Monster Monday: Indistinct Slug-Things

Indistinct Slug-Things
No. Appearing: 1d6 + 5 (10d10)
Armor Class: 16 (12)
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: 2 (sting 1d6)
Morale: 5
Alignment: Chaotic

The Indistinct Slug-Things are an awful race that is believed by those few who know of their existence to have ruled the world eons beyond the memory of even the Antediluvian Age.  What these creatures call themselves is a mystery to those scholars that have been able to glimpse examples of their written language or hear their strange, bewitching song.  It is likely that the strange tinkling noises they use to communicate are beyond the capacity of the human tongue.

They appear at first to be only orbs of light, roughly six inches in radius.  Those who approach closer will see their faint, sluggish outline.  They are only completely visible during their song (see below), when their entire body glows horribly.  When singing, their AC is reduced to unarmored.

The Indistinct Slug-Things require a human slave in order to perform the rites required by their strange, inhuman gods.  To acquire these slaves, the Indistinct Slug-Things employ a horrible tinkling song that hypnotizes humans and other sapient creatures (Save vs. Magic or be mesmerized for 3d6 exploration turns).  After five such failed saves, the hypnotic effect lasts for 3d6 days.  Victims thus entrances are often sent back to human population centers to lure other unwitting dupes into the clutches of these terrible creatures.  While an individual slug-thing cannot carry the song longer than the typical range of human vocal chords, a group of 10 or more can project the song for up to six miles.  Humans who have been mesmerized for a period of days will also replicate the song in a horribly inhuman fashion.

The Indistinct Slug-Things also employ a number of strange technologies in order to restrain their victims.  The most common are shackles made from a strange, golden material that can neither be cut nor broken by any means known to man.  This metal is usually poured over the victim's wrist using an alien device thus far only found in the possession of these creatures.  After it is poured, it flows over the victims wrists and eventually forms the shape of the shackles.  They are rumored to have other technologies beyond humankind's current capacity, but they are so rarely encountered that this may or may not be true.

These creatures are only rarely found in the Desert of Demons.  Their lairs are underground 100% of the time and are usually strangely shaped mountains which are believed by some to have been constructed by them in the ages before the rise of man. Here they live in massive underground complexes - often larger than the size of their community would seem to warrant.  There will be young equal to 50% the total number of adults (HD 1/2).  The Indistinct-Slug Things are believed to be hermaphroditic and if they do possess separate sexes then both sexes participate equally in their attempts to capture human slaves.

Some scholars believe that the Indistinct Slug-Things are only the degenerate remnants of what would have been a far more formidable and psychically powerful race.  The Slug-Things are encountered rarely enough that fears that these more powerful creatures might be encountered are generally dismissed.

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Inspired by A. Merritt's "The People of the Pit" with a tiny dash of "the Moon Pool."

I am aware that there is a module based on that story.

Lost Worlds Part 2: Dungeons and the Lost World

When I initially thought about turning this into a series of posts, I thought I would save this one until the end.  Now I've decided that I'm not going to get anywhere unless I talk about the most obvious example of lost worlds in a D&D context: dungeons.

There are a few published examples of this idea, notably B4: the Lost City and Caverns of Thracia.  These modules take place in dungeons that are the ruins of some lost civilization, and the inhabitants of these ruins still retain a degenerate version of that civilization's culture.*  On the surface it might appear as though this describes most dungeons; however, it is easy to think of counter examples such as T1: the Village of Hommlet or the B2: the Keep on the Borderlands.

So what makes one dungeon a lost world dungeon and another one just a "regular" dungeon?  This might seem like a simple question, but it's worth thinking about.  The most obvious answer lies in the explanation for the dungeon itself.   The Lost City once belonged to a culture unknown to the broader world, and outsiders have not set foot in it for quite some time.  The moathouse is simply a... well... moathouse that some bandits/cultists have decided to use as a base of operations.  While not a shabby setup, the moathouse lacks the exotic mystery of the Lost City.**  They're essentially in two different genres.

But that's not all that makes a Lost World dungeon, or at least it shouldn't be.  Part of what makes these settings so fascinating is that they contain wonders that are hidden away from the larger world.  This can be difficult to convey in a magical milieu such as the one that is the default assumption of the D&D rules, but it is not impossible.  The easiest way to do it, to my mind, is to fill your dungeon with new or extremely underused monsters.  If your lost world just has the same old orcs the surface world does, it doesn't feel very "lost."  Grimlock/morlock cultists who sacrifice captured surface-dwellers to their albino dinosaur-god are better.

Try to think about what the original civilization/world was like and how being isolated in the subterranean depths has changed it.  I like to imagine what horrors would "evolve" down there and how the new environment might affect the more humanoid inhabitants, if any.  What do the people eat?  Do they have any domesticates they created since being cut off?  What nameless things stalk the less patrolled parts of their domain?  Now, I'm not arguing for a fully fleshed out ecology, but I cannot deny that thinking about these sorts of questions can spark ones imagination.  A good rule of thumb is that the more fucked up the answer is the better it will be at contrasting with the surface world the PCs are used to.

As far as I'm concerned, I can think of no better premise for a megadungeon.  It'd be easy to have different factions, such as the cults found in B4, and if the alien wonders of such a setting can't excite your players then you should probably find new ones.  However, I would caution against a more "underdark" style setup in which the cavernous world spreads across the entire planet.  For one thing, this makes the area the players are exploring a little less unique, and the underground monsters just become part of an equally large ecosystem.  It turns a place of nightmare into just another environment like a jungle or desert.

This isn't to say that all such dungeons have to be the size of the Lost City.  In fact, I find the size of that module a little constraining.  Where are my lost seas and subterranean suns?  Instead, you should make sure that your lost world dungeon is closed off from the influences of both the surface and other, hypothetical lost worlds.  This allows you to make it unique without having to explain how that interacts with something else.

One final bit of advice, and one I find much less necessary than the above bits, is to make the surface world either a fantasy version of historical Earth or an analog thereof.  Now, don't make the surface world "mundane" unless you plan on setting every single session in the lost world,*** but having something that looks a bit more familiar to the players as the baseline allows them to contextualize the weirdness a bit better. One way to do it might be to have the surface world resemble a kind of medieval romance.  Surface adventures have dragons and maidens and black knights and haunted castles.  The instant you go into the underworld, things get really weird as you run into the remnants of Earth's terrifyingly advanced past.  That's what I was going to (will?) do with the Hell-Caverns.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this only barely related Hawkwind song.  Hopefully there will be more to come soon.

*At least they do in B4, which is the one I have the most familiarity with.

**This is not meant to denigrate T1.  It's worth noting that I've run the Village about four times and have never actually run B4.

***Hopefully more on that later.

Lost Worlds Part 1: Lost Worlds and Me

I'm not the first one to discuss the importance of "lost world" fiction to D&D.  A quick scan of Appendix N makes it clear that the genre appealed to Gygax, and its impact on the development of D&D cannot be overstated.  However, I haven't read as much of Appendix N as some of my fellow bloggers, and as such I don't feel comfortable guessing the effect of this genre on Gygax beyond the above truism.  Instead I want to focus on two things: how lost world fiction has influenced me and how lost worlds can be portrayed in Dungeons & Dragons.

There are few things nine-year-old Evan liked more than the science fiction and monster movies of the 1950s and 60s.*  This love had grown out of the typical childhood obsession with dinosaurs, and it was those monsters that most resembled prehistoric creatures that were my favorites.  My parents at some point purchased a VHS "documentary" entitled Hollywood Dinosaurs that they thought would entertain me.  In it a narrator would discuss various trends in giant monster movies -- few of them were actually about dinosaurs -- and then they would show the trailer of some monster movie that illustrated the narrator's point.  I posted some of these a while back, and you can see the one for Mothra: Monster God at the beginning of this post.

The one for Mothra and the one for Valley of the Dragons -- the later of which seems to have disappeared from the internet -- both captured my imagination in a way that the other trailers on that VHS were unable.  They both have something in common beyond their lost world plots: they provide a list of awesome things that are in the movie.  In the more naive time in which these films were made, the trailers would often provide a list of things to SEE or THRILL at while watching their motion picture.  These two had particularly good ones: Vampire plants, monster gods, gorilla people, stone age mountains, and underground demons.**

Now, I've not seen either of these movies, and perhaps in execution these things are lackluster.  In my mind's eye, though, they are magnificent.  They combine the feelings of both wonder and terror, which is the ultimate expression of what D&D is.

At some point in high school I began listening to Coast to Coast AM.  Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorists, and my primary reason for listening to the show is its unintentional hilarity.  However, I have drawn a great amount of inspiration from the litany of whack job guests for both Call of Cthulhu and D&D.  Just before I entered college they had a guest on who discussed Hollow Earth theory and the Shaver Mystery.  The combination of bat-shit-insanity, Ufology, lost races, and dinosaurs really tickled my brain.  I tried to work vast, subterranean areas into my Wilderlands games, and eventually I came up with my own Hollow Earth setting.

The Underworld is a cool setting.  I said in one of my responses to Zak's questionnaire that of all the things I've made I was most proud of Nightwick Abbey.  This is true; however, I have a feeling that if I was ever able to get Underworld to work that it would be my greatest creation.  Nightwick Abbey is obviously an idiosyncratic blend of things I enjoy, but those things aren't that far from baseline D&D.  Underworld is different while still fitting very well with the kinds of activities one does in D&D.  It has more or less been replaced by Uz,*** but I sometimes think Uz lacks the requisite amount of wonder.  It has plenty of terror though.

Lost world fiction had greatly affected the way I view D&D.  They define the range of emotions that I seek to evoke as a DM and that I want to feel as a player.  I want to marvel at things not seen before by human eyes.  I want to flee in terror from pallid creatures who have grown sightless in their benighted land.  I want adventure.

This post has become much longer than I originally expected.  I'll spend further posts discussing the different ways to do lost world scenarios in D&D and the pros and cons of each.  I don't know how many further parts there will be because I initially intended this to all be in one post.  If the other parts run away with me the same way this one did, you can expect a lot more.

*One of those few things was the Universal monster movies of the 30s and 40s, and I would later add Hammer to that list.  However, I've already made that setting.

**Notice I remembered several of the ones from Valley of the Dragons despite the fact that I do not have any way to watch the trailer.  Now that is good advertising.

***There may be some Uz related announcements shortly.  On a related note, make sure you're reading Dandy in the Underworld and Rogues and Reavers.  They're cool blogs run by cool people.

Visual Inspiration for My Next Project

This'll probably be for the Hell-Caverns, but I may do something else.  Click them to embiggen.  Trust me, you want to.

If you're not following Monster Brains, then you should be.

Monsters of the Hell-Caverns (Updated Periodically)

The Hell-Caverns (of Narbonne?) are stuck in my brain.  Here are some monsters I started working on before I decided I needed to focus on the dungeon I'm currently running (Nightwick Abbey).  This list owes a lot to the Dismal Depths as do most of my monster designs.

If I ever go back to working on this project, I'll update the list as I need to flesh out the dungeons.

Awful Rats (N) AC 14 Move 12 HD ½ Horrid rats with crow heads.  On a natural 20 to hit, roll again.  If the roll is again a 20, the attacked character takes maximum damage and loses an eye.

Maggot Men (N) AC 12 Move 12 HD ½ Small creatures that resemble a combination of human and maggot features.   Build huts out of spittle and filth. Wield stone spears and daggers (break on natural roll of 1).  Leaders have 3HD. 

Frogmen (C) AC 12 Move 9/18 HD 1-1 Small, bloated toad-like humanoids.  Usually waddle uncomfortable, but will occasionally jump to attack.  Gains +1 to hit and damage.  Love the taste of Maggot men.

Skeleton (C) AC 14/15 Move 9 HD 1-1 Undead.  Ancient warriors animated using foul magic or mad science.  Typically wield rusted swords and shields but 25% chance of having a bow and 3d6 arrows.  Take only 1 damage from piercing and slashing weapons.  Take normal damage from bludgeons.

Morlock (C) AC 14/15 Move 12 HD 1 Degenerate descendants of a technologically advanced race.  Wield stone weapons (break on natural 1).  25% chance of having a bow and 3d6 arrows.  Leaders have 4 HD and are often found with mail armor and steel weapons.

Robbers (C) AC 14/15 Move 12 HD 1 Hoodlums who have hidden in the dungeon.  Typically outfitted in leather and shield.  25% chance of bow and 3d6 arrows.  Leaders have 6 HD and wear mail.

Cur (N) AC 12 Move 12 HD 1 Mangy, aggressive dogs.  Used as guard dogs by many of the intelligent dungeon inhabitants.

Mole Men (N) AC 14 Move 9 HD 1+1  Pseudo-insectoid humanoids with large claws for burrowing.  Sometimes used as slaves by morlocks.  Those not enslaved will kill morlocks on sight.

Creepy Crawlies (N) AC 13 Move 6 HD 2 Cleanup crew.  Blanket of flesh eating insects.  Hit all opponents in a 20’x20’ area as if they were AC 12.  1 in 6 chance of being poisonous.  All attacks deal 1 damage, except fire which does maximum damage.

Deros (C) AC 16 Move 12 HD 2 Unfortunates who have used the Deros Machine on level 3.  Have cobolt colored skin, milk-white blood, and red eyes.  Attack anything that isn’t a Dero.

Ghoul (C) AC 14 Move 12 HD 2 Undead.  Appear as hybrids of humans and hyenas.  Surprise on 1-3 on 1d6.  Touch paralyzes (Save allowed) for 3d6 rounds.

Glow Mutant (N) AC 12 Move 9 HD 2 Poor, irradiated bastards.  Constantly scream and glow as a torch only green.  Never surprise party.  If hit is successful, target is grabbed and takes damage each round until the creature is slain.

Zombie (C) AC 12 Move 9 HD 2 Undead. They’re Zombies.  Only take 1 damage from piercing weapons.  Slashing and bludgeoning weapons act normally.

More Unfocused Thoughts on the Hell-Caverns

• One of the entrances to the caverns will be an archway in the dungeons of the local castle.  The castellan's ancestor who built the edifice stole a number of stones from the ruins nearby and even some inside the caves.  At certain times of day, the doorway -- which is made entirely out of stones from the caverns -- turns into a portal to some deeper level.
• I picture the monster list as a mixture of lost world fare, mythos booglies, more traditional looking demons (with extradimensional origins), and radioactive mutants.  Those last guys look like this:

• The rules would definitely be LotFP, but I'd draw from Realms of Crawling Chaos and the Dismal Depths as well.  The Black City is also a big inspiration.
• I'm refining the elevator pitch to '"The Black God's Kiss" meets the Shaver Mystery.'
• I might be able to cannibalize some of my Uz material, particularly deros.
• In case it isn't obvious yet, the Hell-Caverns aren't entirely made out of caverns. Depending on whether or not I use Dave's Mapper this could mean that theres an even mix of caves and dungeon or it could mean that the various Saturday Night Specials are manufactured complexes and are connected by natural caves and tunnels.
• The magic items and dungeon specials are as likely to be technological as they are magical.  Since the characters are High Medieval knights, clerics, and magicians I don't think this will matter all that much to them.  It's all deviltry.
• Mole people.  There will definitely be mole people.
• You will find few more staunch opponents of Erich von Daniken than I, but his fantastical bullshit makes good fodder for D&D.
• I bet I'll be using the Random Esoteric Creature yadda yadda quite a bit.
• Despite the name of the dungeon, I'll be taking a slightly more atheistic attitude towards the metaphysics of the setting.  I'm not sure where clerics get their powers from yet.  The Malleus Monstrorum for CoC -- an awesome book btw -- I think says Jesus might be an avatar of Yog-Sothoth.  While that offends me on some small level, I suppose it's kinda neat if I'm also throwing von Daniken in the mix.
• When I settle on a specific location I'll change the name of the dungeon to The Hell-Caverns of X.
• I think the Hell-Caverns of Narbonne sounds good, but the Hell-Caverns of Conques could explain where the vivid depictions of demons on the Cathedral of St Foy come from.

Unfocused Thoughts on the Hell-Caverns

Hercules in the Hell-Caverns is one of the least-recounted tales of that hero

While it's unlikely that I'll seriously develop another megadungeon in the near future, I thought I would spend a bit more time thinking about what I would do withe the Hell-Caverns.  There are three reasons I decided to go with the Hell-Caverns instead of Old Jerah.  First, the Hell-Caverns are much closer to my normal aesthetic, and therefore if I ever decided to run them I would be much less likely to experience the Gamer ADD that often overcomes me when I run things that aren't pseudo-medieval dark fantasies.  Second, the Hell-Caverns model offers a bit more flexibility.  It's much easier to imagine pseudo-Babylonian ruins in a dungeon beneath a medieval milieu than it is to imagine gothic ruins in dungeon beneath a Babylonian milieu.  Finally it fits better with the implied setting of LotFP.  

Here are some unfocused thoughts:

• I'd probably place the dungeon near Conques since I have some familiarity with that region in the time period I wish to set the game.*
• Narbonne might also work.
• The wilderness around the caverns would mostly be populated with mundane encounters.  Robber knights, wolves, bandits, pilgrims, heretics, etc.
• I might do separate encounter tables for day and night, with some small chance of encounter creatures from the nearest dungeon entrance at night.
• Some of the upper dungeons will be the remnants of a monastery carved into the side of a mountain.
• The caverns contain a mixture of medieval, Greco-Roman, Atlantean, snake-men, and old ones ruins.  Generally the deeper you go the older, and therefore more alien, stuff gets but there are isolated nuggets of the weirder shit in the upper levels.
• I kinda picture this as the the Shaver Mystery during the Albigensian Crusade.  In other words: they'll be a shit-ton of heretics and morlocks.
• Some areas of the caverns are miles across and are essentially lost worlds with their own ecosystems.  These will usually just have dinosaurs or ice age megafauna, but sometimes they'll have weirder things too.
• I'd probably put more strange lights in the dungeon, rather than the pitch-blackness that clouds Nightwick Abbey.
• CAS's Averoigne is once again a big influence (as is his Hyperborean Cycle).  Much like the Averoigne stories, many of the menaces will be Mythos (Smythos?) in nature, but the characters -- or at least the NPCs -- will contextualize them as Abrahamic demons.
• If the Dark Country is my attempt to do Averoigne and Uz is my attempt to do Zothique then the Hell Caverns are all three of his big cycles pushed together.

That's it for now.  I'll possibly put up more later, but who knows?