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.