Three Foods of The Land Beyond The Great Forest

There's three dishes that really stand out.

Blood Soup.

Rich, red and warming. Packed with paprika. Normally made without blood, but a concentrated base of pork (or less commonly, beef) stock. 

Recommended to build you back up when you're a bit pale and drained from sleeping badly the last few nights. Traditionally a remedy for anaemia - hence the name.

Variations include floating chunks of pickled beetroot, much much more garlic, or absolutely no garlic at all. Sometimes served in a hollowed-out stale loaf.

When served chilled and congealed, it is sliced like sausage as an accompaniment to strong drink in the open air. The gelatinous texture is an acquired taste.

Hunter's Broth.

A simple soup of bone broth, salt and a mix of alliums. Traditional peasant dish, to be enriched with leftovers. 

It is thought that it gets its name from being fed to those injured in hunting accidents to determine the severity of stomach wounds. The distinctive smell would indicate internal perforation, and the poor soul would prepare for death. 

This may also be reflected in the tradition of adding a symbolic drop of crushed belladonna to the soup as it is served.

Another theory is that it's an example of ironic peasant humour. Surely no hunter would attempt to stalk animals after eating something so heavily seasoned with garlic that it scents your sweat.

The tourist recipe is significantly milder with edible berries in place of the belladonna, and served with toasted (or stale) bread floating on top. Sprinkled with cheese, and/or shredded dried meat.

Red Velvet Chicken.

According to folklore, a meal personally prepared and served by the head of a noble household to a guest of more humble station. 

Red and glossy. A powerful symbol of hospitality, it is purported to encourage restful sleep and agreeable conviviality.

Originally a simple, rustic chicken dish, the recipe now includes expensive imported spices - the different combinations and proportions said to reflect the characters of both past and current armigerous clans.

The brightly-coloured example in the nicer coaching inns is more affordable. Contains lots of paprika (and sometimes garlic), instead of the rare and precious spices.

The most authentic-looking (and expensive) tourist version contains cumulatively poisonous (but surprisingly palatable) metallic dyes. The locals aren't fooled, by appearance or by taste, but the adulteration is overlooked by less-conscientious authorities as long as adverse reactions are few, rare and restricted to tourists. 

System Agnostic Mechanics.

Blood Soup: double-rate recovery from health and attribute damage from blood-loss, blood-disease and assorted haemovores and energy drainers, living and (un)dead.

Hunter's Broth: belladonna for bonus vs. surprise by vampires/minions, and resistance to lycanthropy; stench vs. vampires as (eg) Troglodyte, and penalty to surprise/stealth.

The tourist version has no mechanical effects.

Red Velvet Chicken: disadvantage/penalty on saves vs. sleep, charm and hold. Can be specific to the villain, or more generally. 

The tourist version lacks the psychoactive compounds - it's tasty but usually overpriced. 

Tainted meals give a cumulative 1% chance of getting really sick per portion consumed. The poison is purged at a rate of up to 5% per week after last dose.

Commentary.

Thanks to what is now Strange Studies of Strange Stories for the idea/image of the Count making Jonathan Harker his supper.

The soups seemed thematically appropriate without being too light-hearted.

DINOSAURS! - Back to Basic

The Mandela Effect has eliminated the 40+ dinosaur stat-blocks from Advanced and Basic D&D, leaving only scattered references - including that they're big stupid hungry reptiles.

Oh no! Have to make my own in a lonely-fun vacuum. 

Compatible with most old school D&D-alikes/derivatives.

(And apologies to dinosaur aficionados and experts).

Proof!

They don't need species names: Big Hungry, Old One Eye, the God-Beast,

Hit Dice.

As they are equally huge and weird (see above for proof), dinosaurs can be built on the 1e AD&D Froghemoth, meaning they get 16 HD.

Armour Class.

Things like Pterodactyls are leathery so they have AC as leather (+2); most other dinosaurs are scaly so they have AC as scale armour (+3). The dinosaurs with armour plates (you decide if Stegosaurus is one of these) have AC as plate (+6). 

Triceratops gets +1/+2 vs. missiles for having a shield round its neck - Stegosaurus might also qualify for back plates, if you've not already decided they're armour plated.

Pterodactyls can also get +1 to +3 for flying, or nothing if you think they're clumsy, ponderous fliers.

Attacks.

One big attack for 6d6, or can split the dice between up to six opponents. 

Pterodactyls always split three ways: beak and two wing buffets for 2d6 each (and see below). 

1d6 attacks are incidental bashes, blunders and buffets in the melee.

2d6 and 3d6 attacks are claws, kicks, flipper and tail swipes and so on. Includes the bites of small-headed herbivores.

4d6 and above are carnivore bites, single-target stamps, goring and tossing with horns. 

6d6 is the slavering jaws of the Tyrant Lizard King, being trod on by a Brachiosaurus, sat on by a Triceratops.

If you prefer, 4d6+ attacks don't need a hit roll, you save to evade.

Various 3d6+ attacks can cause hull damage; 4d6+ can cause structural damage.

Special Attacks.

On a successful hit of 19-20 vs. a human-sized target, the dinosaur inflicts a special.

(If smaller than human-sized, special on 14+)

The big carnivores swallow you whole; the big herbivores trample you underfoot. 

Auto-damage (save to resist for half) each round until you can escape/are rescued - you're pretty helpless while being digested/stomped. Various bits of equipment are at risk.

Marine dinosaurs knock you into the water or swallow you if you're already there; includes capsizing and holing boats.

The armoured dinosaurs with spiky tails knock you prone and you drop whatever you're holding - lose Initiative and no attacks for two rounds (one to pick up your weapon, one to get back up - in any order, or you can crawl away). 

You can also use this for rams, butts and tossing by the bone-headed and the horned dinosaurs.

Flying dinosaurs carry you off into the sky, or knock you down (like a spiky tail) with a wing buffet, or knock you off the branch/bridge/deck/ledge with same.

...unless they do an apocalyptic swoop - an AoE attack of up to 16 dice, but also suffers same number of dice damage itself. If you like, use massive damage instant death rules on it. Maybe it's also on fire because the volcano has erupted.

Special Defences.

Immune to spells that don't cause points of damage, normal fire and poison/venom.

Use your judgement - it'd be shame to spoil a cool improvisation or cunning plan for the sake of a statement. 

There's special cases to be made for all sorts of illusory tricks, setting things on fire, freezing the lake/river/swamp, casting disintegrate as the stinking jaws close round you like a cage, enlarging toads thrown into the yawning throat etcetera.

Stupid Dinosaur Behaviour.

At this stage, dinosaurs are pea-brained monsters of appetite and are easily fooled. 

Carnivores always attack and always attack the nearest largest suitable target. Includes siege engines, other dinosaurs, submarines, airships, lighthouses, mining equipment, atmosphere processors, time-machines, and trains (etc).

Herbivores generally only attack if attacked. If surprised (whether or not with hostile intent), they must pass a Morale Check or stampede - trampling you into the dirt (as special, above - and see below).

Horned herbivores can set vs. charge, but mainly do so against other dinosaurs (and similar, above).

All dinosaurs can fight on for d3 rounds at 0 to -16 hp (or if their head has been disintegrated in spectacular improvisational manner). 

Split their attacks between as many opponents as possible, and on a natural 20 (or a 1, if you prefer) they topple over (dead) on whatever they're fighting for a 6d6 AoE.

Morale for most dinosaurs is 8. On a double six, they go berserk and fight to the death, even turning on each other.

Morale Checks can also be triggered by 10+ points of magical cold/fire damage, or a similar amount of electrical damage, in a round.

Commentary.

These are the dinosaurs of Ray Harryhausen and Charles R. Knight and not as many Doug McClure films as I thought. They don't even aspire to Jurassic Park levels of accuracy, let alone have feathers.

I've noted elsewhere that my opinion is the older edition dinosaurs are high in number, low in inspiration.

I think the E/X of Basic D&D probably got it about right by having a limited range, even if they're otherwise unexceptional in their treatment. The Master set consolidation (particularly after the Latinate glut of the 1e AD&D Monster Manuals) was a sensible move, and was the spark point for this article.

CYTHRONS (from 2000AD's Slaine) - Monster for Old School Fantasy & Horror

 

Glenn Fabry.

The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property. (Charles Fort)

AC Unarmoured   HD 6+3 or 8+4    Movement 100% Normal Human    Morale 11

Time-travelling humanoid alien demons that inhabit Cythraul, a hell-dimension that is in fact the Earth millions of years before the appearance of earthly life. Imprisoned (in space, but crucially not in time) after losing a cosmic war, they are analogues in Slaine's world for the Great Old Ones and Old Ones/Elder Things.

They feed on the energy produced by human emotion, especially the negatives ones. As well as food, this energy can be harnessed towards the goal of awakening the dead/sleeping High Cythrons and freeing themselves from the Earth.

Alignment: We're nothing but stupid animals to them. Some of them like hurting us more than others. Some keep us (or merely a scrap) as pets. Mostly we're raw materials.

Three-way alignment, they're Chaotic, I suppose; nine-ways, they're a mix of Lawful and Neutral Evil - possibly representing the organic farmers (millions of year alien conspiracy) vs. the battery farmers (full-scale alien invasion).

Dexterity, Intelligence and Strength: min.12 in each; 13/15/13 min. array for 8+4 HD Cythrons.

Roll d6+12 for exceptional individuals. Modifiers as for stat/system.

Innate resistances: Half or no damage from cold, electricity and normal fire.

They are immune to acid, poison (inc. gas)/venom and the related abilities of jellies, oozes and slimes. These are variously cleansing, refreshing and therapeutic to Cythrons - they enjoy them.

Unless specially made, their armour, equipment and garments do not share any or all of these resistances.

And they hate it, spoils a good abduction.

Weapons and Armour: swords, axes, spears and pole arms of various levels of sci-fantasy sophistication but really anything they/you want, including their bare hands (prolonging their victory so they can feed on your desperate fear, puny mortal).

Can use leyser weapons (sci-fantasy magical energy weapons - swords, pistols, cannons) but - from the comics- favour minions, hand-weapons and optical leyser beams (see below).

Cythron Power Suit: the wearer look like a sci-fantasy ancient astronaut insect-skeleton stormtrooper (see above). Often look like ancient images/descriptions of deities.

• As protective as chainmail, as encumbering as leather.
• Activated by thought control:
•  +5 bonus to AC* and saves vs. all attack forms, protection from normal missiles, resist cold, resist fire.
• Non-Cythrons will need to be instructed or experiment in order to use the suits as more than passive protection, but even a brutal and unimaginative barbarian will find it easy enough.
• 8+4 HD Cythrons get the added benefit of protection from mortals - immunity to non-magical attacks from 0 to 3rd level characters. 
• Optical leysers: 2 beams per round for 2-12 hits, plus save vs. stun (1-4 rounds). Electricity or energy immunity works against the stun effect. Ranged touch attack, adjusted for cover (including shields).
• Fly as a glowing energy ball. I'm going to rule that you can travel through any non-solid medium without ill-effect in this state.
• Additional weight/living beings can be carried. In the comics, a Cythron abducts Nest (female human druid), and Slaine rescues both Tlachtga (female human fighter) and Ukko (male dwarf thief).
• Non-Cythrons need to concentrate while doing this. Double-ones on 2d6 you botch landing/re-entry and materialise in an occupied space. 
• I suggest contested saves to see who survives if it's a living being. If it's an object, roll, argue or judge to see if you have the reflexes and wit to turn back into energy and rescue yourself (still take a critical wound worth of damage). 

If one was to come onto the mortal market, it would as likely trigger an actual war as it would a bidding war.

It's sufficiently advanced technology that it's indistinguishable from magic. How it interacts with magic (and dispel magic) is up to you and your setting/system.

* Can stack with the passive protection, because I've based the Cythron power suit mechanics on Oard technology. However, I'd make protection from mortals the main effect and only use the higher AC bonus - but that's because I'm a low-armour kind of fellow.

Communication (8+4 HD only) with anything that has equal or lower species-average Intelligence than they do.

This is a universal translator ability, but they can also use telepathy - especially with minions.

Cythrons invented Common, and then took it away as a joke/punishment (symbolised in the Tower of Babel). 

The 6+3 HD Cythrons have a lesser and non-telepathic ability to speak with anything that has a language (within the range given above).

See Aura (8+4 HD only): As well as your emotional state they can easily determine your alignment, experience level and whether you are under a curse/spell. They will not be fooled (or not long fooled) by (human) disguise, polymorph or invisibility. 

The ability is a biological function and blocked by things that would foil normal vision. I'm going to say this includes magical darkness. In fog and smoke, they can probably tell you have an aura, but not the specifics.

What Was Left Out.

The Guledig (Praise Be His Name!) and the High Cythrons (Cthulhuvian in their nine-dimensional glory).

Myrddin, sired on a human mother by the Guledig, and by implication, other half-Cythrons.

The niceties of the bio-welder and the organic blender. 

Cythrons can re-make living things, for amusement and for utility. Reskin any monster as various forms of Orgot (organic-robot). AD&D Mongrelmen and Broken Ones/Shattered Brethren serve as abandoned experiments and grotesque pets. All these things are, at some level, human.

Cythron regeneration. Only one featured Cythron does this (three times, shedding its skin as it does so and extruding sucking tentacles). Slaine claims it was feeding on his energy, but he doesn't seem to suffer for it.

Cythrons vs. charm etc. As Nest is able to use the Talisman of Venus to charm the Cythron, Oeahoo, so at least the 6+3 HD Cythrons are not immune to mind-affecting magic.

How this translates to a D&D-ish system is up to you, but a quick rule could be that 8+4 HD Cythrons are immune (so Knuckles the Medium can't charm Pseudo-Osiris) and the 6+3 need two castings and to fail both saves.

Relationship to the Laws of Macrocosm - acts of so-called Good and Evil tip the balance in favour of the other side. A game of rock-paper-scissors in which you have to tell your opponent what you're going to play, and the least worst way to win is for nobody to take a turn.

Earth Power. There's at least two (1) (2) Slaine rpgs, so there's rules out there you could crib.

Commentary.

I stopped regularly reading 2000AD after the first part of The Horned God (early 1990s - switched to Fortean Times), and tended to re-read the earlier stuff in the time since (stuff I actually owned) - with the first part of Time Killer being one of the gaps in my collection.

Because it's a lot easier to access nowadays, I've speed-read c. 40 years of Slaine recently and that's the spark that lit the where's-the-Slaine-old-school-homebrew tinder. 

I can see why the Time Killer/Tomb of Terror arc wasn't remembered fondly, comparing it to what came before and (some) of what came after. Maybe the story/worldbuilding suffers because it's an episodic comic strip, put together week-to-week? I don't think the dungeon-crawl role-playing game tie-in did it any favours, either.

BUT: I was always able to squeeze a lot of juice out of it, and Glenn Fabry's art is great.

If this exercise wasn't about the Cythrons, then you could use/reskin Oards.

If you think they're a little bit low-powered for god-like beings, then graft on some later-edition types & sub-types (Aberration and Outsider?) onto them, maybe give them a d12 Hit Dice into the bargain.

Ian Sturrock did a piece on leyser weapons and Cythron characters (+2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma, +4 bonus when making magical attacks) for the d20 Slaine rpg. 

DILUVIALS (from 2000AD's Slaine - Time Killer) - Monsters for Old School Fantasy & Horror

 

Glenn Fabry.

AC +5    HD 1+4    Move 100% Normal Human    Morale 8

Beetle-skeleton tribal humanoid monsters. Plucked from the remote past to serve as minions.

One weapon attack per round for d8 (or by weapon).

Champions have +6 AC, 2 HD and 9 Morale. One champion can act as leader for 2-12 lesser Diluvials.

Leaders have +6 AC, 3+1 HD (min. 16 hp), 9 Morale and +1 to damage. They are accompanied by 2-12 champions as bodyguards.

The special weapon of the Diluvials is a bone-conch triple-horn that acts as a horn of blasting that can also transmute rock to mud once per day.  These are non-magical durational effects (10 minutes) and 50% of lost hit points/structural damage is recovered if the target is not destroyed/slain in this time.

Maximum of one horn per 10 Diluvials. Must be wielded by a champion or leader.

Diluvials not commanded by a champion or leader will:

• stop fighting and feast on fresh kills on a 1-2 on d6 each round
• switch allegiance to the most obviously physically powerful character/monster if they fail a Morale Check

Diluvials of all types will not seek cover from magic or missile attack, nor do they make Morale Checks when subjected to same. This is because they are stupid.

Further Elaboration.

The triple-horn does damage tagged as sonic/sound/vibration, and its powers can be adapted to transmute rock to lava and stone to (lifeless) flesh. 

Transmuted flesh is permanent and used to feed the mass of Diluvials. 

They also like to use the triple-horns to liquify living victims so that they can drink them (traditionally irrevocable short of a wish) - this delicacy is usually reserved for leaders.

Higher-level Threat.

While they remain minions/sword fodder, use the leader statblock for all Diluvials to make them a higher tier threat. 

Number appearing is 2-12.

If there are at least 10, they have a triple-horn. Or, each has a 10% chance of carrying one.

Horror Monsters.

Number appearing is 1-3. Use the leader statblock. Claw/claw or claw/claw/bite if they are unarmed.

There is only one triple-horn.  It has all of the possible abilities. The Diluvials do not necessarily possess it at start of play.

If there are two Diluvials, together they can produce an infrasonic moan (as a Cloaker). If there are three, they can generate lethal vibrations (as a Death Watch Beetle, Giant).

These are the ones I'll convert for Call of Cthulhu.

Commentary.

First appear in Time Killer (1985), and that's where most of the basic information is drawn from.

Mechanically, they're the Giant Beetles with a bit of Goblin mixed in. 

There've been at least two Slaine rpgs and the Diluvials never made the cut.