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