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

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. 

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

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

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

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

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