B Is for Brood
brood: (adj.) kept for breeding
A fumgaji (plural, wafumgaji) haunts the outskirts of civilization, lurking in shadowy places, emerging at night to hunt and breed. Wafumgaji practice a horrible form of brood parasitism in which a pregnant female fumgaji sneaks into the home of a sleeping, pregnant humanoid and magically swaps its gestating offspring for the humanoid’s unborn child.
The humanoid victim likely remains unaware of this monstrous switch for weeks, as pregnancy with a gestating fumgaji almost totally resembles a normal pregnancy. Eventually, the unborn fumgaji’s wicked intelligence awakens, and it starts to communicate with its host via telepathy (while she is awake) and vivid dreams (while she sleeps). During this time, the host usually grows increasingly insane. By the time she is ready to give birth to the fumgaji, the host has fallen completely under the monster’s psychic domination, and she will do whatever she must do to protect her “child” until it can return to its true family.
The stolen, unborn humanoid continues to develop within the fumgaji’s womb, and, barring unforeseen circumstances, he or she will be born. At that time, the newborn’s nightmare existence as a “domesticated pet” begins. Raised to amuse and serve evil masters, the child almost certainly grows to become evil as well due to years of physical and mental torture too horrible to speak of.
At first glance in dim light, a fumgaji might appear human, but a second glance likely reveals the truth. Wafumgaji have sickly, pale gray flesh. Anger, hatred, and disgust twist their facial features, sliding uncontrollably from one bestial expression to another. Razor sharp fangs fill their mouths, barely concealed by ragged, blood-red lips.
Wafumgaji attack with these fangs, preferably by surprise. All wafumgaji are telepathic; they have no spoken language (although they are capable of terrifying vocalizations). If a fumgaji does nothing else for the round, it can telepathically assault its victim. A saving throw is permitted against this psychic attack, modified by the fumgaji’s age (+2 for toddlers, +1 for children, +0 for adolescents, and -1 for adults). A failed saving throw causes the affected victim to be confused (as the spell) until the end of its next turn.
Fumgaji
Hit Dice: 1 (toddler), 2 (child), 3 (adolescent), 4 (adult)
Armor Class: 9 [10] (toddler), 7 [12] (child), 5 [14] (adolescent), 3 [16] (adult)
Attack: 1 bite (1d3, toddler); (1d4, child); (1d6, adolescent); (1d8, adult)
Special: surprise opponents on a 1-3 (1-4 for toddlers), telepathy
Move: 6 (toddler), 9 (child), 12 (adolescent), 15 (adult)
Saving Throw: 17 (toddler), 16 (child), 14 (adolescent), 13 (adult)
Alignment: Chaos
Number Encountered: 1d3 toddlers and/or children, 1d4 adolescents, 1d6+1 adults, plus a number of enslaved humanoids of various ages equal to one-half the number of non-adults present
Challenge Level/XP: 2/30 (toddler), 3/60 (child), 4/120 (adolescent), 5/240 (adult)
Really enjoyed this post. Very nice! Even scary nice! 🙂
What was the source for the Fumgaji? Mythology? A movie?
Thanks, catdragon!
The source was what I vaguely remember about the Cronenberg movie referenced in the caption combined with too little sleep. The monster’s name is a tweak to “mfugaji”, what an Internet translator told me is the Swahili word for “breeder”.