Barsoomian White Apes

[Scott]

I've been stocking my dungeon. Here's a little old school flavor I've added. Just a rough draft. Comments appreciated.

Barsoomian White Apes

FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1, 2, or 1-6
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 12”
HIT DICE: 6 + (up to 10)
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: C
NO. OF ATTACKS: 5
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6/1-6/1-6/1-6/1-10
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Surprise, Rending
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Low (upper)
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: L (12’ to 15’ tall, very broad)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil

Appearance:
Barsoomian white apes are large creatures with an average height of 12 to 15 feet, some are known to be as small as eight feet. They possess two sets of arms, the lower arms serving either as extra hands or extra feet, but they prefer two walk on two legs. The head of the savage creature is like that of the African gorilla. They are almost completely hairless, save for the shock of thick, stiff-bristled white hair on top of their heads that runs down the back of the skull and neck to the upper shoulders.
Behavior:
The White Apes are incredibly violent creatures, but they are also somewhat sociable, gathering in mating pairs, or even tribes.
Their intelligence approaches that of an average human. They are known to use weapons such as clubs, or even wear the skin of animals. The also seem to be partially reasonable creatures.
Habitat:
The white apes are native to the world of Barsoom, but some have been transported to Oerth via various gates. Most white apes on Oerth serve as guardians for high level spell casters, but a few have escaped and roam individually or in small groups.
Notes:
White apes are ambush predators that will surprise on a 1-3 if waiting in ambush. They are only surprised on a 1 due to their keen senses. If a white ape hits the same opponent with two hands it does an additional 1-12 hit points of rending damage.

[geneweigel]

Looks good, I think the AD&D carnivorous apes are derivatives of the Barsoom white apes of Gygax's WARRIORS OF MARS in the shift from Classic Gygax to Advanced Gygax game systems. The Moldvay basic of 1981 white ape definitely adheres to what Gary mentioned to me about bad trends at TSR in the early 80's. It may actually be the best representative of "Lances" and "Realms" to come!

As far as apes in general I think smaller is better (but Oonga was nicely done), so this take on the Bar. White Ape is good.

(One of the things that I submitted for Kuntz's contest that I "won" was an ape monster that I came up with that was inspired by the carn. ape, the Bar white ape as well as other Burroughs creatures but ultimately its notable elements were my own device. Someday I'll put it in something but I've given up on so many projects that I don't even know what to do with all the inventions.)

[Scott]

I was just re-reading some notes from EGG on his original level structure, and I think it was the 11th level where the most powerful wizard in the dungeon lived. He had balrog servants, and the rest of the level was inhabited by Martian white apes. If they were meant to be that tough, I might need to bump them up a bit.

[geneweigel]

Well in the 3 book it says:

Also included in this group are the optionally usable "Martian" animals such as Apts, Banths, Thoats, etc. If the referee is not personally familiar with the various monsters included in this category the participants of the campaign can be polled to decide all characteristics.

the levels have the range of white apes from wandering on levels one through seven and balrogs ranging from levels three and down (13+).plus they mention white apes as 1-20 in the castle of an evil high priest or 1- 6 vampires or 1-10 trolls or 1-10 spectres.

They're pulled off the updated wandering monster chart and replaced with "carnivorous ape" in GREYHAWK supplement.

[grodog]

Aug 23, 2012 13:23:57 GMT -5 Scott said:

I was just re-reading some notes from EGG on his original level structure, and I think it was the 11th level where the most powerful wizard in the dungeon lived. He had balrog servants, and the rest of the level was inhabited by Martian white apes. If they were meant to be that tough, I might need to bump them up a bit.

In decent numbers, however, your apes will still be a pretty significant threat, Scott: 5 AT per round adds up, with even 6 HD monsters hitting AC 0 on a 13, or 35% of the time: that's 1-2 hits per round, on average, per ape, which is nothing to sneeze at, especially with the rending if two claws hit.

Since you have a range on their HD, you could consider boosting their stats by size, if you felt that was necessary:

HD 6-7: 5 AT for 1-6x4/1-10 with rending 1-12
HD 8-9: 5 AT for 2-7x4/1-10 with rending 2-12
HD 10: 5 AT for 3-8x4/1-12 with rending 3-13

or , something like that.

[Scott]

By the time PCs are wandering around the 11th dungeon level, most of them will have ACs lower than 0, especially the front line fighters; -3 or -4 is probably going to be closer to it.
I think maybe bumping the HD range up a bit would make them more of a threat, but still an appropriate one for the level. Maybe give them some minor magic resistence too, as some innate Barsoomian thing.

[GRWelsh]

Considering the Martian apes are fire giant-sized in their proportions (12-15' + tall, very broad), I'd give them at least 12 HD.

[Scott]

That was my initail reference for statting them out, but I didn't want to over do it, so I scaled them back, but seeing where EGG had placed them, that seems much closer.

[geneweigel]

I just went to the castle retainers chart that I mentioned for the 1 in 4 chance of 1-20 white apes in an evil high priest castle and I added all the hit dice maximum of everything:

RED: LEVEL/HD
BLUE: Combined HD
GREEN: Total combined HD



then if you notice the hd totals (green) comparing patriarch to EHP then you've got a surplus of around 100 for the EHP. Divide by 20 and you get 5HD which is the HD of the AD&D carnivorous ape! Of course, this could be a massive coincidence as it doesn't count xp for abilities and/or whether or not this was assembled by feel. But could be.

[Scott]

I guess there is some conflicting info on how they were used. If they show up in my game they will be rare, so I'd probably lean towards the tougher side. I associate the carnivorous ape more with the apes that raised Tarzan.

[GRWelsh]

I think the carnivorous apes are from Conan:

Conan knew at last -- understood the meaning of those crushed and broken bones in the dungeon, and recognized the haunter of the pits. It was a gray ape, one of the grisly man-eaters from the forests that wave on the mountainous eastern shore of the Sea of Vilayet. Half mythical and altogether horrible, these apes were the goblins of Hyborean legendry, and were in reality ogres of the natural world, cannibals and murderers of the nighted forests.

-- from The Hour of the Dragon

Thak from "Rogues in the House" was also one of these Vilayet apes.

[Scott]

Yeah, that looks good too. I'll have to look at the carnivorous ape entry when I get home.
Do carnivorous apes have a language?
Tarzan's apes were more like an African version of a bigfoot or Yeti.
Some info on Tarzan's Apes:
The tribe of great apes call themselves mangani and they appear to be far more humanoid than gorilloid. They have a spoken language and social structure. They are often described in the first two Tarzan books as "gorilla-like apes."
We also know, from several stories, that the mangani were well-developed meat eaters.
The mangani have a spoken language of some complexity.

[geneweigel]

I think this is one of those things that I used to discuss with Gary about how things cross-pollinated or came from older sources.

Heres a passage from end of THE LURKING FEAR which features a wide spectrum of "whitish apes":

If heaven is merciful, it will some day efface from my consciousness the sight that I saw, and let me live my last years in peace. I cannot sleep at night now, and have to take opiates when it thunders. The thing came abruptly and unannounced; a demon, ratlike scurrying from pits remote and unimaginable, a hellish panting and stifled grunting, and then from that opening beneath the chimney a burst of multitudinous and leprous life - a loathsome night-spawned flood of organic corruption more devastatingly hideous than the blackest conjurations of mortal madness and morbidity. Seething, stewing, surging, bubbling like serpents' slime it rolled up and out of that yawning hole, spreading like a septic contagion and streaming from the cellar at every point of egress - streaming out to scatter through the accursed midnight forests and strew fear, madness, and death.

God knows how many there were - there must have been thousands. To see the stream of them in that faint intermittent lightning was shocking. When they had thinned out enough to be glimpsed as separate organisms, I saw that they were dwarfed, deformed hairy devils or apes-monstrous and diabolic caricatures of the monkey tribe. They were so hideously silent; there was hardly a squeal when one of the last stragglers turned with the skill of long practice to make a meal in accustomed fashion on a weaker companion. 0thers snapped up what it left and ate with slavering relish. Then, in spite of my daze of fright and disgust, my morbid curiosity triumphed; and as the last of the monstrosities oozed up alone from that nether world of unknown nightmare, I drew my automatic pistol and shot it under cover of the thunder.

Shrieking, slithering, torrential shadows of red viscous madness chasing one another through endless, ensanguined condors of purple fulgurous sky... formless phantasms and kaleidoscopic mutations of a ghoulish, remembered scene; forests of monstrous over-nourished oaks with serpent roots twisting and sucking unnamable juices from an earth verminous with millions of cannibal devils; mound-like tentacles groping from underground nuclei of polypous perversion... insane lightning over malignant ivied walls and demon arcades choked with fungous vegetation... Heaven be thanked for the instinct which led me unconscious to places where men dwell; to the peaceful village that slept under the calm stars of clearing skies.

I had recovered enough in a week to send to Albany for a gang of men to blow up the Martense mansion and the entire top of Tempest Mountain with dynamite, stop up all the discoverable mound-burrows, and destroy certain over-nourished trees whose very existence seemed an insult to sanity. I could sleep a little after they had done this, but true rest will never come as long as I remember that nameless secret of the lurking fear. The thing will haunt me, for who can say the extermination is complete, and that analogous phenomena do not exist all over the world? Who can, with my knowledge, think of the earth's unknown caverns without a nightmare dread of future possibilities? I cannot see a well or a subway entrance without shuddering... why cannot the doctors give me something to make me sleep, or truly calm my brain when it thunders?

What I saw in the glow of flashlight after I shot the unspeakable straggling object was so simple that almost a minute elapsed before I understood and went delirious. The object was nauseous; a filthy whitish gorilla thing with sharp yellow fangs and matted fur. It was the ultimate product of mammalian degeneration; the frightful outcome of isolated spawning, multiplication, and cannibal nutrition above and below the ground; the embodiment of all the snarling and chaos and grinning fear that lurk behind life. It had looked at me as it died, and its eyes had the same odd quality that marked those other eyes which had stared at me underground and excited cloudy recollections. One eye was blue, the other brown. They were the dissimilar Martense eyes of the old legends, and I knew in one inundating cataclysm of voiceless horror what had become of that vanished family; the terrible and thunder-crazed house of Martense.

And then the Hyborian age history written by Howard has white apes which may be the Vilayet apes or it might be the remnant Atlanteans.

So theres definitely room in D&D (Greyhawk) for white apes of all shapes and sizes as well as the straight up martian ones again in various shapes and sizes.

[geneweigel]

For a moment, I was thinking the "sagoths" were "white apes" from Pellucidar but that was only the Doug McClure movie version. They had black skin and were cruder than the ones depicted in the film.

[Scott]

After re-reading the carnivorous ape entry, it seems more Howard than ERB.

[GRWelsh]

Sept 4, 2012 15:11:29 GMT -5 Scott said:

Some info on Tarzan's Apes:
The tribe of great apes call themselves mangani and they appear to be far more humanoid than gorilloid. They have a spoken language and social structure. They are often described in the first two Tarzan books as "gorilla-like apes."
We also know, from several stories, that the mangani were well-developed meat eaters.
The mangani have a spoken language of some complexity.

The pre-humans in the first part of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey always made me think of the Mangani from the Tarzan stories: an intermediary stage between apes and men.

[Scott]

I'll have to check it out again with that in mind.

[geneweigel]

I was intrigued and tried to find whether or not the 2001 man-apes had language. I guess not in the slightest from these bits :

Yet now Moon-Watcher stood looking at them, wavering back and forth uncertainly as he was
buffeted by impulses which he could not understand, Then, as if in a dream, he started searching
the ground - though for what, he could not have explained even if he had had the power of speech.
He would recognize it when he saw it.

Speech
was still a million years away, but the first steps toward it had been taken.

In another scene he doesn't have a concept of father when he tosses his dead body to the hyenas. In the same scene the unseen narrator mentions a new baby that he brought to same spot by the hyenas (the narrative doesn't really say if it was alive or not).

[geneweigel]

Heres a bit from an adventure called NEEDLE (1987) on "GLOMMERS":

Glommer
(Adapted Monster)
Armor Class: 5
Move: 12"
Hit Dice: 6
No. of Attacks: 4 claws or weapons
Damage: 1d4 (X4) or by
weapon
THACO: 13
Alignment: NE
Size: M
Intelligence: animal
STs: 16
Stw: 15
The glommer is
a four-armed
carnivorous
ape, perhaps a
mutation,
brought to the
moon from its
native jungles
by evil Chak.
Using all four
arms, a glommer has an effective
Strength of 22 (carry 1,000 lb.
weight, open doors 11 in 12, wizard
locks 4 in 12, and bend bars/lift
gates 80%).
Glommers normally use no weapons.
They may be taught to use clubs or
throw rocks, but not other weapons.
With either
weapon, no penalties "to hit" or to
damage apply for multiple attacks.
Club damage is standard (1d6/1d3),
and small rocks may be thrown to
3"/6"/9" ranges, for Dmg 1-4 each.
If all four of an unarmed glommer's
claw attacks hit a single opponent,
an extra 2-20 points of rending
damage are automatically inflicted.
If three claws hit, rending damage
is 1-12. If only two hit, rending
damage is 1-8.

It was based on an adventure that appeared in POLYHEDRON in 1985. My friend Taylor had ran this adventure back in 1987 and it was pretty corny. It honestly just added to the Mentzer crappy mystique at the time.

[geneweigel]

To regroup on this I noticed that we didn't mention GODS DEMIGODS AND HEROES (1976) as having "mountain apes" to represent the various gray apes of the Hyborian Age which in every story appearance were man-like in aspect:

ROBERT E. HOWARD'S HYBORIA (pages 45-52)
Page 48

MOUNTAIN APES
As per Ogres in D&D

This lends more credence to the theory that the Carn. Apes were swapouts for the Barsoom Apes.

The Burroughs' estate cease and desist order coming immediately in 1974 and the removal in 1975's Greyhawk Supplement.

Here is the 1974 Dungeon Encounter Table and the 1975 Dungeon Enocunter Table:


It has all the updated monster additions as well which there are no new "ape" entries. GH would also be the last dungeon encounter matrice for OD&D and the wilderness ones would be later.

BLACKMOOR (late 1975) would have "Underwater & Sailing Encounter Matrices"

ELDRITCH WIZARDRY (1976) under Jungle Encounters has "apes" with no notation for specifically "carnivorous apes" however covering giant animal species in the same list.

The chance to run into a White Ape on levels 3 to 5 in 1974 is exactly the same as running into the then unknown statted carnivorous ape in 1975.

The stats in WARRIORS OF MARS (1974) seem to be 6 HD from the list of "Wounds To Kill" which is what a "Hit Dice" is exactly.

So with this view Carnivorous apes were downgraded to 5+1 HD in AD&D to keep everything copacetic if you still had the White Apes in play which I'm sure everyone did.

So

Ape (Gorilla) are 4 +1 HD

Thak/Mountain/Gray/Hyborean Apes are 4 +1 HD per ogre

Carnivorous Apes are 5 HD

White/Barsoom/Martian/"Mentzer's Glommer" Apes 6 HD

Putting it like this makes me wonder if the Hyboreans are accurate.