Mythic Monday: The Tarrasque

Wow - it’s been a while since I've posted a monster for Mythic Monday - my well of inspiration has taken me to other places these many months.  This past weekend, churches everywhere celebrated the feast of Pentecost, and my readings last week referenced dragon floats used in religious celebrations and feasts in Spain and southern France.  In following the lead back to its source, I was brought to the legendary Tarasque (or Tarrasque, in D&D).

Take a moment if you like, go hit Wikipedia and read up on the Tarasque.  Otherwise I'll paraphrase briefly:  Born of a middle eastern fire monster and the biblical Leviathan, the Tarasque was a 6-legged dragon that terrorized 1st century southern France before it was subdued by St Martha, a holy woman that pacified the creature while approaching it bare foot, in a white dress, and wielding a flask of holy water and a cross.  Then the villagers chopped it up (and renamed their place Tarascon).  Prior to its subdual, the beast was nigh invulnerable due to its armored shell.

The version of the dragon that shows up in Corpus Christi celebrations and the religious festivals is called a Tarasca, and a quick google search will show a handful of nifty Tarasca floats and wood carvings - here's a collage so you can see what I mean.  I like how they all have the signature turtle shell back and those big freaky mouths.  Some of the old woodcuts display the Tarasque with legs sticking out of its mouth, mid-meal.  We don't have too many festivals here in the States where people roll around man-eating turtle-backed dragons.  :sigh:

Images of various Tarascas

There are some bits of the story that are intriguing.  What is it about the theme of innocent maidens assuaging the most terrible of beasts?  I've read psychological theories of predatory monsters, how they call to mind primordial fears of being hunted by animals, or Freudian taboos of cannibalism, but I don't recall coming across an explanation of the 'beauty taming the savage beast' motif.  I just know if a gamer wrote the story, an unarmed cleric facing down such a monster with a vial of holy water wouldn't even count as an appetizer.  Bye bye village.

The tarrasque is a fascinating monster to put in a campaign; it lies dormant for years at a time, wakes up, depopulates an area, then stumbles off to find a good sleeping spot until it's time for the next eating binge.  How cool would it be to put a depopulated area into your low level sandbox… "Oh yeah, there used to be people here, but then the Tarrasque came through a few years ago, and folk are slow to move back… who knows if it's going to wake up near here again sometime soon?"  Sages would try to chart and predict that kind of thing on the calendar; kingdoms would plan evacuations around the imminent waking of the sleeping Tarrasque.  Plus, the Tarrasque is one of those awesome creatures to put on your monster kill 'bucket list'.  "Some day, I'm going to slay that stupid Tarrasque.  It ate my village."

Check it out, though, there's one amazing power of the legendary Tarrasque that didn't get copied over into D&D lore.  I try to keep the blog somewhat on topic and clean, but this is too funny to ignore:

And when he is pursued he casts out of his belly behind, his ordure, the space of an acre of land on them that follow him, and it is bright as glass, and what it toucheth it burneth as fire.
--The Golden Legend

When the Tarrasque "has a movement", so to speak, it burns down acres at a time.  And it uses this as a defense mechanism.  Unholy flaming shit.  You can't make this stuff up.

To my fellow Americans, enjoy your Memorial Day holiday, be sure to thank a veteran for their service, and I'll see you guys again shortly with more ideas on the Harrow Home Manor.

I almost forgot - the Tarrasque shows up in Monster Manual 2 for AD&D... I know many of those monsters are reprints of modules, does someone know if there is an earlier source for the Tarrasque in AD&D?  Thanks for any insight!

Mythic Monday: China Mieville's Slake Moth

At one point over at Cyclopeatron's place, I came across a link to an interesting China Mieville interview where he talked about a fascination with AD&D's bestiaries:

I use AD&D-type fascination with teratology in a lot of my books, and I have the original Monster Manual, and the Monster Manual 2, and the Fiend Folio. I still collect role-playing game bestiaries, because I find that kind of fascination with the creation of the monstrous tremendously inspiring, basically.

Typically the Mythic Monday columns focus on some aspect of myth or folklore, and how to adapt it for your D&D game; this week's column is interesting because it involves an item from D&D that apparently showed up in a literary work; let's bring something back.

One of Mieville's most fascinating creatures is the Slake Moth from Perdido Street Station; a horrifying predator, it unfolds hypnotic wings that transfix a victim in place, allowing the larger-than-man-sized moth to slip forward and feed on the victim's thoughts, draining the psyche through a long slobbering tongue until the victim is a mindless vegetable.  The Slake Moths in Perdido Street Station are terrifying, but the way the criminals of Bas-Lag attempt to exploit them is even more horrible; feeding on dreams and psyches, the milk of the moths can be used to create a powerful street drug.  The criminal underworld brought the moths in to breed them and generate the dream-drug.  The horror begins when the moths escape and terrorize the city by night.

The Gloomwing

I couldn't help but notice a more than passing semblance with the Gloomwing from 1983's Monster Manual 2; the Gloomwing is an aggressive predator moth that also uses hypnotic wings (the gloomwing's wings cause Confusion); meanwhile the moth slips forward, weakening the victim with pheromones and then using the corpse to gestate the moth's larvae (which eventually become the Tenebrous Worm, also in MM2).  You have to wonder how much the Slake Moth's mind draining was inspired by the Mind Flayer and this iconic image from the back of D1:

It's pretty cool to think an obscure monster (the Gloomwing) from an old bestiary inspired one of the modern day's rising authors in the realm of Weird Fiction; keep your eyes open, we may see even more monsters from AD&D find their way back into the realms of popular fiction.

Of course, we D&D players can borrow some of these ideas back.  Taking a page from Perdido Street Station, the Gloomwing can be used as bizarre urban predators that drop out of the night sky to carry off victims from the city's darkened streets.  The real terror is waiting back in the moth's lair, where any would-be exterminators would have to deal with the Tenebrous Worm back in the nest.

Incidentally, a Dragon Magazine (#352) had an article featuring the city of Bas-Lag and various monsters from Mieville's world, including the Slake Moth; the 3.x version bumped the hit dice to 13, and had abilities to represent the psychic draining (mind rot), the hypnotic wings, and the way the moths induced nightmares while flying high above the city (essentially "fattening the meals" before feeding).  One could easily beef up the Gloomwing by strengthening the hypnotic effect of the wings, bump up the HD a little, and give it the ability to drain psyche like a mind-flayer and you'd have your own slake moth.

Mythic Monday: All Hallow's Eve

The dead are on the  move!  That's the excellent story behind the Halloween holiday, and certainly something that can be pulled whole cloth into your D&D game.  The distance between the mortal world and the realm of the dead narrows precipitously on this day, allowing the souls of the departed to roam the night for a brief time and offer up warnings, omens, and glimpses of the future (plot hooks).

First, a brief survey of Halloween.  The Halloween holiday here in the US is a "complex", an amalgamation of various traditions, some ancient, some not so much.  The jack-o-lantern tradition comes from turnip carving in Ireland, brought to America in the middle of the 19th century (the story of Stingy Jack and the Devil, an Irish story, is a tale for another Monday).  I can't imagine turnip-carving would be as enjoyable as pumpkin carving.  Mummery (costumes) is an English tradition, along with the practice of children begging door-to-door on certain days of the year.

But the reason Halloween is associated with all the spooky imagery is the most interesting.  The Celtic season of Samhain was a time when the world of the dead were closer to the mortal world, and bonfires were lit in the night to ward off spirits.  I grew up associating Samhain with metal albums and Michael Meyers, but alas, there's nothing Satanic about Halloween's Celtic origins.  In the early church, the holiday was All Souls Day (also called All Hallows Day) and it's easy to see how the night before became All Hallows Eve / Evening, contracted to Halloween.  It's still celebrated as the Feast of All Saints on Nov 1 and All Souls Day on Nov 2 in Catholic areas.  I had a rigorous Catholic upbringing myself, and was indoctrinated in all that ritual and mysticism as a youth.

The reasoning behind the Catholic tradition for All Souls Day is a day to honor the deceased and departed; one of the Medieval ideas behind the feast is that souls in purgatory have a shot at slipping out and moving on to a better or worse place on this day (and a bunch of prayers from the still living folks can nudge them the right way).  The dead are on the move!  You've got to like how Mexico celebrates it as the Day of the Dead, with parties in the graveyards.

I'm sure if we did a survey of ancient traditions, we'd find lots of these days for honoring the dead when old souls can come back and mess with folks that are still alive.  The other one I'm familiar with is the May holiday of Lemuria, the Roman time for exorcising malicious ghosts and the restless dead.  The Catholic feasts themselves were originally in May, strongly associated with the feast of Lemuria, and were moved to November in the early Middle Ages.

The point of all this Halloween blather is to get you thinking about putting this kind of holiday in your game world.  Holidays are markers in the calendar year and identify the changing seasons.  They're important signposts.  If you have kids, you know how important upcoming holidays are to their worldview - when one holiday gets done, they start asking about the next one.  For gaming, I suggest looking at the underlying origins for real world holidays and creating a similar celebration for the folks of your game world.

Implications for Gaming
Have you given any thought to what happens to souls in your game world, after the people die?  I never liked the AD&D approach of the outer planes - each person's soul heads out to the proper outer plane after death, speeding through the Astral Plane to the Happy Hunting Grounds or Nirvana or Limbo or wherever all the like-aligned souls can chill out together in that nutty nine-fold alignment system.

The official 4E cosmology was a big improvement here; we may laugh at the name "Shadowfell", but having an entire plane of existence filled with the gloomy dead milling about in ruined mirrors of the real world is pretty dang cool, and much closer to the classic view of the Underworld you see in Greek myth, with all those depressed souls in drab funeral-wear trudging around the plains of Asphodel and groaning.  My approach to making this work without much effort in AD&D is to recast the Ethereal Plane as that  gloomy land of the dead, populated by lost souls and the occasional undead terror, sent back from Hell or the Abyss.

Most dead spend an indeterminate time malingering in the underworld before moving on to a final reward.  Some souls that are strongly aligned with the values of an outer plane do pass right into the Astral plane en route to a divine destination, be it the planes of ultimate good or evil.  (Even the Greek underworld had the Elysian Fields and Tarterus).

In the annual cycle of the mortal world, the Day of the Dead is that point of the year where the mortal world and the gloomy underworld are nearly coterminous.  The restless dead can sometimes be seen by the living through the veil.  There are many traditions across the mortal game world to honor this time; the holy church engages in prayer and ritual, believing that ceremony, prayer, and remembrance can encourage the departed to move on to a final reward beyond the underworld.

In places following the old faith, bonfires are lit to drive away the night time shadows and ward against haunts and spirits; in other areas, costumes and masks are donned to confuse the dead souls and avoid an unsettling encounter with a wronged ancestor.  Offerings, gifts, and adornment are brought to the graveyards during the day, to pacify the departed.

Conversely, if one wants the chance to speak to a deceased soul, this is the night to visit the grave or cemetery and hold a lonely vigil late into the wee hours.  But this practice of meeting a departed shade is not without danger, for just as the benign or indifferent haunts of departed souls can interact with the world of man on All Hallow's Eve, certainly undead terrors returned by the lords of ultimate evil can slip through the barriers easier as well.  Ghosts and apparitions are naturally ethereal, and All Hallow's Eve is the night when wraiths and specters are also sent back from Hell (if you've followed this column the past few weeks, you'll recall that most undead are either Abyssal or Hellish in origin, and most undead shades and spirits come from Hell).  Even visit from haunts are not without risk; statistically I would model the restless departed souls using the Fiend Folio Haunt, a neutral undead that can temporarily possess a living host to carry out some unfinished business.  The wise dead-speaker takes precautions before setting a lonely vigil in a graveyard on All Hallow's Eve.

For the Dungeon Master, this would be an excellent time to have the shade of a departed NPC or henchman come back and harass the PC's about something in the campaign, a wrong or slight that went unaddressed, or even a chance to give your players a vague omen or prophecy (ie, a plot hook) delivered in a suitably ominous or dramatic fashion.  Per Jacob Marley:

How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.  That is no light part of my penance.  I am here tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.
--A Christmas Carol

Summary:
Use a calendar, and put holidays on it.  Use the underlying beliefs from real world holidays as ideas for your fantasy holidays, but "Fantasy" them up to make them real - give them some teeth.  Go forth with these ideas, and be excellent.

Mythic Monday: More Hellish Spirits and Demonic Corpses

One of Fiend Folio's best monsters

Last week's Monday column (Hellish Ghosts and Demonic Vampires) illustrated how descriptions and references in the original Monster Manual created interesting associations regarding undead created by the forces of Hell or the Abyss.  Spectres, wraiths, and similar "haunting" undead are made by the devils out of evil souls consigned to Hell, and ravenous, corporeal undead like vampires, ghouls, and ghasts all have ties to the Demons.

The main value in establishing these relationships is that it gives the DM a strategy on using them in an encounter; they have built in motivations and goals.  Hellish undead tend to guard locations or perform assigned tasks, especially where it can corrupt or subvert a location of significance to the cause of good.  Demonic undead are rapacious and destructive; they seek to spread carnage, or create more of their kind by spreading the curse of undeath.

This week I'm turning my attention to the undead creatures of the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual 2.  The split between hellish and demonic undead is subtle enough that the writers of the succeeding monster books didn't always pick it up, so part of this exercise is seeing how they can be made to fit.

Hellish Undead
Penanggalan
The Penanggalan is that female vampire variant of a detached head with trailing entrails, pictured above.  Vampires are chaotic evil and associated with the Demon Prince Orcus; on first glance it doesn't make sense for the penanggalan to be Hellish.  But the writer does mention the penanggalan returning to Hell after death, so the alignment and association was intentional.  The folklore of the penanggalan, Malaysian in origin, mentions the penanggalan as a practitioner of Black Magic arts that  is cursed after breaking a deal with the Devil.  The penanggalan appears as a normal woman during the day, so I would have the creature use subterfuge and trickery to carry out its hellish mission; this at least reinforces the theme I place on devils regarding silver tongued lies, trickery, deceit, and corruption.

The Poltergeist
The poltergeist fits in with the other unsubstantial undead; it haunts a specific area, the place where it was killed when alive.  I can get behind the evil soul, trapped where it died, rattling chains and harassing the living.  Early references in the folklore even refer to them as "invisible stone-throwing devils".

Demonic Undead
Apparition
The apparition is an ethereal terror that causes massive heart attacks with a psychic choking attack.  Seeing as it got the Chaotic Evil treatment, I'm going to say they roam the astral plane indiscriminately, attempting to kill anyone they meet instead of haunting a single area like the Hellish spirits.  Chaos is freedom!  An apparition is essentially a destructive demon in undead form.

Coffer Corpse
The coffer corpse is the fake-out undead; it appears to be a dead body on a funeral barge, then it pops up and attacks!  ZZzzzzzz - kinda boring, I don't ever recall using one of these.  Maybe when funeral rites are incomplete, the disinterred body can temporarily host a demonic spirit; thus the coffer corpse wreaks havoc with murderous glee when disturbed, and reinforces the importance of last rites, blessings, and burial rituals.

Death Knight
Death Knights would seem to be loyal servants or tyrannical rulers that understand the power of Law, but the text explicitly says they were created by Demogorgon, Prince of Demons.  I'd use them as powerful and destructive lieutenants of nihilism.

Huecuva
I love the Huecuva, and they make perfect sense to me as demonic undead; their touch spreads disease, and the Huecuva of South American folklore is also associated with disease and misfortune.

Neutral Undead
Revenants and Haunts are both spirits that linger in the mortal world because of unfinished business; they have no ties to Hell or the Abyss.  The other new neutral undead were the Animal Skeletons and Monster Zombies, both created by Animate Dead.  The Juju Zombie isn't created by Animate Dead, but is made whenever a magic user kills someone with the Energy Drain spell; it's still a servitor.

Divine Undead
There are a few undead that are specifically tied to an unnamed evil god or demigod instead of demons or devils; they are the Skeleton Warriors and the Sons of Kyuss.  The Skeleton Warriors are powerful cursed servitors, neutral in alignment.  The Sons of Kyuss are pretty interesting though; they spread disease, and they have those hideous worms that infect opponents and burrow into the victim's brain.  That's just nasty stuff.  They're Chaotic Evil and would work fine as demonic undead.  However, anyone around during the 3E era probably remembers Age of Worms in Dungeon Magazine, and the adventure path dealing with the return of the elder evil, Kyuss.  In an old school game, I'd gladly promote Kyuss to Demon Prince trapped on the material plane, and use the 3E ideas whole cloth.

Mythic Monday: Hellish Ghosts and Demonic Vampires

Most "mythic mondays" have involved looking at folklore to use in D&D; this week takes a look at some of D&D's folklore (specifically the 1E AD&D Monster Manual).  There's a curious divide in the AD&D 1E Monster Manual between undead monsters that have their origins in Hell, and undead spawned by demonic forces in the Abyss.  It leads to some interesting implications regarding how these monsters can be used in the campaign.

First, we need to start with the humble Manes demon and Lemure devil; Manes are the remains of evil souls that sink to the Abyss after death; Lemures are the souls of evil beings consigned to Hell.  In both cases, there's a curious sentence in the Monster Manual indicating how these evil souls can be transformed by the masters of the domains as undead in the mortal plane.  Manes can be  recycled into Ghasts and Shadows; Lemures can be changed into Wraiths and Spectres.

Looking closer at the various undead in the Monster Manual, we see that Ghasts, Shadows, Ghouls and Vampires are all Chaotic Evil undead, and they have ties to the Abyss;  Ghasts and Shadows are created from Manes.  Yeenoghu is the Lord of Ghouls, and commands the loyalty of an entity called the Ghoul King.  Orcus is called the Prince of Undeath and can summon Shadows and Vampires.

On the Lawful Evil side of things, we've already indicated that Lemures can be transformed into Wraiths and Spectres; the other Lawful Evil undead are the Wights and Ghosts (we'll bypass Mummies and Liches for now).

I'm also ignoring Zombies and Skeletons; they're mindless.  Since they have no self-motivation, they are Neutral alignment, and can be created through the Magic User spell, Animate Dead; no intervention by demonic or hellish forces is required.

Earlier in Gothic Greyhawk, I established that Ghouls and Vampires both owe their existence to demonic cannibal curses; the curse drives the monster to consume the flesh or blood of the living.  (Yes, this is even more reason to replace the energy draining vampire with the vampire of folklore that consumes blood).  Demons yearn for chaos and destruction, and demonic undead seek to spread their curses far and wide, consuming all in their path.  That's really the defining characteristic for demonic undead; ravenous and destructive hunger.  I really like the idea that ghouls, vampires and shadows can be used as plague monsters, overwhelming areas with their contagious curses of undeath that spread geometrically if unchecked.  We've seen plagues of ghouls in the pop culture zombie phenomenon (28 Days Later. World War Z, The Walking Dead); plagues of vampires are out there to be found as well (Salem's Lot, They Thirst, The Strain, 30 Days of Night).  Why have I never considered a plague of shadows?  This situation must be immediately rectified.

Hell is another matter.  What are the motivations of the devils?  In Gothic Greyhawk, Hell is a divine realm, like Heaven, and devils are fallen angels.  Where the inhabitants of the Abyss seek to destroy creation, the legions of Hell seek to corrupt, control and subvert it.  This gives us some insight on how to use hell-spawned undead monsters in the game.

Wights, wraiths, spectres, and ghosts most commonly haunt specific locations; they serve well as guardian spirits, corrupting or subverting the original purpose of the site they ward.  Wights infest the barrows and tombs of fallen heroes, mocking the cultures that sought to honor their heroic dead and turning the fallen hero's remains into vessels of evil.  Wraiths and spectres are placed wherever their presence will disrupt the efforts of the divine realm and the powers of good; they prevent the exploration and reclamation of ruins, the recovery of lost holy relics, or the cleansing and consecration of fallen shrines and churches.  There's something poetic about a ghost in the graveyard, or haunting the abandoned churchyard, that really captures the right aesthetic for me.  Thematically, I like that all of these undead wither the life force through one method or another, whether it's energy drain or aging.

There is another category of undead that is neither demonic nor hell-spawned; humans that willingly undergo the undead transformation to carry out their evil life's work after death.  The Lich and the Mummy would fall into this latter category; misguided human that undergo a horrible transformation to extend their lives unnaturally (in the case of the Mummy, I would say it's the evil priests performing the burial ceremony that carry out the ritual of mummification).

I've been spending more time than usual with various AD&D books lately; it's hard not to appreciate some of the depth in those amazing books from the 70's.  I have to think this "Vampires are from demons, Specters are from devils" was intended by the Monster Manual references; does anyone know if it was ever developed further, in Dragon Magazine perhaps?

I'll do a companion piece next week looking at the undead monsters introduced in the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual 2 and see how they relate to these themes.

Mythic Monday: The Vampire

Is there a traditional monster that's been more abused by popular culture than the vampire?  The most feared supernatural villain of the 19th century is now a staple of teen romance novels.  Although it pains me to admit it,  Lovecraft has jumped the shark almost as badly; I'd say Cthulhu Plushy Dolls and Innsmouth Swim Team T-Shirts give the Twilight Saga a run for it's money as 'worst emasculation of a nightmare'.

The vampire was once the embodiment of evil; an evil spirit returned from the dead to plague its loved ones as a blood-drinking corpse.   Nowadays, the typical vampire has become the object of teen romance, combining sexuality, Freudian imagery, and the allure of easy immortality.

Not all the modern interpretations are awful; I've seen a few good ones; I liked the premise of 30 Days of Night, and I liked the idea of plague vampires in I Am Legend.  I haven't gotten the chance to read Guillermo Del Toro's Strain.  Anyone read it?  I loved last year's movie Let Me In - the movie is probably worth a review - it's one of my favorite vampire movies.

However, I both loathe and love the representation of the vampire in D&D.

The D&D vampire has various quirky powers and vulnerabilities that call to mind elements of the folklore - things like aversion to garlic and holy symbols, powers like the charming gaze, summon animals, and the shape changing, and excellent representations of the literary vampire's Energy Level Drain attack.  Actually, I'm lying.  Literary vampires don't Drain Life Energy and cause loss of levels, they drink blood.  The D&D vampire is retarded.

The old timer discussion board are full of blather about Positive and Negative energy and Inner Planes and different justifications for energy draining undead and clerical turning; the bottom line for me - the Positive/Negative planes are neat house rule ideas that should have stayed in someone's home campaign and not been institutionalized into AD&D as part of the official cosmology.

I understand why Energy Drain works from a game perspective.  Early adventures were all about kicking in doors and attacking the monsters; the typical monster is only on the stage briefly before exploding in a shower of XP.  It needs to show up and perform its trick quickly before it gets wasted.  A level-draining vampire spikes the tension in a way few monsters can match; the D&D vampire hits hard, drains levels, regenerates, and can turn PC's against each other with its gaze.

But it leaves some things to be desired compared to the folkloric and literary vampire.  Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra, as zero-level humans, are barely a snack for a D&D vampire.  The D&D vampire must be permanently frustrated; all those zero-level humans he touches shrivel into energy-drained husks.  Heck, why does the D&D vampire even bother with fangs?  Here is what I picture when I think of the D&D vampire:

The standard D&D Vampire (via Lifeforce)

I remember thinking Lifeforce was the dumbest vampire movie ever made, when I was what - 17?  Space vampires come to earth flying in a comet, only there isn't a fang in sight.  It's probably worth another viewing, 25+ years later, to watch it without any preconceived notions.  Plus it had lots of scenes with a beautiful naked alien chick walking around.

To distance myself from the Lifeforce experience, I'm going to add a new type of vampire in Gothic Greyhawk.  I'll leave the Lifeforce-esque energy-draining vampire as is, and make that the type of vampire that haunts dungeons and pops out of dark corners to terrorize the players with the threat of energy drain - and maybe they'll ditch the fangs and I'll even let them use the life-force sucking like the movie, played up for its campiness.  The standard vampire still has a good combat role and totally freaks out players, because level drain is the devil.

The new vampire will fill a campaign role as mastermind and parasite.  This vampire will be the traditional blood-drinker; charismatic, seductive and sophisticated.  They'll take a queue from urban fantasy and form cabals and act as the secret masters, trying to remain hidden from, yet influencing, the mortal world.

Energy draining vampires are going to be savage, feral, and relentless attackers, driven by hunger to drain as much life energy as possible; they haunt dungeons and sleep in the earth.  Blood drinking vampires will be able to walk in sunlight, like Dracula, albeit with diminished powers; they'll often "hide in plain sight" amongst the world of humanity while weaving their plots, keeping herds of human slaves and other victims close at hand.  The last thing the blood-drinkers want to do is fight against a bunch of heavily armed adventurers in a fair fight; they're all about using cat's paws.  The two types of vampires absolutely hate each other.

In the near future, I'll post some additional thoughts on the defining characteristics of the energy-drainers versus the blood-drinkers from a social/campaign use stand point.  I tend to mentally group monsters as 'good combat encounters' and 'good campaign monsters' and the blood-drinkers are definitely campaign-oriented.  It gives me the chance to snag a bit of World of Darkness and urban fantasy and slide it into Gothic Greyhawk.  Strahd was an extraordinary example of the energy-drainers; as a powerful wizard, he was able to maintain more control of his savage urges than the standard energy drainers.

The old Karameikos Gazetteer did the heavy lifting for me by publishing a version of the blood-drinking vampire under the name, The Nosferatu.

The Nosferatu (for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc: 1-4
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement:120' (0')
Armor Class: 2
Hit Dice: 7-9**
Attacks: 1 bite, weapon, or special
Damage: 1d4, by weapon, or magic type
Save: Former class level
Morale: 11
Hoard Class:
XP:
Non-magic:  1250/1750/2300
Magic:  1650/2300/3000

The nosferatu is a special vampire that retains its character class skills and abilities at the same level it had when it died (or at the level of its new hit dice, whichever is greater).  Each nosferatu should be a unique monster generated similarly to an NPC encounter.

The nosferatu has all the powers and weaknesses of standard vampires, but instead of draining energy levels, it drinks blood (1d4 hp per round).  The nosferatu's victims only return from the dead if the nosferatu intended for  them to do by performing a ritual that transforms the victim into another nosferatu.  Very old nosferatu can operate in sunlight.

Mythic Monday - the Great Flood

Waters flooding the Himalayas, from the movie 2012

The gods look down upon a world where corrupt sorcerers practice forbidden magic learned by consulting obscene, extra planar monsters.  These foul wizards, each a ruler of his own decadent city-state, wage war across the countryside, capturing slaves to be sacrificed on the altars of the demon princes.   Agents of the divine powers scour the earth looking for any of their remaining clerics to warn them; a crucial decision has been made by the gods - the world must be cleansed.

The countryside of a Dungeons & Dragons world is littered with ancient ruins, where gold coins forged by fallen empires of the past wait for adventurers to recover them.  Monsters lurk in the ruins, and daring explorers discover lost artifacts and relics.    The implied setting of Dungeons & Dragons is essentially post apocalyptic.  The ruined civilizations of the past had technologies (or at least magic) greater than the current age, which the characters often quest to plunder.

The reasons for the fallen state of any given fantasy world vary.  Tolkien presents the long, elegiac decline of Middle Earth as the loss of magic and the nature of passing time.  The historical Middle Ages looked backwards to the glory of Rome; the barbarians were blamed as the proximate reason the empire crumbled.

How about the great flood as the source of the destruction?  The flood theme recurs in a number of myths; most often the flood is a divine punishment.  It fires my imagination that disparate cultures in the ancient world have similar flood myths - regardless of whether a world wide flood happened, the story was powerful enough to travel across cultures.

The flood myths follow similar patterns:

• The world becomes corrupt or man is prideful and disobedient to the divine order
• A divine messenger warns an upright or righteous person about the coming judgment
• The favored man builds a means of surviving the flood
• The world of man is destroyed in the deluge, but the waters eventually recede
• Sacrifice is made to the gods
• Humanity begins to rebuild, once again reconciled with the divine world.

You see these patterns in the Greek myth of Deucalion, the story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Noah's Ark from the Bible.

There are intriguing scientific theories about ancient floods.   Did an asteroid crash into the Indian Ocean, creating tsunamis that destroyed coastal settlements all over the ancient Near East?  Were prehistoric tsunamis instead the byproduct of volcanic eruptions in the Mediterranean?  Perhaps the flood myths are memories of lost settlements when water levels rose at the end of the Ice Age due to melting glaciers.

Using the Flood Myth in D&D
Older editions of Dungeons & Dragons use a Law vs Chaos alignment axis; from there it's easy to define clerical magic and divine power flowing from Law and arcane magic derived from the forces of Chaos.  Even if you don't use any type of alignment system, there is a popular trope in fantasy regarding the tension between religion and arcane magic.

I like the idea that too much arcane magic imbalanced the world towards Chaos and led to a world wide catastrophe.  The corrupt empires of the past were wiped from the face of the earth by the gods due to the hubris of the ancient sorcerer-kings and the unearthly demons they permitted to walk terrestrial soil.  Or perhaps go with a story like that of the Nephilim I discussed recently - corrupt practices between humans and rebellious angels (or similar divine agents) created a race of super-men, demigods, or monsters, and judgment was passed on the world of man and the rebellious angels alike.  (This has the extra benefit of tying in with the recent musings on The Origins of Demons).

The Dragonlance series of novels isn't popular in our old school playing circles; Dragonlance marks a shift in D&D towards railroad plots and DM-guided stories as opposed to player-driven adventures.  Despite the Dragonlance adventures, the actual World of Krynn is really good and has a lot of ideas worth borrowing.  Krynn's current fallen state is due to a "divine judgment" that led to The Cataclysm - a widespread devastation that sunk continents and sundered mountains.  There's already a precedent in D&D for unleashing the gods on the campaign world when the created overstep their bounds.

Mythic Monday: Old Gods Never Die...

...They just become demons.

The past few "Mythic Monday" columns have looked at the origins of demons in Dungeons & Dragons and ways to incorporate the theme of demons as 'unclean spirits that perform demonic possessions' into your D&D game.  We've looked at rules for modeling demonic possession and exorcism, and more recently the origins of demons - from whence comes those disembodied spirits?

Recent mythic posts have looked at a few of the historical explanations for demons - fallen angels exiled to Hell, or the disembodied souls of the Nephilim (after the flood).  This week I'm taking a look at a meta-explanation for demons - by answering the question, what happens to old gods?

Pan or Satan?

In real world mythology, the demons of a newer mythology are often derived from the older religions and myths that were displaced; the act of supplanting the old order often involves demonization.  Depictions of Satan in art are often the spitting images of Pan.  Dispater and Orcus were gods of the Roman underworld - associated with wealth and oaths.  Geryon was the cattle monster in the Hercules story, demoted by Dante to Hell.  Dagon was an agricultural deity turned into a fish monster god by HPL.  Perhaps one of the more egregious demotions was Baal, a Semitic god of the sky that competed directly with the pre-Christian version of Yahweh.  Baal got turned into Baalzebub (later Beelzebub - from Lord of the Skies, to Lord of the Flies).

So what would the D&D cosmos be like if the nature of godhood worked in a similar fashion?  The heavens would become a big game of "king of the mountain", and the gods that get to stay on top are the ones with the most followers and believers.  Fall off the mountain, and you keep on falling, and falling, and falling - until you land in the Abyss or the 9 Hells or are exiled in the Prime plane as a disembodied spirit.

Clerics would feel quite a bit of pressure to get the word out for their gods, and evangelism would literally become a life-or-death mission for the cleric.  On the mortal plane, a religion that loses the cultural war falls to obscurity and fades away, but on the spiritual plane, those old gods slide from Law into Chaos and become something no longer divine.  This is a common enough theme in urban fantasy nowadays; it's been explored in a number of works by Neil Gaiman.  The gods and their roles are defined by the believers, and not the other way around.

The practical application in your D&D game would go like this:  you pretty much get to use the various demon princes as they are, but each one started as the echo of an old god, worshipped by a previous culture or a dead race - fallen and demonized by the march of progress and giving way to the new gods.  Existing religions would be militant and expansionist, to ensure the current set of deities don't get supplanted by even newer ones.  These gods would have to take an active hand in the world or encourage a militant following of clerics.  An interesting story line could involve the overthrow of a religion through conquest and the creation of a new demon when the old temples fall and the last believers are slain.

But there's another implication to the thesis "belief defines the gods".  If the premise is that mortal belief defines the nature of the gods, wouldn't it be true that new gods get created by new beliefs?  Could a mortal that declares himself "god-emperor" of a vast realm achieve sufficient fame or notoriety to ascend to immortality after death?

Hope these provide some interesting ways to twist, turn and mangle the cosmology of your game!

Mythic Monday: The Nephilim and the Watchers

When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years." At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown." (Genesis 6:1-4)

The theme the past few Mythic Monday columns has been around demons - demonic possession, named demons from folklore (like Azazel), and now the origins of demons.  The goal has been to see what kind of ideas can be gleaned from real world myth and folklore for making demons more interesting than big bags of hit points (the D&D approach); lately that's involved looking at some potential origin stories.

Last week we looked at the War in Heaven theme - demons are what happens when one side loses; it could be rebel angels getting cast out of heaven, or the titans being thrown down by the Greek gods; the losers become monsters and go to hell, literally.

The related theme this week has to do with a group of angels called the Watchers, and their offspring, the Nephilim.  In the quote above, the phrase 'sons of god' was interpreted by later Jewish writers to be referring to a sect of angels they called "Watchers".  The term Grigori is used for the Watchers in some of the texts as well.  Sent as stewards of creation, they watched over humanity and the world as caretakers.

You can see what happened.  "Holy smokes, earth women are hot!"  The angels defect en masse, lead by a rebel called Samyaza, and their antics give rise to a generation of demigods; semi-divine "great" men, the "giants in the earth" - referred to in the passage as Nephilim.  The Nephilim take charge and plunge the world into war and debauchery.  In the Biblical story, the world is eventually swept clean by a great flood, in part to reset the mortal world after all the destruction wreaked by these amok demigods.

The apocryphal book of Enoch takes up the narrative, and describes how the spirits of these semi divine Nephilim don't die when their bodies are killed, but instead become the evil spirits of the earth.  It goes on to describe what they do while they hang around in spirit form:

"And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them. From the days of the slaughter and destruction and death of the giants, from the souls of whose flesh the spirits, having gone forth, shall destroy without incurring judgment".
(1 Enoch 15:9-12)

So there you go.  Disembodied spirits that hang around the earth and cause problems are the remnants of these ancient hybrids.  Demons.

These stories offer a lot of inspiration for gaming, because they support a couple of different classes of antagonists and players.  You've got the heavenly group (the angels), you've got rebels from that group (fallen angels), and you've got the offspring of fallen angels and humans, hanging around as evil spirits (demons).  Factions create interest and conflict.  I imagine most gamers are familiar with the idea of the Nephilim; someone even mentioned them in the comments of the Neanderthal column the other day.  And if you're not comfortable with Judeo-Christian folklore in gaming, you can transplant the actors to other pantheons and myth cycles; I've been pointing out how Greek myth has parallels to the War in Heaven and there is plenty of crazy god-on-human sex, love and rape happening in the Greek myths; most monsters in those myths are the off spring of the gods.

Next time I'll go in another direction.  In folklore, one culture's demons are usually the previous cultures divine beings.  I'll ask the question, what if the cosmology really worked that way?

Mythic Monday: The Origin of Demons

It's been a few weeks since the last Mythic Monday - I'm finding I don't have as much time for reading, research, and writing with a brand new, non-native  4 year old in the house.  Every day is a little better though!

One thing that struck me when researching Azazel a few weeks ago were the conflicting ORIGINS for demons in folklore, magic and religion.  Whether it's a side ways mention in the Bible, the Book of Enoch, the rabbinic tradition, or the magical theorizing in Renaissance grimoires, each writer has a different theory whether demons are fallen angels, devils, spirits, djinn, or something else.

D&D is surprisingly silent on the origins of demons.   Here's about the most you can surmise from the various 1E monster books and Manual of the Planes:  The Abyss is an evil place, and the demons just happen to be the indigent race birthed there - they're demons because they're natives of the Abyss.  Other editions of D&D introduce the idea of the Blood War (you know - demons hate the devils, devils hate demons, grrr, fight, fight, fight).  4E goes a bit further by explaining an origin for the Abyss - the cosmology posits the placement of a Shard of Pure Evil that creates the Abyss (tearing a bottomless hole in the elemental planes).  Demons are corrupted elementals, and demon princes are corrupted versions of greater powers (like "Primordials").  Of course, it just shifts the question to "where did the shard of pure evil come from?"  In 4E, evil predates the gods.

However, real world folklore has some useable ideas on the origins of demons, so the Monday column for the next few weeks will be on how these could be used in a D&D game.  A few I'll be looking at are the war in heaven, the lost angels, and the old gods theory.

And there was war in heaven...

The War in Heaven
Lots of myth cycles involve a war in heaven.  I imagine most readers are already familiar with the Judeo-Christian version.  Rebellious angels, led by Satan, fight against the Creator in Heaven; banished, they are consigned to Hell, where they plot to corrupt creation.  It's not exactly a Biblical story - there are a few oblique references in the big book, but most of the story about the rebellion and fall evolved in folklore in the early centuries AD.  The most famous retelling is in Milton's Paradise Lost - it's really excellent.

So why'd they do it - why did the rebel angels turn against the boss?  Milton's Satan is too prideful to take orders - he considers himself "above the law" - he denies the boss's authority, declares God a tyrant, and becomes the first rebel.  Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.  A similar figure is Iblis, also called Shaytan, in Islamic folklore; man is given free will and a soul, and the prideful Iblis disobeys the creator in respecting man, whom he views as a lesser creation and beneath him.  Another story of pride and arrogance.

The fallen angels in these stories are exiled to Hell and swear to spend eternity confounding mankind evermore.  The first thing Lucifer does in Paradise Lost is conspire to travel to the world and corrupt it.  However, you'd be right in thinking these guys are a better fit for the origin of D&D's devils instead of demons.  Here's the thing - Renaissance occultists didn't differentiate between demons and devils - they were the same thing.  Lists of demons in the Renaissance grimoires, like the Lesser Key of Solomon or other Goetic texts, are actually the names of the fallen angels.

Okay - I have to say, I'm not a big fan of using the War in Heaven theory as an explanation for bad actors like last column's demon, Azazel.  If the devils are all in Hell, how do we get these dispossessed demon spirits deep in the wilderness, possessing victims and causing mayhem?  Maybe some of them got lost on the way to Hell?  Could be that when some devils escape to earth, they got stuck here as the bodiless spirits we see in the demonic possession stories.  However, I do think we'll see some better ideas for demons in the coming weeks.

But there's no doubt that using the War in Heaven as a basis for a campaign cosmology is excellent.  It supports a fairly straightforward world-view of opposing sides with clear battle lines.  You can play it straight up (good vs evil) or build in some sympathy for the devil.  There's no lack of literary inspirations or ideas in popular fiction - I'd dip into books like Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, or The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and his use of Hell and Lucifer (and of course, Milton's Paradise Lost).  Since plenty of fallen angels are named in the grimoires, there's no lack of cool and evocative names to find out there.  Drop a note in the comments on your favorite literary use of Hell or devils - I'm interested to hear what's out there.

Even if you don't use Angels and Devils, you can still use similar ideas by making the War in Heaven related to a mythological pantheon or some homebrew.  The War in Heaven theme isn't limited to the Judeo-Christian tradition -  for instance, the myth of the Titanomachy.  The Greek gods needed to kick the Titans out of heaven before they could assert ruler ship; even the Norse deities fought the Giants before the world was created.  The Percy Jackson series of kid's books bases its central conflict on the ongoing struggle between the Titans, representing pure evil, and the Greek gods.  Demonic spirits in a D&D game could be the cast down losers of such a War in Heaven, exiled to the prime plane as bodiless entities.

That's all for now, next week we'll take a look at the Nephilim and the Grigori angels of the Book of Enoch.

Mythic Monday: The Demon Azazel

And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals [of the earth] and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways.
-The Book of Enoch

Back to mythic Monday (er, Tuesday), and my study of traditional demons from a few weeks ago.  (Brief recap of the previous article - standard D&D demons as big stupid meat bags of hit points = boring; demons as foul immortal spirits that plague the world, possess people, and require dramatic showdowns with exorcists to defeat =  interesting).

A disclaimer is warranted: I'm basically just going out to the folklore and looking at how a mythic element has been used by past cultures and the popular culture, and only tangentially interested in historical criticism.  One finds that many demons were gods in pre-Christian cultures (like Beelzebub) and only get transmogrified into fallen angels or demons by later people; Azazel has similarly murky origins from the perspective of history and criticism.  Was it a mythic being or just  a place of sacrifice in the desert?  So instead of focusing on historicity, I'm going to weave together some of the folkloric elements to make a good story for gaming.

Azazel's History
From the apocryphal Book of Enoch, quoted above, we learn that Azazel was an angel sent to observe the earth, a Watcher.  He/it abandoned his original mission to teach men how to make metal weapons, and women how to use make-up (the arts of deception and vanity).   One of the sources says he "also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, leading them into wickedness and impurity…"

Now we're getting somewhere… teaching people about make-up and guns seems a bit prosaic - I mean, anyone can get that stuff over at the Walmart.  How evil can it be?  Then again, my liberal wife tells me Walmart *is*the source of all evil - perhaps there is a connection?  But I digress.

The archangel Raphael shows up, kicks Azazel around the block, and the demon is chained to "rough and ragged rocks, to await judgment day".

Azazel shows up next in the Bible, in the book of Leviticus, in relation to the scapegoat ceremony.  Related to the Day of Atonement, the ceremony involves folks confessing all their sins and wrongdoings for the year:

And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel… and the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
-Leviticus 16:8-10

The priest performs a ritual, placing all the confessed evil onto the goat, and the goat is driven into the wilderness, to Azazel.  Pretty dark stuff - very primal.  The more gruesome descriptions of the ritual describe the goat being taken to a high precipice, pushed off and dashed to the rocks below.  There's irony in the juxtaposition of the staining blood being the agent of cleansing.

Those dashing rocks where the annual goats are slaughtered seems awfully similar to the rough and ragged rocks where the demon was first imprisoned by the angel Raphael.

Azazel

Is it any wonder the demon is associated with the goat symbol, or the upside down pentagram (supposedly a goat head, right?)?  The place of sacrifice seems like the spiritual equivalent of a modern landfill - the place to take all the trash and refuse in the world - including demons and all the wrongs done by mankind.  I kind of like the landfill approach - it'd be nifty if I could pack all my bad habits onto a goat and just send it out into the wilderness and be done with them.  I feel better already just visualizing it.  Or maybe those ancient cabbalists in the desert were feeding corruption and wickedness to the demon to keep it quiescent.

The ritual of appeasing or dumping on the imprisoned demon went from practice to story, from story to legend and eventually into myth, until the empire builders of a different age wiped out the indigenous cultures and colonized the area with their legions of foreign soldiers.  It was only a matter of time before the demon was able to slip back into a human host and be freedom to plague the mortal world again.

Using Azazel in a fantasy game
My approach to demons is rooted in the tradition of supernatural horror - regardless of how mundane the world might appear, there's another level where cosmic or universal forces of good and evil are engaged in a conflict beyond mortal comprehension.  Why hasn't good won?  Are the sides too evenly matched?  Has "good" withdrawn from the battlefield, such that the work of angels, demigods and gods is now carried out by humans?  Or is evil given free reign due to man's inherent free will?

Keep it ambiguous.  The epic forces of the divine that once strode the world have withdrawn - the gods are distant, and if they act at all, it's through proxies and indirect support (in game terms - clerics, paladins, saving throws, magical artifacts, spells, etc).  But it's up to mortals to fight their own battles.  Keep the attention focused at the character level, and only use angels and demigods as plot devices and deus ex machina 'heavy artillery'. Evil, on the other hand, has free reign to wreak havoc.

Trapped in the mortal realm and weakened by banishment and imprisonment, Azazel skulks from host to host and plots revenge against the divine forces that exiled him in the physical realm.  The demon's primary entertainment is torturing and corrupting clerics, paladins, and other combatants on the spiritual battlefield.  When it picks a target, it uses a variety of hosts to commit gruesome murders of the target's friends and family, slowly getting closer to the target itself.  The ideal end to a particular revenge crusade is to possess the target and commit a highly public murder, fleeing the scene in another host and leaving behind the unfortunate victim to face the executioner's axe.

In an AD&D type game, it's much harder to possess a paladin because of the ever-present Protection from Evil effect.  In these situations, the demon hopes to drive the victim into despair and committing an act that causes the loss of powers, creating a window for possession.  Azazel can likewise take the corrupter route, inhabiting the attractive bodies of members of the opposite sex in order to lure the target into compromising situations.

In all cases, Azazel favors arming it's host with the finest knives and blades available.  One avenue for tracking the fiend would be the various blacksmiths or armorers in the city might recall unrelated visitors all asking for the same unusual style of foreign blade, made from imported metal (perhaps a kris made of Damascus steel).  The demon will go to great lengths for successive hosts to retrieve these artifacts when lost by previous hosts.

Unlike most demons, Azazel is not a ravening beast that possesses a host and wreaks immediate havoc in a flashy demonic rage with obvious signs of possession; it has become a subtle, patient killer that methodically destroys its prey, one friend at a time.

The Demon Azazel  (flavored for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: as human host
Armor Class:  as human host, +1 to AC
Hit Dice:  as human host, +1 per hit die
Attacks: by weapon, +3 to hit
Damage: by weapon +3
Save: C10
Morale: 11
Hoard Class:  nil
XP: 3000

Abilities:
Clerical Spells
Azazel will be able to use cleric spells equal to a 8th level cleric.  It will feature spells that help it identify it's victim and avoid detection - here's a sample list:

1 Detect Good, Darkness, Protection from Good, Fear
2 Know Alignment, Hold Person, Silence 15'
3 Curse, Dispel Magic, Feign Death
4  Divination, Detect Lie (reversed)

Possession
When the demon is not in a host, it can perform an attack similar to Magic Jar attack once per round versus one target within a 120' range.  Unlike magic jar, the demon doesn't displace the possessor's soul; it dominates the victim and can override the victim's actions at will.

Immaterial
Demons are immaterial spirits, unable to move unless possessing a host.  When not possessing a victim, the demon is rooted to a locale or physical object.  Such an object or locale would radiate powerful evil if a Detect Evil spell is used.

Vulnerabilities
Demons can be turned; an immaterial demon can't flee, but would be suppressed for the duration of the effect.  A possessed victim will flee a cleric that turns it.  A demon takes a penalty to saving throws (-4) versus a cleric that know it's true name.  The spells Dispel Evil and Abjuration (new level 4 spell) are effective at freeing a victim of demonic possession.  When one of the spells is used in conjunction with the demon's true name, the caster can indicate a vessel for the demon when it is driven out of the previous host.

Mythic Monday - Unclean Spirits of the Wilderness

A look at using demonic possession in your D&D game.

…Immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit… And no one could bind the man anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him…  And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
-The gospel of Mark, chapter 5

The Exorcist, The Rite, Fallen, Paranormal Activity, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Dominion, Rec 2.  There are a lot of creepy exorcism movies out there to fire up the imagination!  Although D&D and the cleric have strong roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the original designers took a radically different approach to portraying demons and devils in the game - they're basically big monsters with tough AC and hit points, meant to be smacked around with swords.  Not really how demons are portrayed in real world story and folklore.  Let's fix it!

In the "real world", demons are immaterial spirits and you need some Holy Power™ on your side if you're going to stand a chance.  Here's a quick look at the demon possession phenomena and some ideas on using demonic possession in D&D.

Demonic Possession
The chapter in Mark quoted at the top lays out the prototypical demonic possession - it's worth a quick read if you're not a Biblephobe.  An "unclean spirit" inhabits a human, and the person begins to act unnaturally - they might be harmful to themselves and others, demonstrate super human strength, fly into a rage at anything holy, appear to be insane.  In horror movies, the demon possessed are often serial killers!

Some of the tests used by the Catholic church to differentiate possession from mental illness include whether the victim is demonstrating special knowledge, or fluency in languages not known by the possessed.  Special knowledge is things only the demon could know - secrets about other people in the presence of the possessed, foretelling future events, descriptions of things happening far away.

And in the best spirit of film and movie, the possessed should be able to manifest physical changes - stigmata or lesions, scars and spontaneous injuries, green vomit and walking around double jointed like a human spider!  Yeah, that's the stuff!  Horrible!

Using Unclean Spirits in the Game
Demons can't be fought traditionally - they're immaterial and immortal.  If you're using the traditional cosmology - the Nine Hells and the Abyss - then I'd keep devils as devils, Abyssal demons as demons, and use these entities as they're called in the Bible - "Unclean Spirits of the Wilderness" - fallen spirits from an outer plane that now inhabit the Prime.  But I suggest keeping the cosmology vague and have NPCs call everything 'demons'.  A peasant isn't going to differentiate between types of extra planar entities - a demon is a demon is a demon.

Demonic possession is a plot device and not a great monster encounter, although killing the victim could be part of it - the victim would have greater than human strength and be difficult to grapple.  A murderer or serial killer could be demon-possessed, or you can go with a common horror approach and involve possession of an innocent - poor Linda Blair.  A section of dungeon could be demon haunted, or a lonely ruin in the wilderness.  There are excellent sequences in Stephen King's Dark Tower series where a jawbone is demon possessed, or Roland must deal with various demon haunted locales while traveling Mid-World.   An object could be the demon's vessel - the Dresden series features a collection of silver coins each bearing the soul of a demon that possesses the owner of the coins - the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas.

The demonic attack is basically a form of Magic Jar, with the demon whispering promises and exerting mental pressure to "get in", and the failed saving throw representing a moment of weakness leading to the possession.  If possession happens to a PC, it's a good opportunity to take the player aside and let them know to start fomenting mayhem.  Demons are destructive and evil, after all.  Otherwise, the demon can choose to take control and override the host's actions at any time; the demon knows everything the host knows, but can't use any of the host's special abilities (like spells).

The basic counter to demonic possession is the 5th level cleric spell, Dispel Evil.  However,  I'd allow for the existence of an Abjuration spell (as a 4th level cleric spell) with a limited scope - basically the same effect as Dispel Evil, but only effective against demonic possession.  In fact, an AD&D 1E version of Abjure is described in S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth as part of the Demonomicon of Iggwilv, and AD&D 1E has an Exorcise spell.  Your world could also have Abjuration in a special book or holy text, unavailable through regular prayer - something like the church's Roman Ritual - the Rituale Romanum - De exorcismis et supplicationibus quibusdam.

I also like having Abjuration/Exorcise as a 4th level spell for the following reason - if you're using traditional class titles, a 7th cleric is a Bishop, and bishops in the Catholic church are given power over determining when exorcisms happen.

When an Unclean Spirit is cast out via Abjuration or Dispel Evil, it has to go somewhere.  Once again looking to mythology for inspiration, let's say the cleric performing the exorcism spell can indicate a nearby vessel for the spirit - another human, an animal(s), or a specially prepared object.  This lets us loop in the dramatic twist of the Exorcist movie (the priest takes the evil spirit into himself); the animal involvement of many Biblical stories - the swine of Mark's Legion story; and the Medieval folklore around 'trapping the Devil in a box'.  Entire monastic orders could be built around an ancient exorcism that resulted in an Unclean Spirit trapped in a physical vessel, and the order has existed ever since to keep the evil one under lock and key, sealed from the world.

The Protection from Evil and Protection from Evil 10' spells could be helpful here.  I see the potential for high drama as the group corners the demon-possessed madman who's been hacking apart villagers, and now they need to restrain him and Abjure the spirit, trapping it in a specially prepared metal flask and protecting themselves with Protection from Evil so they don't get taken over in the meantime.

Finally - there is the name of the spirit.  Most of these accounts have a dramatic moment where the priest or prophet demands that the creature reveal its name - "Pazuzu", "Azazel', or "Legion", for example.  I'd probably make this something a cleric could achieve by succeeding with a simple Command spell , and if the spirit is forced to reveal its name, it takes a -4 to the saving throw against Abjuration or Dispel Evil to reflect the power the cleric now has over it.

Demons - Unclean Spirits of the Wilderness  (flavored for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: as human host
Armor Class:  as human host, +1 to AC
Hit Dice:  as human host, +1 per hit die
Attacks: by weapon, +3 to hit
Damage: by weapon +3
Save: C10
Morale: 11
Hoard Class:  nil
XP: 2400

Abilities:
Superhuman Strength
The victim possessed by the demon will have an effective strength of 18 and increased speed and toughness.

Possession
When the demon is not in a host, it can perform an attack similar to Magic Jar once per round versus one target within a 120' range.  Unlike magic jar, the demon doesn't displace the possessor's soul; it dominates the victim and can override the victim's actions at will.

Immaterial
Demons are immaterial spirits, unable to move unless possessing a host.  When not possessing a victim, the demon is rooted to a locale or physical object.  Such an object or locale would radiate powerful evil if a Detect Evil spell is used.

Vulnerabilities
Demons can be turned; an immaterial demon can't flee, but would be suppressed for the duration of the effect.  A possessed victim will flee a cleric that turns it.  A demon takes a penalty to saving throws (-4) versus a cleric that know it's true name.  The spells Dispel Evil and Abjuration* (new level 4 spell, or use AD&D's Exorcise) are effective at freeing a victim of demonic possession.  When one of the spells is used in conjunction with the demon's true name, the caster can indicate a vessel for the demon when it is driven out of the previous host.

Closing Thoughts
The tradition of Unclean Spirits goes back to the beginnings of civilization and begins with the ancient Sumerians; demons originate in the lonely deserts of the world and are brought back to more civilized areas hitchhiking inside people.  I would recommend including a bit of archaeology into the back story of each demon as well as notes on the demon's "personality" - some might be murderers, others hedonists, others with a completely different (but evil) agenda.

The demon will have the benefit of thousands of years of experience, and demons should have a range of intelligences.  A genius level demon running rampant through a city as a serial killer could be a challenging opponent for high level characters because of its ability to jump hosts and elude capture.

The actual removal of the demon is mechanically simple (ie, using the right spells and being prepared), so the challenge in using this kind of antagonist is in identifying the work of a demon, tracing the history, finding the possessed victim, and isolating the thing for the exorcism.

Mythic Monday: The Honored Dead

Before getting on to the post, let's take a moment and remember  the soldiers and members of our armed forces, deceased and living, keeping us safe.  My grandfather was in Normandy, my dad in Vietnam, and Memorial Day has always been an important observation for us.
…A moment of respect...


Now on to something gaming related-

Hellboy: The Storm.  The honored dead return.

I'm an avid Hellboy reader.  A recent storyline involved "the honored dead" of England rising up again to serve the once and future king, because the sword Excalibur had been returned to the world.  Crypts of ancient knights were found open and empty, as if the 800 year old corpses inside had gotten out and walked from the churches where they were interred…

This seems like a folklore theme where I should be able to recall other instances of the dead returning… if danger calls or the homeland is threatened, the honorable dead sworn to protect the homeland will rise to defend their wards once again.  The theme is a bit like the ghosts from the Paths of the Dead in Return of the King.  It certainly seems fitting for a fantasy game!

The closest series of stories I can come up with involve Medieval revenants.  The modern weird tale and all those EC Horror comics and the Cryptkeeper and the Tales from the Dark Side often featured the dead coming back due to unfinished business - the lifeless murdered spouse "takes care" of the cheating husband and the home wrecker, for instance.  The traditional revenant is a short term phenomena - the revenant returns from the grave with the single-minded purpose of avenging his own death.

Anyway, I like this alternate "oath fulfillment" approach to the revenant a bit more.  "An oath or promise sworn in life can be so strong that the oath-maker can return even from beyond death to see the oath fulfilled…"

As an aside, are you watching A Game of Thrones with me on HBO?  If so, we'll see some revenants (though maybe not this season).  Won't name names for spoiler purposes, but there are definitely a few characters coming up that blur the distinction between life and death while they take care of business.

Oathsworn Revenant (for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: (varies)
Alignment:  Neutral
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class:   2
Hit Dice:   9
Attacks:   1
Damage:   By weapon
Save:   F8
Morale:   12
Hoard Class:  nil
XP: 1700

<Ack - apologies for the 4E style CompoundWord DoubleName - if someone has a better one than "Oathsworn", I'll gladly edit it.>

Some oaths are so powerful that the dead will rise again to see the oath fulfilled, becoming a type of revenant.  Regardless of age and composition, the bones of the revenant will reform and it will rise from the crypt to see its ancient promise fulfilled, returning to dust once the trigger has passed.

The Oathsworn can only be hit by +1 or better weapons.  Most Oathsworn were knights in life, and will appear in armor and wielding knightly weapons - two-handed swords or pole arms are favored.

Like other types of revenants, the Oathsworn cannot be turned and are immune to holy water, but otherwise share undead immunities.

DM Note:  obviously, an army of revenants would be over the top - I think I'd use one of these guys as a lone defender somewhere (like a knight that died protecting a sanctuary) or use them as a plot device, like the dead ghosts that served Aragorn in Return of the King.

Mythic Monday: I Sold My Soul for D&D

On using the devil of folklore in your D&D game.

The party of the first part, that's you
Agrees to render up her soul now and forever more
To the party of the second part, that's me
Shall we go?
-Bauhaus

Want a donut?

Flip through the various monster manuals and peruse the section on devils, and you don't see anything resembling "The Devil", as we've seen it portrayed in folklore and myth.  The "devil as tempter" has a strong foothold in the folklore of western culture - from the stories of the Bible and the early saints, through Faust, Washington Irving, and eventually "The Devil and Daniel Webster".  Robert Johnson went down to the cross roads, sold his soul, and became a famous blues musician;  Homer Simpson sold his soul to Devil Flanders for a donut.

I realize the TSR folks were averse to church controversy; in addition, the default cosmology for AD&D doesn't support the dualistic conflict between good versus evil from which the myths of the tempter devil arose.  In games with 9 alignments and 27 outer planes, there's a degree of moral relativism across the options -every ethical approach has it's own special set of divine beings, outer planes, and a tailor-made afterlife.  Why choose "good" when there's nothing to lose with being lawful neutral, for instance, and finding the lawful neutral divine being to worship and looking forward to the lawful neutral afterlife?

What I've done with Gothic Greyhawk is to simplify the beliefs of the world's inhabitants to include two choices (a belief in the good place and a belief in the bad place), and set up an eternal struggle between the creator deity and his dualistic Adversary.   Now you're getting close to the kind of environment where so much of our supernatural horror film and literature takes place.  D&D supports many kinds of fantasy genres, and the inspiration for Gothic Greyhawk are things like gargoyles, angels, church graveyards, vampires, witches and... the Devil.

Using the Tempter in the game
Mechanically, I wouldn't bother with statistics for the Tempter - I would consider The Devil a plot device and not a physical adversary with hit points and an armor class.  It's a universal spirit of evil that appears and offers wealth, riches or youth to the greedy, and tries to tempt "good" characters into abandoning their choices.

The enticement in game terms can be represented as an extra powerful Wish Spell.  The terms of the agreement should be up to the bargaining skills of the characters involved; Faust gains the service of his own personal devil for 24 years, whereas Daniel Webster gets like 7 years of wealth, and things end badly for old Tom Walker.  In the folklore and popular culture, there should be the proverbial contract signed in blood, and the deal-maker should have to carry some kind of skin discoloration (like a birthmark) going forward - the Devil's Mark.

I can see a lot of interesting stories by having "Old Scratch", as he's called in Washington Irving, or his second-in-command (Mephistopheles), casting favors in the game world.  A prominent NPC has a meteoric rise to fame, fortune and wealth; is he the proverbial rock star that sold his soul to the devil?  Perhaps a loved one or NPC made a terrible bargain with Old Scratch and the characters have the chance to play out their own version of a trial to save the soul of the loved one.  (Pop culture clichés are still good for gaming).  Atonement and quests for redemption are strong stories as well.

Easley's Takhisis from Dragonlance

If you can't get over using a powerful entity as a plot device without having stats and fitting it nicely into the AD&D cosmology, I would use Tiamat.  In AD&D 1E, she's listed as a lesser god, and rules the 1st Plane of Hell.  In later editions, she morphs into an evil goddess of envy and greed, and would be ideal as a temptress and seductress (when appearing in a human guise) that provides wish fulfillment in return for a pact.  I always liked Tiamat as Takhisis in Dragonlance.

Mythic Monday: The Drowning Fairy

Mythic Monday returns!  Back at home and back in the swing of things, here is the latest - the Drowning Fairy.

The drowning fairy is a common motif in folklore and fairy tales.  Evil fairies are often indistinguishable from ghosts and the undead.  Many times, the drowning fairy is actually the ghost of a drowned maiden that returns to haunt the stretch of river where she died; these creatures especially like to drown children, grabbing the ankles and dragging the unfortunate to a watery grave.

In English folklore, examples of these creatures include Jenny Greenteeth, Peg O'Nell, or Peg Powler.  They're described as having green skin, long hair, and sharp teeth - Meg Knucklebones from the movie "Legend" is a similar visual creature.  And you see equivalent water spirits in other European folk tales - the Grindylow, Rusalka and Vodyanoy all have similar ideas behind them.

For a modern version, how about Samara from The Ring?  She has the hideous visage, the poison stare, and the drowned origin.  "Seven days…" Staying away from the water is not enough.

The Ring:  staying away from the water is not enough...

The Drowning Fairy (for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 150' (50')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: 2 claws + gaze
Damage: 1d4 / 1d4
Save: F3
Morale: 11
Hoard Class: XIV
XP: 125

Surprise:  The Drowning Fairy lays in ambush near the edge of the water, just below the surface, to burst forth and surprise on a 1-4.

Hideous Visage:  Anyone seeing the Drowning Fairy must save vs Magic or lose 50% of their strength for 1d6 turns.

Drowning Grip:  A victim hit by a claw is gripped and dragged into the water.  Save vs paralysis to avoid being pulled off the shore and under the water; it requires an open doors check to break the grip (which will be difficult if the victim's strength has been reduced by Hideous Visage).

Gaze Attack:  The fairy can make one victim within 30' save vs Poison or die (once per day).  (The Sea Hag can use this ability 3 times per day, so feel free to beef it up if you think it's necessary!).

Vulnerabilities:  Like other fairy creatures in the series, the Drowning Fairy can be turned by clerics (as Special on the turn chart) and is vulnerable to cold iron weapons - takes double damage from cold iron.

Mythic Monday: The Meenlock

Can you see them, Sally ... hiding in the shadows. They're alive, Sally. They want you to be one of them when the lights go out.

So check it out - I was recently listening to one of the Dragonsfoot D&D podcasts (Roll for Initiative) , and they were talking about the Meenlock from the Fiend Folio and puzzling over where the creature came from… and it struck me, don't they remember the old 70's movie, "Don't be Afraid of the Dark"?  I loved B-horror and that one scared the heck out of me as a 5-6 year old(?) on a Saturday afternoon.  Many years later I remember coming across the Meenlock in the Fiend Folio and making the inspirational connection.

The typical Mythic Monday monster has involved going back to the roots of folklore to get ideas on changing up or improving D&D monsters; the Meenlock doesn't quite have a centuries old pedigree, but I love the creature and the roots of the story, so here goes.  Besides, Guillermo Del Toro has a huge man-crush on the movie, and is doing a remake this summer.

In the movie, a woman and her husband inherit her father's house; he's away on business and she discovers a sealed fireplace in the dad's study while exploring.  She ends up bringing in a workman to unseal it, and discovers a network of tunnels (too small for people) underneath the hearth.  From that point on, she's terrorized by these little guys - they constantly douse the lights and set up little ambushes, and whisper in a way only she can hear; they kill her decorator by tripping her down the stairs.  No one believes her about the creatures, and the original ends on a stormy night where the woman is locked in the house all alone with the creatures; when friends finally arrive to rescue her, she's completely missing.  But then we hear her voice amongst the voices of the creatures… she's been dragged into the hole and turned into one of them!

Anyway, the write up for the original Meenlock is in the Fiend Folio and is totally over-the-top as a "stalk the party, claim a victim" type of monster for terrorizing adventurers; it tracks the movie monster almost identically, right down to the sealed lair, the telepathic messages that only the victim can hear, and then making the victim one of the monsters.  Here are the salient points from the Fiend Folio.  Their appearance causes fear; they live in a sealed vertical shaft and only become active against adventurers when someone opens the shaft and breaks the seal - the victim brings it on themself.  They pick a single victim to terrorize and send telepathic messages only to the victim, degrading their combat abilities and hopefully sowing some paranoia.  They have a paralytic touch, and their ultimate goal is to drag the victim back to the shaft and turn them into another Meenlock.

These guys are awesome!

One of us, One of us.

The Meenlock (flavored for Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 3-5
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90' (30')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 2 claws + paralyzation
Damage: 1d4 / 1d4
Save: M4
Morale: 11
Hoard Class:
XP: 300

Cause Fear:
Anyone less than 4HD seeing a Meenlock will fall to the ground in fear for 5-8 rounds (save vs paralysis to halve the effect).

Dimension Door:
Meenlocks teleport 6' every other round, giving them a -4 to AC on those rounds.  They typically use this power to extinguish light sources.

Telepathic Terror:
Range 300'.  The Meenlocks will stay at range and harass the victim, causing him or her to lose 1 point of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Wisdom per hour, cumulative, in addition to a -1 on to hit rolls.  The effects end when the Meenlocks can no longer follow (like if the party moves into bright daylight).

Surprise:
Meenlocks surprise on a 1-5 out of 6.

Victimization:
It takes 3 Meenlocks to carry a victim; if they claim their target, the victim will be dragged back to the Meenlock lair and transformed into a Meenlock.

Edit:  Hey, someone else featured Don't Be Afraid in the Dark in a post - check out an alternate take over at Aldeboran.  I like the Jermlaine as these types of creatures as well, and could fill a similar role in an adventure.



Note:  Kind of an OGL questions - are we allowed to use a term like Meenlock on a blog, or is that IP protected because it's in the Fiend Folio?  Just curious how that aspect of the OGL works...