I’m a firm believer in the beg, borrow, and steal tactics of monster design.

If it works in 5E, can I get it to do the thing in Dragonbane? Flee Mortals converts so nicely into Shadowdark RPG and other old school games as well. A lot of the creatures therein have enough abilities that it doesn’t take much to convert them into Dragonbane. Plus that whole encounter balancing notion goes right out the window in Dragonbane. (*Unless you’re a really super nice GM.)

So far the only difference I see mechanically is that Dragonbane really only scales up to about 10 Hit Dice in Flee Mortals!. Dragonbane characters don’t gain Hit Dice as they advance. To my knowledge there is no way for Dragonbane characters to gain Con or HP as they advance. Magic item finds to raise Attributes might be shoehorned into the game, but such gains would be minimal at best. Anything bigger than 10 HD in Dragonbane has a pretty good chance of squishing a party of 6 hearty, seasoned adventurers. (*Hopefully seasoned with Lemon Pepper and tarragon for the discerning culinarian dragon.)

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

I think eyeballing some of the conversions is pretty simple.

Flee Mortals! By MCDM

Orcs are still orcs. Kobolds are still small and squishy humanoids. A lot of these creatures tend to fight like NPCs in Dragonbane. It’s pretty easy to figure out. Most of them will have pretty mediocre Hit Points, maybe some armor, normal weapons, spells, etc.

It’s when we start getting into Owlbears and Treants things get a little more exciting. In many cases we have comparisons to draw from. The Dragonbane Bestiary has additional entries that somewhat correspond with Flee Mortals! creatures. If you have ever wanted a monster book to do more, be more, and work for more than one game– Flee Mortals! has it all.

Flee Mortals! has a nice take on Environments, too.

Since Dragonbane is a little more down-to-earth Old School roleplaying, terrain and environmental circumstances play as much into an encounter as the creatures themselves. Challenging some beasties on their home field is almost certain doom in some cases.

The Enchanted Forest terrain really jumped out at me (Pg 299.) It had that kind of Princess Mononoke vibe combined with a little bit of Warcraft. (Don’t judge.) I thought the Empyrean Stag and the Rotbeast really stood out in terms of powers and abilities to make a slick couple of Dragonbane bosses. Although much like many Dragonbane Demons and Dragons, the huge high end, high HP, and huge magic abilities are going to require the characters to pursue other avenues besides combat.

Only for my home game.

I love Flee Mortals! and using/abusing it for other games. However I tend to think in terms of what I can publish. I don’t work for MCDM Publishing, so that ain’t gonna happen.

Flee Mortals! is a terrific sourcebook. I was happy for Matt Colville and company seeing it go up on that 5E website. That having been said it will now forever be trapped in the 5E ecosystem. That is not to say we can’t shamelessly pilfer ideas for our home games from Flee Mortals! or any sourcebook for any other fantasy game. (*D’hyuck. Hold mah coffee. I’ll F🦆🦆ing do it again!)

My friendly publishing advice is please don’t use someone else’s copyrighted IP in any module, sourcebook, or core game without their expressed written permission. Sure, the Valok look and sound cool. I’ll totally use them in my home game. I probably won’t be putting the Dragonbane stats for them on here either. If you ever do go to publish something out of someone else’s book- be sure to change up the look, the art, the name, and the stats to the point where it’s completely distinguishable from the original. (*Or just make a new creature altogether that does the same thing you were trying to do.)

Happy adventuring. More tomorrow. Loving Dragonbane. We still need to talk about Magic and Combat.

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.