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Monday, 9 September 2024

First and Final Encounters in Chagrinspire & Death Guard





































Some fluff for your first contact on the road inwards and for later wasteland travel. 
These are mood setters to explore the setting and give some more odd memorable encounters. A bit of a mixed sweets today 

any subjects I need to do more on?
more monsters?
more automaton sexy clockwork assassins?
trains stuff high-priority now

Death Guard**
Black Sphere Flesh Golems
AC +6 HD 8 (40hp) Unarmed x2 2d8 Morale 12 (8 if alone) Mov 12 
They may also grab or punch or kick as use a weapon +4 damage bonus
-one hand hold gives +2 to hit further attacks vs the held target, each round after d8 damage
-two hands hold, 
+4 to be hit while held, automatic 2d8 as target torn in half,   
All in a constant telepathic link within 1km, share needed HP to wounded comrades
Requires +2 weapons to harm, regenerates 1hp per round except vs fire or acid
Severed parts after battle might be a menace AC+3 HDd4 Punch d4 or grab 
Electricity does not harm them but acts as a haste spell for a d4 round after a hit

Equipped with a leather helmet with a chin strap and trunks with straps over shoulders but mostly naked. Often carry a short haft large large-bladed spear made of solid steel. Good for throwing like a javelin but does 2d8 and for hitting enemies like burning elementals best not touched by hand. Require beyond human attributes to use

Made by the black sphere initially in vat-grown protoplasm then later from human body parts rendered down into protoplasm or recycled tissue. The process became cruder and more out of control and is now rarely seen. At the height of the apocalypse war, they wiped out most of the armies of the world and almost depopulated the continent of humans.  Mad in batches called gangs are sent on search and destroy missions and kill any moving thing larger than a rat on a patrol route or t then resume searching or if instructed await orders. 
Their extensive mind link allows to cover more ground to scout then swarm to attack together. The longer they are used the more likely the mindlinked gang go insane. Once this happens they go on an out-of-control killing spree like a river of angry flesh. The recycled ones broke down faster and were vulnerable to mutations while the pure-plasm ones are more resistant. Some lasted longer on guard duty without violence or alone. Their flesh is useless for necromancy due to alchemical vat treatments. 

Some say the psychic utterances and cries of these beings called Xor to the world - a universe of living flesh that eats other worlds.  Legend says the trolls we know now wiped out troll civilisation before the gods and giants and dragons were even fighting.

A Quad is a minimal gang of four
A section is eight 
A squad. 
with 16 is a squad
bigger groups are increasingly dangerous and they may turn on the masters

They don't have officers or commanders with them but one per squad will have an antenna for sending brief reports to the home base and receiving orders. Berserk units tear the antenna out or eat the comms unit.

d6 Varients
1 Fresh pure-plasm formed and mindwiped and frozen between missions by gnome handlers. Wear iron cuirasses 
and helmets AC+8 plus extra spears and sometimes will carry bombs and morale 12 
2 Old plasm found in old labs, more prone to confusion, insanity with only 100 range mind-link and too dumb to use weapons other than victims they grab. They don't last long morale 10  
3  Recycled freshly in service unit as standard on mission morale 12
4 Bloodied and still obedient, some scarred, a few improvising and using weapons even just hurling them. Morale 11 
5 Veterans are sketchy and more individual in appearance and behaviour, some with guns and homemade weapons like trench clubs 
6 Berserk are insane and kill everything till they are killed Morale 12 +2 hit and damage fight to -10hp
Ones in decline are sent on more dangerous missions like d4 1=chaos behind enemy lines 2=lead a wall breach 3=charge a position 4=guard isolated places

Failing Morale tests accelerates their chance to crack up
Incongruant orders -1 morale
Deathguard vs Deathguard -1 morale
Lose half the death guard or the gang loses half hp
Sole unit in a gang -2 morale
Aerial or artillery bombardment -1
Survive the awful gory battle surrounded in blood

First breakdown save vs confusion 2d4 rounds and telepathic link breaks
Second and later save, they become berserk and begin craving flesh and blood even though they do not need to eat but heal 1hp per person or medium fresh corpse they eat

Some loners survive and resist a second save roll here

d6 Deathguard Lone Survivor
1 Sick of violence and wanders away looking for peace and isolation possibly at high altitudes where humans can't breathe.
 Immune to berserkerism and will take lots of hits before sprinting away to recover
2 Fetal position sobbing and ignoring the world would be happy if it was buried (but then goes berserk if it is dug up later)
3 Questions violence and dedicates itself to killing potentially violent beings it encounters for peace. 
Immune to berserkerism and will take lots of hits before sprinting away to recover
4 Wander off and find some books and spend months becoming miserable philosophers in a cave or ruin and wearing clothes and 1in6 learns to speak or write, 
Immune to berserkerism
5 Wants to join human society and convince people it means no harm without speech by mime. If rejected with violence it makes a morale roll to avoid going berserk
6 Finds a hide and becomes a slow stalking methodical killer who craves human flesh and brand and looks increasingly weird and hairy. Immune to berserkerism

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This is some stuff to set the vibe when entering thee wastes and first few trips.
Once in the wastes you can see the wall around the base of Chagrinspire half crumbling ruin and smothered by mud. Most people in the continent can see the middle section and sometimes the top

The second table is weirder scary encounters which may lead to knowledge of the secrets of Chagrinspire

d12 First Encounters on the way to Chagrinspire
1 Scavengers searching through garbage stop and stare at passersby and will flee if spoken to or approached (some bands don't trust outsiders)
2 A hungry child urchin begs for food and wants to tag along. Explains an angel told them and other children to come on a children's crusade here (there are an awful lot of kids like this in the wasteland who or what is tricking them to come here) 
3 Kobolds are banging an artillery shell with hammers to open it (boom)
4 See a distant explosion or hear them in the distance
5 See geese flying at the mid-levels of Chagrinspire (about 8km up)
6 Slavers chasing some people through a minefield, after explosions some are wounded hanging in barbed wire crying for help
7 Robed men in the distance load a cart with corpses and fend away vultures, when they see you they flee into the wastes away from your path
8 Muddy lone crusader knight on a horse looking for missing squire before leaving, asks strangers if they seen anyone  on travels
9 Merchant with two wagons and a dozen soldiers, some with muskets, the rest with crossbows. Wary of strangers but friendly if credentials are good. If they like strangers, they will invite them to join them until they reach the next trading post
10 Two men fighting over a small wooden box with six bottles of imperial gold brandy are getting hurt quite badly. Both are bandits and will be surprised if strangers get close while fighting
11 Donkey with a pack nibbling at the grass with a pack of scavenged junk, there is no clue as to who owns it (maybe the owner is a highly resentful jerk)
12 See distant auroras around Chagrinspire seemingly influencing weather

d12 Weird Encounters in the Wastes of Chagrinspire
1 Hear screaming men, explosions and guns. Animals uncomfortable. Anyone with any spirit sight might sense the dead soldier's spirits re-enacting an ancient battle (which might be horrifying and require a fear save if you can see it)
2 Hear an explosion and some screams. See several black sphere made flesh golems run towards some dust or smoke in the distance. If you look where they were there are the remains of torn-apart adventurer corpses and equipment mostly smashed but valuables left and possibly some magic (this is to make these horrors a feared presence for the future)
3 See the earth crack and earth fall into the opening d4 1=sinkole into a buried ruin 2=a trench system and dugout entrance is exposed 3=ancient tunnel or sewer system collapsed 4=guargantuan fleshbore worm size of a bridge raises IRS head and roars then departs
4 Mechanpod giant beetles excavating muddy crater for corpses it loads onto a steam traction engine (they will go to an underground lab so the bodies can be made into undead or flesh golems) 
5 Feel a voice in your mind from below begging for aid and promising power and cruel destruction for your enemies (god or a demon killed in the apocalypse war seeks to be revived but needs the Black Sphere power siphon removed from its corpse to return as a lesser spirit or demon unable to do much it claims but it is as arrogant as it used to be)
6 Twitching and crawling body parts in a burned crater (parts of destroyed flesh golems which could be repaired) 
7 See a classic dungeon beast with a few unpleasant cosmetic mutations like tentacles and tumours. It is sick and vomiting blood or dragging its but leaving a trail of dungeon threadworms and has some barbed wire on its leg. It would be an easy kill but the corpse would be a biohazard. If the creature is somehow helped it might like the party
8 Meet a wounded on the run alchemist in an ancient lab uniform of the Black Sphere who offers gold to help get out of the wasteland. Locals know this is a bad idea but point the way, but they know to keep away. Chagrinspire will send a d4 1=automaton assassins 2=deathguard 3=gnome sappers in mole machine or airship deploy automatons first or mines or bombs 4=killdozer juggernaut golem with magical tracking. He has important plans he hopes to sell to the faraway rich city alchemist guilds (plans to make an inferior death guard or an automaton or other monstrosity)
9 Something is sobbing and shaking under a pile of earth and locals will warn stay away (this broken death guard loner will go berserk if disturbed from its immortal misery)
10 Find a damaged cart with d4 dead passengers and donkey (hit a land mine or were carrying explosive weapons they found) 
11 Scavenger sees newcomers and mentions a possibly bad tip for adventurers d4 1=to a slavers camp 2=hidden cultist shrine 3=offers to sell a treasure map of ruins with a dangerous monster  4=a small community welcomes traders
12 An animal follows the party and seems friendly and is a supernatural being d4 1=curious spirit animal folk 2=hungry lycanthrope 3=imp spy from hell  4=druid shapeshifter seeks help and looking worthy allies. Eventually tells of how two rival druid factions one who create monsters to make the waste worse for everyone to slow The Black Sphere vs the old way who want to heal the waste and stop the black sphere forever.

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