factory, whipweeds literally are plants! The opening sentence even notes that they are susceptible to spells like control plants! What gives! Anyway, as is the running theme with comparisons between the Factory and the Folio, the version in the Factory is a much leaner, simpler, more effective version of the monster, in terms of mechanical implementation. The illustration is fantastically weird looking, with the two whip-like tendrils twisted and covered with leaves, while the main body down below has a toothsome maw. If this illustration was in the Folio (unfortunately the Folio whipweed doesn't even have an illustration), I would have given it four stars, maybe even five. The vibe communicated by this drawing is so unwholesome.

 

Witherstench

★★★☆☆

Did we need a mangy mostly hairless skunk-relative that constantly emits a foul-smelling odor that all within a certain radius need to save vs. or vomit uncontrollably and leave themselves helpless to attack? Perhaps not... However, I am very glad that we have it anyway :) I always love uncontrollable vomit effects, its such a particularly nasty way to make a character unable to attack/act. Otherwise, nothing super notable about this guy.

 

The witherstench also was a Fiend Factory original! There really are a lot of those this time around, which I guess is only fitting. The description is literally three sentences long. I'll include the whole thing in the screenshot from the PDF. The illustration looks much more like an actual skunk than the mangy squirrel-thing in the Folio. Don Turnbull notes some confusion about the radius of the stink effect, since it is unspecified (I honestly really like that they reprinted people's monsters with no real editing, makes this a much clearer look into the world of late 70s British D&D nerds than if there was more editorial oversight), but also says that it makes for a useful wandering monster, since presumably its lair would be so smelly that nobody would even want to go in without a gas mask!

 

Witherweed

★★★★☆

Another plant-thing, and this one I personally find much more interesting than the whipweed. Immobile, the witherweed grows in big patches (20 sq ft on average but sometimes larger), with 13-24 flailing fronds that, upon a touch, cause the victim to begin to wither into nothing, draining 1d4 points of DEX per attack. If 4 points are drained in a single attack, the victim suffers a nervous seizure for 2 rounds and then has a penalty to their attacks for 5 rounds even after coming to! Holy shit?? A dry pallid plant with flailing fronds that sap dexterity and cause seizures is so specific and messed up. On top of this, the easy answer of just burning the thing presents its own problems; while the fronds won't be able to attack, it does produce a toxic, oily smoke that can only be dissipated by a strong wind (a strong wind which, of course, wouldn't exist in a dungeon!) or by waiting four hours. Breathing in this smoke is a save or die effect, which I do find a bit cheap, but I like how even the obvious way of countering the witherweed presents its own problems. This thing is a fantastical plant that still feels like a plant, and I really appreciate that!

 

The witherweed is also from the Fiend Factory column! The description there is pretty much identical to the one in the Folio, but (again) much simpler with its explanation of what actually matters about the monster (it squeezes the physical description, the effects of burning it, and how its DEX-draining/seizure-inducing attack works into one paragraph where the Folio has four). Turnbull says smart players will avoid burning it but instead hack it to pieces so they can take bits of it with them to burn strategically and make monsters throw up, which is a great suggestion!

 

Xill
★★☆☆☆

I want to like the xill, I really do. The illustration is so good, with the weird glassy eyes, four arms, and horns and frills that make it feel like something out of a Frank Frazetta cover for one of the Barsoom novels. However, ultimately, it is basically the same thing as the assassin bug, and you know I have to go to bat for the bug person version. Both the xill and the assassin bug are parasitoids, having to lay their eggs inside a human host for it to gestate; however, unlike the assassin bug, xills are asexual, laying their own eggs with no need for sexual reproduction, and they dwell on the ethereal plane. That, and the xill being listed as "very" intelligent (but I always like to think of assassin bugs as smarter than they're given credit for in the Folio anyway), are the only real differences. Well, that and the xill's description being wayyyyyy too elaborate and long-winded in describing how it snatches up a human host to lay eggs in, how grappling with a four-armed xill works, how their subduing attacks work, etc. It's just too much!! I kept switching between 3 and 2 stars while writing this, but I think ultimately the combination of how unwieldy it is mechanically with the fact that the assassin bug does its thing much better offset how cool I find the illo.

 

I don't even really like this illustration...

Xvart

★☆☆☆☆

Dude we do NOT need yet another race of goblin-like diminutive humanoids. The description for the xvart even says they are "mediary" between kobolds and goblins, like oh my godddddd. I love goblin-types as much as the next gal, but I think the real running theme of this series has to be "okay guys we have enough of them," or at the very least actually make them interesting like the forlarren or the meazel. Xvarts are just gnome lookin' guys with oversized heads that wield small swords or other weapons, some of them have nets, and they sometimes have giant rats and wererats allied with them. They don't even have the rat thing unique to them, the jermlaine already has a rat motif going on. This sucks.

 

Oh god why did this one have to also be from the Fiend Factory column. There, the xvart is instead called a svart, which is a much better name solely on the basis of pronounceability. Also, their head is much more proportional in the accompanying illustration, for some reason. Y'know, now that I think about it, neither of these descriptions mention an oversized head... what is up with the illustration in the Fiend Folio? The description here is very similar, except that the Factory svart apparently despises hobbits, and apparently hobbits like to capture svarts and kobolds and make them fight wait what?? That's an insane little detail to just drop in there. Anyway, apparently these guys (svarts, that is, not xvarts) are taken from a book I haven't heard of before, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. Might have to check that one out, I can't help but think I will be much more charitable to a race of little people in a weird fairy-inflected fantasy novel than in D&D.

 

Yellow Musk Creeper (and Zombie, Yellow Musk)

★★★★★

But hey, at least we're ending on a high note!!! Woooooo!! Yellow musk creeper!! I hope its fine to review these two together, since the one is entirely dependent on the other. And, since this is our third plant in this post alone, I guess the real running theme of the end of the Fiend Folio is plants! I'm not even certain there are any other plants in the Folio! There's the algoid and the kelpie, but algae/kelp isn't actually plants (though that is definitely being very nitpicky hehe). Anywho, the yellow musk creeper is a classic and very effective type of monster, a mind-controlling plant. I feel like these days, the niche of mind control/zombification has been taken over by cordyceps-inspired fungi, at least when it isn't some kind of virus or parasitic worm I guess. When a victim gets close enough, the yellow musk creeper puffs a bit of musk-scented dust into their face that brings them into a hypnotic trance, during which they wander deeper into the plant's large structure, so that the creeper can insert roots into their brain. A really haunting visual! This drains points of INT every round, and if your INT gets low enough, you are brought completely under the yellow musk creeper's control and become a yellow musk zombie (which aren't actually undead since they are like, semi-alive, and thus cannot be turned by clerics, but because they are under the control of a plant which is also immune to mind-altering effects they cannot be affected by charm, hold person, etc). The only way to actually defeat a yellow musk creeper is to destroy the bulb buried in the ground beneath the plant, which makes the combat so much more interesting. You don't just have to slice away at the thing or defeat its thralls, you also have to take out a shovel and dig as fast as you can and hope you get to the bulb before your friend becomes a zombie! I also like the small note that yellow musk creepers are often deliberately planted in certain areas to "guard" something. There should honestly be more deliberately planted weaponized plants! Even the witherweed was assumed to just grow naturally in dungeons. I'd love to supplement an evil overlord's lair with a deadly garden!

 

And with that, the Goin' Through the Fiend Folio series comes to a close! But don't fret! Or, well, I doubt you're fretting, but anyway: this won't be the last you see me reviewing monsters on this here blog! After I put together a masterpost linking to all of the Fiend Folio reviews, I intend on making a follow-up going through various monsters from the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf that didn't make it into the Fiend Folio. Because, for all the unwarranted weird reputation that the Folio has, a lot of real fascinating weirdos didn't quite make the cut! So, keep an eye out for that!

 

Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 12 (Necrophidius to Osquip)

Meant to get back to the Fiend Folio review posts a bit sooner than this, but that's how the cookie crumbles. Picking up where we left off, starting with the monsters of the letter N!

Wiggly boy!!

Necrophidius (Death Worm)

★★★☆☆

A very iconic monster, very usable, but nothing super special. The necrophidius is a skeletal serpent with a human skull that has a paralytic bite, increased chance to surprise, and a hypnotic dance. Love the hypnotic dance, that is such a good evocative power, reminiscent of snake charming and such; I also just think that hypnosis powers are cool! Unfortunately, however, the specific details kind of make it a bit dull. That it doesn't check morale yet also cannot be turned by clerics is something that I don't like. I'm just partial to morale rules! Also, the litany of rituals that can be used to create it is unnecessary in my opinion. I like the specific aspect of the materials needed for the third ritual, namely that it needs the skull of a cold blooded murderer who was killed within the previous 24 hours, that's great that's fun. What I don't love is saying which specific spells from the cleric spell list need to be cast, or being able to pick and choose from a list of three different rituals, etc etc. I just would prefer more evocative stuff. A human headed skeleton snake is a great image though, and its got hypnosis powers, of course I'd use that.

The necrophidius originally appeared in the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf, giving us another great opportunity to see the earlier version of a Folio monster! First, the illustration, which is so much more characterful and interesting than the Folio version. No offense to the original illustrator Alan Hunter, but I just have so much more fun with the scraggly lumpy smiling skull snake depicted here. Also, the Factory necrophidius actually was an undead monster rather than a construct, meaning that it can be turned by clerics (as a wight, according to the description), which resolves one of my major gripes with the Folio version. Its powers are exactly the same, but rather than being tied to three different possible rituals it specifies the one that involves the skeleton of a giant snake and a human skull, although with no mention of the murderer thing which is unfortunate; on top of this it names a specific sorcerer as the creator which I really love: "Karalkan (who was later to 'see the dark' and build the temple of the archdemon Kong)". See, that makes it so much more evocative, so much more interesting than a checklist of three mostly flavorless rituals to make it setting neutral. Don Turnbull comments that the hypnotic dance is a better way to make undead dangerous than level draining, and I completely agree! He also expounds on how he would run the power, with a saving throw to resist and if you fail the saving throw you're only in thrall until the necrophidius is distracted; I like that being presented as just his interpretation, rather than a set mechanic. The Fiend Factory necrophidius is a five out of five monster in my opinion! It sucks how much personality and flavor it lost in the transition to the Folio.

Needleman

★★★★☆

A super fun monster, and one that to me feels iconic to the Fiend Folio! A humanoid plant creature that at first appears to be a zombie, with needles embedded across its body that it can fire at will 1d6 at a time. I love the image of a shambling silhouette coming out from between trees in the fog, before spiny needles fly out at you. Personally, I wouldn't lean into the visual similarity with a zombie; it isn't really compelling enough to be a good trick, in my opinion. I think it would be more effective to make it seem like a person at first; fog or other visual impairments would help in that regard. The massively increased surprise chance in places with thick conifers or heavy undergrowth fits in that regard too! It is super vulnerable to magic, which is an alright weakness, although I don't really understand why. The charm plants spell is triple effective against it for some reason. Also, evidently they hate elves and attack them on sight? I mean, who doesn't.

The needleman also first appears in the Fiend Factory and OH MY GOD THAT ILLUSTRATION. Just on the illustration alone this is instantly a five out of five monster. Its empty staring eye sockets, the stance that it has which makes it seem so plodding and looming, maybe its taller than a person, a Boris Karloff esque marching figure, and the needles are so much more prominent, you couldn't possibly miss them. I feel bad saying this about the Folio illustration because it's by Russ Nicholson, a personal favorite of mine, but this original art is just so much better. Rather than being a plant that for no discernible reason looks like a zombie, the Factory needleman is a corpse that had Raise Dead imperfectly cast on it while it lay in a shallow grave lined with pine needles; such a specific backstory, it almost feels like a folk tale, like there would only really be One needleman. I think I like both versions equally, a mysteriously humanoid plant thing is super fun but a weird grave wanderer with pine needles embedded like pins in a pin cushion is super fun too. Maybe you could find the failed necromancer who bungled the spell? The version here, mechanics wise, is simpler and more effective, things that take a whole paragraph in AD&D are half a sentence here. Also, Turnbull ends his commentary by saying "Should it really be called the Aspirin? It is, after all, a pine killer..."

Nilbog

★★★★☆

An all time great trick monster, well deserved infamy. Though, Mr. Roger Musson wasn't the only one to discover how good the word "goblin" sounds when you flip it around; the folks over at Troll 2 named it a whole street! At its core, the nilbog is a five out of five monster, a weird little goblin that works inverted because of weird space time shenanigans, healing when hit and being harmed by healing potions. This effect even extends to the players, who feel intense urges to do the opposites of what they would normally do, i.e. they would load up treasure into a chest and leave empty handed if they attempt to loot a treasure chest, etc. I'm a tad torn on that aspect, mostly because I feel like there has to have been some shitty referee to forced their players to do something with no recourse to the contrary; I figure the intention is that the players should make the concerted effort to do the opposite of what they really want to do, but once that reverse psychology puzzle is figured out it kind of loses a bit of oomph. I also just don't like how this is specific to goblins, I think nilbogism should be something that can be present in many species. On top of that, were I to use nilbogized creatures, I'd love to give them interesting visual cues like weird sped back movements like they were being rewound on a VHS tape, or making them look like a photo with an inverted color palette. That perhaps ruins the trick part, but I personally would vastly prefer something that has a consistent problem the players have to work around to a trick that only really hits once.

What a slimy little bastard man

So many of these N monsters thankfully appear in the Fiend Factory! The nilbog is a fascinating example of a Factory creature, because, very unusually, Don Turnbull's commentary is considerably longer than the actual monster description. The original nilbog's description just describes that they look like goblins and their HP works backwards. None of the rest of the nilbog's powers are there at all. Turnbull does a good bit of extrapolation, comparison to other trick encounters, even suggests the deviously horrible idea of a troll beset with nilbogism which would be absolutely terrible. He also provides a snippet of additional information provided by the original creator of the nilbog, including a description of a nilbog encounter which I may as well share in its entirety.

I... don't think I would run such an encounter in such detail, but oh my gosh that is just insane. I definitely agree with Turnbull that "for sheer creativity, the Nilbog will take some beating." While I still feel pretty strongly that the four star rating is correct, it truly deserves its place as an iconic AD&D trick monster.

Nonafel (Cat O' Nine Tails)

★★☆☆☆

A large black panther with a long tail, which it can attack with despite no stinger or thorny end being mentioned or depicted in the illustration so I guess it is just the tail whipping at the players, which has the ability to split itself into nine different identical big cats. I think that the description spends far too long to describe the mechanics of this Naruto esque ability, how hit dice are distributed, etc. On top of that, a black big cat with a whiplike attack and strange spatial abilities... hasn't that already been done before? Unlike the kamadan which has even less in common with the good ol' displacer beast, the nonafel's description makes no attempted connection. I think the splitting into multiple identical copies is a nice enough ability, but there's not enough else here to really make it worth it I don't think.

I had to share both the illustrations!

Norker

★★★★☆

NORKERS!!! Maybe I'm the only person who actually feels this way about these guys, but I love norkers! I love their name, I love their weird slouched illustrations, I love the weird surreal idea of a like, cro magnon man equivalent for a nonhuman humanoid species of monster, it's just such a fun and simple humanoid! It sucks that they're basically never really utilized after the Folio, at least as far as I'm aware. I am much more open to these "missing link" hobgoblinoids than I am to other members in the AD&D expanded humanoid hierarchy, they feel more distinctive and unique, a lot more personality than just "goblin but stronger". The tusks do a lot! More things need tusks. I wonder why other goblinoids lost their tusks? Does the presence of tusks on these close (hob)goblin relatives imply that they have like, male combat hierarchies for mating? Are they for digging through dirt? I would love to puzzle out what their society might be like.

Nycadaemon

★★☆☆☆

The nycadaemon is almost identical to the mezzodaemon, so just check out my review for that inhabitant of Tarterus. Most of my complaints then hold true here: the nycadaemon is more or less just a bundle of expected demonic powers and weaknesses, including having a secret true name, magic resistance, immunity to non magical weapons and even magic weapons of +1, having a bunch of spells, etc. They don't even have the distinctive insectile appearance of the mezzodaemon, instead being more thorny reptilian with bat like wings, a more generic devil like appearance. The only real distinction from the mezzodaemon is that they are stronger, with physical strength comparable to a stone giant and stronger resistances. Not a fan.

Ogrillon

★☆☆☆☆

Not a big fan of the ever expanding roster of more or less identical humanoids in AD&D, and not a fan of generic hybrids of humanoid types where every possible combination has to be filled in. The ogrillon is a crossbreed between an orc and an ogre, and the rest of it basically flows out from what you probably assumed from that description. They look like orcs, they speak ogreish, even though both orcs and ogres use weapons they don't for some reason instead fighting with their "horny fists" (a bit of unusual word choice there). I'm kinda fascinated by the illustrations of them making them look all lumpy all over, but it's not that interesting of a visual just kinda quirky. The bottom illustration shows a lumpy man identical to the main ogrillon illustration, a humanoid with pointy ears and a single horn on the top of their head, and a boar headed man fighting a human fighter; are these all ogrillons? I'm down for that kind of visual diversity in a humanoid type, I just don't know if that was the intention here.

Osquip

★★★☆☆

Not gonna lie, there's actually not a whole lot here. They're basically just messed up rats, they live in tunnel systems underground and do things that you would expect tunnel dwelling beasts to do, and are invariably hostile. If I'm being completely honest, I would probably just use rats or some other real life digging creature, like naked mole rats perhaps. I love naked mole rats. Full of personality. The osquip gets three stars, however, for its own personality. While the description is super basic and spends way too many words to just say "these things live in tunnels underground and are ravenous predators", the illustrations show a horrible skuzzy little thing, completely hairless, with a toothless maw of forward pointing teeth almost forming an enamel beak. I love how awful they look!! I think I would totally use something that looks like the osquip, but just say that it's mutated rats or squirrels or something. Or just use really big naked mole rats. While I love the visuals, the mostly boring baggage of the rest of it doesn't really make me want to use it over a real world animal or a mutated version thereof. ALSO they oughta have a weird gross tail, it feels like they're missing out in the tail department.

That's all for now! We are a bit over halfway done with the Fiend Folio now. My goal is to finish this series of reviews before the end of the year; I really should have already finished it by now, but long gaps between posting will do that to the most well laid plans. See you next time when I review monsters that begin with P and Q!

Goin' Through the Fiend Folio Part 11 (Lamia Noble to Mite)

 Hey! It's been a bit since the last time I did one of these. But I am deadset on finishing the Fiend Folio review series by the end of the summer. I think I can do it!!! And with this post, we're roughly halfway done with the monsters too! So let's just get into it!

Lamia Noble

★☆☆☆☆

Dang, off to a not so good start. I really don't like the tendency to have monsters that are just another, already established monster but more powerful; not a fan of the Neo Otyugh, not a fan of the Margoyle though at one time I kinda was, etc. It feels a bit different when it's well executed, but here it just is not. The lamia noble is a leader type for lamias, which were originally in the Monster Manual as monsters with the torsos of human women and the lower bodies of big cats. Here, however, lamia nobles have the lower bodies of snakes (which is cool), but they can be either male or female, and their abilities vary by sex with males being fighters and females being magic users. That's really cringe. Also, lamia nobles can disguise themselves as humans, but it says that "intelligent humanoids will always be able to penetrate the disguise", and then in the next paragraph it says that humans and demihumans of high enough level have a chance to identify them, all of which is just incredibly clumsy and annoying. They can also take away points of wisdom, and if the character goes below 3 wisdom then they are under the lamia noble's thrall... that's just a very underpowered charm ability. Why not just have it be a saving throw? So stupid. I like evil snake women, I don't like evil snake women or men with vaguely defined disguise powers and really weak charm abilities that have no real distinct identity. The note that they "are given to outbursts of senseless violence" is fun though.

Lava Children

★★★★☆

OKAY HEAR ME OUT. I know that these are one of the Fiend Folio monsters very commonly made fun of and mocked, but I honestly think that they are really surreally fascinating. The offspring of earth spirits and fire spirits, lava children are like elemental mutant mules with an uncanny appearance and unnatural powers. They have a broad shouldered body with pale skin, but their hands have fingers tipped with long sharp claws and their faces look like constantly smiling children. I especially love the illustration that goes across the bottom of the page, where its shown that not only do the lava children have childlike appearances they are all exactly identical. These things are so creepy!!! And it seems that the folks over at Paizo felt somewhat similarly, when they included the lava children in their book of often maligned old school monsters, Misfit Monsters Redeemed. I honestly don't think they need "redeeming" though; they're already really cool! In terms of powers, they fight with their claws and bite, which is wonderfully animalistic for something so human looking, and it is explicitly stated that metal doesn't exist for them. Not that they are just immune to metal weapons, no, metal phases through them as if it doesn't exist, as if the lava children exist on a parallel plane only vaguely intersecting with the prime material. That is just so cool!!! It also means that their attacks ignore metal armor, which is cool. Most of the rest of their description is pretty much what one expects for an AD&D humanoid race, describing the types of leaders that they have (which, for the record, are mostly fighters but large enough groups also include magic users and clerics, with a note about rumors that their leaders are triple classed fighters/magic users/clerics), which I can really take or leave, it doesn't do anything for me here, feels very generic. The implication of a society that can support trained warriors, wizards, and priests is kinda weird to me, I don't know if it jives with how I read these creatures. One last note: their language is described as "sibilant", which is such a cool and delightful additional detail.

Lizard King

★★☆☆☆

A lot of what I said about the lamia noble applies here. I'm not a fan of monsters that are just another monster but more powerful, the infatuation with cataloging humanoid leader types in AD&D most of the time doesn't do much for me especially if it's way too detailed, etc etc. The lizard king is alright though, for what it is. It's just a more powerful, more intelligent, and "more human" (that's what the description says) lizard man that rules over other lizard men. It gets an extra star over the lamia noble though because, for one, it is way simpler and more evocative than the lamia noble is, the lamia noble sacrifices anything interesting for overthought mechanics and generic vibes. Of note, the lizard king demands HUMAN SACRIFICES from the lizard men it governs, and if they don't provide human sacrifices then he will start taking his own followers as sacrifices. That's fun! They also wield a trident, which is a cool iconic weapon that deals extra damage on certain circumstances, though its bullshit that the extra damage and special abilities only count for when a lizard king wields them; the players should be able to get them too! Also the art just looks really cool, I love the tongue sticking out.

Magnesium Spirit

★★★☆☆

I'm gonna be honest, this is the first time I've read this monster's description. I think I just skipped over it a lot since it doesn't have an illustration! The magnesium spirit is actually a super interesting monster, one that I think I could see myself building a whole scenario around. The description mentions that there are only three or four of these things, summoned to the prime material plane ages ago by a powerful sorcerer, and they are constantly in search of humans to possess in order to perform the ritual to send them back to their plane of origin. That is really cool and evocative! Visuals wise, they're also pretty cool, a column of pale flame with a wispy tale, and it mentions how they move faster than even characters that have had the haste spell cast on them and that they can do a flash of blinding light. Love that stuff, super cool. What is not so cool is the extremely detailed stuff all about the magnesium spirit's powers, the detailed process of them merging with a human host to perform the ritual, how many levels a host has to have for the ritual to go forward, etc etc. It suffers so much from the kind of rules bloat that plagues a lot of AD&D monsters. I'm really not gonna get into how complex the whole thing is; suffice to say that there are so many hurdles the magnesium spirit has to go through that it is really a miracle if it is even at all able to do the one goal it has. I think I would love to use the magnesium spirit in a game, but what I would use would be a much simpler version; rather than tying so many things to player level, perhaps I would specify that they seek to take over a magic user to perform the ritual. I would give this monster four or perhaps even five stars if the description weren't so overwrought.

Lookit their sad little face!

Mantari

★★★☆☆

The mantari is basically just a big airborne stingray. Not much more than that, and honestly that's alright! It attacks with its tail, which is described as "not poisonous" but instead acting on the victim's nervous system which uh... that means it is venomous, actually, it just has a neurotoxin instead of a haemotoxin, but yknow that's beside the point. Unlike the real world stingray's more defensive bestinged tail, the mantari uses its tail like a spear, pointing it at a victim and diving at them from the air. Also if you get hit twice by the mantari's tail it deals four times the damage. Jeeze!! That's a bit overkill honestly. I love the note that they usually prey on giant rats, it's such a lovely little piece of dungeon ecology, which is doubly asserted by the mention that their "preferred haunts are dirty dungeon chambers where its prey abounds". I love that! I think I'll definitely use the mantari in a certain dungeon I'm working on that will hopefully get some use. One thing I really don't like though is that they are 85% aggressive toward other creatures and humans. I just like the nice 2d6 reaction roll! Anyway, these things just seem like animals, albeit ambush predators; I don't think they should be so aggressive.

Meazel

★★★★☆

The meazel isn't anything really all that special, but what it is its pretty good at! These little shits are yet another kind of awful small humanoid who will do awful things to you underground, but they're at least a bit more fun and, more importantly, waaaaay simpler than the godawful jermlaine that didn't need to have such a long description. These guys are little thieves, with the same abilities as a level 4 thief, and often they fight with garrotes which is pretty cool, though the first illustration depicts one holding a sword. I really love the note that they are the enemies of orcs and kobolds, and that "most creatures of the underworld will attack meazels, for they have a nasty reputation even among dungeon denizens". Everyone HATES them. That's just so fun! I would love to have them as a faction in a dungeon. I similarly love that they don't recognize the value of gems, instead dumping any gemstones they get from the people they capture and eat along with the bones in big bags outside their lairs. That's so evocative and fun, and it provides a cool opportunity for players to acquire treasure without combat. Also they apparently almost all have a noncontagious skin disease that makes them look leprous. They are just so nasty!

Meenlock

★★★★★

I'm kinda breaking my own rule here, because I really how long and overly detailed in terms of specific creature behaviors the meenlock description is, but I honestly think that the monster's vibe and atmosphere still shine through to the point that I'm willing to give them a five out of five despite the overwrought description. Basically, meenlocks are awful little humanoids that dwell in mysterious deep shafts in the ground that are so dark and twist around in strange directions that you can't see the bottom, completely lined with moss so movements are silent in them. They have psychic abilities that allow them to create false smells, which they use to defend their tunnels by making it smell like there are rotting corpses at the bottom, and they can communicate telepathically. If the players open up one of their shafts and go down in, they will find the nest lair of the meenlocks at the bottom, in a little cave; the meenlocks will fight to defend their lair using their claws that have paralytic venom, but they are scared by light so their first priority is putting any lights the party has out. If the players open up one of their shafts and then leave without going down in, then the meenlocks will crawl out of the shaft and follow the party, sneaking so as to not be found, and they will select one member of the party to basically psychically harass into being stressed and paranoid, and then when the party goes to rest the meenlocks will come by and KIDNAP THEM, taking them back to the mossy shaft where they are TRANSFORMED INTO A MEENLOCK. It is so pulpy and fun! They seem a lot like awful little humanoids like Shaver's deros, or like children's bogeymen. My only problem is how overwrought their description is. In fact, this is one monster where I think I'd like to see my good friend the Cosmic Orrery make a FKR version! The vibes are all there, just gotta be certain about the execution.

A steam mephit

Mephits

★★★☆☆

I'm going to be reviewing the mephits as one creature even though there's four subtypes, mostly because in general there is a lot in common between them. I did it before with some of the other monsters that had a bunch of subtypes, it's alright. Mephits aren't really my favorite personally, but I can see why they exist in the game. They are the, to use the description's wording, "evil messengers and errand runners of the powerful creatures of the Lower Planes", which is definitely a sort of conceptual niche that is needed in fantasy games like D&D. Personally I think I'd be more inclined to use things with more literary vibes than the elemental themed mephits; like, I dunno, maybe basing things on Lovecraft's servitors of the outer gods or Poe's imps of the perverse. In fact, why not just use imps, which were literally in the Monster Manual? Okay okay, there is one thing that I really love about how the mephits are described, which honestly let me just quote it in its entirety:

"Mephits are connoisseurs of the vulgar and tasteless; they share an extraordinarily twisted sense of humor (to a mephitic, the sight of a creature writhing in agony is excruciatingly funny). They delight particularly in tormenting the helpless. If they can obtain them (and it is usual that they do) they will wear clothes of the most garish design and color possible. They are often seen puffing upon smoking rolls of exceedingly foul smelling dried vegetation. They adopt a strutting gait and have shrill voices."

They are evil assholes with a mean sense of humor and they're described as stoners who dress in gaudy outfits. I bet they listen to breakcore or 100 Gecs or something (I really like 100 Gecs actually so that's a good thing lol). Now, for the sake of brevity, let me just summarize my thoughts on the four subtypes of mephits. In general, I really don't think there needs to be so many subtypes, and since the publication of the Folio there have been many, many more. It is typical of the kind of overly taxonomic gygaxian impulse to just constantly add new variations on monsters as canon "subtypes", "breeds", etc., and I am decidedly not a fan. However, here's how I feel about the four types of mephits described here:

Fire Mephit: Pretty basic, they're always on fire so touching them deals damage, they have a breath weapon of fire that they can change the shape of between either a jet of flame or a blanket of flame, I guess that changes how many targets it can hit? Also they can do heat metal and magic missile. Pretty generic.

Lava Mephit: These guys are delightfully gloopy, their illustration has such a shitty expression on its face, even its nose is drooping with dripping lava. They're not actually made of lava either; lava mephits instead sweat lava, it's described as oozing from their skin. I really like that, it's so messed up. The lava sweat obviously produces a lot of heat, so they can be detected from a good distance away, touching them deals damage, etc. They can also spit lava and their touch dissolves/melts stuff and they can shape change into a pool of lava. A bit too many powers in my opinion, but pretty alright!

Smoke Mephit: Honestly these guys are just a reskinned fire mephit. The description even directly compares them. Rather than spitting fire, their breath weapon is a "sooty ball of smoke" that can also blind you in addition to dealing damage, and they can turn invisible and use the spell dancing lights. Also when they die they "cough up" 1 point of fire damage to everyone nearby, which is kinda fun.

Steam Mephit: Like the lava mephit, these guys aren't actually made out of steam but instead sweat boiling steamy water, which I really quite like. Their breath weapon is a jet of scalding water; more importantly though, they can also summon a magical rainstorm of boiling rain, that is treated as an ice storm but just with the temperature reversed to really hot. That's an amazingly messed up power. I think I might steal that for a different monster sometime.

I kinda hate that I felt the need to write so much about the mephits. My favorite ones are the lava and steam mephits.

Mephits are also our first monster in this post to have originally been featured in the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf! Notably, however, you will not find them if you go looking for the name "mephit"... That's because they're actually new types of IMPS. I WAS RIGHT. I SAID THEY SHOULD JUST BE IMPS AND THEY ORIGINALLY WERE!!! I have no idea why they were changed from just being new subtypes of imp to being a completely separate type of monster in the transition from Factory to Folio, but that's just what happened. The four types are all here, but lava mephits are instead called molten imps. In terms of powers and abilities, they are roughly the same, though the powers are stated in much simpler language in the Factory versions, which is very welcome. The smoke imp/mephit is described as oozing smoke in a similar fashion to how the steam and lava/molten mephits/imps ooze their respective material, so that's super cool. Also Don Turnbull remarks that cautious DMs may want to avoid having certain types of imps in the same encounter together, saying that the steam imp's rain of boiling water and the molten imp's lava would interact in really bad ways. I say screw that, the awful clouds of steam and the sudden reaction of the water with lava would be great for an encounter! I will say, also, that the Fiend Folio version has a lot more personality, with the mentions of their gaudy clothing and awful senses of humor. Normally I find the Folio versions to be relatively worse than the originals, but here there is much more personality in the Folio version.

Mezzodaemon

★★☆☆☆

Mezzodaemons are Okay. I really love the illustration, like I really really love it, its such a good creature, but basically everything else is generic as hell. It feels almost like they were just created to fill in a gap in the AD&D cosmology so that there would be monsters for the planes between the nine hells and the abyss.  They really have no distinctive or unique powers, abilities, or flavor; they just have great strength, fight with their "horny hands and talons" (a bit of unfortunate word choice there) or sometimes with magical weapons, they can use basically any magical item and can cast a handful of specific spells, they're immune to nonmagical weapons and take half damage from acid and cold and fire, they have magic resistance, they can see infrared and ultraviolet, and they have unique names that if someone else knows then they can control them. All of that is basically the same stuff that every other fiendish creature in AD&D has. The name thing, the magic resistance, the immunities, the spells, it's pretty much the same as a given demon or devil, and pretty much all the time the demon or devil will be more interesting or iconic. Really sucks though, the illustration is great.

Mite

★★☆☆☆

Yet another awful little humanoid that will do awful things to the player characters in the dungeon? These guys are getting a bit repetitive at this point. These ones are actually specified as being related to the jermlaine and the snyad, which we will get to in a future post; yet another instance of annoying gygaxian naturalism, feeling the need to establish these unnecessary genetic relationships between monsters. I personally don't really benefit from having a taxonomy of very similar awful little humanoids that live in dungeons, at least not the way its done here. Mites capture adventurers with traps, tripwires, etc., beat them half unconscious and rob them, strip them of their armor, tie them up, and then drag them to a main corridor of the dungeon to be killed by a wandering monster. I guess the mites are on better terms with the other dungeon inhabitants than the meazels are. I really like the detail that adventurers can sometimes hear them scurrying around in their little tunnels that wrap around the larger dungeon corridors, that's cool. Other than that, though, I honestly think that the meazel is a much more interesting alternative. This one has a great illustration by Russ Nicholson, though.

The humble mite is also our only other Fiend Factory original for today. And, other than the uh, very lackluster illustration, the Factory version is much better. All the basic beats are there; mites live in small tunnels all around dungeon corridors, adventurers can sometimes hear them scurry around in there, they use traps and tripwires to capture adventurers and beat them up and steal all their stuff before leaving them back in the dungeon to be killed by wandering monsters. However, and this is an important thing, there's no mention of the stupid forced genetic relationship with the jermlaine and snyads. I know that the jermlaine were Gygax's creation, so of course he would force other people's monsters to have explicit "canonical" relationships with his. Typical Gary move. Also, there is one thing in the Fiend Factory version's description that is so good I simply can't believe it was left out from the Folio version. Since the tunnels are so small that most human sized creatures can't effectively fight in them, the most effective way to combat mites is to fill their tunnels with smoke. I love that!!! It's such a cool, creative weakness that really feels like something adventurers could feasibly figure out, AND it's evocative of bees. You just have to find all the openings to their tunnels, cover up all but one of them, fill the tunnel with smoke, and then bada bing bada boom you can fight them as they come out. Really fun! If that had been included in the Folio version, I honestly probably would have given them three stars.

Hey so I'm really sorry about the length of this one! I just really didn't want to break up the letter M and it turned out that I apparently had a lot to say about some monsters that I felt mostly mixed on. Well I hope you are having a lovely day and stay tuned for the next entry in the Fiend Folio review series, where we will do the letters N and O!

King of Kings Session 10 & 11 (10.5?) After Action Report

 Yes, two sessions in one post... or well, perhaps more accurately one session split between two days of play? It got split due to confusion on my part that caused a mixup during the first session. For the purposes of continuing numbering, gonna consider the second one as session 11. Just gonna describe it in one go though, just because it is easier. The events described in this post occurred on August 9th and August 18th.

Dramatis Personae

Ishthyromeda the Small, level one amazon 

Kusa, level one cleric of the exiled and half-dead foreign goddess Nasitu-Neb 

Manchugo Coldeswain, level one cleric dedicated to Damir, foreign god of the trade routes 

Rohm'Daan, level one cleric dedicated to Anzhalar, a local chthonic god of subterranean flame

also Parsani, scrawny son of a rural matriarch

The group made camp at the edge of the Holy Cedar Forest following the battle with the smoke-billowing headless bull-thing. After some discussion, they decide to call for Fire Eater, their jinn ally in the woodland. They get a fire started, burning some of Rohm'Daan's shiny acorns and some of the ancient silks they had found in an ancient tomb as a sacrifice. Fire Eater, in the form of a slimy black salamander, dashes out of the forest and swallows the flame whole.

They got into asking Fire Eater about what that headless bull-thing was, and they tell them that it was a "poor sort of being", specifically a marid, that only started living there three months priorthat the people who lived there were already gone by the time the bull-thing took residence there, and that there are small creatures that crawl out at night with axes and handsaws to slash at the fields surrounding the abandoned farmstead. When the group mention "that with yawns deep" which they heard about from the oracle back in Temple Town, Fire Eater thinks for a moment and just replies "a hole in the ground." After this, they say goodbye to Fire Eater and discuss what their next course of action will be.

They decide to go back to the ruined farm and investigate some of the collapsed buildings that they didn't look very closely at before. The largest of the buildings collapsed in on itself due to the ramming attack that the marid bull-thing did, so they go to the leftmost of the two smaller buildings still standing. Crawling one after another through a hole in the wall, they find what looks to have been a familial house, with beds strewn about everywhere and children's toys and animal bones on the floor. Manchugo investigates under some of the beds and finds a strange silhouetted form beneath one... which they push out from underneath it using a broom, revealing the desiccated mummified corpse of a child. Their body is intact other than their left hand which is much more destroyed.

Our adventurers take the body and bury it outside, then move on to the next of the pair of buildings. Inside, it is much the same; except for a basement at the back, which they descend down into after investigating the beds for other bodies (none were found). In the lantern light, they see silhouetted humanoid forms hanging from the ceiling, and presume that they are some sort of bat people. Manchugo wonders if they are the former farmers, transformed into bat-oids at some point. They discuss among themselves whether to burn the whole place to the ground, but ultimately decide against it.

After some more deliberation, it is agreed that they will investigate the ruins of the collapsed building and then wait out for the creatures in the basement to come out at night, assuming that they are the beings that Fire Eater mentioned. The big collapsed building seems to have been the house of the farm's matriarch, and they find her skeletonized corpse in the rubble, in what seems like a side room with a bed in it. There, Ishthyromeda finds a lockbox and, after fiddling with it with her knife, she finds a silver necklace, three brass nose rings, and two iron finger rings, all of which she pocketed. There wasn't much else of note in the collapsed building. After this, the five of them took the bones and buried them along with the dried out child corpse outside of the compound's walls.

Then they took to the walls and waited for nightfall... their plan was for Manchugo to throw a lasso around the last of the creatures as it exited the hole in the wall of the house with the basement, in order for them to interrogate it or otherwise figure out what is going on... but this is kind of where it fell apart. You see, in the process of me explaining the creatures crawling out of the abandoned house and Manchugo, Kusa, et al handling their actions during the encounter, I got so confused about what was going on (mostly due to communication problems on my end), and it was getting really late on top of that, that I elected to end the session there and pick up where we left off next time.

BUT THE NEXT TIME IS NOW SO HERE WE GO!!!

So yeah Manchugo had rope and used it to lasso the last of the little critters when it crawled out from the hole in the wall of the building. By this point ten other creatures had crawled out, with four of them remaining within the walls of the compound. Manchugo throws it at the last of the creatures, which now they can see has hirsute goat-like legs and massive ears, but he fails to catch it, misaiming and letting it hit the dusty ground uselessly. However, the creature doesn't notice where the group is, and ends up just running to join its brothers. Manchugo rushes forward and throws the lasso again, and ends up snagging the thing in the rope! He runs and grabs it up in his arms, tying it up with the ropes, before waving to the rest of the group for them to run out of the compound and to the edge of the forest to interrogate it while giving the rest a wide berth. Surprisingly, they are able to dash out of the compound without alerting the others.

Not gonna describe the whole interrogation and whatnot, but basically the players discovered quite a bit! The creature repeatedly told them to "fuck off" and was impervious to threats and torture but was ultimately coerced into helping the players with a gift of an abacus and reassurances that they would return it to its brothers. In the ensuing interrogation/conversation, it identified itself and its brothers as "we who gnaw" and "ka-li-kan-tsa-roi", frantically desperately tried to count the individual strands of the rope it was tied with, was appeased with the aforementioned abacus, described how they and their brothers gnaw at the roots of trees, and described how the farmstead was built by humans but that they had not seen the humans there (i.e. it was not those-who-gnaw nor the bull-marid who killed the peasants). The players decided to call the little creature Higgles.

Locheil wasn't playing in this session but he very graciously drew our lovely little pal :3

After the impromptu interrogation and the abacus deal that they made with Higgles, the group brought the small being back to the compound to return it to its brothers and ask them some questions too. It took some convincing on the part of Higgles to get its brothers to agree to talk with the man-things, but eventually the players asked some questions and those who gnaw asked some in return. Oftentimes those who gnaw would speak in unison or in singsongy chants. They asserted that there was no ruler among them to parlay with and asked the group what they did to make the bull-marid go away (they used what the creatures called "the poison metal what pisses off jinn" of course). In response to the players' questions, they said that all they do is gnaw and cut, describe how before they arrived here there were the "half-men" who were sorrowful and ashy-skinned and who were themselves chased out by wolves, mentioned that those who gnaw cannot smell, and said that they did not kill the owners of the bodies the players found earlier and in fact did not touch them at all when they found them.

Oh and also, when asked about the "that which yawns deep" thing that they heard about from the oracle back in Temple Town, those who gnaw spoke in unison (after a bit of muttering about whether or not to even say it): "big spiral, deep down, full of slime and gunk... a word of warning for the lot of you, a foul nasty funk... beware that which yawns so deep, the hole beneath the earth.... or else in the end you will find your life, in dearth... ancient kings dug down deep, a dismal dark so dreary! do not descend lest you desire naught but death and diadems of pale bony stone..." if you can't tell this was improvised during the game

After this, the group decided that they were much too tired, starving, and beaten up to continue pushing on, at least for now. They return to Tabur via the northern gate at the Tigerskin Quarter, where Kusa's connections got them into the city without having to pay an exorbitant tariff.

Treasure Acquired

1 Silver Necklace

3 Brass Nose Rings

2 Iron Finger Rings

Non-Treasure XP Acquired

Burying Abandoned Bodies (12 XP each before Prime Requisites)

Capturing Higgles (2 XP each before Prime Requisites; for being the one who lassoed Higgles, Manchugo gets 6 XP before PR)
Total: 14 XP/18 for Manchugo