Monday, January 10, 2022

IRON BRUTE

This is all based on me misreading (Sir) Ian Livingstone's handwriting on this map.

RUST MINOTAURS, also known as "IRON BRUTES" by northern folk, are aggressive and terrifying hybrids of -- wait for it -- minotaurs and rust monsters, although they seem to take more of their characteristics from the homicidal bovine side. Those ever-clueless sages speculate that the iron brutes were first created by a mad wizard, but that's their excuse for anything they can't explain, and is probably a result of professional jealousy.

RUST MINOTAUR: Armour 15, Move 120’, 6* Hit Dice, 27hp, rusty horns or weapon +2, Morale 12.

Rust minotaurs can attack with either their horns or a weapon, not both, in a single Round. The iron brute's horns destroy metal at a touch. Magical armour and weapons get 10% resistance per "plus" of enchantment.

The rust minotaur can metabolise enchanted metal and convert it into temporary armour plating, taking the form of hexagonal metallic scales. Every "plus" destroyed by the creature's touch, is converted to a point of armour, which erupts from the monster's hide a Round after it is absorbed. This bonus armour flakes away after a day.

If you are playing Troika! or a similar game of fantasy fighting, then you can use the following statistics:

SKILL 9
STAMINA 9
Initiative 3
Armour 0 (but see below)
Damage as Weapon or Rusty Horns

If a Rust Minotaur hits with its Rusty Horns attack, the target takes no damage but instead loses 1 point of armour, to a minimum of 0. If the armour was magical, the iron brute gains this point of absorbed armour at the End of the Round. These bonus points of protection have no maximum, but on the plus side, they disappear after a day. Good luck!

6 comments:

  1. Love to see you creating and posting more content (especially for multiple systems - that's a great idea), and I love the illustration and also the layout and color choices. I'm a big fan of layouts that utilize black-and-white plus one additional color, so this is right up my alley. But I also like the perspective you chose with it coming right toward the viewer instead of just a static pose. Very cool!

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    1. Thanks Martin! The original piece was more static but I thought a minotaur should really be rushing towards its victims, so I changed the pose and added some speed lines to make it a bit more dynamic. I'm happy you like it!

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  2. That's really nice-looking, especially the little armor plates you described. Is there anything special about the little tassels/fringes on the horns?

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    1. Thank you! The tassels on the horns are a nod to the Rust Monster, which has a set of feather-like antennae. It's one of the features I like most about the creature; it's a monster that attacks you with the most non-threatening weapon.

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