October 11, 2022 • 20 mins
O'l Chap Ettercap is a monster whose story grew in the telling, from meaningless
Download Ol' Chap Ettercap in every form a tabletop needs:
https://scintilla.studio/monster-ettercap-critical-crafting/
Get stat blocks, bonus content, and other monstrous perks: www.patreon.com/scintillastudio
Join the conversation: www.twitter.com/SparkOtter
Meet my guests:
Dillon Onley, Creative Director
Cameron DeFord, Marketing Director
https://www.critical-crafting.com/
Music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com
"Creepy Dungeon Ambience" by DrMinky from Freesound.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucas (00:00):
Your 10 foot pole is broken.
You've lost your 50 feet of rope
and you're down to your last torch.
Its guttering light shows your
footprints in the muck of the dungeon
floor behind you and disappears
into the ominous darkness ahead.
Loot or no loot, you just don't have
the resources to make it much farther.
(00:21):
You hear the scraping of long claws
on rough stone and outta the darkness.
It appears a nightmarish fusion
of human and spider, six feet
tall and easily 200 pounds.
Long, gangly limbs hang from hunched
shoulders over a pale pot belly.
It's needle-sharp teeth are
hidden behind grasping, glistening
(00:43):
fanged appendages on its face.
As its beady eyes meet yours,
its mouth opens in a nightmare
smile in a raspy voice it says,
Dillon Olney (00:53):
oh, jolly good, sir.
You've wandered right into my web.
Like what ho
Lucas (00:57):
Welcome back to
Spooktober on Making a Monster.
In this, the most monster-filled
month of the year, I'm bringing you
episodes with the monster creators
I met at GenConn 2022, leading up to
a couple of Halloween episodes I'm
really excited to share with you.
It has been the contention of this
show that monsters don't level up.
(01:17):
After all, that's what heroes do.
Gaining experience, abilities and
tactics is the defining element
of player characters in role
playing games and monsters are the
static stepping stones that let
characters reach those new heights.
And in that role, in this archetypical
story structure, monsters do and
don't do very specific things.
(01:38):
Occasionally though, I meet
designers whose monsters are
stories that grow in the telling.
Dillon Olney (01:43):
I am Dillon Olney.
Uh, I am the creative director,
founder, writer of Critical Crafting.
And we put out 5E content every single
month, uh, on Patreon, normally between
15 to 80 pages of everything from
adventures and encounters, monsters,
classes, subclasses, items, spells, maps,
Cameron DeFord (02:03):
and I'm Cameron DeFord.
I am the, uh, co-writer and marketing
director of Critical Crafting.
Dillon focuses more on the
monsters and the items, spells,
feats, that sort of thing.
Um, I do our subclasses, our
classes, our player races and maps.
we started playing back
in 2017, maybe 16 or 17?
(02:26):
16, 17.
Um, Dillon was teaching most of us in our
group for the first time how to play D&D.
So We would play our D&D
games at Dillon's house.
We would play for four hours or so,
and then the game would wrap up.
We'd go upstairs and we'd get stalled
in the kitchen while we're talking
about the game we just played.
And we'd finally wrap up the conversation.
We'd move to the driveway,
we'd get talking again.
So a lot of our stuff was just the,
(02:49):
the early ideas of our content was
just coming out of these, Oh, that
was really cool, but it would've
been cool if this or if that.
Dillon Olney (02:55):
So Ol' Chap
Ettercap, he's our mascot.
The original idea from him actually
came from, um, an old meme, people were
making fun of the fact that, uh, you
know, three five ettercap spoke common.
Lucas (03:06):
In the lore of Dungeons and
Dragons, an ettercap is a spider-like
humanoid that lives underground
and cooperates with other spider
creatures to set elaborate web
traps for passing adventurers.
First edition D&D, in 1981's Fend
Folio, gave this description (03:21):
"a
biped, roughly man-sized, with very
long arms, protruding potbelly, short
legs, and hairy skin, the ettercap
has clawed hands and two poison fangs
protruding from each side of its mouth.
Apparently it protrudes a lot.
In subsequent editions, ettercaps became
(03:41):
more and more like the spiders they
befriended, gaining eyes, pedipalps,
and fearsome claws as they went.
But they have always been presented,
as in the Fiend Folio, as "cruel,
cunning, and treacherous."
Now representing intelligence in game
mechanics is notoriously difficult, and
ettercaps have always fallen in that
especially problematic range between
(04:03):
what second edition called "Average Human
Intelligence" and "Semi-intelligent".
In 2003, Monster Manual 3.5 solved
this problem by giving ettercaps the
ability to speak Common, the language
shared by all player characters.
This decision has not been repeated
in any other edition of D&D.
Dillon Olney (04:23):
And people were joking
around like, you know, Oh, jolly good
sir You've wandered right into my web.
Like what ho kind of a thing.
Like here's this ettercap, you know?
And we thought that's hilarious.
Like, that's so much fun.
And so I started introducing
Ol' Chap Ettercap.
And what would happen is when the players
were in like a bind, like they're in
the middle of a dungeon, they're low on
potions or whatever, like they're all kind
of like about to die kind of a thing.
(04:45):
Well, Ol' Chap Ettercap would wander into
the room with his, you know, top hat that
has a whole plane of existence inside full
of magical items in his shop and all this.
And it was a, you know, oh,
Tally ho boys, like, what's
going on with you, sort of thing.
And I'm just wandering through
this dungeon, selling my wares, cuz
where do you sell magical items?
In a dungeon, that's where
(05:06):
people need the most.
Uh, so that was kind of the idea.
And then he would do things.
You know, instead of just, Oh yeah,
you buy this stuff because the DM
wants you to like, not die here.
It was more like he could give you
fun little side quest, or it could
be a fun break from like some of
the serious stuff in the campaign.
And that's kind of where
he started initially.
Um, and then we decided to, to make him
(05:27):
into like an NPC in some of our adventures
for our Critical Crafting content.
And eventually we said, we gotta stab.
And when, when we decided to stat
him, the month that people had voted
on was called Cults of the Outsiders.
And the Outsiders are
are gods kind of a thing.
So we made them to exist
in any pantheon you want.
(05:48):
They can still exist in it cuz they exist
in their own little sort of pantheon.
But we didn't like that.
Five E did not have stat blocks for
gods other than Tiamat and technically
like Vecna, now, um, but we've always
found very lackluster as a stat block.
And we wanted god stat blocks
that felt like they were god's.
So we said, Well, if we're gonna
(06:10):
do a god stat block, who better
than Ol' Chap Ettercap to make
you know, the god of merchants?
Um, so that was kind
of how he got started.
Cameron DeFord (06:18):
The whole fact that
his, like Genesis was around the idea
of him just being able to show up
at the right place at the right time
and help the players out of a bind.
Um, the inside the hat, he has the store
and inside the store you can find magical
items you might need, but they're very
expensive, so he's gonna send you on
a quest instead and working it right
into the, the story in an organic.
(06:39):
Um, but so with that being the,
the concept behind him, um, we
just think, Okay, well if, if he
is a god who's gonna worship him.
Okay.
So he's the patron of merchants, of,
of, of, inn keepers, of anybody that's
working in that sort of environment.
Dillon Olney (06:55):
And then we wrote the, the
warlock subclass around the fact that,
you know, he's the patron of merchants.
He has the, the Old Sports'
Society, which are the people
that worship him, essentially.
Those are all the guys sitting in the
smoking room drinking scotch and, you
know, uh, taking over the world with
their words or whatever kind of a deal.
Um, so Cameron wrote the, the
(07:16):
subclass for the warlock for people
that worship ol' chap, but kind
of the abilities that they get.
Um, so, and we wanted to give, like,
we did stat blocks too for, for his
minions, the, the old sports society.
And we had wanted to figure out a
way, like the other problem we had,
because we have some morally ambiguous
characters, is they come to the.
What's the first thing
that they try and do?
(07:36):
They try and rob the shopkeeper, right?
We said, Well, we wanna make sure
that we're making something that
makes sure that they don't want
to rob every shopkeep they see.
So if you mess around with one of the
shopkeepers that worships Ol' Chap
Ettercap, you can expect that you're
gonna be in some trouble pretty soon.
Whether it's ol' chaps showing
up, or the merchant, you know, old
sports society coming after you,
(07:58):
or just the fact that the merchants
themselves have special abilities that.
Basically knock people
unconscious, hold them in place.
Uh, they know the location
of like every item they own.
If it's stolen, they know who stole
it and where it is kind of a thing.
. So that's kind of some of
his domain stuff, I guess.
He's really not supposed
to be used in combat.
(08:20):
Uh, but he does have some,
some combat special abilities.
So, um, some of them are kind of funny.
I think he's got like, what, who
unhand me or something as one of
his, and it's something, I can't
remember the exact wording of it,
but essentially he can like teleport.
So, you know, you grab the ol'
chap, Ettercap the shop, keep you're
trying to rob him or whatever, and
(08:40):
he just, Oh, you're grappling me.
No, you're not anymore.
I just teleported over
here kind of a thing.
Um, so he is got a lot of
special abilities though.
He's got.
You know, like we said, he, he's
got his top hat that has an extra
dimensional space inside of it.
It's basically a whole plane of existence
that's all made of interconnecting rooms.
So he's got, uh, his shop kind of
on the main area, but then he's got
(09:00):
libraries and b theories and tea rooms
and rooms that he's forgotten for
so long that people who've been in
there have formed civilizations and
he's completely forgot they exist,
you know, all inside of the top app.
Uh, and then we gave him like a gold tooth
that basically lets him take anything
gold and if he touches it to the tooth,
Like transports inside the tooth and then
he can pull it out at any time he wants.
(09:22):
Uh, we gave him some spells,
uh, and like appraisal things.
So like being a god of merchants,
we're like, what's he do all the time?
He's gonna be appraising stuff.
He's gonna be looking at magic items.
So he has things that allow
him to identify magical items
just by looking at them.
Uh, probably his most powerful special
ability is that he can just summon
magical items at will of, I think
(09:44):
it's very rare rarity and lower.
So he can summon them at will and
he can attune to, Oh, I haven't read
the stat block in a while, but it's
something like 10 magic items at a time.
So when he shows up, if you're gonna
mess with him, you're also gonna mess
with at least 10 very rare magical items
that he can summon and attune to very,
very quickly . So, yeah, and I think
(10:07):
we made it so that he did not take a
long rest to attune to things either.
So in the middle of combat,
he could just be like, Boo
attune, boo attune, kind of a.
So the DM had a way, uh, to kind of
be like, Okay, the party's really,
you know, messing him up or whatever.
I need to get him outta here.
Well, I'm gonna give him, I don't
know, carpet of flying or whatnot,
and get him out kind of a deal.
Uh, we also gave him regenerative
(10:28):
abilities because why not?
So he's a god.
So if he's, if he's reduced to
zero hit points, essentially
him and his top hat vanish.
His top hat reappears in the nearest
marketplace to him, and then he
regenerates within a few feet of that top.
So that was a fun one too.
Lucas (10:46):
Ol' Chap Ettercap is
a meme that went too far.
Or you know what?
Maybe just far enough, but it
carries with it a certain satire of
the age of the gentleman explorer
that forms such an integral part
of the DNA of role playing games.
Dillon Olney (11:00):
We kind of gave him that,
like the old British clubs, right.
The portly men with the cigars
and the scotch and all that.
And the whole idea being that there's
these very affluent people that can kind
of control whatever they want, right?
Uh, and so we kind of took that
and ran with it and kind of
made it into a bit of a farce.
He's a benevolent character, but at
(11:22):
the same time, like one of the big
things about him in our campaign is
that he really doesn't understand
how the common person operates.
So, like when he sends an adventure on a
quest, he'll, Hey, you know, Oh, what ho
I just need you to go deal with a few like
spiders that are in my, you know, shop.
Like, could you just
clear them out for me?
And the adventures that are lower level
go in there and there's like six beboleths
(11:43):
running around and they're like, Holy,
we're all gonna die, kind of thing.
And he's like, I don't
understand what the problem is.
Like, you know, so we, we kind of,
I don't know that we thought too
much on like commerce as a whole
with him being the god of it.
It was more we wanted him to
take something and kind of.
Take it, take it a little too far, right?
Like take it and blow it out
of proportion into sort of a
funny, fun sort of a character.
Cameron DeFord (12:05):
Uh, he's been a lot of
fun though, just because it, it's been
interesting the fact that he originated
in our actual home game and I, like, I met
him the first time as a player and he was
our, our ticket out of dying or whatever.
Um, then the, it came at a cost.
We had to go do a, a side quest
to be able to earn what we
needed, uh, from him or whatever.
(12:26):
Uh, but, so it's been cool now,
like getting to flesh him out now on
the other side, the creative side.
Um, and then just, yeah, like the, the,
the cool thing that kind of came with
it too was that, uh, once he was just an
NPC or a monstrous NPC or whatever, and
then seeing him grow into the, the god.
Like, at first it was just almost a joke.
(12:47):
Like, Oh well, Ol' Chap Ettercap,
where would he get a, a pocket
universe inside of a top hat, right?
Like, that's obviously something
that only like a god would have.
So, oh, actually why isn't he a god?
Let's make him a god.
And then so him growing into a god.
And then when we were for that
same month needing a, um, a player
subclass, and we thought, Oh, well
let's do a warlock patron because
(13:08):
we're doing four gods this month.
Like, oh, well, why not have
him be a warlock patron?
And so, I don't know, it's just
been cool just to kind of see him.
Yeah.
Flesh out and grow into what
he's become or whatever.
Dillon Olney (13:20):
So he's started, like
Cameron saying, he started, you
know, in our home brew setting and
we were playing 3.5 at the time.
Uh, and he didn't have any
stats, like at that point I was.
I want a cool like, you know,
funny sort of ol' chap ettercap
guy to throw in at my players.
And, and it was, it was a running
joke too cuz I, I love ettercaps.
Like that's one of the,
I just, I don't know why.
I just love them.
(13:41):
And I always argued with another guy
cuz we were doing 3D sculpts and he
is like, nobody wants enter caps.
Like, nobody likes enter caps.
I'm like, but they're
going to like, just wait.
And so, you know, I'd wear, I'd,
you know, back then I had a shirt
that said, you know, ol' chap
enter cap on it and everything.
And uh, so he started out just, you
know, no stats, just an mpc and then,
I guess we officially put him into
(14:02):
content in October, so we stuck him
in our first release, Unhallowed Eve.
Um, essentially, you know, not showing
his divinity or anything like that.
He's just an mpc that essentially we
wanted, uh, a a, he wanted one of the
grandmas that was handing out candy.
There's like a trick or
treat thing in the town.
And his little like side quest is he
wants the candy from this grandma.
(14:23):
Let's say he's not a kid, she won't give
it to him, and so he hires the adventure.
To go pretend to be children in whatever
way they can and go and get this
candy right, and bring it back to him.
And of course he gives them like
awesome stuff if they do it.
Um, but, and the funny thing too with
that is like, he could totally do that.
Like he could get whatever he wants,
but he just sort of has fun messing
(14:45):
around with people all the time.
Right.
So he did that and then we
put him in our may release.
Um, and that version we put
him in like old Jurassic Park
kind of style or like a safari.
Uh, and we stuck him on an island.
So we called that one old CHP
ettercap's Dino Safari, and essentially
he's going on safari, but he's too
lazy to hunt the dinosaurs himself.
So he asked the adventures to go
(15:06):
do it for him so that he can mount
them and claim that he, you know,
well he's sponsored the hunt, so,
you know, he's the one who did it.
Uh, and he, he'll give them different
stuff if they bring them back alive
so he can put 'em in his, like
menagerie, um, or dead kind of a.
Yeah.
Um, so that one was fun.
And then in June we're like,
Well, we've done him twice,
but we never gave him stats.
It's time to finally stat him out.
(15:28):
It's been
Cameron DeFord (15:29):
really cool too, because
the, when we just played with him in
our game as an NPC, we would just like
theater of the mind that going inside of
his hat and what it looks like and stuff.
But when we then added him to
the game, we were like, Well, we
obviously need to make a map for it.
So we made a map that's just
a, a little tiny magic shop.
When you go up to him, you just
kind of hop right into his hat
and now you're in this shop.
(15:50):
And then as we've kind of like used
him more, we've like built off of that.
So, um, we then updated the map to
now there's a spiral staircase and he
has a tavern upstairs with some beds.
So if you're in the middle of a dungeon
and you need to crash somewhere,
sleep, you can sleep here, but
it's gonna cost you a lot of money.
So, um, we then, like Dillon said, we
used him for May for the Dino Safari.
So now there's an additional
(16:11):
floor that has a, basically like
a, a monster menagerie inside.
A little observation deck and then
different bios where he can put his
little dinos once you collect them.
So it's been fun just from that standpoint
too, just the, um, all the things that
are exist within this, uh, this top hat.
But, um, kind of along a similar
line though, when we were building,
(16:31):
because he's so like far out there and
just so like different, we wanted to
reflect that in the subclass we did.
And so we tried to, to come
up with similar things.
Uh, when you, when you choose the
subclass, when you make that patch
with the ol' chap, you select a
hat and so you pick a top hat or a
bowler, or we had a third hat, uh,
(16:52):
maybe like a trico or something.
But anyway, so you, you pick, you
pick one of three hats and now that
becomes your, your ol' chap hat.
And so right at first level it,
inside of it, it exists like a,
a two, a two by two, by two cubic
foot of, of like just a pocket.
And so you can just store
little things in there.
And as you advance throughout the
class, it gets bigger and bigger
and bigger just to emulate you
(17:12):
becoming a, a, a follower of his.
And, um, an ability where you
can spend a, uh, I think an hour
observing an inn or a tavern.
And, uh, you basically, essentially attune
yourself to this, this physical location.
And once you've done that, um,
you have advantage on any Charisma
check with the, the owner, the
proprietor of that location.
(17:32):
So if you're trying to gather intel, if
you're trying to, you're trying to haggle
on getting room prices from a place.
Um, you also then, while you're attuned
to it, you always, uh, magically know
the location of that place as long as
you're within a thousand feet of it
or a thousand miles of it or whatever.
So we, we came up with ways where it's
like warlocks are always seen as just this
eldtrich blast, rinse, wash, and repeat.
(17:54):
So let's take some really far out
there, ideas and injected into it.
So that's been really fun too.
Lucas (17:59):
Monsters grow in the telling
and the space where that narrative
growth overlaps with the mechanics
of the game is the unique joy of
tabletop RPGs for its players and
for me as a monster journalist.
So thanks for listening
to Making a Monster.
If you wanna fill your game with
charmingly lazy merchant spider
kings, you can get Ol' Chap Ettercap
(18:19):
in every form a tabletop needs
courtesy of Critical Crafting.
Dillon Olney (18:23):
We actually still
have our freebie up on our.
Uh, so if you go to the website,
you can get the free STL for him
as well as his free, uh, NPC card.
So that has like some lower
like, role playing tips and
stuff and the art of him on it.
And then there's also a map of,
uh, one of his top hat rooms.
Uh, so you can get that
for free on the website.
Uh, if you want more than that, obviously
(18:45):
you can check us out on Patreon.
The time is now five o'clock, you
know, we'll be closing in one.
We have over 700 pages now.
It's all backlogged, so if you become a
patron, you get access to all of that.
Uh, so we're on Patreon under Critical
Crafting and Ol' Chap and a whole
bunch of other monsters are in there.
(19:06):
For the store with the Ol'
Chap Ettercap welcome pack
is, uh, critical-crafting.com.
And then you can find us on
Patreon as Critical Crafting.
Lucas (19:15):
And before we close this episode
of Making a Monster, I wanna ask you to
consider supporting me through Patreon.
Producing this show takes a lot of
time, commitment, and an increasing
amount of travel as I interview
experts on game design, literature
history, and conservation biology.
Just a few bucks a month can help keep
this show a part of my professional
experience and bring you new stories
and insights almost every week.
(19:36):
Plus it comes with fun bonuses,
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If supporting the show monetarily
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Consider following the show on
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leave me a five star review.
(19:56):
It's a small thing, one or two clicks,
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gift to me and the creators I feature.
Stick around for Spooktacular Monster
stories all through the month of October,
including more interviews from Gen Con
and Ghost Stories from the IUCN Red List
as the podcast explores the monsters in
my upcoming project Book of Extinction.
(20:18):
All the details are on my website
at scintilla.studio/monster.
That's S C NT L L a.studio/monster.
See you next week.
Your 10 foot pole is broken.
You've lost your 50 feet of rope
and you're down to your last torch.
Its guttering light shows your
footprints in the muck of the dungeon
floor behind you and disappears
into the ominous darkness ahead.
Loot or no loot, you just don't have
the resources to make it much farther.
(00:21):
You hear the scraping of long claws
on rough stone and outta the darkness.
It appears a nightmarish fusion
of human and spider, six feet
tall and easily 200 pounds.
Long, gangly limbs hang from hunched
shoulders over a pale pot belly.
It's needle-sharp teeth are
hidden behind grasping, glistening
(00:43):
fanged appendages on its face.
As its beady eyes meet yours,
its mouth opens in a nightmare
smile in a raspy voice it says,
Dillon Olney (00:53):
oh, jolly good, sir.
You've wandered right into my web.
Like what ho
Lucas (00:57):
Welcome back to
Spooktober on Making a Monster.
In this, the most monster-filled
month of the year, I'm bringing you
episodes with the monster creators
I met at GenConn 2022, leading up to
a couple of Halloween episodes I'm
really excited to share with you.
It has been the contention of this
show that monsters don't level up.
(01:17):
After all, that's what heroes do.
Gaining experience, abilities and
tactics is the defining element
of player characters in role
playing games and monsters are the
static stepping stones that let
characters reach those new heights.
And in that role, in this archetypical
story structure, monsters do and
don't do very specific things.
(01:38):
Occasionally though, I meet
designers whose monsters are
stories that grow in the telling.
Dillon Olney (01:43):
I am Dillon Olney.
Uh, I am the creative director,
founder, writer of Critical Crafting.
And we put out 5E content every single
month, uh, on Patreon, normally between
15 to 80 pages of everything from
adventures and encounters, monsters,
classes, subclasses, items, spells, maps,
Cameron DeFord (02:03):
and I'm Cameron DeFord.
I am the, uh, co-writer and marketing
director of Critical Crafting.
Dillon focuses more on the
monsters and the items, spells,
feats, that sort of thing.
Um, I do our subclasses, our
classes, our player races and maps.
we started playing back
in 2017, maybe 16 or 17?
(02:26):
16, 17.
Um, Dillon was teaching most of us in our
group for the first time how to play D&D.
So We would play our D&D
games at Dillon's house.
We would play for four hours or so,
and then the game would wrap up.
We'd go upstairs and we'd get stalled
in the kitchen while we're talking
about the game we just played.
And we'd finally wrap up the conversation.
We'd move to the driveway,
we'd get talking again.
So a lot of our stuff was just the,
(02:49):
the early ideas of our content was
just coming out of these, Oh, that
was really cool, but it would've
been cool if this or if that.
Dillon Olney (02:55):
So Ol' Chap
Ettercap, he's our mascot.
The original idea from him actually
came from, um, an old meme, people were
making fun of the fact that, uh, you
know, three five ettercap spoke common.
Lucas (03:06):
In the lore of Dungeons and
Dragons, an ettercap is a spider-like
humanoid that lives underground
and cooperates with other spider
creatures to set elaborate web
traps for passing adventurers.
First edition D&D, in 1981's Fend
Folio, gave this description (03:21):
"a
biped, roughly man-sized, with very
long arms, protruding potbelly, short
legs, and hairy skin, the ettercap
has clawed hands and two poison fangs
protruding from each side of its mouth.
Apparently it protrudes a lot.
In subsequent editions, ettercaps became
(03:41):
more and more like the spiders they
befriended, gaining eyes, pedipalps,
and fearsome claws as they went.
But they have always been presented,
as in the Fiend Folio, as "cruel,
cunning, and treacherous."
Now representing intelligence in game
mechanics is notoriously difficult, and
ettercaps have always fallen in that
especially problematic range between
(04:03):
what second edition called "Average Human
Intelligence" and "Semi-intelligent".
In 2003, Monster Manual 3.5 solved
this problem by giving ettercaps the
ability to speak Common, the language
shared by all player characters.
This decision has not been repeated
in any other edition of D&D.
Dillon Olney (04:23):
And people were joking
around like, you know, Oh, jolly good
sir You've wandered right into my web.
Like what ho kind of a thing.
Like here's this ettercap, you know?
And we thought that's hilarious.
Like, that's so much fun.
And so I started introducing
Ol' Chap Ettercap.
And what would happen is when the players
were in like a bind, like they're in
the middle of a dungeon, they're low on
potions or whatever, like they're all kind
of like about to die kind of a thing.
(04:45):
Well, Ol' Chap Ettercap would wander into
the room with his, you know, top hat that
has a whole plane of existence inside full
of magical items in his shop and all this.
And it was a, you know, oh,
Tally ho boys, like, what's
going on with you, sort of thing.
And I'm just wandering through
this dungeon, selling my wares, cuz
where do you sell magical items?
In a dungeon, that's where
(05:06):
people need the most.
Uh, so that was kind of the idea.
And then he would do things.
You know, instead of just, Oh yeah,
you buy this stuff because the DM
wants you to like, not die here.
It was more like he could give you
fun little side quest, or it could
be a fun break from like some of
the serious stuff in the campaign.
And that's kind of where
he started initially.
Um, and then we decided to, to make him
(05:27):
into like an NPC in some of our adventures
for our Critical Crafting content.
And eventually we said, we gotta stab.
And when, when we decided to stat
him, the month that people had voted
on was called Cults of the Outsiders.
And the Outsiders are
are gods kind of a thing.
So we made them to exist
in any pantheon you want.
(05:48):
They can still exist in it cuz they exist
in their own little sort of pantheon.
But we didn't like that.
Five E did not have stat blocks for
gods other than Tiamat and technically
like Vecna, now, um, but we've always
found very lackluster as a stat block.
And we wanted god stat blocks
that felt like they were god's.
So we said, Well, if we're gonna
(06:10):
do a god stat block, who better
than Ol' Chap Ettercap to make
you know, the god of merchants?
Um, so that was kind
of how he got started.
Cameron DeFord (06:18):
The whole fact that
his, like Genesis was around the idea
of him just being able to show up
at the right place at the right time
and help the players out of a bind.
Um, the inside the hat, he has the store
and inside the store you can find magical
items you might need, but they're very
expensive, so he's gonna send you on
a quest instead and working it right
into the, the story in an organic.
(06:39):
Um, but so with that being the,
the concept behind him, um, we
just think, Okay, well if, if he
is a god who's gonna worship him.
Okay.
So he's the patron of merchants, of,
of, of, inn keepers, of anybody that's
working in that sort of environment.
Dillon Olney (06:55):
And then we wrote the, the
warlock subclass around the fact that,
you know, he's the patron of merchants.
He has the, the Old Sports'
Society, which are the people
that worship him, essentially.
Those are all the guys sitting in the
smoking room drinking scotch and, you
know, uh, taking over the world with
their words or whatever kind of a deal.
Um, so Cameron wrote the, the
(07:16):
subclass for the warlock for people
that worship ol' chap, but kind
of the abilities that they get.
Um, so, and we wanted to give, like,
we did stat blocks too for, for his
minions, the, the old sports society.
And we had wanted to figure out a
way, like the other problem we had,
because we have some morally ambiguous
characters, is they come to the.
What's the first thing
that they try and do?
(07:36):
They try and rob the shopkeeper, right?
We said, Well, we wanna make sure
that we're making something that
makes sure that they don't want
to rob every shopkeep they see.
So if you mess around with one of the
shopkeepers that worships Ol' Chap
Ettercap, you can expect that you're
gonna be in some trouble pretty soon.
Whether it's ol' chaps showing
up, or the merchant, you know, old
sports society coming after you,
(07:58):
or just the fact that the merchants
themselves have special abilities that.
Basically knock people
unconscious, hold them in place.
Uh, they know the location
of like every item they own.
If it's stolen, they know who stole
it and where it is kind of a thing.
. So that's kind of some of
his domain stuff, I guess.
He's really not supposed
to be used in combat.
(08:20):
Uh, but he does have some,
some combat special abilities.
So, um, some of them are kind of funny.
I think he's got like, what, who
unhand me or something as one of
his, and it's something, I can't
remember the exact wording of it,
but essentially he can like teleport.
So, you know, you grab the ol'
chap, Ettercap the shop, keep you're
trying to rob him or whatever, and
(08:40):
he just, Oh, you're grappling me.
No, you're not anymore.
I just teleported over
here kind of a thing.
Um, so he is got a lot of
special abilities though.
He's got.
You know, like we said, he, he's
got his top hat that has an extra
dimensional space inside of it.
It's basically a whole plane of existence
that's all made of interconnecting rooms.
So he's got, uh, his shop kind of
on the main area, but then he's got
(09:00):
libraries and b theories and tea rooms
and rooms that he's forgotten for
so long that people who've been in
there have formed civilizations and
he's completely forgot they exist,
you know, all inside of the top app.
Uh, and then we gave him like a gold tooth
that basically lets him take anything
gold and if he touches it to the tooth,
Like transports inside the tooth and then
he can pull it out at any time he wants.
(09:22):
Uh, we gave him some spells,
uh, and like appraisal things.
So like being a god of merchants,
we're like, what's he do all the time?
He's gonna be appraising stuff.
He's gonna be looking at magic items.
So he has things that allow
him to identify magical items
just by looking at them.
Uh, probably his most powerful special
ability is that he can just summon
magical items at will of, I think
(09:44):
it's very rare rarity and lower.
So he can summon them at will and
he can attune to, Oh, I haven't read
the stat block in a while, but it's
something like 10 magic items at a time.
So when he shows up, if you're gonna
mess with him, you're also gonna mess
with at least 10 very rare magical items
that he can summon and attune to very,
very quickly . So, yeah, and I think
(10:07):
we made it so that he did not take a
long rest to attune to things either.
So in the middle of combat,
he could just be like, Boo
attune, boo attune, kind of a.
So the DM had a way, uh, to kind of
be like, Okay, the party's really,
you know, messing him up or whatever.
I need to get him outta here.
Well, I'm gonna give him, I don't
know, carpet of flying or whatnot,
and get him out kind of a deal.
Uh, we also gave him regenerative
(10:28):
abilities because why not?
So he's a god.
So if he's, if he's reduced to
zero hit points, essentially
him and his top hat vanish.
His top hat reappears in the nearest
marketplace to him, and then he
regenerates within a few feet of that top.
So that was a fun one too.
Lucas (10:46):
Ol' Chap Ettercap is
a meme that went too far.
Or you know what?
Maybe just far enough, but it
carries with it a certain satire of
the age of the gentleman explorer
that forms such an integral part
of the DNA of role playing games.
Dillon Olney (11:00):
We kind of gave him that,
like the old British clubs, right.
The portly men with the cigars
and the scotch and all that.
And the whole idea being that there's
these very affluent people that can kind
of control whatever they want, right?
Uh, and so we kind of took that
and ran with it and kind of
made it into a bit of a farce.
He's a benevolent character, but at
(11:22):
the same time, like one of the big
things about him in our campaign is
that he really doesn't understand
how the common person operates.
So, like when he sends an adventure on a
quest, he'll, Hey, you know, Oh, what ho
I just need you to go deal with a few like
spiders that are in my, you know, shop.
Like, could you just
clear them out for me?
And the adventures that are lower level
go in there and there's like six beboleths
(11:43):
running around and they're like, Holy,
we're all gonna die, kind of thing.
And he's like, I don't
understand what the problem is.
Like, you know, so we, we kind of,
I don't know that we thought too
much on like commerce as a whole
with him being the god of it.
It was more we wanted him to
take something and kind of.
Take it, take it a little too far, right?
Like take it and blow it out
of proportion into sort of a
funny, fun sort of a character.
Cameron DeFord (12:05):
Uh, he's been a lot of
fun though, just because it, it's been
interesting the fact that he originated
in our actual home game and I, like, I met
him the first time as a player and he was
our, our ticket out of dying or whatever.
Um, then the, it came at a cost.
We had to go do a, a side quest
to be able to earn what we
needed, uh, from him or whatever.
(12:26):
Uh, but, so it's been cool now,
like getting to flesh him out now on
the other side, the creative side.
Um, and then just, yeah, like the, the,
the cool thing that kind of came with
it too was that, uh, once he was just an
NPC or a monstrous NPC or whatever, and
then seeing him grow into the, the god.
Like, at first it was just almost a joke.
(12:47):
Like, Oh well, Ol' Chap Ettercap,
where would he get a, a pocket
universe inside of a top hat, right?
Like, that's obviously something
that only like a god would have.
So, oh, actually why isn't he a god?
Let's make him a god.
And then so him growing into a god.
And then when we were for that
same month needing a, um, a player
subclass, and we thought, Oh, well
let's do a warlock patron because
(13:08):
we're doing four gods this month.
Like, oh, well, why not have
him be a warlock patron?
And so, I don't know, it's just
been cool just to kind of see him.
Yeah.
Flesh out and grow into what
he's become or whatever.
Dillon Olney (13:20):
So he's started, like
Cameron saying, he started, you
know, in our home brew setting and
we were playing 3.5 at the time.
Uh, and he didn't have any
stats, like at that point I was.
I want a cool like, you know,
funny sort of ol' chap ettercap
guy to throw in at my players.
And, and it was, it was a running
joke too cuz I, I love ettercaps.
Like that's one of the,
I just, I don't know why.
I just love them.
(13:41):
And I always argued with another guy
cuz we were doing 3D sculpts and he
is like, nobody wants enter caps.
Like, nobody likes enter caps.
I'm like, but they're
going to like, just wait.
And so, you know, I'd wear, I'd,
you know, back then I had a shirt
that said, you know, ol' chap
enter cap on it and everything.
And uh, so he started out just, you
know, no stats, just an mpc and then,
I guess we officially put him into
(14:02):
content in October, so we stuck him
in our first release, Unhallowed Eve.
Um, essentially, you know, not showing
his divinity or anything like that.
He's just an mpc that essentially we
wanted, uh, a a, he wanted one of the
grandmas that was handing out candy.
There's like a trick or
treat thing in the town.
And his little like side quest is he
wants the candy from this grandma.
(14:23):
Let's say he's not a kid, she won't give
it to him, and so he hires the adventure.
To go pretend to be children in whatever
way they can and go and get this
candy right, and bring it back to him.
And of course he gives them like
awesome stuff if they do it.
Um, but, and the funny thing too with
that is like, he could totally do that.
Like he could get whatever he wants,
but he just sort of has fun messing
(14:45):
around with people all the time.
Right.
So he did that and then we
put him in our may release.
Um, and that version we put
him in like old Jurassic Park
kind of style or like a safari.
Uh, and we stuck him on an island.
So we called that one old CHP
ettercap's Dino Safari, and essentially
he's going on safari, but he's too
lazy to hunt the dinosaurs himself.
So he asked the adventures to go
(15:06):
do it for him so that he can mount
them and claim that he, you know,
well he's sponsored the hunt, so,
you know, he's the one who did it.
Uh, and he, he'll give them different
stuff if they bring them back alive
so he can put 'em in his, like
menagerie, um, or dead kind of a.
Yeah.
Um, so that one was fun.
And then in June we're like,
Well, we've done him twice,
but we never gave him stats.
It's time to finally stat him out.
(15:28):
It's been
Cameron DeFord (15:29):
really cool too, because
the, when we just played with him in
our game as an NPC, we would just like
theater of the mind that going inside of
his hat and what it looks like and stuff.
But when we then added him to
the game, we were like, Well, we
obviously need to make a map for it.
So we made a map that's just
a, a little tiny magic shop.
When you go up to him, you just
kind of hop right into his hat
and now you're in this shop.
(15:50):
And then as we've kind of like used
him more, we've like built off of that.
So, um, we then updated the map to
now there's a spiral staircase and he
has a tavern upstairs with some beds.
So if you're in the middle of a dungeon
and you need to crash somewhere,
sleep, you can sleep here, but
it's gonna cost you a lot of money.
So, um, we then, like Dillon said, we
used him for May for the Dino Safari.
So now there's an additional
(16:11):
floor that has a, basically like
a, a monster menagerie inside.
A little observation deck and then
different bios where he can put his
little dinos once you collect them.
So it's been fun just from that standpoint
too, just the, um, all the things that
are exist within this, uh, this top hat.
But, um, kind of along a similar
line though, when we were building,
(16:31):
because he's so like far out there and
just so like different, we wanted to
reflect that in the subclass we did.
And so we tried to, to come
up with similar things.
Uh, when you, when you choose the
subclass, when you make that patch
with the ol' chap, you select a
hat and so you pick a top hat or a
bowler, or we had a third hat, uh,
(16:52):
maybe like a trico or something.
But anyway, so you, you pick, you
pick one of three hats and now that
becomes your, your ol' chap hat.
And so right at first level it,
inside of it, it exists like a,
a two, a two by two, by two cubic
foot of, of like just a pocket.
And so you can just store
little things in there.
And as you advance throughout the
class, it gets bigger and bigger
and bigger just to emulate you
(17:12):
becoming a, a, a follower of his.
And, um, an ability where you
can spend a, uh, I think an hour
observing an inn or a tavern.
And, uh, you basically, essentially attune
yourself to this, this physical location.
And once you've done that, um,
you have advantage on any Charisma
check with the, the owner, the
proprietor of that location.
(17:32):
So if you're trying to gather intel, if
you're trying to, you're trying to haggle
on getting room prices from a place.
Um, you also then, while you're attuned
to it, you always, uh, magically know
the location of that place as long as
you're within a thousand feet of it
or a thousand miles of it or whatever.
So we, we came up with ways where it's
like warlocks are always seen as just this
eldtrich blast, rinse, wash, and repeat.
(17:54):
So let's take some really far out
there, ideas and injected into it.
So that's been really fun too.
Lucas (17:59):
Monsters grow in the telling
and the space where that narrative
growth overlaps with the mechanics
of the game is the unique joy of
tabletop RPGs for its players and
for me as a monster journalist.
So thanks for listening
to Making a Monster.
If you wanna fill your game with
charmingly lazy merchant spider
kings, you can get Ol' Chap Ettercap
(18:19):
in every form a tabletop needs
courtesy of Critical Crafting.
Dillon Olney (18:23):
We actually still
have our freebie up on our.
Uh, so if you go to the website,
you can get the free STL for him
as well as his free, uh, NPC card.
So that has like some lower
like, role playing tips and
stuff and the art of him on it.
And then there's also a map of,
uh, one of his top hat rooms.
Uh, so you can get that
for free on the website.
Uh, if you want more than that, obviously
(18:45):
you can check us out on Patreon.
The time is now five o'clock, you
know, we'll be closing in one.
We have over 700 pages now.
It's all backlogged, so if you become a
patron, you get access to all of that.
Uh, so we're on Patreon under Critical
Crafting and Ol' Chap and a whole
bunch of other monsters are in there.
(19:06):
For the store with the Ol'
Chap Ettercap welcome pack
is, uh, critical-crafting.com.
And then you can find us on
Patreon as Critical Crafting.
Lucas (19:15):
And before we close this episode
of Making a Monster, I wanna ask you to
consider supporting me through Patreon.
Producing this show takes a lot of
time, commitment, and an increasing
amount of travel as I interview
experts on game design, literature
history, and conservation biology.
Just a few bucks a month can help keep
this show a part of my professional
experience and bring you new stories
and insights almost every week.
(19:36):
Plus it comes with fun bonuses,
like behind the scenes content snips
and clips from my interviews and my
own monster design work, the Making
a Monster Discord, and stickers!
If supporting the show monetarily
isn't an option for you, that's fine.
Consider following the show on
your podcast platform of choice,
and if you feel I've earned it,
leave me a five star review.
(19:56):
It's a small thing, one or two clicks,
but it does go a long way to helping
people discover the show, and it is a real
gift to me and the creators I feature.
Stick around for Spooktacular Monster
stories all through the month of October,
including more interviews from Gen Con
and Ghost Stories from the IUCN Red List
as the podcast explores the monsters in
my upcoming project Book of Extinction.
(20:18):
All the details are on my website
at scintilla.studio/monster.
That's S C NT L L a.studio/monster.
See you next week.
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