Secrets of the Plague Doctors - The Armoury.

https://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/viraemia.html

Plague Doctors! As dangerous as Skaven and Tinker Gnomes combined!

*Everything here is optional, dependent on the tech-level of the setting and on how established the Plague Doctors have become. 

D&D-adjacent/barely system agnostic.

Armoured Suit.

Equal to BECMI Scale armour (the bridge between Leather and Chain), and has the same special properties as the traditional mask-and-robe already covered in the main entry for the Plague Doctor class.

Provides a +1 to saves and -1 to damage per die to AoE attacks (as for BECMI suit armour).

A full plate version can exist (BECMI suit armour RAW - the ahistorical version).

*Can form the basis for fantasy diving- and vac-suits.

Compounds - Miasma.

Associated with the classic elements of Air and Earth, miasma is the foundation of chemical/gas as well as germ warfare in the fantasy setting.

Unprocessed miasma has all the general properties of a stinking cloud cast at lowest level,  plus exposes those in the AoE to the associated disease. 

It is most readily harvested from purulent corpses and plague pits, and most people are happy to let the Plague Doctors get on with it, rather than dig into their secrets.

Addition of phlogiston can make a miasma mixture that it lighter than air. 

*It's up to you whether this mixture is dangerously flammable or perfectly safe.

All types of miasma can be neutralised by contact with universal solvent in sufficient quantity/proportion. Also, cure disease (Plague Doctors hate this one weird trick).

Can be delivered as grenade-like missiles or by Hygienic Patented Pneumatic Applicator. You need to rinse out the Pneumatic Applicator with universal solvent between miasma loads (this does not affect reload time).

Anti-Phlogiston: Fire extinguisher (Earth smothers Fire).

Instant on normal fire; normal probability per round for phlogiston; allows a new save at advantage/bonus and -1 damage per die for dragon/magical fire - though you decide if it's actually enough to put it out.

Fire monsters suffer (radiant/cold) damage equal to being hit by Dragon's Fire (see below).

Cannot be made lighter than air, as this would require the addition of phlogiston.

"Cloak of Fear": Brand name for fear gas.

Effect last while in the AoE and for d3 rounds afterwards; all saves vs. fear, horror etc and Morale Checks are at disadvantage/penalty.

*A scarecrow-themed Plague Doctor seems a good candidate for developing a more effective fear gas.

Concentrate: Ancestor of riot foam.

Equivalent effect to the spit of the Cave Locust, Giant. 

Cannot be made lighter than air, as its effectiveness comes from its concentrated substance - treat as (AD&D) Green Slime, rather than stinking cloud.

"Fog of War": Brand name for blinding gas.

A clinging gas that cause temporary blindness to those unprotected in the AoE and for d4+1 rounds after they leave/it dissipates.

The Plague Doctors also produce eye-drops (dilute universal solution) that will clear the eyes on the round following application. 

Frenzon: Failed experimental prototype intended to remedy broken morale on the field.

Anyone unprotected in the AoE and for d3 rounds afterwards is subject to uncontrollable hideous laughter. 

A failed Morale Check during this time triggers berserker frenzy, rather than retreat.

Subjects report vivid nightmares over the following d6+1 nights.

"Plague Wind": Brand name for disease gas.

Anyone in the AoE or targeted/splashed is exposed to a disease at double normal chances of infection, with an incubation period of 1-6 turns. Check each round of unprotected exposure.

Anyone infected is a carrier, but further instances of the disease are at normal rates of infection and incubation.

Compounds - Phlogiston.

The elemental form spontaneously and instantly combusts in contact with air. It is counterintuitively unreactive to flame/heat and has a very low flash/burn temperature.

Mix it with other ingredients, however, and it can quickly get out of control.

In terms of magical/scientific understanding, phlogiston is associated with the classic elements of Air and Fire.

The Plague Doctors ruthlessly maintain their monopoly on the practical secrets of phlogiston. Their covert/plausibly deniable operations to maintain this are not so covert and deniable as to encourage persistent outside research.

The three substances below are the most common applications of this discovery. They can be delivered as grenade-like missiles or by Hygienic Patented Pneumatic Applicator.

Alchemist's Fire: Dungeoneer's Molotov; this is your basic burning oil as featured in most pseudo-medieval fantasy settings. 

Its main advantage over standard burning oil is that it is half the encumbrance.

It must be lit on fire.

Dragon's Fire: Dungeoneer's Greek Fire.

Twice as hard to extinguish (by whatever methods) and twice as fast/likely to spread as normal fire/burning oil; +1 to damage per damage die.

It must be lit on fire, but can be done so even if wet, as long as it is not completely submerged.

Hell's Fire: Dungeoneer's napalm. 

Contains components of miasma, so can be spoiled by universal solvent.

It ignites on contact with the air and will burn underwater (so ingenuity makes an aquatic flamethrower possible).

Twice as fast/likely to spread as normal fire/burning oil, and can only be extinguished with anti-phlogiston, magic or letting it burn out naturally; +1 damage per damage die.

If you are the target of or are splashed with Hell's Fire, you also suffer d3 acid damage per round until the fire is extinguished.

Devices.

Flit Gun: Weaponised clyster/ an old-fashioned bug spray from the old-fashioned cartoons.

Max. 1 charge - which comes in a handy screw on/off cannister.

Two-handed; fouls/misfires like a firearm, but you can just replace the cannister as a normal reload to correct this.

Spray or cloud, but it's only 5' range/AoE - you will be caught in the splash, so wear your beaky mask and hazmat suit.

Hygienic Patented Pneumatic Applicator: Medical grade flamethrower.

Max. 6 charges, but randomise in secret as the mixture and the process are inconsistent: d6 for a single or untrained operator; d3+3 for a team of 2 Plague Doctors.

It is bulky, heavy, two-handed and misfires/fouls like a firearm. Potential to explode (AoE and damage depends on how many charges left).

It is slow to reload, even with a crew of 2; otherwise, it takes twice as long.

One charge can produce a 20' line/cloud (depends on substance), but d3 charges must be expended to produce a 20' cone.

A line target is the centre of a splash effect; everyone in a cone is a target, no splash.

Basic damage for the flamethrower is 2-12 (or as appropriate for burning oil in the setting/system), adjusted for whether it's Alchemist, Dragon or Hell's Fire. 

Dragon's Fire needs to be rinsed out with universal solvent for each reload, or the chances of misfire/fouling are doubled (this does not affect the reload time).

Because of its pre-burn consistency, Hell's Fire doubles the chance of misfire/fouling, but does not need to be rinsed out between uses.

Plague Censer: Pole-and-chain-mounted thurible used to burn and distribute miasma-based compounds.

Once lit, compounds burn for d6 exploration turns unless extinguished and produce a 20' cloud in one round. 

Effects are as for exposure to the relevant miasma. If you make your first save, you make others thereafter at advantage/bonus; three successes in a row, and you don't have to make any more vs. this batch.

As well as being less effective than other methods, Plague Censers are considered old-fashioned and/or unscientific, having their origin in the bale- and need-fire traditions of the past. 

Reinforced Bellows: Weaponised clyster.

Max. 2 charges.

Two-handed; fouls/misfires like a firearm; slow to reload. Line or cloud, depends on substance used.

If using Alchemist's or Dragon's Fire, you lose Initiative if you do not have an assistant to apply a lit match as you squeeze the bellows.

Half the range/AoE of the Hygienic Patented Pneumatic Applicator. You are at risk of being caught in the splash/cloud zone.

Does not need to be rinsed with universal solvent after using Dragon's Fire, as long as you're just reloading it with more Dragon's Fire.

Being a much simpler device than the flamethrower, the risk of fouling/misfire with Hell's Fire is not doubled.

Goggles/Lenses.

*Enlarging and focusing lenses are no better than 50% the strength of eyes of minute seeing or eyes of the eagle, but I've not done research on ancient to early modern period lens quality.

Blackened: You cannot see through them except when they give you auto-save vs. light-based and gaze attacks.

Stage -6 Nocturnal/Heliophobic Plague Doctors can see through these lenses as well as being protected from the light.

Frosted: Reduces everything to shapes of light and dark.

Protection vs. gaze attacks; hindered 50% as much as if you were averting your gaze.

Mirrored: As Frosted, but with a 10% chance of reflecting gaze attacks.

Must save vs. fire each time they are exposed or lose their mirrored property.

Smoked: Sunglasses; advantage/bonus vs. dazzle and snow-blindness.

Stage -1 Nocturnal/Heliophobic Plague Doctors can offset their penalty while wearing smoked lenses.

Stage -3 reduce their penalty to -1 and make saves vs. light-based attacks normally.

Grenade-like missiles (Vial Bombs). 

Basic rules as for the setting/system. Splash/cloud radius is normally/nominally 5'.

Delivers a dose of phlogiston or miasma with the relevant effects, though grenade-delivered miasmas will dissipate in normal conditions within 3 rounds (2 if it's raining, 1 if it's windy). This is a function of volume, so dumping a load of grenades at once or in quick succession could get a proper stinking cloud going.

You can also fill them with acid, holy/unholy water, and universal solvent.

Not forgetting the example of Darkest Dungeon:

Disorienting blast causes 2d6 non-lethal damage and save vs. temp. deafness in splash radius. All in 10' (30' in darkness) must save or be dazzled d3 rounds (no save if surprised; low intelligence light-hating monsters will probably retreat).

Noxious blast causes d8 non-lethal damage to the target and d4 splash; save or nauseated as for a lowest-level stinking cloud (advantage/bonus if only splashed).

Plague grenade is the same as the noxious blast, but everyone hit is exposed to a disease at disadvantage/penalty. They are a somewhat old-fashioned weapon, dating back to before miasma could be refined and the disease component separated off.

Substance - Universal Solvent.

Carbolic steam spray - antiseptic and caustic.

Universal solvent can be put through the Hygienic Patented Pneumatic Applicator, and can be used as a line or a cone. Addition of phlogiston allows deployment as a cloud.

As well as neutralising miasma (target, splash and AoE), it will kill all small animals of 2 hp or less (save allowed if appropriate). 

Larger animals (including humanoids) are affected as the rash component of an irritation spell and must save vs. temp. blindness (advantage/bonus if only splashed). If it's a line or a cone, they suffer d3 damage on the first round, 1 hp on the second (unless immediately doused in water); if it's a cloud, they suffer 2 hp on the first round, 1 on the second, and make their save vs. blindness at disadvantage/penalty.

As well as a pesticide, it is also an effective weedkiller - plant monsters suffer (necrotic/acid) damage acid equal to being hit by Dragon's Fire, and this can only be healed with Druidic magic.

Disease/parasite monsters suffer similarly, but can heal from this damage at half-rate.

Syringes.

The main effect will be from whatever you've loaded them with. 

If you're using onset times, then a syringe is at least 50% to 100% faster than ingestion.

Fine (Glass) Syringe: Recognisable as vintage drug paraphernalia. Needs a padded case, but barely encumbering.

0 damage  + special vs. S and M targets; no effect vs. L. 

Breaks on a successful hit, or an odd-numbered miss.

Crude (Metal) Syringe: The old-fashioned type; crude in comparison. Needs a cork on the end to carry safely; about as encumbering as a dagger/iron spike.

1 lethal damage + special vs. S and M targets; crit only vs. L.

Breaks on an odd-numbered miss.

Two-handed Syringe: Modified clyster. Reservoir for max. 3 doses. Too awkward to conceal; about as encumbering as a hand axe/mace.

As dagger + special vs. S, M and L targets.

Fouls on an odd-numbered miss; d3 rounds to resolve.

Syringe Thrower (Tranquiliser Gun): Two-handed projectile device; short range only; ammunition cannot be reused, hit or miss.

As Light Crossbow for Fine (Glass) Syringes: 1 hp + special.

As Heavy Crossbow for Crude (Metal) Syringes: d3 hp + special.

Commentary.

Are there any medical dictatorship settings?

How about an alternative Krynn, with the Plague Doctors emerging post-Cataclysm? 

You bet the Plague Doctors would be up to their neck's in it in undead-apocalypse settings, for better or worse.

Bearing in mind the necromantic inclinations of the Plague Doctors and the different relative standards of magical integration across settings, they could also add necro-tech to their arsenal.

Secret Santicorn 2025 - What the fuck do adventurers eat?

My/the original dungeon dinner is served.
(Dungeon Master - 1987 - FTL)

I think I can answer that:

• Provisions (and get 4 Stamina back).
• Meals (and don't lose 3 Endurance).
• Rations, iron and standard. Just like grandmother used to pick off the equipment list at chargen.
• During narration.
• Nothing, because we forget or hand-wave it.

Adventurer's Rations.

Druid's Ration: A wholesome mix of seeds, berries, nuts and pulses. Trail mix. Keeps you regular.

Also known as Monk's Ration  - the diet of an ascetic; a mere snack for an adventurer; naming it for Druids is a branding exercise.

*Contains appetite-suppressing herbs.

Medium's Ration (Arcane Food): A small live animal pulled from a hat, or from a sleeve up of which there was nothing, once per day. Not really enough to survive on, and not enough to share. 

Also known as a Prestidigitator's Ration. A testament to the low-level Magic User's will to survive.

Divine Food (Acolyte's Ration): Bland and ambiguous, and you would be hard-pressed to describe its appearance or other qualities, but a serving will sustain a horse as easily as an adult human(oid) for one day.

Can't be stored as it spoils by the the end of the day. 

You need to show the proper gratitude or you will be forbidden to eat another serving until you have atoned. This forbiddance takes various forms (as do the rituals of gratitude and atonement), including 'supernatural servants of the cleric's deity' manifesting and preventing you from eating.

Also a name given to common forms of hardtack and ship's biscuit.

Ranger's Ration: Meat (shredded/minced), berries, grains/nuts/seeds, and fat beaten together and packed into half-fist sized lumps.

It doesn't taste very nice and it gives you constipation, but you don't need to cook it (you can) and it doesn't spoil easily. 

Very nutritious - one a day on a dungeon adventure; two on a wilderness adventure.

Dungeon Honey.

Ant: Gives advantage/bonus vs. disease for each day you consume a full ration of it.

Ants, Giant and Driver Ants will always attempt to commandeer any Ant Honey in your possession. Best just to hand it over, as the Colony does not negotiate.

Sour/spicy compared to Bee Honey. Does not spoil and resists putrefy food & water.

Bee: As for Bee, Giant and Killer Bee - this is the premier/preferred sweet-stuff of the underworld.

Does not spoil.

Sarcophagus: Stingless Killer Bees that feed almost exclusively on all kinds of meat, and incorporate both corpses and Skeletons/Zombies into their tomb-hives.

Salty, smoky, intense, but not unpleasant. Spoils instantly in sunlight and rapidly once above-ground. Resists putrefy food & water. Can be used to attract/distract Ghouls and other carnivorous/scavenger monsters.

(Sarcophagus Bees: less-aggressive than Killer Bees; they are 'blinded' by silence etc. and immune to undead special abilities up to 5 HD; Shadows, Skeletons and Zombies will ignore them and share lairs; Ghouls and Ghasts raid hives for the honey, eggs and larvae - the Bees attack them on 'sight', with the special abilities of a Shrew, Giant).

Mummy: The highly-prized, jealously-sought exudations of a Mellified Mummy (and victims of Honey Rot).

General Dungeon Provender. 

Bat, Lizard or Rat on a Stick: Cooked, air-dried, salted, steeped in honey, pounded out, smoked etc.

You're meant to eat the whole thing; various levels of chewiness.

Both a common foodstuff and a delicacy for Dwarves and Goblins.

Dragon Steak: The popular name for giant lizard/reptile meat.

If it's Lizard Man meat, Lizard Men can tell you've been eating it. Reaction Roll at disadvantage/penalty unless/until you can convince them it was unwitting and make amends.

It's easy to tell if it's actually Troglodyte meat, and almost nothing wants to eat that (except maybe Ghouls, Otyughs and Troglodytes themselves).

Dungeon Crab: While there are edible subterranean isopods (and Piercers) that might also fit the bill, this principally refers to the meat of dungeon beetles (especially Fire Beetles).

Dwarves and Orcs both farm dungeon crab, de-fanging and de-legging the live beetles for storage.

Dungeon Drumstick: From the Rat, Giant or the Cave Locust. 

Approaching delicious, and definitely nutritious. Popular with all non-vegetarian underground folk.

Dwarven Fermented Condiment: fantasy surströmming; made from extract of Cave Locust (spit). It makes What Cave Locusts Eat digestible and nutritious for non-Cave Locusts. But not palatable.

You'd need a lot (buckets-full) to weaponise it against monster-sized patches of Green Slime or Yellow Mould, so stop grumbling and eat up and hope you can keep it down.

Every Dwarf carries a little jar/bottle of the stuff, sealed airtight with wax or clay. They would never allow you to use it as a grenade-like missile.

Hound Meat (Shank): From Hellhounds.

Blackened on the outside. Sulphurous smell and taste. Fibrous and oily. Otherwise a bit like pork.

Stains your lips and fingers. The smell permeates your sweat and hair.

Nutritious Slime: To you, indistinguishable from the flesh- and metal-eating kind.

Wild boar recognise it for what it is, so possibly domestic pigs could be trained to do likewise. Cave Locusts show no preference beyond proximity.

Dungeon-frequenting Wereboars (and Orcs) know that a diet of nutritious slime makes the meat extra-juicy.

Pig Meat (Orc's Ration): Clean, well cut, wrapped in wax paper.  Looks both appetising and innocuous. 

Short pig is tastier than long, according to afficionados, but it's difficult to tell Halfling from Human in this form.

Ogres and regenerating Trolls (and their kin) will always accept it as a gift.

Raw Frogs and Watercress: Along with Cave Moss and Mushrooms, this dungeon culinary classic dates back as far as Naked Doom.

Tomb Jerky: First turns up on dungeon level 2, by level 6 it's clear what (sometimes who) you've been eating.

Because undead are a monster type, it's technically neither cannibalism or necrophagy. 

It will not distract Zombie Flesh-Eaters, but Ghouls and Ghasts snap it up like dog-treats. If you're turning Ghoulish yourself, a piece a day will help hold off that transformation.

What Cave Locusts Eat: Green Slime, Yellow Mould, Shriekers - this is the base of a traditional Gygaxian food pyramid.

Unfortunately, unless you're a Cave Locust, you lack the friendly gut bacteria etc. to get any benefit. You're risking your life, too.

Shriekers are at least edible, because the Screamer Slice from Dungeon Master is personal canon (see image). It's very filling, but not very nutritious. 

Unless you're a Cave Locust, living off it will lead to fatal malnutrition (but see above).

Worm Meat (Dungeon Calamari): Edible parts of suitable dungeon worms. 

Bitter and earthy. Cooking does little to improve taste or texture, but neutralises toxins.

Weird Dinners.

Food you find in abandoned kitchens and pantries in dungeon/wilderness locations, and appropriate monster lairs.

Ghost Food: As varied in appearance as ghosts; it cannot be eaten except on the Ethereal Plane, while shadow walking or out-of-phase, by necromancy, or spectral invitation. Even then, it can be an unsettling experience and leaves you feeling unfed (although you are properly nourished - and fully intoxicated, if appropriate).

Often grand meals that could feed a dozen or more, they are bound to the place they are found and cannot be taken away.

While ghosts do not eat Ghost Food themselves, it can form part of the theatre of their haunting, and they will respond appropriately to unexpected guests (warn, attack, curse, carouse etc).

Unless exorcised, Ghost Food will reappear in the same spot 24 hours after (or at the setting of the sun above ground).

Goblin (Elf) Food: From nectar-and-ambrosia to gnome-entrails-in-elf's-blood, this is faerie food.

Even if you know it’s not real/illusory, you can still eat it and your body will think it’s been fed; you’re not nourished, but you won’t feel hungry.

If you think it’s real, you’ll eat it and then refuse to take any other type of food (until you starve to death or bless/remove curse is applied). You are fine with non-Goblin drinks and colonic/intravenous feeding.

You can take it with you, but when you go to eat it, you find that it's turned into dead leaves.

*If you have found Goblin (Elf) Food then you are in the Sidhe Dream; adjust the dungeon/wilderness accordingly.

Shadow Food: Like smoke on a plate; you can touch it without your fingers passing through, and you can pick it up and take it away, as long as you're gentle with it. Otherwise, it just slips through your fingers and recoalesces in place (Dexterity or Wisdom check if you think it merits one).

You can only successfully eat it while in very shadowy conditions.

Or if you're a Shade, bonded with shadowstuff (though whether they need to eat at all is another question).

Carry it in a receptacle sealed against the light and it will keep indefinitely; it cannot be damaged or spoiled, except by shadow creatures, via the Shadow Plane, or by exposure to daylight.

Commentary.

My prompt from Slightly middling dayglo (via Empedocles) on the OSR Discord: What [the] f[***] do adventures eat?

Because of Dungeon Master I think tracking food and drink is as essential as strict time records. 

I used monster food-drops from Dungeon Master as my starting point, then looked at the OSE Dungeon Encounter by Level: 1-3 table for some inspiration.

My other food-based entries are here and here.

I think, technically, gnome-entrails-in-elf's-blood is an Ogre recipe.

That Night, A Forest Grew - d66 Monsters of the Sidhe Dream

A circumstance of para-Moorcockian science-fantasy, rather than a location. 

The subtle dimension allowing the so-called fairy folk to radically change shape and size, demonstrate disproportionate strength and take seven-league steps without suffering the consequences of mundane physics. 

Bypasses rationality, allowing animals to speak, the body to survive dismemberment, and lives to be lived fully between the ticks of a clock. As a hyperspace dimension, it is also a way to other places. 

Most reliably occurs on small islands, along riverbanks, at dawn and dusk, at the crossroads, along the treeline, on the shore, in desert oases, ruins and abandoned facilities, on the old straight track, deep in your cups, on sartain nights of the years, wells and springs, in mines, on train-tracks and at bus-stops, motorway service stations, under-maintained and remote parts of generational colony ships and post-apocalyptic quasi-utopian high-tech mega-bunkers.

Roll d6:

1. Roll d6:

1. Owlboars: Squealing, hooting pack of magical hybrids. A challenging meal, but delicious roasted. Capable of climbing and jumping out of trees. Cough up whole mummified corpses. Filthy and riddled with parasites.
2. Hyacinths: Child-sized with bouncing golden curls, goat eyes, forked tongues. Echo, mimic and ventriloquise to lure you from the path. No language of their own. Possibly telepathic.
3. Ophilines: Languid serpentine cats; wind themselves around branches; cannot constrict but can wrap you up to keep you warm or for auto-bite/claw. Intelligent animals that choose not to talk.
4. Shivery Boys: Blue-skinned and frosty, lost boys left out in the cold. Fairies took them in, then got bored with them. They call themselves Jack or Peter or Robin and are looking for ways back to the mortal world. If not already vampires, they will be once they get back home.
5. Surprise Hunting Boulder (1): Greedy for flesh and blood. Once it has chosen its prey, it can reappear wherever and whenever you aren't looking - including your dreams and understairs cupboard. Moves by rolling and tumbling when under observation, or when it wants to make a lot of ominous approaching noise. Thinks it's a lot more charming than it is.
6. Dire Erudites: Reptilian/dinosaurian druids. More like Hierophant druids than the ones of the mortal sphere.

2. Roll d6:

1. Feliquines: Cat-headed, cat-pawed, cat-tailed, cat-patterned horses; approx. 25% have venomous spines along their flanks. 2 on 2d6 it’s a lone Felicorn (with special abilities and a sought-after alicorn).
2. Corpse Elves: Instinctive glamour to appear as a corpse, often someone you know, making them unnerving interlocutors. Teleport via damaged/dead/dying trees. Meld with living trees to regenerate. Initial Reaction Neutral to Friendly.
3. Mousebear (1): Confused cyclical shape-shifter with a tail attack - damage as dagger for mouse, as polearm for bear, special effects from a monster you’d otherwise not use. Even the bear is afraid of the mouse.
4. Crimson Cattle: Soft red hide thick as plate armour; their meat, milk and blood cure physical, spiritual and societal ills. Glamour makes them seem a blazing, roaring, sun-blotting, town-crushing bovine sky-scape dominating the horizon. Intelligent. Variously capable of speech, spell-casting, prophecy and keeping-their-own-counsel. Have a taste for mortal flesh, but not compulsive gourmands. Horns are magical weapons.
5. Zoogs: Tentacle-faced tree-otters. As likely to track, torture and eat you as to share moonwine and news from beyond the fields you know. Sly, stealthy; pretty much like you’d expect. Implacable foes of the Vroons.
6. Shrill Viridian Things: That haunt bleak rivers. You can hear them from a mile off, but that might be ventriloquism. Maybe cross a Phase Spider with a Quickling for inspiration.

3. Roll d6:

1. Wamps (1-3): Blind, snuffling, mammalian, spider-like profusion of legs. Bat-ears and web-paws bright blood red in contrast to bone white skin and corpse grey fur. Thrive on a diet both ghoulish and vampiric. Mate with and grow/hatch from heads/skulls - detached, dead, whatever.
2. Skandars (Treebeards): Towering, hairy, multiple arms; masters of archery, hammerspace and juggling. Sometimes grow thoughtful and go into an overgrown, Ent-like hibernation.
3. Vroons: Amphibious golden-eyed little octopus folk. Walk upright. Talent for mind- and emotion-affecting magic. Generally benevolent. Sworn enemies of the Zoogs.
4. Sandestins (1-3): Elementals of Primal Chaos, unshackled by Time, hidden from Fate, evading Paradox, circumnavigating Error. Everyone is scared of their open-ended ability to manipulate reality. Comfortingly vulnerable to magical binding and command.
5. Wasp Elves: Aposematic nymphs. You bet they’re going to lay eggs in you. Not hostile, but self-interested and dangerous. Larvae (babies) have ranks of chitinous teeth, which they shed shortly after eating their way out of the host.
6. Piss-a-beds (Gnomes): Natural banded armour and venomous spittle (anaesthetic, anticoagulant, lingeringly diuretic). Pangolin-woodlouse things with a taste for blood. Glamour to look like piglets or great grey grubs.

4. Roll d6:

1. Hairy Nuns: (d6) 1 lascivious lamiae, 2-5 neutral clerics, 6 bloodthirsty Ogres in (magical or unconvincing) disguise. 
2. Tusked Knights: (d6) 1 clumsy buffoons, 2-5 incorrigible but more-or-less honourable duellists and jousters, 6 day-walking Vampire Wereboars. Gorgeously carved wooden plate armour; arrows that sprout into saplings. 1 on d6, they’re mounted on Feliquines.
3. Horned Monks: (d6) 1 satyrs, 2-3 neutral clerics, 4-5 mortal Inquisitors rooting out the devilish and glamour’d to ignore their own horns, 6 bloodthirsty Ogre magi in disguise. 
4. Bastard Uncle Toad (1): Troll/Vodyanoi with aspirations of godhood. Become his cleric (carrying his questionable doctrine abroad) – he grants spells up to 4th level (but you must visit him each time for 3rd-4th level spells), keeps your soul in a crystal pool as security, and calls you back as a zombie if you die in his faith. 
5. Maggot Elves: Magpie-plumaged goblin-harpies that like to eat living brains. Inappropriately friendly and conversational during and immediately after feeding. Can sniff out your dreams and desires, to pick out the most luxurious meals. You can (sort of) survive them eating your brain.
6. Homecomers: Bundles of hair, bone and fingernails, lumps of rocks, rotten stumps, and so on that the fairies leave behind when they steal your babies, but all grown up now and exercising their glamour and right to life. They know they're not people now, but they know who they were before.

5. Roll d6:

1. Janus Elves (1-3): Double-headed psychopomps, precogs and demon-fighters. Numerous Orders and Companies - with elaborate rituals, signature special moves, outlandish weapons, and awesome livery - each made up of no more than three members.
2. Wood Pigs (Gnomes): Armoured moth-bears with powerful climbing, digging, rending claws. Have a taste for gold and other precious metals. Disproportionately tough for their size. Sometimes known as aurumvorax.
3. Grandmother Spider (1): Wizened and kindly (but otherwise trad./RAW) Dark Elf matriarch. Loves all her small and giant charges, in the mundane world or otherwise, and they speak to her, so she knows how many you’ve killed and if you’ve broken any spider laws that you have no chance of knowing in advance. Near to or crouched on top of a cottage-sized obsidian sarcophagus, which can uproot itself like Baba Yaga's chicken-leg hut.
4. Sasquatch (aka Dark Watchers, Owlbears):  Shaggy, Human to Ogre-size darknesses, with three restless white marks (eyespots?) approx. where the heart would be if they are as humanoid as they seem. Presence accompanied by chill, stench, the dampening and disruption of glamour. 
5. Mandragora Mandragon (1): Draconic ceratopsian Dire Erudite and Ogre Mage. The Great Druid to beat to rise to the top of the hierarchy in this continuum (turns Hierophant with good grace if you do). 
6. Sleeping Beauties (1-100): Glamour'd Coffer Corpses.

6. Roll d6:

1. Dark Elves (1-100): Dead white skin, lustrous black hair, blank nacreous eyes. Submerged deep in the Dream, they rarely wake. Bunched close together or standing alone, they sway as if by currents of air and water. Their glamour walks abroad, acting out their dreams and neuroses.
2. Lost Wolves (2-12): Baffled and cautious, the Dream has given them understanding and they would like to get home and go back to being animals, please. 1 on d6 accompanied by a mortal child they are protecting or raising. 1 on d12 this child is a Shivery Boy taking advantage.
3. Light Elves (1-3): Beautiful, noble, radiant. Their backs are always towards you and they are always just out of reach while your eyes are open to see them. Prey on the recently dead, the dying, and dreamers/sleepers. 
4. Mothmen (aka Camazotz): Related/similar to the Sasquatch, but with vast spreading wings and red marks/eyespots. Sandestins fear and hate them. The source of those distant and mysterious whale-songs in the deepest woods.
5. Melancholy Ogres: The Dream changes you, and these anthropophagous brigands feel remorse for their horrible crimes and grisly feedings. Help them back to the mortal world and they will reward you with buried stolen treasures and locations/remains of victims. The Dream fades fast and old urges return.
6. Blood Moon (1): Amorphous, gelatinous, cloud-like; leering aerial-amphibious predator. Frightens your bones to jelly, then sucks them out of your still-screaming body. Can squeeze itself small into a burrow or hollow tree, or spread out over the surface of a pool. Not native; trapped in the Dream, but thriving.

Commentary.

Basic inspiration, Sidhi Dream as featured in Moorcock's Chronicles of Corum colliding with the Lovecraftian Dreamlands.

Pronounce it how you like - it was years before I realised Sidhe didn't rhyme with giddy. But maybe Moorcock's Sidhi does?

Probably also inhabited by variations on the Hjorts, Liimen, Ghayrogs and Metamorphs. Lord Valentine's Castle marked a shift in my mental universe, though it was my springboard into Jack Vance rather than pursuit of Silverberg.

Janus Elves a collision of Majipoorian Su-Suheris and an alien species from The Dead (Pete Milligan and Massimo Belardinelli's 1987 strip for 2000AD).

Elves, Goblins, Trolls, Dwarves, Greys etc are local manifestations of cosmos-/dimension-spanning kindreds you could circuitously eventually identify as Eldar/Eldren - selection/evolution over strange aeons and from settling stranger places.

For existing older-edition supplements that might help with fleshing out encounters and adventures in/adjacent to the Dream: The Nightmare Lands (2e Ravenloft, the eponymous domain), and Blood Spawn (2e Birthright, the Shadow World/ the Seeming). Missed these the first time round. Damn.

Secrets of the Plague Doctors - The Pharmacopeia.

A medicinal miscellany suggested by the Plague Doctor class, or that turned up in the research.

Gary Chalk/ Flight from the Dark/ 1984

No price tags attached, because the Plague Doctors will charge as much as they think you can afford - though not as much as for clerical healing (until they've safely toppled the temples).

Usual * for extra-optional.

Anaesthesia and Pain Relief.

These certainly put you in an Altered State.

Ether/Chloroform: roll 3d6 each round to beat unwilling patient's Constitution (or save vs. poison) to KO them for 1 hour; grapple/Strength to administer via rag or mask.

Patient cannot normally be woken by damage/pain while in effect.

Paralytic: equal to Ghoul's touch. Save vs. coma if two doses overlap.

It's optimistically described as an anaesthetic. At least the surgery can be performed undisturbed. 

*If actually derived from Ghouls, recipients risk exposure to the corpse-eating sickness and/or rising as Ghouls if they die while under the effect.

Sleeping Draught: patient sleeps for 2d4 hours in 3d4 rounds; they are allowed a save each turn if resisting the effect (*slowed and immune to fear during this time).

Double dosing puts the save at disadvantage/penalty and a crit fail leaves the patient in a coma. 

A triple dose is proof against nightmares, dream intrusion and spirit possession. While awake you are temporarily immune to non-lethal damage and are subject to post-hypnotic suggestion.

If you take 3 or more doses in a week, save vs. addiction. If you take 6 or more doses in a week, save vs. addiction at disadvantage/penalty.

If you take triple doses 3 or more times in a week, save vs. coma for each triple dose thereafter.

Double and triple doses are considered effective anaesthesia; a single dose is aftercare. 

Soma: Commandeered from the Druids in the name of science. Makes you feel immortal.

A full dose has the following effects: halves non-lethal/subdual damage taken; -1 hp lethal damage per damage die; +4 save vs. stun, and fight on at 0 hp (to whatever is the negative hp limit used at your table), but make all Dexterity-based rolls at -4.

They will attempt to strip off their armour/clothes and drop their carried equipment if not restrained. 

Lasts d3+1 hours.

If you take it 3 or more times in a week, save vs. each dose or lose 1 Constitution permanently. 

You can take it twice in a day, but must save vs. hallucinations (or second sight). If you take it thrice, save vs. overdose at disadvantage/penalty (effects as for cough medicine, immoderately used, or purgative, plus Constitution loss).

A normal dose (barely a pinprick in a sugar pill) is enough to ease general aches, pains and fevers for d3+1 hours with no other mechanical effect. You couldn't fit enough pills in you to get anything resembling a full dose.

*Possibly derived from a dangerous and/or intelligent mushroom monster (e.g. Violet Fungi, Myconids).

Healing Herbs.

Whatever occurs naturally, that would be processed and prescribed by your setting's herbalists, folk healers and apothecaries, is potentially available to the Plague Doctors.

Some iterations of the Plague Doctor organisation will condemn folk remedies etc. as being superstitious nonsense, and/or perceive them and the practitioners to be a threat.

Healing Salve.

I generally think of healing salve as giving +1 to natural healing, even when active/adventuring (or doubling the effect). Even in a high(er) magic setting, it's a non-magical medical treatment.

You decide whether this stacks with or is already abstracted into the Plague Doctor's Treatment ability.

Or, if you prefer, the more potent version from 2e Sages & Specialists: 1 hp per day active/adventuring, d4 hp per day resting, d4+2 hp per day complete bed rest (*or these could be increments of efficacy, black mummia to alicorn to golden mummia).

Alicorn (Unicorn Horn): whether this actually contains any Unicorn will depend on your setting, but that's what it's branded as.

One dose is equal to a half-strength purify water spell (a 6-inch cube) and, applied to an infected wound, gives a new save vs. infection.

It's also an active ingredient of healing salve (see black mummia), though not necessarily in purity/concentration enough to purify water and fight infection in addition.

Black Mummia: extract of mummy (post-mortem process).

Touted as a general cure-all, but principally an active ingredient in healing salve.

If it has been harvested from an undead Mummy, after 1 week of use you must save vs. addiction. 

Once addicted, you must save after each week of continued use or contract Mummy/Tomb Rot. 

Once this kills you, you rise as one of the undead (d8; 1-5 Zombie, 6-7 Ghoul, 8 Mummy).

Golden Mummia: extract of mellified mummy (pre-, para- and post-mortem process). 

Touted as a sovereign cure-all, but principally an active ingredient in healing salve.

It is no more effective than black mummia, but significantly more expensive and renowned.

If it has been harvested from an undead Mellified Mummy (approximately, Mummy + Adherer), after 3 consecutive uses you must save vs. addiction. 

Once addicted, you must save every 3 uses or contract Honey Rot (as Mummy Rot, but also produce 2 pints of Killer Bee honey per day - anyone consuming this must save vs. disease).

Once this kills you, you rise as one of the undead (d8; 1-5 Ghost, 6-7 Mellified Mummy, 8 Vampire with bee affinity/abilities).

Prophylactics.

An ounce of prevention and all that.

Graverobber's Balm: goes by a number of other names, such as Four Thieves Vinegar.

Gives advantage/bonus to saves vs. disease for d6+6 turns. Additional doses extend duration, but are not cumulative.

It gives an additional small bonus (c. 5% or +1 or equivalent) to saves vs. diseases and parasites carried/spread by the undead. 

*Depending on your setting assumptions, this could be applied to Ghoul paralysis, too.

Mithridate: advantage/bonus on saves vs. disease/poison for 3+d3 hours.

If doses are overlapped, you are nauseated for that time.

If you take theriac while taking mithridate, they neutralise each other.

Remedies.

Tried and tested. No snake oil here. Some of them might put you in an Altered State.

Cordial: new save vs. non-magical conditions (excluding disease and poison); +1 save vs. non-magical cold for d4+4 turns.

Once per night, a dose of cordial allows you to ignore the effects of fatigue for d4 turns. It will also delay the effect of sleeping draught for the same amount of time. Further doses feel restorative but have no mechanical effect. 

More than 3 consecutive doses in 1 hour is emetic. Pace yourself.

Cough Medicine: gratifyingly effective.

Used immoderately, for d8 hours the patient suffers weakness, has second sight and must roll for astral/ethereal/psionic random encounters. Save vs. poison or lose 1 Constitution permanently.

Probably an opiate of some kind.

Elixir: restores patient to 1 hit point if at 0 hp/Casualty State, and/or down to -10 hp if administered within 6 rounds (use your judgment).

Gives advantage/bonus vs. aging damage and on non-magical death saves for 6+d6 turns.

Emboldening Vapours (Smelling Salts): immediate recovery from unconsciousness (including sleep) and nausea, and you get a new save vs. non-magical shock, stun, fear (including any secondary effects such as paralysis or weakness), and confusion.

It will restore 1 hp to someone currently reduced to 0 hp by non-lethal and/or subdual damage.

Patient is staggered (later-edition condition if no rules) for the round in which vapours are administered. 

They may also ignore any effects of fatigue for the next d3 rounds, and each dose delays sleeping draught for 1 turn.

Emetic: if taken within half the onset time of ingested poison (or within 6 rounds if not using onset time), patient gets an extra/new save (or save at advantage/bonus).

You are nauseated for 2d6 rounds (as the later-edition Poisoned condition, if you don't have rules already).

Also works on some internal parasites, and could be ruled helpful vs. certain magical potions (and other consumables).

Nepenthe: medicine for sorrow and post-surgery trauma; patient must fail their save in order to forget (the last 24 hours, or 3d8 hours if you prefer dice rolling).

Combine with hypnotic suggestion to suppress specific memories

After the 3rd effective dose, patient must save vs. addiction (or use some rules for opiates).

Panacea: effective against any non-magical negative condition.

New save if administered while suffering (oral or injection). 

Save at advantage/bonus if administered in the same round as the condition is bestowed/takes effect (injection only - Plague Doctors can do this automatically as long as they are not incapacitated/restrained and are within range; other characters must roll Dexterity or Initiative to do so).

Purgative: save vs. poison; success=weakness d6 hours, failure=sickness (as Centipede, Giant).

Even if you make the save, you're narratively shitting and puking for the duration.

Works on some poisons (see emetic) and some internal parasites, but it's mainly used as part of a general treatment programme (regardless of whether it's useful).

Allows a new save vs. addiction when you first become addicted.

Theriac: gives a new poison /venom save if administered within one-third of onset time (or within 6 rounds if not using onset times).

Multiple consecutive doses can be administered.

Supplements.

Not every discovery has a clear medical use.

Ambrosia (Beauty Cream): the economic cornerstone of the pharmacopeia.

One dose gives +1 to Comeliness, and if you use it consistently for 10 days, then daily thereafter, the bonus is +2.

As nobody uses Comeliness, this is meaningless.

*Source is 2e Sages & Specialists and it's a Charisma bonus (cf. philtre).

Aphrodisiac: it contains enough emboldening vapours (stimulant), nepenthe, sleeping draught and soma to make you think that it's doing something - particularly when taken in the appropriate circumstances (at a party, in the boudoir). 

Social overuse mechanics can be reskinned drunkenness rules.

*Aphrodisiac is also a commercial euphemism for abortifacients, contraceptives and bogus fertility treatments.

Emboldening Vapours (Stimulant): ignore levels of fatigue for d6 hours at a cost of temp. -1 to Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma per dose.

You can hold off fatigue for max. 36 hours before needing to save vs. d6 temp. Strength and Constitution damage per dose.

After 3 consecutive doses, save vs. addiction per dose.

Once the effect has worn off, you immediately suffer all levels of fatigue at once and you need +50% recovery time from normal.

Cancels out sleeping draught.

Philtre: once taken, the next person to communicate with you has 2d4 temp. Charisma (to you only) for the next 4+d4 turns.

Once the effect wears off, you can roll Intelligence to realise you were influenced. Even if you don't, prior low-regard for the influencer might be intensified by the sudden contrasts in Charisma.

This is no more effective that the friends spell.

Availability and distribution is clandestine, on a par with poison (and at least twice the price).

Spagyric: one dose will increase the effectiveness of 1 attribute of another pharmaceutical by 50%.

By itself, purgative.

Weird Alchemy.

The processes of extraction and production are jealously guarded secrets. 

Luminiferous Ether: two substances in a vessel that, when mixed, produce a light source as good as a jar of glow worms that fades over d4 turns.

If you pay more, you can get one guaranteed to last 3 turns.

It is not extinguished by exposure to water, nor lack of air. It is not fire, so unaffected by magic etc. working on that element.

Counterintuitively for some, it does not contain/require phlogiston.

Manna ('Drow Lembas'): alchemical food that is instantly destroyed by exposure to sunlight.

Exposed to air, but kept in darkness, properly wrapped, it will last 60 days before disintegrating. Eat it darkness or low light conditions, quickly.

Lightweight and nutritionally dense (equal to one day's ration), it is not appetising. The same property that prevents it being poisoned, putrefied or diseased (including parasites) means it cannot be seasoned.

Kept in an unopened packet it is good for a year.

Manna is not a cost effective way to feed oneself, let alone end world hunger.

*It can be fed to constructs/undead to quell their appetite for human flesh/life energy, if it seems appropriate in context.

*The process of creation exposes the Plague Doctor to mild radiation poisoning.

Miasma: the quintessence of disease. 

It has the general properties of stinking cloud cast at minimum level (3rd), plus exposure to the disease it is derived from.

Neutralised by universal solvent. 

Phlogiston: the quintessence of flammability. 

Exposed to air, it instantly burns up as bright flame, so can be used to dazzle or ignite low flash-point material. 

It is unstable and cannot be stored for any length of time or in quantity in its elemental form. 

Stored in airtight darkness, it deteriorates in 30+d20 days; 2d6 days once exposed to air and light.

Universal Solvent: discovered while attempting to develop a cheap substitute for holy water, this is a broad spectrum disinfectant, cleaning solution and weedkiller. 

Applied directly to a wound, it causes 1 hp lethal damage but will neutralise any disease in there. It will also neutralise parasites and poison if administered in time (if no rules for this, then no later than the end of the next round).

It inflicts d8 lethal damage to plant, filth and disease monsters.

It is a poison if drunk (min. effect purgative) but there's no way you could disguise it in food or drink (effectively putrefying it).

It can be used to purify water, but makes it poisonous.

Commentary.

Nothing here is meant to be as good as or to directly compete with magical healing. That's the point.

None of them are magical of themselves (i.e. they do not detect as such), but they probably require a magical background environment to exist.

All can be administered as pills, potions, injections, and liquid, smoke or powder pumped into various bodily openings. Some can be smoked, whether or not mixed with newly-discovered, precious, life-sustaining tobacco.

For some more pseudo-historical/thematically appropriate general medicine, plus henbane, opium, and all the other good stuff in the doctor's bag, I direct you to the Ghastly Affair Presenter's Manual.

Same overall acknowledgements for source material as for the Plague Doctor.

I always liked that the Citadel/Warhammer Plague Elemental was a sub-type of Air Elemental (and the Life and Death Elementals as sub-types of Earth) - at least until they were re-branded as daemons.

Tony Ackland/ L - R: Life, Death and Plague Elementals, plus Balrog (Baalrukh?)

Beowulf Rolls a 1

Wiglaf hearing about Beowulf's 1.
J.R. Skelton (1908)

Something of a shower thought, this one.

If a 20 is ruled/house-ruled as a crit, it often follows that a 1 is a fumble.

Very reasonably, higher level Fighters complain that this means they end up fumbling more often than less-skilled characters.

When a non-Fighter rolls a 1 to hit, it's a fumble, and they drop/break their weapon or wound themselves or trip over an imaginary invisible turtle.

When a Fighter rolls a 1, it's goddamn heroic:

• At 1st level, they break their weapon (causing normal damage) and all unlevelled and max. 1 HD/level monsters/NPCs who witness it must make a Morale Check.
• At 4th level, they break their weapon (full damage) and all max. 3 HD/level monsters/NPCs who witness it must make a Morale Check; unlevelled and lower than 1 HD/level NPCs/monsters auto-fail the Morale Check.
• At 8th level, they break their weapon (crit/double damage) and all max. 4+1 HD/level monsters/NPCs who witness it must make a Morale Check; all max. 3 HD/level monsters/NPCs auto-fail their Morale Check; unlevelled and lower than 1 HD/level NPCs/monsters auto-fail their Morale Check and must save or be rooted to the spot in awe/fear for d3 rounds.

Alternatively (or in addition), instead of the Morale Check on witnesses, you could bestow some later edition Barbarian Rage on the Fighter (1 round at 1st level-3rd level, 4 rounds at 4th to 7th, 8 rounds from 8th).

This should be enough to pull off a monster's arm or wield a giant-forged sword.

Magic weapons can be exempt from this rule, although I'm happy to see them shatter. Furthermore, the heroically shattered weapons of 4th and 8th level Fighters make suitable materials for making other magic items/weapons (cf. Narsil/Anduril).

As a general rule, if a monster can only be hit by special and/or magical weapons it's not likely to be affected mechanically even if the broken weapon is magical. 

At lower character levels and/or lower-magic settings, a non-magical weapon broken on a 1 could be ruled to cause to damage to otherwise invulnerable monsters and be eligible for re-forging as a magical weapon.

Commentary.

This is because of Beowulf, but he's not the only one to break a sword on the hero's journey.

Beowulf as foundational fantasy rpg text, via The Lord of the Rings, and as an OSR exemplar via The Eaters of the Dead/ The Thirteenth Warrior.

In a combat-focussed d20 system, this is going to happen often enough to add a dimension of the ridiculous - so you could either a) save it up for narratively significant fights or b) boringly make non-Fighters fumble on a 1, but Fighters only miss.

Not Quite Canon: BYAKHEE for Old School Fantasy & Horror

Byakhee/ Lisa Free

A re-model rather than a conversion; * for optional.

The TLDR/Basic Byakhee.

Hybrid winged things composed of conventional material. Summoned by mortal sorcerers as guardians and mounts. Called by cultists to receive sacrifices. 

Have the ability to probability travel anywhere in the universe in 1-12 hours. They cannot enter a planetary atmosphere this way, but they can leave - vanishing without trace.

They can carry a single adult human and their equipment on these journeys. They always arrive hungry.

Armour Class: As Leather.

Hit Dice: 4 (Medium/ Human-sized; wingspan comparable to Gargoyle or Harpy).

Movement: 50% of Normal Human on the ground; x2 Normal Human in flight in the lower atmosphere; x3 in upper atmosphere; x6 through space (if not using probability travel).

If carrying an adult human at the same time, reduce flying speed to x1 in lower atmosphere and x2 upper atmosphere. Encumbrance does not affect space flight or probability travel.

Attacks: 2 per round (all +1 for Strength):

• Claw/hoof/paw d3 damage.
• Bite/ram/slam d6 damage.
• Horn/spike/sting/tail d4 damage.

Special Attacks:

• If both claws hit, auto-bite or carry off (max. adult human) next round.
• If bite hits, can drain d3 pints of blood etc. per round. Will continue until you're empty, not just dead.
• If sting hits, save vs. venom as for Centipede, Giant. You will have nightmares of flight and space and cold *and Carcosa while sick.
• Swoop with surprise for double-damage; crit/natural 20 to carry off (max. adult human).
• Victims carried off can be dropped from height for falling damage.

Special Defences:

• Immune to cold (magical and normal), disease, poison, radiation, sleep and vacuum/asphyxia.
• *blink away (as Blink Dog) if it uses probability travel to escape.
• *can see invisible, ethereal, duo-dimensional and out-of-phase things.

*Spells: 40% chance of 1-4 spells. These can be blur, light, mage hand and minor illusion, if you like.

Morale: 9 (*10 vs. Mi-Go; 12 if commanded by Hastur).

Alignment: Neutral Hungry, or compatible with Hastur.

*Traditional association with Hastur as worshipper-servitors and co-inhabitants of Carcosa.

Grenadier Byakhee.

Advanced Byakhee.

They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall.

…hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember.

Bits in bold are more important than the rest of the description.

While Byakhee are composed of conventional material, they are not anchored in conventional space-time.

Not being anchored in conventional space-time means they exhibit certain characteristics of hyperspace entities. This accounts for the mortal inability to absolutely perceive their objective physicality; also the wild variations in size and appearance from encounter to encounter.

You do not wholly see Byakhee, you interpret them: ‘winged’ is an abstraction, much like ‘hound’ is for the tindalosi.

Byakhee visually de-code as devils, hippogriffs, bees, wasps, valkyries, youwarkees, skeletal butterflies with stone knives on their wings, harpies, imps, bats, angels, nightgaunts, tyranids, pterodactyls, pegasi, wyverns, star vampires, shantaks, flying polyps, jabberwockies, and -men (hat-, moth- and shadow-).

And they can also look like whatever you are primed for a Byakhee to look like (whether you've been reading The Festival or The House on Curwen Street).

Byakhee are immune to enlarge/shrink and polymorph. Neither can they be dismembered or decapitated. Certainly, not by mundane mortals.

They are affected by spells etc. as are summoned creatures - even in Carcosa.

Intelligence: Average (human-level), but rarely credited.

Telepathic and understand all languages, but communicate only in clicks, croaks, screams, squawks, squeals and whistles. Traditionally respond to whistled directions and simple commands.

Capable of mimicking a surprising range of sounds, including laughter, weeping, and incomprehensible muttering, as well as following (and formulating) complex plans.

They are unconcerned with the morality of actions they are bound/commanded to perform, as well as ethical concerns over their choice of sustenance. They mostly (privately?) find humans to be ridiculous things - fragile, limited, pliable.

Size: Roll d4:

1. Small: imp

• HD 1-1 (or d6 hp)
• 1 attack per round
• reduce damage dice increments by one step; no damage bonus for Strength
• drains 1 pint of blood in d6 rounds
• if sting hits, save vs. poison or d3 non-lethal/subdual damage
• Swoop with surprise for x2 damage, but cannot carry off targets

2. Medium: gargoyle

• as the Basic Byakhee
• if it's carrying you off, you are at -2 to hit it and score only minimum damage, but it is at -2 to hit you

3. Large: wyvern

• HD 6 to 7
• 3 attacks per round; can split between 2 targets
• +2 to damage for Strength/size
• does not drain blood, but auto-bites/continuous damage
• if sting hits, save or 0 hp/Casualty state
• can carry an armoured adult human without flying movement penalty
• Swoop with surprise for x2 damage; crit/natural 18-20 to carry off (max. armoured adult human)
• can carry off in its jaws as well as its claws
• if it's carrying you off, you are at -2 to hit it and score only minimum damage, but it is at -2 to hit you

4. Giant: dragon

• HD 10 to 12
• 4 attacks per round; can split between 3 targets
• +4 to damage for Strength/size
• does not drain blood, but auto-bites/continuous damage
• if sting hits, save or die and d3 acid splash damage to everyone within 5' of the target
• can carry up to three armoured adult humans without flying movement penalty
• Swoop with surprise for x2 damage; crit/natural 16-20 to carry off (max. armoured horse)
• can carry off in its jaws and tail as well as its claws
• if it's carrying you off, you are at -2 to hit it and score only minimum damage, but it is at -2 to hit you
• Morale +1

Their size changes relative to mundane mortals because they are arriving from fourth-dimensional hyperspace - the Byakhee is always the same size from its own perspective.

Armour Class: Roll d6:

1. Tough hide (as Leather)
2. Scaly hide (as Leather + Shield)
3. Chitinous (as Chain + Shield)
4. Hard carapace (as Plate)
5. Equivalent of descending Armour Class 0
6. Invulnerable Monster/ magic weapon to hit, and reroll for AC; any additional 6s increase the + of the weapon needed to hit

Tactile feedback does not necessarily correspond to visual expectation.

*Personal Reality Distortion: Roll d8 (except when encountered in space or Carcosa):

1. blurred (-4 to hit it the first time, then at -2 thereafter; Byakhee gets +1 to all saves)
   
2. displacement (it appears to be 3’ from where it actually is; -2 to hit it; Byakhee gets +2 to all saves)
   
3. duo-dimension (as the spell, but no portion of the Byakhee extends into or is vulnerable from the Astral Plane)
   
4. ethereal (can only harm and be harmed by other ethereal beings, but can use its spell-like abilities; can semi-materialise for feeding only; cf. Ghost)
   
5. gaseous form (as the spell, but can use its spell-like abilities; can semi-materialise for feeding only)
   
6. improved invisibility (-4 to hit, +4 to saves)
   
7. mirror image (recasts d6 rounds after images destroyed/dispelled)
   
8. statue (as the BECMI spell; the Byakhee cannot move except by probability travel, but gets AC equivalent to descending -4, plus immune to normal and magical fire; can use its spell-like abilities; can partially de-petrify for feeding only)

Stacks with and/or overrules Armour Class results.

Tactile feedback does not necessarily correspond to visual expectation. 

*Spells: 40% of 1-4 spells from this list (taken from A Ghastly Affair). Roll d10:

1. bewitch cattle

2. blacken sky

3. blast crops

4. change/steal gender (only 1 per day)

5. obtain oracle (on another's behalf)

6. protection from bullets/normal missiles (depends on milieu)

7. rain of blood/ fish/ frogs/ flesh/ shower of stones (only 1 per day)

8. raise storm

9. steal milk

10. witch’s mount (on another's behalf)

All spells are supplementary effects of the ability to probability travel - they detect as psionics rather than magic, but are vulnerable to dispel magic.

It can know spells other than these, and is able to grant a casting to, as well as perform them on behalf of, another - given the right incentives.

*The Black Man at the witches' sabbat is not Nyarlathotep.

Loic Muzy/ Byakhee vs. Shantak - not much between them, eh?

Space Mead.

Whatever space mead is and however it is made/obtained (sometimes a bee-like by-product of the Byakhee themselves), it is an absolute requirement for mortals accompanying Byakhee when they probability travel. As well as protecting the imbiber from the physical effects of space travel, it also places them in a hypnotic stupor that lasts until they arrive at their destination.

The journey takes 1-12 hours (depending on distance and/or random factors) for purposes of strict time records, but for anyone travelling without space mead it will be longer than you think and they must immediately retire the character on arrival at their destination, either dead or irrevocably, self-destructively insane.

There are theories as to why and what, but no-one alive knows for sure.

*Maybe space mead is only the best known and most widely available product for surviving probability travel with the Byakhee, and there could be rare/unique alternatives.

Erol Otus/ 1e AD&D Deities & Demigods

Commentary.

Visual shorthand is space bees and alien vultures. General consensus is that they're the things described in The Festival, but otherwise they're extrapolations in the Derleth-Petersen tradition.

I'm going to guess that they're not many people's Mythos favourites, but only the most fervent Lovecraft purist would leave them out of the bestiary - how else are you getting to Carcosa?

The RAW CoC rpg Byakhee is at the lower end of the threat range (for comparison, my conversion comes out at 3+3 HD, AC as Leather), and has no special defence against a hail of bullets, so you too could exterminate a genuine sapient extra-terrestrial in your own back yard with a few of your friends.

The Byakhee in A Happy Family (Adventures in Arkham Country). It's only pretending to be bound. I misremembered it as having chosen to do so for comfort and security - my foundation for their psychology.

Tiny B & W photograph of the Grenadier miniatures in White Dwarf had me de-coding Byakhee as winged humanoids, wearing beaded skirts and clawed gauntlets before I ever opened the CoC 2e rulebook.

In Biblical Carcosa, they de-code as Pre-Colombian Meso-American cyber-Skeksis.