This’ll be a slightly different Monster Mania. Usually I talk about a lore heavy monster with abilities and powers that have the potential to rock the material plane. This time around I want to discuss the Giant Fire Beetle. A humble little guy. He hasn’t much to offer, but what he does have is nostalgia for me. Way in the early days of my interest in Dungeons & Dragons I was a novice at best player, and soon to be fledgling Dungeon Master.

I had almost zero clue what I was doing. Used what online resources I could find, and played on a brand new, rollable battlemap on the floor. It would be far to long before we would use an actual table to play. It’s been a long time since this and I have a hard time remembering all the details about that first time DMing. I have a very vivid memory of the first encounter I made for my players. It was in a forest not far from a singular ship dock. In that forest was a couple of Giant Fire beetles.

While my players were level 1 a couple of these beetles were no problem for them. It was a solid learning experience on how to structure combat and these little guys were a big help. Probably the biggest lesson I learned was it was far more fun to start a few levels higher than 1 when starting a new campaign. It’s wild to see how long it’s been since I first Dm’ed, and even longer still since I first played D&D. I am so happy to be apart of this hobby and can’t wait to come up with more stories for my players.

Thanks for reading Dungeoneers, I hope you enjoyed this new installment. If you liked what you read please consider donating to my ko-fi! Till next time.