Hyperborea 3e Dungeon Encounter Tables (Levels 1-2)

What is this and why are we here? 

A few days ago, on the official Northwind Adventures Discord server, there was a request for dungeon encounter tables for Hyperborea 3e. There are currently brilliant regional encounter tables on the official Hyperborea website by Ben Ball. The very great and sweet Len presented the idea to use the "Dungeon random Monster Level Determination Matrix" from AD&D's DMG (p.174).

I am attempting here to present a solution that doesn't get me in trouble with any lawyers, so I am going to use the "Monster Sub-Table Matrix" from OSRIC 2e (p. 168) and I am not going to copy over any monster stats from the Hyperborea books. Regarding the encounter matrizes, OSRIC does it with a d12 instead of a d20, groups together levels 1-2 instead of 2-3, but overall seems to achieve pretty similar results.

Procedure (ripped from OSRIC and AD&D)

1. Choose the dungeon level (e.g. distance to the surface or just make it up, I am not your boss; and even if I was, you probably shouldn't listen ...)
2. Roll a d12 to choose a monster table
3. Roll a d100 on the appropriate monster table to choose a specific monster
4. Roll to determine the amount of monsters encountered

You should know the level and then you roll thrice, easy peasy. I will try to condense the information for you as much as possible to make it even easier. If you want a PDF, Excel sheet or a script (either to download or as a tool on this blog), ask for it and I might deliver.

Level 1-2

d12 roll	Monster Table (HD)
1-8	1
9-11	2
12	3

I might need to do something about the table layouts...

Monster Tables

Now Len's idea comes into play: If we now put in hyperborean monsters from pages 145ff.  from Hyperborea 3e's Referee Guide (Jeff, I hope it's fine by you), we can easily construct level-appropriate dungeon encounters. I especially focused on dungeons, so no water encounters, less animals no lieutenants on their own.

This is my first iteration, it might be a good idea to somehow get all possible monsters in a table or another, create something for water encounters or have more coherent themes (e.g. bandits, orcs, fungi, animals, animal-men, undead, daemons, etc.). Maybe a Monster Table 0 with all the monsters with less than a full hit die would be cool? You can of course change and remix them as you see fit, as you can (and should) do with any material!

I went along with OSRIC's procedure which puts 20 monsters into each monster table, so a few monsters had to be cut; I included the monsters by my personal preferences. Each table holds 5 very rare (2% encounter chance), 4 rare (3%), 6 uncommon (5%) and 4 common (10%) monsters. Lair encounter number (the ones in parentheses) probably won't be applicable for random dungeon encounters but I chose to include this info here. 

Monster Table 1 

d100	Monster Encountered	Page	Number Encountered
01-02	Dragonfly, Giant	63	2d4
03-04	Ferret, Giant	67	1d6
05-07	Daemon, Lesser, Class iii	49	1d8
08-11	Beetle, Giant Fire	32f.	1d6 (2d6)
12-15	Daemon, Lesser, Class ii	49	1d8
16-20	Daemon, Lesser, Class i	49	1d8
21-25	Bird-Man	33f.	3d4
26-30	Ape-Man	24	1d6 (6d6)
31-40	Cave-Man	35f.	1d6 (6d6 or 10d6)
41-50	Skeleton	114	2d4 (10d20)
51-60	Dog, Wild	63	2d8
61-70	Human Bandit	80	2d6 (1d10x10)
71-75	Fish-Man Hybrid	69	2d6 (5d20x10)
76-80	Stirge	123f.	2d6 (4d6)
81-85	Snake, Spitting Cobra	116	1 (1d6)
86-89	Human, Wild Berserker	81	1d6 (5d10)
90-93	Orc	101f.	1d6 (1d8x10 or 5d10x10)
94-96	Bee, Giant Queen	32	1
97-98	Night-Gaunt Youngling	98	1d6
99-00	Worm of Ymir	140	3d4 (1d12x10)

Monster Table 2 

d100	Monster Encountered	Page	Number Encountered
01-02	Spider, Giant Crab	121	1d4+1
03-04	Mustard Mould	96	1
05-07	Daemon, Lesser, Class v	50	1d6
08-11	Daemon, Lesser, Class iv	50	1d8
12-15	Bandogg (Dog-Man)	29	1d8 (2d10)
16-20	Bat, Giant	31	1d10 (1d10x10)
21-25	Green Slime	77	1
26-30	Ghoul	72	1d6 (2d8)
31-40	Troglodyte	132	2d4 (1d6x10)
41-50	Zombie	142f.	1d6 (4d6)
51-60	Fish-Man	68	2d6 (2d4x10)
61-70	Wolf	138	2d4 (1d12+6)
71-75	Lizard-Man	86	1d6 (1d6x10)
76-80	Hyena-Man (Gnoll)	81f.	1d6 (6d6)
81-85	Snake-Man	118	1 (2d12)
86-89	Zombie, Gloom-Eater	142f.	1d6 (4d6)
90-93	Beetle, Giant Bombardier	32	1d4 (4d6)
94-96	Mummy, Ice, Thrall	96	4d6 (4d6x10)
97-98	Automaton, Crystal	26	1
99-00	Snake, Asp	115	1 (2d4)

 

Monster Table 3

d100	Monster Encountered	Page	Number Encountered
01-02	Crab, Giant	41	1d4 (4d4)
03-04	Daemon, Lesser, Class viii	52	1d6
05-07	Daemon, Lesser, Class vii	51	1d6
08-11	Daemon, Lesser, Class vi	51	1d6
12-15	Tick, Giant	126	1d6 (3d12)
16-20	Vhuurmis (Beast-Man)	136	2d6 (5d6)
21-25	Skeleton, Large	114	1d6
26-30	Fungus, Shrieker	70	2d6
31-40	Toad, Giant	128	1d6
41-50	Crab-Man	42	1d6 (4d6x10)
51-60	Grey Ooze	77	1
61-70	Wolverine	139	1d2
71-75	Zombie, Intestine	143	1d6+5
76-80	Shadow	112	1d4
81-85	Spore-Man	122f.	1d3
86-89	Snake, Python	115	1 (2d4)
90-93	Lycanthrope, Wererat	88	1 (2d6)
94-96	Bear, Black	31	1 (1d3)
97-98	Pterodactyl	106	1 (5d6)
99-00	Frog, Giant	69	2d6 (4d6)

See you! 

Write to me, if you see any typos, disagree with me, see some copyright issues, want to see different tables, different formats or want me to delve a few levels deeper to bring back more monster tables.