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It goes without saying that monkeys are horrid, creepy little monsters. They are neither fully beast nor fully man, but something abominable in between.

How have you used monkeys in your campaigns?

The first time I ever used a random encounter chart. I rolled "rock baboons" as my party was traveling between dungeons in the mountains. It was the most intense fight of the entire game, with only one character left to drag their friends back to town for healing.

One of the treasures, when they finally did raid that dungeon, was a small stone baboon statue which prevented rock baboons from attacking its wielder.

... I had to man! My wife said she wouldn't play if she had to fight baboons again!

I did like the time you smoked out the temple full of monkeys with marijuana in order to steal all of their vomit.

Ran a Journey Into The West-themed game in mythic Kung-Fu era China, with one of the players taking the role of Sun Wukong (The Monkey King).

Deadly martial artist chimps are made of Win and run on Awesome.

Quote from: Daztur;942097I did like the time you smoked out the temple full of monkeys with marijuana in order to steal all of their vomit.

Didn't we use that to bribe acorn goblins into attacking the deer-tribe humans?

I ran a superhero campaign where there was a monkey-ape inhabited parallel world with analogues of the PCs that served as their rivals. One PC was the Frontiersman, a survivalist super with powered armor that wore buckskin over it. He had a long standing enmity with the Primatriot, a powered armored wearing monkey with an Uncle Sam costume, over whether the human USA or the monkey USA was the most exceptional USA.

Other than that, all I can think of are the baboons of Runequest's Apple Lane.

I have used "Blood Monkeys" many times when I run Earthdawn games. One of the iconic monsters, imo.

The classic gag is, "The party walks into a tavern, sees an old retired adventurer sitting in the corner missing 2+ limbs. 'Blood Monkeys?' 'AYE, PASSIONS BE DAMNED BLOOD MONKEYS!' "

Here's the book description:

QuoteBlood monkeys are small simians thickly covered in fur of a deep red color. Their bodies rarely exceed 2 feet in length, but they have prehensile tail that add another 2 feet to their overall length. They appear small and harmless, but are actually quite vicious. Sharp claws grow from the ends of their five fingers, and they sport a mouthful of long, needle-sharp teeth. Blood monkeys are found in most areas of the Blood Wood except the Elven Court and the central regions. The Queen’s Blood Warders have taken measures to keep the monkeys away from the Palace and the overwhelming corruption of the Forest’s Heart keeps them far away from the center of the Wood. Blood monkeys typically live in groups of up to one hundred animals, but legends tell of attacks by multiple groups numbering in the thousands. Recently, blood monkey pelts have become a sought-after item in some areas of Barsaive. They sell for roughly 100 silver pieces each.

Rules
Extremely territorial, blood monkeys will attack everything from individuals to whole trade caravans. Typically, up to fifteen of the strongest males in a blood monkey band will initiate an attack by dropping from the treetops onto their targets, usually by surprise. Blood monkeys can attack up to three times in a combat round, clawing and biting. Reinforcements: If any blood monkey’s initial attack causes damage to a victim, the monkeys give a screech that summons five to fifteen more blood monkeys. These “reinforcements” arrive within minutes. If the targets defend themselves successfully against the initial attack, and actually manage to counterattack, the blood monkeys will try to escape.

Quote from: Telarus;942230I have used "Blood Monkeys" many times when I run Earthdawn games. One of the iconic monsters, imo.

Our Earthdawn group never ran into those, but we did have an awful time with some rubbery ape things in the Liaj Jungle... which is not a nice place and I do not recommend going there.

Generally I toss in monkeys when I want a setting to seem 'exotic' or 'wild'.
My homebrew setting has a large tribe of magically uplifted monkeys who wear armor and use weapons... but they've long ago been possessed by demons and pretty much keep to themselves, living among the ruins of the magical laboratories that spawned them.

Quote from: Cave Bear;942100Didn't we use that to bribe acorn goblins into attacking the deer-tribe humans?

Yup the monkeys would eat fruit and then puke it into stone pits where the vomit would ferment. The monkey wine horrific stuff but booze was booze.

Evil flying anthropomorphic monkeys are woefully under-represented in RPGs.

In my GURPS fantasy game I recently used Demon Monkeys who threw fireballs when at a distance, or grappled their opponents and exploded when up close.

I ran a Terra Primate one shot in which the players were accidentally upgraded apes escaping from a lab. There were also zombies involved.

Somewhat to my surprise, my players turned out to know very little about primates. One of them didn't even know what a gibbon was...

This was before the 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie, by the way.

Quote from: Old One Eye;942274Evil flying anthropomorphic monkeys are woefully under-represented in RPGs.

AGREED. Earthdawn got the 'Ice Flyer', a high altitude rock-baboon with wings :shiver:

Image: http://forum.sksf.no/uploads/galleri/1233254338/gallery_183_13_102050.jpg

We even got a mini in the 90s, which was paired with a dwarven Beastmaster adept:
http://s769.photobucket.com/user/TheDreadPolack/media/Miniatures/Earthdawn/0313DwarfBeastmasterwIceFlyer2B.jpg.html?sort=3&o=22

I'd love to see more magically evolved primates in games.



Oh, Earthdawn has big gorilla-forms, and a I think one other monkey-type referenced... Oh yeah the "pangolus" - which in game comes across like "Gurgy" from the Black Cauldron (Chronicles of Prydain books) - they can only acquire language by being around other name-givers and cannot name things themselves. Weird niche.

Oh, and one of the better things to come out of the Cathay book from Redbrick (ED Classic era) that is no longer "official" official cannon, are the Hanuman-style monkey Namegiver race from the jungles of the maylay/indoenesia peninsula.

They have been making it into my games a lot. One of my players got hold of some monkeys that turn into monkey demons during the Demon Moon.

Quote from: Telarus;942427AGREED. Earthdawn got the 'Ice Flyer', a high altitude rock-baboon with wings :shiver:

Image: http://forum.sksf.no/uploads/galleri/1233254338/gallery_183_13_102050.jpg

We even got a mini in the 90s, which was paired with a dwarven Beastmaster adept:
http://s769.photobucket.com/user/TheDreadPolack/media/Miniatures/Earthdawn/0313DwarfBeastmasterwIceFlyer2B.jpg.html?sort=3&o=22

Heck yeah!  More of that you game publisher people!

Frank Baum was pioneering fantasy when Howard and Tolkein were nothing but a glimmer in their respective parents' loins.  More Baum influence!