The Bridge of Crows

A wide chasm.  Riches rumored to be on the opposite side.  Murders of crows cawing and hopping about on this side.  If you sleep near the crows they form a bridge in your dreams that you can walk across the ravine.  If you wake while walking the crows fly away leaving you to fall.

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The bridge of crows is from an actual fairy tale I haven't read.  I just saw an illustration of it as I hunted for silhouette material.  It showed up in my dreams chart.  I suppose it's more a location or feature than a monster.

I think I would make it so that one or more players would have to find a way to fall asleep near the crows, even with all the noise.  And it would take 1d6 turns for them to see the bridge and cross it.  Hopefully there is some encounter in the mean time to make things tense.  Maybe something lairs right next to the crow landing.

Crossing the bridge successfully would essentially teleport the character to the other side.
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So, I think that's about the end of my fairy tale run.  I was trying to think of some more direct threats, monsters pcs could actually fight.  But from my experience fairy tale threats are either beaten by simple rules or gobble you up whole-- not much exciting combat going on.  If you've got ideas post them in the comments.

The Russet Bear

The russet bear has reddish hair and likes the sweetest things.  It will follow you about hoping for more if you feed it berries or cream.  Whistle a song it will amble along and dance the happiest dance.  Any who see the Russet Bear dance will wish to join in (save at -2, fairy tale magic is powerful).  It has different dances for different tunes:

The twirling dance (twirling, dizziness afterward, prevents attacking etc.)
The hide and seek dance (all viewers flee while the song lasts)
The ring-around-the-rosy (all viewers come in close and link hands)
The single file dance (all viewers form a conga line and follow the bear which will follow the tune maker)
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Set a simple tune that players might know like Happy Birthday or the Do Re Mi song, or the William Tell Overture for each specific dance.  That way players will have to experiment a bit to discover the different dances.  And have actually actually whistle the tunes they are trying, heh.  The song doesn't have to be whistled in game, players could use instruments or hum.  To clarify who is affected you could say anyone whistling along is not.  So the whole party can be safe as a dance starts and savvy foes might start whistling too.

The bear will usually wander off in the night unless the party goes to great pains to keep it stocked on lots of sweet foodstuffs.

So the bear is less a monster than an awkward magic item.  I tried to keep the dances whimsical but potentially useful-- say the players are ambushed and have the bear tagging along-- start up the hid and seek dance and the ambushers will clear out giving time for escape.  It might be more about hijinks too, like taking the thing to court and making all the nobles do the conga.  Or I suppose the Russet Bear could be following a troubador npc and be used against the party.

Update: After posting I'm feeling I didn't get the tone quite right here, it's a little too twee.  With the last two posts I was trying to get the creepiness and threat that seems to underlie the apparent childishness of fairy tales.  To get more of that here, I might make the dances more frightening - the twirling dance like the tarantella will dance people to death, maybe add London Bridge which will send dancers over cliffs like waves of lemmings at each chorus of "we all fall down." Something to make players a little afraid of the bear themselves.  Hmm, maybe if you don't keep it fed with sweets it will make you dance.

The Milk Maid

A barefoot, young girl with a wooden pail of warm milk walks in a dangerous place.  Oddly unharmed, she says to the party "All worried and weary come drink from my pail.  Come drink this warm milk and feel hearty and hale."

Drinking the milk will always heal the drinker (2d6 hit points) but other effects depend on the kind of milk it is.  The milk in the pail actually comes from a local denizen, so it might be unicorn, dragon, or ogre (don't think too much about the specifics it's a fairy tale).

Refusing to drink from the pail means the next encounter will be with something that has.  (This will be obvious because of the empty pail nearby or milk dripping from its chin.)

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So, this monster isn't really ready to run out of the box.  You'll need to decide what the milk of each of the creatures on your random encounter table would do (if an ogre drinks dragon milk?  If a unicorn drinks kobold milk?).  If players decide to drink the milk, have them roll on your encounter table what kind of milk it was (it seems funnier and creepier to know you just drank rot grub milk than to just feel the effects).

Also, I think this milk maid would work best with some foreshadowing.  Have the local village peasants arguing about whether you should or shouldn't drink from her pail with examples of what happened when their second cousins did etc.  That way, even her appearance is a kind of an event.

Fairy Tale Spell Names

I was planning on doing more with magical effects charts but work sucked all my mental energy. What I do sometimes when I want to be creative but that muscle is tired is trawl through online books for public domain illustrations. I was going through an old book of Perrault Fairy Tales when I realized that some of the titles would make cool, almost-Vancian spell names. Then I poked around online looking for more possible examples. Here are the best I found:

• The Palace of Revenge
• The Prince of Leaves
• The Fortunate Punishment
• The Impossible Enchantment
• The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs
• The Bright Sun Brings It to Light
• The Crumbs on the Table
• The Thorny Road of Honor
• The Last Dream of the Old Oak
• The Story of the Wind
• Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind
• The Storm Shakes the Shield
• Go I Know Not Whither and Fetch I Know Not What

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to take the title most interesting to you and turn it into an actual spell.