Hey Mister Jackal Man

 If you're playing in my Ad Astra campaign, you are forbidden to read the Hey Mister Jackal Man post at this time. That means you, with the fox for a head. And you, over there with the halberd.

Jackalmen

    I want to give you an evil humanoid. Something to fill a niche that isn't yet filled by goblins.

    Goblins are an unforgettable concept. They are savage, and cruel, and supernatural. They live in forests, the mountains. They manifest our fears of the wilderness. Their theme is crazy. They steal babies, and worship dark gods, and have horrible goblin names, and horrible goblin dogs, and horrible goblin tortures.

    For this reason, it never made sense to me that you would go to a dungeon somewhere inside of civilization---a ruined library, say---and find goblins. To my way of thinking, goblins exist strictly outside the border of civilization. They are like a barbarian army. They can be fought. They can be kept out. But when you venture outside, when you leave Kansas, you are in their world, and they can get you.

    The Jackalmen are not like barbarians. They are like rats. Not exactly a threat, nor an enemy, but impossible to remove. There is no border. Like rats, or squirrels, they are destructive to our civilization without meaning to be, yet also without caring about us one way or the other. Squirrels are tiny little vandalism machines. They cause billions of dollars in infrastructural damage every year. Does this make them evil? No. But would they stop if they knew that they were destroying our civilization? Also no.

    They live in our ruins. They live in our ghost towns. They live in our abandoned mines, in our sewers, in the quarters of our cities where no one dares walk, in buildings reclaimed by the wild. On the top floors of dungeons.

    Fighting Jackalmen takes on more the aspect of extermination than of war, and like extermination, it is a matter of expediency rather than survival. Jackalmen do not wish us dead per se. And yet, they are also vicious. They are capable of metallurgy and tactics in the way that a goblin is not. They are capable of cruelty and violence in the way only the worst humans are.

    Sometimes they raid isolated villiagers. People who don't know what Jackalmen are like. Just five feet tall and as thin as posts, rat-faced, wielding clubs and wooden spears. They seem pathetic. So two or three of a farmer's sons go off hunting with boar spears or flails. Meat is scarce in a Jackalman's diet, but that night, they will eat well.

    Like sharks or bears, Jackalmen are not dangerous to a professional, but amateurs are dismembered and roasted. 

    Jackalmen have an affinity for animals. Giant rats, giant weasels, wild pigs. It is a natural talent they possess. They are also proficient tunnelers, digging with all four feet and with an innate understanding of engineering, the way a football player needs an innate understanding of calculus to project the arc of a football.

    The one animal they never hang out with is Jackals. It is so, so cheesy to put a humanimal alongside the animal they anthropomorphize. Do you have a pet monkey? Do you ride a giant ape? No, you have a pet dog and you ride a horse. For the same reason, Jackalmen keep pet rats and ride pigs. It's more interesting, more sophisticated.

    Jackalman religion is inchoate. They have been dealt a poor hand in life by the gods (whom they hate. In any town that's been attacked by Jackalmen, the priests are dead and the church burned down.) but they know there is at least one god out there who looks out for them. He has given them strange and profound magical gifts. At any given time, there is one Jackalman (just one, in the whole world) with natural wings. She can fly, and is revered as the living avatar of God by the other Jackalmen. Kill her, and somewhere a Jackalfetus will be born prematurely, already walking and talking, and with a pair of wings. It will not have the memories of its predecessor, nor their personality. In dreams, it will see flashes of past lives.

    Jackalman priests are capable of spellcasting. They have twice as many HP as regular Jackalmen and can cast any Cleric spell up to third level by sacrificing half their current HP. They usually enter battle having already cast Fly on themselves (if this isn't a cleric spell, they can cast it anyway.) They Revifify each other or their leaders, who are usually leveled Fighers or Rangers. They also like to Dispel Magic and Animate Dead. Their priests are incredibly vulnerable (low HP and they sacrifice what HP they have to do magic) but other Jackalmen are fanatically protective of their priesthood. Like Catholics, they believe priests are hand-picked by God.

    The chief will usually have 2 fighter levels, giving him (chiefs are nearly always male, priests nearly always female) an extra 10+d10 HP, second wind, action surge, and a fighting style. Because their strength is pitiful, they favor either Archery or Dueling. Of course, if you're not running 5e, just give them two levels of the fightiest class.

    Their origin is fantasy North Africa or fantasy Middle East, where goblins and orcs are unknown. In these regions, they acquire a small part of the cultured, erudite nature of the locals (in my DnD, Fantasy North Africa has always been where you find slightly out-of-genre stuff like paper money, astrolabes, and science.)

    They all have -2 to attack rolls made in sunlight. In the first room of the dungeon is a giant weasel or giant pig guarding, with a Jackalman handler standing by. Kill him in the first round or he rings his bell and wakes up the whole dungeon. The chief is brave and fights alongside the warriors. There are traps and ambushes. The geography of the dungeon is constructed against you, with blind corners, murder holes, arrow slits. In the last room of the dungeon, you will always find the mewling Jackalman babypuppies, cowering and crying. 

    They have no actual genetic relationship to jackals. Jackals are a minor help against them, because, for whatever reason, jackals can detect Jackalmen. Their hair stands on end, and they growl. There is some ancient, animal hatred of the one for the other.

Kobolds

    If it isn't obvious by now, there are no Kobolds in my DnD world. I replaced them with Jackalmen.

    My Jackalmen have the same stats as Kobolds, except that they are size Medium, and they have 10 (rather than 8) Intelligence.

    There are some serious advantages to rewriting a monster. Essentially the reason to do it is to provoke a realistic player reaction.

    In Dracula, it takes the heroes half the novel to realize they're dealing with a vampire, and another fifty pages to work out what he can do, and how. In Dungeons and Dragons, the DM says "you see a castle on the hill---" and everyone shouts "Vampire!"

    Official DnD products don't work. The original Mind Flayer was a horrifying eldritch alien. You saw those four tentacles on your face and you wondered what the fuck they were for. Then the DM told you to make a saving throw and you failed it and went into a coma because you got mind blasted. Monsters were unfamiliar. But the modern DnD player goes into a session already knowing all eleven rays that a beholder can project, already knowing that Mind Flayers are drug addicts for human gray matter.

    Once, when I was out walking in the woods, I came upon a pack of coyotes. They looked at me, and I at them. I tried to reassure myself that there was only one documented case of coyotes killing an adult human being. But still, my heart was pounding. No doubt the coyotes were just as afraid of me, an animal six times their size, towering four feet over their heads, watching them intently.

    If you're anything like me, it appeals to you, the idea of getting this reaction from your players. But that isn't possible if they can look at a monster and know its CR, know its abilities. If you tell your players they emerge into a clearing and see four dragon-headed men, each one three feet tall, they say "Kobolds? Hah! Only 1/8 CR. Get 'em, boys!" But if they meet the Jackalmen, they will be wary. Does this thing have the HP and Challenge rating of a Kobold? Of a human being? Of an Orc? More? Are four of them a threat? Should we be afraid?

    Should we be afraid?

Stats

Jackalman:

As Kobold, size medium.

Jackalman Priest:

As Kobold, size medium, HP 10.

Spellcasting The Jackalman Priest can sacrifice half her current HP to cast a spell. Her favorites are Revifify, Animate Dead, Fly, and Dispel Magic. Expect the Chief to get resurrected a few times.

Jackalman Chief

As Kobold, size medium, HP 14 + (1d10-1)

Once per fight: Recover 1d10-1 HP as a bonus action.

Once per fight: Take an extra action.

Shortsword +4 to-hit, 1d6+4 piercing damage. Wears leather armor and a shield for AC 15

Jackalman Wingbearer

As Kobold, size Medium. Fly speed 60 feet. Wisdom 18. Fifteen class levels in either Cleric or Druid, so throw on another 15d8-15 HP. Magic resistance to divine magic only.

Jackalman Treasure

Jackalmen have all kinds of strange and terrible things they've hoarded and accumulated. 

Knife of Humanoid Slaying

A magic dagger. +2 versus humans, dwarfs, elves, gnomes, and halflings. When its used against a gnome, the wounds can't be healed naturally.

Bone Spear

+4 to attack rolls against someone who has already been harmed by the bone spear. +4 to attack rolls against someone with less than half their HP. These two effects stack. Exceptionally fragile, so it can be only be used as a thrown weapon, not a melee weapon.

Copper Sickle

First, you cast a spell on the sickle. Then you throw it at someone. If it hits them, they take 1d4+(your STR modifier) damage, and the spell gets cast on them.

Scrolls

Scrolls of evil godless jackalman magic. Can only be used by people who aren't divine spellcasters. Speak with Dead is a favorite, and Dispel Magic.