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.

Back to Basic - Vampire.

Reconstruction of Zosia, 17th Century Polish Vampire.

What is a Vampire?

You already know. You'll be able to fill in all the blanks I've left (apologies if you hate that kind of negative space).

This treatment is companion to the Werewolf posts (this and this) I made the other year - trying to draw more on the folklore tradition than on media.

No-one wants to become a vampire; it's not sexy and it's not cool. But it's also traditionally quite an easy thing to do.

The vampire has an affinity with night hags and other sleep paralysis demons, as well as poltergeists, and ghouls.

As system agnostic as old fashioned D&D-ish, with no hard lines between editions and simulacra.

*indicates it's optional.

Appearance.

They look like the people who have died. No fangs. No pointy ears. Not even pale. 

Often look healthy, even chubby (particularly in contrast to their victims). Well-fed, they become rosy, then ruddy, then dark and swollen with blood, skin taut like a drum, blood spilling out of not-just-their-mouth-and-nose.

Alignment: Neutral Hungry (original edition Warhammer) with at least a parenthetical 1e AD&D Evil.

That thing in the cellar is not your mother.

Faerie Fire: 5% chance of being wreathed in faerie fire (even if invisible).

*This rises to 35% in some places (Bulgaria and parts of China, for example). 

Invisibility: 15% chance the Vampire is permanently invisible.

*It turns visible when helpless/resting in its lair.

I'd say Timmy Baterman from Pet Sematary (1989) fits the bill. Killed with fire in the end (and morphine works, too).

Basic Statblock.

As a Zombie (2 HD, Move 50% Normal Human) or Ghoul (2 HD, Move 75% Normal Human) or even just a Normal Human.

Base AC as Unarmoured, or as undead type.

They can have a d12 for their Hit Die, so significantly more hp than when they were alive.

Ability Scores: If Strength was below 16 in life, raise to 16.

No Dexterity adjustment, positive or negative, but keep the score.

20% chance of retaining its intelligence, memories, languages and abilities from life. 

If not, 25% chance of Animal to Semi- (1-4) Intelligence. Can't talk; doesn't understand what's being said.

Otherwise, Low (5-7) Intelligence (AD&D Ghoul). Limited comprehensible speech, but understands what's being said.

Attacks: Unarmed attacks, including grappling and choking. Improvised weapon attacks, including thrown objects.

Bite for d2, d3 or d4 damage. Attacks vs. a biting Vampire are at +4 (tweak for system). 

A successful grapple can be followed up with an auto-bite.

Claw for d2, d3 or d4 damage vs. Unarmoured targets (only crits hit vs. armoured).

Invulnerability.

Vampires are Invulnerable Monsters, and otherwise only harmed by fire or magic; all damage reduced by half.

Special vulnerabilities will bypass immunity, but not usually damage reduction.

Killing/Laying a Vampire: use any traditional method(s). These vary region to region, culture to culture - only fire is universal; otherwise, everyone has more than one opinion. 

The Vampire gets a death save; success means that the method is partly or wholly ineffective in killing it, but if it would logically render it helpless then it does.

If a second/follow-up method is ineffective, then the third one will work (and this sequence of methods will work on others of this strain). 

Total destruction by fire or similar is always effective (no save). Magical methods will also be effective, depending on how magic and undeath works in the setting.

*It takes a lot of fuel and a long time to cremate a corpse in pre-industrial times/IRL.

Regeneration: a Vampire in its grave/lair recovers 7 hit points per rest period. 

*It can even reattach/regrow lost body parts.

Special Vulnerabilities: there's so many to choose from - any or none might work.

*Vampires are nocturnal for the same reasons Thieves are nocturnal. They are no more vulnerable to the sunlight than Orcs and Goblins - unless you choose to make it a special vulnerability.

Undead Immunities: Vampires are entitled to all traditional (logical?) in-game immunities/resistances of the undead monster type.

Worth remembering that the undead category is only so neat in-game - it's a lot looser when folklore motifs come into play (drunken slumbers, drownings, poison etc).

You Cannot Kill That Which Is Already Dead: at 0 hp, the Vampire falls prone/helpless or is driven off (back to its lair).

A helpless/resting Vampire's invulnerability can by bypassed for purposes of killing/laying it.

Special Rules.

Blood Loss.

Feeding on a helpless victim, the Vampire will drain d2 pints of blood over a 10-minute turn.

Basic requirement is 2-3 pints per night, with a soft cap of 7 pints.

Loss of the 1st pint has no mechanical effect on the victim, but every pint thereafter causes the loss of one-third of their hit points and d3 each of CON, DEX, STR and WIS. 

Once 4-5 pints are drained, the victim must make death saves/recovery rolls or be reduced to 0 hp/Casualty state.

Once 6 pints have been drained, it's save or die. Any more than that and it's death, no save.

*Adjust thresholds by +1 for CON and/or STR of 14 or more, and by -1 if 7 or less. Not terribly realistic when it comes to pints per person, but this is for a game.

*You can transfer these rules to other blood loss scenarios, but these have been written specifically for a Vampire feeding on a human(-oid/-sized) victim.

Blood drinking in combat: 1 pint in d3 rounds, and the Vampire cannot defend itself except to resist being pulled from the victim (feats of strength).

*Blood Vomit.

Close/melee range missile attack (save to evade or ranged touch attack), with target as centre of splash: d3 acid damage and effects as Cave Locust spit.

You are also exposed to disease and at risk of becoming a Vampire after death (see below).

Clerical Turning.

As a Vampire (unless you want to do it by Hit Dice).

Astral Vampires (see below) are Turned as Specials; Ghost Vampires (see below) are Turned as Ghosts.

*Contagion.

Anyone killed by a Vampire rises as a new Vampire in d4 days.

Anyone who dies of the disease that accompanies a Vampire must make a death save or rise as a new Vampire in d4 days.

Anyone who has been injured by a Vampire has a % per point of damage of becoming a Vampire when they die (rise in d4 days). This is cumulative across your life (max. 97%).

Anyone who has had contact with the blood of a Vampire has a d4% per incident (+10% for a Blood Vomit target, +3% for a Blood Vomit splash) of becoming a Vampire when they die (rise in d4 days). This is cumulative across your life (max. 97%); 

*(Successful) Vampire hunters are virtually guaranteed to become Vampires on death, which is why they always train successors.

*Preventative Measures: various traditional methods that might work, might not, or might make it more likely you'll become a Vampire on death (esp. eating Vampire grave earth and drinking Vampire blood). 

Some fairly commonplace burial practices are effective/ have anti-Vampire roots.

*Vampire Spawn: new Vampires will be similar to the original one in basic details of stats, abilities, special vulnerabilities (i.e. invisible Vampires spawn more of the same; those that retain their intelligence etc. likewise).

Creating new Vampires can be accidental or deliberate.

New Vampires are not necessarily under the control of their creator, though sire and get will usually at least tolerate each other, if not actively cooperate.

*Disease.

Disease frequently forms the backdrop to a Vampire walking abroad.

It is otherwise normally communicable (and treatable), but those who see, hear, have physical contact with the Vampire or are splashed with its blood, make all relevant rolls at disadvantage/penalty.

Cholera, plague, yellow fever and tuberculosis are all suitable for a Vampire epidemic. Less commonly, smallpox.

Mystery Vampire Disease: symptoms of anaemia, lassitude, thirst, loss of appetite, narcolepsy, catatonia/coma, hydrophobia, photosensitivity, feelings of being choked or stifled, somnambulism. In the later stages, hallucinations but also the ability to see invisible Vampires.

*Favoured Enemy of Dogs and Wolves.

Dogs and Wolves have benefits vs. Vampires as a Ranger vs. humanoids/Favoured Enemy. 

*Attacks bypass invulnerability.

*Horrible Stench.

As a Ghast/Troglodyte. Sometimes it's just their breath.

*Sometimes mistaken for the 'odour of sanctity', and the Vampire mistaken for a saint.

*Paralysis.

If you are alone and see a Vampire, save vs. paralysis or be helpless until d3 rounds after the Vampire moves out of sight, or the arrival/intervention of an intelligent living being.

Invisible Vampires paralyse by touch, and you do not need to be alone.

*Save at -2 if it's staring directly into your eyes.

This one from 1977's not even (un)dead.

Astral Vampires.

Sometimes the Vampire is a projection, a sending. It looks like a Vampire, maybe a little translucent or wispy.

The projection is semi-material, with equivalent of descending Armour Class 0, and is otherwise the same as a Vampire in stats and abilities. It is not an Invulnerable Monster, but still reduces all damage by half.

If the projection suffers damage while abroad, it immediately withdraws and returns to its grave. It may not go abroad until days have passed equal to the hit points it lost.

If the projection is destroyed before it can return to its grave, then make a death save to see if this kills/lays the Vampire. If not, it may not go abroad until days have passed equal to its total hit points.

The corpse remains in the grave and is physically vulnerable (though it is still an Invulnerable Monster). Damage to the projection does not affect the corpse and vice versa. 

If the grave is discovered/disturbed, the projection immediately returns to defend itself, arriving in up to d100 rounds (or as many as necessary for realism or drama, depending on how you do these things).

The Vampire can choose to have the projection defend the corpse, or merge with and reanimate it to defend itself (as a corporeal Invulnerable Monster with a round of helplessness). If the Vampire merges, then it can use the better hit points of the body or projection.

*Some astral vampires are projections of the living. The behaviour of the projection will at best be put down to an impostor, at worst be seen as deliberate acts by the individual. Projections of the living may go out without the awareness, consent or control of the projector.

Elder Vampires.

I don't mean ancient bloodlines and mythical sires. 

I mean that most Vampires are lucky to survive months, seasons, before they are dug up and dealt with.

There are two main reasons why a Vampire might survive longer than usual.

First, ineffective destruction/disposal methods can trap the helpless Vampire in its grave, awaiting future revival by accident or design. Sometimes this is long enough for fading of the memory of the threat it poses and the methods to deal with it properly. 

Second, depopulation and abandonment of the territory following disease and predation. Vampires don't like or think to range very far, so it will just go back to its grave. It will roam its old haunt for want of anything else to do, and eagerly fall upon passing prey, but must mainly subsist on the Renfield diet or slip into a restless and miserable torpor. 

If it can survive longer than a mortal lifetime, then it will start to exhibit weird physical changes.

Consult the tables for Hordlings (1e and 2e AD&D) and Appendix D from the 1e AD&D DMG, for ideas or to roll on. You can be as traditional or as outrageous as you want.

*An Elder Vampire drains 1 pint of blood per round, more if has outsize fangs, tusks etc.

*Per Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, wings on a Vampire is a rare and prestigious thing.

*Per Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cloven (pincer?) hands and feet are the sign of a very old Vampire. But how do you define 'very old'?

*Elder Vampires feed off other Vampires, including their spawn.

Ghost Vampires.

Sometimes the Vampire is a Ghost.

Stats etc. remain the same, but it is incorporeal and can only be harmed by magic (or on the Ethereal Plane equivalent for the setting). 

It must become semi-material to feed (or otherwise interact physically), at which point it has the equivalent of descending Armour Class 0.

The corpse remains in the grave and is physically vulnerable (though it is still an Invulnerable Monster). Each round the grave is open and the body exposed, roll an additional d6. Any 1s (or if hit point damage is caused) and the Ghost rushes back to defend its tie to the material world.

All damage cause to the corpse is also suffered by the Ghost (bypassing its incorporeality or AC 0).

Destroying the Ghost (except by special method) without also dealing with the body will only neutralise it for d6 days before it reforms and gets back to business.

Methods of disposal must generally be applied to the corpse to kill/lay the Vampire - you can't stake even a semi-material heart, for example.

Commentary.

The common rpg Vampire (and certainly the D&D-ish version) is Dracula - book, movies, comics.

Maybe the rulebook Vampire should be renamed the Dracula. There's already precedent - it's why they are Pegasi and not Winged Horses. 

The Vampire is one of the Important Monsters. It's the model of the monster-supervillain, and the first monster (give or take the regenerating Troll) that you can't just fight to death. It also often has one of the most in-depth entries in a bestiary.

The vampire is the ancestor of the zombie flesh-eater (via I Am Legend, then Night of the Living Dead).

There are so many ways of putting yourself at risk of becoming a vampire after death that it's a wonder we aren't overrun.

Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial & Death (1988 and 2010): the vampire is a corpse behaving normally.

It was rarely a mystery who and what the vampire was, and everyone knew how to recognise and deal with them. 

The D&D-ish convolution of blood-drinking vampires being a variant of the energy-drainer.

Note that it doesn't matter how much blood you have in your (character's) body, but how much you lose, and that it's intended to bypass the extreme survivability of high level characters.

In China Mieville's Bas-Lag setting, vampires are the lowest class of undead in the city-state of High Cromlech, forced to beg on the streets for blood - basically junkies. 

I know almost nothing about Vampire: the Masquerade. Should I remedy that?

In some folklore, blood is the last thing on list of things the vampire eats and only after normal food, livestock, other corpses, even bits of itself. The Dark Sun Fael is not far off this kind of thing.

See also: Croglin Vampire.

BFRPG for giving the Vampire an awkward bite attack - thank you.

A Ghastly Affair for blood-letting rules - thank you.

ELFRIC SERPENT-EYE (from Slaine/2000AD) for Basic Games

 

This handsome fellow from 2013, as opposed to David Pugh's monster, Massimo Belardinelli's bloke, or Dermot Power's & Glenn Fabry's blue imp in Demon Killer.
Art: Glenn Fabry.

From the Slaine comic strip in 2000AD. This is Elfric from first appearance in Time Killer, up to the solo gamebook adventures. System is approximately BX/OSE, with later-edition shading.

* = more optional than usual.

Elfric Serpent-Eye

Triple-eyed, blue (or yellow) - skinned extra-dimensional sybarite and sadist; changeling 'son' of the King of Norway, shape-shifter, connoisseur of horrors, equal-opportunity despoiler and degenerate, favoured lieutenant of the Cythrons, personal friend of the Emperor Nero.

Armour Class Unarmoured = Chain + DEX  Hit Dice 6+3  Movement Normal Human Morale 12

Charisma 16, Constitution 15, Dexterity 18, Intelligence 16, Strength 18, Wisdom 15

Elf 6 / Evil Outsider

Hit Dice: roll hp for a 6th level character plus CON adjustment and for a 6+3 HD monster, keep the higher total.

Elf: By name and by nature. All abilities of a 6th level Elf character (or multi-classed Elf Fighter/Magic User). 

*Consolidate/pick-and-choose class/race abilities for Elf characters/monster across available/compatible editions/systems.

Outsider: Elfric is from Els-Where, a dimension at right-angles to our own (get it?). This is where he returns to regenerate if slain on the mortal sphere; he can also return here at any time of his choosing.

Revise for your setting cosmology if you don't want to further muddy the dimensional waters.

*Reclassify Elfric as Fey if you want - he's one of Slaine's world's faerie folk, even if that means something different outside of D&D-ish.

Weapons and Armour: Elfric can use any weapon available, including those he's been impaled on.

Sometimes wields a scythe-axe, the equivalent of Slaine's axe, Brainbiter, but can impale on a crit.

No problems dual-wielding. Probably finds firearms amusing.

Treats armour as costume and cosplay (because - see below) but can improve AC by shield, magical plusses and/or armour better than Chain.

Invulnerable Monster vs. mortals wielding normal weapons (3^rd level or less), and half damage from weapons wielded by 4^th level or higher (including magical ones).

Fabry/Talbot (1985)

Immune to crits, decapitation, dismemberment, impales, massive damage effects and poison/venom.

Immune to 1st - 3rd level spells.

Vulnerable to Iron: Still only causes half damage, but the weapon doesn't need to be enchanted, nor wielded by a Hero.

In Els-Where (his native plane), an iron weapon will bypass his invulnerability and inflict double-damage. 

Cannot Be Killed: He regenerates/reincarnates in 2d6 rounds. 

Elfric even comes back from being impaled and energy-drained by Grimnismal (nine-dimensional dark god of the Cythrons).

Slaine never decisively defeats Elfric, despite slaying him on several occasions. 

Spells: Elfric does not need to prepare spells in advance, requires no components, patrons or spell book, and casts by thought (lowest possible casting time). He has slots equal to a caster of his level (plus bonus for Ability Scores, if applicable).

Prefers bondage, fear and trickery over simple destruction and mass damage.

*Select spells from any class/list, from any edition or supplement, from any compatible system.

Third Eye: As a Cythron's optical leyser, but only once per round, stun vs. 3rd level or less, and melts/shatters the weapon/device you're using against him on a crit. Can be used in melee.

Massimo Bellaridinelli (1985)

Shape-shifter: Can take on the appearance of a known or unknown person. It is sometimes said he cannot transform his third eye, but must physically disguise it.

*Treat as alter self or change self spell from AD&D, or as a Doppelganger (eg. OSE or BFRPG).

*I can't remember Elfric taking non-humanoid or animal form, but that doesn't mean he can't.

*Further Elaboration.

Law of Macrocosm: If you defeat Elfric three times, you have proved yourself immune to him, and he can no longer directly harm you.

He will, however, take delight in causing as much indirect harm to you as he can thereafter - especially via those people and things you value the most. Up to and including atrocities against your descendants, or even the future nation state that encompasses your homeland.

(This is doesn't feature again after the end of Time Killer, as far as I can tell, and maybe can be explained as only applying in Els-Where).

David Pugh (1985).

Summoning: Elfric is several times shown calling up monsters - Elementals at Clontarf; a swarm of bat-things in Els-Where; Diluvials in Roman Britain.

You can give him summoning abilities as a Vampire, reskinning the rats, bats and wolves or swapping them out for similar HD equivalents.

The Elementals are mindless, monstrous and hungry. They will stop what they're doing to feast on fallen mortals 1-2 on a d6 each round. They're more like Hordlings than D&D-ish elementals.

Favoured lieutenant of the Cythrons: It's not wholly clear (from my reading) whether Elfric's form and powers are entirely his, or whether they are gifts of the Cythrons.

Having been defeated three times by Slaine, Elfric asks the Guledig not to be sent back to Els-Where, that he enjoys human form, implying that both his form and freedom of movement are at the Guledig's sufferance.

The Fetch: Elfric can appear as the double of his chosen enemy, a traditional omen of death.

Being equally matched, the original cannot defeat the Fetch except by special means.

Mechanically, this is a lot easier than mythic narrative allows, but maybe rule that Elfric is otherwise completely immune to your attacks unless you are using a gae bolga (a traditional 'secret weapon' of Celtic myth) or a tathlum.

*El-Stones: Something like the amulet/talisman of a 1e AD&D devil or demon?

Not established as being part of the lore in the early stories featuring Elfric.

*El-Women: By no means as tough as Elfric (adding to the idea that some of his power is granted by the Cythrons), you can just use Drow stats and abilities with the vulnerability to iron added.

When you kill them they turn back into weird slug-like creatures - presumably also their and Elfric's original form. They don't regenerate.

Commentary.

Out of the 19 (maybe more now) Slaine comic books, Elfric's in only 2 as major antagonist - I had him down as Slaine's eternal nemesis and that's how I prefer to think of him. But that's what happens when you read in an achronological narrow band.

That the Replicant of Slaine in The Secret Commonwealth isn't Elfric, from my perspective, is a wasted opportunity - I have other criticisms, but that's my main one.

Slaine and Elfric are evil twins. Elfric is Slaine with no ties, no restraints - but compare the atrocities they commit during Demon Killer. Slaine thinks he is right. Elfric just likes it.

Elfric's queer-coding is all over the place, and doesn't leave a very good taste in the mouth. Slaine and Elfric do at least snog at one point (depending on choices made in a solo adventure).

My pet theory is that the reason the lore of Slaine is inconsistent is because of Elfric and Slaine's appearance at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 (and presumably Elfric was embedded in the Norwegian royal family for at least some time before), and the paradoxes that spin-off from it.

Pretty sure this is by Glenn Fabry, but Dermot Power started his run during Demon Killer (1993).

He was yellow-skinned in the collected US reprints of Time Killer, but I think Pat Mills probably had good reasons for why he would be blue.

THE DARK JUDGES (FEAR, FIRE and MORTIS) (2000AD) for Old School Fantasy & Horror.

 

Kev O'Neill

Eternal co-conspirators and bosom chums of Judge Death. 

In terms of basic mechanics/stats, treat the Dark Judges much the same as Judge Death.

Asterisk (*) indicates optional.

Morale: 10 (they're not self-destructive idiots) or 12 (they're indestructible super-fiends).

*Hit Dice: If they're not equal to Judge Death (and this could also depend on the host body and whether it's been treated with Dead Fluids), then they are probably no more than a step behind in terms of total HD, size of die used, or number of hp per die.

Invulnerable Monsters: In addition, Judge Fire is immune to fire and vs. magical (and dragon) fire, takes half or no damage.

*Fire and Mortis can also have damage/weapon resistances like Skeletons.

*Fire is immune to web, entangle and similar. Because he's on fire.

Attack with Filthy Claws: You're guaranteed to contract Mummy disease when fighting Mortis.

Fire does not harbour Mummy disease, but you take d8 hp fire damage per round of melee. Because he's on fire.

Grasp Heart: As Judge Death. Judge Fear only.

Stench of Death: As Judge Death. Judge Mortis only. 

*Fire smells like a conflagration in an overcrowded prison, with the same effects as the Stench of Death except: does not make you sick on a crit; you can't gain immunity.

Mournful Charm: As Judge Death. The other three Dark Judges lack Death's barely-controllable compulsion to kill charmed victims.

*Fire doesn't use this ability; it's not his style.

*Superhuman Strength: as optional for all or each of them as it is for Judge Death.

You Cannot Kill That Which Does Not Live: In gaseous form, they only have the ability to attempt possession.

Fire's disembodied spirit is especially threatening, because he looks like a roving fireball (or Skullghast) - but he can't set anything alight like this, and gives off no heat (he might not even cast illumination, just outlined in the dark as with faerie fire).

*No worries if you want to give them Mournful Charm and/or Stench of Death in this form, though - they are super-fiends after all.

Judge Fear - Special Rules.

Brian Bolland

Mantraps: carries at least two at all times; thrown weapons; regular rules for mantraps or mancatchers or grapple-at-range. 

Damage as for Filthy Claws +1.

Padlock: hold portal and wizard lock on any door, gate, hatch etc. Effective enough against normal humans and low-level psychics/spell-casters.

An object from a low-magic universe, attuned to a powerful supernatural being: it is Fear's willpower you challenge, not an intrinsic enchantment.

Gaze Into The Face of Fear: Fear can open his helmet and expose his face to a single target, who must immediately save or die.

If you're unlevelled, you survive only a crit success; if levelled, you survive on a normal success and are immune to the effect for the rest of the encounter on a critical success.

*If 4th level or above, you are immune (rest of the encounter) on a success. If 8th level above, immunity is permanent.

Judge Fire - Special Rules.

Greg Staples

Beneficiary of nominative determinism, arson-inclined mortal Judge Fuego became Judge Fire.

Flaming Trident: Base damage and properties as a regular trident with adjustments/effects as a flame tongue sword.

An object from a low-magic universe, it could be alien, magi- or necro-tech rather than enchanted.

The trident can be thrown as a 2d6 fireball (normal fire), and can project a 20' line or 10'x10' cone of flames for the same amount of damage. Normal saves apply.

Anyone who gets hold of Fire's trident can potentially use it, but will suffer d8 hp damage per round because it's ON FIRE! 

Judge Fire is attuned to the trident so he knows where it is, if someone else is using it, and can call it to him if nearby (strength/grapple contest if you're wielding it when he does so).

Special Vulnerability: Takes unsoakable non-lethal damage from water and fire extinguishers – you can subdue him this way, but it won’t stop him reigniting later and it won’t force him into gaseous form.

*Combustible Hosts: Unless treated with Dead Fluids, a host body burns at a rate of d8 hp per minute  then flares up as a 2d6 fireball (normal fire) at 0 hp. The host is reduced to ash and Fire assumes gaseous form.

Judge Mortis - Special Rules.

Carlos Ezquerra

Death, Fear, Fire and Mortis has a good rhythm to it, but why not just Judge Decay? That is his schtick after all.

Based on a reading of the character in Fall of Deadworld, Mortis is an aesthete (and enthusiast) of death and decay.

Maybe he chose the Mortis nom de guerre out of respect for Death?

Touch of Decay: Mortis makes a touch attack equivalent to the attack of a Mummy (d12 rot/necrotic damage, plus infection with horrible rotting disease - no save).

Claw damage stacks with the touch attack.

Special Vulnerability: Weapons of pure metals, such as gold or silver, bypass his Invulnerability (for half-damage).

Contact does not discomfort or harm him; they're just unaffected by his touch.

*Decomposing Hosts: Unless treated with Dead Fluids, a host body rots at a rate of d12 hp per minute. The host is reduced to dust/slime and Mortis assumes gaseous form.

*Further Elaboration.

Judge Fear’s Helmet is also Warduke’s helmet (XL1 Quest for the Heartstone: gives infravision to 60’).

If Fear is on the same plane, he knows where it is, and will seek out the wearer to possess them. 

He will whisper to them in dreams to encourage them to do horrible things ("Hey - why is this parent-friendly commercial tie-in fantasy villain being so relentlessly edgy and grimdark?").

While Fear will possess Warduke if possible, he’d rather possess Warduke’s conqueror and spend a bit of time pretending to be the villain back from the dead before reverting to type and trying to bring his necrotic buddies along.

Perfect opportunity to turn Greyhawk into your local Deadworld.

Commentary.

Jim Murray

I'm not saying it's definitely the reference.

d66 Monsters of the Necropolis River Delta

You cross over the Dry Red & Ochre Hills and descend to a country of lagoons and channels - feats of ancient engineering swallowed by luxuriant growth and centuries of silt. 

This was where the nameless Necropolis Culture flourished. Swallowed up by the very conditions that allowed it to rise and thrive. 

The seasons are Misty, Flood, Hot, and Rainy - in whatever sequence you like best.

The Tower of the Astromancers is the only remaining intact structure that can be identified at a distance and with any certainty. It's importance to the Necropolis Culture (and those trying to plunder it) may simply be survival bias. But it was definitely somehow significant.

The Grand Necropolis is speculative, but firmly fixed in minds and on maps (though not its specific location).

1. Roll d6:

1. Killer Mud Pigs (1-3): Dire/Prehistoric Capybara, size of a Hippo and equally bad-tempered. Its mud-clogged fur foils infravision, just like in the documentary, Predator (1987).
2. Sentinel Crabs: ubiquitous; about the size of a dog; shells make cheap, short-lived shields. Signal to each other with rhythmic claw clicking, gathering in greater, louder and more intimidating numbers around whatever their current interest. Normally non-aggressive, scavengers and opportunists.
3. Skims: ray-like creatures look like floating mats of weed until they take to the air. Big ones can completely envelop you; small ones are like hairy leeches. Possibly intelligent.
4. Grindylows: Velya to the Croglin Vampire; ghastly clutches of them trapped in shallow pools, whispering for blood and darkness. Coughing cries ring out and are answered during the misty season, as they reminisce and plan for swarming during flood season.
5. Big Sleek Rats: predatory otters. May have ghoulish habits and taint from slithering through the tombs and scavenging the resting undead. 1 on d12 they’re Ghoulish Weres.
6. Banshee Caterpillar (1): named for its distinctive whinnying scream; colonised by bioluminescent animalcules; entrapping web strands; adhesive spit. Eventually burrows into the earth to pupate. No one knows what the adult form is, how long the gestation, nor total numbers waiting to hatch.

2. Roll d6:

1. Greasy Cormorants: nosy, noisy, gluttonous. Will flock your camp to snatch your dinner, and any loose shiny things into the bargain. Defensive and malicious projectile regurgitation and defecation.
2. Giant Catfish (1): can haul/hurl its bulk out of water and over solid ground - survives several hours out of water. Possibly delicious, mostly harmless, can swallow you by accident. 1 on d6 it’s capable of speech and wisdom (or a reskinned Aboleth).
3. Vicious Otters: aggressive and territorial, otherwise common otters. Local lore ascribes them human intelligence and powers of mimicry, if not of actually being shapeshifting witches.
4. Psionic Squid: if you’re immune to their abilities, they are quite sad-looking grey squid. Otherwise appear to be arabesque fractal peacocks with an infinite array of Mandelbrot tentacles. They’re learning to communicate with other lifeforms, but hampered by short lifespan, demanding breeding cycle, lack of transmissible culture. They’re not sure whether to make friends or take over the world.
5. Gross Bitterns: stout, dodo-like swamp birds. Communicate and defend themselves with infrasound. 
6. Lord Verdigris (1): colossal golem, still running on an apparently eternal power source; programmed to ceaselessly patrol the region, but nothing seems to occur that provokes a response. Infrequently dashes off swathes of heliograph messages to the distant Tower of the Astromancers.

3. Roll d6:

1. Terror Crane (1-3): Colossal nomadic wading birds. Incapable of flight. Criss-cross the delta, leaving a trail of incidental destruction and the empty shells of giant marsh clams.
2. Amber Golems: undead-android dinosaur/lizard-folk; guardians and soldiers of the Necropolis Culture, they follow ancient orders but could be reprogrammed. No one living knows the secret of their construction.
3. Thrif (Death Leeches): elemental anemone-urchins that spawn in places with heavy necromantic fetor. Animate alien-plant-animals absolutely loaded with dark mana. Respond instinctively to stimuli; casually lethal.
4. Shellycoats (Troll Gnomes): remnants of the Necropolis Culture's summoned slaves. Articulated hides clatter and ring. Agonisingly fused into glassy stone by the sun’s rays. Most are small because they don’t get the nutrition or leisure to get big.
5. Mist Drakes: chirruping vaporous things that coil out of the saturated air during the hottest, most humid days. Ephemeral and elemental, superstition holds them to be the ghosts of those who die in and near the Grand Necropolis.
6. Dragon Turtle (1): often mistaken for an island or undiscovered ruins, the Dragon Turtle is one the ancient spirits of the land, and you can only interact with it when it inhales, turning time back to when this was nothing but shallow sea. You've got until it breathes back out to interrogate it and to survive the aquatic dinosaurs and Serpent People mariners.

4. Roll d6:

1. Graveyard Crabs (1-3): tottering giant crabs rumoured to have grown huge on a diet of ancient corpses, but just the natural end of the Sentinel Crab lifecycle - they have grown too big, too fast and cannot sustain the necessary feeding and shedding. They go to ancestral grave sites, where - amidst great drifts of fragile, demineralised remains - they topple over and die. That’s where they’re heading when encountered.
2. Scum Creepers: slimy animate tubers that prey on weak and/or sleeping animals. Actively inedible.
3. Flame Dead: Necropolis Culture undead, wreathed in unearthly flames. Appear either as flickering perpetually offended versions of their living selves, or shrieking candle-wax skeletons. Distant processions of will-o-wisps are said to be Flame Dead pacing the walls of the Grand Necropolis.
4. Grendels/Fomorians: monstrous remnant of the Necropolis Culture; Thouls led/championed by Troll-Ghasts and ruled by Sea Hags (all reskins). Mortality horribly stretched, they require life energy (levels, ability scores) to maintain mental stability.
5. Punkies: halfling-like swamp folk; their lives do not look that attractive from the outside, and considered no better than Goblins by surrounding settled peoples. At least some of them take grim pleasure in decoying biggers into danger; at least some of them eat those they trick.
6. Rusty Derelict (1): counterpoint to Lord Verdigris; decomposed, predatory golem; lubricated with fat, blood hydraulics, and motivated by captured brains. Necromantic engine the likes of which has not been seen before. Haunted.

5. Roll d6:

1. Algal Mummies: weak to air and poison/pollution. Dreamy and meditative, they have become solipsistic druidic monks. Confined to algae-choked flooded tombs, they see through the web of life and animate water-plants to intervene in the breathing world. Think they are the undead remnant of a named individual but really the vehicle of a weird organism.
2. Fungoid Mummies: ornate and bursting with cordyceps-antlers; style themselves as the ultimate form and true inheritors of the Necropolis Culture. Cordial relations with the Mi-Go. Think they are the undead remnant of a named individual but really the vehicle of a weird organism.
3. Gunpowder Beetles heavy and slow; packed with tomb nitre and alchemical waste, warmed by necromantic radiation. Attacked or surprised, they produce a loud crack and a spark of utter darkness (blinding on the mortal sphere, visible on the Astral Plane) accompanied by the stench of brimstone and necrotic damage. Can be harvested and processed.
4. Widow Elves: bereft across centuries, forever mourning long dead mortals. The Necropolis Culture apparently did a brisk marriage business with similarly lost and forgotten Elfish nations, and these grief-mad lamias (and quite probably thousands of fey-blooded ancestors) are all that remain. At least equivalent to your basic Drow in abilities and equipment.
5. Giant Marsh Clams: can you justify a stat-block? Basically, bear traps you can eat and use the shell as a low-quality shield. 2 on 2d6, they’ve been feeding on Psionic Squid for generations and are capable of levitation and mind blast.
6. Dinosaur Ghosts: elementals and thought-forms that pile up in the sky, or loom vast from the mists. Terrifying, spectacular, mostly harmless. Abruptly real when the Dragon Turtle inhales.

6. Roll d6:

1. Lord of Fevers (1): gargantuan processional crustacean-centipede, supported by filmy wings grouped on nodes along its length. Emanations of blast-furnace gut cause radiation sickness. Probably a Larvae of the Outer Gods. Festooned with extra-dimensional parasites. Mostly out-of-phase with the material world; solidifies during Mist season.
2. Pazuzus: wiry, rangy, black manes and feathered wings; refugee demons from the bottom of the pecking order; melancholic because escape has cut them off from the Great Murmuration, choleric because they prefer significantly less earth and water in their environment. 
3. Hippogriffs: beaked and scaly croco-wolves; prefer lonelier hunting grounds as the mammalian predators soundly out-compete them in their niche. Their long-term survival as a species is in doubt, but prolonged by their feeding cycles being measured in months (even seasons) rather than days/hours.
4. Necromancers: apart from the sartorial distinction, they might be any other adventuring party exploring the wilderness. Roll d6: 1 turning undead and not by choice; 2 frosty but non-aggressive; 3-4 untried entry-levels; 5 in possession of something worth taking, whether you know it or not; 6 much too powerful for you to go toe-to-toe.
5. Mi-Go: maybe no more than a small away team across the whole region. Roll d8: 1 following the Lord of Fevers at a worshipful distance; 2 buzzing around the Tower of the Astromancers; 3 observing Lord Verdigris at a respectful distance; 4 taking samples and measurements from Rusty Derelict; 5 retrieving Shellycoat remains with extendable pincers; 6 vacuuming Mist Drakes into compression tanks; 7 containing Thrif in energy bubbles; 8 attempting to communicate with you.
6. Sabre-tooth Woolly Mosquitoes: immortal relicts of what came before the Necropolis Culture. Torpid for millenia, cocooned in something resembling fossilised tree resin; bumbling and mindless through lack of proper regular nutrition, still digesting prehistoric meals from animals long extinct. 3 on 3d6 there's a single Brood Queen waking from torpor, monstrously gravid with parasitic larvae, and capable of reviving the species. For stats, start with a Stirge.