Making a Monster
Game designers show you their favorite monster, how it works, why it works, and what it means. Each bite-sized episode features a game designer and the monster of their choice.
Episodes
June 28, 2021 • 29 min
Roll20's exclusive sci-fi RPG Burn Bryte asks you to jump in to a galaxy where an adorable teleporting mischief fox could just walk right into your ship. It's also a game where hope wins.
Learn more about Burn Bryte and get 3 monsters from My Dad's Monster Manual on the episode page here: https://scintilla.studio/monster-blipp-burn-bryte
Meet my guest:
https://twitter.com/JamesIntrocaso
http://www.jamesintrocaso.com/...
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June 25, 2021 • 38 min
Roll Play Lead uses Dungeons & Dragons to teach social skills to teens in Colorado. Kids and teens use monsters to explore the obstacles in their own lives.
You can support Roll Play Lead Directly, use Jamie's adventures in your home game, or check out her TEDx Talk at the links here: https://scintilla.studio/monster-roll-play-lead-social-skills-dnd
Meet my guest: https://twitter.com/Rosey_Games
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June 23, 2021 • 28 min
Leading unsuspecting adventurers to the Feywild with a gentlemanly hand, the tamlin combines the Scottish folk tale with the literary trope of the white rabbit for a planes-hopping, swashbuckling good time.
To read the transcript and find out what a "gish" is visit the show's website: https://scintilla.studio/monster-tamlin-feywilds-white-rabbit
Meet my guest: https://twitter.com/LabLazarus
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June 15, 2021 • 21 min
As one of D&D's very few Celestial monsters, Varadrel is an agent of divine justice best compared to the personified disasters of Japanese kaiju.
To read the transcript, check out "Titans of Faerun", or see the full-color, "be not afraid" illustration of Varadrel, visit the show's website: https://scintilla.studio/varadrel-the-kaiju-angel/
Meet my guests:
https://twitter.com/honeybadger3495
https://twi...
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May 31, 2021 • 29 min
The shattered kalashtar asks questions about dealing with trauma, and lets other players participate in the answers. It expands D&D's Eberron campaign setting with a psychic dystopia reminiscent of Neuromancer and Brave New World.
Download the stat block and read the full transcript here: https://scintilla.studio/monster-shattered-kalashtar-eberron/
Meet my guest:
https://twitter.com/ILGingell
https://imogen.space/
Get ea...
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May 26, 2021 • 20 min
Andrew Grondin wrote a tabletop game that combines European fairy tales and Lovecraftian existential horror. Inside that Venn diagram is a surprisingly encouraging message about power and who has it.
Read the full transcript here: https://scintilla.studio/shakespeare-lovecraft-combine-delirium
Meet my guest:
https://twitter.com/TheSiegeAndrew
https://s-15studios.squarespace.com/#/delirium/
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May 3, 2021 • 28 min
Nils Hintze is the lead writer of Vaesen, a Nordic horror role-playing game by Free League Publishing. In this game, fairies and other monsters manifest the anxieties of a rapidly-urbanizing 19th century Sweden.
Read the full transcript here: https://scintilla.studio/free-leagues-vaesen
Meet my guest:
https://twitter.com/KeithAmmann
https://www.themonstersknow.com
Get early access to episodes and other monstrous perks:
www.patre...
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April 1, 2021 • 12 min
The true and actual origins of the displacer beast with author A. E. Van Vogt.
Find out more at www.patreon.com/scintillastudio
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March 22, 2021 • 17 min
Keith Ammann, author of Monsters Know What They're Doing, shows us how to decode a monster's game mechanics to discover its intended use. We also get into how culture makes monsters, both in game and out.
Read the full transcript here: https://scintilla.studio/the-monsters-know-what-theyre-doing-with-keith-ammann
Meet my guest:
https://twitter.com/KeithAmmann
https://www.themonstersknow.com
Get early access to episodes a...
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March 17, 2021 • 22 min
The Cherokee myth of the Raven Wizard is retold in Connor Alexander's Coyote and Crow, a tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future of the Americas where colonization never occurred.
Full transcript: https://scintilla.studio/monster-coyote-and-crow-raven-wizard/
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March 8, 2021 • 19 min
From the Bard College of Silence by Kai Linder comes Vo the Voice Snatcher, an aberration capable of stealing the voice from your throat and adding it to its own. It's a kind of creepy that stays with you long after the fight is over.
Get the College of Silence for 75% off by clicking here:
https://scintilla.studio/monster-college-of-silence-voice-snatcher
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February 22, 2021 • 50 min
Dvati is a race option for D&D to play 2 characters at once. An extra-long bonus episode 20 years in the making, bringing together the original designer, the 5th edition homebrewer, and maybe the only person to play the Dvati in a long-running campaign.
Full transcript: https://scintilla.studio/monster-dvati-race-dnd/
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February 15, 2021 • 18 min
"They're capricious little scrap robots, and I love them." The Wizmos from Dark Matter (a sci-fi D&D conversion by Mage Hand Press) are just doing the best they can, and it isn't very good.
Get the one-page-RPG Wizmo Havoc here: https://scintilla.studio/wizmos-dark-matter-mage-hand-press/
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February 1, 2021 • 20 min
What if the Kraken is too big to release? Niels RPG Toons uses cartoon-style fantasy art to tell vibrant, expressive stories, including one about a tentacle monster so big it's an ecosystem unto itself.
Transcript: https://scintilla.studio/monster-niels-rpg-toons-makes-a-monstrosity
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January 27, 2021 • 20 min
The Melusine legend has so many tails in our modern cultural heritage that you've probably seen her even if you didn't know her name - much like the work of a good spymaster. Designer Chris Hopper talks about bringing the Melusine to Dungeons & Dragons in the first episode of Making a Monster Season 2!
Get the stat block for the Melusine and read the full transcript here:
https://scintilla.studio/monster-melusine-chris...
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December 21, 2020 • 15 min
What happens when the monsters level up too? Matthew Whitby, host of the Dungeon Master's Guild House, shares a goblin with power enough to be more than a level 1 punching bag.
Get the full transcript and see the art of Grikk the Many here:
https://scintilla.studio/monster-boss-goblin-matthew-whitby
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5_AJjTbkdw&list=PLNqL_h0x0qyZoNSS1VP1tBA5QCaie5Coo&index=16...
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December 14, 2020 • 12 min
Steve and Rebecca from House Sivis Echoer Station, an unofficial Eberron podcast that put NPR in D&D, discuss the werepigeon, their show's running joke, and whether you have to be scared of an animal to make a lycanthrope out of it.
Full transcript: https://scintilla.studio/monster-werepigeon-house-sivis-echoer-station/
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzVea03xhg&list=PLNqL_h0x0qyZoNSS1VP1tBA5Q...
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December 9, 2020 • 18 min
When the devil's payment is due, who comes to collect? Justice Arman shows us fiendish collection agents in this episode of Making a Monster.
Read the transcript and see art from the book: https://scintilla.studio/monster-bagger-justice-arman/
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alVag3dMLq8&list=PLNqL_h0x0qyZoNSS1VP1tBA5QCaie5Coo&index=14
Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/scintillastud...
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December 4, 2020 • 7 min
After 3 weeks of moving, I have a lot of thoughts about haunted houses. Featuring previously-unreleased audio from guests Michael Sands, Robert Turk, and James Harrington, here's a quick bonus episode for you on the horror of place!
Visit our website for more bonus content and to catch future episodes: https://www.scintilla.studio/monster
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November 2, 2020 • 20 min
Get Chilling Tales from the Whispering Wind:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/334022/Chilling-Tales-from-the-Whispering-Winds?affiliate_id=1485089
Two monsters from Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden - Malquaestus Pizkor, literal boss monster, and Saja Snowtooth.
Read the transcript and see art from the book here: https://scintilla.studio/monster-rime-of-the-frostmaiden-double-feature/
Everyone in the show:
Sebastian Yue: ...
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