Inside Outer

This was a monster from a dream I had last night. There are no stats or abilities, just a description for inspiration. Art accompanying it. A good sort of catharsis to get off my chest after a rough night.

By Zdzisław-Beksiński

I had a dream last night. I was back home in South Carolina, in the little swampy area I grew up with as a child. Maybe I was a child in my dream or an adult, I cannot remember. All I could remember was that I was scared, being chased by something terrible. I would look around the trees and brushes in the humid evening but never see it. But I'd find signs of it. Bodies of people it 'fed' on. What was striking was that everyone's face was inside out. Blown open. And deep down inside, I knew the creature took their soul this way. Erasing their identity violently and drawing out their spirit. For food? For fun? I don't know how, that's just how dreams work I suppose. All I knew was that I didn't want to be next. There was a real, palpable fear that came from it. Would I die alone in these swamps I once called home? Would the creature get me and carve my face out, burrowing for my soul? As my sleep cycle ended, I finally saw the creature, as above, based on that painting I saw years ago. It's strange how a myriad of things from your past can make their way into your dreams at night. But it just crouched there, waiting for me to make my next move. We stood there for what seemed like years and I felt like an old man. The creature said one thing to me before it finally attacked my face.

"I'm not hungry."

My Favorite Monsters

These last two weeks have been pretty tough. We had the hurricane, then packing and the move. A lot of cleaning because of disgusting squatter, but they are finally gone now. Then food poisoning. Then car troubles. The ride never ends. But, the house is coming together, and though I am bedridden, I can at least blog about my favorite monsters.

Devilfish: I'm a sucker (hehe) for mollusks and devilfish are pretty cool. Their ink can make underwater fighting even more dangerous than it already is. And they have poisonous demon blood. What's not to like?

Aboleth: Aboleths Are a great mastermind monster with a cool look. Primordial fish body and tentacles with three weird eyes, plus I love their sort of angry, antideist bent. Makes perfect villains against your party cleric.

Grell: I seem to have a thing for creatures with tentacles. The grell was a creature I used in my first foray into DMing. It was a creepy looking creature, with some nasty barbs that make mince meat of your PCs. Even when playing PF or other games, I still like to use the grell in my games.

Lizardfolk: Going more humanoid, I've always liked lizardfolk. They feature prominently in my own homebrew setting, only I let them shoot blood from their eyes. Lizards are great, especially if you go with the more conspiracy theory bend of secret reptiloid masters lording over the populace. Though that seems more in the realm of serpentfolk.

Lamia: This is a more recent one that I used only a year ago, but the encounter was so memorable that I've grown to love the cursed beast. Have a pride of lamia stalking the PCs while they are out in the wilderness. It can really make players super paranoid. Plus I like cursed beasts.

Werewolves: Speaking of cursed beasts, I love werewolves. Werecreatures in general are all awesome, but werewolves are definitely my favorite. While I don't have them all evil, I do make sure that those afflicted by lycanthropy are cursed and as such, are absolutely dangerous and murderous like a rabid animal. Only by taking a ritual of killing and eating a virgin child under a full moon lets them control their change, but after that, they have succumbed to their predatory instincts and treat people like food.

Wyverns: I like big creatures that really make us embrace the game as a fantasy setting. Hydras and such are great, but nothing beats a good old fashioned dragon. Since most dragons are pretty far up in Challenge Ratings, I like using wyverns as a sort of low level, baby's first dragon kill. Mind you, they are still dangerous with their barbed tails and vicious demeanor. But they are fun to use, especially as potential mounts.

Also it caused a pretty hilarious argument over the pronunciation of the word wyvern. Gotta love nerd fights.

Anything Spider Related: Giant spiders rock my socks. The web weavers are great, but I like the more proactive wolf spider or tarantula. Ogre faced spiders make great ambush predators, and trap door spiders add an awesome mix of traps and monster fight. Imagine your players fighting a wolf spider with babies on the abdomen the size of small dogs. Now imagine them all swarming you as you fight their momma. Creepy

Ghouls: I have been dealing with ghouls since I was a kid. My dad would run us through dungeons and I remember one being somewhat Aztec themed that was infested with ghouls. Since then, they are pretty much in all of my games. I like them because they can fill in the vicious, fast undead role while simultaneously being a possible ally (or at least, parleyable ally) NPC. My ghouls are somewhere in the middle of 28 Days Later zombie and H.P. Lovecraft macabre civilized anthropophage.

Those are my favorite monsters to use. What are ones you guys like to use and how do you use them?

Mothlight

In misty bogs and hazy swamps lie a cousin to the will o wisp, the mothlight. The mothlight is a glowing diaphanous orb of smokey light with gossamer tendrils that trail behind it as it dances in the moonlight. To many, they look like the colored blobs that appear when you close your eyes. Mothlights sway and flash hues of orange and blue to fascinate and entrance mortals that happen upon them. Despite their alien beauty, mothlights are existential predators. When a mortal gets too close to it, the mothlight drapes its tendrils around the creature and feeds on its thoughts and psychic energy. Mothlights will gorge on a creature's mental energy until it becomes braindead. The mothlight will then bloom and release smaller glowing polyps that will eventually move on and grow into full mothlights of their own.

Despite popular belief, the mothlight is not a creature, but mere a shadow of a creature from a higher dimension. Because our minds are three dimensional, we simply cannot fathom its true form, so we can only see the glowing shadow when it bleeds into our world. While in its dimension it is considered a mere animal, in our world the mothlight creature has a keen intellect that rivals most mortals. The creature will come into our realm through thin films between our world and the higher world, swimming through angles and hovering about through nature. It can't move much in our dimension, or perhaps it simply prefers to wait in ambush away from cities. Its shadow, the mothlight, attracts mortals through means unknown, where it can devour our thoughts. After you've seen the shadow, it's generally too late to run away. Even closing your eyes fail, as your own phosphenes betray you and guide you closer to the mothlight.

By Alexander Semenov

The only known way to escape the fascination effect is through over stimulation of your other senses. When going into an area infested with mothlights, it is best to bring smelling salts, gunpowder, or anything that can make loud noises or strong smells. Flash paper is also a good idea but rare and blinds you, which may not be preferable. After using any of those, run away. Only those with an intimate knowledge of higher order mathematics and physics can hope to kill the creature. Even third dimensional magic can't work. Only by mapping out the location with advances equations, or opening your mind to the higher dimensions through meditation, hallucinogens, and astral projection can give you a chance at attacking the creature. But that's a post for another time.

Mothlight:

Phototaxi: Make a Magic saving throw. On a failure, you must do a full movement towards the mothlight. You can do a single action if you succeed on another Magic saving throw. When you reach the tendrils, each turn you lose 1d6 intelligence. When you reach 0 INT, you become brain dead.

I like jellyfish. This also makes the third monster I've made inspired by the way a Pokemon looks.

The first two being Nincada and Mimikkyu

Huraño

If you look around dark allies or in the deepest of forests, you are likely to run into a gangling creature called a huraño. Chances are, they are following you right now, trying desperately to stay out of sight while watching you jealously.

Huraño are crippling shy creatures filled with self loathing, so much so that they universally cover their bodies with worn rags and white masks so no one can see them. Their masks generally have a poorly drawn facsimile of a face of a creature they wish they were. Usually it's big predators, or beautiful animals, or mortal races. Mortals are common because they are so numerous and pretty and confident. That's what the huraño lacks. That's what they desire. A huraño will act out as their chosen creature, staging mock plays and changing its lair to look more like that of their 'prey'. In many ways, it's like watching a child play make believe with its toys and furniture scattered about. 

Huraño are harmless, almost laughably so. One confronted by their 'prey' will prostrate itself and beg for mercy, usually giving into any demand they make in hopes of escaping alive. It's not unusual to see a huraño crying and pleading in front of a small child or other harmless creature.

Most humans use the huraño for their own amusement. A huraño will do whatever you say out of fear of reprisal and if harmed, will assert that it somehow deserved it. It makes a great companion for the sadistic and sociopathic nobles that can somehow catch one. That's a feat in itself, as it is so frightened of being around people that it will flee instantly. It's joints are highly flexible and the huraño is very fast and limber, allowing it to fit through tiny cracks and get away from anyone. If you can catch one, you'll have an amazing slave to harm. Removing a huraño's mask will force it to die from sheer embarrassment and shame, since in its mind, you are removing its face. Its corpse won't last. Even in death, its body will disappear before anyone can see its true features. Such is the extent of a huraño's timidness.

But sometimes, very rarely, you'll have a kind-hearted soul that befriends the creature and fills it with the confidence it needs to remove its mask and live its own life. Many warn that they become a terrible, overconfident monster that eats people, and that's why they must be kept in place. Though the people that say this are the same ones that love torturing them, so who knows what's true. Maybe you'll get an amazing, life-long companion. Maybe the huraño can finally grow into its dream creature.

Stats:

HD: 1
AC: 17
Movement: Always 5 feet more than the fastest person chasing it

Laughably Pathetic: Huraños have no attacks or natural defenses. They are simply hard to catch. Once caught and cowed, any attack against them automatically hits. Anyone that attacks a huraño gains health back equal to the damage. Huraños will do whatever is asked, except to remove their mask.

Crippling Depression: Huraños can only die if their mask is removed. Removing it is a DC 23 Strength check and the creature instantly dissolves into dust.

What's the Point?

I've always found people and nature to be more interesting as monsters and villains than hobgoblins and dragons. I wanted to do something different from the standard "make a terrifying monster". So I made a creature that will bring out the monster in the players. Throw it in and see what happens. You may be surprised! I leave it up to the GM to see what happens when a huraño is met with kindness and makes a lifelong friend with the PCs. 

Onbu

In my setting of Anacaona, I try to keep things familiar yet different. You won't find elves or dwarves naturally (except in the colonial cities as immigrants) but I have similar creatures that are analogous to them. With this, I'll be talking about my goblin analogue, the onbu. I had made these guys up on the fly in the ACKS solo game I'm running for my girlfriend. Luckily, it was towards the end of the game, so I've had some time to make up some cool blurbs about them. Enjoy!

Onbu are grey, short creatures that live in the steamy jungles of Anacaona. These creatures are lithe and wiry, and are generally the size of halflings. Onbu have wider noses and black hair, usually worn long. Their bangs are kept short and trimmed. Tattoos and piercings are prominent among the onbu. The piercings denote authority. The higher the piercing, the more important the onbu is. The native tribes of humans, called Sulano, have long held that onbu are primitive and bad omens, and many don't take kindly to onbu making homes on their lands. Onbu are tribal and do conduct raiding parties, but it's not unusual or even unheard of to have good relations with a tribe of them. 

What makes onbu interesting is their natural connection to the Spirit World. Onbu can see and talk to spirits, demons, and ghosts like they were living people. This makes onbu guides very popular among the natives and colonists, as they can help grant safe passage or news from the spirits of the rain forests. Onbu shamans are fairly powerful spirit talkers, using their natural abilities of spirit speech to parley more magic from the spirits. Onbu shamans have a particular special ability to eat fever dreams and divine truths from them. This requires a special ritual where the subject takes powerful hallucinogenics to get them to dream vividly. The onbu shaman then devours the dream and for a period of time, is addled with madness. Once their period of madness is done, they can then deliver a proper augury to the subject. It's an intense ritual that is draining on the onbu shaman and can't be done often.

Onbu live in tribes in the rain forests of Anacaona. Many times you'll see them in borderlands and marches of a kingdom, acting as parasites on the area. Occasionally, tribes of onbu will gather together to create their own large commune. These onbu are enamoured by the trade and culture they see with the other base races and will eschew their tribal tendancies to create villages. It's not unusual for people to trade with these onbu hamlets. The native Sulano are less likely to, but many of the other native tribes and colonists are more willing. And several of the colonists will make alliances with onbu fiefdoms that they feel can be a thorn in the sides of the native kingdoms.

Onbu Stats

HD: 1

AC: 11 (Cotton Armor)

Attacks: 1d6 (macana), 1d6+poison (shortbow; save poison or take 1 ongoing until death or antidote)

Morale: -1

Spiritspeech: Can see and talk with spirits as if they were visible and normal people.

Onbu Shaman

As above. Give cleric or druid spells that are appropriate. If running ACKs, make them a shaman.

Dream Eater: The onbu shaman can eat fever dreams brought on by hallucinogens. After doing an hour long ritual, the onbu can cast divination once for the subject of the dream. The onbu shaman must rest for a night after doing this.

Sunder and Rust

Last month, I made a post about Weapon Degradation here. I wanted to expand a little bit and talk about sundering items.

Sunder

To sunder a weapon or shield, you must roll an attack against the item. Small items like daggers or potions would be harder to hit (-4), medium items like swords and bucklers take a -2 to hit, and larger items like armor, staves and tower shields are much easier to hit and take no penalties.After the attack, roll a Strength check. On a success, the weapon is brought down a die level. On a natural 20, the die is brought down two levels. Depending on the item die below will depend on what you need to beat to bring it down a die level

Weapon Quality Die    Strength to Bring it Down

d4                                 6+

d6                                 10+

d8                                 14+

d10                               18+

d12                               22+

This makes high quality weapons harder to destroy. It also hopefully makes it a good tactic to weaken an enemy's weapon or armor, especially if they are hard to kill and do a lot of damage. Of course, this leads me to my next idea...

Rust Monster

DM's love him, the PC's worst nightmare is back, ready to oxidize your weapons until they crumble. When a rust monster uses it's feelers to destroy a metal item, roll a Blast/Breath saving throw. Failure means it drops a die step. A natural 1 means it drops two die steps. If your item is at a d4, it breaks.

I wanted to make the rust monster still dangerous, but a little more forgiving with its oxidation ability. That way it increases the tension that your weapon/armor is degrading, but you can still use it to fight it off while you think of something else to use on.

Killing PCs? Evil. Destroying their gear? Downright despicable! (3.5 Forgotten Realms)

Thoughtforms

I like the occult, ever since I was a kid. That's why I loved Occult Adventures in Pathfinder, as well as more occult stuff in VtM and other occult books. That's why I put them into my settings and games all the time. 

The setting I run is called Anacaona and in it, magic infuses the lands. Not like Eberron, where magic is stable and industrialized. It's random and dangerous and requires a gifted and disciplined mind to wield. There are spirits that are disembodied creatures of ethereal matter that flow freely through our world and the world beyond. They are sapient like us and while they may have alien minds, capricious emotions, or unfathomable agenda, they are still existing creatures.

But then there are thoughtforms.

These are metaphysical elementals and psychic emanations. These are ideas, emotions, and thoughts that dance in the pale starlight of the Astral Plane, but have a pseudo-existence anywhere else. They are hallucinations that simply exist in the mind, more so than the creatures of the Plane of Dreams. If mortal beings acted like evolution, then thoughtforms could be everyone's microbial ancestors. They have the facsimile of life, like a virus or a prion, but on their own, they simply are. And like a virus, they can be dangerous to us mortals. More on that later down the line.

It's unknown what created what. Did thoughtforms give us mortals the ideas and inspiration we use every day, or did we create them with our minds? Or some combination of the two? What is true is that thoughtforms 'exist' on their own and can also be created by mortals. Occultists in Anacaona believe that some thoughtforms can manifest in our realm of existence, but can be dangerous if not controlled by a powerful, disciplined mind. Mystics and psychics seems to have the best ability to control them, but also suffer the worst effects when they lose control. Psychics in particular act as great vectors of thoughtform epidemics, which can be more dangerous than a simple disease.

Thoughts are infectious. A thoughtform that manifests into our plane begins seeking out intelligent and sapient minds to infect and grow. The more complex and intelligent the mind, the better the conditions for infection, growth, and reproduction. And they spread quickly once in a population, passing on to their future generations like a meme. Some thoughtforms are fairly benign. For all anyone knows, they could be infected and never know. Some occultists wonder if all mortals are essentially carriers and diseased, and that in itself creates different cultures and beliefs. There's a scary thought.

From Alex Gray

Some thoughtforms though are dangerous. They infect your mind and change you, slowly. Every thought you have begins to transform into the current thoughtform's thought, and you slowly become completely obsessed with that thought. A thoughtform about the color green would make its victims completely obsessed with green and do anything in their power to hoard green items. This is how many occultists know someone may be infected by a thoughtform; manic obsessive habits over a singular item at the cost of everything, including their own survival. And the difference between your standard insanity and a thoughtform infection is that it spreads.

It's spreads easily. All it takes is to think about it. If you're around a person infected, you are now infected. You start becoming puzzled as to why the person is obsessed with green, and eventually, you become obsessed with the color green. Suddenly, within weeks, your whole village is filled with green-obsessed people, killing each other over anything that is green. Which can actually be the inherent weakness to a thoughtform. Because people are prone to violence very quickly, it can't spread faster than it kills. A chilling relief I suppose.

Okay, I may be a little obsessed with Alex Gray and Tool

When a thoughtform does keep enough people alive and infested, it blooms. It saps all of their infecteds' mental energy, making them comatose, and becomes something more than an idea. It becomes an image, an icon, a hallucination. It becomes a tulpa. A disembodied sentient thought that can now interact meaningfully with people around it. It exists, and yet doesn't. It now has the reasoning capabilities of a spirit or mortal, but still cannot exist without someone thinking about it. And so it continues to infect people, hoping to become something more.

A tulpa works a little different than a normal thoughtform, since it is stronger and can be created by a powerful mind. Tulpas are less like viruses and more like parasites. They attach to one host as the primary host, then infect everyone else around them. Curing the main host destroys the tulpa, but unlike regular old thoughtforms, tulpas can exert powerful control over their infected and even their host. This works like possession in a game, but the host gets a bonus if they created the tulpa.

Most tulpas become sociopathic and insane, trying to become real at any cost. Some occultists believe that a powerful mind, like that of a psychic, can help the tulpa become real, and many tulpas seek a psychic to do such a thing. Perhaps it is true, or perhaps not. But be wary when helping a tulpa, because they are absolutely unstable and can turn on you if they think you aren't helping enough.

How does one defeat a thoughtform or cure an infection?

One of the best ways is simply forgetting about them. Induced amnesia is a common way, whether through magic (memory rewriting), surgery, or blunt force trauma. Mental training and discipline to fight them back is another one, but that only keeps them at bay and doesn't cure your memetic infection. Hypnotic suggestion and creating a mental block can quarantine the infection in your mind and you'll be safe until your next infection. Creating a mental block requires being hypnotised (a Diplomacy or Persuasion check against your Wisdom score) and at least three, one hour-long hypnosis sessions. Hallucinogens  can help amplify the process, but makes it a bit more risky. Delving into the dreams of a host infected by a tulpa is the best way to destroy the thoughtform or tulpa. With special magic and hallucinogens, you can become psychonauts and explore yours or your friend's mind and cure them. For curing a mob of people infected with a thoughtform, luring them back into the Astral Plane with rituals is surefire. Finding these rituals is a quest onto itself though.

Types of Thoughtforms

Spells are a type of thoughtform, brought into existence by wielders of arcane magic. Wizards bring in a thought from the Astral Plane, nurture it with spellbook preparation, then release it as a spell to affect the Material Plane. Reading a spellbook is actually a way for the wizard or any arcane caster to prepare a spell without the thought taking over their mind. All arcane spells still have a chance to go haywire, but it is usually temporary and doesn't infect or destroy the caster. A prepared arcane caster that doesn't read their spellbook at the start of the day can still cast spells, but has a 50% chance of manifesting a living spell. This chance goes down 2% per level in your arcane class.

Atavisms are thoughtforms of raw emotion. Hate, love, sorrow, joy, etc. They are pure embodiments of that emotion and anyone that is infected by one acts upon it in the extreme. A hate atavism will drive people to extreme violence. A love atavism would probably be like the school dance episode of Rick and Morty. Not good.

Logists are simple thoughts and ideas that float in the Astral Plane. The most varied, they can really be of anything. The idea of a beautiful sunset. The thought of justice. The sounds of a lovely symphony. Any thought, rational or irrational, is a logist.

An archetype is a bit more complex than most thoughtforms. They are a combination of ideas and thoughts combined to form a pastiche of something. The archetypical cultural hero, kind princess, scoundrel with a heart of gold, or other urban legends and cultural heroes. While they may seem complex like a tulpa, archetypes still have no intelligence of their own. They simply change slightly because of a person's expectations of the archetype. So the archetypical cultural hero would look completely different to two people from two different kingdoms, but still be the same thoughtform.

Tulpas are advanced thoughtforms, given sentience. Whether they are created by a powerful and creative mind, or came about from a previous thoughtform pandemic, tulpas are smarter, stronger, and a bit more unhinged than their counterparts. They are now aware that their existence lies with people believing in them, and if everyone forgets them, then they cease to exist. All tulpas make a bond with a host or their creator. Some stay friendly with their host so that they can exist longer. Children make great hosts and this is where imaginary friends come from. Other continue their infectious ways and spread to others, using their host as a carrier. That way, if that host dies, the tulpa can simply move on to another infected. Some say there are rituals that can allow a tulpa to become truly real and mortal.

Dimyalos are thoughtforms created by two (though sometimes more) creatures that aren't sentient but have great psychic potential. When the creatures come together, they create this intelligence. A dimyalo doesn't infect other hosts because it is dependant on these specific creatures, but they become fiercely protective over their hosts. They spread their influence more by combining more creatures of those types that can make more dimyalos.

Egregores are powerful, almost like lords over other thoughtforms. These are usually created by occultists of similar minds, though it is rare for one to form from a group with similar mindset. A group must be synchronous with each other, mentally and spiritually, to create an egregore. The creature is similar to a hive mind, but is greater than the sum of its parts. It knows everything its creators know and has great psychic potential. Egregores don't need to infect other minds to stay alive, though many will try and get more converts to add to its collection. It exists as long as its creators are safe, and disrupting any of them can weaken the egregore. If an egregore gathers enough minds and exists for a long enough time, they can transcend the need of its creators and move on, leaving behind the occultists as mindless husks. Many form an egregore to attain enlightenment through each other, while other use it to gain greater psychic power.

How Thoughtforms Work

For the basic thoughtforms, I want it to be like a disease. I like the rules in Lamentations of the Flame Princess for disease. Simple and concise. For the dimyalo, tulpa, and egregore, these would be actual monsters, similar to ghosts, but focused on keeping people remembering them. I like that concept of a creature that only exists if you believe in them. It can be a bit scary if you think about it, and makes one think about their own mortality and how people will remember them after they are gone. Or even if they do remember them.

In a future blog post, I plan on doing this. Probably more doable on Tuesday because of my work schedule.