Playing with FATE: Creating a Huge-Ass-Snake Monster

Welcome back to our Playing with FATE series.

Being the GM of any game definitely has it’s rewards, but it also has it’s challenges.  A big part of those challenges includes working those creative muscles – specifically envisioning, designing, and implementing adversaries for your group.  Sure, this can also be a reward, which is why I’m enjoying writing this particular post.  Today, I’m going to show you how easy it is to create a giant snake monster for the fantastic game, Strands of FATE.

So, I have an idea of what I want the players to face: a giant snake monster of some kind.  This idea was inspired by watching Conan the Barbarian, and then Anaconda.  If you’ve seen these two movies, then you know that both snake monsters are quite different.  Granted, that might be due to the age difference between special and visual effects, computer animation, and animatronics, but if you simply watch both movies, we see those two snake monsters act differently, and instill different emotions.

In Conan the Barbarian, the giant snake monster is this huge, hulking, brutish-yet-sly creature of patience and stealth.  In Anaconda, we see a much more agile and evil monster, one that apparently delights in the hunt.  I think I’d like to combine the two creatures to create a monster that is animal-like, though evil, agile enough to chase after an adventuring party, and tough enough to stand toe to tail with multiple threats.  I want it to have decidedly snake-like features and tendencies, but monsterish enough to act like an evil monster.

So, where to start?  Well, in the back of the Strands of FATE book are several entries for a variety of NPC, enemy, and monster stats.  It only seems natural that we start with a normal snake, and also take a look at some other entries, like crocodile, bear, bull, and dragon.  This will give us an idea of the power ‘level’ for our monster, to make sure we create an encounter worth it’s weight in ferocity.  Since this is going to be a major enemy, or monster, I could make it exactly as a player character, giving it experience as I see fit, but I think we’ll keep it a bit more free-form.

CHARACTER ASPECTS

Most animal creatures in the Stands of FATE book have a single Character Aspect.  Major antagonists understandably have more (as I feel this creature also deserves).  I think an obvious first character aspect for this monster would simply be Huge-Ass-Snake.  You think of a snake, and then see a 50+ foot monstrosity, and it can be pretty clear how to use this character aspect.  Fear, attacking reach, possibly a bonus to hide (or a penalty), and so on.

Borrowing from the Dragon entry, I’ll include the character aspect, Apex Predator. This creature is definitely at or near the top of the food chain, and the aspect will very easily apply in combat when fighting humanoids.

One more character aspect that will work for us is “I’ll eat anything.” Snakes will often attack prey several times larger in circumference than the snake, simply because it’s jaws and digestive tract can take it.  This can be useful when stalking prey, facing a larger enemy, resisting fear, etc.

SIZE

Ok, right off the bat I know that I want the snake monster to be big.  Humans are generally a size 0, and if I wanted this snake monster to be able to swallow a human mid combat, it would have to be at least 3 sizes bigger.  However, I only want this monster to swallow a motionless human, so I’m going to knock its size down to a 2.  By comparison, a goblin is a size -1, a troll is a size 1, bull is a size 1, an elephant is a size 2, and a dragon is a size 3.  So, in-game I can tell the players that this thing is big enough to crush the life out of them, and then swallow them later.  In real life there are currently no snakes measuring 30 feet, or capable of swallowing an adult human.  For this creature, I think we could describe him as being over 50 feet long, and fully capable.

ABILITIES

For its abilities, I’m going to take a look at the entry for snake, bear, bull, and dragon.  This will easily tell me where to place what numbers where.  Since this creature is a monster, I want it to have some non-physical stats that are improved over a normal animal’s.  In the end, I end up with:

• Agility: 5
• Endurance: 7
• Perception: 4
• Strength: 6
• Craft: n/a
• Knowledge: -2
• Reasoning: -2
• Willpower: 2
• Deception: 0
• Empathy: 0
• Persuasion: n/a
• Resources: n/a

SPECIALTY ASPECTS

This monster is pretty deadly, so he’ll be getting a few specialty aspects as well.  Just like from the Snake entry, we’ll give him Slithers (Agility) – hey, they’re naturally sneaky, and the sight alone of a slithering snake can cause fear.  Deadly, Pinpoint Strike (Strength) is a good one, because it’s hard to see an attack when it comes at you in a direct, straight line.  For a snake, I think that At Home in Cover (Agility) works great for sneaking, and striking from hiding.

NOTABLE ADVANTAGES

• Keen Smell: +2 on rolls to smell
• Stealthy: +2 on rolls to hide and sneak
• Natural Climber: +2 on rolls to climb trees, ledges, and landings (not little nooks)
• Poison: Subtly: 3, Potency: 3, Delivery: Bite
• Heat Sensitive: +2 on Perception rolls to detect heat
• Crushing Grapple: every round that the target is grappled, they take net damage from that attack

PHYSICAL ATTACK

Bite

• Attack modifier: +6(+2 WR) – Strength & Fangs
• Def. Ability: Agility
• Range: 0
• Poor Defense, bite delivers poison

TOTAL PHYSICAL DEFENSE MODIFIER

• +5(+7) – Agility and leather skin

This snake monster is fast, tough, and deadly.  It has beefy stats akin to what I imagine a giant snake might have, and aspects that will easily help it defeat its foe.  With only a little bit of work, its aspects can be used against it by the PCs.  Its fangs and leathery skin give it decent rating bonuses (+2), and its advantages give him a lot of that extra “oh crap” factor.

All that’s left is for me to test him out against the doomed PCs… I mean, uh…