Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Wightsnakes

There's snakes in these here parts, horrible snakes, yellowed-off white like old bones - they don't swallow their prey live like other snakes do, they like them ripely putrid, holding the strangled corpses tenderly in their coils until they start to reek, and leak.

There's barrows too, old and haunted (of course) - and they hold the most delectable corpses of all (to the snakes). But to end up in a snake's belly is the foulest defilement of them all, so the barrows' stones and walking bones endeavour to keep the reptiles out and far away.

But sometimes a snake has its day, and seizes its well-aged barrow-corpse delicacy. Then it is reborn - the merger of ancient hero (in the classical sense) and serpentine voracity.

They are

Wightsnakes

HD: 6 AC: As armour in human form, 15 in snake form ATK: As weapon in human form, Constrict and 1d4 bite plus Haunting Venom in snake form SAV:12 MOV: As human in human form, as big snake in snake form INT: As classically-educated person ML: 8
No. Appearing: 1d3

Shapeshift: Once per round, as a free action, a wightsnake can shift between their human and snake form.

Constrict: A target hit by constrict is automatically grappled by the wightsnake. A wightsnake can constrict an already-grappled target to automatically deal 1d8 damage to them. It takes a combined strength of 30 to pry a wightsnake off a grappled target. Attacks aimed at a constricting wightsnake have a 2-in-6 chance of hitting their constricted target. A wightsnake can only constrict one target at a time.

Heroic Panolpy: If you roll up a wightsnake with more than 21 HP then they've got a magic weapon. If you roll up a wightsnake with more than 26 HP they've got a magic weapon and a piece of magic armour. 

Haunting Venom: A wightsnake's venom is full of ghosts. If bit, save or roll on the table below (1d6):
1. Necrosis: Take an immediate extra 1d6 damage.
2. Hungry Ghost: Ordinary food won't sustain you - only offerings left for the dead will. Save again every day thereafter or until the poison is purged.
3. Possession: Randomly change your character to another class and personality. Save again every day thereafter or until the poison is purged.
4. Marked by the Grave: You are affected by magic as if you were a corpse rather than a living thing. Save again every day thereafter or until the poison is purged.
5. Poltergeist: A small item in the vicinity is flung at a random member of your party. Save again every hour or it happens again.
6. Fearsome Moaning: You will not be able to sleep restfully that night. Save every night thereafter until you succeed or the poison is purged.

Towards the Hoard of a Hundred Horrors: Maggot Golems

There is an edict, centuries old, which declares those who eat the deadened flesh of their own kind to be cursed - that that flesh by right belongs to the scavenger-god Yeenoghu and her priests.

The accursed wallow and groan and spread across the earth as a fevered stain. Their hunger is bottomless, but it has an apex - each tithes a portion of every mouthful of choked-down putridity to the one who changed them, and to the one who changed them in turn, all the way up the chain until the collected feast gathers in the belly of the mountainous ghoul-king, in his palace of teeth and filth.

And even the king can never be satisfied. From his palace he whispers in the dreams of malefactors and maleficarum, of this unwholesome technique:

Take a carcass which vultures have not torn and hyenas have not tasted, and lay it in a structure where crows have not alit and jackals have not tread. Whisper to it in the dark for three days and three nights, eating only fistfuls of dirt and drinking only your own tears and urine.

Should everything go properly, the ghoul-king will lend a portion of his power and a maggot will spawn within the meat, inscribed with the Unspeakable Name. This maggot will spawn more, until a great white mass rises in the shape of a man.

These larvae are not given freely, not meant to be servants - this is only a ploy.

Once one reaches maturation it will moult into a usurper of the scavenger-god, and the ghouls shall glut upon the world entire.

They are

Maggot Golems

HP: 100 + The Heart of the Swarm AC: 12 + Writhing Mass ATK: 1d8/1d8 slams, or 1d4 gnawing flood (hits all in melee range automatically) SAV: 10 MOV: As ogre, or flow as wave of maggots INT: According to orders, literal-minded ML: 12
No. Appearing: 1

The Heart of the Swarm: Maggot golems do not roll for HP with HD as normal (if HD value is needed, use 8). Each maggot golem begins with 100 HP. When a maggot golem takes a hit, it loses HP as normal, and has a percentage chance of dying immediately as its core maggot is destroyed based on how much HP it has lost (e.g. if a hit brings a maggot golem down to 67 HP it then has a 33% chance of dying immediately).

Writhing Mass: Maggot golems take the minimum possible damage from human-scale weapons (e.g. 1 on a d6), plus whatever bonus damage a weapon might get from enchantment. Area of effect attacks, siege weapons, and the like do damage as normal.

No Flesh Leaves The Abattoir: Maggot golems that come across a corpse are compelled to devour it. They must remain motionless for one round per HD of the corpse, and heal 1d6 HP per round. It may attack those within range as normal.

Also, wounds dealt by a maggot golem are prone to myiasis.

The Golden Mask

I awake at the bottom of my laparotomy soup and blink the crust from my eyes - did I drink my fill, or did it evaporate around me? The problem with drinking your fill is that you never remember doing it. Regardless, goodbye horses.

🌞

Some time ago friend of the blog theisticgilthoniel asked for "freak versions of the Dawn War pantheon" - I suppose this qualifies for that.

🌞

The cosmos is roughly 3,000 years old. There are still some who would kill you for disputing this.

It is also objectively true. Since the end of the god-king Zarus and the rise of Sigil, the city of at the center of everything - since the re-Ordering of the cosmos - it has been about 3,000 years. Speaking of a "before" is fraught, as any number of scholars will tell you. The cosmos will likely not grow much older than 3,000 years - Sigil is broken, and the last days are upon us.

🌞

The foundation of every empire is energy, is control over the flow of energy - over grain and oil, sunlight transformed - over the sun itself.

Zarus's greatest coup was his seduction of the sun away from the prior Order - he persuaded the sun to wear a mask, a beautiful golden mask beaten in the shape of a human face. The nature of this seduction, as with all stories of Zarus, depends on the teller. Did he disguise himself in a scaly skin, or kidnap the sun from the sky? Did he promise the sun a place of honour in his new Order, or was he simply a better fuck than the hoary old reptiles who bathed in the sun's rays? Regardless, it is universally agreed to be more consensual than what Zarus did to the moon.

With their sun stolen, the old Order's defeat became inevitable.

🌞

The sun was given a human face, and a human name - Pelor - but it was only ever a mask.

Only the least gods are like a person. Proper gods are many persons - like stars in a constellation.

Pelor Indefatigable, an armoured warrior who bears her child the world upon her back in an endless march, fending off the rats of Long Night.

Sharp-Eyed Pelor, who strikes the iniquitous within her sight with arrows of sun-stroke.

Pelor Bank-Lounger, who shelters her children - all the people of the world - in her mouth.

Pelor Plumage-Bearer, whose peerless colours seduce starlight into a great mating ball about the earth, making the day-time.

Pelor Basilaklas, who races across the sea of Night too swiftly to be sucked down into its darkness, his magnificent crown lighting the way.

Lustrous Pelor, who sweats droplets of molten gold in his dances and grants the metal a share of his beauty and power.

Pelor Everborn, who sheds her old flesh at every dawn and thereby defeats age and death.

🌞

Woe to the conquered, for only death will end the humiliations the conqueror will heap upon you.

From out of the solar temples come the wondersome, thundersome parade-beasts, delight of children wherever they march. Dressed in hide and fur and feathers, with goofy gawking too-human eyes that seem apologetic for their own existence.

In their howdahs are the idols of god-king and sun, borne along in their marriage procession. 

🌞

This Order is broken, and things long-buried seep up through the cracks.

This Order was never perfect, and remnants lingered in the peaks and valleys and unscrubbed corners.

A starving village devours itself foot to mouth, and a great fanged and scaled hoop rolls off into the night. A tomb is cracked open to the sunlight, and warriors rouse from dreamless torpor at its warmth. A warlord's mistress gives birth to an egg, and the warlord makes himself a king with that egg at the head of his hosts, a tide of serpents slithering before them.

The Order of the Oviraptor was formed to take care of this seepage and these remnants. They are a secret order, with permission to kill who they must to remain a secret, to keep the secret of their mission. Any creature can be cruel, but hate is a thing for the warm-blooded.

🌞 

Love, too, is a mammalian trait.

The sun does not love us. The sun shines upon all, impartial. His marriage to Zarus was a thing of convenience. And Zarus is gone.

The old worshipers gather in their old ways, and new worshipers turn treacherous to the image of Man across the spectrum of dracolatry.

Here there were dragons, and here there may be dragons again.

It was only ever a mask.

Level Titles For My GLOG Classes

Level titles... remember when class levels had titles? This is that, come again:

Class: Invisible Cannibal
Template A: C.H.U.D.
Template B: Spookum
Template C: Daystalker
Template D: Vitrum Carnifex

Class: Ascended Baneposter
Template A: Memer
Template B: Hothead
Template C: Rising Fire
Template D: Masketta Man

Class: Pickle Wizard
Template A: Dilly Boy
Template B: Spearcruncher
Template C: Lactofermentator
Template D: Lord of the Brine

Class: Anon (Special thanks to Anon for the additional suggestions)
Template A: Lurker / Isekai'd Incognito
Template B: Poster / Squirmy Summoner
Template C: Blogger / Wrathful Wormiger
Template D: King of the GLOG / Paragon Pillarmancer

Class: Martial Artist
Template A: Brawler
Template B: Seeker
Template C: Warrior-Poet
Template D: Divine Fist

Class: Bloodsoulsekiro Ring Type
Template A: Scrub
Template B: Chosen Untarnishslayer
Template C: MLG
Template D: Giant Daddy

Class: Sacred Scorpion Dancer
Template A: Wretched Nymph
Template B: Spider-Eater
Template C: Gracious Sting
Template D: Poison Prince

Class: Jujutsu Sorcerer
Template A: Potential Man
Template B: Cog
Template C: Glazed
Template D: Honoured One

Class: Lich Aspirant
Template A: Corpseling
Template B: Necropolitan
Template C: Unreapable One
Template D: Sepulchral Eternal

Class: Monster Binder
Template A: Goblin Wrangler
Template B: Gnoll Handler
Template C: Manticore Rider
Template D: Dragon Tamer

Class: Brandon
Template A: Little Piggy Joe
Template B: Sleepy Joe
Template C: Awakened Joe Biden
Template D: President Joseph Robinette Biden

Class: Semiurgic Sigilist
Template A: Scribe
Template B: Cosmic Functionary
Template C: Spokesman
Template D: Heir of Zarus

Class: Heavensent Pig
Template A: Porkchopped
Template B: Lil Oinker
Template C: Light of the Sty
Template D: Celestial Boar

Class: Slasher
Template A: Serial Killer
Template B: Bloodbather
Template C: Guignol Guru
Template D: Franchise Star

Class: Action Movie Hero
Template A: Grunt
Template B: Operator
Template C: Blockbuster
Template D: Silver Screen Immortal

Class: Sword-Saint
Template A: Lotus Blossom Floating On A River Of Blood
Template B: Tiger Among Mice
Template C: The One Who Dyes The Sun Red
Template D: The Blade Whom Gods And Devils Fear

Class: Abjurer Wizard
Template A: Apprentice-Protector
Template B: Initiate of the Veil
Template C: Knight of Seals
Template D: Master of the Gate and Key

Class: Necromancer Wizard
Template A: Worm
Template B: Gravedigger
Template C: Maleficarum
Template D: Death

Class: The Most Rangerous Ranger
Template A: Wilderness Survivalist
Template B: Elf-Friend
Template C: Green Man
Template D: Beloved of the Forest-God

Class: Master of Disguise
Template A: Disguise College Drop-Out
Template B: Tricky Bastard
Template C: Costumier Supreme
Template D: Honourary Disguisey

Life-Cycle of the Parasite

Further brainstorming for a future campaign, continuing from this post: D12 Reasons Why This Small Town Is Isolated From The Outside World And So Your Merry Band Of Misfits May Go About It Solving Mysteries

Have recently watched and enjoyed Cuckoo, Wormtown, and the Mothman Prophecies. Have also been reading Tonari no Jii-san. As the premise of the Seven Mysteries of St. Fiachra's was ripped off from Summertime Render, I intend to similarly rip off these works for what I am work-in-progressingly titling Airce, Alberta.

The supernatural threat of Seven Mysteries revolved around the Branch of Mag Mell - an ultra-terrestrial plant - the duplicates it could create by consuming humans, and the hypnotic control these duplicates could exert over humans who'd consumed beer brewed with parts of the Branch. In the end, this stuff didn't amount to as much of a threat as I'd intended - the duplicates were no stronger than the humans they were made from, and the Branch was passive, and in the process of dying before the campaign even started.

Parasites - gross, creepy, interesting. They can have complex life-cycles, environments, etc. - another of the things I want to improve on from Seven Mysteries is to increase the dynamism and complexity of the scenario, give more to investigate and reward investigation - centering it around a parasite could give that.

Sacculina is a parasitic barnacle that preys on crabs, castrating male crabs and altering their hormone balance to make them perform female behaviours such as stirring the water to better distribute ejected sacculina larvae. More complex human social behaviours lend themselves to even more interesting parasitic manipulation.

So - Airce, Alberta is a resort town in the Rockies, and a natural reservoir for a particular parasite. However, as Banff and so on become more unaffordable, more people are going to Airce, overwhelming both its infrastructure and its delicate ecological balance. Also the whole area is technically the private fief of a Scottish lord because themes and such. I'm also thinking of a way to put in a cell of Japanese communist exiles.

Humans are not the primary host of this parasite - they are the intermediate host. Humans are like the snails infested by Leucochloridium paradoxum, whose eye-stalks are inflated into pulsating brood-sacs to get birds to eat them (birds being the primary host, who then distribute the parasite via their feces).

The primary hosts are some kind of cryptid that lives in the mountains and caves around Airce - probably a bigfoot or sasquatch of some kind... but that's kind of boring... I will consider...

I like bright light as a weakness of the parasite - the sun, flashes from cameras, etc., revealing or repelling hosts. Light's accessible but also take-away-able, lends itself to creative play & counter-play. Believe friends of the blog Louis and Arnold-sama have been working on light-themed dungeons for some time... Perhaps implies that the parasite lives in the eyes - further implies they perhaps spawn in a mountain lake that mimics the salinity and so on of vitreous fluid. For association with light and Mothman Prophecies, I like giving them a moth-like aesthetic.

Ah - Bergmann's rule - the colder the environment, the larger the organism. The sasquatches aren't the primary host - they're what becomes of advanced intermediary (that is to say, human) hosts. They get bigger and hairier to drive them up the mountains, and into the feeding grounds of the primary hosts. Things like wolves or bears in the forest. Going out there at night is dangerous. Tormented human minds in animalized bodies. Tear apart deer and moose and mice and whatnot and arrange their carcasses in ritualistic sculptures.

I like the idea of there being a "queen" parasite whose host is able to command the other hosts. Yes, like Resident Evil 4. Situation: that aforementioned Scottish lord who legally owns the area Airce sits on runs this pretendian Wicker Man cult thing that secretly worships the parasite, and publicly holds festivals alluding to its existence, the bigfoot-esque transformed hosts, etc. The First Nations people who used to live in the area and have some knowledge of the parasite are pissed off at this, but private security keeps them away.

Anyways, the Scottish lord guy kept an indoctrinated queen-parasite host in order to control the other hosts - perhaps his own child - and would periodically have another host eat the queen-parasite host to transfer it before they went intractably yeti-mode. The latest transfer was interrupted, and the queen-parasite was stolen by an unknown party. Yeah, that seems like a good spark for the powder keg. There's secret tunnels around town and runic graffiti the cult uses to surreptitiously communicate and a lot of the senior staff at the resort places are part of it.

You can extract a longevity serum from the parasite or something. That's why the cult worships it. Yes I return to the same few themes over and over again (woop woop wanna fight about it?). 

Climate change fucks up the spawning ground/releases more of the parasite into the water supply. Yes like The Thaw yes like Fortitude. Yes like Aterrados the parasites in the water & snow exert some psychic influence so people thinks there's ghosts but it's the Germ, son. Lake Mungo.

And another faction - aliens. These guys are the higher-tier faction, where even knowing they're on the board, let alone what they want and how to negotiate with them - even if you'd want to negotiate with them - requires advanced research. They might not literally be aliens, but fill that niche. Somewhere between Men in Black and BOB.

Anyways, the aliens probably first planted the parasite on Earth and now that it's getting out of control they're like aw geez oh man my space-boss is gonna kill me better put my star-coffee down and get down there and find out what's going on. Maybe the aliens eat them or something? Probably too close to the cult's motivation.

Okay - for the primary hosts - they're lake monsters. Alberta has Kinosoo already but that's on the other side of the province. Airce's lake monsters are rubbery, they can squeeze through pipes and such and drag bodies down the toilet. Because of ecological disruption or the parasite population boom or somesuch they're getting more aggressive, coming down the mountain and into people's homes to devour the infected.

I keep mentioning parasites being in the water but that could be kind of lame without real strong foreshadowing to not fuck the players over before they even realize something's amiss, if I don't also include an accessible cure (which would make it lame). Stick tweezers into the super-dilated pupils and yank the caterpillars out. Shine strobe lights into their eyes and hope the larvae chew their way out the right way around. Maybe whoever turns the party onto the town just straight up tells them "don't drink the water". Maybe the water's a risk factor but drinking/bathing in it isn't close to a guaranteed infection. Maybe the cult manufactures a recreational drug, eyedrops or somesuch, to spread the parasite. They've also used the queen-parasite to push infested tourists into risky behaviours so their bodies could be harvested for the longevity serum. Harvesting the longevity serum kills the host. Maybe the infestation-drug is also a healing potion so the daredevil host tourists take the drug and think they're invincible and then they fall into a ravine and snap their necks.

There's a gang of daredevil host tourists or ski instructors/chairlift operators or whatever and they're like the gang in Point Break except instead of robbing banks they break into chalets and rob people.

If the parasite is allowed to reach maturity within the intermediate host (which probably by definition means they're not intermediate hosts, idk parasitology too well) you get a mothman. This is like the worst case scenario for the aliens... probably. It's happened, and the mothman is like a psychic parasite messiah or something. His is the voice you hear through the water.

D12 Reasons Why This Small Town Is Isolated From The Outside World And So Your Merry Band Of Misfits May Go About It Solving Mysteries

About five sessions until the campaign my buddy's running for us finishes - five sessions until I make my pitch for a follow-up/spiritual successor to my Seven Mysteries of St. Fiachra's campaign (this time with prep).

This is brainstorming for that. It's probably already a TVTropes page but whatever:

1. Paranoid Apocalypticism: As seen in the decent horror film Wormtown. The inhabitants believe the outside world has ended in some fashion, and you're probably a dirty barbarian raider.

2. Amish: Catch-all term for intentionally isolated communities with restricted technology. Might literally be Amish, might be de facto ruled by an anti-government militia, whatever.

3. Natural Disaster: Had a lot of snow for a while this past winter in Ontario. Had a dream like that as a kid - aliens prepping the Earth for invasion by making it snow so much everywhere it became impossible to get anywhere. Could be snow, a landslide, forest fire, flooding, whatever, but the town's now isolated for the next however long.

4. Brainworms: As seen in the manga Tonari no Jii-san. There is some sort of mental influence preventing the wider world, and perhaps most of the inhabitants of the town itself, from realizing anything is amiss - to which you are to some extent immune.

5. Domed: As seen in Under the Dome. You're under a dome now. No getting in or out.

6. Transplant: Whole town's been transported to another time, place, dimension, whatever. Maybe solving whatever's going on will transport it back, maybe it won't. Not my problem.

7. Quarantine: Like The Crazies and probably other things too. Whole town's under quarantine, might be a real disease at play, might be a cover-up.

8. Hostage: Town's being held hostage by terrorists or whatever. Government moving in would set them off, your bumbling band of chucklefucks won't.

9. It's All In Your Head: Kind of like uh From Beyond. Whatever's happening in town is happening out-of-phase with ordinary reality, or in a psychic realm or something, point being you need to be in tune with it to even perceive it, so trying to get the authorities involved would make you seem like a crazy person.
9.5. It's All In Your Head 2: It really is all in your head, but aliens or the government or government aliens are putting it in your head to make you do their bidding or as a joke. As seen in Boku ni Korosarero.

10. Memetic Threat: Talking too much about the unusual stuff going on in the town gets you disappeared.

11. Corruption: The townsfolk don't want authorities coming around and noticing things. Maybe they've falsified the amount of elderly in town so they can keep collecting their pensions. Trying to draw attention to the town makes you enemies.

12. Brandon's Green Agenda: Fuel is too expensive to travel readily, and 15 Minute City regulations prevent a lot of movement anyways.

Bonus 13 I Just Found: It's in the National Radio Quiet Zone. 

Killer Copper Pieces: Boxtopi

They come from unknown leagues beneath the sea to perfect their art. At first they struggle and bleed without the water to buoy them. At last they stand proud, and strike faster without the water resisting them.

They are not warriors, not soldiers, not invaders, but rather seekers - chasing that mirage which fades more the closer you approach it, the pinnacle of martial arts, of strength: to be unrivaled under heaven.

They are

Boxtopi

HD: 4 AC: 14 ATK: Boxtopunches SAV: 9 MOV: As human, as octopus in water INT: As human-equivalent, but alien thought process ML: 8
No. Appearing: 1

Seeker's Code: Boxtopi are not mere killers. They want to test and be tested, learn and become stronger.

A boxtopus will set up a 20' x 20' arena somewhere it knows that strong opponents will have to pass through - a chokepoint, a bridge, a crossroads, etc., or else it will entice opponents with a prize for defeating it.

However, this is not a lawless battle to the death. A boxtopus will insist on fighting one-on-one, within the bounds of its arena, without weapons, without ambushes. Fight according to these rules, and the boxtopus will spare defeated opponents, and only use one Boxtopunch per round. Break any, and the boxtopus will fight to the death, using three Boxtopunches per round. Knocking the boxtopus out of its arena without breaking the above rules counts to it as an honourable victory.

Boxtopunches: All boxtopunches do 1d6 damage, in addition to a random effect per below (1D8):

1. Jaw-Splitting Uppercut: Critical range of 18-20.

2. Blade Hook: Save or be disarmed of your weapon or shield.

3. Cross Rush: Save or be knocked prone.

4. Slicing Non-Elbow: Save or be blinded until you wipe the blood from your eyes.

5. Hammer Tentacle: Save or be knocked back 5'.

6. Supercephalopod Punch: Save before the attack roll - if you fail, your AC counts as only 10 against the attack.

7. Sucker Punch: Really more of an open-tentacled slap. Save or have a piece of armour or other worn equipment stripped off you.

8. Tip Jab: Strikes first regardless of where in the initiative order the boxtopus is.