TEXT: R. Hunter Gough
  07/20/2006
  Welcome Behind the Scenes of Amalgus
  Due either to ego, luck of the draw, or simply a great story that you know your friends are going 
  to love playing through, you’ve become the GM. You have the toughest job of anyone playing in 
  the game, but also the most influence over what happens in the story.
  If You’re a Player…
  …and reading this because you’re curious, bored, or want in on the “secrets”, you’re welcome to 
  it. Knowing what goes on “behind the scenes” can help you understand the system better, give 
  you more ideas for how to play your character, and possibly help you work better with the GM to 
  create a fun and entertaining story. The “secrets” are here too, but one of the first things you’ll 
  learn is that the GM is encouraged to completely change them all. If you like surprises, skip the 
  monster listings, and certainly skip the sample adventures at the end of the book. The rest of this 
  section, however, can be quite educational.
  Before diving into your side of the rules, here are a few basic fundamentals that will help you 
  immensely as a GM.
  1. The Players Are Brilliant
  If the players must retrieve four keys from opposite corners of the world to open the door to a 
  castle, they’ll probably just break in through a window. Of course, as the GM most things are 
  “at your discretion”, so you’re free to tell them “there are no windows” or “the window 
  shatters, then immediately closes back up again. Good thing you hadn’t started through yet or 
  you’d be cut in half.” On the other hand, if the players do something completely unforeseen 
  that makes perfect sense and/or that they can justify using their skills, then let them; they’ll 
  end up happy that they used their wits to find a shortcut, and you’ll have one more 
  contingency to plan against the next time a similar situation comes up. You can even let your 
  players’ cleverness work for you; if you can’t come up with a good solution to a challenge 
  the players are facing, then don’t. Let them figure it out on their own. Just as your planned 
  events contribute to your planned plot, the unplanned events that your players create can 
  contribute to and expand the plot in completely different ways, creating numerous twists and 
  sub-plots that can keep the adventure rolling through sessions when you run out of ideas.
  2. The Players Are Stupid
  Just as the players will find the most genius of shortcuts through your carefully laid plans, 
  they will also completely pass by the obvious, either through their own obliviousness, or 
  simply through bad luck. If your plot hinges entirely on any one of the players finding the 
  cave behind the waterfall that leads to the subterranean world you’ve spent the last three 
  months mapping out, rest assured that every single one of them will fail her Awareness skill 
  check to find it. If your plot hinges on the players taking the mysterious necklace from the 
  statue at the center of the forgotten shrine, make sure that every other person they pass on the 
  way to the shrine mentions the necklace, describe in detail the way the sunlight glints 
  beautifully and strangely off the necklace when they get to the shrine, and then have a 
  contingency planned for when the players say “Hey, neat necklace” and then leave it there as 
  they continue on their way. Likewise, your players can’t read your mind, and they’re 
  probably not master detectives; if they’re not following the subtle clues you’ve left them, 
  
  drop more clues, involve them more directly in important events, and repeat as necessary 
  until they “accidentally” stumble into solving the mystery. They will, inevitably, pick up 
  some of the clues along the way, and even though more or less handing them the solution 
  isn’t nearly as rewarding as leading them through the intricate maze of intrigue and deception 
  that your genius has concocted, it at least advances the plot, whereas leaving your players to 
  wallow in frustration and confusion does not. Of course, if your players are having fun trying 
  to make the connections, puzzling it all out on their own, and knowing that the solution is 
  just beyond their grasp, then steeple your fingers, laugh maniacally, and keep them guessing 
  all the way.
  3. The Players are Heroes
  Nothing is as boring for players as becoming “tag-alongs” while your NPCs do all the work. 
  Every time there’s a fight in your story, the players should be in the middle of it. If there’s a 
  mystery to be solved, an assassination to be foiled, or a daring rescue to be made, your 
  players should be the ones doing it. Even in situations where another NPC is infinitely more 
  qualified, it’s sometimes nice to have him not quite able to put all the pieces together until 
  the players put their minds to the task as well. Likewise, even if the players are travelling 
  with an NPC many levels higher than they are, he should stay in the background in combat, 
  only stepping in to help them out of a pinch or otherwise make them look good. Of course, 
  this assumes that you intend to have the mystery solved, the assassination foiled, or the 
  rescue made. If an assassination or kidnapping or any other plot device must go through to 
  keep the story moving, then make sure that the players are in no way involved, and make it 
  clear from the circumstances that there’s nothing they could have done to intervene. 
  Similarly, if your over-balanced NPC travelling with the party is an egomaniac who can’t 
  stand to be upstaged by pipsqueaks, then he should be doing all the fighting, leaving the 
  players in the dust, taking all the glory (and jools) for himself and creating a wonderfully 
  horrible character who the players can’t wait to get rid of.
  If you feel your players are good enough roleplayers to pull it off, you can even involve them 
  in scenes that don’t include their characters at all. For example, if your lead villain has been 
  vanquished and his lackeys are all vying for his throne, you can let your players roleplay the 
  lackeys for a scene, letting their actions guide the story in ways that their usual characters 
  have nothing to do with. Be careful with these kinds of scenes however, since it’s quite likely 
  that “less mature” players will try to somehow skew even the briefest and most distant of 
  these scenes to their characters’ advantage. Of course, if this does happen, there’s nothing 
  stopping you from doing a little fiddling after the scene is over. (“Yeah, you did have a 
  strange, unexplainable feeling that Doctor Gruesome left the DoomStorm Sword inside that 
  barrel, but it’s not there now. As a matter of fact, remember that airship captain who nearly 
  defeated you before you knocked him over the railing on the way here? Well, he’s standing 
  right in front of you, and it looks like he found the sword first.”)
  4. You Are Not Playing Against the Players
  Put simply, if all of the players’ characters are dead, bedridden, turned to stone, sent back to 
  their home planet, or otherwise unplayable, the story stops. This is fine if you and the players 
  all agree that it’s time to wrap up the campaign and retire all of the characters. It doesn’t 
  work at all if everyone still wants to play. Remember that as the GM, your job is to challenge 
  the players, not punish them. If one of your players just ate the last jelly donut after the ninth 
  time you explicitly told him not to, don’t punish him in the game. Not only will it ruin his 
  experience, but it will ruin the game for everyone else as your plot falls apart. If he’s done 
  something bad enough that you know it will affect your judgement in the game, kick him out 
  
  for a session. If he’s done something really bad, kick him out permanently. If you’re not 
  getting along with most of the players, or if you’re just plain burnt out on running the game, 
  talk to them about it. You’ll either solve the problem and continue right where you left off, 
  hand over the game to someone else (and perhaps become a player using one of your favorite 
  NPCs), or just decide that none of you want to play anymore and drop the game completely.
  5. You Are Not God
  Yes, most things are “at the GM’s discretion”, but if that were the cardinal law of Amalgus 
  this book would be one page thick. The rules here exist to create a cohesive system that, 
  despite its incredibly flexible and crazy nature, at least has some basic constants. “The GM’s 
  discretion” is meant only to cover the details that were overlooked, could be exploited by the 
  players, or simply aren’t important. Also remember that if all of the players object to “your 
  discretion” on a certain topic, you should probably rethink it. You’re not obligated to change 
  your ruling, but if nobody agrees with you they probably have a good reason. If the players 
  do change your mind, there’s certainly nothing stopping you from rewinding the action or 
  changing something in the plot. Every story goes through revisions. In addition to the 
  numerous things that are “at the GM’s discretion”, the entire game of Amalgus is “at the 
  group’s discretion”. If nobody likes the way a certain rule works, then change it; just be sure 
  to decide as a group exactly how the rule works in your game and write it down, so no-one 
  will forget the new rule and get frustrated when it doesn’t work the way they think it should.
  6. The “Maybe” System
  A fairly common problem in all RPGs is “out of character knowledge”. Reading through a 
  FAQ for a console RPG so you know exactly where to find something without having to go 
  through talking to a dozen different villagers for the same information, inventing an airplane 
  in a medieval RPG because you know how they work despite the fact that your character 
  doesn’t even know how to read, or making a decision based on something you read in the 
  GM’s section of an RPG despite the fact that it makes no sense for your character are all 
  examples of out of character knowledge. Amalgus’s solution to out of character knowledge is 
  called the “Maybe” system. For example, maybe there really are 12 more classes of Zodians 
  based on Earth’s eastern zodiac, just waiting to be unearthed from the rubble of the Great 
  War. Maybe they were all destroyed, or only a few remain. Maybe they were just a line of 
  popular action figures. You’re free to come up with your own “Maybe”s for anything, 
  beyond just the ones that are suggested. The “Maybe” system keeps the players from using 
  out of character knowledge, not only because they don’t know which possibility is the truth, 
  but also because once they’ve gathered enough clues to guess the “Maybe” you’ve chosen, 
  you can always switch it out for another one if the players start using it as out of character 
  knowledge. Belief in a “Maybe” is not the same as out of character knowledge, however, and 
  a character convinced that all 12 Eastern Zodians exist and who has devoted his life to 
  finding them can make for a great adventure in and of himself, and you’re free to keep the 
  players guessing, not even deciding for yourself which is the truth until you determine what 
  would be best for the story. Future supplements for Amalgus (the upcoming book that 
  includes the skills and descriptions for all of the Eastern Zodians, for instance) may 
  contradict the “Maybe”s you’ve chosen; it’s up to you whether to stick with your choice or 
  bring in the new material despite all in-game evidence to the contrary -- after all, on 
  Amalgus, impossible things happen all the time.
  Out of character knowledge that occurs during the game (one player gets in a fight, so 
  another player who wants to help him out “just happens to decide to go for a walk in the 
  area”, for instance) is still unavoidable. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however; most 
  
  stories are full of odd coincidences and “gut feelings”, and if a player can give you a fairly 
  believable justification for his actions there’s no reason he can’t happen to be in just the right 
  place at just the right time.
  Play Styles
  “Console” and “Heavy” are the two extremes of how you can run a game of Amalgus. They each 
  have their own merits, and each will create a very different game, even if applied to the exact 
  same scenario. The Console style is recommended for players who are used to playing video 
  games, and is designed to focus more on Amalgus’s mechanics and give everything a very video-
  game-like feel. The Heavy style, on the other hand, is recommended for players who have more 
  experience in live-action roleplaying and improvisational drama, and is designed to focus more 
  on character development and interaction, creating the kinds of stories that one finds in good 
  anime and manga. Put very simply, Heavy style is about the “roleplaying” and Console style is 
  about the “game”.
  Keep in mind that there are very few groups of players for whom one extreme or the 
  other is the best fit; you’ll need to mix and match elements from both to find the right balance for 
  your players and your story.
  Console
  Heavy
  Console style plays most like a video game, as 
  players hop from combat to combat, exploring 
  labyrinthine castles and ruins, getting cool stuff 
  and leveling up. Friendly NPCs exist solely as 
  plot devices (“Thanks for freeing me from the 
  level boss. Here’s the key to the next section of 
  the castle!”), and little to no time is spent on 
  character development.
  Combat takes a back-seat to socializing and 
  intrigue. The setting of Amalgus becomes 
  much more important than the mechanics, as 
  players explore their characters’ histories, 
  personalities, and quirks. Major NPCs each 
  have their own personalities, loyalties, agendas 
  and opinions. Entire sessions can go by 
  without anyone ever rolling a die.
  Give or take a few quirks, the players are all 
  heroes and their enemies are all villains. The 
  heroes always do “good” things, and the 
  villains always do “bad” things, but nothing 
  “bad” enough to garner more than a PG-13 
  rating if it happened in a movie.
  Every hero has a dark side, and every villain 
  thinks he’s actually a hero (“They hate me 
  now, but someday they’ll all thank me!!”). 
  Sometimes the obvious villains aren’t really 
  the villains, or sometimes the villains’ plots 
  seem rational enough that the players question 
  their own motivations.
  V jools not only keep you from feeling the 
  effects of any damage you suffer, but will also 
  heal any wound perfectly, and being 
  resurrected at a Save Bank is a fairly minor 
  inconvenience, on par with being really sick 
  for a couple of weeks. Afterwards you’re back 
  on your feet in no time, none the worse for 
  wear.
  Taking damage in combat hurts just as much as 
  it would in the real world, and using skills that 
  consume V jools drain you emotionally and 
  spiritually as well as physically. Attacks that 
  do significant damage can leave permanent 
  scars. Resurrection via Save Bank is a long, 
  painful, and nightmarish process that pulls you 
  back over the threshold of death into the world 
  of the living and can result in memory loss and 
  severe psychological trauma.
  
  Adventure goals are very linear (“Fight your 
  way from the bottom of the tower to the top, 
  and defeat the dragon who lives there”), and 
  campaigns are usually “item quests”, wherein 
  the players must either collect all of a certain 
  thing (like special cards or the pieces of a 
  powerful item) or perpetually trade rare items 
  for rarer items (“I’ll give you the Silver Shell if 
  you find my lost dog for me.”) until they 
  achieve their final goal.
  Adventures lack clear goals, and are open-
  ended and interwoven to the point that they are 
  indistinguishable from each other. Developing 
  your character’s personality and rising socially 
  and politically are more important than 
  improving your skills or equipment. Your 
  enemies aren’t the monsters in the wilderness, 
  but the other people you must outwit, out-talk, 
  and out-maneuver on your way to the top.
  Other Considerations
  Style is just the beginning of how Amalgus can be “tweaked” to work with your group. Here are 
  a few other suggestions:
  Multiple Characters and Group Characters
  If you have too few players for the kind of game you’d like to run, you always have the option of 
  letting each player play as two or even three characters simultaneously. This method works best 
  with a more Console-style game, and can get a little schizophrenic in a Heavy-style game, but 
  will keep your players engaged in the game and involved in what’s happening even if the group 
  splits up. Another possibility is to let your players have a “group character”, which is someone 
  who mostly stays in the background and is controlled by all of the characters simultaneously 
  (although you’ll have to work out some way to resolve disputes when multiple players want the 
  group character to do completely different things simultaneously). “Healers” make the best 
  group characters; sitting on the outskirts of combat, using Heal and other helpful skills on the 
  players, which is a big benefit but not really something that any single player wants to spend the 
  whole game doing.
  Performance
  Telling a player across the table “The count asks you to dance with him” has a very different feel 
  to it than actually standing up, bowing low, and saying “My dear lady, you look simply ravishing 
  this evening! I’ve been told that you’ve mastered every intricacy of the deadly Black Rose Waltz. 
  May I entreat you to join me on the dancefloor?” Keep in mind, however, that while some 
  players will love this kind of interaction and characterization, other players will become horribly 
  embarrassed and refuse to participate (or worse, leave the game). One player might want to 
  describe actions with her hands or talk as her character while still rooted firmly in her seat, 
  whereas another player might like to “get into character” before a game just like an actor does 
  before a performance, and assume her character’s personality and mannerisms throughout the 
  entire session. Encourage your players to perform as much or as little as they want, and try to 
  match your performance level to theirs on a player-by-player basis, but never try to force a 
  player to do something she doesn’t want to do.
  Monsters & Other Enemies
  Here’s a brief list of things for your players to fight. They are listed alphabetically, with monsters 
  from the same “family” listed together. Most of the monsters here are also listed with a range of 
  levels to give you more options when putting together a combat, and to keep your players from 
  guessing their levels from their types. Many monsters have special abilities and/or limitations 
  
  that bend the rules of their skills. As with everything else concerning Amalgus’s setting, you are 
  free to change these monsters however you want, making the Darkness come from outer space or 
  making Bomblins mechanical, for instance. Not only will these changes help to “personalize” the 
  adventure for your group, but it will also keep your players on their toes by confronting them 
  with monsters that don’t behave the ways they expect them to. Except where otherwise specified, 
  all monsters are size 1.
  Level 0 Monsters
  Level 0 monsters are designed for two purposes: to give lone Level 1 players something they can defeat without 
  much trouble, and to give higher level players and groups of players scores of super-wimpy monsters to wade 
  through. Level 0 monsters all have zero ranks in Vitality, so they usually go down in one hit. Defeated Level 0 
  monsters each turn into 20 jools after combat is over. The fact that they don’t have Vitality ranks also makes them 
  popular with GMs, since you don’t have to track how much damage each one has taken. For the purpose of combat 
  balance and skills like Summon that depend on monsters’ levels, consider three Level 0 monsters to be equivalent of 
  one Level 1 character.
  Monster List:
  Air Whale
  Aquaphant
  Blitz Bat
  Blog
  Bomblin
  Cannon Mouth
  Cloud Shark
  Darkness
  Darkness Generator
  Dingoat
  Elementling
  •
  Breezling
  •
  Dirtling
  •
  Frostling
  •
  Hotling
  •
  Shockling
  •
  Wetling
  •
  Zombling
  Entropede
  Float Spider
  Forgotten Guardian
  Gorg Spawn
  •
  Gorgling
  •
  Gorgrr
  •
  Gorgast
  Kaiser Snail
  Kynde
  Magmoose
  Mushromp
  Mutato
  •
  Mutatoed Bird
  •
  Mutatoed Bunny
  •
  Mutatoed Dog
  •
  Mutatoed Fish
  •
  Mutatoed Insect
  •
  Mutatoed Monkey
  •
  Mutatoed Pig
  •
  Mutatoed Snake
  Nocturtle
  Owlanche
  Rockroach
  Rust Rustler
  Sandskipper
  Shattercat
  Shineocerous
  Skeeter
  Starrhana
  Trained Soldier
  Tree Anemone
  Undertoad
  Vermite
  Wheeler
  Whispin
  Wind Rat
  
  Air Whale
  Level
  Skill
  5
  10
  15
  Size
  3
  4
  5
  Speed
  2
  4
  5
  Vitality
  4
  6
  7
  Thick Hide (Defend)
  5
  5
  6
  Float (Fly)
  2
  4
  5
  Protective Parasites (Counterattack)
  1
  3
  3
  Cloudmerge (Nature: Hibernate)
  -
  -
  1
  Noble, peaceful, and majestic lords of the skies, Air Whales are viewed across Amalgus as 
  symbols of tranquility and good fortune. Slow to anger and incredibly resilient, the 
  enormous Air Whale floats lazily through the clouds, consuming the insects and small flying 
  creatures that fly into its tremendous mouth. Air Whales are size 1 at birth, but grow steadily 
  over the next decade to size 3 adults. At size 3 their growth rate slows drastically, although 
  since their lives span centuries there have been reports of Air Whales growing as big as size 
  10. The sheer size and general placidity of Air Whales makes them perfect candidates for 
  transports, and Air Whale to airship conversions are common, with gondolas and cabins 
  attached to Air Whales controlled by mighty steering machines, mind-control, or often just 
  good training. When Air Whales die of old age, they gradually sink, leaving tremendous 
  craters where they finally impact with the ground. Most large cities keep a fleet of airships 
  on constant call to divert the course of any large, dying Air Whales headed their way.
  Aquaphant (Water)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Jet Stream (Elemental Attack: Water)
  4
  4
  5
  Streamlined Flippers (Swim)
  3
  3
  4
  Sucker-lined Trunk (Grab)
  2
  3
  4
  Aqueous (Elemental Resistance: Water)
  3
  4
  4
  Although they spend most of their lives in the water, aquaphants can not breathe water, and 
  thus sharp-eyed sailors can sometimes spot their trunks, sticking up out of the water like 
  periscopes, from far away, and regard the sight as a sign of good luck. Aquaphants can hold 
  their breaths for much longer than any of Earth’s aquatic mammals, however, and some 
  spend a great deal of their time in the inky darkness of the ocean’s furthest depths, only 
  surfacing for air once or twice a month. Other aquaphants live closer to the surface, often 
  climbing out of the water to sun themselves on reefs or glaciers. Aquaphants are omnivorous 
  and eat a great deal, although their diets consist mostly of seaweed and plankton, and they 
  very rarely eat fish larger than a few jools in length. Recently, however, reports have begun 
  to circulate about strange, violent aquaphants capsizing ships and attacking their crews. No 
  evidence has yet surfaced to back these claims, but enough sailors have woken up in save 
  banks with horrifying tales of weird, unnatural trumpeting sounds in the night and ships’ 
  masts cut in half by jets of water to warrant an investigation by the navies and harbor 
  commissions of several nations.
  
  Blitz Bat (Electric)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Lightning Screech (Elemental Attack: Electric)
  4
  4
  5
  Sonar Stun (Mind: Confuse)
  3
  3
  4
  Clockwork Wings (Fly)
  2
  3
  4
  Galvanized (Elemental Resistance: Electric)
  3
  4
  4
  Strange mixtures of organic and mechanical parts, blitz bats build their own young from the 
  corpses of other monsters and random broken pieces of machinery, then fly the offspring into 
  the hearts of storm clouds to electrify them into life. Some scholars have theorized that 
  newly-constructed blitz bats aren’t actually given life by the electricity, but merely act as 
  vessels for intangible, invisible creatures that thrive on electricity, a theory that has been 
  tested by catapulting a variety of organic and mechanical creations into low-lying storm 
  clouds with mixed results. Although they are extremely active during thunderstorms, diving 
  and swooping in and out of the clouds, and down to the ground to search for food, blitz bats 
  spend most of their time asleep, hanging upside-down from the bottoms of thunderclouds, 
  patiently waiting for the next storm. Blitz bats are aggressively protective of their clouds, 
  however, and airships have often had to veer days off course to circumvent clouds decorated 
  with sleeping blitz bats.
  Blog
  Level
  Skill
  1
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  1
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  3
  Chomp (Melee Attack)
  2
  3
  3
  3
  Lick (Heal)
  1
  1
  2
  2
  Mind Sniff (Premonition: Predict)
  -
  1
  2
  3
  Eyeless, earless, perpetually drooling mouths on legs, Blogs have incredibly refined senses 
  of smell, able to sniff out months-old tracks, and sometimes even scent the thoughts of their 
  opponents. Blogs have a complex means of communication that relies on subtle changes in 
  the scent of their saliva which can be smelled by other Blogs for miles, and although their 
  drool is generally acrid to other creatures, it can have a healing effect on other Blogs, which 
  they can use by licking each other’s wounds or even spitting on each other from across a 
  battlefield. 
  Bomblin
  Level
  Skill
  1
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  4
  Bang! (Explode)
  3
  3
  2
  3
  Tick! Tick! Tick! (Dash)
  -
  2
  3
  3
  Special: A Bomblin can not Explode until at least three rounds after combat begins. Three 
  rounds before the Bomblin explodes, you must loudly announce “Three!”. You must also 
  
  announce two rounds and one round, after which the Bomblin will Explode. You will 
  probably want to use counters to track each Bomblin’s “timer”, especially if there are 
  multiple Bomblins in the same combat.
  The fruit of a very strange variety of tree, Bomblins in the wild ripen on branches, fall to the 
  ground, and then wander aimlessly for a while before exploding violently, scattering seeds in 
  every direction. During the Great War, specially bred Bomblins were trained to march 
  directly toward enemy troops and explode on command, and were kept suspended in jars of 
  fluid until they were needed, to keep them from exploding prematurely. Modern-day 
  archaeologists must always be very careful not to unearth and accidentally break a Bomblin 
  jar. Unfortunately, enough modern-day archaeologists have failed to be careful to the point 
  that there are now just as many trees that grow war-bred Bomblins as there are trees that 
  grow the Bomblins who wander aimlessly before exploding.
  Cannon Mouth
  Level
  Skill
  4
  6
  8
  10
  Speed
  2
  2
  2
  2
  Vitality
  4
  4
  5
  5
  Cannon Mouth (Ranged Attack)
  4
  6
  6
  7
  Multishot (Ricochet)
  2
  2
  4
  4
  Dirt Cloud (Elemental Attack: Earth)
  -
  1
  2
  3
  Perpetually foul-tempered creatures, Cannon Mouths are so named for their ability to eat 
  large quantities of dirt and rocks, digest them into heavy, solid lumps, and then regurgitate 
  those lumps at high speed to attack their prey. Cannon Mouths’ bodies are slow and 
  cumbersome, resembling large, stubby mortar cannons with legs in place of wheels, and thus 
  they prefer to fight from a distance, letting their natural ranged weapon do its job, only 
  cautiously approaching to feed when they’re certain they’ve knocked their prey senseless. 
  The Cannon Mouth’s body can hold a surprising number of “cannonballs”, and they spend a 
  great deal of time eating dirt and rocks to make sure they’re fully stocked.
  Cloud Shark
  Level
  Skill
  4
  6
  8
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  2
  3
  4
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  Cloudswim (Fly)
  5
  5
  6
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  4
  Fin Slash (Dash Attack)
  -
  2
  2
  Gliding stealthily through cloud banks, using their powerful eyesight to spot their prey and 
  swooping low enough to scrape their mighty airfins on the ground as they snatch up and 
  devour unwary creatures, Cloud Sharks are truly nightmarish mosters, and the reason that 
  many Amalgus cities have roofs. Equally lethal in the air, many Cloud Sharks have been 
  brazen enough to attack small airships, and some have succeeded. Brutal, fearless, and 
  rightfully so; few creatures on land or in the skies can match a Cloud Shark in combat. 
  Fortunately, Cloud Sharks are lone predators, as a whole school of them would be a nearly 
  unstoppable force.
  
  The Darkness (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  5
  7
  9
  Speed
  3
  4
  5
  Vitality
  3
  4
  4
  Shred (Melee Attack)
  4
  5
  5
  Acid Blood (Counterattack)
  4
  4
  4
  Gaseous (Fly)
  1
  1
  3
  Oozing up from caverns deep beneath Amalgus’s surface, The Darkness are creepy, 
  amorphous black clouds in thin, transparent skins, orbited by flurries of tiny sharpened 
  diamond shards that they use to shred their enemies. The semi-gaseous fluid inside of a 
  Darkness becomes a highly-corrosive and dangerous acid on contact with air, and 
  Darkness’ pliable bodies allow them to squeeze through even the tiniest of openings. 
  Fortunately for the surface-dwellers of Amalgus, The Darkness are destroyed by sunlight, so 
  they are rarely seen above-ground, and then only at night. In their sunless subterranean 
  caverns, the Darkness raise a variety of creatures for food. Disturbingly, the traits that allow 
  a person to pass the personality test are the same traits that the Darkness find most 
  delicious, and as their livestock become more and more stupid through inbreeding and the 
  dark drudgery of their confinements, groups of Darkness are sent above-ground to find fresh 
  people to rekindle the spark of intelligence in their feeding pits. These groups of Darkness 
  are aware of how common people are on the surface of Amalgus, and often spend most of 
  their time outside satisfying their own hungers for intelligence, slaughtering entire villages 
  and dragging only a token few people back down into the abyss just before sunrise.
  Surprisingly, despite the depths of Taphos’s winding catacombs, the Darkness have 
  never been a problem in the Province of Tombs. Some Mortans attribute this safety to the 
  tremendous gates that block-off most of the catacombs from the cities above, but even before 
  the ancient gates were installed the city was free from Darkness attacks. Some postulate that 
  protection methods were installed long ago by Taphos’s founders to protect it from the 
  Darkness, while others suggest that perhaps there is an even ghastlier power prowling the 
  depths of the catacombs that wants the Mortans for itself and will not allow the Darkness to 
  pass. The Dergs, unfortunately, are not as blissfully safe from the Darkness, although many 
  Derg elders are trained in ancient methods of banishing the Darkness, most of which involve 
  the use of primitive flares.
  Darkness Generator (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  10
  15
  20
  Size
  3
  3
  4
  Speed
  4
  5
  5
  Vitality
  5
  5
  6
  Harden (Defend)
  4
  4
  4
  Summon: Darkness
  5
  7
  9
  Ray of Darkness (Heal)
  3
  4
  5
  Voices in the Mind (Mind: Confuse)
  3
  4
  4
  Mental Domination (Mind: Control)
  2
  2
  3
  Special: Darkness Generators can not move themselves, but can be moved by other 
  combatants (using Pull, Throw, Launch, and similar skills). Darkness Generators can only 
  use their Summon skills to Summon Darkness; they do not have to pay for the Darkness’ V 
  
  jools (they are always full when Summoned), and unlike normal Summoned monsters the 
  Darkness Summoned by a Darkness Generator can be turned into jools when combat is over.
  Often, when the Darkness are chased back underground by heroes who outnumber them or 
  by the rising sun, enormous black spheres are found in the caves where they bubbled up from 
  the bowels of the planet. These fearsome orbs, labeled “Darkness Generators” by the few 
  who have survived encounters with them, produce Darkness and emanate awesome mental 
  powers in equal abundance, throwing their attackers into total chaos as it pits them against 
  each other and sends Darkness in to clean up the survivors. Whether Darkness Generators 
  are living vehicles that the Darkness use to travel quickly to the surface, fortresses that the 
  Darkness build once they reach the surface, or something else entirely is not clear. The 
  Generators themselves lack any means of direct attack, including the acid blood common to 
  Darkness, and even lack the ability to move on their own, but more than make up for it with 
  their wide array of other fiendish skills and abilities. When a Darkness Generator is 
  destroyed, it quickly fades from shiny black to a dull, bone white, then crumbles into dust, 
  leaving a pile of jools behind.
  Dingoat
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  4
  Vitality
  1
  2
  2
  Devour (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  4
  Twitchy (Jump)
  1
  1
  2
  Dingoats are about what you’d expect from something halfway between a dingo and a goat; 
  mangy, ravenous pack animals that eat absolutely everything. Dingoat packs have wiped 
  entire small villages off the map, and put significant dents in some larger villages. Although 
  they are kind of cute in a hideous sort of way, dingoat puppies are born hungry, and will 
  merrily devour the hand and arm that feeds them, never sated until they die, often consumed 
  by the rest of their pack when there’s nothing else edible in the immediate vicinity. Kygrus 
  himself admired the simple and brutal tenacity of dingoats, and invested vast amounts of 
  time and jools in an attempt to train them to fight alongside his troops. Absolutely no 
  progress had been made when he died, however, and the project was finally abandoned, 
  although dingoats remained the favorite monster of Kygrin summoners for the rest of the 
  Great War.
  Elementlings
  Special: Elementlings can use their Elemental Attack skills without having to spend the V 
  jools usually required.
  Spawned by points of extreme elemental condition (Hotlings from large fires, Wetlings from 
  floods, etc.), Elementlings make the ideal starting monsters for novice summoners, and 
  otherwise tend to pop up in the most inconvenient places, appearing from raging housefires, 
  torrential floods and the like, and adding to the severity of the situation by attacking anyone 
  nearby. Elementlings can survive for a limited time outside of their favored elemental 
  environment, and usually dissipate after about 12 hours of deprivation.
  •
  Breezling (Air)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Sharp Wind (Elemental Attack: Air)
  1
  2
  2
  Gaseous (Elemental Resistance: Air)
  1
  1
  2
  Float (Fly)
  1
  1
  1
  •
  Dirtling (Earth)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Stone Toss (Elemental Attack: Earth)
  1
  2
  2
  Rocky (Elemental Resistance: Earth)
  2
  1
  2
  Quake (Elemental Effect: Earth)
  -
  1
  1
  •
  Frostling (Ice)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Frost Bite (Elemental Attack: Ice)
  1
  2
  2
  Cold-Blooded (Elemental Resistance: Ice)
  2
  1
  2
  Freeze (Elemental Effect: Ice)
  -
  1
  1
  •
  Hotling (Fire)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Burn (Elemental Attack: Fire)
  1
  2
  2
  Hot-Blooded (Elemental Resistance: Fire)
  2
  1
  2
  Combust (Elemental Effect: Fire)
  -
  1
  1
  •
  Shockling (Electric)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Zap (Elemental Attack: Electric)
  1
  2
  2
  Ionized (Elemental Resistance: Electric)
  2
  1
  2
  Feedback (Counterattack)
  -
  1
  1
  •
  Wetling (Water)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Squirt (Elemental Attack: Water)
  1
  2
  2
  
  Dampness (Elemental Resistance: Water)
  2
  1
  2
  Douse (Elemental Effect: Water)
  -
  1
  1
  •
  Zombling (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Deadly Touch (Elemental Attack: Decay)
  1
  2
  2
  Rotten (Elemental Resistance: Decay)
  2
  1
  2
  Age (Elemental Effect: Decay)
  -
  1
  1
  Entropede (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Defile (Elemental Attack: Decay)
  4
  4
  5
  Crippling Poison (Hinder)
  3
  3
  4
  Withering Blast (Nature: Wilt)
  2
  3
  4
  Rotting Aura (Elemental Resistance: Decay)
  3
  4
  4
  Scuttling across the landscape, leaving trails of rot and decay in their wake, Entropedes are 
  regarded throughout Amalgus as bad omens and signs of corruption. The Entropede’s 
  favored habitats are deep swamps and marshes, preferably ones where thick canopies block 
  out the sunlight and stagnant water chokes out the vegetation and breeds foul things and 
  poisonous fumes in equal abundance. From these dank pits, Entropedes often arise, 
  devastating the surrounding, healthy areas and returning to their dens, or meandering 
  aimlessly for months or years, cutting blackened, barren swathes across otherwise tranquil 
  fields.
  Float Spider
  Level
  Skill
  2
  4
  6
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  2
  2
  3
  Skitter (Dash)
  1
  3
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  2
  3
  4
  Entangle (Hinder)
  1
  1
  3
  Traverse (Jump)
  1
  3
  3
  Special: Outside of combat, Float Spiders can glide around as if they had Fly 1, but gliding 
  requires their full concentration and thus they can not do it during combat.
  Spinning their vast, sticky webs between the Skylands, Float Spiders usually make their 
  homes among clusters of floating rocks too small to be built on, but sometimes stray toward 
  the outskirts of civilization, wreaking havoc and eating people and pets until they are driven 
  away or killed. Each Float Spider has dozens of offspring, and they are fiercely territorial, 
  so encroachment has become more and more of a problem as young Float Spiders have 
  fewer places to nest away from the settled areas of the Skylands. Float Spider webs are not 
  
  entirely without benefit, however, as they keep Starrhanas and other flying monsters out of 
  the Skylands, and bridge smaller pieces of land to each other, gradually drawing them 
  together into a single large mass that can be used for further settlement as the Skylands’ 
  population grows. Unfortunately, they attack other creatures on sight, so the only successful 
  method found to coexist with them is to stay far away from them.
  A full-grown Float Spider is the size of a large dog, with thin membranes between its eight 
  segmented legs that allow it to glide between the Skylands as it builds its webs.
  Forgotten Guardian
  Level
  Skill
  10
  15
  20
  Size
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  4
  5
  6
  Vitality
  5
  6
  6
  Tremendous Sword (Melee Attack)
  4
  5
  6
  Unbreakable Shield (Defend)
  5
  6
  6
  Searing Blast (Elemental Attack: Light)
  3
  4
  5
  Bide (Charge)
  3
  4
  4
  Devastate (Signature Move)
  -
  -
  4
  Mechanical giants who guard the Forgotten Ruins from outsiders and from the otherworldly 
  creatures who appear there, Forgotten Guardians do not speak, do not rest, and can not be 
  reasoned with. Crafted from stone, metal, and gems, the appearances of Forgotten 
  Guardians are as diverse as the architectures of the ruins they inhabit, rising from the sandy 
  ground, breaking free from intricately-decorated walls or statues, or materializing from 
  scattered, broken pieces to vanquish any intruders. Although it is widely assumed that the 
  Forgotten Guardians were created by the same people who created the Forgotten Ruins, 
  their true purpose, their methods of construction, and the fates of their creators remain, well, 
  forgotten.
  Gorg Spawn
  •
  Gorgling
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  2
  Tough Rind (Defend)
  1
  1
  1
  Thorny Club (Melee Attack)
  2
  2
  2
  Seed Spit (Ranged Attack)
  -
  -
  2
  A failed attempt during the Great War to create soldiers who literally grow on bushes, 
  Gorgling seeds begin to spoil almost before they become ripe, resulting in a vile, 
  bloodthirsty, pumpkin-like monster by the time a Gorgling yanks free of its vine and scurries 
  off in search of mischief. Possessing a very limited intelligence and an even smaller 
  vocabulary, Gorglings occasionally act as foot-soldiers for anyone who can convince them 
  that there will be lots of chaos and bloodshed involved in their employment, and for this 
  reason Gorg plants are often cultivated by those bent on world domination and other 
  nefarious schemes. The Gorg plant itself is a sturdy weed that can take root in virtually any 
  environment, growing to maturity from seed in about one month and producing one battle-
  
  ready Gorgling about every six hours following. A liberal application of fire is enough to 
  destroy a Gorg plant of any size, and many cities employ “fire brigades” to venture into the 
  surrounding countryside on a monthly basis to destroy any Gorg plants that may have 
  cropped up.
  •
  Gorgrr
  Level
  Skill
  3
  4
  5
  6
  Speed
  3
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  3
  Rind Shield (Defend)
  1
  2
  2
  3
  Thorny Whip (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  4
  Flame Spit (Elemental Attack: Fire)
  3
  3
  2
  3
  Entangle (Mind: Distract)
  -
  -
  1
  1
  If a Gorgling manages to survive for a few months without getting smashed to pieces by do-
  gooders or its fellow Gorglings, it will eventually mature into a Gogrr as its rotting insides 
  create an unnatural flame that perpetually burns inside it. Although much stronger and 
  better-armed than their younger brethren, Gorgrrs don’t tend to be much brighter. Gorgrrs 
  often act as generals for groups of Gorglings, and always carry a few unripe Gorgs with 
  them to plant in strategic locations and grow more Gorg plants. Unless a Gorgrr is being 
  commanded by a more intelligent creature, however, they usually consider “strategic 
  locations” to be the first bare patch of ground they see, regardless of climate or proximity to 
  civilization.
  •
  Gorgast
  Level
  Skill
  8
  10
  12
  14
  Speed
  5
  5
  5
  5
  Vitality
  4
  5
  5
  5
  Uncanny Aura (Defend)
  4
  4
  4
  4
  Thorny Shell (Counterattack)
  3
  4
  4
  4
  Chilling Flame (Elemental Attack: Decay)
  3
  3
  3
  5
  Horrify (Mind: Distract)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Castle of Thorns (Nature: Grow)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Piercing Gaze (Premonition: Scope)
  -
  1
  2
  2
  Diversify (Nature: Alter)
  -
  -
  3
  4
  Over the course of several years, a Gorgrr’s insides rot away completely, and its outer shell 
  blanches and dessicates. This condition would spell the end for most creatures, but for the 
  Gorgrr it is a metamorphosis into the cruel and deadly Gorgast. The flame inside a Gorgast 
  changes to a chilly blue during the transformation, and at this point the Gorg-spawn truly 
  “awakens”, becoming frightfully intelligent and manifesting terrifying powers over the 
  course of only a few months. Although they are fiercely territorial and will kill other 
  Gorgasts on sight, the Gorgast is revered and respected by Gorgrrs and Gorglings, often 
  ruling entire fields of their lesser Gorg-spawned brethren and commanding them to 
  devastating effectiveness in battle and conquest. Creatures who employ Gorgrrs as foot-
  soldiers must constantly cull their troops to make sure that none of them change into 
  Gorgasts and lead a mutiny.
  
  Gorgasts use the “Castle of Thorns” skill defensively, to suddenly turn the Gorg patches that 
  they rule over into towering fortresses that Gorg-spawn can move through freely but which 
  other characters must surmount or hack their way through. You may choose to make the 
  “Castle of Thorns” either an actual castle with rooms, doors, and hallways, or simply a 
  giant block of thorny vines. Gorgasts use the “Diversify” skill to create at least one or two 
  Gorgrrs of each elemental type to act as its personal guard. If it is losing combat, a Gorgast 
  will often try to escape with as many Gorgrrs as it can, and quickly Diversify those Gorgrrs 
  into whatever elemental type has proven most beneficial in combat so far before its enemies 
  catch up and combat continues. A Gorgast’s entire patch usually consists of a number of 
  Gorgrrs equal to twice its level, and a number of Gorglings equal to three times its level, 
  although only a handful of these will be involved in combat at a time.
  Kaiser Snail
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  3
  4
  5
  Spine Shot (Ranged Attack)
  3
  4
  5
  Spine Roll (Dash Attack)
  3
  4
  5
  Spiked Shell (Counterattack)
  2
  3
  3
  Bristling with barbed spines, a kaiser snail most closely resembles an aquatic mine with a 
  squat, slimy head and three eyestalks protruding from one end. Omnivorous creatures, kaiser 
  snails spend most of their lives grazing complacently, but switch gears completely when 
  another creature approaches, tucking their delicate heads into their shells and rolling at 
  their prey at surprising speeds. Unlike snails on Earth, a kaiser snail has no set opening to 
  its shell, and can pull any one of its spines in completely and replace it with its head and 
  body, allowing it to upright itself quickly regardless of its orientation, and to easily digest 
  anything it has skewered on its spines.
  Kynde
  Level
  Skill
  4
  6
  8
  10
  Speed
  3
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  3
  Claw (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  4
  5
  Heightened Senses (Awareness)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Quick Wits (Dodge)
  3
  3
  4
  5
  Swiftness (Dash)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Blending Instinct (Sneak)
  2
  3
  3
  3
  From conversations with the first Kynde who appeared on Amalgus, scientists learned that 
  they were outcasts from their homeworld; exiled to Amalgus because they had contracted a 
  horrible, incurable disease that would gradually reduce them to mindless, bloodthirsty 
  monsters. The uninfected Kynde had been systematically exterminating those who showed 
  signs of the disease for years since it first appeared, but a new Kynde law had given the 
  infected the choice between death and banishment. Those who chose banishment led cold, 
  solitary lives on Amalgus, usually taking their own lives in the last moments before the 
  disease took hold rather than watch themselves turn on the few friends they had. Amalgus’s 
  top doctors tried for years to cure the disease, but found all of the Kynde they studied to be 
  
  in peak health, and without an uninfected Kynde for comparison they had no idea what 
  belonged and what didn’t. It is still unknown to this day if the Kynde’s grisly appearance, 
  like a sinewy werewolf with a skinless head, is a result of the disease or the natural form of 
  their species. It is also unknown how the Kynde deliberately send their diseased to Amalgus, 
  although a mad Kynde scientist who called himself Vivisick died trying to build a machine to 
  reverse the process, killing thousands of innocent people in his race to return to his 
  homeworld before the disease took hold of his mind.
  The immigration of diseased Kynde to Amalgus has been a perpetual phenomenon, as they 
  appear at seemingly random locations across the globe, although over the years two gradual 
  changes have taken place. The first change is that the appearances have slowly become more 
  frequent, growing from one every month or two to an estimated four or five appearances a 
  day worldwide. The second change is that each subsequent Kynde has had slightly less and 
  less cognizant time on Amalgus before it succumbs, to the point that now the Kynde that 
  appear have already changed, and begin their lives on Amalgus violent and insane. One can 
  only speculate on the horrific state of affairs on the Kynde homeworld, but many guiltily 
  hope that soon the entire species will succumb to the disease, and no-one will be left to 
  operate whatever machinery sends the diseased to plague Amalgus.
  Magmoose (Fire)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  8
  10
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Burning Rack (Elemental Attack: Fire)
  4
  4
  4
  Wreathed in Flame (Elemental Resistance: Fire)
  2
  3
  4
  Antler Smash (Launch)
  4
  4
  4
  Hides the color and strength of obsidian, cracked with veins of molten lava and crowned 
  with a massive rack of fiery antlers, Magmooses can often be seen grazing the molten rock 
  from the edges of volcanoes. In the warm months, Magmooses congregate in tremendous 
  herds, and as the young fight for dominance, the clashing of their mighty antlers creates a 
  spectacular show of fireworks that can be seen and heard for miles. Contrary to their 
  mammalian appearances, Magmooses actually lay eggs in volcanic pools, which sink far 
  beneath Amalgus’s surface, incubating in deep magma vents for years until the juvenile 
  Magmoose hatches and swims to the surface, growing to full adulthood on the way.
  Mushromp
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  3
  Speed
  2
  2
  2
  2
  Vitality
  -
  1
  1
  2
  Osmosis (Drain)
  1
  1
  3
  3
  Snore Spore (Mind: Sleep)
  1
  2
  2
  3
  Crazy Spore (Mind: Confuse)
  -
  -
  1
  2
  Pop (Explode)
  -
  -
  1
  1
  Special: Mushromps can use their Mind: Sleep and Drain skills without having to spend the 
  V jools usually required. Mushromps can only use their Drain skill on enemies who are 
  already asleep, and if their Drain would normally drop an enemy below 0 V jools it drops the 
  
  enemy to 0 V jools instead (and the number of V jools the Mushromp gets from the Drain is 
  adjusted accordingly). Level 0 Mushromps do not have any ranks in Vitality, so the only V 
  jools they will have are those they Drain from enemies during combat. A Level 2 or 3 
  Mushromp will only pop if it is the last Mushromp left in combat.
  Almost as cute as they are annoying, Mushromps are mushrooms roughly one to two dex tall 
  that range in color from light pink to dark purple. Able to move around on their own, 
  Mushromps tend to wobble about in dank caves and along the floors of overgrown forests in 
  packs, making intermittent “meep” sounds as they search for food. Upon finding a likely 
  victim, the Mushromps barrage it with their snore spores, lulling it to sleep, and then 
  proceed to all climb on top of the victim, slowly sapping the jools from its body and 
  barraging it with another flurry of snore spores every time it wakes up. When the victim is 
  finally reduced to zero V jools, the Mushromps wander off in search of a new victim, leaving 
  their former victim to wake up on its own. Mushromps reproduce by parthenogenesis; when 
  a Mushromp accumulates about 50 loose jools, it will spontaneously split into two separate 
  Mushromps over the course of a few minutes, consuming its loose jools in the process.
  Mutato
  Amalgus’s most devious tuber, the Mutato’s natural form is a harmless, extremely tasty blue 
  potato. If it is eaten by a level 1 or higher creature, that creature is horribly ill for an hour, 
  then is perfectly fine. If it is eaten by a level 0 creature, however, it takes over that creature’s 
  body and mutates it into a horrible, malevolent, carnivorous monster. These “Mutatoed” 
  monsters have no memory of their former selves, and wreak ceaseless havoc and destruction. 
  If a Mutatoed monster is knocked unconscious, however, the Mutato pops from the creature’s 
  mouth, fully intact. At this point the Mutato can be mashed for its jools, and the poor 
  creature can be revived by returning it to zero V jools. Rescuers must be careful not to revive 
  the creature first, however, as most creatures will immediately eat the delicious Mutato 
  again as soon as they awaken.
  Here are the skills for a few sample Mutatoed creatures. Feel free to create your own.
  •
  Mutatoed Bird
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Peck (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Fly
  1
  3
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Bunny
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  2
  3
  3
  Vitality
  2
  2
  2
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  3
  Run (Dash)
  2
  2
  3
  Hop (Jump)
  1
  2
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Dog
  Level
  
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Keen Senses (Awareness)
  1
  3
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Fish
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Swim
  1
  3
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Insect
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  2
  3
  3
  Vitality
  2
  2
  2
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  3
  Fly
  2
  2
  3
  Quick and Tiny (Dodge)
  1
  2
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Monkey
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  2
  3
  3
  Vitality
  2
  2
  2
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  3
  Scramble (Climb)
  2
  2
  3
  Throw Rocks (Ranged Attack)
  1
  2
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Pig
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Running Charge (Dash Attack)
  1
  3
  3
  •
  Mutatoed Snake
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Maddening Venom (Mind: Confuse)
  1
  3
  3
  
  Nocturtle
  Level
  Skill
  2
  4
  6
  8
  Speed
  1
  1
  1
  1
  Vitality
  3
  4
  4
  5
  Moon Shell (Defend)
  3
  4
  5
  5
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  2
  3
  4
  4
  Lullabite (Mind: Sleep)
  1
  1
  2
  3
  Razor Shell (Counterattack)
  -
  -
  -
  2
  Special: A Nocturtle will always use its “Moon Shell” skill as its first action in combat.
  Burrowing into the ground to sleep during the day, Nocturtles prefer to hunt by night, 
  emitting a strange, keening noise that lulls to sleep the already-tired diurnal insects and 
  small animals they feed on. Normally pitch black, at the first sign of danger the Nocturtle’s 
  shell glows a bright white like the light of Earth’s moon, protecting the monster as it tucks its 
  head and legs up inside until the danger passes. When its shell’s defenses fail, however, the 
  Nocturtle will lash out at its enemies, using its powerful jaws and its sleep-inducing song to 
  drive them away or defeat them.
  Owlanche (Ice)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Blizzard Wave (Elemental Attack: Ice)
  4
  4
  5
  Snow Flurry Wings (Fly)
  3
  3
  4
  Icicle Talon (Melee Attack)
  2
  3
  4
  Snowflake Feathers (Elemental Resistance: Ice)
  3
  4
  4
  Nesting in the gigantic, super-light crystalline structures that form at the centers of snow 
  clouds, owlanches drift wherever the wind carries them and swoop down from the skies when 
  their clouds carry them over potential prey. In leaner times, when travelling over oceans or 
  deserts, for instance, owlanches stockpile food and shiny objects in their nests, which makes 
  owlanche clouds extremely appealing (albeit also extremely dangerous) to treasure hunters 
  with the means to reach them. Owlanches themselves look like tremendous owls with snowy-
  white feathers and translucent blue beaks and claws. Their bodies are also covered in 
  intricate and beautiful swirling patterns, and Amalgus zoologists hypothesize that, just like 
  snowflakes, no two owlanches are patterned exactly alike.
  Rockroach (Earth)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Dirt Storm (Elemental Attack: Earth)
  4
  4
  5
  Landslide Skitter (Dash Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Compress (Defend)
  2
  3
  4
  Striated (Elemental Resistance: Earth)
  3
  4
  4
  
  Just as vile as the common cockroach, and each the size of a large car, rockroaches can be 
  found in virtually any environment, scavenging for food either alive or dead and spreading 
  the greasy dirt and gooey eggs they perpetually excrete everywhere. Although a solitary 
  rockroach will try to escape when overpowered, it will almost always return with 
  reinforcements, who it will have convinced in shrill, chittering tones to assist it in turning its 
  attackers into food. Records from before the Great War seem to suggest that rockroaches 
  were actually created by people in an experiment gone horribly awry; an infestation of Earth 
  cockroaches had reached epidemic proportions in several major cities, and a team of 
  geneticists devised a solution that would not wipe them out, but transform them through 
  dominant genes into beautiful and gentle creatures. The result of that solution is the fairy 
  beetle, a lovely insect the size of a human fist that exudes calming sounds and scents, feeds 
  exclusively on nectar, and only reproduces once in its eight-year lifespan. A “bug” in the 
  genetic code, however, also produced rockroaches from a certain strain of cockroaches, who 
  have mutated to become the absolute antithesis of fairy beetles, combining extreme examples 
  of every characteristic that the geneticists strove to remove, all in one very large package.
  Rust Rustler (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  3
  4
  5
  Speed
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  3
  3
  4
  Tarnished Gun (Ranged Attack)
  3
  4
  4
  Stall (Charge)
  2
  3
  3
  Breakdown (Rest)
  1
  1
  1
  Miserable outlaws of Junkyard Junction and the surrounding areas, Rust Rustlers are 
  ancient machines that pursue any means necessary to maintain their rapidly-decaying 
  bodies. Although they spend most of their time ambushing caravans bringing fresh metals 
  into the Junction, when times are rough they raid outlying Junction towns, often suffering 
  heavy casualties in the process but making off with more metal and other parts than a dozen 
  ambushes would provide. Although most Rust Rustlers started life as people, their minds 
  have long since rusted through, and now their only motivation is greed for the shiny new 
  parts that will artificially tack another few months onto their horrible, hollow lives. The 
  appearance of each Rust Rustler differs drastically from the next, as they were once a wide 
  variety of machines, but are now so broken-down and kludged-together from loose-fitting 
  parts that even models who were originally identical look nothing alike. The disease that it 
  slowly dissolving them also keeps them together, however, as the Rust Rustlers are a very 
  close-knit group, always travelling in gangs of at least three or four.
  Sandskipper
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  3
  4
  5
  Vitality
  2
  3
  4
  Carapace Slash (Dash Attack)
  3
  4
  5
  Burrow (Defend)
  2
  2
  3
  Sand Swim (Dash)
  2
  4
  4
  Lying in wait for their prey just beneath the surface of beaches, deserts, and other sandy 
  areas, sandskippers can burrow through the soft ground with incredible speed, leaping out 
  
  of the sand to slash at prey with the razor-sharp edges and spines that line their trilobite-like 
  bodies. Often travelling in families of three or more to overwhelm other creatures with a 
  deluge of lacerations, once a group of sandskippers has rendered a victim unconscious they 
  drag its body underground to feed, safe from scavengers and other creatures who might try 
  to drive them away or steal it. Severely underdeveloped both biologically and intellectually, 
  sandskippers still remain a very real threat to desert travelers due to their overwhelming 
  physical speed and power.
  Shattercat
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  2
  3
  4
  Vitality
  3
  4
  4
  Barbed Claws (Grab)
  3
  4
  5
  Shatter (Explode)
  2
  4
  5
  Pounce (Dash)
  2
  2
  3
  Incredibly beautiful but also incredibly nasty creatures, shattercats appear to be sculpted out 
  of fine china and glass, with a delicate roar that sounds like a French horn. Asexual 
  creatures, shattercats are remarkably tame until they reach maturity, at which point they 
  become frenzied, pounce upon the strongest creature they can find, and then promptly 
  explode. After the explosion, four to eight of the larger pieces gradually coalesce into 
  newborn shattercats, who feed on the jools left behind by their parent’s violent end, and the 
  jools left behind by the parent’s prey, which is usually also destroyed in the explosion. Due 
  to their beautiful and delicate forms, shattercats were at one time a favorite subject for 
  sculptors, but over the years the numerous statuettes created of them have brought nothing 
  but bad luck to their owners, and subsequently almost all have been destroyed or locked 
  away. On Amalgus, the word “shattercat” has also become a derogatory term for a person 
  who experiences violent mood swings, seeming perfectly content one moment and then 
  “exploding” the next.
  Shineocerous (Light)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Radiant Horn (Elemental Attack: Light)
  4
  4
  5
  Healing Light (Heal)
  3
  3
  4
  Invigorate (Nature: Grow)
  2
  3
  4
  Absolute Purity (Elemental Resistance: Light)
  3
  4
  4
  Perhaps the most mysterious of all Amalgus’s monsters, Shineocerouses appear seemingly 
  out of thin air at the fog-shrouded points where low-passing clouds touch the tops of high 
  mountains, and seem to subsist by grazing on the low-lying mists. The light radiating from a 
  Shineocerous’ horn is like a beacon in the fog, increasing dramatically in intensity when the 
  normally-serene creature becomes angered, and is said to have rejuvenating powers. It is 
  assumed that the stunted, feathery wings on a Shineocerous’ back are merely vestigial, and 
  couldn’t possibly support the beast’s weight, but all the same they come and go with the 
  passing of the clouds, leaving behind no traces of their presence.
  
  Skeeter
  Level
  Skill
  4
  6
  8
  Speed
  2
  3
  4
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  Nasty Beak (Drain)
  5
  6
  7
  Buzzing Wings (Fly)
  3
  3
  3
  Somewhere between a giant hummingbird and an even more giant mosquito, skeeters are 
  nasty little monsters roughly the size of basketballs, with long, needle-sharp beaks that they 
  use to suck the jools out of anything from tree trunks to heavily-armored soldiers. Found 
  mostly in swamps and dense forests, skeeters’ wings emit an incredibly loud and annoying 
  buzzing noise when they fly, which most creatures have instinctively learned to flee from, 
  since few defenses can withstand the horrible pointed beak of a skeeter. Rather than building 
  nests like most other bird-like creatures, skeeters use their beaks to inject their eggs into the 
  trunks of trees, and the newborn skeeters burrow out in six to eight months. Skeeters also 
  lack legs, and thus rest by jamming their beaks into something immobile and hanging from it 
  while keeping watch in all directions with their large, bulbous eyes.
  Starrhana
  Level
  Skill
  1
  2
  3
  Speed
  2
  2
  2
  Vitality
  1
  2
  3
  Cloudswim (Fly)
  2
  3
  3
  Bite (Melee Attack)
  1
  2
  3
  Feeding Frenzy (Team Attack)
  -
  1
  1
  The bane of cloudfishers, since they always get caught in your nets and give you nasty bites 
  while you try to get them out, Starrhanas are tough, hideous little flying things whose mouths 
  take up a good third of their bodies. Starrhanas usually travel in schools of 5 to 20, and feed 
  on the various birds and flying fishes that inhabit cloud banks and high mountain-tops, 
  rarely swooping down to ground-level. Despite the fact that the Skylands would make a 
  prime target for roving schools of Starrhanas, the webs of local Float Spiders tend to keep 
  them at bay. Starrhana reproduction is particularly nasty, as the eggs become stuck to both 
  parents during the fertilization process. When the eggs hatch after a few days of incubation, 
  the newborns immediately devour their parents and grow to full size in a matter of hours.
  Trained Soldier
  Level
  Skill
  0
  1
  2
  3
  Speed
  1
  2
  2
  3
  Vitality
  -
  1
  1
  2
  Protect the Leader! (Cover)
  1
  1
  2
  2
  Bow, Rifle, etc. (Ranged Attack)
  1
  1
  1
  2
  Sword, Bayonet, etc. (Melee Attack)
  1
  2
  3
  3
  Defensive Positions! (Defend)
  1
  1
  1
  1
  There are three ways that trained soldiers come about. The first, and most widely-accepted 
  way is open recruiting; if someone likes the agenda and benefits that an army is promoting, 
  he can sign up, go through some basic training, and become a soldier. The second way is to 
  
  grow organic soldiers, or build mechanical ones; this method leads to very loyal but also 
  very stupid soldiers, as the only life-experience they have to go on is their training. 
  Gorglings were originally designed to be this kind of soldier, but they developed 
  personalities of their own and grew out of control. Most zombies and living skeletons are this 
  second kind of soldier also, except the ones created by the third method. The third method of 
  creating soldiers is to attach a “control cap” to a corpse whose jools have recently been 
  extracted. The control cap is a garish contraption that replaces the top half of a corpse’s 
  skull and brings the corpse back to life with almost all of the knowledge and memories that it 
  had before, except that it now thinks that doing the bidding of the cap’s owner is the most 
  important thing in the world. Since a character brought back to life by a control cap is still a 
  corpse, he will continue to rot, gradually becoming too decomposed to continue being useful 
  (at the GM’s discretion), and which point his control cap is usually removed and used on a 
  fresher corpse. Soldiers with control caps tend to be clever, smelly, and insane. Most of the 
  nations of Amalgus frown on the use of control caps, but none have banned them outright 
  yet. Trained soldiers from the first method tend to vary widely from soldier to soldier, 
  soldiers from the second method tend to all look and behave exactly the same, and soldiers 
  from the third method are all humans, human-like, or animals, since the control cap only 
  works on characters with brains in their heads.
  The Generic Monster
  Trained Soldiers are designed to be as generic as possible so that you can apply their stats to whatever kinds of 
  Soldiers you throw at the players. Fighting an evil gardener? Then the soldiers can be trees and flowers. A 
  mechanic villain might use robots for soldiers, while a chef’s soldiers would probably be gingerbread men. Feel 
  free to make your own changes to the basic Trained Soldier to fit the situation (giving the robots an electrical 
  type and making the trees weak against fire, for instance). In fact, all of the monsters here could just as easily be 
  something completely different, so if you come up with some new nasty on the fly and haven’t given it skills yet 
  before the players leap into combat, just find something similar here and steal the skills from it.
  Tree Anemone
  Level
  Skill
  4
  6
  8
  10
  Size
  3
  3
  3
  3
  Speed
  2
  3
  3
  3
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  4
  Lashing Branches (Melee Attack)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Gravity Flowers (Pull)
  3
  4
  4
  5
  Wrap (Grab)
  3
  3
  4
  4
  Constrict (Crush)
  3
  3
  4
  4
  Just Another Tree (Illusion: Disguise)
  2
  2
  3
  3
  Special: Tree Anemones are rooted in place and can not move outside of the hexes they 
  occupy. While a Tree Anemone is using its “Wrap” skill on one opponent, it may still freely 
  use its “Lashing Branches” skill against other opponents.
  Since Tree Anemones are rooted in place and unable to move around, many foolish 
  travelers assume that they are harmless, only to wake up weeks later in a Save Bank with no 
  idea what happened. Tree Anemones are extremely well adapted to their environments, and 
  more than make up for their inability to move with other skills. Tree Anemone fruits resemble 
  large, fat caterpillars with numerous branch-like tails. When they ripen and fall to the 
  ground, these fruits wriggle away to find a suitable location to root themselves, at which 
  point they sink their tails into the ground and metamorphose into another Tree Anemone 
  over the course of a few weeks. While in this larval state, however, Tree Anemones are 
  
  extremely vulnerable and delicious, so they tend not to wander too far from their mothers 
  before taking root.
  Undertoad
  Level
  Skill
  3
  4
  5
  Speed
  2
  2
  2
  Vitality
  2
  2
  3
  Weed Net (Grab)
  2
  3
  3
  Drown (Crush)
  2
  3
  3
  Dunk (Drag)
  2
  2
  2
  Bubble Spray (Elemental Attack: Water)
  2
  2
  3
  Webbed Feet (Swim)
  3
  3
  3
  Special: Undertoads can breathe water naturally, and do not lose V jools for being 
  underwater.
  Detestable, filthy amphibians, Undertoads view everything that lives above or below the 
  surface of the water as food. Most Undertoads live in caves they dig at the edges of tide 
  pools, weaving nets out of weeds to drag water creatures out of the water and land creatures 
  into the water to feed their bloated, perpetually groaning bellies. Undertoad society is 
  broken down into a complex caste system, based entirely on the length of an Undertoad’s 
  tongue and the size of his air sac.
  Vermite
  Level
  Skill
  0
  2
  Speed
  1
  2
  Vitality
  0
  2
  Vicious Mandibles (Melee Attack)
  1
  3
  Oily Fur (Dodge)
  1
  1
  Skitter (Dash)
  1
  1
  Sticky Feet (Climb)
  1
  1
  Special: No more than one Level 2 "king" Vermite will appear with any group of Level 0 
  "drone" Vermites.
  Nasty little insects with furry bodies like rats, Vermites build nests in piles of garbage in the 
  dark, moist, forgotten areas of sewers, caves, and ruins. Surprisingly well-organized for such 
  simple-minded creatures, Vermites can be mercilessly effective when they surround an 
  opponent, although they are on the whole incredibly weak, and even the "kings" of their 
  strangely patriarchal nests are mere annoyances compared to even the most docile of 
  Amalgus's other monsters. Vermite kings are also fiercely territorial, and will immediately 
  devour any of their brood that develop any further than the standard drone. When their kings 
  die, the drones are allowed to mature normally, but subsequently almost wipe out their entire 
  nests fighting and competing to become the next king.
  Wheeler
  Level
  Skill
  2
  3
  4
  Speed
  3
  3
  4
  Vitality
  1
  2
  2
  
  Overrun (Dash Attack)
  3
  4
  4
  Skid (Dodge)
  1
  1
  2
  Overdrive (SpaceTime: Haste)
  -
  1
  1
  Tearing across the landscape in packs, Wheelers are strange juxtapositions of man and 
  machine, with wheels for hands and feet, headlights for eyes, grills for mouths, and exhaust 
  pipes jutting out of their backs at odd angles. Closer to destructive, violent pranksters than 
  hardened enemies of civilization, Wheelers are cognizant enough that a few have passed the 
  first five minutes of the personality test before being driven mad by the tedium of it all and 
  smashing everything in sight. The Wheeler species is subdivided into various gangs, some of 
  whom have tenuous truces and most of whom are bitter enemies, resulting in nasty conflicts 
  when rival gangs cross paths. Little else of Wheeler culture, including whether they are born 
  as Wheelers or metamorphose from some other species, is known, as all biologists who have 
  attempted to study them have either been simply left in the dust or beaten senseless and then 
  left in the dust.
  Whispin
  Level
  Skill
  5
  10
  15
  Speed
  2
  3
  4
  Vitality
  1
  1
  3
  Etherealness (Dodge)
  6
  9
  10
  Maddening Whispers (Mind: Confuse)
  3
  3
  4
  Cutting Remark (Melee Attack)
  -
  -
  3
  Special: Whispins can use their Maddening Whispers skill without having to spend the V 
  jools normally required.
  Whispins are creatures that live in a strange sideways space between Amalgus and another 
  world entirely. The two most widely held theories are that whispins were either leaving their 
  homeworld en-masse for Amalgus, or were somehow exiled from Amalgus sometime during 
  the Great War, but both theories agree that something went horribly wrong, trapping the 
  whispins in the space between worlds and consequently driving them completely insane. 
  Their physical presence at Amalgus is tentative at best, but their insanity is remarkably 
  contagious, and they delight in nothing more than whispering their crazy ramblings to 
  people and infecting their minds with violent lunatic visions. Generally speaking, whispins 
  resemble very pale, ghostly humans who appear to shimmer in and out of reality, and whose 
  bodies bend and warp in strange ways and at places where there are no joints, so that the 
  same whispin might appear to be a lanky, beautiful figure one moment, and then little more 
  than a large screaming face the next.
  Wind Rat (Air)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Size
  2
  2
  2
  Speed
  3
  4
  4
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Tornado Tail (Elemental Attack: Air)
  4
  4
  5
  Hurricane Bite (Dash Attack)
  3
  3
  4
  Twin Twister (SpaceTime: Split)
  2
  3
  4
  Frictionless Fur (Elemental Resistance: Air)
  3
  4
  4
  
  Ripping across the plains and flatlands of Amalgus, wind rats move at such incredible 
  speeds that they leave tremendous gusts of air in their wakes, and even the passing of a 
  single wind rat is enough to brew a fearsome tornado or hurricane. Wind rats can be either 
  social animals or loners, found just as often alone as with a few others or travelling in 
  gigantic packs, and entire prairie cities have been wiped off the map from time to time by the 
  incredible windstorms created by a large pack. Although the winds are viewed mostly as a 
  byproduct of wind rats, some unconfirmed sightings have reported wind rats not only 
  controlling the cyclones they create but actually riding within and on top of them for great 
  distances. These reports might explain how wind rats have managed to populate virtually 
  every continent on Amalgus, if they can ride the winds they create across the seas. 
  Physically, wind rats look somewhat like gigantic rats, and come in as many or more colors 
  and varieties as rats do on Earth. One peculiar difference, however, is that a wind rat’s fur 
  is in constant motion, rippling as if being blown by a strong wind even when it is standing 
  still.
  Common Fantasy Monsters
  Remember that Amalgus snatches creatures from every planet in this universe, and perhaps other 
  universes as well. In addition to the Amalgus-specific monsters listed above, more familiar 
  monsters are just as likely to appear. Here is a list of some of the more common ones; as with 
  any other monster, if you want to use something that you’re familiar with but isn’t listed here, 
  just steal the skills from another monster or make up your own.
  Blob
  Dragon
  Ghost
  Ghoul
  Goblin / Orc
  Golem
  Kraken
  Mummy
  Siren
  Skeleton
  Troll
  Unicorn
  Vampire
  Werewolf
  Zombie
  Blob (Water)
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  1
  2
  4
  Vitality
  3
  5
  5
  Grasping Pseudopod (Grab)
  4
  5
  5
  Digest (Crush)
  2
  3
  5
  Blobs, puddings, oozes, gelatins, slimes, and giant amoebas are all monsters that are so 
  simple-minded (and simple-bodied) that they can hardly be called monsters at all. Blobs are 
  basically just big piles or puddles of goop, usually found in warm, dark places, that move 
  slowly toward any life-forms they detect and try to digest anything that they touch.
  Dragon (X)
  Level
  Skill
  10
  20
  30
  Size
  3
  4
  5
  Speed
  4
  6
  7
  Vitality
  4
  6
  7
  Dragon Breath (Elemental Attack: X)
  4
  6
  8
  Dragon Breath 2 (Elemental Effect: X)
  4
  5
  7
  Massive Jaws (Melee Attack)
  4
  6
  7
  
  Dragon Scales (Dodge)
  3
  3
  4
  Mighty Wings (Fly)
  4
  5
  5
  Special: The “X”s above must be replaced with an element from the list on page @@.
  Virtually every mythology has its own version of the dragon, from the cunning, bloodthirsty 
  giant lizards of Europe to the intelligent, contemplative creatures of Asia. Many RPGs have 
  cast dragons as the ultimate masters of the various elements, and this is the model that is 
  represented here. For a more “generic” dragon, simply make the dragon’s Elemental Attack 
  and Elemental Effect Fire, and remove its elemental type.
  Ghost (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  5
  10
  15
  Speed
  4
  5
  6
  Vitality
  2
  3
  3
  Deathly Touch (Elemental Attack: Decay)
  3
  4
  5
  Shadowy Form (Illusion: Invisibility)
  3
  5
  6
  Incorporeal (Dodge)
  4
  5
  7
  Ghosts usually come into existence because someone died with unfinished business that was 
  extremely important to him or her, and thus any ghost, friendly or unfriendly, can create an 
  entire sub-quest all by itself. Of course, in some cases that unfinished business could just be 
  a desire to kill anyone the ghost encounters, or to guard something the players need, in 
  which case there’s not much to do besides beat the ghost senseless and lay it to rest.
  Ghoul (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  2
  3
  3
  Vitality
  3
  4
  5
  Teeth and Claws (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  6
  Burrow (Vanish)
  3
  4
  4
  Frenzied Mob (Team Attack)
  1
  2
  2
  Depending on your source material, ghouls are either the reincarnations of people who died 
  very hungry, or simply people who have developed a taste for cannibalism and have thus 
  devolved into monsters. In either case, ghouls are vaguely-human pack-animals that dwell in 
  caves and tunnels they’ve dug underneath graveyards, reaching up into the coffins above 
  them to snack on corpses. For the most part, ghouls keep to themselves as long as there’s a 
  steady supply of corpses, but fresh meat is always preferable, and ghouls are fiercely 
  territorial, so intruders don’t tend to last long.
  Goblin / Orc
  Mean, green, fightin’ machines, goblins and orcs are the generic trained soldiers of 
  numerous fantasy RPGs. So, guess what? They have the same skills as trained soldiers. Both 
  monsters look like ugly, feral, green humans and are almost as stupid as they are vicious; 
  goblins are smaller and weaker, and sometimes have an aversion to Light, while orcs are 
  built like football players after years of steroid abuse. All goblins were at one point people, 
  but have become so cruel, heartless, and sociopathic that they are no longer able to pass the 
  personality test. Orcs, on the other hand, are genetically-engineered “super-goblins”, bred 
  
  from the most vicious goblin stock in giant mud pits, born fully-grown and ravenous for 
  destruction.
  Golem (Earth)
  Level
  Skill
  5
  10
  15
  Size
  1
  2
  3
  Speed
  1
  3
  5
  Vitality
  5
  6
  7
  Smash (Melee Attack)
  3
  5
  6
  Harden (Defend)
  3
  4
  5
  Power Up (Charge)
  3
  4
  4
  Special: Golems can be created by players in the same way that Living Creatures can be 
  created (see page @@).
  Although originally all golems were sculpted from clay and brought to life by engraving a 
  secret word upon their foreheads, RPGs have made both the methods of creating a golem 
  and the materials they can be carved from too numerous to list. Golems still tend to be made 
  from a single material element, usually some sort of stone or mineral; weak golems might be 
  made of clay or glass, while the strongest golems would be made from diamond or solid 
  steel. A Golem is the mythological equivalent of a simple robot; when one is created it is 
  usually assigned a basic task (i.e. “guard the city gates against anyone who doesn’t say the 
  password”, “water the garden”, “follow me”, “stand there”, etc.) which it will perform 
  unwaveringly until it is assigned another basic task by its creator.
  Kraken
  Level
  Skill
  10
  20
  30
  Size
  4
  7
  10
  Speed
  3
  5
  7
  Vitality
  7
  8
  9
  Barbed Tentacles (Melee Attack)
  4
  8
  9
  Suckered Tentacles (Grab)
  4
  5
  7
  Enormous Beak (Crush)
  3
  5
  6
  Swim
  1
  1
  2
  Krakens breathe water, and thus don’t lose V jools for staying submerged, but do lose 5 V 
  jools per round that they spend out of the water.
  A kraken is a gigantic squid, and the bane of all sailors and submariners. In some tellings, 
  krakens are incredibly intelligent and rule over entire underwater kingdoms, while in others 
  krakens are merely drawn to anything large that might be food. Although krakens can 
  surface for extended periods of time to attack floating prey, they can not survive for long if 
  they leave the water completely.
  Mummy (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  5
  10
  20
  Speed
  3
  4
  5
  Vitality
  4
  5
  6
  Luck
  -
  -
  1
  
  Undying Strength (Melee Attack)
  4
  5
  8
  Undying Command (Mind: Control)
  2
  3
  5
  Sandstorm (Elemental Attack: Air)
  3
  5
  7
  Powerful rulers of long-forgotten kingdoms, entombed in sarcophagi specially designed to 
  bring them back to life a thousand years later, or horrible immortal criminals, sealed away 
  for all eternity (or at least until some meddling fool awakens them), mummies invariably rise 
  from their tombs when disturbed, wrapped in bandages and desperate to avenge themselves 
  on everyone in the immediately vicinity. Mummies are often highly intelligent, and more 
  powerful mummies will be entombed along with legions of their followers, giving them 
  hordes of “lesser mummies” to command (treat these “lesser mummies” as Zomblings).
  Siren
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  3
  3
  4
  Vitality
  2
  3
  4
  Shark Teeth (Melee Attack)
  2
  4
  5
  Alluring Song (Pull)
  3
  3
  4
  Maddening Song (Mind: Confuse)
  2
  3
  4
  Feeding Frenzy (Team Attack)
  1
  1
  1
  Sirens can breathe water, and thus take no damage from being submerged.
  Mermaids’ nastier cousins, sirens are half-fish and half-human monsters who lure 
  unsuspecting people to their watery dooms with their “song”, a strange, unearthly, melodic 
  sound that erodes the conscious mind. Some sirens must remain in contact with the sea at all 
  times, while others can assume a more human form and walk the land for extended periods 
  of time. Exactly what causes this distinction is not entirely clear.
  Skeleton (Decay)
  Skeletons have the same skills as Trained Soldiers, plus the Decay elemental type.
  Skeleton warriors are the staple of most undead armies in fantasy RPGs and literature. With 
  very little holding their joints together and even less inside their skulls, skeletons tend to be 
  very fragile and very stupid, but also very cheap and convenient if there’s an abandoned 
  graveyard or battlefield nearby.
  Troll
  Level
  Skill
  3
  6
  9
  Speed
  1
  2
  3
  Vitality
  3
  4
  5
  Club (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  5
  Fast Healer (Regenerate)
  4
  5
  6
  Huge, stupid, strong and incredibly resilient, trolls in literature run the gamut from 
  extremely shy to downright wicked; trolls in RPGs tend to be the latter. Trolls usually look 
  like giant hairless gorillas with big noses and clubs, and make up for a total lack of common 
  sense with an ability to heal wounds incredibly quickly.
  Unicorn (Light)
  Unicorns have the same skills as Shineocerouses.
  
  The physical embodiments of purity, nobility, and beauty, a unicorn resembles a sleek white 
  horse with a single, golden horn growing straight out of its forehead. Although extremely 
  difficult to tame, unicorns will often come to the aid of adventurers who are pure of heart 
  and intentions, and can fight ferociously despite their gentle appearances.
  Vampire (Decay)
  Level
  Skill
  6
  9
  12
  Speed
  4
  5
  5
  Vitality
  4
  4
  5
  Vampire Bite (Drain)
  4
  5
  5
  Deadly Claw (Melee Attack)
  3
  4
  5
  Undying Charm (Convince)
  1
  2
  3
  Gaseous Form (Defend)
  2
  2
  3
  Wings… Like a Bat (Fly)
  -
  2
  2
  Rotting, savage, blood-thirsty walking dead, or cultured, charismatic, and intelligent blood-
  thirsty walking dead, vampires are people who have died either from another vampire’s 
  attack, or through some act of horrible violence. Vampires come in a wide variety of styles, 
  but all tend to require a regular dose of the blood of the living, are hurt immensely by 
  sunlight, and can turn themselves into bats or clouds of mist at will. Vampires in modern 
  literature tend to be immensely wealthy, intelligent, and powerful, and rule over large 
  empires of the living or the dead (or both), although the mindless monster type also crops up 
  from time to time.
  Werewolf
  Werewolves have the same skills as the Kynde in wolf form, and are often simply Level 0 
  people when they’re not in wolf form.
  Perfectly human most of the time, most werewolves are completely unaware that they turn 
  into ravenous half-wolf monsters during nights when the moon is full. Some werewolves can 
  learn to control their transformations, and either tame the beast within or corrupt their 
  human side. Over the ages, people who turn into animals have grown beyond just wolves to 
  include other animals like bears, tigers, and boars, and Amalgus even more combinations 
  have appeared, including were-snowlions, were-windrats, and the dreaded were-dingoats.
  Zombie (Decay)
  Zombies have the same skills as Zomblings.
  Mindless corpses brought back to life by voodoo, super-viruses, cosmic rays, atomic 
  radiation, or other means, zombies rise from their graves to feast on the flesh of the living 
  (or sometimes just the brains). Traditional zombies aren’t much of a threat to PCs made of 
  metal or wood, but on Amalgus there’s nothing stopping zombies from being wooden or 
  metal too.
  Unique Enemies
  Hacking your way through a sea of gorlings is all well and good, but without some real villains 
  the plot rarely goes anywhere. Here’s a brief rogues’ gallery of suggestions for nasty people to 
  throw in your players’ way, either to cross swords or just to cross wits. Some of these characters 
  have particular affiliations or goals, while others are left ambiguous to either fit with your grand 
  scheme or just keep your players guessing. Remember above all that Save Banks were designed 
  for you as well as your players, so if the fiendish super-mastermind that you’ve spent hours 
  
  designing gets only a few seconds of play time before your players drop him with a lucky shot, 
  he can always regenerate in a secret black-market Save Bank and come back next week, prepared 
  in advance for the players to try that same lucky shot again and turn the tables on them. Keep in 
  mind also that, although they all tend to be villains, these characters don’t necessarily have to be 
  the players’ direct enemies; Emerald Rose is just as likely to desperately need the players’ help 
  (although she’d never ask for it outright) as she is to steal the one vital thing they most need and 
  lead them on a wild globe-trotting goose-chase, and Five Ninjas Construction is just as likely to 
  take a job creating or destroying something for the players as it is to be hired to dismantle the 
  players’ base of operations. These enemies are also left without skills and levels, so that you can 
  tailor them to your players' levels, and still have them all to choose from regardless of how weak 
  or strong the players currently are.
  Black Oak
  Captain Bloodbeard
  Emerald Rose
  Five Ninjas Construction
  Kraven Vortov
  The Masked Duelist
  Black Oak
  Almost as mysterious a personality as the Mesmetismian itself, Black Oak has been blamed 
  for countless assassinations, is said to head many of Amalgus’s most powerful criminal 
  organizations, and is at the center of numerous conspiracy theories and cover-ups. Despite 
  his notoriety and infamy, few people can quite agree on who, or even what Black Oak is, 
  although popular opinion holds that he’s a human from Earth, or a vampire, or perhaps a 
  stag or forest spirit. Some people even swear that Black Oak is, quite literally, a huge Black 
  Oak tree, its trunk studded with iridescent gems each the size of a small house, and with 
  roots that stretch deep deep underground, to a complex latticework of crystals that it used to 
  keep its ancient memories safe from the Smart Bomb. Everyone can agree as to where he is, 
  however; in a dense and untamed forest in Amalgus’s far frozen north, which borders on 
  lands controlled by Cathodral, although the Regulators refuses to encroach any further onto 
  his territory for reasons they will not disclose. Those who have gone in search of Black Oak 
  with a kind heart and an open mind have returned with tales of a generous and unassuming 
  old man who lives alone with a Saint Bernard named Stump in a cozy little cabin deep in the 
  forest, and who couldn’t possibly be responsible for all the crimes and schemes ascribed to 
  him. Those who search for Black Oak seeking revenge, fame, or power, on the other hand, do 
  not return at all.
  Captain Bloodbeard
  Just about everyone on Amalgus knows the sordid story of Captain Bloodbeard's origin, 
  although since few people dare speak his terrible name it's a mystery how the story gets 
  around. Born without a name to mine-slave parents on the Gemstone Islands, Bloodbeard 
  worked the mines from the day he was old enough to swing a pickaxe (a few days after his 
  first birthday, if the legends are to be believed), until a blistering hot summer night when, at 
  the age of eight-and-a-half, he made his escape from the mines, killing three guards in the 
  process. Illiterate, uneducated, and completely uncultured, Bloodbeard nonetheless adapted 
  incredibly well to life in the outside world, working his way up from hired muscle at odd jobs 
  to first mate on the legendary pirate ship The Brass Dragon in the span of only a few years. 
  During a raid on the Skylands, the crew stumbled upon a nearly-intact floating fortress of 
  incredible design unparalleled anywhere else on the planet, and never one to miss an 
  opportunity, Bloodbeard staged a mutiny, claimed the fortress as his own, and sank the 
  Brass Dragon. Christening his new vessel the Thunderhead, Bloodbeard immediately began 
  the task of rendering it skyworthy, a feat he completed in record time before setting sail for 
  
  his first destination as Captain, the Gemstone Islands. As the slavers' cities laid in ruins, the 
  vast majority of the slaves themselves joined the crew of the Thunderhead, regarding 
  Captain Bloodbeard as a savior. Mining in the Gemstone Islands is now performed only by 
  paid labor, and even they live in constant dread of the Captain's return.
  Captain Bloodbeard has lived his life taking what he wants, and has no regard for the 
  sanctity of life, personal property, or any of the other mores and values that bind society 
  together. He has a personal vendetta against slavery, and will wipe any slave-labor camps 
  he learns of off the face of the planet, but there's no sense of altruism in these missions, and 
  he's just as happy slaughtering women and children, plundering treasuries, and razing cities 
  to the ground. He is a young, brilliant strategist and completely sane; he has just never been 
  taught good and bad, right and wrong, and now it's far too late for him to learn. 
  Bloodbeard's crew have become brutally efficient at performing their nefarious deeds, 
  helped in part by the fact that the Thunderhead, with its multitudes of sails, engines, and 
  grapples, is perfectly designed to lay siege to cities from directly overhead, where they are 
  often the most vulnerable.
  Emerald Rose
  Her airship, her sunglasses, her outrageous costumes and all of the uniforms of her crew, 
  everything that surrounds Emerald Rose is red, to accentuate the brilliant green of her long, 
  gorgeous hair and sparkling eyes. Almost as reckless as she is vain, Emerald Rose is the 
  typical anti-hero; a sweet-talking, swashbuckling pirate queen, plundering cargo ships, 
  breaking hearts, and drinking and carousing with the most nefarious characters to ever sail 
  the skies. With a lightning wit, a mind like a steel trap, and deadly skill wielding either her 
  trademark double rapiers or the giant anchor that’s become her other trademark, Emerald 
  Rose has been able to out think, out race, and out maneuver even the great Captain 
  Bloodbeard the few times their paths have crossed, piloting her sleek airship, “The Last 
  Tomorrow”, through impossible odds to escape from certain death and live to fight, drink, 
  and steal another day. Of course, few people know this, but luck is not always on Emerald 
  Rose’s side; she’s currently on her seventh “Last Tomorrow”, and most of the jools she 
  plunders go toward patching up herself, her crew, and her ship. Amassing a fortune is a low 
  priority for Emerald Rose, however, and she’s content with the life she has, leaping from 
  adventure to adventure, peril to peril, and never minding that tomorrow, any tomorrow, may 
  indeed be her last. Her greatest thrill is the thrill of the chase, and she will often steal items 
  of little real worth but high emotional value just for the rush of being pursued to the ends of 
  the world by those to whom they mean everything. Some of the members of her crew wonder 
  why she goes to such lengths when she’s beautiful enough to be pursued for her loveliness 
  alone, but don’t dare mention it to her. Come to think of it, virtually no-one has ever 
  mentioned to Emerald Rose how beautiful she really is… perhaps that’s part of her problem.
  Five Ninjas Construction
  Several years ago, in a forgotten tomb hidden deep underground, five of the Great War’s 
  most powerful ninjas awoke from over a thousand years of hibernation to strike a deadly and 
  unexpected blow against a mighty warlord. Unfortunately, the Smart Bomb was not expected 
  by their masters, and they rushed from their tomb to the planet’s surface to discover a very 
  different Amalgus from the one they’d left behind; one where no trace of either their masters 
  nor their masters’ ancient enemies remained. Bewildered, and with incredible combat skills 
  ingrained in them since birth that were virtually useless in the comparative peace of modern 
  Amalgus, the five ninjas wandered the planet for many months before finally coming to the 
  conclusion that  their unique talents could, in fact, be turned toward a lucrative modern 
  
  career, and thus the Five Ninjas Construction Company was born. The five ninjas themselves 
  are an incredibly unique find, as not only are they the only known living survivors of the 
  Great War outside of Sikla, but due to some strange quality of their hibernation, they 
  escaped the effects of the Smart Bomb, and thus retain all of their memories. To the complete 
  dismay of historians, however, the ninjas had all taken a vow to never speak of anything that 
  occurred before their hibernation, and although the masters to whom they swore that vow 
  have long since passed on, their allegiance to those masters remains.
  The Five Ninjas Construction Company is extremely successful, as the ninjas quickly 
  and satisfactorily complete any job they are assigned for a very reasonable rate. No job is 
  too big or too small, and Five Ninja Construction has been known to build hundred-story 
  skyscrapers or raze previously impenetrable fortresses to the ground practically overnight. 
  This last service has made them extremely popular with certain criminal elements, as the 
  ninjas don’t care whether or not their employers actually own the buildings they’re hired to 
  destroy, and numerous Save Banks have been quickly and completely dismantled by the 
  company at the request of robbers who retrieve the loot from the rubble. A blind eye is 
  usually turned to this facet of their operations, because the construction work that they do 
  for various cities’ public works and private companies is so phenomenal and inexpensive. A 
  lucrative side business for Five Ninjas Construction has become the sale of renewable 
  warranties on the buildings they construct, under which they promise not to accept any 
  contracts to demolish said buildings until the warranties have expired. The ninjas have 
  recently had to hire three full-time secretaries just to track the issuance, expiration, and 
  renewal of their warranties.
  In person the ninjas are very polite, but also very detached, cold, and emotionless, 
  which is exactly what one would expect from people trained from birth to be perfect killing 
  machines.
  •
  Earth: If there is a limit to the weight that Earth can comfortably lift, it has yet to be 
  reached. Earth not only does most of the heavy lifting for most projects, but can carry 
  entire completed buildings where they need to go if it’s more efficient for the company to 
  build them off-site. On destruction contracts, Earth prefers to flip buildings on their sides 
  and then scrape out their insides from the bottom where they’re not usually as well-
  fortified.
  •
  Air: Air’s ability to be seemingly everywhere at once makes her the ideal go-between, 
  instantaneously and securely relaying messages between the other ninjas, and running 
  out for supplies and returning in the blink of an eye. Air is particularly good at 
  scrutinizing places that would normally be impossible to access, finding points that need 
  reinforcement on construction jobs, and finding weaknesses to exploit on destruction 
  jobs.
  •
  Fire: Able to both slice cleanly through stone, wood, or metal in a single bare-handed 
  stroke and to instantaneously fuse absolutely any two materials together, Fire is the 
  primary workhorse of the Five Ninjas Construction Company when it comes time to 
  actually put the buildings together, although the other four provide indispensable and 
  flawless assistance to complete the jobs quickly and efficiently. Naturally, her ability to 
  quickly take things apart comes into play on demolition projects more often than her 
  ability to put things together.
  •
  Water: Water is remarkably skilled at sculpting difficult and sometimes even impossible 
  shapes, applying a mysterious technique similar to Joolcrafting to tremendous quantities 
  of stone and metal to create truly amazing and original feats of architecture. Water also 
  handles most of the pre-construction drafting for construction projects, even though he 
  
  appears to be the youngest of the five ninjas. On demolition projects Water usually 
  begins by weakening the foundations with his warping technique and working from the 
  inside out so the building collapses in on itself.
  •
  Void: Void’s ability to make considerable chunks of mass completely disappear makes 
  him exceptionally skilled at clearing and leveling building sites and excavating 
  basements. He also works closely with the other four throughout construction to erase 
  any features that looked good on paper but don’t live up to expectations when they’re 
  actually built. As one would expect, on demolition projects Void prefers to make 
  buildings vanish entirely one large piece at a time, and often cleans up behind the rest of 
  the company.
  Kraven Vortov
  Born a quadriplegic, Kraven Vortov has nonetheless risen to become the Crater Arena 
  wrestling champion who everyone loves to hate, pulling every last dirty trick in the book on a 
  regular basis to crush his opponents and retain his dominance. No-one really knows where, 
  when, or how Kraven acquired his gem-encrusted, steam-powered artificial arms and legs, 
  and anyone who has tried to ask him has ended up with his or her head smashed in by 
  Vortov himself and woken up a few weeks later in a Save Bank. It is known that Vortov was 
  once a mercenary for hire, and it’s rumored that his ancestors were members of the Kygrin 
  Legion. Numerous other unfounded rumors about Vortov’s past abound, most of which he 
  started himself in order to bolster his infamy and renown. One story that he’d like to see 
  disappear, however, is the tale of how he arrived in Omniport, a violent alcoholic without a 
  jool to his name, stumbling through street fight after street fight until he finally wandered 
  into the Crater Arena and found his calling. He hasn’t touched a drop since, and it’s taken 
  him over ten years to become champion, but he holds onto that title more dearly than life 
  itself, because he knows that if he loses it he loses everything he’s worked for, and all that 
  will be waiting for him at the end of that road is an empty bottle.
  The Masked Duelist
  The Masked Duelist uses the same weapon and fighting style as one of the players (and 
  indeed, often has exactly the same skills), and is constantly showing up at the most 
  inopportune times to demand a one-on-one duel. When defeated, the Duelist will often give 
  his/her opponent a valuable item, but when victorious the Masked Duelist will merely shake 
  his/her head in disappointment and quickly disappear, often rattling off some witticism about 
  how the opponent should better prepare herself for the next time their paths meet. Exactly 
  who the Duelist is can remain a mystery for the entire campaign, or his/her true identity can 
  be obvious from the start, or it can be revealed at a crucial point in the plot. Consider 
  introducing multiple Masked Duelists, each for a different player, either acting individually 
  or all together as a sort of Masked Duelists' League.
  Skills
  The Easy Four
  Whenever you have to roll dice, you may instead choose to automatically make all of those dice 
  4s. This is called the “easy four”, and saves a lot of time, since you only have to multiply the 
  number of dice you’re supposed to roll by 4 instead of rolling them and adding them all together. 
  You may only choose to use the easy four before you roll the dice; you can’t reset the values of 
  the dice to 4s if you don’t like their result. Players can never use the easy four. The easy four 
  
  works extremely well for the initiative dice of monsters in combat (using a stack of pennies 
  instead of a cluster of dice for each monster’s initiative total is recommended) since it steps all of 
  the monsters’ initiatives by multiples of four, making them much easier to keep track of.
  Combat Secrets
  You thought combat was just about kicking down doors in dungeons, hacking your way through 
  the gruesome monsters on the other side and nabbing their treasure? Think again. For starters, 
  combat is a wonderfully dramatic way to propel your plot, and the perfect place to drop plot 
  devices and bring in new sub-plots:
  “Just another band of gorglings. This’ll be cake. But wait, there’s a little girl with them, dressed 
  like a princess, and even though it looks like she’s their prisoner she seems to be commanding 
  them… and these gorglings are tougher than any you’ve fought before!”
  “You’ve defeated the commander, but that strange soldier in the purple cloak has disappeared. 
  Something did seem odd while you were fighting him, and now you get the sneaking suspicion 
  that maybe you didn’t win this battle after all…”
  “Another well-won victory! The enemies dissipate, leaving behind 1200 jools… and a strange 
  sword that seems to be carved from ivory. A simple gold wedding ring dangles from the pommel, 
  and when the sword is pulled from its sheath it makes a sound like a woman sobbing. Someone 
  will come looking for this sword. You can feel it in your bones.”
  Of course, if all your players really want for a session or two is some mindless “let’s go gorg 
  hunting!” action, you should probably indulge them. With virtually no plot, virtually no NPCs, 
  and plenty of opportunities to scrutinize how your players interact with each other and generate 
  plot ideas from there, they’ll be some of the easiest sessions you’ll ever run.
  Balance
  Monsters’ levels are calculated the same way that players’ levels are. For a fairly balanced fight, 
  match the combined total of the enemies’ levels to the combined total of the players’ levels, and 
  to tip the scales one way or the other, either raise or lower the enemies’ combined levels from 
  there. Balanced and unbalanced fights all have their own specific uses for motivating the plot:
  •
  Fights where the players outmatch their opponents serve to demonstrate how strong the 
  players are. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the circumstances; there’s a 
  fine line between “Wow! You didn’t even break a sweat! How impressive!” and “Hey! You 
  didn’t even break a sweat! How about picking on someone your own size!?”
  •
  Evenly-balanced fights give players a chance to prove themselves. Technically the fights are 
  fifty-fifty win or lose, but the players probably have more items at their disposal, can work 
  together better than their enemies, and are usually smarter than the hungry, drooling monsters 
  they’re fighting.
  •
  Fights where the players are at a disadvantage create tension, and sometimes encourage the 
  players to think of different ways to defeat their enemies besides brute force, or even to beat 
  a hasty retreat and return when they’re better prepared. Like everything else, however, you 
  should never expect the players to realize that they’re severely outmatched and need to 
  consider a different approach until the fourth or fifth time someone directly tells the players 
  “Hey, you’re severely outmatched. Maybe you should consider a different approach.” If the 
  players do come up with a different approach, and “overcome the odds” to put the smack 
  down on the enemies, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences they’ve had in the 
  game (both for their prides and for the number of jools they’ll get out of the fight). If they 
  never quite catch on, however, and all go down fighting the futile fight as the super-villain 
  
  says “Hey you’re severely outmatched…” for the nineteenth time, it can be one of the worst 
  experiences they’ve had in the game, and they will all blame you.
  •
  Regardless of how the fight is balanced, you should always have a contingency plan in case 
  something goes horribly wrong. If the super-powerful Baron Bloodfiend is just finishing up 
  his preparations to blast the last standing player into oblivion while shouting “Hey, you’re 
  severely outmatched…” and it has just now dawned on the players that they are, indeed, 
  severely outmatched, it’s okay to have a powerful NPC leap into the fray, distract the Baron 
  for a moment and shout “Run, you fools!” This, in and of itself can be a great plot device 
  along the lines of “Wow, I had no idea that hobo was actually Gorthus the Bloodfiend Slayer. 
  Good thing I gave him some spare change this morning or we’d be toast right now.” or 
  simply “I don’t know who that masked woman was, but we owe her our very lives…” 
  Likewise, if the players severely luck out, overcome incredible odds, and beat the tar out of 
  Baron Bloodfiend, despite the fact that it’s absolutely crucial to your plot that the Baron drive 
  the characters away with his overwhelming might and lay waste to the town, there are two 
  things that you should do: First, let the players whack the Baron and collect their well-
  deserved reward (you can always bring your favorite/important villains back later via black-
  market Save Banks). Second, have someone else (perhaps the Baron’s right-hand man, 
  perhaps someone completely unrelated) lay waste to the town instead, and make whatever 
  subtle changes to your plot are necessary. Of course, if you are suddenly inspired by the 
  surprise turn of events, and come up with an even better plot idea that involves the town not 
  getting wasted, you should certainly go with that instead.
  Pacing
  •
  Don’t over-think combat. When you have a dozen different monsters on the combat map it 
  can be tempting to get stuck in chess-mode, stroke your chin thoughtfully, carefully think 
  everything through nine moves in advance, and then finally look up to find that all of your 
  players have fallen asleep because you’ve taken two hours to move. The vast majority of the 
  combatants you’ll throw at players will be bloodthirsty monsters with no concept of strategy 
  beyond running straight toward a player’s character and putting her in its belly. Many of the 
  monsters included in this section also include suggestions for how that monster would 
  behave in combat, and if you have an important character who actually should apply some 
  strategy to fighting the players, then develop that strategy before the combat even begins.
  •
  Don’t let your players over-think combat either. Roleplaying combat should feel as quick and 
  off-the-cuff as the combat itself; if a player is dragging her feet when it’s her turn to act, 
  either because she’s trying to do calculus in her head to figure out the absolute best action for 
  the situation or because she really doesn’t know what to do, start counting down out loud 
  from ten, and tell her that if she hasn’t acted by the time you reach zero she’ll lose her action. 
  Of course, if you ever start over-thinking combat don’t be surprised when your players use 
  the same trick on you.
  Enemies’ Loose Jools
  On average, each enemy the players fight will be carrying a number of loose jools equal to 10 
  times its level in dice. (Remember you can use the easy 4 here to cut down on the rolling, or you 
  can roll a number of dice equal to the total levels of all the enemies and then multiply by ten.) 
  This means that level 0 monsters usually will not be carrying any loose jools, but this is made up 
  for by the fact that they each become 50 jools after combat. You are encouraged to adjust this 
  number up or down, which gives you the opportunity to reward your players for a very well-
  played and well-described combat, or present enemies with only a few loose jools or none at all 
  
  when the situation calls for it. This also gives you more freedom with enemies who use skills that 
  consume loose jools (like Heal, Metabolize, Rest, etc.), since you don’t have to track them, and 
  can decide for yourself how often they’d use such skills, and even have them “run out” at a 
  dramatic moment during combat.
  Another option is to “spend” the loose jools enemies are carrying on Special Items you 
  think will be important to the adventure, or needed by the characters. For instance, if you feel 
  that the players will have an especially hard time with the next combat you have planned, an 
  enemy (or group of enemies) who would normally be carrying about 70 loose jools could instead 
  be carrying a 50-charge Healing Salve. The Special Item could also match the enemy defeated; a 
  group of elementlings could leave behind a matching Elemental Bomb, a ninja could leave 
  behind a few Smoke Bombs, a forgotten guardian could leave behind a skill boost, etc. This 
  option subtracts from the number of jools the players will collect from a fight, but it will give 
  them something more immediately useful instead, and they’ll still be getting the jools that the 
  enemies turn into.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Amalgus/gmg.pdf