Blog Graveyard vol X: Appendix M

I was inspired by this post to write my own entry to the Blog Graveyard.

The subject of today's eulogy is Appendix M, whose last sighting was the 28th of January, 2020. Appendix M was started by bygrinstow as a way to get back into drawing by publicizing their practice. Art being a worthwhile endeavour on its own, this had the very respectable side effect of providing us all with a ton of creative creatures to steal for our own purposes. Thanks from the future, bygrinstow.

Bygrinstow, by the way, also brought us the brilliant Monster Extractor series, which has inspired me before.

What does Appendix M offer us? Monsters! More than you can swing your sword at! You could choose an article at random from this blog and be almost guaranteed to land on a post containing a monster you'll want to throw at your players. If you didn't, it's because you happened to land on one of the few posts that doesn't contain a monster.

Testing this theory myself, I got the Dirt Diver, the House Beetle, the Forgotten Soldier, and Nearly People. Surely one of those names makes you want to go check it out for yourself. In amongst these original creations are well-trodden monsters such as Kobolds, Mermaids, and rival adventuring parties, but these sit between the more unusual beasts like whatever a "SCARLSNIPE" is, and gelatinous shapes that aren't cubes.

The absolute highlight for me personally is DRYAD, TRUE, which helped me to ease my players (and myself, as a new Judge) from module content to homebrew sandbox-style content by being the subject of the hook at the end of Portal Under the Stars. According to Appendix M, the dryad is like the forest's immune system. She comes into existence to protect it from evil, and attacks intruders with the remembered mental anguish of victims of evil. The sister monster to this is the DRYAD, FALSE - something the locals might think is a dryad but truly is just a monster.

If it's not monsters you're looking for though, there is a handful of other content such as the MURDER HOBO class - a class that manages to capture the flavour of the murderhobo concept while actually being something I'd potentially allow at my table. It might even be fun to run a whole party of these guys as a chaotic one-shot or campaign.

Whether you're looking for stats for a monster so you don't have to do them yourself, an interesting twist on a known monster, or something entirely new and bizarre to throw at your players, it's worth casting Consult Spirit to commune with this dead blog and retrieve some of its wisdom.