November 20: The enchantress who tempts pilgrims from “The Journey” by Walter de la Mare.
Minor update to Bride of Corinth:
Break the thread of life: 4 points, Init -3, If a human gives themself to the Bride, the human dies soon afterward. This is treated as a major disease, with an Ease Factor of 12 that causes a Medium Wound, but either Faerie Lore or Medicine may be used to treat the effects. This is a stronger version of Pine Away from page 59 of Realms of Power: Faerie. (Lowest level for killing effects 30, +2 Voice)
November 21
Ethelind, a vampire variant from “Ken’s Mystery”. I like how she turned out: she doesn’t kill, she takes the Free Expression virtue away.
Next up, some faerie geese…
OK, I’m over-committed so this won’t be finished by the November 30 deadline. I’ve been doing some paid game writing for another company and I use that to pay authors for things like Mythic Europe Magazine so that priority is higher. Also, I haven’t been hitting an episode a week for Games From Folktales and, again, that’s paid work that subsidizes the magazine, so it needs to go higher up the ranking.
I will get these done, just not by 1 December..
The current state of play for the stats on the second volume of Ars Magica Monsters is as follows: Creatures in bold are statted up either here or on gamesfromfolktales.com.: Creatures in italic are still to be done, with the little exception that if I write up another monster on the blog, it will swap out for one of the unstatted ones. So, for example if follow my usual custom and give a monster for the month next week, say, The Dryad Watered with the Tears of Lovers based on a poem by Robert Herrick, that will swap out something. Probably the Horror at St Martin’s Beach unless I get an idea for it I like. The swapped out one will go in Volume 3 eventually. Originally this was going to be 100 creatures long, but my free sofrtware works better at shorter lengths so I’ve split it. That’s why the monster names are so heavily weighted to the start of the alphabet..
Aphlar
The Architectural Snowstorm
Awful Bugaboo
Baudelaire's Chimeras
Desprez’s Chimera
Bavarian Wyverns
The Blindworm of Gibbet Hill
The revener who carries a serpent in its heart
The Bride of Corinth
Boneless
Brunhilda of Wake Not the Dead
Byland Revener
The Clegg Hall Boggarts
Conjured Nyctalops
The Dark Angel
Demoniacal Justinian
Dragon of Cos
The Dragon From The Book of Beasts
The Erl-King
The Erl-King’s Daughter
The Enchantress Who Tempts Pilgrims
Ethelind Fionguala
Faerie Geese
The Goose that Biteth the Royal Posterior
Geese Almost Spherical
Fair Ellen
Fayliss
The Ghoul Who Sponsors Serial Killers
Gloramone
The Headless Bear
Hercules Epitrapezios
A Horological Demon
The Horror at Martin’s Beach
The Ice Huntress
her direwolves
revenant mammoth
Ines de las Sierras by Theophile Gautier
Infernal Wrens
Jeremy Lowther
The Manticora from The Book of Beasts
The Maskmakers
Euryale
Gabriella
The Martians
without equipment
with handling machine
with war-machine
The Moston Dragon
Petrus Pontium: the Master of the Bridge of Fists
Rose Rose
Simon the Ombra Seller
Trogloditic Cave Bear
3 Likes
22 & 23
Two variants on a dryad for forlorn lovers.
24
Fair Ellen of Radcliffe: a Ghostly Warder in a flaky crust
25
The Goose the bites the royal posterior.
26
The Geese Almost Spherical from “The Two Cakes” in the Pentamerone.
27 : Chimera
A post-hoc justification: I had two other chimeras already designed and needed an excuse to put them together in this book. Let’s begin with the classical Chimera.
Chimera is a particular creature, a son of a pair of the cthonic beings that predate the Faerie Gods of Greece. It has the body of a lion. Its tail is serpentine, and in many versions it is described as having a head. From its shoulders the head of a goat emerges, and it is this head that breathes fire. The Chimera uses its fiery breath to destroy cropland, and it eats domestic animals, so its presence brings famine. In some versions of the story it belongs to a particular king who uses it as a method of execution, in others it is an embodied natural disaster.
Chimera is killed by Bellerophon, although reports of the battle vary. Some writers say Bellerophon, astride his flying steed, invented kiting. He stayed out of the range of the goat head’s breath weapon and wore the Chimera down with archery. Others make it clear that there was melee combat, and that Pegasus is important in the battle. You could argue that Pegasus has transitive magic resistance that protects his rider from the flames. Either could be true, but one etymology of the name Bellerophon is “wielder of missiles” which adds weight to that interpretation.
The classical Chimera being dead, to revive it would require either a magical event like a Hermetic ritual, or for a faerie to take up the story.
Faerie Might: 25
Characteristics: Cun +1, Per +3, Pre 0, Com 0, Str +6, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +1
Size: +2
Confidence Score: 2 (6)
Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Beast, Faerie Sight, Ferocity (self-defense), Improved Characteristics (x2), Immune to Fire, Greater Faerie Power (Goat Breath), Lightning Reflexes, Puissant Brawl, Self-Confident, Tough.
Qualities: Aggressive, Ambush Predator, Crafty, Hardy, Imposing Appearance, Large Claws, Large Horns, Large Teeth, Small Teeth, Tough Hide, Vocal
Personality Traits: Destructive +5, Fierce +3
Reputations: Destructive (among those who know its myth) 3
Combat:
Goat Horns: Large horns: Init +3, Atk +10, Def +8 Dam +9
Lion Claws: Init +1, Attack +15, Defense +12, Damage +10
Lion Bite: Init +1, Attack +13, Defense +9, Damage +9
Serpent Fangs: Init +1, Atk +10, Def +7, Dam +7*
* Venomous Bite, as per power.
Soak: +8, Hide gives Protection of 2.
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-7), -3 (8-14), -5 (15-21), Incapacitated (22-28), Dead (29+)
Pretenses: Athletics 5 (pouncing), Awareness 5 (prey), Brawl 5+2 (claws), Hunt 4 (humans), Stealth 4 (stalking), Survival 5 (farmland)
Powers:
Chimerical Target: 0 points, constant The chimera is not an Individual for spellcasting purposes, it is a Group. This makes some spells fail because they lack a legitimate target. Note that this provides no protection against spells that harm by creating an intermediate medium. A Pilum of Fire, for example, creates an Individual jet of flame that then behaves as a jet of flame would, which can still harm the chimera.
Sequential Sleep: 0 points, constant. The heads of the chimera sleep in watches, so it is never entirely unaware of its surroundings.
Goat Breath, 0 points, Init -2, Ignem. The goat head belches forth an impressive torrent of flame about 30 paces long and five paces wide. All within that area take +15 fire damage. This starts mundane fires which spread destruction through cropland and buildings. Note that the chimera does not immediately incinerate nearby humans because it likes making prey suffer, and (although it does not need to eat) it wants to consume meat rather than ashes.
CrIg 35 (Base 15, +2 Voice, +2 Group): Greater Power (35 levels, 3 intricacy points to reduce Might cost).
R: Voice, D: Mom, T: Group
Venomous Bite, 0 Points, Init 0. When the adder attacks, compare its Attack Advantage to the victim's armor Protection (not his Soak). If the adder's advantage is higher, the victim suffers the effects of adder venom as listed in the Poison Table on p. 180 of ArM5, regardless of whether the bite inflicts an actual wound.
Vis: 5 pawns. A skeleton that has been cobbled together, from animal parts with wire, in a fashion that seems deliberate.
Source: The Chimera is a version of the Lion in the Ars Magica Book of Beasts pdf, fused with the Adder and Bull from the same source. It then has the breath weapon from Varkos the Fire Drake from Realms of Power: Magic (p.75) added. The chimera finds this power a lot easier to use than the fire drake. Some troupes may prefer to reduce the damage modifier substantially.
28 Nesbit’s Manticora
Note that this is a faerie manticore that fights dragons, not the cannibalistic desert demon.
The particular maniticora that appears in Edith Nesbit’s story varies in attitude from that typical of its kind in the kingdom where the Book of Beasts is found. The general statistics for manitcoras are marked with an asterisk, while the particular manticora found in the story has those marked with a caret.
Might 20*. ^May have been drained by being in the book, as it uses its Feast of the Fae power an extraordinary number of times in the story.
Characteristics: Int+1, Per 0, Pre +2*/0^, Com 0, Str +10, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik -1
Size: +4
Confidence Score: 2 (6)
Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Beast, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Feast of the Fae, Ferocity (against dragons*, against cats^), Huge, Immune to Flame, Immune to that disgusting corrosive slime that coats many dragons, Improved Characteristics (x2), Puissant Brawl, Self-Confident*/Non-combatant^, Tough, Proud, Sovereign Ward (*can be distracted from its goals by its obsessive hatred of dragons / ^wishes strongly to hide in its book.)
Qualities: Aggressive, Ambush Predator, Crafty, Hardy, Imposing Appearance, Large Claws, Large Teeth, Tough Hide, Vocal
Personality Traits: Brave +5*, Fierce +5*, Sleepy +3^, Complacent +2^
Reputations: Foe of dragons* (local) 4, Uninterested in public life (local) 4^
Combat:
Claws: Init 0, Attack +15, Defense +11, Damage +14
Bite: Init 0, Attack +13, Defense +8, Damage +13
Soak: +8. Its hide gives it a Protection of +2.
Wound Penalties: –1 (1 – 9), –3 (10 – 18), –5 (19 – 27), Incapacitated (28 – 36), Dead (37+)
Abilities: Athletics 5 (pouncing), Awareness 2 (dragons*, milk^), Brawl 5+2 (claws), Hunt 4 (dragons*, stray cats^), Stealth 4 (stalking), Survival 5 (arid climates)
Appearance: A lion the size of an elephant, with the face of a man.
1 Like
Minor ooops in an excellent listing! Thank you!
Thanks for noting that is unclear. I’ll rework it for the collection. I mean the tail has a head on the end. 8)
29
Fayliss, a minor demon that wants to convince you the end is near.
30:
The Ghoul by Clark Ashton Smith
Hi,
So, that’s the 30.
The only ones not done for the 50 I need for the book are Gloramone, The Headless Bear, Hercules Epitrapezios and The Horror at Martin’s Beach. I don’t have a good idea for the Horror, and technically it has 2 creatures in it (adult and juvenile), so I’ll probably swap it out.
If I don’t find a new creature it’ll be the first one out of Ars Magica Monsters 3, which is the poltergeist of Jeremy Lowther. Foolishly I cut his description out when I added the classical chimera.8)
I’m hoping Ars Magica Monsters 2 will be out in January 2026.
2 Likes
Bonus 1
Bonus 2
The Headless Bear
Bonus 3: Jeremy Lowther
Bonus 4, and final.
I’m so pleased I finally put together the statistics for this silly creature.
It’s a pseudoelemental made of chimney smoke. It’s the size of a dragon that thinks it’s a cat. It’s enormous, fast, and very willing to fight you, but is made of smoke and so is not really all that dangerous, except it you hit it, hurt its feelings, and then die when it smites you with static electricity.
That’s my 50 for the new book. I did cut the Horror at Martin’s Beach. My backlog is now 43 + the creatures in True Story by Lucian, so I may do this sort of sprint again in May 2026.
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