#RPG – Yule Monsters for Dragon Warriors

Krampus

A great beast-man, part demon, part goat. Krampus has a long red tongue, with which he slobbers, licks his lips and tastes the air. Black of hair, grey of skin, two spiraling goat-horns crown his head, and goat-hooves stomp the ground. He is wound about with chains, and in one hand he holds a bundle of birch wands, tied with a bow. From the basket on his back come the tormented cries of wicked children.

Attack: 20 (see weapons below).
Defence: 12
Armour Factor: 1 (Krampus reduces the damage of all hits done to him by 1 as well).
Magical Defence: 9
Movement: 12/25m
Health Points: 30
Evasion: 6
Stealth: 10
Perception: 10 (Elfsight, detect naughtiness)
Rank Equivalent: 8th

Krampus’ basket is bottomless, but can only hold people, in a tormented netherworld.

Krampus’ bundle of twigs can be used as a weapon, doing d3/1 damage (and stinging a lot) or can be transformed through christmas magic into an iron chain (d6/2 damage and can yank the person hit 1m in any direction, with a range of 2m) or a bundle of snakes doing d4/1 and medium poison damage.

If Krampus is killed he is merely dispelled until next year, when he’ll come looking for his basket.

Krampus’ elf-sight also allows him to determine who has been good, or naughty.

Gryla

An evil old hag, Gryla is the mother of the Yule Lads and the mistress of the Yule Cat. She loves the taste of naughty children and likes to boil them in her cauldron to make a stew, chewing them up in her snaggle-toothed maw. Her body and hump are covered in hundreds of heads, protruding from the skin. Perhaps the faces of the children she’s eaten, or perhaps the reason she’s always so hungry.

Attack: 18, Hooked Staff (d6/3)~
Defence: 12
Armour Factor: 3
Magical Attack: 20
Magical Defence: 10
Health Points: 20
Movement: 10/20m
Evasion: 5
Stealth: 15
Perception: 15 (elfsight, detect naughtiness)
Rank Equivalent: 8th

Gryla is accompanied on her excursions by an animated cauldron, full of a boiling stew, made of the naughty children she has found on her travels. The cauldron can magically hold any amount of human meat and is always boiling. With her hooked staff, Gryla can attempt to pull an enemy into the pot, instead of doing damage. When she does this roll a d20 under 12 for her, and a d20 under the character’s strength. If she succeeds and the character fails, into the pot they go. Each turn in the pot they take 2d4 boiling damage. Climbing out again takes a whole turn.

The cauldron takes actions as a separate monster.

Cauldron Golem

Attack: 13 (Thump, d4, 2, 10% chance of being splashed with boiling stew for 1d4 extra damage)
Defence: 3
Armour Factor: 6
Evasion: 1
Stealth: 1
Perception: 3
Health Points: 38
Rank Equivalent: 4th

The Yule Cat

A gigantic, fluffy, angry-looking Forest Cat who devours anyone who hasn’t been given new clothes for Christmas. Those socks might well have saved your life, so thank gram-gram.

Attack: 23 (Bite d8, 6, Claws d10, 5)
Defence: 12
Armour Factor: 2 (Floof)
Movement: 15/40m
Magical Defence: 7
Evasion: 10
Stealth: 20
Perception: 18 (elfsight, detect old clothes)
Health: 40
Rank Equivalent: 10th

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The Yule Lads

The Yule Lads are Gryla’s children, a gang of evil trolls who descend on villages at Christmas time to punish and torment the wicked.

Attack: 20 (Cudgel d4+1, 4)
Defence: 12
Magical Defence: 13
Armour Factor: 2 (Reduce all damage by -1)
Evasion: 4
Stealth: 16
Perception: 10 (elfsight, detect naughtiness)
Health: 22
Rank Equivalent: 7th

Lads

Sheep-Cote Clod: Sucks the milk from ewes and curdles sheep’s milk.

Gully GanSteals the foam from cow’s milk and turns it sour.

Stubby: Shorther than his brothers, he steals food out of pots and pans.

Spoon Licker: Licks your spoons, leaving disease on them for when you use them.

Pot Licker: Licks dirty pots and plates clean, but covered in disease.

Bowl Licker: Licks dirty bowls clean, but covered in disease.

Door Slammer: Delights in slamming open doors and gates and stamping around noisily at night.

Skyr Gobbler: Eats all the yoghurt, even though you clearly labelled that pot with a punch-label and everyone knew it was yours.

Sausage Swiper: Steals your sausages.

Window Peeper: Peers in at you through your windows, and steals anything nice he sees. Quite possibly a pervert too. +2 Perception.

Door Sniffer: Uses his huge nose to sniff out baking pies and puddings, and eats them.

Meat Hook: Armed with meat hooks (d8/4) and steals any meat that has been left out. Loves smoked lamb more than anything.

Candle Beggar: Steals candles that you’ve left out. Eats some, burns others.

Inspiration: The Old Yew

When I was a kid we used to call this tree the ‘Yoda Tree’, for obvious reasons. Most churchyards have at least one yew tree, the symbolism can go back before Christianity but in the context of the graveyards and the Christian churches is supposed to be representative of eternal life (being evergreens that live a fuck of a long time). Of course, they’re also poisonous, but given my well-known atheism I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that.

I was talking before about finding inspiration around your locality and how lucky I am to live in a place that’s full of such inspiration. This yew tree is certainly an important one for me. Yew made the great English longbows. Yew has ancient pagan AND Christian symbolism. Yew is found in the places of the dead because we plant it there to mark them. Yew is dense and dark, slow-growing, old, gnarled and amazing to look at.

Whenever I describe a graveyard in a fantasy game I imagine trees like this. In my mind something like it is found in Fanghorn, or in alien swamps on faraway worlds. They may be poisonous but the smell when you sit under a yew, on generations of slowly rotting needles, just after it has rained. That’s evocative.