What monsters would fit in well in Louisiana?

[Roxxy]

I'm still hammering away at my campaign setting. You may have seen a couple of the threads around here about it. Aside from switching the tech level from guns nowhere to guns everywhere and back more often than is healthy, things are stable and progressing nicely. Luckily, lots of magitech means that whether or not guns are around isn't particularly important, so I can shelve that for now. It's about time to start writing out a region now that I have a good idea of basic history and race relations. I'm using a North America analogue instead of the more usual European and Asian analogues. After some consideration as to what region to flesh out (I only need one right now), I have decided on an analogue of Louisiana, complete with the blend of French, Spanish, African, and Native American influence that means the real life thing what it is. I like Louisiana because it's exotic, flashy, and interesting, and a fantasy analogue could potentially be even more so. It's different, and I like the idea of starting out with something different for the first region to play in. At the same time, we've all heard of Louisiana. It isn't so different that players can't think of any character concepts or envision what the analogue would be like. This is also very good. I want the players to be able to envision the region.

Now that I know what I want to make an analogue of it, I need to decide what monsters to populate it with. I don't want to just go around picking out things that match the local terrain, I want to pick things that feel like they would belong in Louisiana. I'm thinking of looking through the following books for appropriate monsters:

Pathfinder Bestiaries 1, 2, and 3
Dreamscarred Press Psionics Unleashed
3.5 Monster Manual 1
3.5 Libris Mortis
3.5 Draconimicon
3.5 Book of Exalted Deeds
3.5 Book of Vile Darkness
Legends and Lairs Necromantic Lore
Legends and Lairs Seafarer's Handbook
Seas of Blood

As I said, I don't want to just use the terrain recommendations to pick monsters. I want to pick things that feel appropriate to Lousiana's flavor, not things that just happen to be tagged as being things that live in the terrain. From the books listed above, what do you guys think would fit?

[Pokonic]

Plenty of Pathfinders creatures would fit fine in the place. The third one has plenty of gems, from flashy gunslingers that can be refluffed as restless ruffans too plenty of seadwelling folk who could easly pass as Cajun-flavered seafood-grilling fun-loving locals that you do not wish to mess with. Also, creatures like the Hodag and the Frogemoth would all be interesting encounters in the swamps, and always look for the Juju zombie and other fun things. Evil shapeshifters like Boogimen and the like might walk around unharmed and unnoticed during a Mardi Gras-style festival, chatting with unaware folk and able to take the most insane forms without fear of being found out. Those people in bird masks may not be wearing masks...

You might best decide if there is actualy going to be a race that introduced the french side of the culture or not, because if that is so then they might have brought some things with them that would normaly not be there at all. For instance, if you have Dwarves being the "french" side of the component, you might have wild populations of underground critters adapted to the swamps and outskirts.

[00dlez]

The first thing I thought of when you mentioned LA were swamp creatures which includes "classic" animals like crocodiles and snakes. While certainly applicable, these encounters might get boring pretty quick, especially for more advanced players, so I would recommend limiting these encounters to perhaps one or two early on to "set the scene" so to speak and then skip them (maybe the occasional night time encounter to remind them of whats out there).

Moving to more intriguing things, poisons and disease have always seemed like swampy things to me. Perhaps include a "swamp people" tribe of bog dwellers that use poisoned blow darts and weapons when attacking. These could be any number of more barbaric races, perhaps swamp goblins or even trolls if you are feeling extra nasty. Description is half the battle here, having the stench of the unbathed, muck covered folk over power the PCs (things like sickened/nauseating effects could be used or just alluded to).

Depending on the level/type of campaign, just living or moving through a large swamp is challenging. Fresh and drinkable water isn't always readily available, party must keep their food dry, getting a fire going to dry off at night is a challenge; and all this on top of the creepy/crawly encounters, dealing with poisons and disease and the like. A prepared and magic capable party can easily overcome these mundane challenges... but will they have enough resources to competently fight as well? Planning enough environmental challenges can put the PCs at a large disadvantage when combat arrives.

Love the cultural aspects you are dragging in, not widely tapped in fantasy games... I'll have to revisit that idea in some of my campaigns in the future.

[The Durvin]

My suggestion is to look up some of the local folklore and adapt it to gaming purposes. This will be especially easy if you consider New Orleans to be part of the Louisiana you're using. Vampires, first of all. Dire crocodiles. Voodoo queens (and deities). Assorted ghosts.

There's also Loup-Garous, generally regarded as just werewolves, but they've got other things going on; I read one source where they fly around on giant bats and drop down chimneys. They seem to me to be more like angrier vampires than werewolves; they drink blood and share the whole OCD thing with vampires, where you can keep safe from them by leaving something for them to count.

And then there's mysterious serial killers, the Night Doctors. They were shadowy figures that came out at night in search of cadavers for medical experimentation; subsets include the Needle Men, who wield syringes of poison, and the Black Bottle Men, who carry glass flasks.

If you're looking for something more bestial, there have been cases of huge prize-winning pigs escaping and going feral out in the bayous. Pigs can apparently turn back to their wild boar roots pretty quick, and when you're looking at a pig that's nine feet long. (See "Pigzilla", although that particular instance was in Alabama.) There's hoop snakes, joint snakes; there's the Swamp Ape, a sort of bayou Bigfoot.

[emeraldemon]

Nitpick: Louisiana has alligators, not crocodiles :) no real difference from a monster point of view, alligators are slightly smaller (average 11 ft vs. 13 ft).

Louisiana also has plenty of poisonous snakes: rattlesnakes and copperheads in the forests, cottonmouths in the rivers and swamps.

[darkhunterjag]

Displacer Beasts

[The Glyphstone]

That Damn Crab could be repurposed as as Dire Crayfish in a pinch.