Spes Magna Games

I continue to enjoy From Unformed Realms. This morning, I’ve gone deep into my collection and pulled out Bloodshadows by West End Games. I need to run a Dinner & Gaming night with this system.

Ophidian Sentinel

We smelled them before we saw them. Rico gagged, choking like something was caught in his throat. A stench like a backed-up septic tank choked the air. They slithered out of the darkness, thick black tongues flicking. Eyeless and seeking, they resembled thick-bodied serpents covered with knobby, overlapping scales the color of spoiled olives. Each one was longer than I am tall.

Agility 10
Climbing 13, Dodge 12, Stealth 12, Unarmed Combat (bite) 15
Dexterity 5
Missile Weapons (vomit) 7
Strength 7
Endurance 10
Toughness 10 (14 with armor)
Intellect 6
Perception (smell) 12, Tracking (by scent) 12
Mind 8
Confidence 8
Charisma 5

Ophidian sentinels, blind and single-minded, guard unholy sites. These monsters communicate with each other by means of scented secretions, most of which humans find highly offensive.

Natural Tools: Ophidian sentinels have dense scales and bones (armor value equals Toughness+4/14). They bite with strong jaws sporting dozens of sharp teeth (damage value equals Strength+3/10). These monsters also have the following abilities.

* Accelerated Healing: Gains a +3 bonus to all Endurance rolls when healing. Heals one shock per round.

* Euphoric Vomit: An ophidian sentinel may attack at range by expelling a gob of vomit. Treat as a throwing knife for ranges. A target struck by the gob must generate an Endurance or resist shock total equal to attack’s power value (usually Endurance+10/20), modified by any result points of the attack. If the target fails, he is rendered senseless by the vomit’s tranquilizing properties, and the target remains this way until he makes a successful Confidence or willpower total (one check per round).

Tags: Bloodshadows, monsters, The Cthulhu Hack

More fun with From Unformed Realms, this time using TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes.

Adventure Hook: The heroes receive an unexpected invitation (perhaps from a medical or science contact) to watch the demonstration of a new biotech trauma care system. Unfortunately, the Mad Thinker has tampered with the project as part of a scam to hold the technology hostage in hopes of sizable ransom. The Mad Thinker is holed up in an abandoned military bunker. When the biotech system is activated, it overloads and explodes. Several people are caught in the blast. They are transformed into chitinoids, which are motivated by basic instinctual drives.

Chitinoid
From the smoke and fire stagger several people, doctors, technicians, and nurses. They transform rapidly, flesh becoming metallic, covered with thorns and razor edges. They stagger about, clicking and humming, eyeless and inhuman.

Primary Abilities: F Gd, A Gd, S Ex, E Rm, R Fe, I Rm, P Ty
Secondary Abilities: Health 70, Karma 38, Resources Fb, Popularity 0
Powers: Body Armor (Rm), Claws (Ex), Lightning Speed (Ex), Slashing Missile (Ex), Sonar (In), Transformative Nanobots (Rm), Wall-Crawling (Ex)
Nota Bene: Chitinoids are blind. A living target that suffers a Stun or Kill result from a chitinoid’s Claws or Slashing Missiles must make an Endurance FEAT check against Remarkable intensity or else become infected with transformative nanobots. Every 1-10 rounds, the victim suffers a -1CS to Reason. When Reason reaches Feeble, the target turn into a chitinoid. Before transformation is complete, only highly advanced medical care or superhuman recuperative powers stop the process. The Mad Thinker’s ransom demands include the claim that he has the cure for “chitinoidism”. The stats above are for a typical human turned into a chitinoid. It’s up the Judge what abilities and powers a transformed superhuman might have.

Tags: Marvel Super Heroes, monsters, The Cthulhu Hack

Have I mentioned how much fun From Unformed Realms is? Well, it is much fun, and it’s system-neutral, which means with some thought it can be used for pretty much any game. For example, Barbarians of Lemuria:

Adventure Hook: A chance reunion with an old friend leads to some wooded hills in a frontier region. There the woods are currently being cleared by refugees seeking escape from the punishing taxes of their homeland, but the settlers’ activities have attracted the attention of a murkling swarm.

Murkling
Its gray flesh hung in tatters, covered with gaping sores, glistening with moisture. It dropped from two legs to all fours, and we heard its bones snapping, shifting, adapting to this new form of locomotion. Before it resembled somewhat a man, somewhat an ape, but now it appeared more like a great, obscene rodent. Three more emerged from the burrows, their limbs jointed oddly, unevenly. Unthinkingly, I stepped away, just one step, but still a sufficient number to press my booted heel onto a dry twig. The closest monster jerked and hissed at the twig’s popping, and the creature’s entire body swelled up, its flesh distending, a cloud of dewy particles shaking into the air around it.

Attributes
Strength 0
Agility 2
Mind 0

Combat Abilities
Move 35 ft.
Attack Bite +0 (1d6-1 damage plus possible poison and infection)
Defense 2
Protection 0
Lifeblood 10

Nota Bene
Diseased: Murklings all carry a bizarre disease. A Hero bit by a murkling must make an Easy (+1) task check using Strength. Failure results in infection that sets in after 2d6 hours. The victim suffers joint pains and dizziness (increase Action Difficulty by one step). After 1d6 days post-infection, the victim loses control of one or more limbs, which seek to kill the victim (weilding weapons against him, running him off a cliff, et cetera).

Inflation: Murklings can inhale rapidly and inflate their extremely elastic lungs and stomachs, swelling to a spherical shape. This causes hundreds of short, sharp spikes to protrude from its skin as well as shakes loose of cloud of toxic sweat particles.

Mobility: Murklings move quickly and with agility despite their awkward appearance. They swim, climb, and burrow as well. Due to their adaptive skeletons, murklings can often squeeze through spaces smaller than one would expect.

Toxic Sweat: Heroes that come into contact with murkling sweat must make a Tricky (-1) task check using Strength. Failure results in poisoning. Every 1d3 minutes after exposure, the victim loses 1 point of Strength and Agility. Paralysis sets in when both abilities reduce to less than -1, and the paralysis lasts for days.

Tags: Barbarians of Lemuria, monsters, The Cthulhu Hack

Another trip through From Unformed Realms, this time aiming to create a Lovecraftian horror for use with Swords & Wizardry!

Its leathery flesh, covered with finger-length spines, sharp and dark, glowed faintly from deep cracks and pocks, as if some internal fire guttered just beneath its skin. It walked upright, like a man, but balanced itself by means of a sinuous tail that ended with a knobby clump of something like bone. Where arms should have grown from its shoulders extended writhing, muscular pseudopods, growing and retracting, seeking to touch, to grasp…to burn!

Mephitic Horror
Hit Dice: 5+5
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Attack (Damage): 2 pseudopods (1d4)
Move: 9
Save: 12
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 8/800
Special: Constrict and burn, immune to fire, spittle, toxic bile

Mephitic horrors are a sort of evil elemental that serve unholy entities that seek to return to the Material World in order to terrorize, enslave, and devour. In melee, mephitic horrors attack with their pseudopods. A creature struck by a pseudopod is ensnared to be crushed and burned, which causes an additional 1d6 points of damage per round the victim remains grasped. Instead of a pseudopod attack, mephitic horrors may spit up to twice per round (once per pseudopod attack not made). This spittle has a range of 30 feet. If it hits, the target suffers 1d4 points of damage as the spittle burns. The target must also make a saving throw to avoid being blinded for 1d6 rounds. A mephitic horror that takes more than 5 points of damage from a single attack involuntarily coughs up a gout of toxic bile. Creatures in melee combat with the mephitic horror when it regurgitates must make saving throws to avoid being splashed. The ghastly bile quickly worms its way into flesh. Those exposed to the toxic bile (meaning those that failed their saving throws) develop painful, aggressive tumors after 2d6 days (a Cure Disease suffices to overcome this malady, the exact effects of which are left to the Referee’s discretion).

Adventure Hook: The discovery of an intriguing artifact leads to a long-abandoned fort controlled by bandits for nearly three months. The bandits stumbled across the fort while trying to evade the authorities. One or more mephitic horrors prey on the bandits, seeking to slaughter them all.

Tags: horror, monsters, Swords & Wizardry, The Cthulhu Hack

I recently acquired several Paul Baldowski’s The Cthulhu Hack products-in-print via All Rolled Up. One of these products is From Unformed Realms. According to the introduction, this 20-page booklet is a “system-free supplement for a Gamemaster running games involving creatures of alien horror for role-playing games of all genres, fantastical or horrific”. The author suggests rolling 3d6 six times “to generate a customized aggressive horror”.

Each set of 3d6 determines a category, subcategory, and specific trait. There are six categories, such as Extremities or Fluids. Each category included at least three subcategories, and each subcategory includes six specific traits. That’s quite a lot of variety, and it looks like fun, so let’s play. I get 3d6, one black, one purple, and one red, and I roll them six times each, recording the results in the color order already mentioned. I get these results:

3, 4, 4: Skeleton, Bone Mutations, Blades
5, 6, 6: Appearance, That Looks Like, Ooze
1, 4, 2: Extremities, Weapons, Pincers
5, 3, 5: Appearance, Protuberances, Digestion
2, 6, 4: Senses, Vision, Compound
1, 2, 4: Extremities, Limbs, Spines

In other words, something like this:

Before our horrified eyes, the blasphemous thing lurched forward, glistening wetly in the moonlight. Shadows of bones rolled within its amorphous bulk, translucent and fetid, and some of those skeletal remnants slid from within, hooked and sharp and some clacking like monstrous pincers. Globular compound eyes bobbed within its body, pressing toward air. Even in the dim lunar glow, we could see half-digested remains: a dog, several rats, and — God help us! — a man’s arm!

Turning to The Cthulhu Hack core rules, I put together some quick monster stats:

Hit Dice: 5
Nota Bene: The gelatinous horror moves stealthily (roll with Disadvantage to hear it before it’s too late), and its fluid form is difficult to grapple (also roll with Disadvantage). It is impervious to flame or heat. Its compound eyes see in nearly all directions at once. It attacks 1d4 times per Moment, and each attack inflicts 1d4 points of damage.

After From Unformed Realms describes the various traits by category and subcategory, there is a single page “Summary of Traits” followed by two pages of “The Obligatory Appendix”. The latter provides tables that answer questions such as “The Hook?”, “Location?”, and “Horror’s Motivation?”, and with a few more dice rolls I determine the gist of an investigation into madness and death. Bolded parts of the following sentence indicate the results of dice rolls.

A chance visitation leads to a boot camp that has been a cover for anarchists for nearly two years for the purpose of medical research. The boot camp has become the target of the horror because the camp is built on the monster’s food source.

And there you go. In a fraction of the time than it took me to type, format, and edit this blogpost, I’ve got the framework for an investigation that pits the players’ characters against secretive, Mengele-like anarchists unaware that a Horror from Beyond lurks at their doorstep.

Excellent.

Tags: horror, monsters, The Cthulhu Hack