Mythras - The Monster Island Experience

[Llew ap Hywel]

So seeing as there is a large contingent of Mythras fans here I was wondering who's done something with Monster Island? Raleel I think it's you that has said you consider it one of the essential Mythras buys? And what sort of tales you had told or been a part of?

As a massive S&S and pulp fan I have always been very impressed with Monster Islands sandbox approach and the variety of story hooks and locations but have never had the chance to run it. Theres so much to unpack in the book its silly.

However I was fortunate enough to be invited to my friend John's game set in Monster Island (hopefully this will become the second of his published adventures for the setting. The first 'A Bird in the Hand' (see link for my review) is a great intro to the island. John's adventures remind me of a crazy mix of Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones and Kong island. The party I'm currently gaming with is an absolute blast and remind me (tonally) of Fahrd and Grey Mouser. My thieving scoundrel completely lacks any concept of right and wrong.

So spill, what were your games like?
Have any of you played A Bird in the Hand? I'm curious to see if you agree with my review.

 

[Raleel]

I have pulled the monsters and weapons out for classic fantasy. I have used the supplement a lot in system design and thinking about Mythras and how it works. I’ve used it for assistance with cult design and culture design.

I have not run a lot with it, sadly.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

I have pulled the monsters and weapons out for classic fantasy. I have used the supplement a lot in system design and thinking about Mythras and how it works. I’ve used it for assistance with cult design and culture design.

I have not run a lot with it, sadly.

It's strange but I hear that so much. Playing in it at the moment I'm beginning to wonder if its common description as a toolkit setting has been a detriment.

 

[Raleel]

It's strange but I hear that so much. Playing in it at the moment I'm beginning to wonder if its common description as a toolkit setting has been a detriment.

For me, it's just been a lack of opportunity, but. wanted to pull some stuff in. The MI giant centipedes are much scarier than D&D ones, and i would highly recommend.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

One bump only. I think the lack of responses confirms my suspicion that Monster Island is largely an unsung gem.

 

[Loz]

Design Mechanism-Monster Island - a (long overdue) review

I've placed a very abridged version of this review on Lulu, where I recently purchased the hard-back book. Monster Island is a stand-alone, setting ag

www.tapatalk.com

 

[CRKrueger]

I hope not unsung by Mythras fans, because it’s more than a campaign setting, it’s a great example of how to tune Mythras for Sword and Sorcery without narrative stuff or 4th wall breaking genre mechanics. It also has gobs of new monsters, lizard men and snake men races, snake men High Sorcery magic, poisons, diseases, dimensional portals, all kinds of cool stuff to use even if your PCs never set foot on the island.

Spoiler: GMs Only

There’s even Kaiju, if the name didn’t give it away.

I’d argue it’s more Hyborian than Nehwonish, but the GM’s advice on Sword and Sorcery is great. The only thing “lacking“ about it is, after seeing the Mythic Britain Companion, I would have liked to see a complete cult breakdown of all the gods, similar to what was done with Mithras in Mythic Britain.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

Design Mechanism-Monster Island - a (long overdue) review

I've placed a very abridged version of this review on Lulu, where I recently purchased the hard-back book. Monster Island is a stand-alone, setting ag

www.tapatalk.com

John mentioned he was doing this, it’s what prompted me to ask. MI really is undervalued by the RPG community as a whole.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

CRKrueger its well loved by us Mythras fans but it seems mostly as a toolkit rather than a setting in its own right.

I am of course happy to be corrected. Our current game is, as I’ve said repeatedly, an absolute hoot.

 

[Baragei]

I've been guilty of referring to Monster Island as the (original) Mythras Companion. I don't feel this is a wrong take, but it is still doing it a disfavour.

 

[CRKrueger]

CRKrueger its well loved by us Mythras fans but it seems mostly as a toolkit rather than a setting in its own right.

I am of course happy to be corrected. Our current game is, as I’ve said repeatedly, an absolute hoot.

Well, if you define a campaign setting as a world, then Monster Island isn’t a setting. If you count a place large enough to spend a whole campaign in, as well as multi-dimensional portals that could take you anywhere as a campaign setting, then it is.

I mean yeah there’s dials to tweak magic, but they give you a Monster Island baseline, they just also give you help in tweaking it. If you look at the setting itself, there’s setting-defined Truth there, as well as some setting-defined Secrets there. The toolkit aspects aren’t really “make your own Monster Island” as much as they are “help on tweaking Monster Island to fit your world”.

Who’s to say the island even physically exists on the world in which you can sail to it? Maybe the alignment of the Obsidian Mirrors or some other form of High Sorcery/Hypergeometry moves the island around, and it’s only temporarily on the world in where PCs find it.

Lots of “settings” don’t show a world, or even one full continent, just the campaign area. Considering the possible multi-dimensional aspect of Monster Island I don’t think it’s any less of a setting.

 

[under_score]

Antalon's 18 month update came up on my feed yesterday and has me wanting to dig into Monster Island again. It sounds like it's been a fun campaign.
I think I'd want to run this as a 1930s pulp adventure. Put the players on a boat that that shipwrecks on the island and just play it for sandbox survival. I'd probably swap the lizardfolk for primitive humans with animistic traits.

 

[Raleel]

It’s a really great retrospective too. It’s going to keep going, of course, but some good insights on running a game.

 

[Baulderstone]

I've been guilty of referring to Monster Island as the (original) Mythras Companion. I don't feel this is a wrong take, but it is still doing it a disfavour.

With any good toolbox RPG, it's a good idea to pick up a complete setting even if you plan to do your own thing. I loved Mythras when I first read it, but reading Monster Island and Shores of Korantia really made me appreciate the system.

 

[Raleel]

With any good toolbox RPG, it's a good idea to pick up a complete setting even if you plan to do your own thing. I loved Mythras when I first read it, but reading Monster Island and Shores of Korantia really made me appreciate the system.

For me it was MI and Classic fantasy. It made me have a few data points to be able to see how things worked. Adding in after the vampire wars and shores helped fill it out quite a lot.

 

[CRKrueger]

With any good toolbox RPG, it's a good idea to pick up a complete setting even if you plan to do your own thing. I loved Mythras when I first read it, but reading Monster Island and Shores of Korantia really made me appreciate the system.

Yeah, that’s true, any time there’s a system tweakable enough to be a toolkit, having unique expressions that provide GMs with a detailed example as well as lots of stuff to steal are vital to its adoption. Those examples you give are great and Mythic Britain and the Mythic Britain Companion are awesome also. Even if you don’t have Mythic Britain, get the companion, the Cult of Mithras is worth the price alone.

 

[ReluctantGM]

I got Monster Island when it was first available on PDF. My intent was to mine it for stuff to put in my Magic World Game.

I ended up switching to Mythras so I guess you could say Monster Island was my gateway drug.

 

[AsenRG]

I have been mining Monster Islands for spare parts. But some day I am planning to run it...probably when we get more players that would actually appreciate it. The current ones aren't much into this kind of settings, I've had to admit recently.

 

[Glömmerska]

All the Mythras games I've been in I've GM'ed, and I often like to start players that are new to the system on Monster Island because I think it emphasizes a lot of the system's strengths. I'll mainly be writing from this perspective.

Most of these players have never used any weapons besides their exactly optimal d8 longswords, so they sometimes bring that over when thinking about fighting styles. This changes the first time an island native uses the Impale special effect. This usually is enough to sell them on the combat system entirely.

Having a majority of the island natives not be warriors, but still intent on capturing foes to gain greater social power is a great way to show that not every conflict with violence needs to lead to death. First to 100% social conflicts feel great for the players too, who realize they can negotiate themselves out of tough situations before resorting to rolling initiative (especially those with negative damage mods).

Fatigue levels when wandering through the jungle are a major wake up call to the players wearing heavier armor, and force them to think more about tactics rather than numbers. Harsh penalties of 2/3 or 1/2 normal rolls get them to think.

The utterly bizarre pulpy elements have genuinely intrigued all my players too. Discovering these strange things on an otherwise hostile island just really grabs them. Ancient sorcerous civilizations in the mountains? Weird ghost sucker machine at the end of a path of spooky ghosts? Cursed gold? Sign me up!

The way that Mythras doesn't allow you to use most Professional skills unless you know them gets my players extremely excited anytime they encounter a new tribe, as it means they can potentially learn a new skill and make it useful. It gets every single "type" of my players.


Ultimately, I think the way that the book has scary lethal diseases and monsters, next to complex social webs of tribes, makes it interesting to navigate from a story and mechanical perspective, really hooking players in. With cults, the way to play the game "optimally" is to force yourself to engage with the story being told. Performing an initiation rite and giving the player a new Passion makes them so excited. It's both a great book to run all on its own, as well as a great resource to pull ridiculously wild creatures and ideas from. We've all seen a Chimera, but what about a cow infected with evil carnivorous spider fungus? Monster Island is a hearty 10/10 from me.