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So for Curse of the Skinwalker we're going to have a bunch of creatures, mostly all based on native american and general US folklore.. and a couple I made up myself.

Skinwalkers will be basically the same as Professionals, all 75 HP characters based on different wild animals. Alpha skinwalkers and large monsters will be 100 HP level. You can also have human henchmen in your beast pack, and also minions who are basically rare wild or supernatural creatures, roughly all wolf-sized, not big tough monsters. They'll have 50 XP like henchmen.

So far, for big monsters, I'm planning: Sasquach, Sheepsquach, Wendigo and Barrens Devil (like the jersey devil, only cooler).

For minions, I have: Chupacabra, Jackalope, Hodag, Cactus Cat, Tremorworm (the worms from Tremors, only smaller), Shunka Warakin and the Montauk Monster

Mostly taking stuff listed here and adding a couple extras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_folklore_legendary_creatures and also here
http://www.mythicalcreatureslist.com/menu/North+American

Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there.. are there any other folkloreish creatures you'd like to see? If so speak up, and provide links to info too if you can

I think the Chinese railroad workers and immigrants invites some interesting supernatural imports, along with European migrants as well (vampire riverboat gambler, jekle/hyde etc).

Were-animals for the various large mammals and reptiles of America would be good.

Gowrow, Loveland frogs, Bladenboro Beast, Tlanuwa.


... you could also put a T Rex in there if you wanted a tribute to the great cowboys vs dinosaurs film The Valley of Gwangi!

Like the list so far, but some other oddball ones
Mannegishi
Canotila
thunderbirds
Deer Woman
Unk Cekula / Unhcegila / Uncegila

A few more lists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Legendary_creatures_of_the_indigenous_peoples_of_North_America
http://www.native-languages.org/monsters.htm
http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-culture/monsters-mythical-creatures-list.htm

I've mentioned some of these before, but here goes:

Mastadon Skinwalker - A titan with an outrageous 5 DP.

Thunderbird - A powerful Siouan spirit whose attacks use a blast template. Possibly so powerful that it could only be used in certain scenarios.

Coyote - A Trickster-spirit, Coyote is only average in combat ability but has an intelligence of 6. Coyote can teleport any model within 12" to any other point within 12" once per game.

Old Scratch - A devil with an unlimited supply of Burning Bottles of Booze.

Yolotl Olmecatl - An ancient Olmec titan, he appears in the form of a Mesoamerican statue come to life. Fond of smiting people with his obsidian sword.

-Solo Sam

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I think the Chinese railroad workers and immigrants invites some interesting supernatural imports, along with European migrants as well (vampire riverboat gambler, jekle/hyde etc).

Ooh yes, great idea. I loved that angle in My Name is Bruce, and a hopping vampire or two might shake things up in an interesting way.

Good ideas

Not sure how to do the thunderbird.. I was thinking of having one be kind of like pterodactyl, but would dinosaurs be too out of place? Then I was thinking, if I ever wanted to do the alien / star children myths later on, maybe it would be better to save thunderbirds for then and have them basically be UFOs? I think I saw that on Ancient Aliens once...

Oops, can't mention Ancient Aliens without one of these

What about a wendigo? Seemed kinda obvious to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo

Thow it's from more the great lakes area then the "west". But it's still pretty cool.

Yep we'll do those I was going to have it as part of Curse of the Skinwalker, but I'm starting to think they might work better for the undead stuff later.. the whole craving human flesh thing. But then, I have skinwalkers and all the wild things as being maneaters too

I would consider the Fearsome Critters. These monsters were created during the Wild West era by White Settlers. This is why I avoided them for the most part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearsome_Critters

The Fearsome Critter was a fun read. Sounds like the modern "snipe" game.

Wikipedia has another page for the Hidebehind, a specific subtype of Fearsome Critter. Maybe you could have something like a living tree or a critter that somehow disguises itself... Special rule is that it could only be targeted at "Short Range" because it's stealthy and hard to see. Or maybe it gains the same special ability as a Prospector.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidebehind



A Cactus Cat could be a fun model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus_cat

Yeah I remember reading about the fearsome creatures a while back. I did have the cactus cat on my list Will have to do the hide behind, he'll be fun

At this point I don't have the slightest idea how many models we'll have in the main box set, but it's not going to be the kind of game where you need doubles of stuff.. like, Sedition Wars could have a few of the same sculpts but here I would rather everything is unique. If we have 5 heroes, we can get 10 models for the beasts with 1 alpha, 3 skinwalkers, 3 henchmen and 3 minions. I'm thinking we'll do an Alpha werewolf, then normal werecat, bear and bird. Then 3 henchmen and a chupacabra, jackalope and cactus cat.

For the support packs I want to start with 1 were-something, 1 henchmen and 1 new minion. And then maybe separate packs of 3 or 4 minions? The large monsters and alphas would be sold as solo models, same would additional heroes or new artillery.

So based on that, we still have to figure out how much will go in the big box .. 15 models seems like it's not nearly enough when games like Zombicide have like 50+. But then, I don't really see BWG as a game that needs more than like a dozen or so per side. But I don't know if folks out there are playing with huge gangs or not, I always planned on a dozenish But then, I guess if we include a lot we can add to the rules something like "For a standard game, choose 5 heroes and 10 monsters"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and here's some other monsters I read about recently.. some from The minis page post

Tsanahale - like a native american harpy
Djieien - big spider monster that can't be killed because it doesn't have a heart (wouldn't that mean it's not alive anyway?)
Wiwilemek - big horned crocodile
Ge-no'sqwa - a "stone giant" that rolls around in the mud and his hair gets all crusted with dirt that forms into armor plates

And one of the heroes... or a villain? Dr. Morose - a mad scientist looking for skinwalker specimens to experiment on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and also, The mastodon skinwalker is great, but I think he'd have to be rare since mastodons are extinct.. maybe he'd be an alpha, but no regular skinwalker version.. he's the last of his kind.

 Necros wrote:


At this point I don't have the slightest idea how many models we'll have in the main box set, but it's not going to be the kind of game where you need doubles of stuff.. like, Sedition Wars could have a few of the same sculpts but here I would rather everything is unique.

This is a big part of the reason I collect Old West figures. I played 40k and I am so sick of painting dozens of identical mooks.

Djieien - big spider monster that can't be killed because it doesn't have a heart (wouldn't that mean it's not alive anyway?)

This would be cool. Maybe there could be a special scenario where it can be temporarily wounded by gunfire, but only permanently killed by Dynamite or a Burning Bottle of Booze.

And one of the heroes... or a villain? Dr. Morose - a mad scientist looking for skinwalker specimens to experiment on.

I also like this idea. Dr. Morose could be a mad scientist looking character. You could make a Skinwalker character who has stitches and needles stuck in him, to represent one of his experiments. You could say that taking Dr. Morose and his Experiment as a pair is one of the very few occasions a human player can use a Skinwalker model.

Oh and also, The mastodon skinwalker is great, but I think he'd have to be rare since mastodons are extinct.. maybe he'd be an alpha, but no regular skinwalker version.. he's the last of his kind.

That's what I was thinking... a totally unique character, the only one in existence.

 Necros wrote:
Djieien - big spider monster that can't be killed because it doesn't have a heart (wouldn't that mean it's not alive anyway?)

Not if it stored its heart somewhere safe, like a lich and its phylactery.

How's this for a scenario:

The players are on a mission to kill the Djieien once and for all. They've discovered that it hides its heart, the secret to its immortality, somewhere in its lair. Unfortunately, the spider is still there, so they'll have to find the heart while also dealing with the fearsome beast.

Players can attack the spider as normal, but instead of it dying when it reaches 0 Health, it loses its next turn then is restored to full health.

Players search for the heart by making a reasonably Int roll (or similar) in certain areas on the table. Each model may only roll in each area once, and the first successful roll finds the heart. They can choose to destory it at any time (with a successful attack), at which point the spider is able to be killed outright.

~~~~~~~~~~

As for Thunderbirds, you would need some flying rules. Or you could have them as something that can be summoned by a shaman (or similar) character. If successful they can create either a weather effect (wind or thunder) or have it attack a character before flying off again.

How about dragons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piasa

Thinking it would be a big model, and gets multiple activations per game turn, would be a few hundred xp. So you activate his left arm and attack with it, other guy goes, activate the head and breathe fire, other guy goes, etc.

That would probably be something that comes much later though, not really part of the main release.

Funny story, when we first started planning the weird west stuff, it was more like fantasy western with elf and halfling cowboys, and the main villain was going to be a gunslinger sorcerer riding a dragon

If you are going to have Piasa, please make it look different then mine.

Oh .. Didn't know you were making one Probably a little far fetched for what I'm doing though anyway, just never heard of him till now. I'm going for more of a "western horror movie" vibe, using folklore critters and other more traditional things

I would also consider hired guns or gangs for people who have no place in the Wild West, like Arabs, Polynesians, Asian monks, Warriors, and Samurai.

You could also tackle the Tall Tales, like Casey Jones, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Pecos Bill and many others. They are no models for these guys as far as I know.

You also have made allot of your money from referencing Pop culture. Things from the novels from the era would fit in nicely. Things like the Island of Dr. Moreau, Jekle and Hyde, Dorian Grey, and Frankenstien would be great places to start. Any thing by HG Wells was also written during the 18oo and early 1900s.

Been thinking about some of those characters too

Dr. Morose would be a mad scientist with a stitched-together skinwalker pet, one of the few monster models working for the human team. Also Dr. Franklin Stein will have a similar abomination monster, but I might end up using them in the undead expansion later since they might be more fitting there. And then there's Lincoln Abel, the infamous vampire hunter

But yeah, now that I'm digging deeper I'm finding lots of different creatures and myths I can use and give it a little twist to work for BWG. At first most of what I was finding was just a bunch of different monsters that all sounded like the same sasquach kind of creatures.

Hey would you a list of monsters I am doing for my game? If you shoot me a mail. You know we could work together and you could use my monsters in your game and that could save you money in the long run.

Black Cat. From the size of a house pet to a Puma.
Dogs. Not the undead ones the demented ones. Almost like Cujo maybe a couple with the slobber.
Ravens/Crows
Mephistopheles.

Not really referencing anything in particular, but food for thought:

I enjoy talking about creatures like Mastadons and Smilodons because I grew up in South Dakota, which is a very rich area for finding fossils. Mastadons are huge in South Dakota and Wyoming, and every few years the Black Hills coughs up some extraordinary dinosaur skeletons, like Sue the T-Rex or the recently discovered trio of Triceratops. So in my mind the history of "The West" is not just the history of the Old West period, but it's a place tied inextricably with history stretching back millions of years.

How about the Great White Buffalo ?

Well there will be a big & mean minotaur-looking bison skinwalker with a great big axe. I could paint him white I think the real white buffalo is too nice, all of the beasts in BWG want to eat people

How about the famed Jackelope? Nothing says Weird West than a ornery rabbit with antlers!

There will be jackalopes Trying to think of a good skinwalker animal to pair them with .. I don't think skinwalker bunnies will work ...

But, my jackalopes will rabbit-ish in shape but not cute at all, with mean looking horns and sharp pointy teeth, and about wolf-sized.

For the main boxed game, I'm planning on starting with 5 or 6 heroes, 1 Werewolf Alpha, 1 Werebear, 1 Werecat, 1 Werebird, 1 Cupacabra, 1 Jackalope, 1 Cactus Cat, and 3 beast henchmen.

Trying to decide if I want to drop those 3 henchmen and add more minion creatures. As we do the kickstarter and unlock stuff we'll eventually be adding more models to the box... or maybe bonus models for the campaign, but not in the box set to try and keep the final retail price a little lower. It's not really the kind of game like Zombicide where you need a bucket full of zombie models, but I still want the models included to be a good value for what you get.

The devil with a golden fiddle, standing on a hickory stump