No regular post today, it's my 24th Wedding Anniversary!
24 years ago I stood on a beach in Ocho Rios, Jamaica and I said "I Do" to my best friend.
It's been a wonderful ride so far. Two houses, two kids, 8 different jobs, and 21 season of gardens (missing one due to a move and no gardens when we lived in an apartment). I wouldn't change a thing.
To keep this RPG related I got a commission from one of my Featured Artist, Ben Honeycutt, to do a portrait of my wife's and mine D&D 5 characters. Or, more closely, us cosplaying as our characters. ;)
These are our characters Johan IV (Paladin) and Lana (Fighter)
These were based on our minis and our engagement photo from 1995.
I have a lot of books on sale in DriveThruRPG's Christmas in July sale.
Yes, it is 100+ degrees heat indices outside, but DTRPGs thoughts are to Christmas.
Best Monster/Adversary
Hmm. Hard one, because I enjoyed them all. I am choosing Creature Codex for 5th Edition, Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for 5e AND Symbaroum Monster Codex.
Headed back to the Nonhuman and Demihuman Deities today. Of all the mythos in this book this is one that gets the most updating. Later in Unearthed Arcana and then under 2nd Ed with an entire book. But that is in the future, today I want to deal with what is in front of me.
Last week I talked about Yeenoghu and how Gnolls (by all accounts a violent, but intelligent monster race) worship this demon as their god. Ok cool. I like it, it works well for me. But there are other demon lords and Princes that don't have humanoid worshipers. Lolth does in the Dark Elves and her Clerics are at the top of their Drow Caste system.
To be blunt, what about Orcus and Demogorgon?
Now they are not in this book, so I am not going to devote a lot of time here to them. Plus I have said so much about them here before. But I do want to get to one God in this book and his relationship to the demons.
Vaprak the Destroyer
At the start of the OMG series I mentioned that Druaga the Ruler of the Devil World was the "poster boy" of this series. But he is not the only one. The other, though to a lesser degree, is Vaprak the Destroyer.
Vaprak is the lord of Trolls and Ogres. Not bad. I don't even mind linking them together.
Though I often have Trolls and Ogres as Fae-adjacent creatures. Many will often worship powerful fae Lords and some even honor the Erlking or one of the Goblin Lords. Looking over Vaprak we see he is a demigod. Chaotic evil. Lives in the Abyss. Sounds fairy demonic to me.
I have used Vaprak in my games many times. I have the old LJN Advanced Dungeons & Dragons toy line Troll figure. He makes for a perfect Vaprak. But in my games, Vaprak was the old name trolls and ogres used (in some places) to describe a creature that was attacked in the Dawn War by He Who Was. He Who Was attacked three great demon lords; Vaprak, Orcus, and one other whose name has been erased. He Who Was unmade the last demon and nearly clove Vaprak in two with a mighty split to his head. Orcus destroyed He Who Was and ripped out his skull and spine to make the Wand of Orcus. Vaprak, nearly mortally wounded, crawled back into the Abyss to heal. Both halves of his head and neck healed and regenerated to give us the demon Demongorgon.
Demogorgon was Vaprak
He still takes the worship of Vaprak and some even know the difference, but most human scholars do not. This makes Demogorgon a little bit *more* in my game.
Laogzed
The Troglodytes worship the disgusting Laogzed. Again, if Gnolls get a demon why do Trogs get a god? Simple he is a god really. Again let's look at the guy. Chaotic Evil. Lives in the Abyss. Demigod level. Yeah this guy is a Demon Prince too. There is actually a little bit more out there in later books about Laogzed than Vaprak, but nothing I could find that would contradict him being a Demon Prince.
Maybe it is the Erol Otus art, but I can't help think that Laogzed is somehow related to the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu mythos. I do get a solid Tsathoggua feel from this guy. Nothing specific to be honest. Just a feel.
Sekolah
Sahuagin worship Sekolah as their god. Here he is listed as a Lawful Evil lesser god who swims the seas of the Nine Hells. In truth I rather like this. I like keeping him as a god or what-ever was living in the Hells before the devils got there. Some things were just two dangerous for even the Fallen to kick out.
I can't help but think that James Ward was thinking of the old "Jaws (1975)" movie trailer.
It is as if God created the Devil. And gave him...Jaws.
I will admit. At 5-6 I was scared shitless by this movie. Sekolah has a lot to live up to to be half as scary as "Bruce".
Blibdoolpoolp
A lot has been said since this book about the goddess of the Kuo-Toa. There is even something that just came out this past week. Also there are some books that claim that Blibdoolpoolp is not actually real. That the insane Kuo-Toa worship anything and they come to life, something like a Tulpa.
I have talked in the past about Blibdoolpoolp just being a construct, or even an avatar of Mother Hydra to take the Kuo-Toa back to their Lovecraft roots.
I used her pretty much by the book when I ran Shrine of the Kuo-Toa last year. Maybe I will revist her. But I implied pretty heavily that she was of the same ilk as Lolth, both a Goddess and Demon Princess/Queen. Maybe I'll go in a completely different direction with her.
She is also one of the keepers of the Elder Elemental Eyes in my game. The "Eye of Sea and Sorrow". Lolth is the keeper of the "Eye of Air and Darkness". There is also the "Eye of Earth and Death" and the "Eye of Fear and Flame".
I think that wraps up the Demi-human and non-human gods. Not sure where I want to go next. But I am thinking it is time tohit those Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos.
Busy day. I have been running kids around all day to get them registered for classes, for volunteer work and oh and I have three courses I need to write before Gen Con!
But I am not going to let that stop me from sharing my latest mail call from Troll Lord Games and Castles & Crusades.
If I have said it once, I have said it a 1000 times. I love monster books. The more monsters the better in my mind! I have also said, though only slightly less, I love Castles & Crusades. I wish I played more of it to be honest.
So imagine my pleasure when I got THIS in the mail last night.
What? A three-ring binder full of monsters? Yes!
It is the combined Monster book from Troll Lords for Castles & Crusades.
The new binder and book are the same, each with about 380 pages worth of monsters and treasure. And just tons and tons of monsters.
Personally I thought it was appropriate for Troll Lords to have this out 30 years to the month (maybe even the week) that the AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendium came out.
I first ran into Scorpion Men, not in the pages of an AD&D Monster Manual (which still would not appear till 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums, though I do seem to recall them in a module for 1st ed, can't remember right now), but in the pages of the infamous "Simon" Necronomicon from the 80s. You remember this one. It was sold in books stores right next to the D&D books near the occult books. Hell. We treated it AS a D&D book!
We used them a bit back then, often as reskinned Driders, using the Necronomicon name, "Akrabu".
Later they popped up again in 2nd Ed under the name Tlincalli and Manscorpion. Though I never really used them then since I was deep into Ravenloft and these creatures didn't fit what I was doing at the time.
Much, much later I revisited these guys and used them in my Buffy/Willow&Tara/Unisystem game The Dragon and the Phoenix. Here I went past the rather thin details in the Simon Necronomicon and included more detail from Babylonian/Sumerian/Akkadian myths. Here they were called Aqrabuamelu or Girtablilu, names later picked up by later D&D authors and homebrewers.
Whatever the name these creatures all shared a number of traits. They were huge scorpions with the centaur-like upper bodies of men, covered in red chitin like that of giant scorpions. Some had human hands, others had the pincers of scorpions. The first ones were created by Tiamat to avenge the death of her consort Apsu. They are one of the creatures that were responsible for her name "Mother of Monsters". Later it is said they guard the gates of Darkness so the Sun God may enter at the end of the day. Their site is terrible to behold and they cause death with a glance.
Additionally, there were the "Tzitzimime" of the Aztecs which were believed to be the spirits of fallen gods (demons?) that took the form of scorpion men. Hedetet of the Egyptians was a scorpion headed goddess who would later be absorbed by Isis.
Spider Climb. The scorpion man can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Walker. The scorpion man ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The scorpion man makes three attacks, either with its longsword or its longbow. It can replace one of those attacks with a sting attack.
Sting.Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage plus 18 (4d8) poison damage. Longsword.Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage, or 8 (1d8 + 3) slashing damage if used with two hands. Longbow.Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) poison damage.
Description
Scorpion Men (and Women) are horrid creations from the dawn of time. Believed to have first been created by the Goddess Tiamat, they have since moved on into the service of other gods. Set is known to employ many of these creatures and ones that are less evil serve Hedetet.
Standing over 7 feet tall and 9 feet long these creatures are large and strong.
They can attack with their claws or weapon as some (50%) have scorpion claws for hand and others (50%) have humanoid hands that can hold weapons. All possess a stinging tail like that of a scorpion that can sting one attack per round. The attack does 1d4 points of damage plus poison. The poison of the attack can do 4d8 points of damage or half with a save vs. poison/Constitution. Those immune to poison attacks take no poison damage.
Scorpion Men are often used as elite guards. They typically armed with a long spear, a khopesh sword or a longbow.
Scorpion Women: These creatures appear as their male counter-parts save for a scorpion's head on top of a female torso. Their lower parts are still that of a scorpion.
Due to their connection to both Tiamat and Hedetet, they make excellent magic-users and witches.
They may cast spells as a 7th level witch or magic-user. Scorpion women are much rarer than males, being outnumbered 1 to 10.
My Facebook friend Ron McNiel has been playing around with a 5e inspired modern game variant and he decided to do his own reboot of Buffy. It looks pretty fun, to be honest, and you can see all his details here. Looks like he is using this as a test run for his next campaign so looking forward to hearing what he does.
In the meantime here are his versions of Willow & Tara for his game, complete with new casting.
Ron: I present you Tara Maclay (Violett Beane) - is a shy, quiet, and nervous person. She often finds her self stuttering when she speaks, especially when Willow is around. Not much is known about Tara, because she is afraid to open up to others because of her verbally abusive father and brother. She harbors a secret, a secret her father drilled into her, something about a family curse that was bestowed on the women of her family that would manifest on their 20th birthday. She began to believe her father about the curse, because her mom became ill. She has a small rebellious streak that she indulges from time to time, such as lying to her father and staying out all night. Being relatively new to Sunnydale High, having recently moved to Sunnydale (for the best care for her mother), she doesn't have much friends, until Willow introduces herself, which would spark something deep down inside of her.
Ron: I present Willow Danielle Rosenberg (Emily Rudd) – is a consistently sweet, trusting, gentle, intelligent, and caring person. She is a somewhat naive, painfully shy nerd who has a hopeless crush on her best friend Xander. She is very friendly and understanding, though she is not afraid to be tough. While still having a easily nervous nature. She is incredibly loyal and supportive to her friends, especially Buffy and Xander as she almost never openly criticizes their decisions with hostility even when she disagreed, a factor in her understanding nature. She normally does not display fits of extreme anger toward those who done her wrong, even if they were her close friends, retaining a calm and receptive demeanor, never forgetting. She is often speaks in strange speeches and phrases, something she shares with her best friend Buffy, which could often confuse those around her who aren’t used to it. She is greatly emotional and prone to senseless babble when nervous (which is another similarity to Buffy). She is also very determined to get things done when she feels they are important. It is sometimes hard for people to change her mind, a sign of this being her "Resolve Face." She does not hold grudges against people. In fact, she is usually one of the first to forgive people for their mistakes, even if large ones, being incredibly forgiving. Another notable trait of hers is her remarkable ability to put aside grudges and personal feelings to get an important task done which she has done on numerous occasions. She doesn’t often let personal feelings cloud her judgment either, making her very responsible and level-headed. One of her amazing gifts is with computers and cracking codes. She also seems to be the only one out of the Scooby Gang that actually enjoys going to school and doing homework as well as tutoring, much to the confusion of Buffy and Xander.
This looks great! He has done the other characters, but these are my favorites.
