Deities & Demigods II: Part 1, Hecate

Let's kick off this inaugural Deities & Demigods II post by trying to figure out what should be in the standard stat block for these gods. Let me begin with some assumptions.

The Triple Hecate, 1795. William Blake

1. I will favor AD&D 1st Edition. This is the system I have used the most. This is also the system that was the genesis of my original One Man's God feature. So I would like as much overlap as I can.
2. I will pull in material from any other edition or variation of D&D as I see fit. In particular, some of the Avatar details from AD&D2 and D&D3 as well as any other material that might fit the bill.
3. I am working under the assumption that these stat blocks ARE NOT designed as super-powerful monsters to kill. In already borrowing from AD&D2, and a house rule we used in the 80s, these stat blocks represent their avatars or mortal manifestations on/in the Prime Material. Their true forms on their own plane are at least 10x more powerful. Likely more.

Now these assumptions are working under a much larger assumption of how my Deities & Demigods II posts will be like moving forward.

Today I want to focus on the stat block. I am not detailing anything about this god, yet nor am I even defining things like standard divine abilities or power levels. Let's go with AD&D 1st Ed standard until I have reason to do otherwise and see where this goes.

I am going to start with the example of Hecate from Greek Mythology. After this, I will use her and this example to develop a new pantheon of gods. I spent a lot of time with her yesterday in preparation for this post. 

Let's look at how Hecate is presented in the various D&D books.

Deities & Demigods: AD&D 1st Edition

For this I want to break down the AD&D 1st Ed Deities stat block.

HECATE (goddess of magic)
Lesser goddess

ARMOR CLASS: -2
MOVE: 12"
HIT POINTS: 289
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 89%

SIZE: M (51⁄4')
ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: Any being working with magic
SYMBOL: Setting moon
PLANE: Nine Hells

CLERIC/DRUID: 14th level druid
FIGHTER: Nil
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: Special
THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil
MONK/BARD: Nil
PSIONIC ABILITY: I
S: 12 1:25 W: 9 D: 20 C: 22 CH:25

I separated the sections with hard returns. I would use color, but that gives some screen readers for the visually impaired issues. So instead, I will go with the sections.

The first section starting with AC is very combat-focused. The number of attacks, damage per attack, special attacks, and more.

The second section starting with size is personal information and worshiper's information. This one is great for expansion.

The last section starting with classes is somewhat combat-focused and somewhat personal. For Hecate here, we expect she has some spellcasting ability but maybe not a lot of fighting.  Though as a personal note, I disagree with her Wisdom being so low.

After this follows her description. 

Ok. One of the most common complaints about the presentation in the D&DG is that this is too much like a monster. I high-level monster, but a monster all the same. It has AC and HP, so it must be able to be attacked and killed.  This is not what we want or need. We have nothing here about her Clerics (save for those that use magic), holy days, or anything a worshiper might need/want.

There is a table in back that is actually much more useful than anything in the stat-block above.

This includes their name, Sphere of Control, Clerics [M,F,N-H], Rainment [head, body], Colors, Holy Days, Sacrifice [Frequency, Form], and Place of Worship.

For Hecate, these are: Magic, Hell Hound, yes, yes, no, bare head, tunic, blue-white, fall equinox, monthly on the full moon, ox, and mountain glen. 

This is good material. 

Legends & Lore: AD&D 2nd Edition

I don't need to go into as much detail here since the entries for all gods are typically shorter. But let's have a look at what we have anyway.

Here we get into the concept that the stats are not the God, but their avatars on the Mortal plane.

Ok, so you can't fight the god, but their avatar instead. A little better I guess.

There is mention here of the duties of the priesthood, what spell domains they gain, what Weapon and Non-Weapon prophecies they have access to, and so on. Though nothing about holy days, animals, colors or the like. Each pantheon/mythos does have some new spells and artifacts listed so that is also nice. 

So the avatar and details on the priest characters are a good takeaways from this one.

Deities & Demigods: D&D 3rd Edition

Lastly, let's look at 3rd Edition, even if it is very different than the first two.

Ok I did pick this for a reason. There is a lot of information here for the players of the Clerics of these gods, which also gives us a Rosetta Stone of how to talk about the gods of other editions. That Rosetta Stone is the D&D Patheon, which at this time was primarily the Greyhawk one. Other editions use a similar set of gods and talk about what their priests can, can't, and could do.  BUT that is all for another time. Let's get back to Hecate.

We get Domains, Divine Rank, her Alignment, favored weapons (which can be used by her priests) and Portfolio.  All good information.

Unfortunately, 3.x goes on to embrace the worse parts of the 1st and 2nd Ed's books and then makes a bunch of their own. 

I mean yeah, there is lot of information here, but is any of it needed by her clergy? Ok the sections on Dogma and Clergy and Temples is good. But do I *really* need to know or care how many Feats she has. No. Not unless she is going into combat. Which she shouldn't do.

There is an "Avatar of Hecate" on the next page that is reminiscent of the AD&D 2nd Ed one, but still, not exactly something we need.

What, if anything, can I get from all of this?

Well. Sadly the default presentation for the first 25 years of D&D appears to be "God as High-level Monster," which is not at all helpful.

I broke down these stat-blocks WAY back in 2010 when I was detailing a new cult, the Church of Lolth Ascendant, for the Drow Goddess Araushnee. There I captured the stats that seemed most valuable to the clerics (and players of the clerics) of that particular Goddess.

This has me wondering.

What should the format of a "Deities & Demigods II" be? What is the purpose of a book of gods for a D&D-like game?

Given what I have worked through here and in previous posts, I can see two different but related projects.

First, I can see a need/desire/want for a continuation of the format of the 1st Ed AD&D Deities & Demigods, monster-like stats, and all. 

Secondly, I also see a need for a book of gods, demi-gods, and heroes, along with all the above-identified positive things like duties of the priesthood, holy days, and more. I would add new divine spells that are only available to those priesthoods. That's a much larger and more exciting project to be sure.

Deities & Demigods II is something I can do here, with some work.  The other project, the so far unnamed one, that will be something that will take longer. 

I think for the next post, I should first figure out what would be needed for a D&D-game god write-up.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 15

Moving through the city the sounds of animals fighting can be heard. In a small depression, what looks like three panthers are attacking a large lizard.

 These creatures are not panthers of course, but Displacer/Warp Beasts. 

There are three, but sometimes it can be difficult to tell. They ignore the lizard and move towards tastier prey, the party.

They have treasure type D.

Wasted Lands Playtest: The Three Faces of Hecate

Hecate. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Trying out a few things today.

First, I wanted to play-test a Sorcerer character, which is the Wasted Lands equivalent of the Witch from NIGHT SHIFT.  In particular, I wanted to try out Hecate since I had already done Ereshkigal, even though I knew they shared certain similarities. 

Secondly, I wanted to do Hecate because she is the first focal point of my new series on the Deities & Demigods II project/feature here.

Thirdly, and related to both points above I wanted to work out how my Heka (the Hecate of my Grecco-Egyptian myths) and Helga (the Hecate of my Roman-Norse myths) would work out.

And lastly, I wanted to try out the Divine Touchstones feature of this game. As it turns out, this feature makes all the difference in the world. 

The Character: Hecate

For my second (and third and fourth) character, I am choosing Hecate, the goddess of witches, magic, the crossroads, and ghosts. She has been a favorite for a long time.  She will also be the first Goddess I cover for my D&DGII project.

Hecate is a Sorceress in the Wasted Lands, no doubt. Well...some doubt. While her main deal is magic, she also has that aspect of Ghosts. In the end, I stuck with Sorceress and found a nice way to add the spooky stuff I wanted.

Hecate

Class: Sorceress (Persona Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Dark Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 15 (+1) N +1
Wits: 13 (+1)
Persona: 17 (+2) A +2

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Unnatural Parlor

Divine Touchstones
1st: Sense Ghosts
2nd: First Level Spell: Nightvision
3rd: Summon Hellhound
4th: Class level: Necromancer (1 level)

Necromancer (Divine Touchstone 4th)
Channel the Dead 22%
See Dead People
Summon the Dead 15%
Command (Spirits)
Protection from Undead
Turn Undead 20%

Spells
1st: Mystical Senses, Create/Extinguish Light, Sense Death
2nd: Animal Summoning, Eternal Flame
3rd: Fly

Arcane Powers
1st: Beguile
4th: Shadow Walking
7th: Exorcist

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, Crossroads, Ghosts
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate is the Greek Goddess of magic, witches, ghosts and the crossroads. I leaned into the last two to give her powers over spirits and undead. She gains her Divine Touchstones as part of significant aspects in her adventuring career. Sense Ghosts would be something that came to her naturally along with Nightvision, she is also the Goddess of the Night. Giving her a level for her 4th Divine touchstone was really what sold me on the touchstones. If she wants another level then she will need a higher-level touchstone to get it.

This is really what sets Wasted Lands apart from other gritty Swords & Sorcery games. 

It is also what helps set one character apart from another.

Heka and Helga are by definition just other versions of Hecate with something a little different. What is that something? Well here it is the arcane powers they get, but mostly it is the Divine Touchstones they earn.

For these next two characters I am keeping the base stats all the same. Human, 7th level Sorceress. But the differences now come from the spells, Arcane powers, the Divine Touchstones. One note since Sorcerers can choose their Aspect between Intelligence, Wits, and Persona, I picked different ones for each. 

The Character: Heka

Heka is the Hecate of the Greeco-Egyptian mythology.  While she is not a goddess that research into the Ptolemaic dynasty existed and would have worshiped (like Serapis or even later Hermes Trismegistus), she could have been in a D&D-like world. 

In this mythology, Heka is more focused on the learning aspect of magic and is the goddess of Dark Secrets. Her relationship with Isis is the same as that of Ishtar with Ereshkigal.  Dark and Light sisters. So for this, I switched her Aspect to Intelligence.

Like Hecate, Isis is connected to the underworld, so Heka would also be an underworld guardian and more of a protector of occult secrets.  While this could lead to "Wisdom" and "Wits" I felt intelligence was the better choice. I have also always felt that Isis was one of the more intelligent gods in any myth.

Heka

Class: Sorceress (Intelligence Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 17 (+2) A +2
Wits: 13 (+1)
Persona: 15 (+1) N +1

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Uncomfortable Aura

Divine Touchstones
1st: First Level Spell: Read Languages
2nd: Enhanced Senses
3rd: Class level: Sage (1 level)
4th: 1 level of Necromancer

Sage (Divine Touchstone 3rd)
Lore: 27%
Mesmerize Others: 10%
Spells: 1st Level: Prestidigitation

Spells
1st: Beast Speech, Command, Protection from Undead
2nd: Beguile Person, Extra Sensory Perception
3rd: Clairvoyance

Arcane Powers
1st: Detect Thoughts
4th: Telepathic Transmission 
7th: Polymath

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, the Dead, Occultism
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate combines part of the concept of Isis. So her connections to magic and the underworld are the same. As I said I consider Isis one of the most intelligent gods, so Heka reflects this. By combining that with magic, witchcraft, and the underworld she becomes a figure of Occult knowledge. Much like her fellow syncretized god, Hermes Trismegistus. Indeed, if Hermes Trismegistus is the "patron" of the various Hermtic Orders, then Heka would be the patroness of various Occult orders. Maybe even laying claim to secrets from that great temple of learning from the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Library of Alexandria. It certainly ties into the lesser-known Roman Goddess Cardea, the Goddess of Doors, and access to knowledge that has been conflated with Hecate before. 

I deal with the Roman Hecate below.

The Character: Helga

Helga is the Hecate of my Roman-Norse mythology. She combines aspects of Hecate, Hel, Hades, and Frau Holt. She also has connections to Frigga and Freya and would be the patroness of seers and seiðr. For this reason and the Frau Holt connection, I see her as more of a Crone-like figure. 

I also gave her the Wits Aspect for her connection to wisdom. 

Helga

Class: Sorceress (Wits Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Dark Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 15 (+1)
Wits: 17 (+2) A +2
Persona: 13 (+1)  N +1

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Unnatural Parlor

Divine Touchstones

1st: Empathy
2nd: First Level Spell: Sense Death
3rd: Class level: Psychic (1 level)
4th: Spirit Guide: Hound

Psychic (Divine Touchstone 3rd)
Psychic Power: Temporal Sense
Supernatural Attack
Sixth Sense
Supernatural Power: Precognition

Spells
1st: Command, Glamour, Predict Weather
2nd: Invisibility, Invoke Fear
3rd: Fly

Arcane Powers
1st: Enhanced Senses
4th: Beguile
7th: Wild Form

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, Seer
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate leans more into the dark side as befitting a Goddess of Magic, Ghosts, and Witchcraft that was syncretized with the Goddess of the Underworld and Goddess of Magic and Witches. 

In many ways Helga feels like a better fit to me. Maybe because my whole idea of a Roman-Norse pantheon stretches back to a time when I was first reading myths and had a book that had both of them (along with Beowulf), which was the same time I was learning to play D&D.

Helga is the darker side of Witchcraft. while she has "good" figures in her mix like Freya, Frigga, and Frau Holt, she has Hel as well. 

Taking the base "Hecate" stats wand moving forward I emphasized her connection to the psychic world and her Seer powers. This gives her the Divine Touchstone of Psychic to gain some of those powers and a few more spells and powers.

--

I am EXTREMELY pleased with these characters. Not just as characters but as a means to work out my ideas on who these Gods should be.  The Divine Touchstones are a great way to help build what later could be called divine abilities. I also see all three of these goddesses as being active as goddesses in a NIGHT SHIFT game. 

This game, the WASTED LANDS, is going to be really great and I am looking forward to seeing the final versions in print.  Please sign up for Kickstarter if you can. 

This also gives me a LOT of ideas for my new Deities & Demigods II feature. 

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 14

 Leaving the Necropolis, there are rows of what could be homes. There are plenty of over-run mushroom farms.  None of these mushrooms look like the edible ones from earlier in this cave.

These homes are not just abandoned; they are overrun with mushrooms. There are even dead bodies, or the remains of them, covered in mushrooms.

The surfaces are also covered with Yellow Mould. 

Additionally, there is a type of Zombie found in a few of these homes (1 in 1d6) that have 1d4+1 Yellow Mould Zombies.

These are treated as normal zombies but are not undead. They are covered with the same yellow mould and any character killed by the zombies or the mould will rise up in 1d4+6 hours as yellow mould zombie.  Once this happens they can not be raised.

Note: If the party has any of the healing wands from the level above they cause damage to the mould and zombies at 1d4+2 per charge used. Likewise, any healing magic will cause damage instead of healing.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods and Alien Gods

One of the great bits of synchronicity of my education back in the late 70s early 80s was my discovery of two very different authors.  The first was Erich von Däniken who had a lot of ideas that appealed to my young self, a self that was fed a steady diet of mythology, astronomy, UFOs, and new-age ideas.  For me, at age 9 to 10, this seemed like great stuff.  It all seemed to fit so well.  Then I discovered the second author, Carl Sagan.  I had seen the various episodes of "In Search Of..." and all the episodes of "Cosmos." So at age 10 there seemed to be a worldview that *could* include both.  I mean, the fringes of science were the fringes, after all. Sagan told me that in black holes, the laws of physics break down.  Maybe there were other places/things/times like this?

"Chariot of the Gods"

It is no stretch of the imagination that Carl Sagan and Cosmos utterly changed my life.  I always had wanted to be an astronomer, and Sagan was the model I wanted to follow.  Too bad I get to a point in Calculus where I stop understanding it.  Thankfully it was enough to help me out in statistics.

And I read, with abject horror and then absolute delight, Sagan's masterful takedown of von Däniken (and Velikovsky). He so utterly destroyed everything von Däniken had said and claimed.  The evidence and case were overwhelming for me; Erich von Däniken was a fraud, and Sagan was the true visionary.  At the age of 10, I tossed out, mentally speaking, all the things that were spiritual or pseudoscientific.  I relegated all my "magical thought" to my new obsession, D&D. 

But I never really let the ideas go away. Even Sagan himself entertained the possibility of ancient aliens, but as always, he met it with his famous standard, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

One of those ideas was about ancient aliens visiting Earth and being interpreted as gods or angels. 

Von Däniken was not the only one to have these ideas. There was Zecharia Sitchin, who gave us, among other things, the 12th Planet and Nibiru.  But the biggest one was Immanuel Velikovsky.  There are more, but this is not a post on pseudohistory or pseudoscience.  This is a post about gods.  I'll try to recover from my self-inflicted irony wound here later. 

The Aliens

I would like to reconstruct the "Ancient Alien" idea with some major changes.  First, since this is a One Man's God post, these are not aliens but actual gods. I am going to present them as such. They can be "Alien Gods" to be sure, but these are Gods in the D&D/FRPG sense of the word.

I will do it, though in such a way as to leave enough doubt in the readers' minds. That "doubt" is really just my wiggle room so I can use them as "gods" in my various D&D campaigns or as aliens in my various modern games like NIGHT SHIFT.

I want to build something that feels like it came right out of the occult-infused 70s.  

Given all of this, it should not be a huge surprise that I will be drawing on many of the same research and literature reviews I did for my April A to Z of Conspiracy Theories.  I am going to include and draw on the following posts (many of which were originally written for an earlier version of this very post):

• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: A is for Ancient Aliens 
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: C is for Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: D is for Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: E is for Extraterrestrials on Earth
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: O is for Outer Space
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Q is for Queen is a Lizard
• The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Z is for Zecharia Sitchin

I would take a lot of this material and put them together as a group of gods. I have PLENTY of examples. 

Case in point: The Norse Gods and the Nordics.  Take the "alien race," the Nordics, for example. Called such because, well, they are tall and blond. In my take here, the aliens become the Norse Pantheon, essentially what you see in the Marvel Movies with the Asgardians.  

Case in point 2: The entire plot behind the Stargate movie and TV series.

Mine will not be so neat and certainly not so benevolent as those. 

Also, I want to avoid some well-documented racist tropes inherent in the Ancient Aliens as Gods theories. This can best be summarized as "white people couldn't figure it out, so therefore Aliens!" Even in the 70s, I saw this. 

Union of the Snake

The academic work on this is known as the Ophiolatreia: Rites and Mysteries of Serpent Worship. This covers many religions and practices. But it also plays a little loose with the definition of "Serpent." 

Let's try something simpler. There are 1000s of Gods, and there is no way I am going through all of them to find "interloper" gods or ones that don't quite fit with the rest. But I can start with the same resource I have been using this whole time, the Deities & Demigods.

I will work it this way. I'll take all the Gods in D&DG and find the ones that don't fit, and for the most part, I will focus on the reptilian or snake-like gods. I will add a couple more because they fit well with my ideas. 

The Flock

Given the fixation on snakes and reptiles, there needs to be a good representation of those sorts of gods in this new pantheon.  Also, many of these gods will be "sky" gods. While there are archetypes all gods fall into, I am not going to necessarily follow that here like I did in the Roman-Norse Pantheon.   

While the people here are reasonably "Good" aligned, I can't say the same for the gods.  In fact, I am going to have this pantheon of gods be primarily evil.  Their design here is to enslave humans and make them build these giant temples for whatever reason. Conquest? Food? I'll see as I build them.  The humans here are doing what they can to appease these powerful beings in the only ways they know how given their times and tools at hand. This is what makes the process more "Stargate" and less "Marvel's Thor."

So who are these people? This has to be Bronze Age or long before; the Neolithic sounds better. 5,000 BCE feels right.  This also allows me to use some Proto-Indo-European notions of gods.  Indeed I might even reconstruct my own versions of the PIE Gods, not unlike what I did with the Roman-Norse Pantheon.  OR, and here is an idea, the PIE Gods existed, and these "Alien Gods" were the ones they warred with.  This tracks with the common element in many PIE myths of the Hero/God slaying the Dragon/Serpent.  Could the Dragon/Serpent be these Alien Gods?  This is the Chaoskampf of many myths.

Remember, I am not putting together a Master's Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation here. I am building something for the D&D, NIGHT SHIFT, and WASTED LANDS RPGs. I get to bend the rules of proper academic research as much as I like.

I will use these ideas to expand my monsters, Ophidians, and Saurians.

The Gods

Here are some gods that look like they fit my criteria of a snake/reptile/non-human god in a pantheon of human gods. Eastern religions, or, more to the point, non-European ones, have far more variety in their gods. Note: I am also going to get into the subject of Good vs. Evil here. Some, like Queztequotal (Aztec) and Shāhmārān (Turkey) are objectively good figures. Others are not.

While I will focus mostly on the myths as presented in the DDG, there are far, far more. I am going to avoid monsters for the most part, but some will sneak in.  Though I will add more gods that I know as appropriate.

American Indian Mythos

• Snake-Man

Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian Mythos

• Apsu
• Aži Dahāka / Dahak
• Inshushinak
• Ištaran
• Nirah
• Tiamat
• Tishpak

Celtic Mythos

• Caoránach
• Oilliphéist

Central American Mythos

• Kukulkan / Queztequotal
• Huhueteotl
• Tlaloc

Chinese Mythos

• Ma Yuan

I talk a lot about Ma Yuan and Ma Yüan-shuai in my discussion of the Chinese myths, I think I might keep him "as is" for this.

Egyptian Mythos

• Apep
• Flame Snake (monster and enemy of the Gods)
• Mehen
• Nehebkau
• Set (to a degree)

Finnish Mythos

• Syöjätär (a monster, but that is the closest thing they have)

Greek Mythos

• Enceladus
• Gorgons
• Hydra
• Ophion
• Ophiuchus

Indian Mythos

• Bhenswara
• Nagas
• And dozens more

Japanese Mythos

• Ugajin
• Yamata no Orochi

Norse Mythos

• Jormungandr

This could be a pantheon all on its own. Several of these have their own "portfolios."  And there are so many more.

While I am considering this as something to use with NIGHT SHIFT as "Ancient Aliens." In the WASTED LANDS, they could be heroes (still aliens of a sort) that become gods. Though in at least one case, Jormungandr is another name for Yig.

I could revisit these as part of my Deities & Demigods II since this might be my last Syncretism post for a bit while I spend some more time on my Deities & Demigods II ones.

One Man's God Special: Syncretism

• Syncretism Part 1, The Gods of Faerûn
• Syncretism Part 2, the Greco-Egyptian Gods
• Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• Syncretism Part 4, Orcus and Dispater
• Syncretism Part 5, Chariots of the Gods

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 6, Room 13

 While within the Necropolis, the party moves near an open temple. As the party approaches, they are surrounded by Shadows moving in. Though before they can attack, a haunting music can be heard. The Shadows move back and surround two elves, a male and a female. The woman is playing a long double flute that looks like it is made of bone.  The man is holding a skull with eyes of balefire.  

The shadows move back into the ground.

When the last of the Shadows have gone, the woman stops playing.

They are dressed similarly and even look the same, obviously related.  They look like the shadow elves you have seen, but their skin is darker, and their hair is lighter.  The woman greets you first.

"Greetings. I am Runu, and this is my younger brother Urnu," she says.

There is a snort from the male, and a "younger by mere seconds." escapes his lips just loud enough to be heard by all.

Runu points to a rune on the ground that one of your shoes has kicked dirt onto. 

"The Rune of Ake keeps the shadows confined to the temple. When you walked over it broke the magic. But no matter." She brushes the dirt away, and the great circle of runes glows briefly and then fades.

They tell you they are Shadow Elves, but they are also Drow/Dark Elves and therefore despised by all elves. More importantly, they tell you they are not under the sway of the Vampire Queen.  

They mention they need a particular jewel from an idol in the central temple.  The idol is that of the Demon Lord Orcus and the temple is his.They causally mention they know they are searching for the tomb of the Vampire Queen. ("Why else are you here? It's not the scenery!")  They also add that the large temple is the access to the lower levels. There is a secret door under the idol.

If asked why they are helping, they will say that the Shadow Elves will kill them on the spot, but the adventurers are a curiosity to them and they have a chance to reach the temple.

If asked why they need it, they will claim it was stolen by the Vampire Queen, and they want to return to their home temple. 

If the party tries to attack them, they use their Rings of Invisibility and sneak away. They do want the adventurers alive to face the monsters in the Temple.

The double flute are "Pipes of the Susurrus" and they require training to use.

There is nothing of note in this local temple.

--

Note: Runu is a Profane Necromancer, Urnu is a Gothic Witch. Most of what they tell you is true. Save for a few details.

- The Shadow Elves will kill Runu and Urnu true, but they will also kill the adventurers. Runu is playing up how many Shadow Elves are here.

- Runu summoned the shadows herself to scare the adventurers. 

- They do need the gem, the Eye of Orcus, but it is far more dangerous than they let on.

- They want the adventures to face the monsters of the main temple. 

- They have no love for the Vampire Queen

Monstrous Mondays: Shadow Elves for Old-School Essentials

I have a couple of things going on this month. First off I am still doing the #Dungeon23 challenge. The level for June is the dead city of the Shadow Elves. Also,  I am waiting for the print proof of Monster Mash II to arrive. So I figure I can do a little for both today and detail the Shadow Elf from Monster Mash I as an OSE Monster listing. 

I have done Shadow Elves before, but not as a proper Old-School Essentials monster. 

Shadow Elf

Tall, thin elves with pale gray to dark gray skin. They have jet-black hair and long, pointed ears. Also known as Umbral Elves. They live in dark cave systems and places where shadows are the strongest.

Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 1* (4hp)
Attacks: 1 × weapon (1d6 or by weapon)
THAC0: 18 [+1]
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Saving Throws: D12 W13 P13 B15 S15 (Elf 1)
Morale: 8 (10 with leader)
Alignment: Neutral (Chaotic Neutral)
XP: 19
Number Appearing: 1d4 (2d12)
Treasure Type: C

• Infravision 90'
• Immune to the touch of Ghouls and Ghasts
• Necromancer spells. A Shadow Elf can cast one 1st level Necromancer spell.
• Leader: Groups of 15+ are led by an elf of level 1d6 + 1. The leader may have magical items: 5% chance per level for each magic item table.

Shadow Elves are often confused with Dark Elves. 

Most Shadow Elves follow the Faerie Lord Scáthaithe, The Umbral Lord.  Others have fallen under the sway of Darlessa the Vampire Queen.

Shadow Elves as an OSE-Advanced Race

Shadow elves have the following requirements and can take the following classes.

Requirements: 15 or greater on DEX
Ability Modifiers: +1 to DEX

• Acrobat: 10th
• Assassin: 10th
• Barbarian: NA
• Bard: 10th
• Cleric: 5th
• Druid: 5th
• Fighter: 10th
• Illusionist: 9th
• Knight: 10th
• Magic-User: 8th
• Paladin: NA
• Ranger: NA
• Thief: 10th
• Gothic Witch: 10th
• Profane Necromancer: 10th

I need to update my twins, Runu and Urnu, to these rules. With Runu as a Profane Necromancer and Urnu as a Gothic Witch.