Elves are wolves, because of predictive text/auto-correct.
They are grey-haired with an under-bite; pointy ears and eyes that reflect red; subtly pointy teeth; bare arms and no coats/cloaks, even in the deep winter. Dress in dull natural shades, overgrown with leaves, or simple furs. Shorter than humans, but stocky, solid.
Can be mistaken for surly farmhands or rebellious peasants, until you realise they're just waiting for you notice they're not.
Don't like fire and noise (gets them a bit Grendel). Eat an uncooked, omnivorous diet; meat-heavy for effect. Prefer traps to ambush.
Immune to mortal diseases, but can be poisoned. Can cast spells in either form. Can communicate with animals, and often team up with owls (and wolves, unsurprisingly).
Carry and use stone, bronze and copper tools/weapons; iron burns them; steel cuts them just fine.
Elven boots worn by mortals allows stealthy passage through the woods and the snows, and leave a trail of paw prints. An elf instantly knows when a mortal is wearing their boots, and all elves recognise the false trail.
There are no elven cloaks, but hairy elven belts that allow mortals to transform into wolves under the moon (not necessarily full). You need to take your clothes off to transform, and you need both those and the belt to reverse the process.
If you have half-elves, the other half is wolf, not human.
Chthonians are Martians...
...because maybe I misread something in The Jennifer Morgue (Chthonian war machines?).
If you have access to the materials, take a quick look at Chthonians, Lloigor and Flying Polyps (my reference was Call of Cthulhu 5e). I know they're different from each other, but there's also a big strip of 'same' running through them all.
I'm following a line of thought as follows: Chthonians are Martians (but not from Mars); Chthonians are Lloigor are Flying Polyps; Chthonians are also Der(r)o (Shaverian and/or Veins of the Earth rather than D&D).
They're significantly bigger and bulkier than humans, but by no means the giant worms of the source material, with a face full of tentacles and a boneless sac of a body. They might have a roughly frog/toad-like form (because this is still the Mythos); limbs are rudimentary, muscular flaps of hide. Probably no eyes, but clusters of pearly orbs that are mistaken for them (the unfertilised eggs they constantly produce). A bear of most suitable size crossed with a salamander would serve for a stat block in a pinch.
If their habitat is not the molten regions beyond the mantle, it's certainly the hottest and meltiest of the subterranean realms. Low(er) temperatures, volumes of water, and excess of oxygen have deleterious effects on them; they crust over, go into hibernation and dim dreams, and petrify inwards if not recovered by their own kind.
Chthonians are highly technologically advanced. Surface-dwellers (and we'll include most subterraneans in this category, too) have knowledge only of the extensive range used to terrorise and dominate, with domestic appliances being restricted to the deepest, hottest places where no mortal could hope to survive.
All the things that the games say Chthonians, Lloigor and Flying Polyps can do at a distance (draining your energy, trapping you at your desk, flattening a town, horrible nightmares, reptilian manifestations etc), these Chthonians can also do, using machines - either deep beneath or in their carriers.
Chthonian carriers look a bit like the Chthonians you're expecting, but maybe with a three pronged grapple instead of a mess of flailing tentacles; they can stand up and stride about on these, repurposing the rock-melting ray as a weapon and releasing great clouds of rare, poisonous elements.
Unintentionally, Chthonian incursions release bizarre spores from the subterranean realms, which mutate and colonise the surface.
Like the mind flayers want to put out the sun in some editions, the Chthonians ultimately wish to drive the planet into the solar corona at which point they would evolve into magnetic plasma beings. This is their religion, so this could be nonsense.
If you have access to the materials, take a quick look at Chthonians, Lloigor and Flying Polyps (my reference was Call of Cthulhu 5e). I know they're different from each other, but there's also a big strip of 'same' running through them all.
I'm following a line of thought as follows: Chthonians are Martians (but not from Mars); Chthonians are Lloigor are Flying Polyps; Chthonians are also Der(r)o (Shaverian and/or Veins of the Earth rather than D&D).
They're significantly bigger and bulkier than humans, but by no means the giant worms of the source material, with a face full of tentacles and a boneless sac of a body. They might have a roughly frog/toad-like form (because this is still the Mythos); limbs are rudimentary, muscular flaps of hide. Probably no eyes, but clusters of pearly orbs that are mistaken for them (the unfertilised eggs they constantly produce). A bear of most suitable size crossed with a salamander would serve for a stat block in a pinch.
If their habitat is not the molten regions beyond the mantle, it's certainly the hottest and meltiest of the subterranean realms. Low(er) temperatures, volumes of water, and excess of oxygen have deleterious effects on them; they crust over, go into hibernation and dim dreams, and petrify inwards if not recovered by their own kind.
Chthonians are highly technologically advanced. Surface-dwellers (and we'll include most subterraneans in this category, too) have knowledge only of the extensive range used to terrorise and dominate, with domestic appliances being restricted to the deepest, hottest places where no mortal could hope to survive.
All the things that the games say Chthonians, Lloigor and Flying Polyps can do at a distance (draining your energy, trapping you at your desk, flattening a town, horrible nightmares, reptilian manifestations etc), these Chthonians can also do, using machines - either deep beneath or in their carriers.
Chthonian carriers look a bit like the Chthonians you're expecting, but maybe with a three pronged grapple instead of a mess of flailing tentacles; they can stand up and stride about on these, repurposing the rock-melting ray as a weapon and releasing great clouds of rare, poisonous elements.
Unintentionally, Chthonian incursions release bizarre spores from the subterranean realms, which mutate and colonise the surface.
Like the mind flayers want to put out the sun in some editions, the Chthonians ultimately wish to drive the planet into the solar corona at which point they would evolve into magnetic plasma beings. This is their religion, so this could be nonsense.
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