Implementing “Our vampires are different” is a little extra work up front, but the chance to make a creature your own and not something from a Manual is worth it.

@Martin Ralya – I wonder how you’d alter the monsters and their myths for a decamer campaign– since these fringe monsters are now the core of the experience.

@ggodo – Sounds expensive from a liability insurance point of view. Still, if you’re willing to cut corners…

@The Stray7 – That does sound like two very different takes, with a strong emphasis on cultural differences instead of game stats.

I’ve used Redcaps in two different settings. In one, Redcaps were cannibalistic murderous goblins hunting cities at night. In another, they were more akin to bandit clans of hillbilly gnomes. The changes I made were linked to the role they played in the game they appeared in (And I loved the Spriggan from the MM2, which gave me stats I could use that would work for either band).

The difference was mainly that one was a race of baddies (the goblins, which were meant to invoke fears of facing inhuman things that wanted to eat you) and the other was a culture of baddies (the hillbilly gnomes, which weren’t representative of the whole race, just a minority of it that was particularly nasty).

In a homebrew campaign setting that I have placed on the back burner, I have the Ogres that we all know and love from D&D. But my Ogres weren’t always the savage brutes that the world has to deal with now.

At one time, they were a peaceful agrarian race that worshipped a Goddess they called their Tundra Mother. It was a branch of the Elven race that caused the Ogres to turn from farmers into warriors. It was a 100 year war of genocide that reduced the Ogres into rare primal savages.

The Tundra Mother lost her sanity during the carnage. When she finally snapped, she used her divine energy to curse the Elven Empire that had all but butchered most of her children. The world now knows those elves as Orcs.

@Roxysteve – It’s been too long since I last read Lords of Light; thanks for the reminder– clearly it’s time to dig it out again.

I love the story about the griffon; it’s amazing how clearly an image from a game can stick.

@Razjah – Goblin Huns sounds interesting– you can slip historical behaviors for Huns into your game as forewarning and a great template for personalities. Will your Goblins borrow the Hun’s love of mounted archery? That, combined with riding wolves would make them deadly…

Of course, the only stake a human has that is of any interest to them is his/her soul…

As I recall the Rakshasa offers the bound service of lesser members of its type as it’s side of the wager.

One of the more memorable enconters I had in an old old OLD white box D&D campaign run in 1 BSW (Before Star Wars) was with a Griffon who agreed to accompany our party down into a dungeon complex, but was obsessively honest and insisted that all loot be divvied-up as it was acquired, counting out the copper pieces one by one to be sure a fair deal was had by all. All role-played to the hilt by Clive the GM.

It had a “chest of holding”.

We didn’t.

It took a remarkably short time before we were driven to the point of insisting the Griffon just take everything so we could move on (for pity’s sake).

But the salient point is that I remember that damned imaginary Griffon 34 years later like it was sitting in front of me now. This is the pay off for such specialised in-game factors.

When the PCs encountered these monsters, they were at first confused, then intrigued. As they discover more about the breed, they could potentially face a decision of whether to employ these horrible monsters, or to eradicate them from the city.