Last Chauncy in Carcosa ... A very Special Wampus Play Report

Millicent Cobweb, sailor on the seas of mortality, psychopomp to the unready, and late of the Rathouse, Thistledown, Wampus County crept slowly along a rough shale corridor, beyond the shimmering curtain of worlds and theoretically beneath the shattered ruins of Crumbledown in search of her lost benefactor and former employer, Chauncy Woolstrike, self-styled Warlock of Thistledown.  Woolstrike had vanished several months before, sucked into a void created when he drew from a magical deck of cards and the Rat House Bastards gentleman's society had been searching for him haphazardly since..  

The Structure - Pretty Carcosa or "Needs More Purple?"

Pahvelorn - Sessions X, XI & XII - A Real Sewer Party

THE PITS OF PAHVELORN - A REAL SEWER PARTY

A Deer-Man from some cartoon.

 This adventure was played over the course of three sessions and was a resounding success for the party, though it's unclear if the rescue of the an avatar of the creepy lizard god is a good or bad thing.  It was however clear that leaving anyone in the hands of a deer demon worshiping human mutating warlock would be a bad thing.

After the party, consisting of two priests (Saren the Contemplative, and Tarvis, who Smites), two warlocks (Higgans, the sinister and Satyavati, the dabbler and a former Ratcatcher and Thief (Beni Profane) returned from the buried city of Pahvelorn with a load of plundered goods - the stockpiles of a mage likely transformed into a tentacled horror of some kind by his own thaumaturgical overreaching.

Monster Monday - Corvus Rex

Partially inspired by a petty God of Assassins I recently had cause to make up for my Rat Catcher in Pahvelorn, with a few additions from the Samurai movie "Onibaba" - the Corvus Rex, Crow King or Burning Medicine Spirit, is a powerful monster designed to present a trick or plot advancement rather than an enemy to combat.  Though setting one on a character who has betrayed someone spectacularly or finding one in a locked room of a sinister assassin cult would be perfectly reasonable.
 

No Enc. 1

Movement: 40'

Armorclass:0 + Special

Hit Dice:8

Attacks: 2 or Special

Damage:1D8 + Special +Poison

Save: CL 6

Morale:10

Hoard Class:None

XP:3060

The Corvus Rex - also known as a Crow King, Raven's Vengeance, Betrayer's Wight or Burning Medicine Spirit is a manifestation created by the psychic pollution of betrayal.  In addition to being creatures called into existence by terrible acts of betrayal Corvus are a weak avatar of the animal spirit "The Beaked Stranger", in its guise as god of assassins.  Each entity appears differently, wearing the guise (and body) of a victim of betrayal who was later devoured by crows. This limited set of circumstances lead to Corvus Rex most often forming in the aftermath of great battles, where one side has won through deceit, and most crow kings have the outward appearence of an officer or soldier of a defeated army.  Other Crow Kings appear as those who have died by execution and been left on the scaffold for the crows to devour.  In any case these spirits manifest when the shock and hatred of the betrayed victim is so strong that the crows feasting upon him have no choice but to carry the word of injustice to their carrion herding god. 

More Doodles.

Really I must finish some content here.  It's real life intruding on my active fantasy life I tell you - intruding something brutal.

Here's the last bit of work I did for Patrick over at Henchman Abuse.  I expect there may be some time for posts come mid November, assuming things don't get real scketchy.

ASE II Contains new spells!

Player Handouts for Mysterious Discoveries!

Crude Maps drawn by Other Adventuring Parties!

I have so much else I want to share, and so little time - Well I should be putting up a long overdue Pahvelorn play report, and maybe some thoughts on combat customization and/or random wilderness encounters

Spirits of Order

Here's another monster my players managed to avoid aboard the Apollyon.
  
Bureaucratic Specter

No Enc. Movement: Armorclass: Hit Dice: Attacks: Damage: Save: Morale: Hoard Class: XP:

1 0 7 10 1 + Special 1D8 + Special CL 8 12 VIII,XVIII 3100

Places of bureaucracy are often cold and stuffy, filled with a certain oppressive feeling, and this is no accident.  Within the dusty halls of records, scriptoriums, courts and tax levy offices mortals dreams and hopes are destroyed through the remorseless process of regulation and routine.  The ceaseless, route toil of officials and clerks slowly create an intense psychic power, such is this power that it sometimes manifests itself, and a free flowing wraith of hateful despair begins to coalesce, usually in and around the meticulous records kept within depositories and bureaus.

This energy does nothing but cause unease and slowly harden the hearts of those who come into long term contact, at least until it has an empty vessel to center its manifestation on.  When a person dies within the domain of a bureaucratic specter, that person's soul becomes the focal point of the free floating energy of the creature.  Within the unmoving shell (most often a bureaucrat who died at his or her post) holds the immense power of the specter and can project it through the precincts of the office.  The body becomes a dry, mummy like husk, almost always sitting upright in a well worn chair.  Specter treasure often consists of both the belongings of those it has killed and valuable items of a bureaucratic nature such as official weights, seals and signets or items originally meant to make the specter's surroundings appear majestic, such as valuable tiling,

Really Busy These Days

Below is a final drawing I prepared for Pat's ASE II, depicting the major factions of ASE Level 3.  Hingehead, Moktar, Gillman and Goblin, taking a break atop a pile of pipes.

I should also note that I am extremely busy with my job these days, so it's unlikely much will be going up in the next week or so.  I'll try to put up a few tables and play reports, but can't promise much.

Also ApisFurioso, from Pilgrim's Guide to Zeitgeist is running a pretty cool sounding ASE campaign using a party of space adventurers from a Sci-Fi future.  What's really cool is that he decided to use my Red Demon small adventure as the jump off point for the world of the Thousand Towers, and got his party to pull sick rock and a map to ASE from the derelict war machine.  Check out his play report here!

Ghouls, Ghuls and Ghola

So recently Will over at A Wizard's Kiss had a cool idea about creating variants of monsters - specifically ghouls.  Check out his post here for what is an all around good blog.

Because I am lazy I am stealing his idea - not his ghouls, but putting up a list of my own five, because I realized I have a bunch of different ghouls in my game.  All use the basic ghouls statline, though the last two are tougher (4 of 5 HD undead). 

Ghuls - or something from one of the Mummy movies

Things found amongst the loam and dust of the Certopsian Plains

So next Thursday is the 2nd go at ASE Google+.  I'm excited so I made a table of random stuff to be discovered while wandering through the grass and cracked dirt sea of the Certopsian Plains...

Moebius I'm pretty sure...

TABLE OF CERTOPSIAN DETRITUS

Animated Furniture - a Monstrous Monday Item

This thing looks like it'd come to life...

I created a mess of this stuff for an area of the HMS Apollyon that was overrun by an NPC party and never saw players, but I've also used it as an enemy for more ASE home-group.  The statistics below aren't really meant to stand in for any particular type of animated furniture so it's a bit limited in contextual information.

 

ANIMATED FURNITURE

	Metal	Hardwood	Light Wood
No Enc. Movement: Armorclass: Hit Dice: Attacks: Damage: Save: Morale: Hoard Class: XP:	1-12 30' 0* 3/6/9/12 1-4 1D10+1 F3-F12 12 (automaton) Nil 80/620/2,400/2800	1-12 40' 4 2/4/6/8 1-4 1D8 F2-F8 12 (automaton) Nil 20/80/320/560	2-200 40' 7 1-4 1-2 1D6 F3-F12 12 (automaton) Nil 10/20/50/80

*Special – Immune to Normal and Silver Weapons (+1 better to hit)

HMS Apollyon - Devils aboard the Apollyon

If you don't recognize this...

Devils are strange creatures, they've always been one of my favorite villains, even when I was a kid with the Monster Manual I. They're wholly obviously evil, powerful, and alien - yet they are orderly, intelligent, willing to negotiate and even polite.  Perfect bad guys in a way.  Still, I started playing D&D in the 80's and the "Satanic Panic" still makes me uncomfortable playing with Devils involved (My Clerics never use crosses either) - I was raised agnostic, but I don't want to step on my players' religious sensibilities by messing with their real life cosmology - hence it feels hard to use Devils.  The problem is compounded in the Apollyon setting, which is both explicitly apocalyptic (It's in the name even!) and inhabited by what are effectively sorcerers in league with extra-planar forces of order (mostly Devils). Sure I call them Batezu (not Bateezu), but what we're talking about here are the nomenclature of hell, returning exiles of heaven, the bowed army, the apparatchiks of the pit.