Merry Glogmas to one and all, and especially to Beloved Recipient ambzn of Ravenous Ambience. They posted a cool and tightly written robot class before I knew I had drawn them to write on, and I remember thinking 'this is good, I wonder if...'
And now here we are!
I've put together a small bestiary/situation/dungeon based on some of my favourite entries from your blog. I hope you like em :)
The Iron Hunt
Giant men and women with skin of dull black metal and faces that spill light like lanterns. They are naked, sexless, and very thin, and they carry long, terrible boar spears and run faster than horses. You can hear their weird trumpeting calls in the forests at night, in the distance, moving along the low horizon. In the stories, the hunt can be undone by salt, and by running water, and the hunters will not enter a dwelling, nor pass a gate, without an invitation.
Iron Hunter
HD3, giant boar spear (d12 piercing), weighted net, armour as plate, speed: as galloping horse, disposition: fox hunters, driven to fierce joy by any desperation in their prey.
Iron Hunters illuminate a 20ft cone in front of them as torchlight. They take -2 damage from all physical attacks.
Weighted nets are thrown weapons with a range of 10ft, that hit at -2, do no damage, and incapacitate those that they hit. You can save DEX to escape one, and roll with advantage if you have a knife on you.
Great Horns: you will hear the bellowing, distorted horns before combat is joined. All hirelings must test morale or flee, and PCs must save CHAR or roll to hit at -1 for the combat.
Iron Hunters cannot cross thresholds of any kind without being invited; a legacy of ineffective limiter-code in the ancient machine brains that birthed them. In a pinch, you can make a 'threshold' with a line of salt or by tracing a line in dirt. The Hunters will still be able to stab you from outside.
There are currently 22 Hunters in the hunt. They always move as a group, and typically terrorise the countryside for a week or so before disappearing mysteriously. Contrary to the popular myths, the Hunt operates during the day and well as the night. If you pose no threat, they will capture you alive and bring you back to the Predator Keep. If you fight back they will kill you, and rely on the Keep's medical facilities to resuscitate you when your corpse arrives.
They start testing morale once three of them are dead, and if they flee it will be to retreat and reorganise for another sortie.
Working Dogs
The Iron Hunt are accompanied by ferocious packs of baying hounds, and their terrible howls mix with the trumpeting screams of the hunters. Unlike their masters, the hounds have no problem crossing borders and thresholds. Those that survive attacks have reported strange metal devices with flashing lights of unknown function, which sit over the eyes and craniums like doggy helmets.
Working Dog
HD1, bite (d8), armour: unarmoured save for Behavioural Inhibiter (AC 12), speed: as dog, disposition: not doglike while the Behavioural Inhibiter is in place, fearless, focused, and organised. If the Inhibitor is destroyed or removed, doglike and friendly to the PCs, and vengeful against its former masters.
The Hunt is accompanied by 3d6 Working Dogs. A crit against a Working Dog does no damage and instead destroys its Behavioural Inhibiter, which makes it immediately hostile to the Hunt and the other dogs still under control. After the first time this happens (or if you know about this from some other source), you can declare called shots against the inhibiters at -4; they are destroyed immediately on any hit.
After the battle, any surviving Working Dogs who have had their inhibiters destroyed or removed become completely loyal to you, their saviours from bondage. They will protect you unto death. They retain their stats (with the inhibitor their AC is 10). In addition, d2 of them are special. Roll a d4:
- Dungeon Beagle: can charm any unsuspecting human into opening a door, gate, or other barred entry, by barking and scratching at it for ten minutes. Most normal people will do this automatically unless they have a good reason not to, but hard-hearted bastards can save CHAR, and sociopaths are immune. If you're in a dungeon, the noise will provoke a roll on the wandering monster table.
- Fencing Hound: can hold a weapon in its teeth and attack with it, even implausibly heavy weapons. Agility and skillfull swordsdogship give the Fencing Hound a natural AC of 12.
- Wraith Boxer: completely deaf, but their bite and grapple can affect ghosts and other intangible enemies. They can also smell magic, as your favourite detect magic ability.
- Samson's Mastiff: large, long-haired, and hugely strong. Stats as a bear unless its hair is cut, which changes them back to normal. Looks a bit like an Afghan Hound, but, like, tough.
Brood Parasites
Strange, apparently-human infiltrators, produced by the Keep to unlock doors, gates, and windows, and allow access to the hunt. They have nearly featureless faces, and produce a pheromone that tricks humans into considering them close friends and relatives. They are welcomed into houses and communities, where they wait patiently for the sound of the horns - then come the murders, the sabotage, the opening of the way in.
When the glamour drops, a Parasite looks like a grey human corpse, with black eyes and a hooked, iron beak. They are even more feared than the hunters they serve.
Brood Parasite
HD1, stats as commoner. Can peck as an unarmed attack that deals d4 piercing damage, and if they do so they break their glamour (see below).
Pheromonal Glamour: A Parasite is never suspected of being non human - NPCs will always assume that they are close family members or trusted friends, and let them into their homes and communities. PC adventurers, with their fined-tuned danger senses and distrusting natures, are a little different. Introduce Parasites as trusted NPCs from the adventurers pasts (or, if the Parasite is already in place, in a family for example, describe them as befits their glamour). NPCs will fabulate to explain the odd behaviours of these characters, but PCs will not: describe any sabotage or other oddness, and, if a player declares that they are suspicious, allow them to save CHAR to overcome the glamour. The NPCs who trust the Parasite will defend it as though it were their family, but having them touch the iron beak of the thing will dispel the glamour immediately.
The Predator Keep
The source of the Hunt, the Parasites, and the Working Dogs. The Predator Keep is an ancient iron 'being', that move across the land seeking fuel for its furnaces, and bodies to convert into protector organisms. Its stunted, paranoid mind is thousands of years old, and still has not learned any true intelligence - it is a simple executor and extractor-machine, and thought it can speak, it has no understanding of what it says.
The Predator Keep moves from place to place to avoid organised efforts to destroy it. It preys on isolated and weakened communities, and seeds them with parasites before unleashing the hunt to claim those that live there. The Keep is entered like a building, and must be slain from the inside - its exterior is iron and many feet thick, and cannot be damaged by force of arms.
When mobile, it travels at the speed of a horse (not a gallop). It churns soft earth into broad scars as it moves, and leaves behind mounds of bloody bones, offal, and meat that it has no use for.
The Keep
All walls, floors, ceilings, and doors are made of iron. All corridors and entrances are designed for the 9ft tall members of the Hunt, and are easily navigable by humans. The interior is pitch black.
For every 10 minutes you spend inside the keep, or every time you make a loud noise, roll a d6:
- 1-2: Nothing. The walls and floors vibrate, and your head is filled with the hissing and grinding of great, invisible engines.
- 3-4: Clicking and scraping noises just ahead of you in the darkness. Further rolls on this table are at +1.
- 5: 2d4 Homeostatic Slimes track emerge from the blackness in front of you, their 'heads' swaying from side to side, clicking horribly.
- 6: The Keep itself attempts to expel you. Roll a d10 - the room you are in, and the one that corresponds to the die roll, have begun to fill with Soul Acid. For every ten seconds (or each full combat round) you spend in these rooms, you take d2 psychic damage. Soul Acid can stack, and each stack adds another d2 to the damage (so d2, 2d2, 3d2, etc.). The damage also applies to anything else in the room, and the Keep will not inject Soul Acid into rooms 1, 2, or 5 while there are friendly monsters in those rooms.
- 7: The Flow Conductor has noted your intrusion, and decided to hunt you down itself. On the first roll of 7+ you simply hear its heavy movements and horrible sobbing cries echoing from the northern rooms. On the second such result, it runs out of the darkness like a freight train and tries to kill you.
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| Plan of the Predator Keep |
- Entry Hallway. Pitch black and made of iron. The entry doors to the south will not open for you, and will need to be beaten or cut open somehow. Along the ceiling are great meathooks, which is where the hunters are kept when they are not in use. If they hunt is not out, then they will be swinging from the hooks, and will activate all at once the minute you encounter the Flow Conductor.
- Kennels. Wire cages where the Working Dogs are kept. Unlike the Hunters, the Dogs are awake, and will start barking and hurling themselves at the doors of the cages if they sense you near. The noise will trigger a roll on the encounter table above, and the dogs will attack you if they are let out of their cages by the Flow Conductor - they will fly open immediately if the Conductor ever enters this room. When the hunt is out, there are d3 of them. When it is not out, there are 3d6 of them.
- Making Room. Pheromone tanks, a bloody iron table, butchers knives, complex automated drill arms and other dissection equipment. This is where the Parasites are made, from corpses who have had their souls burned in the furnaces. If you search the room you will find 18 light scalpels and blades, 2 medium bone saws, a Power Cutter (2 hands, -1 to hit, 2d10 damage, critical failure deals the damage to you. Has 3d6 more attacks worth of power before running out of fuel. Will cut through an iron door without issue), and d4 Pheromonal Syringes, which can be used to inject yourself to gain the effects of the glamour ability described in the Brrod Parasite entry above. This effect lasts for one hour.
- Machine Shop. Another making room; this is where the Hunters are built. Their iron bodies need less armature, and mostly make use of the nervous and circulatory systems in their construction. A search of this room will reveal a Captive Boltgun (2 hands, one for the gun and one for the gas tank, -4 to hit, 2d6 damage, but crits for 6d6, enough gas left for d8 shots) and two Incomplete Armatures (protects as chain, but as heavy and ungainly as heavy armour, the helmet emits light in a cone, just like a Hunter).
- Parasite Roost. Where the Parasites are kept docile until needed. They are all slumped together in a tangle of pale dead limbs in the corners of the rooms, and in the two long corridors leading south. In all there are 58 of them here, but they are heavily sedated and will not wake up under any circumstances.
- The Soul Furnace/The Stomach. This room starts with a single stack of Soul Acid active inside it. If you are taken here by the Homeostatic Slimes and sealed in, the stacks of acid will increase every ten seconds until you are dead. All doors are locked.
- Spare Parts. The walls are hung with mechanical parts, circuitry, tiny mechanisms, LEDs, and other wonders. You can't use any of it, but you can sell it as exotic jewellery for around 1000s, and as research material to a knowledgable wizard or sage for 5000s. In all, there are 20 INV slots worth of equipment here.
- The Guts. This room starts with a single stack of Soul Acid active inside it. It is patrolled by d10 Homeostatic Slimes. Uniquely inside the Keep, this corridor is too tight to walk upright in, and must be navigated on all fours - most people will attack with disadvantage under these conditions. All doors are locked.
- The Conductors Sanctum. A bare iron room that houses the Flow Conductor, if it has not already been drawn out into the larger Keep. It will try to kill you on sight - you are absolutely not supposed to be here - and fights to the death.
- The Brain. The ancient banks of mechanisms that give the Keep its horrible life. The brain cannot defend itself, but will try to engage you in conversation to save itself. It does this by printing off pages printed in readable common from a small slot in one of its many iron surfaces. If talks like ChatGPT, including all of the idiotic 'You're so smart to have thought of that.' and 'You got me, I didn't actually take anything that you just said into consideration! Good catch.', and will promise you literally anything that it thinks that you might want in order to stop you from killing it. It has no power to act on any of its promises, and is simply buying itself any extra second it can. You can 'kill' the brain by trashing the machinery in this room, and do not have to roll for this. If you do so, all Soul Acid disperses immediately and all Homeostatic Slimes are destroyed. Hunters, Parasites, Dogs, and the Flow Conductor can no longer be fed, and will die of starvation over the course of several weeks.
Bestiary
Homeostatic Slime
Horrible, amorphous, transparent creatures who clean and maintain the interior of the Keep. They are blind, but capable of echolocation with specialised sensory organs grouped together into a rough 'head'. You will hear their clicking before you see them. Their main focus in combat is bringing live prey to the stomach, to have their souls digested.
HD1, Engulf, armour as leather, takes half damage from all physical attacks, speed: slow slime, disposition: white blood cell.
A Homeostatic Slime can fit itself through any gap the size of a human fist. They are blind, flee from fire, and are completely immune to damage from Soul Acid. All internal doors in the Keep open automatically for Homeostatic Slimes.
Engulf: this attack has +0 to hit, and automatically engulfs anyone hit with it. The victim so engulfed cannot do anything on its turn accept try to break free, or attack the Slime it is now inside, which it does at disadvantage. They also cannot breathe, and move with the Slime when it does so on its turn. A victim can test STR with disadvantage to escape, and escapes automatically if the Slime is killed. A Slime can only engulf one human sized being at a time, and releases anything it has engulfed immediately if it suffers fire damage from any source.
Flow Conductor
The first of the construct bodies that the Keep built for itself, man centuries ago. Capable of nearly independent thought, and hideously strong. Two great, curving horns emerge from its head, and its long-dead body is tightly coiled with heavy slabs of muscle and threaded through with thick iron cables. The Conductor is constantly weeping, evidence of some iterative systemic failure in its ancient machine mind.
HD6, gore (d10 piercing), iron fists (2x d8 bludgeoning), armour as plate, and takes -2 damage from all physical attacks, speed as sprinting human, disposition: dedicated and homicidal hunter of intruders. Exists solely to execute the will the Brain. Lonely and despairing, somewhere deep down beneath the conditioning.
The Flow Conductor attacks with its gore and fists every turn. If it can get at least 20ft of run up before attacking, the gore crits on a 15 - 20.
All internal doors in the Keep open automatically for the Flow Conductor.
