Making The Prehistoric Scene

I'm working on the sixth and final main wilderness encounter table for "savage" environments in the spirit of Lost World pulp tales. Naturally, it takes me back to the days when dinosaurs and Pleistocene megafauna were all I could think about, thanks to their three-dimensional embodiment as MPC toys ...

Origin of my horned gopher obsession.

and Aurora "Prehistoric Scenes" models.

Those were the two-fisted days when dinosaurs dragged tail and wouldn't be caught dead in feathers. The Aurora models already strained credibility with the prehistoric woman in a rawhide Mary Quant number menaced by a two-headed snake. On top of that, their bases fitted together to create a young-earth Flintstone monster zoo where saber-toothed tigers rubbed shoulders with Styracosaurus.

There were fourteen models and I owned eleven. Haven't thought about them in decades, but memories of the plastic parts and the jigsaw of the bases leapt forth from my memory with unseemly speed. Here's a nostalgia site with some much better paint jobs than I could manage ...

Anyway, for gaming purposes there only need to be 8 dinosaurs, right? For medieval sword-slingers who've stumbled on the Valley of the Lost the distinction between a Rhamphorhynchus and a Lambeosaurus doesn't bear mentioning.We don't need to pad things out the way Gary padded the Monster Manual and MM2. Add to the canon laid down in the 50's, Spielberg's own raptor-types for a low-to-mid-level challenge. The crested guys are more for random prey than any significant danger.

 (some silhouettes by Telecanter, others by me, others from the Phylopic archive.)

Gonks and Cronks

The De Wolfe production library has supplied royalty-free stock music to such illustrious shoestring auteurs as Terry Gilliam and George A. Romero. De Wolfe's memorable mall-music tune from the 1978 Dawn of the Dead, "The Gonk," had me wondering about the title, and sent me on a trip back to 1965.

Gonks, apparently, were novelty doll-toys of a generally round shape with a fused head-body and assorted limbs. Almost forgotten now, they inspired an early British rock film ...

and, perhaps, one of my favorite monsters from the gonzo SPI mini-universe surrounding the Swords and Sorcery, Citadel of Blood and Deathmaze games: The Cronk.

This counter from Citadel of Blood shows a furry, two-footed, hassock-like creature with middling hit dice (1+1) and a decent attack value (4). (How these armless wonders can field archers, spearmen and cavalry in the Swords and Sorcery wargame is something I don't quite get ...)

The rules also tell you that "Cronks have a stench that may sicken a character." So, the troglodyte niche, but so very much cooler.

CRONK

HD: 1+1
AC: 7[12]
MV: 60'
Attack: 1d6 bite
Special: stench

Cronks are foul, furry creatures that live in abandoned tunnels, dank swamps, and dark woods. Where prey is small, they exist in groups of two to five, but larger mobs are known to assemble where large creatures can be brought down. They have a malicious intelligence that cannot be put to full use because they lack hands. Nevertheless, their fanged bite is a nasty weapon. Also, they have a stench that may sicken others; any character who comes within a 10' radius of a cronk for the first time that day must save (Poison/ Fortitude/ Body/ CON) or be incapacitated retching for one combat round, and -2 to hit for 3 rounds after that.

This jolly character from Citadel of Blood was "Raman Cronkevitch" ...a demi-cronk. Yeah, why don't you let that one sink in for a while.