Tuesday, December 16, 2014

QUAL


Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: Elephantine
Armor: Thick, spongy hide and rippling muscle beneath, half-damage from bludgeoning attacks
Resilience: As per 8 human warriors
Intelligence: Somewhere on the scale between exceptionally smart dog and not-so-bright human
Communication: Inherent command of Underworld common in deep, thunderous, ebullient tones
Disposition: Emphatic
Violence: Tentacle slap/seize and constrict, broadcasts plasma beam generated between horns, it could bite you in half but then it would have to actually stop talking for a moment
Enemies: As directed by master
Aims: To herald, create artworks, spew non-stop hype man jabber and apologia in celebration of master 
Peculiarities:
  • Created by Underworld godling Kwanju prior to his manifestation to announce his advent to the world and ultimately remake it in his image
  • Small clutches of Qual eggs fall involuntarily from Kwanju's gleeful/terrible eyes like tears whenever the godling chooses to become temporarily inert for a fortnight
  • Uses precision plasma beam to cut stone for construction, sculpt statues and bas relief depicting the glory of Kwanju (and other related subjects) with uncanny mastery, also able to blast enemies to tiny bits as needed
  • Sustained by internal power plant fueled by depleted Chaos in a demi-material matrix, born with enough to last hundreds of years, no feeding or housebreaking required!
  • If found in egg form (double-size ostrich egg), sheltered from the elements, transported away from Kwanju's sphere of influence, will upon hatching form instant master-servant bond with the first sentient mind it encounters and immediately begin proselytizing on master's behalf
  • Telepathic bond with master allows two-way communication, one such contact per day, range unlimited 

Treasure: Considers all material wealth to be sole property of the cult of Kwanju and its affiliates



Thursday, December 4, 2014

TRANSPLANAR OBSERVER




Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: Ten feet from tentacle tip to ocular dome
Armor: Demi-material composition impervious to normal weapons
Resilience: As ten human warriors
Intelligence: Vast and inscrutable
Communication: Non-verbal telepathic psychic intrusion (unpleasant), halting Frankenstein/Tonto/Tarzan-style speech from extensible mouth upon request
Disposition: Impossible to determine 
Violence: Only if attacked, responds with berserk outrage, bites with extensible jaws, destroys minds with psychic overload (see below), projects disintegration ray (as disintegrate spell) three times/day
Enemies: None
Aims: Gather information for unspeakable masters
Peculiarities: 
  • Sent forth by super-potent Outer Entities to psychically record and transmit reports on events throughout the multiverse deemed important or interesting for unknowable reasons
  • Able to travel through the mind-bending, psychedelic transplanar inter-void from reality to reality once per day
  • Once daily, may become invisible or assume form of inanimate objects (as polymorph) to permit long-term clandestine observation (i.e. that decorative sarcophagus in the evil monarch's war room), destroys object in question with disintegration ray, position revealed by detect magic/similar spells and/or innate abilities
  • May project concentrated psychic noise at single target w/in 120' at will, instantly rendering all but the hardiest subjects mentally negligible for 10 minutes, repeated psychic attacks will eventually reduce the target's brain to inert hash
  • If friendly communication can be established, transplanar observers sufficiently bored with their surveillance missions may provide information on events witnessed in the immediate area, done for their own amusement, but only after checking in with dark masters via trans-cosmic telepathy for permission (granted 80% of the time, 20% chance of orders to destroy the adventurers) 

Treasure: A series of semi-solid ducts deep in the creature's demi-material trunk contain a vapor that, if inhaled, grant the ability to travel to another reality (one way only). These must be harvested and utilized immediately before the creature's corpse dissolves into a reeking mist. 

Sunday, November 30, 2014

CARRIER WORM


Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: 60-120' long
Armor: Thick epidermis provides excellent protection, immune to arrows, vital bits shielded by several feet of skin and muscle, eyes somewhat more vulnerable, disrupts spells
Resilience: Exceedingly hard to kill
Intelligence: Dog-like
Communication: Perform facial-tentacle semaphore, understand simple commands and directions in Underworld common, several dialects
Disposition: Fearless, steady under fire, but occasionally freak out and join battles-in-progress despite orders to the contrary
Violence: Can readily swallow 1-4 human size creatures whole at a go, could batter most foes senseless with facial-tentacles but why bother when you can just rear up then come down on enemies like a colossal heap of bricks
Enemies: Those of their master, Underworld godling Shaggath Ka
Aims: Deliver and extract worm troopers as ordered by their master or his priesthood
Peculiarities:
  • Created at the behest of Shaggath Ka by his enslaved drone-brides, who perish in the process of generating a single clutch of massive carrier worm eggs (1-6 per clutch)
  • Stores up to 36 encysted worm troopers or other roughly human-size forces in massive transport gizzard
  • Supplemental gizzards used to haul heavy siege equipment or other military cargoes
  • Tunnel through earth and rock at respectable rate of 10 mph
  • Flawless Underworld navigation via psio-location, send out constant waves of psionic impulses, perceive 3-D image of surroundings to a distance of several miles
  • Spell-casting disrupted within 60 feet of carrier worm as side-effect of psionic emissions
  • Explode into caverns and chambers, regurgitate troops, resume tunneling as per orders, stand by to extract troops 
  • Will only wholly emerge from tunnels at direst emergency or if berserk (see below)
  • Rarely, carrier worms succumb to their mostly suppressed battle urges and go on rampages of violent mayhem, always directed at known enemies but sometimes inadvertently screwing up carefully planned operations, an offense for which they face eternal damnation and exile
  • Embittered exile worms sometimes attach themselves to Underworld mercenary forces
  • When not on active duty spend every available moment in active praise and worship of their deity, lurking outside of his unholy Dome of Contemplation like faithful but slightly irritating attention-seeking hounds, they just want to get as close as possible to their cherished Worm Sultan

Treasure: Frequently carry implements of war in their supplemental gizzards, occasionally loaded with loot from conquests

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

SAD WIZARD


Number Appearing: Unique
Size: Approximate human size
Armor: Soft and fleshy but moves with startling quickness
Resilience: As three human warriors
Intelligence: Exceptional but scrambled by plight
Communication: Only remembers a handful of magical languages, rarely intoned outside of spell casting, speaks like an even-more-depressed Neil from The Young Ones
Disposition: Extremely morose
Violence: Spells, powerful constricting embrace
Enemies: Doesn't remember
Aims: Formerly ambitious, now a chaotic wanderer lacking any sense of purpose
Peculiarities: 
  • Once a powerful adventuring sorcerer whose pursuit of a more resilient form landed him in a grossly mutated housing of rubbery, heavily muscled appendages
  • Mind and will shattered, amnesia almost total but for the list of spells memorized at the time of his life-changing experimental transformation, each of which return to his mind daily without effort
  • Inclined to avoid unnecessary conflict, but if attacked will unleash eldritch hell
  • Sleeps hanging by his tentacles among the stalactites, steals/forages for food of the finest quality available, solves problems with limited list of incantations, sometimes hurling a fireball when a mere charm person would do
  • Will request and, if indulged, promptly guzzle any and all booze or wine available for consumption
  • Booze and wine will loosen his tongue as regards any nearby treasures and/or dangers he has spotted in his meanderings

Treasure: None, but may know locations of any riches proximate to area of encounter

Monday, November 17, 2014

OOTHERION, APE MYRMIDON


Number Appearing: Unique
Size: 7 feet tall
Armor: Highly damage resistant ape-bronze armor
Resilience: As ten human warriors, immune to fear and pain
Intelligence: An erudite scholar of Classical Ape philosophy and literature
Communication: Speaks fluent Underworld common as well as several apish dialects
Disposition: Swollen with self-confidence but has been around the block and doesn't trust anyone
Violence: Massive ape-bronze sword equivalent to powerful enchanted weapon, not above bludgeoning with mighty fists and delivering a savage bite as necessary
Enemies: Several prominent Underworld sorcerers and vampires, wanted for high crimes and treason by grey men of Castle Ziro
Aims: Quests for the semi-legendary Grand Pleasure Dome of the Slug-men
Peculiarities: 
  • Set sail from home city-state in native dimension (one in which intelligent carnivorous ape society has developed many parallels to Earth's ancient Greece), struck by inter-dimensional maelstrom, washed up on shore of Underworld sea, among the bodies of his cohorts and the ruins of his ship
  • Following period of insane bewilderment and grief-stricken rampaging during which his reputation as an unbelievable badass was cemented, settled into career as hired tough guy for a series of Underworld potentates and Chaos godlings
  • Recently left employment with the Warlords of the Steam Vents during their dispute with the Church of the Fire Fluke and carries a sizable severance package in gems
  • Has acquired moderately inaccurate map of the Underworld with route plotted for possible location of of the Grand Pleasure Dome, indicates several extremely dangerous obstacles in his path ahead
  • Has no idea that the "overworld" exists, it just hasn't come up in his dealings with Underworlders
  • Hair-trigger sense of personal honor, never misses a slight, never lets a challenge go unanswered
  • Would love to perform one of the epic poems of his culture to any who might indulge him: its 4 hours of rhythmic fist-pounding and chanting in High Apish 

Treasure: Ape-bronze weapons and armor, while unusable by human-size creatures, can be reforged into superior arms and armor (equivalent to enchanted items), a fortune in gems

Sunday, November 16, 2014

CEILING FOLK



Number Appearing: 2-12
Size: Average in the human range
Armor: Thick fur as leather
Resilience: As experienced human warrior
Intelligence: It's hard to tell because they're so insane
Communication: Spew obscenities in Underworld common and gibber a good deal
Disposition: Frantic jolliness
Violence: Powerful bite, claws
Enemies: Locked in Darwinian struggle with giant spiders
Aims: Fulfilling primal urges
Peculiarities:

  • The only special creation of The God that Lives on the Ceiling, who then pronounced their existence an embarrassment and abandoned them to the Underworld
  • Following this heartless abandonment, the ceiling folk underwent a permanent, hereditary psychotic break
  • Blessed/cursed by their creator with inverse gravity, they are strong enough to spring from the ceiling to the floor, seize prey and "fall" back up to their domain
  • Feed upon a wide variety of dungeon vermin, floors of occupied territories frequently littered with rat bones and empty carapaces of giant centipedes
  • Fiercely territorial, ceiling folk crack and dislodge stalactites for use as surprise ceiling-to-surface missiles
  • Spew sticky, black, disease-laden bile in a 10' cone once daily when rattled
  • Will actively seek and destroy any giant spiders attempting to enter claimed territories and will check out any such claims made by crafty adventurers just to be on the safe side 
  • Host to small army of vicious, thumbnail-size fleas who bail out following any terminal event and seek temporary shelter and sustenance from any warm-blooded creatures nearby

Treasure: Defensive bile burns as oil, equivalent of one flask per intact throat-bladder

Friday, November 14, 2014

WORM TROOPERS

Number Appearing: 12-120
Size: 6 feet tall
Armor: Bony plates equivalent to chain mail, sometimes carry shields
Resilience: As per experienced human warrior
Intelligence: Sub-average human range
Communication: Bark out orders and acknowledgements thereof in piercing high-pitched shrieks capable of resounding over vast distances, language composed of almost 100% battlefield jargon
Disposition: Stern, highly disciplined, seethe with battle-lust beneath composed exteriors
Violence: Standard issue spear/pole-arm, scimitar and/or javelins, bite when convenient
Enemies: As designated by their creator, lord, and master, Chaos godling Shaggath-Ka
Aims: Only following orders
Peculiarities: 
  • Continuous waves of reinforcements provided by the hideous, blood-guzzling, self-fertilizing Drone-Wives of Shaggath-Ka, who produce millions of eggs at a go, deposit them in the Worm Pits where a terrible cannibalistic struggle ensues, only 1d6 hundreds of adult worm troopers emerge per batch
  • Unshakable morale, once set to a task by their master or his high priests, worm troopers sacrifice their lives toward these ends without the slightest hesitation
  • Subjected to thorough training in battle tactics under tutelage of the priesthood, but must constantly combat powerful innate urge to commit all available forces in single all-out frontal assault
  • Encysted in stasis-goo then shipped to secret storage chambers in numerous strategic locations around the Underworld, magically activated as needed by Shaggath-Ka or his priesthood
  • Often deployed via colossal, fast-tunneling carrier worms, stored in transport gizzard until disgorged in desired location

Treasure: Sometimes encountered returning to their master's realm laden with the spoils of Underworld war


Friday, November 7, 2014

SCISSORWORMS




Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: 14-18 feet long
Armor: Thick hide equivalent to chain mail, parry incoming attacks with dynamic mandibular action
Resilience: As five human warriors
Intelligence: Just enough to receive and carry out simple orders ("Kill them! Kill them ALLLL!!!")
Communication: Answer yes or no questions with emphatic head movements
Disposition: They like battle, that much is for certain, otherwise inscrutible
Violence: Scimitar-like mandibles expertly employed to take human foes apart at the seams, increased chance of dismemberment
Enemies: Any who would oppose their master, Shaggath-Ka
Aims: Kill for the glory of their creator
Peculiarities: 
  • Special creation of Chaos godling Shaggath-Ka (the Worm Sultan) as anti-personnel battle worms for long-prophesied war with humanity, deployed as elite to bolster standard worm troopers in internecine struggles with fellow godlings
  • Attend high priests of The Worm Sultan as personal guard
  • Bloodhound-like tracking ability
  • If given sufficient room to mount charge, able to bowl over human-size troops like stampeding bull
  • Never quit, never surrender, totally lacking any interest in saving own skin, utterly devoted to their deity and its flock
Treasure: None of their own but often accompany members of the priesthood loaded with cash and prizes

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

STONE BOYS



Number Appearing: 2-12
Size: 4 to 4 1/2 feet tall
Armor: Stone tissues equal to plate armor, blades do half normal damage
Resilience: As two human warriors
Intelligence:  Hapless dupes by nature
Communication: Can just manage simple speech, receptive language skills remarkable 
Disposition: Cheerful saps
Violence: Incredibly strong, bludgeon/rend with mighty fists, by weapon
Enemies: As designated by current master
Aims: To serve
Peculiarities: 

  • Bodies composed of flexible stone, powered by internal furnace, eat anthracite coal by the cartload, but any fossil fuel will do in a pinch
  • Interior temperature close to 3000 degrees, penetrating thick exterior layer (generally fatal for stone boy) releases jet of super-heated liquid iron, spray endangers any within 10 feet
  • Exhale foul black smoke, clouds of noxious smog eddy around large work forces
  • Originally created as servitor race by a godling called Stone Mother, since destroyed under mysterious circumstances
  • Find fulfillment in performance of menial tasks, work tirelessly, no sleep or rest requirement as long as generous payment in digestible fuel holds out, immediately walk off the job if for any reason payment is withheld or delayed, rumored to have raised a pyramid in a fortnight
  • Immune to fear of any kind, view combat as enjoyable sporting event
  • If fuel supply exhausted, slip into torpid state, requiring magical re-ignition of internal furnace,  in the majority of encounters with stone boys they will be found frozen in statue-like condition
  • Scattered after disappearance of Stone Mother, many boys fell into unsavory Underworld service industries, staffing various resorts, tourists attractions, saloons and eateries, or providing security to Underworld potentates
  • Can be bribed with large amounts of fossil fuels
  • If they ever find out who destroyed the Stone Mother (or, alternately, can be convinced by a plausible enough story), their furnaces will burn with an unprecedented heat of rage, blue flames streaming from their mouths, and they will not stop until those responsible are smashed
Treasure: If you count coal, they usually have pretty vast quantities

Sunday, November 2, 2014

DUNGEON FAIRIES


Number Appearing: 10-100 (per hive)
Size: 6" tall
Armor: Hover, dart about at blinding speed
Resilience: As delicate as can be
Intelligence: Give the appearance of higher level of intelligence than they actually possess
Communication: Buzzing speech seems extremely complex and nuanced but they really don't have much of substance to say
Disposition: Hateful, only laugh when they come across trapped victims and oh what a terrible sound it is
Violence: Tiny claws, bite w/relatively weak paralytic saliva, by tiny weapon
Enemies: Bothersome dungeon residents and intruders
Aims: Dungeon fairy supremacist ideology hard-wired into psychology, unshakably bigoted against everyone else
Peculiarities:

  • Use inherent magical powers to create and maintain fiendish traps and pitfalls from which they harvest their prey, secretly following maintenance teams of dungeon fairies around will reveal location of most traps, magical gas traps a favorite, locations marked by tiny sigils
  • Hives found in dark corners, suspended among stalactites, hanging beneath giant mushroom caps, built onto the shells of giant dungeon snails with whom they share a symbiotic understanding
  • Ferocious if driven from hive, attack as swarm, attempt to paralyze prey with bites 
  • Sizable swarm able to strip a human-sized victim of flesh in less than one minute, bones then processed with saliva into raw materials for hive-building, feeding triggers nearly immediate population explosion, each individual lays single egg, one day later freshly-hatched brood flies forth to seek site for new hive
  • Constant molting, epidermis sloughs off as scintillant dander used widely by sorcerers and other unsavory types as powerful mental stimulant, overdose = debilitating stroke and/or instant apoplectic death, violent smashing of hives release potentially lethal clouds of the stuff
  • Popular rumor indicates that dungeon fairy hives are frequently loaded with gems, a vicious lie

Treasure: No interest in wealth themselves, but territories littered with the discarded goods of otherwise completely processed victims

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

GHULUKUROS, War-God of the Science Fungoids


Number Appearing: Unique
Size: Approximately 20ft. tall
Armor: Hide like elephant leather, only damaged by enchanted weapons, immune to most spells (anti-magic miasma)
Resilience: Able to absorb as much damage as any 3 giants, regenerates
Intelligence: A genius when it comes to fighting, less so as regards all other subjects
Communication: Emits piercing war-cry only but in many subtle nuances
Disposition: Grim determination
Violence: Enchanted Glaive of Dismemberment able to slice a dragon in half in a single blow, noted for sending limbs flying hither and yon, also lashes out with mighty tentacles if faced with multiple foes
Enemies: Chaos godlings of the Underworld
Aims: Eradicate any who might threaten the interests of the Science Fungoid civilization
Peculiarities: 
  • Emits magic-dampening miasma, enveloping Ghulukuros in a 120' diameter cloud that makes breathing difficult, dulls the senses, fogs the mind and causes an irresistible fear in all but the most valiant lesser beings, spells cannot be cast within cloud
  • Not actually a god, just has good PR
  • One of the earliest and most successful subjects of the Science Fungoids' selective breeding program, created in response to perpetual threat of super-potent Chaos godlings
  • Lies inert in nutritive loam-filled sarcophagus, attended by pseudo-priesthood of bio-technicians, jostled back into active duty at need via enormous device similar to defibrillator
  • Regeneration defies most conventional (and outré) violence, but vulnerable to powerful digestive enzymes such as those produced by black puddings and other oozes, a closely guarded secret
Treasure: The Glaive of Dismemberment, laden with eldritch martial energies, while unusable by human size creatures, could capture a fortune from the right giant-size buyer

Saturday, October 25, 2014

SCIENCE FUNGOIDS




Number Appearing: Small research groups: 2-8, population centers: 40-400
Size: 3-4 feet tall
Armor: Spongy exterior equivalent to leather
Resilience: As 3 human warriors, tenacious regeneration, extremely difficult to destroy permanently, resistant to magic
Intelligence: Human average but face intellectual challenges with inhuman determination unhampered by ethical considerations of any kind
Communication: Tiny voices like bursting bubbles, release clouds of interpreter spores that if inhaled allow permanent comprehension
Disposition: Charming, friendly, generous, overflow with manic joy, emit near-constant peals of high-pitched tittering
Violence: Generally left to humanoid bodyguards, otherwise by weapon
Enemies: Official policy of neutrality, big secret plans for everyone
Aims: Current overriding concern: learning everything there is to know about human(oid) physiology/psychology with a special emphasis on surface beings
Peculiarities:

  • Formerly referred to themselves as Wise Gardening Fungoids, spent all energies on creating new and interesting fungal topiary until contact with the blind antler men and their space-born learning triggered a cultural revolution. Unlike the indifferent antler men, the Fungoids set themselves to mastery of the cosmos.
  • Specialize in the development and propagation of a wide variety of medicinal, psychoactive, mutagenic, and frequently lethal fungal strains and eagerly test these innovations on human subjects willing to sign a waiver. Additional tests conducted on captive clone populations well out of public view.
  • Often freely distribute weaponized puffballs (see below) and spore-laden caps that are known to produce currently unpredictable mutations to adventurers for further field testing if recipient agrees to record effects and return with data
  • Underworld ecology now considered well-understood, interest has moved on to the surface world, specifically humanity, marked by the recent opening of the Fungoid Institute of Human Sciences, a magnificent facility on the shores of the Black Ooze River
  • Unimpressed with Chaos godlings as a rule, but deal prudently with these beings and their minions 
  • Boast the Underworld's only true air force (usable in chambers of sufficient size), composed of living dirigibles, gas bag organisms manipulated and permanently enslaved by allied sorcerers


Treasure: Generally carry enough ready cash in a wide variety of Underworld currencies to grease the wheels of diplomacy, sacks of experimental fungi as noted above

Sample Experimental Fungi  (for OD&D/Swords & Wizardry/that kind of thing):
The (exceedingly grim) anti-personnel puffball grenade
These roughly fist size fungal spheroids burst when met with any sufficient force (such as hitting the ground after a toss) and project a cloud of spores in a 10' radius. Human or human-like creatures exposed to this cloud must make a saving throw or roll 1d6. On a roll 1-4, consult the random result table below. On a roll of 5-6 the victim swells into a giant puffball and explodes the next round, throwing off a 20' cloud of spores. Any within this radius must roll for their lives as above.
Random result table
d4
1. Sudden fungal bloom from within body (perish with maximum unpleasantness in 2 rounds unless magically cured)
2. Funganthropy: victim's form copied (very imperfectly) and replaced by fungal tissue, transformation complete in 1 turn, insane rampage of random violence commences shortly thereafter, hit points doubled due to fungal resilience
3. Victim rooted to the spot by fungal tendrils from legs, fuse completely into immobile stalk in 1 turn, head broadens into cap shape, its all over
4. Puffball fungi begin to grow at alarming rate from every inch of victim's skin, dexterity compromised by -1d6, charisma rendered null and void. Can be carefully shaved off to relatively decent effect, but process must be performed at least thrice daily to mitigate otherwise appalling hideousness and clear and present danger to companions.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

PSYCHEPHAGE


Number Appearing: They hunt alone
Size: Roughly human size
Armor: Partially composed of space fungus, easy to strike, difficult to harm
Resilience: As per 4 human warriors, physical weapons inflict only half normal damage
Intelligence: Insect-like
Communication: None as such, but uncanny mimicry ability, can reproduce speech patterns of any previously digested intelligence
Disposition: Cosmic/stupid indifference to everything but the next meal
Violence: Jams hollow proboscis into skull/brain of victim, sucks it out with startling speed, rends w/claws as necessary
Enemies: None as such, but awfully hungry most of the time
Aims: They are hungry, I tell you!
Peculiarities:

  • Devolved strain of blind antler men never able to adapt to digestion of earthly materials, developed over time into super-specialized soul-eaters, intellect frittered away with disuse until they became at last semi-immortal, single-minded engines of destruction
  • Following consumption of living sentience, psychephage forever able to conjure up personality and project convincing illusion of victim but speech is always a hash of non sequiturs and meaningless soundbites 
  • Smells intellect and always stalks/attacks the brainiest people first, if it consumes a brain containing memorized spells, these are instantly and simultaneously cast, targeting any nearby at random
  • Projects illusion of surrounding terrain to conceal self from prey until ambush opportunity presents itself
  • Sucks out the brains, extracts that certain special something (soul, psyche, whatever), sneezes the remaining tissues out in non-damaging but gratuitous and super-revolting blast
  • Do not reproduce, only a handful remain

Treasure: Eschews the material, but perfect copies of 2d12 personalities from across time and space encoded into cellular matrix in abdominal bladder, sorcerers already at work on magical means of information extraction, will pay heavy gp for undamaged specimen

Saturday, October 11, 2014

PLAIN STRIDER


Number Appearing: 1-4
Size: Twenty to forty feet tall
Armor: Tough chitinous shell on lower extremities, tentacles and exposed brain soft and squishy, 100% proof against acid, ooze attack
Resilience: Attacks on legs like chopping down good sized tree, brains and soft bits more vulnerable
Intelligence: High but utterly unconcerned with the affairs of lesser beings
Communication: Emits rhythmic ululations, mostly subtle derivations of popular Plain Strider songs 
Disposition: Smug superiority of creature that sits atop the food chain
Violence: Tentacles seize prey, deliver to huge parrot-like beak concealed in lower body cavity, stuns prey with sonic attack (the Song of Hunting), smash or kick with feet
Enemies: None as such, but regards anything human size or smaller as prey
Aims: Hunt and feed, composition/performance of songs
Peculiarities: 
- Apex predator of the Great Lichen Plain, an improbably vast cavern of broken rocky terrain covered with unique variety of growths, teeming with oozes, slimes, puddings and jellies
- Hunts puddings and oozes primarily, but always willing to try something novel
- Communicates via humpback whale-like songs when necessary, mostly sings to express itself as artistic exploration of its nature and place in the cosmos, individuals in constant competition for place in the Plain Strider Top Ten
- Quickly stomp out any non-Striders who attempt one of their songs
Treasure: Beaks sought after by Underworld sentients as raw material for building projects/giant-size armor, sometimes fashioned into the hulls of vessels meant to navigate the Black Ooze River

Thursday, October 9, 2014

BLIND ANTLER MEN



Number Appearing: Singly, in small groups, teeming in their thousands
Size: Taller than the average human
Armor: Ornate exoskeletal Underworld survival suits, crafted of manipulated biological tissues
Resilience: As per tough, experienced human warrior plus slow regeneration
Intelligence: Smarter than humans, cosmic awareness
Communication: Unique language characterized by monotone shouting, able to master most spoken languages after extended, highly irritating period of very loud monotone echolalia
Disposition: Aloof, emotionless, eminently logical, frequently distracted by input from numerous unknown senses
Violence: By weapon (enchanted self-heating swords for exterminating trolls, exploding bolas, bio-drones), spells
Enemies: Chaos godlings of the Underworld and their humanoid cultists, untrustworthy interlopers, trolls (an embarrassing degenerate sub-species)
Aims: Accumulation of available knowledge of the cosmos ascertained via array of sensillae (ever-changing rack of "antlers") from comfort of home, hoarding thereof without much in the way of practical application
Peculiarities:
- Slip into inert state of deep observation, sometimes in mid-sentence, when alerted to wide variety of stimulae by sensory array
- Animal/fungus hybrid alien to the Underworld, delivered as hibernating spores on great meteorite that crashed through the surface into their home cavern, now a bewildering metropolis featuring vast group meditation spaces full of motionless antler men standing around perceiving things
- Able to cast limited selection of spells by direct mental manipulation of ambient Chaos in the Underworld with none of the hassle of verbal, gestural, or material components
- Cosmic awareness enhanced by senses known and unknown, consider themselves equal to Chaos godlings in wisdom and stature but require no unseemly worship as do the emotionally starved and stunted godlings
- Bio-technological devices further enhance their capacity to probe the unknown
- Field armies only occasionally but have never lost a battle
- View surface people as menaces due to ability to "taste" greed, hate, irrational fear and other universal human characteristics, all of which make them want to vomit
Treasure: Invaluable Underworld knowledge, fortunes in natural resources, precious metals, gems and crystals (all used for scientific/aesthetic purposes only), weird manufactured goods of dubious use to lesser beings

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

WIZARD HEADS


Number Appearing: 1-12
Size: Human head plus wee limbs
Armor: None
Resilience: Can withstand physical damage as a human head on wee limbs
Intelligence: Exceptionally brainy
Communication: Speak several languages with high-pitched parody of human speech, mutter to one another in personal language as well as shared telepathic link
Disposition: Mood swings as typical in megalomaniacs
Violence: Dagger, spells, bites like hell
Enemies: Fools who dare interfere with their diabolical schemes
Aims: Identical to immediate ancestor only even crazier/more ambitious
Peculiarities:
- Heinous result of over-indulgence in the black arts, a lifetime of questionable choices/practices, triggered by particularly risky eldritch activity (contacting outer being, casting spells requiring inhuman faculties, etc) whereupon the sorcerer's body suddenly explodes leaving only the head behind which then erupts from within spewing out larval wizard heads, each growing into nearly identical copies (excepting tiny limbs, rows of fangs, and extended jaw) of the original 
- Operate independently but also able to form single super intelligence at need
- Arcane abilities increase in power in direct proportion to the number of heads in proximity (single head equal to fledgling wizard, twelve heads as per arch-mage) 
Treasure: Hoard inherited from original sorcerer

Monday, October 6, 2014

ROBED DEVIL


Number Appearing: 1-6 
Size: Just bigger than human size
Armor: Demi-corporeal form prevents damage from all but enchanted weapons, spells
Resilience: Not so tough if you can hit them
Intelligence: Mentally negligible but believe themselves wise
Communication: Mostly incomprehensible gibbering in vain effort to appear erudite, can indicate assent in all known languages
Disposition: Dutiful, joyless
Violence: Dribbles continuous stream of digestive enzymes, distends hood/mouth to completely engulf human-size targets for agonizing dissolution into entropic sub-particulates, soul-rending claws 
Enemies: As designated by creator
Aims: Singular devotion to duty as assigned by creator
Peculiarities:
- Contrary to popular belief, not actually from Hell 
- Generated via elaborate sorcery using gore-soaked vestments of brutally sacrificed High Priests of Law
- Like to hang around with master, act as enthusiastic sycophants 
- Devoted servants but tragically credulous, can be convinced to betray creator by logical-sounding arguments plus ego-stroking 
Treasure: Frequently assigned to guard treasure troves hoarded by sorcerers of means but otherwise devoid of possessions

Sunday, October 5, 2014

TYRANNOCLOPS



Number appearing: One or swarm of larvae
Size: 25' including tail
Armor: Skin like elephant leather, no known vital organ, penetration of eye membranes triggers explosion
Resilience: Tough as a hill giant
Intelligence: Like a steel trap
Communication: Telepathic
Disposition: Inscrutable in general, attacks, seemingly without malice, anything penetrating its personal space
Violence: Lethal red eye-beam, tail lash, curb stomp
Enemies: Feared and avoided by sensible Underworld sentients as an unpredictable menace
Aims: Driven by unfathomable instinct to create new pathways and chambers in the Underworld using eye-beams, guided by inhuman aesthetic sensibility
Peculiarities:
-Eye-beams:
      Red: death energies damaging to all living tissues
      Green: carves tunnels through the underworld like hot knife through butter
      Yellow: probes exposed minds for obscure tidbits of information desirable only to Tyrannoclops
-feeds upon subterranean energies, absorbed through skin
-reproduction ensues upon death, 2d12 larvae rapidly take shape in body cavity, wriggle horribly beneath the skin before erupting forth, weak eye-beams coming on line as they stagger off towards shelter, make war upon one another until only the toughest remains, grows to full size in one week, embarks upon Underworld expansion career
Treasure: keeps no hoard but following a tunneling T-clops may lead to fortunes in gemstones (immune to yellow eye-beams) or reveal previously inaccessible vaults of the Extinct Ones