Nameless Cults VI

I was thinking about Warhammer the other day, and reading some of my old books. I had forgotten for a while how fucking pure it really is, despite cutting my teeth on 40k for years back in the day. (My space marines were consistently mangled by my pal Dave's chaos army).

Games Workshop was tapping into something really special way back in those early days. Is there any point in doing the Lovecraft Mythos, or classic AD&D demon lords, or the absurd profusion of extra-dimensional beings in Paizo's Book of The Damned (which I do like...), when we have the mainlines to our collective unconscious called Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch? 

Just a thought.

CULTISTS OF TSATHOGGUA the demon toad-god, AKA The Hungry One, Zothaqquah

These are good

No. Appearing: 1-6
Alignment: C
Move: 120’ (40’)
Armour Class: 16
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1
Damage: by weapon (whip or club)
Save: D
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: I
Experience: 38

Tsathoggua is a hungry god. Its clergy cast living offerings into the slimy feeding-pits at their temples in the hidden and dark places beyond the Barrier. For those who aren't eaten, another fate is in store:

TRANSFORMATION

Seeking to prove their faith, postulants to the cult of the demon toad will modify their bodies to resemble a frog's: they cut their mouths wider "chelsea grin" style, or have their thumbs broken and reset sideways to bend the same direction as the other fingers. Some graft skin-webbing between their fingers, or immerse themselves in brightly-coloured dyes to remove their humanity. Filing the teeth down flat and even hideous eye surgeries are not unknown. Through these modifications they become closer to the Hungry One and his ascended servants, the tsathar or toad-men.

For initiation into full membership in the cult, they cast themselves into the slime pit that forms the center of every temple of Tsathoggua. These pits could be as simple as a humble cauldron for a minor shrine or the size of foul swimming pool of corruption in the case of a major power center.

Repeated immersions in this primordial mixture renders humanoid flesh down to a soft, spongy material resembling moss or algae. Veteran cultists can be recognized by their pale green, yellow or blue skin and bleary indistinct features - their humanity has been slowly washed away. They don't become slime creatures (we'll save that for another NAMELESS CULT edition), but rather a strange plant-slime-toad hybrid being. This bodily transformation has several effects other than the cosmetic. Cultists' moss-bodies are spongy and absorb blows easily, thus their high natural AC (they don't usually wear armour).

(Player characters without the cult's blessing who get immersed in the slime pit should at the very least take HP damage, if not be dissolved utterly. Tsathoggua is hungry!!!)


SPIRIT ANIMALS

A transformed cultist's moss-body cannot contain an intelligent humanoid's mind or spirit.

Instead, they carry their souls in small animals (reptile, bird or rodent) that live inside their bodies. This spirit-animal IS the cultist in a real sense, their 'body' is like a giant moss-suit controlled from within. This animal can leave the cultist's body to send a message, spy on foes or do any other task its form will allow. While the animal is outside, a cultist's body has only zombie-like intelligence and will continue with whatever task it was last doing when the spirit-animal departed.

If a cultist is killed, his spirit-animal will crawl out of the corpse's mouth in 1d6 rounds. It makes all haste to the temple where it will immerse itself in the slime-pool and grow a new body. This is the equivalent of a Raise Dead or similar spell, the new body is an exact duplicate of the last one.

If the spirit-animal is killed while on a trip outside the cultist's body, it remains alive but near-mindless. It continues with the last thing it was doing before its spirit left, or will follow simple orders given by a cultist of higher rank, a tsathar, or any other frog- or toadlike being.

These unfortunates are used as shock-troops and cheap labour since they don't complain. Without the animating force of a mind or soul, they don't feel pain and cannot recover hit points or heal in any way. You'll encounter many that are missing fingers or even limbs, getting shoved out in front en masse by the cult to mob their opponents and bring them down with sheer numbers. Another vicious 'recruitment tactic' is to immerse hapless villagers in the slime-pool, and then reach down their throats and pull out their spirit-animals...


***** ACHTUNG! PATHFINDER SECTION *****

Since Tsathoggua's cult also exists in Land's End (not all the Nameless Cults do) I have to come up with PF stats for them. I have sworn not to compose a single one of those infernal stat blocks.

Luckily the Tomb of Abysthor has tsathar already! Their stats will work fine for all the transformed cultists, pretty sure they are 2 HD anyway. Postulants can just have basic stats based on race/class, nothing fancy.

***** END DIGRESSION *****

Now let's get back to the important thing...

CULTING!!!

Nameless Cults 666: Reflections of the Solstice / I'm Flaying Everyone

Here we go with some cultishness that for once isn't based in H.P. Lovecraft! 

I'll bet you thought it would never happen. Starting with the heaviest, nastiest, most Black Metal bad guy, the whole reason I'm using the classic demon lords in the first place:

ORCUS!!!
AKA Prince of the Dead, The Goatlord, Yredelemnul, His Corpulence

Why even play Labyrinth Lord without Orcus? He is the game's mascot. The question is how to make him scary, dangerous and interesting? We already have Chthulhu, Azathoth and other extra-dimensional beings inimical to human life and sanity.

The difference has to be interest. Yog-Sothoth doesn't care about you and doesn't even notice its human worshippers, but Orcus Wants You to play Labyrinth Lord! (and for his army of the undying). He answers prayers, gives instructions and sends servants and avatars to Earth, just like normal D&D gods & demons.

If you don't want this guy in your game, then fuck you.

In classic D&D and Labyrinth Lord, Orcus is the lord of the undead, but I've already given some control over undeath to the Esoteric Order of Dagon, who raise the drowned from beneath the waves. Of course lots of people could learn to raise the dead, but I want more flavour.

Since I included muscled-up Chris Moyen goat monsters in my game, they naturally fall under Orcus' purview. Let's say their own legends place him as their ancient progenitor. If this is true, it means they are a race of true demons living on Earth, and should be vulnerable to banishment, holy word, etc, although few pious folks are interested in finding out. No musclegoat-women have ever been spotted, and nobody knows if they are created, summoned through gates from Orcus' realm, or born by some other means.

Orcus also resembles Baphomet, which is interesting. D&D and heavy metal already combine in a great way, but Baphomet means the occult is no longer implied, it MUST be involved. This gives Orcus domain over secrets, forbidden magic and maybe some groups worship him under the guise of some other being, never knowing who they really pay homage to? I see it as Orcus representing all the things your mom's church said D&D was about. Orcus' priests will have special spells, and I can try to base them on historical ceremonial magic to add that little bit of Extra.

The grand-daddy of them all.

To sum up:

Orcus is the demon lord of all black metal topics: undead, goatmen, spikes, whips, church burnings, human sacrifice, the occult and crucifixions. He opposes Christianity (unlike Satanism, which I'm placing alongside Gnosticism, etc as one of many choices in a MUCH more tolerant, polytheistic and unrealistic Judeo-Christian pantheon), countering the ideas of piety, meekness, martyrdom, and heavenly reward with: existing forever among the undead.

He is not charismatic, tempting or sly. He just sits around saying "Hey human, you wanna live forever? Well, here's the next best thing: lichdom, or if you aren't a wizard, maybe as a shadow or wight or something. We'll give you a bunch of skeleton slaves and you can keep all the goth girls to yourself."

"Don't like it? Finger of Death!!"

LICK THE HOOF.

Placing the worship of Orcus in the setting should be quite easy: the historical Orcus was a Roman underworld deity. So I'm thinking Rome made dire bargains to preserve its power in the waning years of the corrupt empire. Along with Demogorgon and other demon lords, Orcus was invoked by the Romans during their withdrawal from the old city of Londinium. The disastrous results of that final battle can still be seen today by anyone foolish enough to venture near that cursed city (better believe we'll be seeing more of it soon).

Wherever decadent and corrupt Roman culture still lives in Albion, the worshippers of Orcus can't be far behind. They hate that they were driven underground by Christianity, and sometimes make temporary alliances with other forgotten cults to bring down the age of the Crucified One.

The other great thing about putting Orcus in the game is I can use all those Necromancer Games adventures I have, since they also love the guy and so many of the dungeons were built by his cultists. Holy fuck, should Rappan Athuk, the dreaded Dungeon of Graves, be somewhere in Albion? Maybe/maybe not, but there is a good stack of other great adventures to be used. The Crucible of Freya and The Tomb of Abysthor are both sweet low-level jams.

Flipping through these modules again is already getting me stoked to start hacking them up and shoehorning them into the game!

*****

I was going to write up Demogorgon too, but I forgot about this! I simply can't come close to doing a demon lord like the aliens from Animal Man and referencing every band with that name from Metal Archives. I'll try and reinterpret some other classic D&D villains if I can.

*****

Now here is a fat stack of Orcus-approved albums:

The main thing:

You have no choice but to turn this up loud:

Hella fast goat-grind, listen or be FLAYED:

Worth it for the atmosphere, vocals and guitar tone alone:

Naming the Cults

It's snowing outside.

This is an easy one. A master table of all the religions in the game! I had a heck of a time adding and subtracting to this so that some might be familiar to my players, there aren't too many to keep track of (I'm looking at you Celts), few boring non-adventurer gods, and it still adds up to a number that we can roll on a set of dice.

I think this is a good balance. The other gods from the real-world pantheons are still around, but the priestesses of Hestia for example won't be encountered strolling down the highway on a quest.

You may note a great degree of... "ecumenism" in this setting. I'm definitely taking a more freewheeling approach to religious conflicts, where the temple of Satan can walk across the street to talk to the Christians instead of ally themselves with the servants of Orcus against all the forces of good, and where Loki's clerics could team up with Wotan's servants to help their culture conquer Britain and the forces of Lugh & Arawn. Plenty more combinations await!

!!!! RELIGION TABLE !!!!

Master table for rolling up random clerics/cultists

Where devotees of some of these "religions" get their spells is up to your own judgement.

D48 (d6 & d8) ROLL:

ABRAHAMIC

11 Jesus

12 JHVH

13 Satan

14 Gnosticism

15 Pelagian Heresy

ANGLO-SAXONS

16 Baldr - the shining one

17 Bragi - skalds

18 Loki - trickster

21 Thunor (Thor) - storms, thunder, you get it

22 Tiw (Tyr) - glory, war, law

23 Wotan - wisdom, language, war

24 Eastre - spring, dawn

25 Freyja - love, fertility, sex, death

26 Frige (Frigga) - wisdom, foreknowledge

27 Hel - underworld

BRITONIC

28 Arawn - underworld

31 Belenus - “the fair shining one”

32 Crom Cruach - “bloody crooked one,” human sacrifice

33 Dagda - druidry, magic, fertility, agriculture, strength

34 Lugh - skill, crafts, war

35 Manannán - sea

36 Brigid - spring, healing, fertility, poetry

37 Ceridwen - rebirth, transformation, inspiration

38 Morrígu - war, fate, doom

ROMAN

41 Apollo - sun, music, healing, truth, prophecy

42 Bacchus - wine, madness

43 Jupiter - sky, thunder, king of the gods

44 Mars - war

45 Mithras - secret warrior mystery cult

46 Neptune - sea

47 Pluto - underworld

48 Saturn - agriculture, wealth, generation, dissolution, time

51 Vulcan - fire, forging

52 Diana - hunting, the moon, nature

53 Minerva - wisdom, strategy, trade

ANCIENT ONES

54 Chthulhu

55 Yog-Sothoth

56 Dagon

57 Azathoth

58 Nyarlathotep

61 Tsathoggua

DEMON LORDS

62 The King in Yellow

63 Thasaidon

64 Arioch

65 Orcus

66 Demogorgon

67 Jubilex

68 Lolth

*****

Now for something more relaxing:

MEGA MUTATION POST!!!!

*****

EDIT: HOT DAMN!
Other people are on to the same thing and this is just great.

Also, this badness over at Red Box Vancouver. The revised edition costs $10 for the pdf (but remember that's in our Canadian dollars, which are basically wooden nickels), but the 'classic version' is free.

Now to peruse through and try to integrate it all!

*****

Okay folks, it's been a minute. Tonight I am trying to switch over to night shifts for the rest of the week, so I'm up til 7 drawing a new map of Albion, writing up dungeons, and collecting links and ideas for various aspects of the game.

One thing that's been on my mind for a while is a bad-ass "super-mutation" chart. Something that has EVERYTHING, where I'll never run out of new shit to inflict on PCs, and I can also use to whip up freakish Chaos champions, pathetic sorcerous experiments and everything in between. I will also use some of the more innocuous and cosmetic mutations for the elves in my game, who are supposed to look freakish and alien.

So far, I have no such compiled table, but a list of links or references to other people's tables. All I have to do is create a weighted chart that lets me decide which one of them to roll on! I will weight it so the really savage tables are much less common, and so the tables with MORE STUFF are used more often.

-Tiefling appearance table from the 2nd edition Planeswalker's Handbook

-Mutation table from Carcosa

-"Effects of the purple lotus" from Death Frost Doom

-This sweeeeeet table from WWCD? (please I hope to see more of these)

-I think this one's from Warhammer.

-This one is more of a 'sorcerous mishap' chart but has plenty of great stuff.

-Scrap Princess at it again!

This will be added to as I find more links and get more books. I'm not really sure how to format a table in this stupid blogger interface, so w/e bro, the Notepad solution it is.

ROLL d100:

1  - 20%  - Tiefling

21 - 28%  - Carcosa

29 - 34%  - Purple Lotus

35 - 52%  - WWCD?

53 - 74%  - Warhammer

75 - 91%  - Dungeon of Signs

92 - 00%  - Scrap Princess

*****

Brought to you by the changing of the seasons and the unconquerable sun:

Nameless Cults V

CULTISTS OF YOG-SOTHOTH who is The Key and The Gate, AKA Iok-Sotot

No. Appearing: 2d4

Alignment: C 

Move: 120’ (40’) 

Armour Class: 17

Hit Dice: 2 

Attack: 1d6+1

Save: Cleric 

Morale: 12 

Hoard Class: *

Experience: 38

Only madmen would worship this Ancient One. Anyone who isn't mad when they join sure will be after the terrible initiation rituals this cult administers. They charge into battle in once-fine robes and giant black hats, wreathed in pungent incense smoke and swinging two-handed weapons (scythes, hammers or flails) chanting "IOK-SO-TOT! IOK-SO-TOT!"

In any group, one of the cultists will have a censer that looks like a big two-handed ball and chain, from which issues the maddening and pungent smoke that drives the cultists into their battle frenzy and disables their opponents. It gives them insight into space & time so they can predict their enemy's movements, this accounts for their high AC and makes them immune to surprise and sneak attacks while in the smoke. If you try to jump them, you find they are looking straight at you no matter which way you attack from, even if you are invisible (they have a premonition of being stabbed in the back, even if they don't know who will be doing it). This also means that the cultists, from a short distance away, look like a big chanting cloud in the dungeon.

Outside the smoke, effects wear off (for cultists and victims) after 1d6 rounds, which renders the cultists AC 13 and vulnerable to surprise. The smoke renders them perpetually weird and difficult to converse with - as if they weren't already bloody lunatics. Imagine that girl/guy you tried to pick up outside the bar that one time, but she/he was stoned as hell and kept saying things sort of annoying and totally unrelated to the conversation*.

The smoke has various effects on those who inhale it. Roll 1d6 on the table for each character who inhales the smoke.

1 - Bugs!!!: They're crawling all over you. Save vs spell each round to do anything other than freak out and pick at your clothes.
2 - Permafried: No save. The same ability the cultists have. +4 to AC, -4 WIS, can't be surprised, you have trouble making complex decisions (rush the player, make them decide what to do first every round even if their initiative roll is way later. If you skip over them for being too slow, they'll get the idea).
3 - Dream Warrior: No save. Move slowly, just like you're fighting in a dream. Hit last every round, movement rate and damage reduced by half (round up). Taking any hit point damage will wake you up and you're back to normal.
4 - Terror in the Depths of the Fog: No save. How big is this room again? Why is it so quiet? Where is everyone? The smoke is too thick, your character is lost in the Silent Hill emptiness between worlds. After 1d6 rounds of wandering, make a WIS check to find your way back. If you succeed, no problem. If you fail, something followed you back. Roll up a low-tier demon encounter, hostile to anyone and everyone. Or if you are a real dick, the character ends up in another dimension chosen by YOG-SOTHOTH.
5 - Through the haze of Time: Granted a vision of the future! The player can look at the dungeon map for a number of seconds equal to their character's INT or WIS, whichever is lower. Save vs. spell. If you fail, the character is so terrified by this knowledge that they cannot discuss it aloud. If the player SPEAKS about any of what's been learned, visit some horrible doom upon them: time paradox, insanity effects, curses, etc. Once the future has come to pass (the party has explored some more rooms, met more monsters, etc: 1d6 encounters), player can speak normally.
6 - Instant Death: Not really. Character believes self to be dead, falls over, breathing and vital functions slow to a crawl (only an expert can tell). Save vs. death every 2nd round to wake up, no worse for wear.

They don't usually carry treasure, but their robes are high quality (although often ripped and torn). Also the censers are finely made and could be worth 1d6x100 gp to the right buyer (a church or collector maybe).

*This is important, as all the cults of the Ancient Ones still have their own motivations and goals and can be open to negotiation, trades or even temporary alliances. Most have human-level intelligence, it should just be difficult and confusing at times for PCs to understand them or make themselves understood. This is a way to get some more adventure hooks happening, and I find dungeons can be real boring sometimes with nobody to talk to.

*****

Today's post brought to you by IPAs and:

BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MY LORD ARIOCH

Nameless Cults 665

Other editions of NAMELESS CULTS: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, 666,

Other important CULTY LINKS:
- Against the Wicked City - Cults, Cultists and D&D

*****

So a while back, I was looking through the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms book "Faiths and Avatars" to find a god for my cleric in a buddy's game. The struggles of finding a specialty cleric that can do the few things I wanted was really frustrating and not worth describing.

My real objection to that book is this:

Why in Lucifer's name are there four - count 'em, FOUR - hippy-dippy, best-friends-forever, green thumb, pat a unicorn on the head nature deities in the Forgotten Realms?

Google Image search for "tree hugger"

Chew on this granola:

Chauntea - goddess of agriculture, plants cultivated by humans, farmers, gardeners, summer

Eldath - goddess of quiet places, springs, pools, stillness, peace, waterfalls, druid groves

Mielikki - goddess of forests, forest creatures, rangers, dryads, autumn

Silvanus - god of wild nature, druids

One nature deity? Of course. Two? There's an outside chance. Three looks a bit silly, and by the time we have four I can't think of any explanation but trying to pad out the size of the book.

I imagine bringing my new character to the table: "Oh yeah, my guy serves the goddess of calm and peaceful groves." Then being laughed out of my gaming group forever, insults and Dr. Peppers hurled after me as I run out the door crying.

Honestly the "super harsh bad guy" gods aren't much better. Bhall is so exactly what you'd expect, anybody could have written out that entry. Here's a hint: his domain is death & murder. The specialty priests are called "deathstalkers." I'm absolutely not the first to say that they all seem about the least exciting fantasy-adventure extradimensional ultimate beings anyone's ever heard of. Tie that noose and start with me please.

Too topical? Or not enough?

Give me some old-fashioned CULTS god damn you! I want to see bizarre, hair-raising initiations and terrible prices paid for incomprehensible extrahuman power. I was reading Clark Ashton Smith and thinking about how bloody magical The Door to Saturn is with Eibon's patron deity Zhothaqquah, and its relative Hzuilquoigmnzhah. You know your god truly can't be fucked about you when even pronouncing its name is impossible. Another thing I liked about Dungeon Crawl is they take a shot at this kind of thing: the death god is Yredelemnul, and the god of necromantic magic is Kikubaaqudgha. Pretty damned alien. Followers of those gods don't stand on a milk crate on the avenue Friday nights, yelling at people through a badly set-up PA about abortion. You have to find them, and it won't work out the way you think.

After I get done the classic Mythos cultists I will try to branch out a bit. I am considering Arioch, Thasaidon and Mordiggian, and then maybe I'll do a few D&D standbys like Orcus, Demogorgon, Jubilex and Lolth, although they do feel a bit odd next to the Ancient Ones. I will have to think harder about how to put a fun spin on the classics and take them out of their usual fantasy context. Also, that's a A LOT of evil gods, considering all the "real-world" pantheons have bad guys built in already. Law definitely has the deck stacked against them here.

Just like in real life I guess.

Okay that was a lot of ranting. In the mean time, for tax purposes, here are some stats for a monster I was thinking about yesterday, adapted from another classic '90s computer game.

*****

PUKING DEMON

Feel lucky punk?

No. Appearing: 1d4

Alignment: C

Move: 90’ (30’)

Armour Class: 16

Hit Dice: 4

Attacks: 1+
Damage: 2d6

Save: Fighter

Morale: 7

Hoard Class: VI

Experience: 245

Yep, you heard right. Short, fat, slimy and bilious as hell, these fiends look like a typical red-skinned devil's underachieving, cheeto-loving cousin. They dangle morningstars from their long sideways horns, and attack by spinning around to smash any- and everyone nearby. Their melee attack (2d6 represents the two morningstars) hits everyone in close combat with the puking demon, with a progressive -1 penalty to hit each opponent beyond the first (so a normal attack against the first guy, -1 to hit the second, -2 to hit the third, and so on. Or you could save time and just give them a middling penalty on all rolls). Note that this spin attack won't work on enemies that are too short (<4'), lying on the ground, etc. Common sense applies.

They are used as heavy shock troops in demon armies because they're tough, hard to kill and have some truly morale-destroying abilities! Because they usually terrify or incapacitate their enemies, they don't have the stomach for a fight and will flee if they meet stiff resistance.

Other puking demons are of course immune to both of the following abilities:

HALITOSIS: The foul breath of the puking demons surrounds them at all times in a horrifying miasma. Beings that breathe the air within 10' of a puking demon suffer -2 to attack rolls, morale checks and anything involving swiftness or movement (some saving throws, DEX bonuses, etc) from the debilitating gases. Creatures of 2 HD or less must save vs. poison or be incapacitated, gagging and choking for 1d6 rounds or until they are out of the area. If more demons group together, the area of effect will expand accordingly.

BILE: Instead of melee attacks, the puking demon can Exorcist-style vomit a vile, corrosive slime in a 30 degree cone, extending 20 feet forward. They can do this every third combat round. It does 1d4 acid damage to anyone affected, and the bile sticks to every surface until scraped or washed off. The floor and walls become highly dangerous and corrosive surfaces. Creatures take 1d4 damage each round until they aren't in contact with the bile anymore, or it dries and becomes inert after an hour.

*****

Now go listen to this for the rest of the day. Doctor's orders.

Demihumans in Annwn pt2: Slightly Weirder Ones

A few announcements first.

1:
In case I didn't make myself clear:
MANSCORPION!
MANSCORPION!!
MANSCORPION!!!

2:
Running Maze of the Blue Medusa is going fairly well. The characters are way overleveled and overequipped for it, but they're scared of EVERYTHING so it ends up playing as if they're all first level anyway, until the combat starts and the monsters get hacked to ribbons. And they all complain that the NPCs are "useless" because nobody will tell them where the moon-man's kids are.

3:
Here's another kick at the can, with some more flavour for my PC races.


Goblins AKA hobs, hoblings, boggarts, bogies, brownies, gnomes and so on

Brian Froud - close, very close

There are scores of different faeries spoken of in Britain, each governing a different domain - sprites of dirt and ditch, field and farm, home and hearth. In fact there is only one. The goblins have always and only lived in Britain - they are connected to the land, and can't leave. A goblin has no otherworldly home like an elf or underground kingdom like a dwarf, only the patch of soil it walks upon. They can swim in the waters around Britain and even travel to other dimensions and back, but their feet cannot step on the soil of another country. Maybe a little bit of Gaul or Benwick if you're feeling charitable and there aren't too many frogs around!

Many goblins never leave a small region they call home (a village, farmstead or patch of forest), hence their reputation as household spirits. Like the legends say, they will do some chores or housework during the night if the residents leave them some milk or a bit of sweet food. They sleep out in the fields and ditches, or in holes they dig in the ground, for the earth of Britain is their home and where they feel the safest. Not all goblins live this way - there isn't actually any magic binding them to a certain place the way a Dryad is to a tree - most just don't want to go around looking for food on their own.

They have never been seen in groups or families, and how they reproduce is unknown. Most peasant folk think they just spring up out of the soil, fully grown, although nobody has ever witnessed this.

In fact this is true. Goblins are just a product of the unknown magics and mysteries permeating Britain. A few spring up with a perverse lust for human gold in their hearts and become wanderers, rogues, thieves and adventurers. Some of the best cutpurses and assassins are hobs, because they're small, quiet, can endure almost any hardship and do not think the same way humans do. Their morality is strange and animalistic - they don't have to grow up and have no parents to teach them, being creatures of the wilds only. They don't have 'friendship' really, but can understand a sort of group loyalty and mutual advantage. Wise are the adventurers who ensure their goblin allies have full bellies and a scrupulously fair share of treasure, and woe betide any who betray a goblin, or indeed who trust one overly.

FROWN. HOARD. FROWN AGAIN.

Goblins are usually earth-toned, ranging in colour through orange, red, brown, olive green, grey and even eggplant. They can be as light as a well-tanned human or almost coal-black. Their skin is dull, weathered, and usually dirty. There are no bright green goblins! Get outta here. Goblin eyes are usually human-shaped, or occasionally reptilian, and every colour variation imaginable has been observed.

(They are my reskin of halflings who are way too annoying, Tolkienian, pastorial longing-for-a-simpler-age to be in this setting.)

ALSO: Once again, go hit up Middenmurk for this. A few don't really fit, it'll be okay, just use my best judgement.




Sea-Bloods AKA Dagon's children, fish-men, "the creeping rot within our society," etc

(You know the deal. Straight out of RoCC. Get into it.)

Even mother probably didn't love this face.

Sea-bloods! The genetic terror from beneath the waves. They could be among us right now.

The Dark Ages was already rammed with superstition, mistrust and wild accusations. Britain AD 500 will be no exception: this isn't the golden age yet kiddies. These guys make it so much worse. Until they gain a few levels or reach a certain age, you can't tell a sea-blood from a normal human, except that they may be odd-looking or ugly, and let's face it in the Dark Ages everybody was ugly. These creatures serve their lord and master Dagon, and work to bring about a fishy domination of all land-dwelling beings on earth. This is not the kind of thing you want working against you when you're trying to build a perfect society.

PC sea-bloods may have some idea of their origins at first, or they may not. The only thing I'm not sure of is how things will go in an adventuring party when a level or two has been gained and it's obvious that the character is somehow "monstrous." My players will probably just leave him to twiddle his thumbs in the forest whenever they go into town and not think any more of it, but who knows what yours might do? The fact is that most peasants and regular jackoffs won't think anything of another ugly dude tramping through town - they don't even know that the deep ones are working to destroy their way of life. Anybody in the know, though (wizards, most of the clergy, any Round Table knights, etc) will be quite exercised to spot a sea-blood just wandering around town with his heavily armed chums. I look forward to the PC vs. town guard bloodbaths, or other fun ways of dodging this problem.

(I originally included Subhumans in the second version of the Spoils of Annwn. The first version was almost completely stock LL. The fact is that they're way less exciting than they seem. They're really just fighters. If you were playing straight out of RoCC with no dwarves or elves they might be useful, but not for me.)


4:
Now go fall asleep with this on:

The Saints Have Turned to Crime: secret wars, sanity, and moral fiber in Arthurian D&D

So I was at work the other day doing a routine and boring task, and my mind was wandering. I was moping around about the hideous and depraved life I live, when I had an inspiration: I decided to try thinking about D&D instead to cheer myself up. Almost instantly I felt better, and I began wrestling with a somewhat knotty problem: how to reconcile all the aesthetic elements of my setting?

After seeing my inestimable comrade N. Manscorpion's beginning work on his own megadungeon, I was forced to conclude that my setting is too fractured. I can hold his whole setting, in terms of look and feel and vibe, in my mind all at once. I can't say the same for my own. Depending on where I turn it's grim black metal album covers and beheadings, or faeries with pointy hats sitting on toadstools conversing with guys in platemail and fair maidens. There's nothing wrong with having both in your game, but I really want something that I can visualize in its entirety. It helps with making decisions if I can instantly say "this fits, that doesn't."

False Patrick has written about the difficulties of D&Ding in Arthurian England before (I have read this article a million times). I am sidestepping some of these concerns by placing my game in a "slightly more realistic" era, after the Roman occupation ended (somewhere in the late 400s/early 500s). I will be adding in anachronistic elements because it's not D&D without some of those (plate mail is still available, but insanely expensive and hard to find), but there is no renaissance fair, shining castles, bards in tights stuff going on. It's closer to Middenmurk (actually I will be shamelessly using 80% of that page in my game) than Camelot as it's usually depicted.

Even so, we have King Arthur, magic swords, ladies of the lake, wizards in towers, goblins, dwarves, pixies, griffons and giants. How do I reconcile those with the fact that, a mere 50 feet underground, you can do battle with horrors from beyond the stars? Why don't those guys run the whole world? More importantly, why doesn't anybody talk about them, and what would life be like if they did?

So there I was at work, doing something boring, when I flashed on it:

Final Fantasy Tactics.

For those who don't know, Final Fantasy Tactics was a classic Playstation game that succeeded the obscure gem Tactics Ogre, which itself was a sequel to one of the greatest goddamn games ever made: Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (if you have some spare time and like strategy games, all three of these are highly recommended).

Anyway, I remember the storyline of FFT being really political (boring). The general thrust is that the main character, Ramza, leads a group of scruffy cadets to stop a world-destroying bad guy, you get the idea, regular stuff. While his childhood friend Delita commands the army, marries the princess, becomes king, and goes down in the history books as the hero of the Lion War, Ramza (whose eyes the player sees the story through) fights in utter obscurity. One of his comrades' diaries is discovered generations later and "the true story of the Lion War can be told."

This is an easy one to translate! As long as those rugose cones, goatmen, and brain-eating jellyfish never venture above ground to threaten our existence in public, nobody knows or talks about them. The characters can fight, die and (maybe) win, gain experience, get rich and have cool adventures in the otherworldly hells of Annwn, but they won't ever get famous for it.

To get a reputation, they have to do things outdoors in the open. Winning wars, slaying big classic monsters (ogres, giants, griffons, etc), bringing bandits to justice, fighting in tournaments, paying bards to sing songs about them and the like. This makes me think that instead of rolling "Wyvern" on the wilderness encounter table, it should be "The Winged Terror of Whatevershire." Something that relates to the social world where the PCs live, in a way that dungeon encounters don't.

Only Warhammer Fantasy has the pictures I need.

The fun thing about thinking along these lines is: if nobody talks about it, who's to say Arthur's knights didn't all gain their early levels in dungeons too? Lancelot can fight 30 men at once because after "Wargoat Fight Club" in a pool of boiling acid, everything else gets the volume turned down. Maybe he wanders the kingdoms alone "on quests" so often because he has fucking PTSD from his experiences, not to mention all the friends and comrades that he must have seen die down there?

I had been thinking about using a sanity or horror system of some kind to represent the otherworldly terrors that the PCs will come in contact with, but haven't settled on anything good. The fear aura of some dragons or powerful undead is a good start, but I wonder if some kind of permanent 'mental scarring' can be made to work. I have no qualms about characters being permanently changed (in ways other than dying, HA!) from their trips to the dungeon, and I like the idea of going underground a wet-behind-the-ears 1st level pissant, and coming out rich, powerful and geared-up but with a 1000-yard stare, a few missing fingers, and no pancreas. Beedo's article on the subject from back in the day seems like too much for me: the PCs will be throwing down with hideous horrors a lot, and not everything they see should blast their minds. Nevertheless it's something that I'd like to bring into play somehow, especially as it relates to the "secret dungeon war." (I have also been thinking about player character mutations, but that really just requires a giant random table and a few failed saves.)

Forever alone.

Maybe all the "evil knights" are such dicks because once they got deep into the dungeon, they saw that not only is Jesus not the supreme deity, not even in the top three, but we live in an amoral mechanistic universe? Maybe Sir Meleagaunce went into the dungeon with Alignment: L on his character sheet, and came out C? Maybe he decided if he couldn't beat the eldritch horrors, he could still cut a deal? Maybe under his helmet he isn't entirely human? He can't look like the full-on Warhammer chaos knights, because then we may as well just play Warhammer and it makes things too obvious. Maybe just a weird mole or birthmark, a gross scar, something that sets him apart as weird or unnatural that you wouldn't necessarily see or notice.

It's also worth noting that this is pretty close to what happens to Solaire of Astora in Dark Souls, so it's right where I want to be tonally.

Maybe the reason Arthur is so perfect and good and has the best judgement and stands apart as kind of inhuman in his reasonableness and fairness (White touches on this in The Once and Future King) is that he gained all his levels at once from pulling the sword out of the stone, and he never had to go into a dungeon and watch his friends die and his dreams get slaughtered for a few gold pieces more. Sure he wages bloody wars against the Saxons, but everybody does that anyway. What makes the rest of the round table knights such good guys, and how do they rise up from being scruffy adventurers to the leading moral figures of the age? Lots of different ways. Some had prophecies going in their favour, some just grew up fighting wolves in the snow and never had to breathe in radioactive mists while the Cthulhu Cult stabs them with hot pokers, and some just made all their saving throws. As a wise friend of mine once said: "Being the good guy just means waking up better than everybody else."

*****

Anyway, this has been a productive piece of musing, but now I have to go redo all my encounter tables and double the square footage of level 1. Play this the next time you need a bit of pagan pessimism in your game:

Nameless Cults IV

Here is another fun one. A bit simpler than the other cults so far, but "the old jokes are the best," as they say.

THE ESOTERIC ORDER OF DAGON, or The Pelagic Knights of Y'Ha-Nthlei

You knew this was coming eventually.

No. Appearing: 1d6
Alignment: Chaotic 
Move: 120’ (40’) 
Armor Class: 14 
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1
Damage: by weapon
Save: Fighter
Morale: 10
Experience: 29

Serving one of the... ickier Ancient Ones, Lord Dagon of the deep kingdoms, the Esoteric Order is composed of former fishermen, captured and hypnotized sailors, the "mates" of the Deep Ones, and their Sea-Blood offspring. You know what they're here to do: get fresh with your human (or dwarf, or elf - they aren't picky) women and breed a vile half-aquatic replacement for mankind! Are you gonna let them do it, hot shot?

They come armed with scraps salvaged from the deep, or tools of their former lives: tridents, cutlasses, nets, spears, marlinspikes and any other aquatic-themed weapons and rusty patchwork armour, dripping green with algae. This also means sometimes they carry fantastic treasure from sunken ships or old hoards fallen under the waves: maybe the jewelled cutlass of a pirate king, or magic items from fabled Atlantis. If parley could be made with the Order, they might show an enterprising adventurer the way to these treasures lost under the waves. Then again, they might just give them directions to a nearby pod of sharks, or a colony of hungry Deep Ones. 

Sorry mom. Sorry dad. Sorry HPLHS.

The Order have dredged up many secrets from the deep, one of which is the terrible magic of unlife (most clerics and wizards don't know animate dead in my game). They frequently enter battle with the shambling corpses of drowned sailors and fishermen as shock troops (skeletons, zombies or maybe you have a favourite water-themed undead?). The Order's knowledge of these outre magics makes membership highly sought after in some quarters, although anyone willing to pay the costs of entry must be desperate or mad indeed. 

These undead servants will always be dripping with water and covered in seaweed, even if they've been standing guard in a dungeon for years. Make sure to mention the puddles of water spreading underneath them (just the thing to trip up a careless adventurer at the wrong time). They usually carry the tools, weapons and gear they did in life, having risen from the muck of the sea-floor exactly as they died. I am thinking that some clerics of the EOoD maybe have a forbidden ritual that turns them into some kind of aquatic vampire or saltwater lich, although what those might be I can't yet imagine...

The other terrible thing about the EOoD is that they know where the Deep Ones make their lairs, and tend to build their temples nearby (usually in caves or grottoes accessible to the ocean) for ease of human sacrifices. A given temple will be led by a sea blood of level 3-6 and two sea blood acolytes of levels 1-3, all equipped with the best treasure and magic items the cult has scavenged. Remember: these dudes don't play around, and it could get real grim. Keep that in mind when you're running your own game huh?