Monsters have very few variants, there are some but not by much, in the official source materials. I would love to see more variants of existing monsters, but those are few far between currently. I recently started reading a D&D-esque story, that also happens to be intended for mature readers, and it shows off a few variants of existing monsters in D&D. The two on display, and first official members of the man character's harem, are a gorgon (and by that I mean what most people call a "Medusa," even the official D&D them Medusas for some stupid reason) and Hellhound Variant.
I'm going to go on a bit of tangent for a bit here, so please excuse this part. Why is the classical Gorgon called Medusa? Medusa was the youngest and most famous of the trio known as the Gorgon Sisters, the other 2 being Stheno and Euryale. While in D&D, the monster classified as gorgon is this strange bull-looking creature. I never understood why the people responsible for the sourcebooks for D&D do this, still don't.
In the book, the gorgon variant we are introduced to is a higher-tier than your typical gorgon (or as D&D calls them, Medusa for utterly stupid reasons) and the Hellhound variant has properties similar to that of a werewolf, so fun shenanigans to have there. Both have the abilities of their base monsters but a few added features. For example, the gorgon variant can actively decide whether something she's meeting the gaze of actually turns to stone or not, and has personal grudge against feline humanoids (so Tabaxi would be on her hit list without even trying) and the Hellhound variant has a higher base Intelligence than a classic D&D Hellhound in addition to the shapeshifting and a few other features.
I'm working on a different kind of setting than most people are probably used to, and one of the new monsters I'm working on is an aquatic variation of the Drider
I’m all for customizing existing stat blocks to suit your story. Making adjustments to base monsters almost always turns out better than homebrewing a ‘cooler’ version. So, yes, make that aquatic drider. Make animated statues instead of animated armor. Make a blind race of goblins that are meticulously clean.
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Monsters have very few variants, there are some but not by much, in the official source materials. I would love to see more variants of existing monsters, but those are few far between currently. I recently started reading a D&D-esque story, that also happens to be intended for mature readers, and it shows off a few variants of existing monsters in D&D. The two on display, and first official members of the man character's harem, are a gorgon (and by that I mean what most people call a "Medusa," even the official D&D them Medusas for some stupid reason) and Hellhound Variant.
I'm going to go on a bit of tangent for a bit here, so please excuse this part. Why is the classical Gorgon called Medusa? Medusa was the youngest and most famous of the trio known as the Gorgon Sisters, the other 2 being Stheno and Euryale. While in D&D, the monster classified as gorgon is this strange bull-looking creature. I never understood why the people responsible for the sourcebooks for D&D do this, still don't.
In the book, the gorgon variant we are introduced to is a higher-tier than your typical gorgon (or as D&D calls them, Medusa for utterly stupid reasons) and the Hellhound variant has properties similar to that of a werewolf, so fun shenanigans to have there. Both have the abilities of their base monsters but a few added features. For example, the gorgon variant can actively decide whether something she's meeting the gaze of actually turns to stone or not, and has personal grudge against feline humanoids (so Tabaxi would be on her hit list without even trying) and the Hellhound variant has a higher base Intelligence than a classic D&D Hellhound in addition to the shapeshifting and a few other features.
I'm working on a different kind of setting than most people are probably used to, and one of the new monsters I'm working on is an aquatic variation of the Drider
I’m all for customizing existing stat blocks to suit your story. Making adjustments to base monsters almost always turns out better than homebrewing a ‘cooler’ version. So, yes, make that aquatic drider. Make animated statues instead of animated armor. Make a blind race of goblins that are meticulously clean.