#bowelfly

[gachimushi]

Brother Gregor spending his morning in the garden.

[dimetrodone]

My art for @bowelfly ‘s 2025 “Hydraphone” game!

Was quite surprised to find out most of the other submissions for this game have been wizardly insects, but I’m always happy to draw a cowboy newt.

[thecreaturecodex]

Wheel of Monsters

Image © @bowelfly

[April Fools! Like previous April Fools' monsters I've done, this is intended to be fully usable at table, just... weird. Most of my previous April Fools monsters have been pop culture references, and this one is, just a little slantwise. The expression "wheel of monsters" has been rattling around my head for years, inspired by game shows and game show parodies like Wheel of the Worst. The monsters its summons pulls from by default are mostly ones on the Codex, but I've included guidelines on how to customize it if you don't want to look up a whole bunch of bespoke stat blocks (assuming, of course, anyone actually uses this abomination at table).]

Wheel of Monsters CR 15 CE Aberration This thing is a quadruped with a long tail and clawed limbs, but its semblance to sane life ends there. Instead of a head, it has a vertically oriented dial with twelve facets, each with a different combination of eyes, teeth and strange glyphs. A single eye sits in the center of the wheel atop the axle. Spikes protrude forward from the edge of the wheel, plucked by a stinger at the end of a long tail. Said tail also has a strange flap on it that has the appearance of a sign, or possibly scoreboard.

The wheel of monsters is a strange tool in the service of the Dominion of the Black. They were invented by the daelkyr Harsanash, whose interests lie in the role that chance events play in increasing entropy and the downfall of complex systems. The wheels of monsters exploit chance by generating random spells and summoning random monsters, drawn from distant worlds under Dominion control or the depths of the Dimension of Dream. These far-flung summons have already had disastrous effects, as now both the quori and beholders know about Golarion and its corner of space, and gaze upon it with envious eyes.

Despite their grotesque appearances, wheels of monsters are quite intelligent—geniuses by the standards of humanoids. They tend to have something of a split personality; obsequious and loyal to higher ranking Dominion creatures, even less powerful ones, but snide and condescending to most other lifeforms. Most wheels of monsters have a fondness for cracking jokes and giving color commentary during combat. All of its many mouths are capable of speech, and it can alter the pattern and coloration on its tail flap with incredible precision in order to spell out words in any language it knows. A common behavior is to speak primarily through one mouth, with an unctuous tone, while making sounds like crowd noises and cheers with its other maws.

A wheel of monsters is usually on the move in combat, stalking from place to place in order to better make use of their spells. They are excellent climbers and have at least the possibility of flight through their random spellcasting, and so prefer to have a birds-eye view of the action in order to better place monsters or effects. A wheel of monsters keeps its tactics flexible, but almost always summons a monstrous minion as soon as it can to engage foes. In melee, they can sting with their plectrum tails, inducing confusion in foes, and grab with their claws. They prefer to split those attacks up, stinging enemies to disrupt their tactics and then focusing the bulk of their violence on a single target. If a wheel of monsters has a foe grabbed, it lowers its spiked face on top of their victim and spin it, tearing with all of its spikes and teeth simultaneously. When fighting on their own terms, wheels of monsters will gladly flee a losing fight, but gladly sacrifice their lives in order to promote the objectives of their superiors.

Appropriately enough for a creature of weaponized chance, different wheels of monsters may be able to call forth different spells or summons by spinning their wheels. In order to adjust the wheel of monsters’ spellcasting spin, replace some or all of the spells with spells of the appropriate level. A wheel of monsters can call upon two spells of each level from 1st to 6th. In order to adjust the wheel of monsters’ summoning spin, replace some or all of the monsters with monsters of the appropriate challenge rating. A wheel of monsters can summon two monsters of each CR between 8 and 13.

Wheel of Monsters CR 15 XP 51,200 CE Large aberration Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +27

Defense AC 29, touch 17, flat-footed 24 (-1 size, +4 Dex, +1 dodge, +3 luck, +13 natural) hp 225 (18d8+144) Fort +17, Ref +16, Will +16 Immune curses, disease, poison Defensive Abilities fortune’s favor

Offense Speed 40 ft., climb 30 ft. Melee 2 claws +19 (1d8+7 plus grab), sting +19 (2d6+7 plus confusion) Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with sting) Special Attacks rake (bite, 4d8+7), spellcasting spin, summoning spin

Statistics Str 24, Dex 19, Con 27, Int 20, Wis 14, Cha 21 Base Atk +13; CMB +21 (+25 grapple); CMD 36 (40 vs. trip) Feats Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Nimble Moves, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack Skills Acrobatics +25 (+29 jumping), Bluff +17, Climb +30, Fly +11, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (arcana, planes) +23, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +26, Perception +27, Spellcraft +20, Stealth +18; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Common, Protean, Undercommon, telepathy 100 ft. SQ no breath

Ecology Environment any land or underground Organization solitary Treasure standard

Special Abilities Confusion (Su) A creature stung by a wheel of monsters must succeed a DC 24 Will save or be confused, as per the spell, for 1 minute. If the confused creature gets the “act normally” result two turns in a row, the effect ends early. This is a mind-influencing compulsion effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Fortune’s Favor (Su) A wheel of monsters has a +3 luck bonus to its AC and to its saving throws. Spellcasting Spin (Su) At will as a standard action, a wheel of monsters can spin its wheel to cast a random spell. These function as the spell cast at CL 15th, except that it does not provoke attacks of opportunity and the save DC for all of these abilities, if applicable, is DC 24. The save DC is Charisma based. The wheel of monsters can choose the target or area of the spell as normal for any legal target after determining the spell cast. Roll a d12 to determine the spell cast each time the wheel of monsters uses this ability 1. magic missile 2. mage armor 3. blur 4. scorching ray 5. fly 6. lightning bolt (Reflex half) 7. enervation 8. fire shield 9. cone of cold (Reflex half) 10. spell resistance 11. disintegrate (Fortitude partial) 12. globe of invulnerability Summoning Spin (Su) As a standard action, a wheel of monsters may spin its wheel to summon a random monster from the following table. Monsters summoned in this fashion appear within 60 feet of the wheel of monsters and remain for 15 minutes or until dismissed. A wheel of monsters can use this ability as many times per day as 3 + its Charisma modifier (8/day for an average specimen), but can have no more than one monster summoned at a time through this method. Roll a d12 to determine the monster summoned each time the wheel of monsters uses this ability: 1. animate dream 2. neh-thalggu 3. aros 4. quori, hashalaq 5. rukanyr 6. yad-pollom 7. p’nahki 8. quori, du’ulora 9. garsonite 10. gogiteth 11. beholder 12. ectodactyl

[blossompigeon]

IT’S OUT!! IT’S OUT!!!

I was part of an incredible 72 artist strong Art Telephone which spanned the length of 14 months, and it finally concluded recently!! This was hosted by the incredible @bowelfly who did an absolutely amazing job wrangling this massive job! I’ve never been more proud to be part of an artistic project, truly.

Here’s my piece! I ended up drawing and finishing this whilst moving house which was INTERESTING. Despite this, I’m proud of my piece :) I STRONGLY recommend you to go through this telephone RIGHT NOW and look at all the incredible, incredible art. There’s shrimp! There’s bobbitworms! There’s eels! There’s fantastic beasties! Seeing this being revealed live was unforgettable.

[skelizard]

Oh yeah I forgot to post this when they came in but everyone should go n buy @bowelfly's stickers, just sayin'.

[futurebird]

Foolishly bowelfly offered to draw "any bug for $4" so I started asking for ants… and stopped after six to advise them to please raise their prices before it got exploitative.

Just look at these girls!

I resized them to show their very different scales. I love ants so much. Thank you for these drawings.

[amusedreams]

I … know it’s a beautiful black and white sketch as opposed to the mixed media @tkingfisher does, but I still feel like she’d appreciate Brother Ignatz.

Brother Ignatz trying to get out of dish duty by pretending to be a stand of reeds. again.

[onenicebugperday]

Cassidine beetle, Elytrogona quatuordecimmaculata, Cassidinae

Found in the Dominican Republic and Haiti

Photo 1 by pedrogenarorodriguez, 2 by renedurocher,and 3 by franklinhowley

[mineral-vulture]

Attack to @bowelfly featuring Shrewblin!

He attacka with a spoon! Also, yes this is inspired by the Tonberry summon attack from FF8.

[fleshwizard]

Junkbrass

[chalkrub]

some scrimbles for @bowelfly as part of a trade <:^) the wickedly talented brother gregor and trungo

[gachimushi]

My piece for Hydraphone 2025!! I don’t normally work in sculpture or 3D but this was a fun foray into it. Made the isopod, saddle stand and weevil man with sculpey. Colored with acrylics and decorated with fabrics and thread. Paper figures done in ink and watercolour. Paper and foam board for the background.

Thanks to @bowelfly for organizing this! Check out the tag to see art from the 84 other artists that participated!

[lymphwyrm]

My piece for @bowelfly’s hydraphone 2025, with special thanks to team captain @blossompigeon!

Alternate color wip:

[thecreaturecodex]

Thanks to @bowelfly expanding out into stickers, I now have a sticker of this design! I love it!

Desert Beeple

Image © @bowelfly, accessed at his tumblr here

[For the neural network monsters, I asked some of my friends who are artists if they would design an illustration based on the names. Which turned this into a game of creature telephone. I’m very pleased with how things turned out.]

Desert Beeple CR 6 N Magical Beast This ebony beetle is larger than a camel. Its face is an open cone, like a megaphone, and it gives a cacophonous call.

The caravans and nomads of the desert dread hearing an eerie, atonal honking drifting over the vast expanse, as that indicates that the desert beeple is abroad. A desert beeple is a giant insect of faint intelligence, and its song distracts and confuses those that hear it. Desert beeples are voracious and wandering omnivores, and they happily prey upon the stores carried by merchants and the merchants alike. The jaws of a desert beeple are small and contained within its horn-like musical mouthparts, so unlike many monstrous beetles a desert beeple cannot bite. They instead reduce food to a thick paste by crushing it, and then siphon it into their mouths.

Desert beeples are frequently solitary, as they require plenty of food, but in good conditions they can gather in small social groups, serenading each other with their beeping cries. Oases are particularly tempting targets to desert beeple clusters, and many merchant groups will pay highly to rout these monsters from a conveniently located oasis. A desert beeple stands four feet tall at the shoulder, grows to eight feet long and weighs more than a thousand pounds.

Keep reading

[valdevia]

Brother Alfons could never sit still during morning prayer.

A little monastic jerboa for @bowelfly!

[solidagold]

Shrew monks for @bowelfly :] part of an art trade