Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: The Popopo

A tight-lipped smile, a bird's impassive eyes. White hair, white skin, and long, lithe limbs. Her beak stretches up and out of her throat, and there comes that awful sound - half song, half laugh: "Po-po-po" - easy to rhyme.

She is a lonely and envious creature. She takes other's children and makes them hers, brooding in darkling dungeons. In the west she is Mournful Dove. In the east she is the Capon's Cuckoo. In the north she is Winter-Come-Early. In the south she is the daughter of Night and Grief.

Yet across all corners of the world her call is the same - therefore, she is

The Popopo 

HD: 5 AC: 15 ATK: 1d6 peck and 1d6/1d6 claws + Raptorial Claim SAV: 10 MOV: As sprinting human, fly as pelican INT: As smart human ML: 7, 10 in defense of stolen children
No. Appearing: 1

The Popopo is strong enough to fly while carrying a single person. 

Raptorial Claim: An individual marked by the Popopo's claws becomes vulnerable to her magic. For each claw-mark upon them, the Popopo may inflict one of the following effects. Once per night the Popopo may also claw the exterior of a home, and thereby affect everyone inside it at once - and if she does so three nights in a row, on the third night all inhabitants automatically fail the first of their saves:

-Sleep: Save or fall into a deep sleep for 12 hours - if you receive a serious jolt you can save again.

-Glamour: Save or perceive the Popopo as an ordinary, if entrancing, woman - you understand her call as your own language. You can save again if someone not under the Popopo's spell points out what she truly is to you.

-Madness: Save or roll a 1d6 - on a 1-2 do nothing, on a 3-4 flee, on a 5-6 attack the nearest living thing. Save again each round.

Imperfect Scions

HD: 2 AC: 12 or as armour ATK: 1d4/1d4 claws + Swallow Whole or as weapon SAV: 7 MOV: As human, fly as sparrow INT: As human ML: 7
No. Appearing: 1d2

Swallow Whole: Someone hit by both of an imperfect scion's claw attacks in one round must test vs. strength or be swallowed whole by it. They take 1 damage per round, and cannot escape until the thing is cut open.

Glamour: Imperfect as they may be, their glamour is more skillful than the Popopo's. It is always active, with no save possible against it, making them appear as normal people - until they swallow someone whole, or fly, or think they are alone.

To sages and cunning-folk it is known that the Popopo is never satisfied with her brood. She will give them away to those with the rite to call her, shaping them into the caller's idea of a perfect child. Such stories never end well - the children become far less subservient when they mature.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Townfathers

Suppurating grub-hulks slumbering and snoring in the lightless deep - each a nation, the founder and the foundation.

They are nightmare to nightmares, and lords of men.

Communities thrive under their protection, but these in truth are larders. When the festival of awakening comes the price of protection is paid in full.

They are

Townfathers

HD: 12 AC: 12 ATK: 1d20 crush - can hit all targets within an enclosed space simultaneously SAV: 12  MOV: As very big caterpillar - can compress itself through openings a human could crawl through INT: As lazy, hungry chimpanzee ML: 6
No. Appearing: 1

The Rumbling: The infrasonic rumbling of a sleeping townfather keeps other monsters at bay. Within the hex a townfather is in you do not need to check for wandering monsters. Within a hex's distance of a townfather's resting place wandering monsters are only 1/4 as frequent as usual. In the hexes immediately beyond this range wandering monsters are only 1/2 as frequent. A sleeping townfather whose rest is disturbed must test morale to awaken.

The Dinner Bell Calls: An awakened townfather can tune the mood of its dependents, for ease of feeding or self-defense - inducing xenophobic aggression, apocalyptic terror, placid revelry, or whatever else. Not quite mind control, but close enough. Those within range of the Rumbling must save or be affected, and take a cumulative 1 point penalty to their save for every week spent exposed to the Rumbling. A sufficient shock (injury, bucket of cold water to the face, hurting someone they care about, etc.) gives another save to throw off the influence. 

A townfather exposed to sunlight takes 1d6 damage each round.

A sufficiently old and well-fed townfather becomes a living dungeon - impervious from the outside, one must delve within to slay it.

Founding Family

HD: 2 AC: As armour worn ATK: As weapon wielded, advantage on grappling SAV: 7 MOV: As human - can compress themselves through openings a human finger could fit through INT: As human ML: 6
No. Appearing: 1d4

Traitors, collaborators, bound by blood. Descendants of the first to find a townfather, first to accept its bargain. Handsome, overly-identical sorts - pins and needles in their joints and in the hidden corners of their faces hold them into human shape. A second heart in their chest pulses the milk of the townfather through their veins - pale, slow and thick as treacle. They hear it as a choir of angels, calling them ever-forward to their grand destiny (of pampering the creature and sating its appetite).

 

Within range of the Rumbling they are telepathic with each other.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Couatls

Imagine that yesterday you were a human being, and today you are a worm - blind, deaf, mute, limbless, cast down into the dirt to wriggle about for morsels of shit.

That's a bit what it's like to be these guys, except that yesterday they were timeless and bodiless beings in a heaven of infinite wisdom and contemplation, and today they are winged serpents made of meat.

Why are they here? Are they on a mission? Is this a punishment? Is this the sacrifice they made to participate in the sensuous and temporal world? They don't quite know, their thoughts brushing against understandings too big to fit inside their new heads.

They read the stars and the guts of sacrifices for signs. These signs drive them to prophetic good and inhumanity.

They are

Couatls

HD: 9 AC: 15 ATK: 1d6 bite with Aging Venom and 1d12 tail swipe, plus The Stains of Time SAV: 12 MOV: As giant bird-snake INT: As smart alien ML: 8
No. Appearing: 1

Aging Venom: Save vs. poison - on a success you age 1d6 years, on a failure you age 2d6 years.

The Stains of Time: Once per round the couatl can use one ability from the following list. A couatl can only have one Stain of Time ability active at a time:

-Rewind - Heal any wound, disease, curse, or suchlike, but target loses all memories and XP gained since that thing was inflicted on them. Target can save to resist. A couatl cannot use this on themself.

-Stasis - Freeze a target in time for 1d4 rounds. Save to resist. The d4 is exploding, and each time it explodes its duration increases a step - from rounds to ten-minute turns to hours to days and so on.

-Desync - The image of the couatl moves ahead of its actual body. For 1d6 rounds the couatl is invisible while it sends forth an illusion of itself.

-Haste - The couatl can act twice on their turn. The strain causes them 2d6 damage. 

-Time Stop - The couatl stops time for everything else in the world for a subjective round. The couatl takes half their remaining HP as damage and must test morale to not go temporarily insane as the world of stopped time reminds them of their home. Attacks made by the couatl in stopped time automatically hit & deal maximum damage.

D8 Products from a Childhood

Fluff? On this blog? What can I say - I'm a fluffer: 

1. Osseo-Crunch: Originally "osseous composite digestible material no. 3", developed by the government of the United Kingdom in the 1930s in a public-private partnership with a consumer packaged goods company. It was meant to be an emergency ration additive in case Germany used biological warfare to attack the cow population of England & so on, and to provide a useful alternative disposal method for corpses.

As that worst-case scenario was never realized, its patent languished out of use for decades, until an American company purchased it in the 2010s. That company repurposed it for a breakfast cereal marketed towards demographics with higher levels of lactose intolerance, with the cereal's mascot Henry "Hahaha" Hyena promising that it's "the only cereal that doesn't need milk, because it's made of bones, and there's more than enough calcium in the bones!".

Osseo-Crunch tastes terrible, has a chalky texture, and only freaks eat cereal with water, so it didn't have a long production run. However, it is incredibly shelf-stable so you can still find it some places, and unopened boxes of it with real Henry "Hahaha" Hyena figurines inside have become something of a collector's item.

2. Camp Cambrian: A movie franchise, the premise of which is that a science camp where campers can learn about biology and the origins of life gets caught in a temporal anomaly, flinging groups of campers across wildly-accelerated stretches of time, during which their experiments evolved into whole ecosystems - some reminiscent of real periods in the Earth's history, some not so much - while the groups of campers have to learn to understand their new environments and their creatures and either find a way out or leave something behind to help the next group do so that'll last over the eons. For example, Camp Cambrian 2 ends with that movie's group planting the bones of their fallen comrades into conditions ideal for fossilization to spell out a message.

3. Croaka-Cola: Fun factoid - the original Croaka-Cola recipe included some hallucinogenic slime exuded by a species of toad. Croaka-Cola is a brand defined by meteoric rises and falls - its "Sippin' It Bayou-Style" campaign made the beverage an international hit, however a few years after its release of the alkekengi flavour in partnership with Cricket Murmur's catastrophic "low voices / heavy air" tour poisoned it for many.

4. Phobophobiatch Beer: Specially brewed to not cause "hangxiety" - the anxiety experienced during a hangover. It achieves this by reversing some of the usual brain chemistry of alcohol - rather than increasing levels of GABA and decreasing levels of glutamate, Phobophobiatch does the opposite. Drinking Phobophobiatch makes you scared, but during the hangover while the brain attempts to adjust its chemistry back to normal you experience calm and confidence.

It tastes terrible, but has seen some success among alcoholics who "zebra drink" it, alternating it with regular beers to even out the hangxiety, among horror buffs who get drunk on it to amp up already-scary experiences, and as a recommended part of some nootropic stacks - binged the night before an important day.

5. The Misadventures of Harold Hickorytail: A series of books marketed towards children, illustrated with dreamy water-colours. The books were intended to give a child-friendly education on touchy topics such as adultery, divorce, split custody, parental alienation, and suchlike, all through the lens of the life of their titular protagonist, Harold Hickorytail - a very slutty mouse.

There was a bizarre and poorly-received movie adaption of the Misadventures of Harold Hickorytail that, after many producers stuck their fingers in its pie, was edited into a stop-motion slasher movie wherein the characters getting killed off were all mice, and the killer was a cat. The Harold Hickorytail movie is considered a "so bad it's good that it's so bad" product of the VOID lockdowns.

6. Laugh Caf Gigglepuffs: Branded product of the Laugh Caf comedy club - oven-baked cheesy puff-snacks injected with nitrous oxide, causing compulsive laughter in those who consume them. Like Croaka-Cola, the Laugh Caf had its own PR disaster related to Cricket Murmur - not through Gigglepuffs, but through the Laugh Caf Podcast. The podcast ran an interview with the survivor of a Cricket Murmur show that was decried as "insensitive" and "deeply irresponsible", with the interviewer at one point bringing out a 3D-printed figurine of a raincoat-clad Cricket Murmur member. Several sightings and disappearances have been linked to the interview episode, which has since been scrubbed from all official Laugh Caf Podcast viewing platforms.

7. Rou-Lad: "Pack it thick, pour it hot - Rou-Lad, it's for the boys" goes the now-infamous commercial. It's turkey roulade in a can. It's for the boys. What more do you really need to know.

8. Mane Man: A romantic sit-com revolving around the antics of a human man, Victor, and an anthropomorphic maned wolf woman named Jackson. Much of the comedy in the earlier seasons revolves around Victor ironically losing every bet and contest he ever enters into, and Jackson's crossdressing, which causes Victor to misunderstand Jackson's gender identity repeatedly and become confused about his own sexuality.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Gwargotch

He is the Red Elephant, the Trumpet of the Apocalypse, He-Who-Tramples-Kings-Like-Grapes.

His legs are as the roots of mountains, his flanks are ochre cliffs. His trunk is the serpent that encircles the world, his eyes are setting suns. 

Evil winds and eaters of corpses and foul spirits attend him. His attendants have lulled him into luxurious stupour - he lends his ear to flattery, his mouth to delicacies, his attentions to tortures and indolent schemes. Yet his wrath and his power remain. He remains the beginning of the end of everything.

He is

Gwargotch

HD: 15 AC: 16, normal missiles cannot harm him ATK: 3d6 stomp and Fling or 2d6 tusk swipe (can hit all in melee range) or Trample, plus So Speaks Gwargotch SAV: 15 MOV: As giant elephant INT: As old and wise and vice-ridden man ML: 9
No. Appearing: 1, and only one

Fling: Gwargotch makes a grapple attempt against a target with his trunk, and if successful flings them to the horizon. If you are not incredibly tough and do not have a means of arresting or slowing your velocity, you will die.

Trample: All in the path of Gwargotch's stride must save or die. Riding a mount gives advantage on this save.

So Speaks Gwargotch: Every sentence that the Red Elephant speaks deals 1 damage to mortals within earshot, as their ears bleed and their ribs rattle their organs to jelly. Gwargotch speaks sparingly, as he prefers to kill by more entertaining means. Should he ever trumpet with full force it will signal the end of the world - something he also wants to avoid.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Lava Children

Giggling lambent fetal grotesques, crawled out from the earth's molten aqua amnii. Creatures at perpetual play - and everything's a toy. Art confounds them, so they deface it.

Innocently pitiless, they crave novelties and covet precious metals and other glittering things.

Apart from humanity they play rough and tumble. Where we and them have made contact they play house, play doctor, play laws and temples and trade.

They are

Lava Children

HD: 3 AC: 10 plus Immune to Metal ATK: 1d4 burning slap, or 1d6 Burning Hug, or Shrappy-Clappy SAV: 7 MOV: as human INT: as frivolous dopamine chaser ML: 6
No. Appearing: 2d6

Immune to Metal: Metal does not interact with lava children. It is intangible to them, and they to it. 

Burning Hug: The touch of a lava child is hot enough to ignite flammable materials on contact - this applies to their burning slap as well. A burning hug attack requires a grapple check from the lava child - they have a strength of 12. Each additional lava child hugging you increases the effective strength you need to beat to escape by +2.

Shrappy-Clappy: A device with dozens of names, each dumber than the last. 1-in-6 chance that a "civilized" lava child will be wearing one - a harness that suspends cavitous metal within their bodies until it heats up and explodes. At the start of combat they will drop the metal within themselves, and 1d6 rounds later it will detonate for 2d6 damage in a 15 foot radius, save for half. Striking the lava child wearing the harness with metal at -2 to hit will knock the device out of their body and prevent its detonation.

Water deals damage to lava children as an equivalent amount of acid.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Carnlevares

Loping, leaping ambiguities in shape - clad in coats of woven straw, they go about sometimes on two feet, and sometimes on four - sometimes seeming ursine in form, sometimes leonine, or procyonid. They putrefy into stinking jelly immediately upon death - none living have seen their true appearance under their concealing coats.

In lands where these beasts are not known except by stories from afar and caricatures in bestiaries, costumes are made in imitation of their coats, and men wear them and go about from house to house, demanding meat and alcohol.

They carve their lairs out from clay and stone with their claws, and ferment the meat of their prey within, hibernating while the viands blossom into corruption. Their young are bold and indiscriminate in their feeding, their old become picky cowards who take only choice organs - and become named by their taste (Liver-Eater, Tongue-Biter, He-Who-Gnaws-Off-Buttocks). The decadent and depraved treasure their straw-wrapped packages of fermented meat, eating them with cloths covering their faces to hide themselves from the ghoul-curse of cannibalism in case the meat came from people.

They are

Carnlevares

Young:
HD: 3 AC: 12 ATK: Drop, or claw 1d3 and bite 1d6, plus Dream-Walker SAV: 8 MOV: Run and climb as bears INT: As dumb beast ML: 9
No. Appearing: 1d3

Old:
HD: 6 AC: 14 ATK: Drop, or claw 1d6 and bite 1d10, plus Dream-Walker  SAV: 10 MOV: Run and climb as bears INT: As clever beast ML: 5
No. Appearing: 1, or 1 and 1d3 young harried ahead of it to wear down prey

Drop: Carnlevares prefer to attack by dropping from a great height onto their prey. On a successful attack roll they deal all the fall damage they would have taken to their target - target can save for half. On a failed attack roll they take half the fall damage another creature would have taken - and can save to take none. A carnlevare can move horizontally half as far as they drop vertically. Anything a carnlevare climbs can support its weight. On a 3-in-6 chance per encounter, carnlevares have smelled you coming and have climbed any available heights to drop on you.

Dream-Walker: Those who sleep within the territory of a carnlevare gain no rest, and suffer terrible nightmares of being crushed by immense weight, of rotting in the dark. For young carnlevares this effect covers the hex their lair is in. For old carnlevares this effect covers the hex their lair is in and all neighbouring hexes. Any preventatives against nightmares also work against this effect.