Ki-rin and Bear It

There is some fascination with super high-powered monsters that has always been a part of D&D.  Since I start parties off at first level and make them work their way up, no exceptions, and since I am notoriously parsimonious with experience, I don't have a lot of use for these monsters.  I've run a straight-up no-holds barred beholder fight in a campaign just one time, and it was a serious pasting for the party.  I was young and dumb at the time, that being the 1980s.  I did not use the monster as sharply as I could now, so if that same 10th level party ran into one today, that would have been a TPK.

I've never thrown a lich at a party.  I've had them moving around in the background, but never actually had one come face to face; never engaged one in combat.  I can say that about a lot of monsters, particularly those in the books that were so obscure that I would forget they even existed for years at a stretch.  For example, the ki-rin.

This thing drifts onto two colums, but I've stacked the text to make a clean picture.  This thing is staggeringly overpowered; it has so many abilities that I doubt I'd use them all in a fight, even if a party were to take on the thing.  And psionics too ... gawd, to think I used to play with psionics.  But, as I said, I was young once.

This creature does have a precedent, but it's more properly called a "Qilin."  The wikipedia page discusses how the creature's "one horn" that's shown in the picture is actually quite wrong, and that western assumptions of that kind have produced identifications between the qilin and unicorns that isn't there in Chinese mythology.  Wikipedia spends a bunch of time talking about the association between the qilin and giraffes, which is interesting but more probably a case of certain scholars seeking desperately to write thesis papers.

I have dutifully maintained references to this creature for decades without ever using it.  Frankly, as written here, why would I?  The beast has no personality, no purpose for being other than to harass parties.  I think it was probably seen by one of the founding cronies as some kind of quest-giver.  What party is going to pitch themselves against this, what with the magic, the natural abilities and the psionics.  When this thing shows up and tells you to get the McGuffin, you go get it.

So much power, and so boring.

I've been making decisions about what monsters I want to keep and which I don't.  I had tried to create a form of kapoacinth, or sea-going gargoyle, but lately I decided I really didn't like my attempt and that I didn't like the idea at all.  So I burned it.  I could just as easily do the same with this creature.  And yet ...

Suppose we take the power down a notch or so, get rid of the single horn, give it more of an appearance like the Chinese legend fortold ... and see it as something disinterested in forcing players do quests.  No psionics, of course, and get rid of rules about creating illusions when, in fact, the original rules had no guidelines on how these illusions were supposed to function.  Leave it as having a lot of power, but get rid of any killer aspect the creature might have.  Keep the old D&D name, so I don't need to worry about someone telling me it isn't exactly like a traditional qilin.

Go with something like this:

Full description here.

I really like the picture.  It conveys the gentleness of the creature.  The lighting tempers the creature's golden colour, giving it more of a mystical feel and less of a garish cartoony feel.  The beast is simply enormous; and using my hit points per die rules, the number of hit points it has is virtually doubled.  The wiki page goes through a proper description of the powers, basing them on existing game elements.  And the one ability, that it can create any magic item at will, makes the ki-rin itself the quest, as players decide they want something specific and all they have to do is successfully find the beast and convince it that the player's need is worthy.

I also take a little humour in that, after decades of doing nothing with the beast, I happen to run across it now, as my daughter is just 4 weeks or so out from giving birth.  See?  Says it right in the description.  The beast is equated with the arrival of a baby to a family.

Nice.