Adventure Games Publishing presents the second in a series of new monsters for the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper to populate his dungeons and wilderness. Each installment of the Monstrous Menaces series presents three new monsters for a mere dollar, eminently affordable in today's economy.

The second installment, Monstrous Menaces #2: Blade Dancer, Goblin, and Tharghûl, presents the Castle Keeper with a 5 HD Construct, a 1 HD Humanoid, and an 8 HD Unique Undead. Each entry includes complete listings for the monster's description, organization, ecology, treasure, range, and special abilities.

Blade Dancer
Blade dancers are animated humanoid collections of scores razor-sharp blades, from small 4" knives to great two-handed swords. They whirl about swiftly like dervishes upon the points of their long-sword legs, with four long arms made of broad swords; their "heads" are constructed of many small blades, with pommel stones for "eyes" and a wide mouth made of many knives. For all that they are made of un-living metal the blade dancer often has a menacing, cruel look upon its "face."

Goblin
Goblins are small, gnarled humanoids; in shadows they much resemble thin dwarves, though compared to dwarves they are stooped, their arms and legs are slightly too long for their body, and their head is slightly too large, with overly-large wide pointed ears. In the light the difference is obvious, as goblins have greenish-grey warty skin, and too much black scraggly hair in all the wrong places (and usually little or none on their heads). Goblins have a sickly-sweet smell, like that of a corpse ripened in the sun, and their breath is a stench like rotting onions; most goblin warrens smell not unlike a charnel house in midsummer.

Goblin eyes are round and bulging, and mostly black with large iris and cornea; the white of the orb is invariably shot thick with red blood vessels. Like the eyes of a cat, goblin eyes reflect light in the darkness, a deep, blood-red glitter. They have a long carrot-shaped nose that sits atop a wide, frog-like lipless mouth. Goblin teeth are haphazard at best, with many gaps and broken bits; over time as old teeth are lost new ones grow in, though they grow in uneven and often painfully, such that goblin's gums are ever bleeding and raw. Goblins either have either no chin or far too much of one, with hair as usual only growing in spots rather than in a full-fledged beard.

Note: Monstrous Menaces 2 provides a much-expanded entry for the common goblin race, including full details on goblin vision, language, organization, ecology, culture, religion, gender and family relations coming of age, cleanliness, weapons, armor, treasure, range, combat, and special abilities.

Tharghûl
Tharghûls are the kings of the ghouls and ghasts, the lords of the graveyard and charnel house, despots of sewers and desecrated temples. Where vampires rule, tharghûls tread lightly; where tharghûls dominate, vampires fear to tread.

A tharghûl in its natural form appears to be a walking corpse; some are thin and emaciated, while others are fat and bloated. Skin is usually like that of a corpse, green and pock-marked, often inhabited by worms, and in places sloughing off. The face is a nightmare, with lips long rotted away, long hound-like teeth and fangs, a sunken nose, and bloated, bulging eyes. Hair is usually white, long, and matted with blood or absent. Hands are clawed, with long sharp nails. A tharghûl usually wears clothing as was appropriate to its station, or to its new more powerful position; the clothing often jars grossly with the rotted, stinking body, as it is new and fashionable, though soaked through with blood and covered with gore.