Halloween Monsters! Part 13

Finally back with a new creature artist. Nicholas Cloister is a Swedish artist who does a lot of fantasy- and especially RPG-related- art. A few years ago he created a series of "system neutral" monsters that could be fitted into any role-playing game. The creatures each had detailed, unusual histories and habits and were very much unlike most other typical RPG monsters.

Nicholas posted his monsters on a blog and eventually combined them into a book that you can get at RPGNow. I'd highly recommend the book even if you don't actively play RPGs. It's great for casual perusing.

Marine Biology is one of my favorite subjects, so naturally, I chose one of his aquatic monsters for my first post.

Ghords are giant mollusks that filter-feed using six huge siphons. They can also use these intakes to defend themselves by biting, making ghords a sort of marine invertebrate hydra. Like hermit crabs, these huge invertebrates seek out the shells of other mollusks- in this case, giant clams- to serve as protective housing for their soft, vulnerable bodies. You can read the Ghord's full description here.

From an RPG standpoint, I really like the fact that ghords are not automatically a threat. In many roleplaying games, creatures often seem to exist only to immediately attack the party. Just a collection of stats and special abilities. But I've always tried to give my own gaming worlds a full ecosystem of fantastic creatures that have their own behaviors and biology unrelated to how they interact with an adventuring party.