Unleashing the Beast

I've spent a good amount of time this weekend working on additions to my Age of Sigmar army, almost all in the form of Tzaangors, the twisted bird-goat-men that comprise Tzeentch's rendition of the standard-issue beastmen. 

I started by assembling and painting a Tzaangor Shaman, one of the leaders of this abominable species, mounted atop a half-daemon, half-machine Disc of Tzeentch.  This was to fully test-drive the color scheme I was thinking about using to model a tribe of Tzaangors native to the Realm of Fire.  I think it came out very nicely, especially with the bases done up using the "Dark Runes" Green Stuff rolling pin.  I'll be doing as many bases as I can in this style going forward.

With that out of the way, I assembled a box of ten Tzaangors, deciding to equip them with paired blades instead of sword-and-shield, forgoing a little bit of defense in favor of a boost to attack rolls.  There's also a few equipped with "Great Blades" for some extra chopping power against heavily-armored foes.  I also assembled three "Tzaangor Enlightened," more advanced and favored members of the species, who have some delightfully nasty abilities, especially if a Wizard is nearby. 

Finally, something really fun.  Eventually I'm going to want to field a "Fatemaster" in my army, but refuse to work in resin, the only material the character is available in.  So I kitbashed my own, using Warhammer 40K's "Ahriman" Chaos Sorcerer, the glaive-wielding right arm and head of a Chaos Knight, and a shield arm off the Tzaangor sprue.  A little Green Stuff to cover an attachment point where a jetpack is supposed to go and he should be good to prime. 

Lady Winterthorn's Retinue

First thing's first, I am now a proud Union man - specifically, the Brush Wielder's Union, a collection of likeminded wargamers and miniature painters dedicated to getting their stuff painted and on the table and encouraging others in the hobby. 

One of my local wargaming friends expressed an interest in his Age of Sigmar goblins pulling double-duty as a Dragon Rampant warband.  All he needs is someone to play against.  This got me digging my Liche and Skeleton Legions army out of storage, and finding it sorely lacking for what I wanted.  It was too inflexible, had too many easily exploitable weaknesses.  The answer? Build a fresh army. 

After some brainstorming, and going through my project pile of shame, I settled on a warband led by a vampire, and composed of deluded and fanatical mortals who'd been duped by the vampire's promise of eternal life.  I put together a list with a little speed, some shooting, some melee capacity and a solid spellcaster at its heart, which I felt was pretty well-balanced. 

The army core is Countess Adrasteia Winterthorn (Reaper #07010) and her Sanguine Guard (six copies of Reaper's #77408, "Athak, Undead Knight" in Bones), comprising a Reduced Model Unit of Heavy Foot with the Spellcaster fantastical rule applied.  The robes are basecoated in Reaper's "Deep Red" and highlighted with "Fresh Blood," while the armor is done in "Gunmetal Blue" with some accent work in "Ancient Bronze" highlighted with "Antique Gold." Countess Winterthorn's cloak was basecoated in "Midnight Blue" and highlighted with "Twilight Blue."

Last night I assembled the next unit in the army - a band of fanatical cultists that will be rated as Bellicose Foot.  These vicious maniacs compete among themselves for Countess Winterthorn's attention, hoping to spill enough blood to win her favor.  They're a dozen figures assembled straight off the sprues from Northstar's "Frostgrave Cultists" plastic boxed set. 

From here on out, everything else is going to be a conversion or kitbash.  I've got a box of Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry that are going to be converted into mounted cultists through the addition of heads and missile-weapon arms from the Frostgrave Cultists, and some Fireforge Medieval Russians are going to get turned into formal soldiery employed by the Countess. 

A Pyrrhic Victory/Justice or Vengeance? (Frostgrave Mini-Fiction)

The bloodied remnants of the mercenary company dragged themselves slowly through the drifting snow still eddying through the ruined city of Felstad.  Their leader, the diabolist who called himself "Belphegor," was feeling his age as he trudged forward, refusing to glance back at his followers; refusing to see the questions and fears in their eyes.  They'd beaten back that Enchanter's warband and seized a far amount of treasure on this first foray into the depths of the Frozen City, it was true; but they'd also left three of their own dead in the snow, their blood steaming as it pooled across the ancient cobblestones.  The brutish thug Big John had been peppered with arrows and fallen off a ledge, the sickening crack of his spine breaking echoing through the ruins.  The burglar Deladrin had likewise been shot down, an arrow catching her as she darted from one shadow to another.  And most distressing, the half-goat, half-man that bleated its name as "Black Phillip"...hacked into bleeding chunks by his own comrade, the knight Vaeloth - ensorcelled by a "Mind Control" spell, he'd been forced to attack his own fellows - including Belphegor.  The half-fiend's horned head hung in shame, his sword cast away somewhere on the battlefield; he dragged Black Phillip's heavy, two-handed axe behind him, leaning against his sister - the thief Tiviel - for both physical and moral support.  

As you can probably tell, my last game with Tom was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory! I think at the end of the game all I had left on the table was my Wizard, Apprentice and a Crossbowman, and during the recovery phase at the end of the game, three figures bit the dust for good, including, to my infinite disappointment, the Infantryman "Black Phillip." The goat-headed beastman mixed nicely with the humans and half-fiends and emphasized the "traditional diablerie" theme I have going with my Summoners.

But, the nice thing about a game like Frostgrave or Mordheim is that it encourages the development of a story through the medium of the dice.  And this set me up very nicely; three rounds stuck under a mind-control spell and forced to kill his comrades means the knight Vaeloth now has a vendetta against Tom's Wizard, which will change the way I run him on the table next time we meet.  And since, when it came time to roll up treasure, I discovered I'd found a "Banner of Courage" (which gives a bonus against spells like Mind Control) which I immediately equipped Vaeloth with - and that meant converting a figure to represent him carrying the Banner into battle!

Fortunately, Vaeloth was a Reaper Bones figure; #77120 "Vaeloth, Hellborn Paladin" to be exact, pictured in his original state to the left.  It was a simple matter to buy a second copy of the figure and slice away his sword (Bones figures lend themselves very well to conversion).  A 3" pin pushed through his hand provided the skeleton of a banner pole, and a little bit of Green Stuff thickened it out.  A spare banner from a Games Workshop Chaos Warriors box (along with a horned skull from the same) completed the Banner of Courage.  But this left Vaeloth without a weapon! So I cut away his right arm just above the elbow (at the edge of his scalemail sleeve) and cut apart a Chaos Warrior's right arm so that I had a gloved hand holding an axe.  A little bit of Green Stuff became the sleeved arm between the scale armor and the hand, and Vaeloth was ready to be painted.

I copied the color scheme from my first Vaeloth pretty closely, though I brightened his armor a little (drybrushing a bit more Tarnished Steel over the Blackened Steel base coat) and highlighted his red tunic a little bit brighter.  I kept the banner as simple as possible; an ordinary inverted pentagram in white (a color I haven't used in this warband) looks very striking against the dark red of the banner.  I still need to decide if I want to glue a grass tuft or two to his base, and then add snow flocking.

Belphegor weighed the pouch of golden crowns in his hand, mentally calculating how much of the treasure their last foray had brought in remained.  He'd hired a second crossbowman to help counter the archers he expected to encounter on his next trip into the ruins, and recognizing the value of a combination of skill at arms and heavy armor, he'd hired another knight, the albino Lady Cassiata; she had brought with her a pair of enormous warhounds.  He hoped the slavering brutes would make quick work of rival spellcasters. 

"When do we return to the ruins?" grated a barely-human voice behind him.  Vaeloth.  The armor-clad half-devil hefted the axe to his shoulder - he'd cut the haft of Black Phillip's battleaxe down so that he could wield it one-handed.  Its edge gleamed, freshly sharpened. 

Belphegor smiled thinly beneath his cowl.  "Soon, my impatient friend.  Your axe will taste blood ere long."

"When?" Vaeloth insisted.  "That wizard is still out there.  I will not allow him to control me again - I swear by the Pit! Black Phillip's axe will drink deeply his lifeblood - let me find him and exact justice!"

Belphegor could not help but chuckle.  "Justice, my friend? Or revenge?"

Vaeloth howled with rage, unable to refute the diabolist's suggestion.  Behind them, seated on a crate as she mended the straps on her shield, Lady Cassiata could not suppress a snicker.  The red-eyed woman made no attempts to hide her contempt for the half-devil's explosive temper and demonstrably weak will.  Vaeloth turned and snarled at her, and almost immediately her slim, single-edged sword was drawn and at his throat.  

"Settle down, both of you!" Belphegor demanded, allowing arcane energies to crackle between his fingers.  "Stop this at once or I'll consign both of you to the Pit.  Save your energy for Felstad.  We re-enter the city soon enough."

Converted Cyclops

I'm really proud of this piece.  This began life as Reaper's "Kagunk, Ogre Chieftain" from their Bones line, which I decided to convert into a cyclops for use with Broken Legions or Dragon Rampant.

I shaved down the brows of Kagunk and filled in the eye sockets with Green Stuff before building up a central socket, bulging eye and heavy brow ridge.  I've never done any sort of sculpting like this before - the only things I've ever made out of Green Stuff before are stalagmites, which are pretty easy.

Kagunk painted up nicely: I really like the blue of the kilt and the leather straps came out especially.  His skin tone came out a little lighter than I'd originally intended; I had originally been trying for closer to James Earl Jones' complexion, since I do have a figure of Thulsa Doom to paint down the line, but the highlights kept coming out very chalky-looking, and I ended up having to go a shade lighter to smooth them out; this may have been down to the brush I was using or the broader expanse of muscle I was painting; the original combination might look better on a 28mm human figure than it does on this hulking slab of muscle.

The camera also makes this look lighter than it is.  I might go back and redo his eye - it's hard to tell here because of the shade of blue I used, but he does have a defined iris and pupil.  Redoing it with a lighter blue might look better and make this more noticeable.

All in all, I'm really happy with how he came out and I'm looking forward to seeing him in action on the tabletop.

Cthuesday: The Xotl'mi-go

Last week I alluded to T.E.D. Klein's ghastly humanoid horrors, the Xotl'mi-go, from the short story "The Children of the Kingdom," published in the 1980s in the collection Dark Gods.  I read the story years ago, having gotten the book for a dollar at a used book sale - would that I still had it! While much of the plot of the story has faded from my memory, much of the story's imagery, and of course the creatures themselves, remain fresh in my mind.  I decided it'd be worthwhile to devote this week's Cthuesday Creature entry to these grotesques.

The story is set during the New York City blackout of 1977, during which something like 36 blocks of Manhattan were ravaged by fire in under 24 hours, people basically going mad from the heat, the power outage, racial tensions and fears of the "Son of Sam" killer.  Klein took this all-too-human horror and wove a tale of inhuman horror amidst the looting and rioting.  The Xotl'migo, a race of pallid, near-blind, web-fingered humanoids, emerged from the sewers and sub-basements taking advantage of the darkness and chaos to pursue their unwholesome goals.

Much like the Deep Ones, the Xotl'mi-go are driven to perpetuate their race on humankind; mythology suggests that the Xotl'mi-go are a race of men that "God made wrong," and He cursed them with eyelessness and a complete lack of reproductive organs as punishment for their sins.  This lack of genitals has not stopped them from assaulting and trying to forcibly breed with human women, and they are indiscriminate - I recall from the story an infant and an elderly woman being assaulted.

Point blank, I'm going to say this: I'd leave the rape on the cutting room floor in any game I ran featuring the Xotl'mi-go.  I've got both men and women in my games right now, spanning a thirty-year age range, and we play in a public space.  There's no way I feel comfortable presenting the fact that these monsters are rapists at the table, no matter how "real" it makes the horror.  It doesn't have a place in my games.

Let's take a look at the stat block, updated to 7th Edition:

 STR= (2d6+8)x5 = 75
CON = (3d6+6)x5 = 80-85
SIZ = (2d6+6)x5 = 65
INT = (3d6)x5 = 50-55
POW = (3d6+3)x5 = 50
DEX = (3d6)x5 = 50-55
Move: 9
HP: 14-15
Av. Damage Bonus: +1d4
Build: +1
Attacks: 2 Claws, with a chance to bite if a victim is held.

Claws, 30%, dmg 1d6+DB
Bite, 25% if  victim is held, dmg 1d6

Armor: 1 point of rubbery skin
Spells: None, normally
Skills: Jump 55%, Listen 75%, Stealth 80%
Sanity Loss: 0/1d6 for seeing the Xotl'mi-go

While the Xotl'mi-go are not insanely heavy hitters, with these stats they can still be pretty nasty, especially given that they tend to be encountered in gangs of 2-10 individuals.  They're faster than the average man, and stronger as well, and with that 80% chance of being stealthy they're likely to be on a party of unsuspecting investigators faster than they can react.

So how do we want to use these creatures in an adventure? Rather than recycle the C.H.U.D. inspired scenario from last week, I'm going to draw from another horror film from the 80s and tie it into the blackout scenario from the original short story.

Psychiatrists at Oakhaven Sanitarium have been studying an unusual phenomenon - four patients, violent men kept away from the general patient population by electronic locks and armed guards, have begun to correlate their psychoses in an unprecedented fashion, forming a singular, shared obsession.

It began with Jack Cutter, a former POW who served in Vietnam.  He emerged from his captivity paranoid and insomniac, convinced of the existence of "creatures" - not men, but close, with grasping hands and tiny, burning eyes above a mouth like a fanged sphincter - that emerged from the jungle or the tunnels at night, lurching through villages in the darkness of the New Moon, looking for...something.  More than once, he says, inhuman faces were pressed against the bars of his cage, while boneless, rubbery white hands reached for him.  US Army Psychologists suggest that these were hallucinations brought on by the extreme mental strain of his captivity, dehumanizing his captors into loathsome monsters.

In Oakhaven, Cutter found confirmation in Fred "Preacher" Dobbs, a former minister and current pyromaniac who filled Cutter's mind with stories of lost tribes and races of men cursed by God for their sins, made monstrous and driven to the edges of civilization.  Cutter began to rationalize that the creatures he encountered were of such a tribe, while Dobbs found Cutter's stories to prove his own religious mania.

The two of them enlisted Reggie "Lennie" Bruster, a giant of a man judged not guilty of child-murder due to his own simplistic mental state, and Jimmy "Ferret" Skaggs, a rat-faced little man with some fairly antisocial compulsive tendencies and a long history of violence towards women.  Cutter became convinced that Lennie and Ferret were on the verge of being cursed by God to become the creatures he saw, and concluded that he and Preacher had been placed with these men to save them.  The fact that Ferret, in his old job with the sanitation department, claimed to have once seen the hastily-disposed of, waterlogged corpse of a similar creature fished out of the sewer, cemented his usefulness to Cutter.

The four became convinced that they were the only ones who knew for certain of the creatures' existence, and decided that God had ordained them to burn these creatures out of wherever they'd found refuge from the harsh light of day.

When a blackout disables the electronic locks to their cells, the four realize that now is their chance, and set off for nearby New York City, intent on cleansing the Big Apple of the worms at its core.  In hot pursuit are a team of psychiatrists, orderlies and security guards (i.e., the Investigators), eager to return the four madmen to the safety of their cells before they can burn down half the city in their hunt for these imagined "monsters."  But are they so imaginary...?

This scenario takes its set up from my absolute favorite under-known 1980s horror film, 1982's ALONE IN THE DARK, from writer/director Jack Sholder, starring Jack Palance, Walter Matthau and Donald Pleasence.  Using it here, I've made the focus on pursuing the human monsters, which if handled well will lull players into a false sense of security, letting them think that this is a "red herring" sort of scenario where there are no Mythos elements - then BAM, a webbed, slimy hand emerges from the shadows and clamps over an investigator's mouth, dragging them backwards with their friends none the wiser.  Of course, then we have the moral quandary - what do the players do when they realize the lunatics are *right*?

Cthuesday: the Miri Nigri

It seems like Cthuesday comes around faster every week.  This week we've got something a little bit further off the beaten path, unlike most of what we've covered so far, I'm actually unfamiliar with the source material for the Miri Nigri - I've yet to get a hold of and read a copy of Frank Belknap Long's The Horror from the Hills.  So my only familiarity with the Miri Nigri is the entry in the Malleus Monstrorum.

So these are a race of small, ugly humanoids created by the Great Old One Chaugnar Faugn from toads, to serve him and his offspring.  They look human except for their toad-like faces, cannot speak and exist solely to fulfill the will of Chaugnar Faugn, spending much of their time crawling over their god's inert form (picking off parasites, perhaps?).  They are generally encountered in groups of ten or more.

Not having a lot to go on here, I think I have a lot more leeway to make these creatures my own.  First, the stats:

Miri Nigri, Strange Dark Dwarves
STR = (2d6)x5 = 35
CON = (3d6)x5 = 50-55
SIZ = (1d4+4)x5 = 30-35
INT = (2d6)x5 = 35
POW = (3d6)x5 = 50-55
DEX = (3d6+6)x5 = 80-85
APP = (1d6)x5 = 15-20
Move: 8
HP: 8-9
Av. Damage Bonus: -1
Build: -1
Attacks: 1 claw attack per round.

Fighting 35%, damage 1d3+DB

Armor: none
Spells: none
Skills: Stealth 90%, Swim 75%
Sanity Loss: 0/1d2 to see the Miri Nigri

So what do we do with these strange, dark dwarves? Well, how many horror movies have you seen?

Specifically, I'm thinking of some of the early work of Canadian director David Cronenberg, in my opinion the indisputable master of body-horror.  The first thing that came to mind when I read about these weird, sexless, alien dwarves was Cronenberg's film THE BROOD, in which a woman undergoing an unusual psychiatric treatment manifests her rage as grotesque "children" that kill at her command.  The similarities are striking; she is effectively imprisoned in her therapist's office, leaving these dwarves to serve as her hands in the world, much like with Chaugnar Faugn and the Miri Nigri.

The Miri Nigri are referenced in The Malleus Monstrorum as abducting blood sacrifices for the vampiric Chaugnar Faugn.  I love this imagery, of them descending the mountain to remote villages and carrying off young men and women in total silence.  If you wanted to tie this in to Cronenberg's RABID, for example, I'd give the Miri Nigri a blood drain ability similar to a vampire's - they do the actual drinking of the blood, which Chaugnar Faugn "feeds" on vicariously - via a tentacular trunk, similar to Chaugnar Faugn's, that emerges from a concealed pouch on the body.

So let's put these in an adventure, and I'm going to continue the '70s-'80s horror movie theme.

The Investigators get involved when a homeless man turns up, torn to shreds.  Investigating reveals he was one of the city's "mole people," homeless people who had colonized abandoned subway stations and forgotten sub-basements to make living spaces for themselves, away from the eyes of the law.  Getting down there to speak with them will prove difficult as they are elusive and wary, but communicating with them can earn the investigators word of "those little guys," silent, child-sized figures in bulky clothing that are occasionally glimpsed in the distance but never up close.  They've become an urban legend to the already-legendary mole people, a sort of boogey man; whenever one of their own goes missing, well, "those little guys" must have taken them.

Exploring the city's underworld turns up recurring images scrawled and scratched on walls of Ganesha-like figures accompanied by script in no recognizable language.

The second phase is introduced as the mole people begin to arm themselves; lead pipes, fireplace pokers, anything they can swing like a club gets picked up and carried with them; one of them is caught trying to steal a police officer's pistol, claiming he needed to be able to defend himself against "those little guys." Interrogation reveals that those little guys have been coming closer, lingering longer around human settlements in the underworld.  They never speak, but the mole people pick up..."ideas," for lack of a better term, when those little guys are around.  The ideas are infectious.

First, a mole person begins drawing "the elephant headed fella" and writing the strange runes.  Then they start talking about how the elephant headed fella is the oldest god, the First God, the god that doesn't forget his children and leave them to go homeless and hungry.  They stop blinking so much.  Their bodies hunch and dwindle, their hair falling out.  They stop speaking.  Then eventually, they just slink away into the darkness to join their new family...only coming back to find food for the elephant headed fella.

So that's kind of a blend of THE BROOD, RABID and the 1980s cheeseball classic C.H.U.D., with the Miri Nigri taking the place of the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.  Just about any good Deep One-focused adventure could probably be adapted to use the Miri Nigri as well, while the adventure outlined above would also work with the sinister Xotl'mi-go from T.E.D. Klein's "Children of the Kingdom."

That's it for this week, readers.  I'm running a session at my local gaming store tonight, test-driving a new scenario I've written.  I'll hopefully have the write-up posted Friday.

Cthuesday: Desh, Greater and Lesser

Apologies for the lack of Cthuesday post last week, readers, I spent the weekend in Cleveland at the Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo with friends, and just didn't have the time or energy to produce content here when I got back.  So this week I'll give you a two-fer, and cover both varieties of Desh, an interdimensional creature that originally appeared in the adventure "The Dark Wood," in Adventures in Arkham County.

Appearing as long, tadpole-like creatures, both varieties of Desh are native to a coterminous dimension that overlaps but does not intersect our own, much like the Terrors from Beyond.  Unlike the Terrors, the Desh are not accessible through the use of an Ultraviolet Projector - Desh come into our dimension when summoned by specific spells known to the Hyperboreans.  When cast, the spell uses the human neural network to draw Desh into our dimension; the process is painful but not otherwise harmful with Lesser Desh, but tends to prove fatal with the Greater Desh, who explode out of a subject's skull, leaving a star-shaped hole behind.  Intriguingly, the Greater Desh's skin flickers with images drawn from the memories of the individual through whose brain it was summoned.

Lesser Desh seem to have only the most tenuous grasp on our reality when summoned; they tend to "unravel" within 1d3 days, and are ineffectual in combat.  They may be of the most use to the Keeper as "warnings" to investigators - signs that their investigation is proceeding in the right direction, and that if they keep going they'll encounter much worse.  Alternately, swarm the PCs with them! They won't take any physical damage (unless the Lesser Desh use their grab and trip ability near a flight of stairs or a cliff, heh heh!) but the feeling of dozens of cold, wriggling alien bodies slithering over and around them is good for some SAN loss for sure.

Lesser Desh
STR = (2d6+1)x5 = 40
CON = 1d6x5 = 15-20
SIZ = 1d6x5 = 15-20
INT = 1d4x5 = 10-15
POW = 1d3x5 = 10
DEX = (3d6+1)x5 = 55-60
Move: 6
HP: 3-4
Av. Damage Bonus:N/A
Build: -2
Attacks: 1 Trip

Grab and Trip 35%, dmg N/A (target must make a Hard DEX roll or fall prone)

Armor: none
Spells: none
SAN: 0/1d3 to see a Lesser Desh

Greater Desh are another story.  They are fast, they are mean, and they can chew your face off.  With a movement value of 30, there's simply no such thing as outrunning them.  They're even likely to have spells, albeit possibly with strange effects in this dimension, which is a double-whammy.  The luck required in killing them is a triple whammy.

Greater Desh
STR = (4d6+3)x5 = 85
CON = 3d6x5 = 50-55
SIZ = 2d6x5 = 35
INT = 2d6x5 = 35
POW = (3d6+2)x5 = 60-65
DEX = (6d6+1)x5 = 110
Move: 30
HP: 3-4
Av. Damage Bonus:N/A
Build: 0
Attacks: Greater Desh Grab and Hold their targets to restrain them for a Bite attack.

Grab (Maneuver) 45%, target is restrained and a Bite attack hits automatically.
Bite 55%, dmg 1d10

Armor: none, however Greater Desh do not take damage normally.  On a successful attack against a Greater Desh, the damage is rolled then multipled by five, giving a percentage chance that the creature is destroyed outright by the attack, dissipating from our dimension in a star-shaped burst of light.
Spells: keeper's choice, likely with very bizarre effects in this dimension
SAN: 1/1d4+1 to see a Greater Desh

So what do we do with these creatures in an adventure? I think a good starting point is their
connection to the Hyperboreans, the prehistoric magic-using people of Greenland in the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith and others.  The adventure "The Dark Wood" has an artifact that can be used to summon the Desh, an item that, while not mass-produced, was likely not a one of a kind deal, but, like a Hand of Glory, was created by wizards as needed, and as such would be a useful tool to use in creating adventures.

For example, in a Gaslight or Classic scenario, an expansion of the London Underground might unearth buried Hyperborean ruins - a crypt or, perhaps, a wizard's laboratories.  Hyperborean runes look enough like Elder Futhark at a glance to be mistaken for Viking, and archaeologists descend on the site.  One of them determines that he's looking at relics of an entirely unrecorded civilization, and becomes obsessed with the site, with unlocking its secrets, to make himself famous.  He interprets bas-reliefs of humans "communing" with this bejeweled skull as a form of ancestor worship, and when he finds the skull in a sealed lead box, he can't help but pick it up and touch the gems...activating it.

For a more scientific take on the Desh, I'd tie them in with altered states of consciousness - either on the cusp between waking and dreaming (maybe connecting them to the terrifying experience known as "sleep paralysis") or from hallucinogenic drug use - in which case, could the Desh be the "Self Transforming Machine Elves" associated with DMT usage?

To borrow an idea from an old episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," maybe the subconscious mind of a coma patient has made contact with the Desh-Dimension, and during REM cycles he begins to "leak" Lesser Desh into the facility.  Perhaps at first the Lesser Desh try to swim out into the world to contact his family members with messages (flickering across their quicksilver-like skin) from his trapped personality, or harass people he held grudges against.  Soon these tadpole-like creatures begin to emerge from the heads of those he's "contacted" in this way.  What happens when a Greater Desh follows its lesser brethren into our world?

In the latter case, if we're using DMT/REM Desh, I'd give the Greater Desh access to a lot of the perception-altering spells - things like "Consume Likeness" and (a personal favorite of mine) "Curse of the Putrid Husk." Spells like "Gate" would be completely apropos as well, and I might throw in some nasty stuff with a memetic or genetic memory bent to it, like "Dread Curse of Azathoth" or "Red Sign of Shudde-M'ell" (for more on memetic horror ideas, check out Ken Hite's "The Madness Dossier"!)

I think that'll be it from me for this installment.  Next Tuesday I'm running another one-shot at Just Games Rochester, and I'll have a fresh installment of Cthuesday for you all as well.

Cthuesday: Inhabitants of L'gy'hx

In the fiction of Ramsey Campbell, the L'gy'hxians are squat, cube-shaped creatures of living metal, native to the planet Uranus.  They briefly played host to the Insects of Shaggai following the destruction of their homeworld, but ultimately drove the Insects off-world as a response to their religious rites.  Some L'gy'hxians may have come to Earth with the Insects, possibly as slaves.

I'm kind of surprised at how many times I've seen these creatures pop up in scenarios, given the fact that they're metallic cube-creatures from Uranus.  They appear in the adventure "Death by Misadventure" in the book Terrors from Beyond, in which they are missionaries looking to spread the worship of their bat-like god Lhrogg.  One also appears in the MULA monograph "The Big Book of Cults," associated with an unscrupulous plastic surgery clinic.  I feel like I've seen a third appearance, but I'm not recalling it right now.

So right away we have an interesting dichotomy for these creatures: religious fanatics or consummate scientists? Either way, they don't want anything to do with Azathoth, at least in the form that the Insects from Shaggai worship it, which seems wholly reasonable from both angles - both as a competing religion and as "they're worshiping an atomic explosion.  Maybe we don't want that in our backyard."

Let's take a look at the stats before we go any further:

STR = (6d6)x5 = 105
CON = (3d6+6)x5 = 82
SIZ = (2d6+10)x5 = 85
INT = (2d6+10)x5 = 85
POW = (3d6)x5 = 52
DEX = (2d6+3)x5 = 50
Move:  8
HP: 16-17
Av. Damage Bonus: +1d6
Build: +2
Attacks: 1 attack using an alien weapon (most commonly a thin slashing blade capable of cutting through metal as readily as flesh, or an electrical whip).  Other weapons are possible, even likely.

Fighting 30%, dmg 1d8+DB (knife) or 1d4+2d10 electrical damage (whip; on an Extreme success, the whip wraps around the target, dealing an automatic 2d10 electrical damage each round thereafter until the target is killed or manages to escape the coil)

Armor: 19 points of metallic "skin."

Spells: On a successful Extreme Intelligence roll, the L'gy'hxian knows as many spells as the number shown on the dice. One of these will always be Contact Lhrogg.

Skills: Electrical Repair 50%, Mechanical Repair 50%

Sanity Loss:0/1d8 to see a L'gy'hxian.

So what do we do with the Inhabitants of L'gy'hx? Well, let's take a look back at that dichotomy I mentioned earlier.  The L'gy'hxians have strong religious beliefs and advanced technology; as noted in the Malleus Monstrorum, they're not necessarily hostile, but they are curious.  

To that end, I'd equip them with spells that tie into these ideas of proselytizing and exploring.  Gate spells are going to be the big one, because this lets you bring the L'gy'hxians to Earth without relying on the Insects.  Spells like Mind Transfer would allow them to wander undetected among humanity, observing and studying, Suggestion lets them plant the seeds of L'gy'hxian ideas into human minds, making people more tractable for the purposes of conversion - either spiritual or physical.  

Another point I'd like to make here is - look at the literature of the UFO world, especially cattle mutilations, abductions and the various Contactee movements that have sprung up here and there since the 1950s.  People tend to only associate flying saucer lore with the Mi-Go, but I think it offers a lot of good, gameable ideas that can be used with any aliens.  The Malleus Monstrorum uses an altered image of Ezekiel's Vision as the image associated with the L'gy'hxians, and the description of "wheels within wheels" described in the Bible is often cited as evidence of a UFO encounter in the Bronze Age Mediterranean by ancient astronaut proponents.  

Here's a quickly-sketched out idea for a scenario that would play off the UFO ideas as well as the religious/scientific dichotomy mentioned earlier:

A ranch in an obscure corner of Utah begins experiencing a series of cattle mutilations over a series of weeks; the cows having been literally taken apart, the pieces neatly arranged around the main part of the carcasses.  The owners of the ranch begin reporting strange lights and nocturnal encounters - noises on the porch or the roof, like something heavy moving around slowly.  UFO investigators begin to investigate the area, interviewing the owners, setting up motion cameras, etc.  

Cuboid being by Michael Bukowski
(Yog-Blogsoth)

Then the owners of the ranch begin claiming to have been contacted by aliens, having been given a message of "perfect peace" to deliver to the world.  The aliens are spiritually superior to Mankind, and are willing to serve as Messiahs to lift us out of our current benighted state.  The ranch metamorphoses into a church, preaching the message of salvation via alien intervention.  The aliens' god, an angelic creature of wings and eyes, is praised and venerated.  The church attracts converts and devotees the way any new religious movement does, drawing in the lonely, the forgotten, the ill and desperate.  

There's an undercurrent to the message, only given to those who have served the church faithfully and done their part to spread the teachings of Lhrogg.  For the chosen, there is a special heaven that awaits - they will be whisked off to the aliens' homeworld, to dwell in beauty and wonder forever.  

The ranchers-turned-preachers are no longer human; their bodies have been taken by L'gy'hxians, their minds consigned to a slow death inside the alien metal bodies of these invaders, kept securely locked in the storm cellar under the ranch, slowly asphyxiating in the thin, oxygen-rich atmosphere of Earth.  Whether they are looking for converts to take to L'gy'hx as slaves (surgically altered and mechanically augmented to survive the pressures and atmosphere of Uranus) or to Uraniform Earth into a colony world for their own kind to inhabit I leave to other Keepers.  

Cthuesday: The Scions of Tsathoggua

Thusfar, Cthuesday has focused on entities that investigators can overcome with brute force and a bit of luck.  I think it's time for a change; there are plenty of monsters in Call of Cthulhu that require a great deal of smarts and specialized tools (i.e., magic) to overcome, and are best dealt with via a good set of running shoes.  One of my favorites, despite its association here with Clark Ashton Smith's toad-god Tsathogua, is a creation of Robert E. Howard, a man best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales.  Never named in the stories but dubbed the "Scions of Tsathoggua" by Chaosium, these giggling, elephantine beasts are also associated with the toadlike entities Gol-Goroth and Ossadagowah, both entities being speculatively identified as an elder member of the species in the Malleus Monstrorum.

I like the nebulosity this creates; if the investigators are going up against a cult of Gol-Goroth, are they going to ultimately be fighting against the Great Old One, or a Scion misidentified by its worshipers as Gol-Goroth? It makes a big difference and can keep the players on their toes.

The story most strongly associated with the Scions of Tsathoggua is "The Thing on the Roof," in which a Scion follows an adventurer home to retrieve a stolen amulet from an ancient temple.  According to Von Junzt, author of Nameless Cults, the Scion is both the treasure and the god of the ancient temple, furthering the association of these creatures accepting worship on their sire's behalf or being flat-out misidentified as gods themselves.  Personally, and I say this as no dedicated Howard scholar, I identify the creature that appears in "The Fire of Asshurbanipal" as another Scion.  A slightly more controversial, perhaps, identification on my part is to identify Thog, the entity that Conan slays, or at least banishes, in the story "Xuthal of the Dusk" (aka "The Slithering Shadow") as a Scion of Tsathoggua as well.  There is precious little in the story to differentiate Thog from the temple guardians in the other two stories, so I see no reason not to treat them as members of the same species.

The description given in "The Thing on the Roof" is amazing, telling us everything we need to know while also telling us precious little of concrete substance - only hints and insinuations, as is best for Call of Cthulhu:

"Gathering my shattered nerves, I broke down the door. A foul and overpowering stench billowed out like a yellow mist. Gasping in nausea I entered. The room was in ruins, but nothing was missing except that crimson toad-carved jewel Tussmann called the Key, and that was never found. A foul, unspeakable slime smeared the windowsill, and in the center of the room lay Tussmann, his head crushed and flattened; and on the red ruin of skull and face, the plain print of an enormous hoof."

Let's see what these stats would look like in 7th edition:

STR = (6d6+34)x5 = 275
CON = (3d6+6)x5 = 82
SIZ = (6d6+42)x5 = 315
INT = (2d6+6)x5 = 65
POW = (3d6+6)x5 = 82
DEX = (3d6)x5 = 52
Move: 7/10 Flying
HP: 39-40
Av. Damage Bonus: +6d6
Attacks: 2d6 tentacles OR 1 bite OR 1 trample

Fighting 45%, dmg 1d6 (bite), 1/2 damage bonus (tentacle) or 2d10+DB (trample)

Armor: because of the mucus-like makeup of their bodies, Scions of Tsathoggua suffer minimum possible damage from physical, non-enchanted weapons.  Fire, chemicals, electricity and spells and enchanted weapons harm them normally

Spells: all know Contact Tsathoggua, Call Ossadagowah and Contact Formless Spawn spells.  These entities may know 1d6 other spells as well if an Extreme INT roll is made on 1d100.

Sanity Loss: 1d2/1d10 Sanity Points to see a Scion of Tsathoggua.

So now what do we do with one of these? They've got a strong association with being the guardians of sacred sites and the avengers of slights to the Toad God, which I think is a good starting point for pulpy, globe-trotting adventure scenarios, but what if we want something a little darker?

Maybe for a modern (or, I suppose, a classic) era scenario, one of these creatures takes up residence in the sub-basements of a major museum; a globe-trotting adventurer 80 years ago brought home an idol he shouldn't have, the Scion showed up, killed the adventurer -- but decided that leaving the idol here could allow for the formation of a new and revitalized cult.  It has made itself comfortable in a sub-basement among the dusty crates of past expeditions and has begun to call out to the minds of men, summoning the weak-willed to serve it.

First, a janitor or two.  Just as a warm up.  Nobody notices much when these guys start spending their lunches down there, and working extra late.  Then a security guard.  Presented with a living god, driven mad by its presence, what is there to do but to serve? Now the cult has a little muscle; a man with a gun can sometimes accomplish what an alien monster cannot.  One by one, the museum service crew and security are taken under the Scion's guidance before setting sight on the curators and scientists working upstairs.

Eventually, there's a Mistake.  Someone goes mad and flees gibbering from the scene.  They manage to make it up into the museum proper before the cult can stop them.  The madman is seen before they can be dealt with.  This is messy; the cult moves to start covering up the escape.  The madman was working too hard, had a nervous breakdown, they start to say.  If there's a police investigation, they try to deflect it away from where the Scion is hiding, or separate the cops and bring only one at a time into the Scion's presence.  After all, members of law enforcement would be handy for the cult to control.

And then there are those pesky Investigators who start poking around...

Cthuesday: The Swine-Things

You know the way some geeks fan-boy out over Lovecraft? Lovecraft himself fan-boyed out of William Hope Hodgson, an early Weird Horror author whose life and career were cut tragically short in the trenches of the First World War.  I will admit that at this point, I kind of feel a bit jaded on Lovecraft's own work, having read and reread his stories so many times; but I still get the same Weird thrill from Hodgson that I no longer get from Lovecraft.  I'm sure time and familiarity will dull that thrill, but for now, man, Hodgson's the best.  Today's Cthuesday Creature comes from his 1908 novel The House on the Borderland, which Lovecraft admitted as an especial favorite.

Here's the description given in the novel:

Thus, I saw the thing more completely; but it was no pig—God alone knows what it was. It reminded me, vaguely, of the hideous Thing that had haunted the great arena. It had a grotesquely human mouth and jaw; but with no chin of which to speak. The nose was prolonged into a snout; thus it was that with the little eyes and queer ears, gave it such an extraordinarily swinelike appearance. Of forehead there was little, and the whole face was of an unwholesome white color.

For perhaps a minute, I stood looking at the thing with an ever growing feeling of disgust, and some fear. The mouth kept jabbering, inanely, and once emitted a half-swinish grunt. I think it was the eyes that attracted me the most; they seemed to glow, at times, with a horribly human intelligence, and kept flickering away from my face, over the details of the room, as though my stare disturbed it.

It appeared to be supporting itself by two clawlike hands upon the windowsill. These claws, unlike the face, were of a clayey brown hue, and bore an indistinct resemblance to human hands, in that they had four fingers and a thumb; though these were webbed up to the first joint, much as are a duck's. Nails it had also, but so long and powerful that they were more like the talons of an eagle than aught else.

The creatures are intelligent yet savage, human-like yet powerfully inhuman, and seemingly drawn to areas of instability in time and space.  The titular House of the novel sits on what appears to be a nexus point between our world and another dimension, a place called the Plain of Silence, ringed by mountains upon which strange, bestial faces are carved.  It is here that the narrator of the novel first encounters the Swine-Things, though they soon follow him back to our world, eventually collapsing much of the ground under and around the House into a vast sinkhole to entrap him.  The Malleus Monstrorum also suggests that these foul creatures could be encountered both in the Waking World and the Dreamlands - perhaps the Plain of Silence itself is part of the Dreamlands, bordering on the Vale of Pnath or the Plateau of Leng?

I'm not going to get too much into Dreamlands material here; if I wanted to run a Dreamlands game I'd probably use D&D or similar rules instead of Call of Cthulhu, to be honest, but it's also just not my style; I much prefer "realistic" horror games set in the real world to trying to run swashbuckling fantasy adventure in a world for which the players have no base of reference to ground themselves in.

Let's update the Swine-Things' stats from 6th to 7th edition before we go any further, shall we?

STR: (2d6+8)x5 = 85
CON: (3d6)x5 = 52
SIZ: (2d6+8)x5 = 85
INT: (3d6)x5 = 52
POW: (3d6)x5 = 52
DEX: (3d6)x5 = 52
HP: 12-13
Move: 8
Av. Damage Bonus: +1d4
Build: 1
Attacks: two claws OR one bite OR one tusk gore (for Swine-Things with tusks, most likely older males) per round.

Fighting 30%, dmg 1d6+DB (claws), 1d4 (bite), or 1d8+DB (tusk gore)

Armor: none

Spells: Normally none, but a Swine-Thing with an Intelligence of 85 or higher may know 1d4 spells.

Skills: Climb 80%, Listen 60%, Scent 80%, Sense Time/Space Instability/Gate 75%, Track 65%

Sanity Loss: 0/1d6 to see a Swine-Thing.

So what are we looking at here? Physically, the average Swine-Thing is a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger than the average human, but not outrageously so.  Their bodies are relatively soft and defenseless, with enough hit points to take a rifle bullet or two before falling, but not much more than that.  And they tend to arrive in groups, making them an ideal alternative to cultists for your Thompson-trigger-happy players.

The odds are very much against Swine-Thing knowing spells, but in the off chance they do, the Malleus Monstrorum suggests spells relating to Yog-Sothoth, Daoloth, Chaugnar Faugn or otherwise relating to movement through space and time.  These are very sound choices, given these creatures' connection with the membrane between worlds, if a little unimaginative.  At one point in the original novel, a Swine-Thing infects first the narrator's dog, then the narrator himself, with a luminous fungal infection - sure sounds like the spell "Green Decay" to me!

A couple ways of presenting these creatures in a scenario spring to my mind.  The first is as a sort of fourth-dimensional parasite; these creatures are drawn to and feed upon anything that disturbs the integrity of the barrier between dimensions, leeching off the energies released on both sides of that barrier.  This could take many forms; a Gate spell, sure, but also perhaps the summoning of a Dimensional Shambler or Hound of Tindalos.  An attempt to contact Yog-Sothoth could have disastrous side-effects as a horde of shuffling Swine-Things take up residence in the vicinity.  In such a situation, the Swine-Things would take on a similar "canary in the coal mine" role as the Tunnelers Below I examined last week; a good Cthulhu Mythos roll could identify the presence of these creatures as indicative of a time/space breach.

Of course, in such a situation there could be a "bigger, badder" horror lurking right around the corner; this should not devalue the Swine-Things as a menace by any means.  Remember, while the parasites dropped by the CLOVERFIELD monster couldn't push over buildings, they were a much more immediate threat to the cast of that film.  A manifestation of Yog-Sothoth might not ever notice the Investigators; the Swine-Things entering our world in its wake, though...!

The other option that presents itself is to focus on the near-humanity of the Swine-Things; suppose these are the human beings of another dimension.  The references to a Plain of Silence bring to mind Ramsey Campbell's short story "The Plain of Sound," inhabited by intelligences that in our reality manifest as sound-waves, but have form in their own dimension.  Perhaps the Swine-Things exist as disembodied intelligences or sentient sound-waves, or gases, or whatever in their reality, coterminous to our own, but when the barrier is breached and they enter our dimension, a dimension of matter, the piggish form is what their sound-waves or whatever translate to in matter.  Perhaps the investigators discover an old cabin where a reclusive scientist was working, accidentally broke open the barrier, and the Swine-Things emerged.  The scientist is dead, the Swine-Things are working to bring more of their kind through, and it's up to the investigators to piece together the scientist's notes and figure out a way to seal off the barrier and deal with the Swine-Things that are already here.

I think that's it for this week; I'm not sure where I'll go with the next installment, but I'll think of something.  I'm definitely open to suggestions as well.

WIP: "Not Everyone Levels Up"

"What's a diorama?"

This isn't so much a Work-in-Progress project any more, as I've finished the diorama - I just can't show the finished results until next weekend, as this scene is my entry for the second bonus round of this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  The theme for this round is "Epic Fail," and this is actually the second diorama I've assembled for this round - the first one I began to worry might be considered "scenery" rather than "figures" and thus be disqualified.  I'll post it here once it's painted because I'm still pleased with what I did, but I decided to do something else for the "Epic Fail" round.  Digging around in my project box I found a couple Reaper "Bones" figures I haven't done anything with, and picked out a monster whose pose suggested a bellow of triumph.

I had it.  I knew what I was going to do.  I ordered the one piece I needed to complete the scene - the individual who had failed epically - and set to work.

50mm round base from Reaper Miniatures glued to a 50x100mm rectangular base from Renedra.  "Deathcap" prepainted D&D miniature glued to the other end for visual interest.  

Greenstuff rings added around the mushroom and "platform" to blend them in.  Stalagmite #1 added, leading to the decision that it Stalag-might look better with a few more.  

There we go.  More Greenstuff added to build up the rocky areas of this cavern setting.  Who's that hanging out in the background?

A back view.  Somebody's still hanging around in the background.

This guy looks like he's probably had better days than today.  Reaper "Overlord Casualty Marker" from their "Warlord" game.  He originally had three arrows in him that I snipped off.  

Steam Tank Follies

The first of my packages have arrived - one, containing my shiny new self-healing cutting mat, my sculpting tools and my Green Stuff; the other, my 1/72 scaled Mk A Whippet tank.  Opening the second, I carefully took the sprues out of the box to inspect what I'd be working with.

Hilarity has already ensued.

I couldn't find specifics regarding how big the completed kit would be online, but knew that since it was a 1/72 scale kit, it'd be, well, 1/72nd the size of a real one.  Looking up the measurements of an actual Mk A Whippet, I did some rough calculations and came out with some numbers suggesting the assembled kit would be between 4 and 5 inches long.

I miscalculated.

The assembled kit will be closer to three inches long.

Here's some shots of the sprues (one of the big chassis pieces broke off the sprue in transit), including a shot with a nickel for scale.

So now I need to recalculate a little regarding converting this into a "Land Ironclad" for Steampunk/VSF wargaming.  It's still getting converted (into a one- or two-man Ironclad), don't get me wrong, but I need to do some rethinking about how I go about it.

I think I'm going to assemble the chassis, minus things like the Hotchkiss machine guns and the exhaust pipes, and use that as a frame-work to build a Land Ironclad over; a couple pieces of plasticard cut to the appropriate size and shape glued over the Mk A will create a bulkier vehicle, and then I can put a turret on top - Brigade Games has a couple nice ones, and if I fatten this bad boy up a little I can put the 1" turret on top of where the fixed turret of the Mk A is.  Speaking of, I think I want to turn the tank around; on the Mk A, the turret is above the back end of the tank, with the engines encased in the lower area in front.  If I turn it around it'll resemble a more "modern" tank in general outline and I can put a boiler and smoke stack on the "back" behind the turret.  Then I'll just glue the Mk A tank treads back on over the plasticard body.  Prime, paint, seal, get it on the table.

Now, this is not a priority project for me by any means; Cthulhu needs to be done first (I'll be doing some good work on him this weekend), and by the time that's done I should have all the figures I ordered from Wargames Factory in hand and can plan my next project.

Speaking of, I noticed that they've got a Persian Infantry sprue bundle deal, where you get just the figure sprues from the Persian Infantry boxed set minus some accessories, for $2.49 per set of six.  That's $2.49 for twelve figures, six each of archers and spearmen.  I ordered ten bundles, which brings the total number of Persian Infantry I've got coming in the mail to 144 infantrymen.

2015 might be the Year of the Achaemenids.