Use these guidelines to create an original monster to challenge your characters in combat. You can build a monster ahead of time or on the fly during a game session.

Step 1: The Monster's Story

What does it look like? Is it intelligent? How does it react to strangers? In a movie, what would its attacks look like?

This bestiary can be used with 5E or Level Up. If you’re using 5E, you’ll want to be aware of a few rules changes which we’ve introduced. These changes will be discussed in greater detail further on in this introduction.

Alignment: Few monsters have an alignment. Those that do (mostly celestials, fiends, and some undead) have their alignment listed among their traits.

Treasure comes in two main forms: wealth (coins, gems, and salable valuables like jewelry, equipment, and art) and magic items (such as magic weapons, rings of invisibility, and so on). Treasures are physical objects. Information, allies, fame, and fulfillment of the party’s goals and ambitions are desirable, and can often be earned along with treasure, but are not treasure.

The primary way that adventurers are rewarded is with experience points (gaining new class levels the more they accrue) and treasure like gold or magic items. These aren’t the only ways that they can advance in level however, nor the only way the Narrator can reward the party. 

The world can be a dangerous place and the environment might pose a deadly threat all by itself. In addition to their inherent danger, encounter elements offer ways to enhance the perils of exploration challenges or combat to make both more satisfying. A duel atop a bridge or traversing a narrow crossing is all the more exciting when deadly lava runs below rather than rushing water, and a hallway fight or dungeon trap with a plethora of green slime is a different kind of challenge altogether!

Creating a world for a campaign might mean putting a castle in the Crawley Hills between Northminster and Holdenshire, including a new settlement or region in another existing setting, or building an entire world for the adventurers to discover and explore. Whether the scope of the undertaking is small or grand, clarifying the goals of worldbuilding and the approach being taken makes the task much more manageable.

The Narrator’s job in Level Up is to guide the story and create the world for the other players to adventure in. This includes all of the elements required to create that adventure. The Narrator builds a world and populates it with monsters, people, treasure and traps. They create villains in their towers, allies met on the road, angry blacksmiths and bar staff in posh parlours. The Narrator also runs combat, acts as rules referee, lore repository, and of course improvises when the unexpected happens.

The influence of the plane Amrou has enhanced the effectiveness of mundane items in fending off the supernatural. What once were mere superstitions now can have meaningful effect, such as using a line of salt to block the advance of a ghost, or ringing a bell to drive back a demon. 

Nonmagical items that possess the ability to avert evil influences are collectively called apotropaics, and they are particularly common in Crisillyir, where such threats are most famous.