Hell's Hoods: The Fat Man

The arch-devil Mammon is the lord of greed. He’s boss of the Pluton Family, which keeps the books for the entire Hell Syndicate and sees to the corrupting of mortal souls with avarice. Mammon has his meaty talons in loansharking, real estate schemes, gambling, and counterfeiting.


In this age, Mammon appears as a rotund, horned, oxblood-skinned humanoid in a banker’s suit. His scrawny legs might not be able to support his bulk, if it weren’t for the efforts of his small (yet obviously strong) wings. With them, he's as light on his feet as a ballerina, if the need arises. His flabby jowls are pockmarked. His golden eyes glint like dancing coins in the big score never obtained. He smells like old leather. His shadow is gray, swirling, and pungent as cigar smoke.

Combat: Mammon assiduously avoids combat whenever possible. If necessary, he uses his diabolic abilities below.

Diabolic Abilities: The infernal boss possesses a gilded pocket watch that can stop time in a room or small area for up to 3 minutes or cause a person to age 2-20 years. Turning any unit of currency in his hand, Mammon can fascinate a victim who fails a saving throw with dreams of avarice. He can only use this power once on any given individual. Mammon can tell the complete history of any piece of money he holds, including (in broadstrokes) the desires and goals (particularly sinful ones) of anyone who held it.

Pacts: Summoning Mammon involves heating a coin taken off a person recently dead in a sulfur flame until it burns the summoner’s hand. Mammon can unerring locate any item of monetary value anywhere on the material plane. He can magical alter any financial records to hide fraud or any financial related crime from the agents of Management. The most common reason Mammon is petitioned, however, is the acquire wealth--though this requires a faustian contract.

Magic and Science

In the chat Q&A and a couple email exchanges, I’ve gotten questions about the relationship of magic and science in the world of Weird Adventures.  It seemed like a good time to do a post to clarify, as the setting doesn’t follow the strong separation of the two seen in a number of other rpgs or fictional worlds.

In the City and its world, what people call “science” and “magic” are areas of knowledge which together describe a spectrum of phenomena (or perhaps, phenomena and noumena). Science deals with the material world (the Prime Material Plane, specifically) and repeatable observations about things within that world.  Magic, on the other hand, deals with the interaction of other planes with the Material Plane.  While thaumaturgical studies have certainly led to repeated observations, the performer of a magical experiment is linked to the results, and the forces involved are not always measurable or observable.  

In the dim past or the modern age, the two areas of knowledge have never been completely separate.  Briefly, here let’s look at the spectrum of disciplines leading to technology in the modern City, from strictly physical to most metaphysical:

Science: Humanity’s accumulated knowledge and understanding of the physical world, without account for noumenal forces or extraplanar interactions. The results of this knowledge have produced technology usable by all.

Alchemy: A field focused on the magical or metaphysical properties and interactions of physical substances.  The dividing line between chemistry and alchemy is blurry; various individual experiments or techniques make greater or lesser use of magical interactions.  Alchemy can lead to mass produced products, though these are perhaps not as stable or predictable as the chemistry of our world. 

Artifice: When alchemists moved into the production of homunculi, and thaumaturgists into fashioning automata, the artificer's art was born. Constructs or automata can be made in factories, but their power supplies and mechanical brains (if they have them) are fashioned by alchemical or thaumaturgic means. These techniques can produce devices that might be termed “super-science”--like death-rays or anti-gravity.  Because of the heavy thaumaturgic influence needed, these sorts of devices aren’t mass-producible at the current level of technology,and instead are the work of lone genius (or mad) inventors.

Magic: The ancient art of effecting change in the physical world by will, i.e. the application of forces and powers often extraplanar in origin and not really measurable or detectable (except in their effects) by current scientific means. Thaumaturgy has laws, but these can be idiosyncratic, and often make more intuitive sense than strictly reasonable.

Take a look at the Weird Adventures Index for posts dealing with examples of these technologies.

Relax and Enjoy

Nothing goes better with a good beer than updates to the Weird Adventures Index.

You can check out a few monsters you might have missed, including the gill-men, the oh so sweet (and oh so deadly) candy zombies,  and the undead weirdness of the swarm of husks.  If travel reading is more what your in the mood for, then how about an exotic locale like Demiurge Island?  If you'd rather stay closer to home, you can enjoy that good beer in the bar at the Capricorn Hotel.

Maybe you like travels of a more metaphorical nature?  Then let the doors of perception open your third eye through the use of weird psychedelics or take a no less harrowing trip down some adventurer's photographic memory lane with the contents found in a shoebox.

Hell's Hoods: Meet the Avernus Family

Damned souls fresh of Charon’s ferry from the Underworld, step off into Hell’s quarantine and processing centers. All this territory along the docks on the Acheron, is controlled by the Avernus crime family. It’s boss, Andras, was described yesterday. Now, let’s take a look at a few of his subordinates:

Murmur: Andras’s moll--and his underboss. She appears is a pale woman with straight, black hair, wearing a cloak of vulture feathers and little else. She wields an obsidian knife when forced to do so. She is an adept necromancer, and will summon the spirits of the dead for a summoner for interrogation. Murmur runs the processing center and ensures every one of the damned go to their appropriate reward.

Barbatos: The consigliere of family Avernus, he appears as a thickly-bearded old man dressed as an Old World peasant. He roams near the docks of the Acheron like a vagrant, mumbling to himself and setting simple traps for vermin. He could be just another of the damned, driven mad by his experiences. The old devil may be damned, but he is far from mad. He knows the languages of birds and animals. He’s adept at settling disputes, mostly in his family’s favor.

Flaures: A captain with the appearance of a humanoid leopard with flames dancing in his eyes. He’s sometimes mistaken for the Cat Lord--which is a good way to earn the Cat Lord’s ire. He dresses in dapper suits suggestive of Ascianan styles and smokes cigarettes in a holder. He performs most of his assassinations by fires. For a summoner, he can answer questions on past, present, and future, but is also willing to make contract hits on demons or devils.

Hell's Hoods: The Owl

The devil known as Andras the Owl is the current boss of the Avernus family in the Hell Syndicate. His family’s territory is closest to the Astral Plane. As long there as been a Hell, they've been tasked with the processing of new arrivals: both run-of-the-mill evil souls and those fulfilling general faustian contracts.  

Andras rose through the diabolic ranks as a hitman and since he became boss, the Avernus family has gone into the business of murder for hire.

In the modern age, Andras appears as a thin man with the head of an owl in an immaculate suit (of conservative cut) and gloves. His large, soulless eyes glow like headlamps.  He never speaks; communications are carried out through surrogates (sometimes a Hell Syndicate made man, other times a black dire wolf that accompanies him) with whom he seems to communicate telepathically. He smells like clove cigarettes. His angular, razor-edged shadow can cut creatures less than 1 HD that it falls on.

Combat: Andras uses knives of a silver-like material that cause wounds that will not heal normally. A favorite tactic is cutting a mortal’s face in a Cheshire grin, then coming back to kill them on a night of the new moon months or years later.  The blades will sublimate if exposed to sunlight in about an hour. He also has a high-powered rifle that appears to be made from the fossilized bone of a qlippothic beast and fires hell-glass bullets containing fragments of a sphere of annihilation. Any entity hit by them is sucked into the void contained within.

Diabolical Abilities: Andras's unblinking stare can cause severe inflammation of the eyes, resulting in temporary blindness.(lasts 1-10  rounds of successful saving throw, 2-20 days on failure). Once per encounter, he may issue the croaking cry of a night-raven which may cause fear in those who hear it.

Pacts: Andras will take contracts for hits on any mortal being, particularly if doing so will put others’ souls in peril. A petitioner must fatten 13 white mice on his own blood and then feed them to an owl of pure black plumage.  The petitioner must collect the regurgitated pellets and use them in the drawing of a ritual circle. Summoning wards must be strong; if Andras escapes he will most likely kill everyone present.  

In Oceans Deep

For a race that has long bedeviled the surface world, the gill-men remain mysterious. Any school child in the City knows the story of Horatio Stormalong who repelled the last incursion of the creatures, but the only modern account of them in their native habitat comes from the memoir of a journalist held hostage by the merman separatist and terrorist known as Nemo.

Nemo’s vessel seems to have been captured by the gill-men in the ocean’s depths and taken to a sunken ruin of ancient Meropis where the gill-men lived.  Though this point was never entirely clear, it seems the gill-men consider themselves the descendants of the Meropisians. If this is true, the forces led to their smaller stature and inhuman appearance are mysterious.

Gill-men seem a distinct species from the sea devils, who are larger with toothier maws and may be (horribly) interfertile with humans.  They also seem unrelated to whatever species the head of Thraug belongs too.

Nemo’s encounter with the gill-men shows they have made advances in technology since their last attempted invasion, even if not exactly at pace with humanity's.  This fact, combined with their belligerence and organization, suggests the gill-men remain a potential threat to the surface world. 

[Mechanically, treat the gill-men has aquatic versions of humanoids of some sort. Either goblins or hobgoblins.]

One of the divers from Nemo's vessel captured by Gill-Men

   

Opening the Doors of Perception

While mind-altering (and mind-expanding) chemicals have long been known to mankind, but there has been a prejudice against their therapeutic use by the church, science, and modern thaumaturgy.  In recent years, renegade scientists and alchemists have begun to catalog and experiment with these substances--and some maverick thaumaturgists have even begun to take notice.

These chemicals are often grouped under the name phantastica, but all fall into subcategories based on their effects on the mind and body.  While few engender the physical dependence observed with alcohol or various bootleg alchemicals, they can pose serious risks to the psyche.

The use of various phantastical mushrooms is of ancient vintage.  It has been suggested that the fruiting bodies of fungal sapients are among the most potent, and their widespread harvesting by primitive man drove these beings to near extinction and created enmity lasting to this day.

Mescaline (derived from several New World cacti) is one of the most widely studied phantastica. Some thaumaturgists have attesting to it aiding the early stages of magical research by increasing intuitive connections with the Planes Beyond.  Indeed, mescaline's only consistent thaumaturgical use is to aid in travel to the astral plane. Small doses have also been reported to allow a magical practitioner to see etheric or astral bodies.

Some phantastica come from the other planes themselves.  So-called “bug powder” sold in the astral waystation of Interzone, is a potentially dangerous example. Alchemists have work to isolate the essence of the astral moth for planar transport, but with little success.

A number of other sources of phantastica are currently under scientific investigation.  Adventurers report life-transforming visions from consumption of certain molds that grow in subterranean areas--often ones which are found near the “lairs” of certain slimes. Tincture of a distillate of ectoplasm is rumored to produce a dissociative state resembling catatonia, but allowing communication (one way) with spirits.    It has even been suggested that smoking the flakes or scraps of a lich (if one can acquire them) increases sorcerous potency for a period of hours to days, while slowing perceptions of time and heightening the senses.

It is the hope of many of researchers that the scientific study of these substances many usher in a new technological age. One perfectly integrating thaumaturgy and psychology through chemical means.

Adventuring in Style

Adventurers call it “crawling” for a reason: most of the underground places they go into seeking treasure can be a bit cramped.  Outside of the City though, in more remote places, the wilderness and the subterranean structures under it may allow adventurers other means of travel than their own two feet.

The modified automobile above was built by Hamish Littlejon for himself and his companions. It’s structure was reinforced by the application of magical sigils--but duration of the enhanced protection that these provided was never fully field tested. The engine was likewise thaumaturgically enhanced and was twice as efficient as a mundane automobile's.

Littlejon and his entire party disappeared on a trip to the Spine of the Dragon Mountains in Asciana.  The vehicle was undamaged and still full of provisions when it was found.  Milo Munsen, owner of the “Life of Fantastic Danger” Museum, purchased it and made arrangements to have it shipped to the City, but it never arrived.  All attempts to locate the vehicle since have failed.

Primordial Ooze

Though the ideas advanced by Hamley are still denounced from pulpits, no scientist doubts the truth  of his transmutation theory.  This is in part due to the rediscovery of that wonder of phylogeny, the waggishly named Demiurge Island.

This island of the near antarctic South Tranquil Sea first entered history in the log of the Trysteran explorer, Caproni. Caproni noted the ring of high cliffs around the large isle but was unable to find a way to the island's interior.  The island was subsequently lost--and remains strangely hard to find to this day.  Still, later explorers have visited it and done what Caproni could not.

The unusual nature of the island is immediately apparent.  It’s home to a fantastically diverse array of wildlife, seemingly from all areas of history from primordial times to the advent of man.  While prehistoric survivors are sometimes found in remote places, seldom is the variety of species as great or the populations so small. This hints at the most startling of the island’s mysteries.

At the center of its great inland lake or lagoon, is a partially collapsed caldera.   On one side there’s a cavern which houses the strangest survivor of the dawn of life ever found. A gelatinous pool or mass resides in that cave.  This rippling and quivering gray protoplasmic thing disgorges half-formed, primitive organisms from its surface--both microscopic and macroscopic. These primordial creatures emerge from the slime and fall into the waters nearby and are swept out into the lake.  There they continue to develop and emerge from the water as the immature forms of any animal.  Few if any of the lifeforms on the island are products of the usual reproductive processes: they all emerge from the primordial ooze.

It is though that this mass of protoplasm might represent a remnant mass of what was once perhaps a fecund sea--and the origin of all life on Earth.  Scientists have at times tried to bring back some of this mass for study: to delve into the origins of life and to seek cures for human disease.  The conspiratorially-minded whisper that they have--and some of these samples have escaped (or worse, have been intentionally released) to spawn oozes, slimes, and malformed monsters.

Weird Adventures Mailbag

Occasionally, people gearing up for Weird Adventures games drop me a line to ask about stuff I didn’t cover in the book and haven’t gotten to yet on the blog. Sometime rpg artist, Lester Smolenski wrote just this weekend to ask about languages in the Strange New World.

That’s something I can’t believe I haven’t covered!  Here’s a list of some of the most important ones:

Common: The language of the Union and Borea.  It grew out of a trade pidgin of predominantly Lluddish extraction, but informed by various Gallian dialects, Dwergen, and words borrowed from several Native tongues.  It’s distinct from Lluddish, but the two are (mostly) mutually intelligible.

Esparian: A language family originating in Ealderde, but now more widely spoken in Asciana and Zingaro.  It comes in several ethnic/national varieties including Zingaran, San Zancudan, Puerto Oroan, and Hidalgan, with various degrees of mutual intelligibility.

Gallian: A language family with varieties spoken in the states of the Gallian League and some places in the New World.  Varieties or dialects include Neustrien, Poitêmien, and  Averoignat.  The last is not fully intelligible to speakers of the first two.

Hobogoblin cant: A Common-based argot.

Korambeckish: The language of the eastern Empire of Korambeck.

Lluddish: The language of Lludd, Alban, and the Mer-folk.  See also Common.

Ruthenian: The language family originating in Ruthenia.

Staarkish: A language family of Western Ealderde.  Varieties include Staarkish proper, Luthan, Graustarkian, and Doppelkinnian, which are distinct but mutually intelligible.

Vatilian: A language of southern Ealderde.  All varieties (including Trysteran, Tryphemian, and Bengodian) are mutually intelligible.

Yianese: A language family of the Empire of Yian. It has many varieties.

Belt of Vigor

Minor magic items are not uncommon in the City and its world.  These are typical of modern manufacture and not as powerful or as dangerous (mostly) as the magical equipment of adventurers.

The Health Belt was actually a girdle which ameliorated fatigue and bolstered the constitution.  It’s no surprise the primary use of this device is as an aid to amorous activity. Some adventurers use it to provide an extra bit of stamina and edge against poisons and shocks to the system.

[+2 bonus to Constitution and all that entails including hit points. These benefits last as long as the belt is worn, but wearing it longer than 3 hours is likely result in physical harm: 30% chance + 10% for every additional hour of a permanent Constitution loss of 1 point.]

If You've Ever Wondered...

I'm kind of tired of packing and unpacking--having just got home from Cincinnati.  I have not the energy to whip up an original blog entry for you folks, today.  However, I've updated the Weird Adventures Index with some posts you might have missed.

First off, peruse the "Highlights from the Dungeoneering Medicine Conference." Then check out some "Wonders from the Planes." Finally, flip through the City's photo album with my very first picture post from 2010 "Images from the City"--or if that doesn't suit you, you can attend "The Wizard's Estate Sale."

Night at the Capricorn

When visiting Losantiville in the Steel League, one might want to visit the bar at the opulent Capricorn Hotel. It’s two floors with a central bar and a pianist providing entertainment.

Of course, there are--oddities. Sometimes, magically sensitive individuals get a feeling they’re being watched.  This is particularly acute in the vicinity of the ram’s head relief on the wall between the staircases, behind the piano.  This might bring to mind rumors of cults going back to frontier times. The black goat they served (according to some stories) was either a pagan god of fertility, a capo of the Hell Syndicate--or both.

Other stories suggest the goat wasn't a deity--at least not at first.  Instead, the original black goat was a human sacrifice who insured the communities continued prosperity by receiving the weight of its sins.  Over time, the misplaced guilt of Losantiville became an entity unto itself, a grim spectre of retribution.

If one’s alone, it’s best not to drink too much or linger near closing time. Old gods may weaken, but seldom die.

Images From Beyond the City

Even if the locals think it's the center of the world, there's plenty of adventure to be had beyond the City:

"Yeah, she was a thousand years old and evil, but you had to admit: that mummy could make a cleric kick out a stainglass window."*

The whole time they were guests of the Monkey King of the South Seas they were in constant danger from his capricious (and often deadly) sense of humor. Still, he had a helluva palace band.

Everywhere the two grifter eikones manifested, they acted out the same mystery play.  Thick versus thin.  Lean versus plenty. Either way, it never worked out well for the locals, in the end.

"The Courser is our only chance to make it in time!  If we can outrun Grandfather Winter, we can easily reach the Northern Ruthenian wastes and retrieve the fragment before Donander's zeppelin is even across the Staarkish border."

*With apologies to Raymond Chandler for partially appropriating his line.

It Just Gets More Weird: Updates to the Index

I've added a few more entries to the Weird Adventures Index page for your edification and enjoyment.  First off, a couple of interesting characters of the sort the City frequently produces: the paladin of the working poor, Joan Darkling, and the oozing, accidental crime lord, Waxy Moldoon.

In the monster section, the formians are staging a very efficient and quiet invasion. A couple of para-elementals are a bit more likely to get noticed: petro-elementals rise from oil wells and mephiti menace Char Hill, a town atop a coal seam fire.  Tuning in to a radio para-elemental can be just as nasty, but in a more different way.

After that, if your looking for a an escape from those noxious (and toxic) creatures, how about a vacation to that sweet tooth Shangri-La, the Rock Candy Mountain.

Spirit of Radio

Sometimes the voice on the airwaves isn’t human. Late night on an empty frequency you can sometimes hear plaintive whispers between the static: the lonely call of a radio spirit. These electromagnetic para-elementals appear to arise spontaneously from radio transmissions. They're often a nuisance--and sometimes a real danger--within the City and elsewhere.

Radio para-elementals can manifest in any radio. They typically speak in snippets of broadcasts they’ve overheard, mimicking the various voices whose words they steal. They can, however, mimic a single radio personality's voice if they choose, but seem to do it less commonly. Having matured in a sea of pitchmen and songtresses, they develop uncanny abilities to manipulate humans with their assumed voices. They can replicate the bard-like abilities of fascinate, suggestion, and mass suggestion.

They’re not limited to mimicking human voices. They can fascinate equally well with music, or lull to sleep with a magical lullaby. Also, they can create a high volume static which acts as a sonic burst--though this typically blows out the speaker of the radio they're utilizing.

If particularly enraged, a spirit can arc forth from a speaker as pure electricity. It does 1d6 points of damage (additional 1d6 to someone in metal armor). This is treated as a charging attack. This attack causes the para-elemental to dissipate with the effort.  It takes then 2d6 days to reform.

RADIO PARA-ELEMENTAL
AC: 2 [18]
Move: 18
HD: 6
Attacks/Dmg: 1 spell-like power or arc
Defenses: immune to electricity, and other elemental immunities
Special: Vulnerable to water (1d8 points per gallon of water, or double damage on water-based spells), spell like abilities as above (and perhaps other bardic abilities): fascinate, suggestion, mass suggestion, sonic burst.

More Items from the Planes

Here are more items from the Planes Beyond that sometimes find their way into the City:

Mechanoid Pheremones: A vial of volatile liquid containing signalling chemicals (not actually pheremones) for the polyhedral automata from Machina responsible for the repairing reality and defending it from chaos. The the vial is good for two uses. Chaotic individuals or magic-users casting spells in their presence will at least be thoroughly examined by the automata, and possibly attacked. The mechanoids can follow the trail of the chemicals anywhere in the Material Plane, though they always appear where the vial was first opened unless it is quickly capped.

Horn of Glory: A curving bronze horn which, when blown, summons 1d6+1 incorporeal constructs, echoes of the shades of 5th level human warriors residing in the Halls of Valor. They serve the summoner unquestioningly--as look as the service involves battle (otherwise, they disappear). The warriors dissipate at the end of the battle. The horn may be blown once per week.

“The Usual”: Euphemistic name for a noxious drink smuggled to the Material Plane from the city in the Land of Beasts, but probably originating in Dreamland. It reputedly contains Cobra Fang Juice, Hydrogen Bitters, and Old Panther. Consuming it causes all but the strongest to pass out after experiencing a strange fit (failed saving throw at -2). It’s said that some gain one important insight about the past, present, or future after consumption.

Candy Zombies

Originally the flight of fantasy of a deranged alchemist with a sweet tooth, candy zombies now seem to be produced continuously in small quantities in the City by parties unknown. These poorly-formed, jelly confection figures aren’t actually undead but resemble zombies in their shambling, occasional moaning, and slack-jawed, vacant stares.

Candy zombies are prepared at the size of about 1.5 inches, however, they grow to roughly man-size over the next 24 hours if prepared properly. They can move their limbs from a few minutes after creation, but don’t take their first steps until they are perhaps 10 hours old. When fully grown, they are like normal zombies in most respects, except that they are susceptible to water--a river or fire hose can dissolve them in 2-20 minutes.

Perhaps the strangest danger of the candy zombies is in their exquisite sweetness. Any human that gets a taste of the candy zombie’s substance (whether by an accidental bite during a grapple or purposefully) must make a saving throw vs. disease or become addict to the taste of candy zombie, willing to do anything to obtain more unless cured by magical means.

Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat

It can be found in secondhand stores and pricey boutiques. It’s been worn by socialites, gun molls, and even grandmothers. No one who has succumbed to the dubious fashion temptation of the so-called leopard skin pillbox hat has been left unchanged.

Nothing is known about the leopard that originally wore the fur, but the hat was cut from a larger garment--a magical raiment worn by generations of protectoresses of the Ebon-Land wilds, the Leopard Women. Some of these warrior women were native Black folk, others white-skinned foundlings. Whatever their origins, they were each imbued with a portion of a wild spirit of that ancient land.

It all came to an end at the hands of a jealous huntress--or so the story goes. Fearing she would lose her man to the wild beauty, she did what legend said no man had been able to do. She killed a leopard woman, and claimed her vestments.

This story may only be so much pulp fiction. What is undisputed fact is that there exist possibly as many as three pillbox hats of leopard skin that can corrupt their wearers with a bestial spirit. Slowly, the spirit of the hat works to make the owner more short-tempered and predatory in her interactions with others (failing a saving throw as with lycanthropy). This spirit, invisible to anyone else, will at times be visible to the owner as a mirror image of herself, dressed in a leopard skin outfit.

The wearer will be goaded by this other personality into increasingly antisocial acts to further her goals (if alignment is used, it changes to Chaotic). While no visible physical transformation occurs, the owner develops (over 2-16 days) the uncanny ability to perform the physical feats of the leopard (climbing, jumping, stealth, etc.). Note that the owner does not to have to wear the hat any more frequently than once every 3 days for the change to take place, as long as they remain the owner (meaning it is not out of their possession for more than 7 consecutive days).

The outcome of the transformation is often death or imprisonment for the owner. Somehow, the hat always seems to make its way back to retail afterwards, though it make take months for this to occur.

The ultimate goal of the beast spirit seems to be vengeance against civilization. It may be that it can be placated with the appropriate ritual, but no one has yet discovered it.

Rarebit Fiends

Try as they might, the Dream Lord and his gnomish Sandmen can’t keep all nightmares quarantined in Slumberland. And perhaps they don’t always try; there are always rumors of rogue Sandmen taking bribes to smuggle oneiric nasties. In any case, some nightmares do escape and return to the Material Plane. Bugbears are a common example, but there are lesser (and lesser known) nightmare forms collectively called “rarebit fiends,” as they seemed to have emerged from the sort of strange dreams that seem to follow an evening's indulgence in a too-rich meal. Here are a few examples:

Hebephrenic Stag: Sometimes it’s known as simply “The Gump,” a name of unknown derivation. The mounted stag’s head appears on a wall and begins to laugh madly and incessantly at anything the homeowner does. It will appear as a normal taxidermied specimen when anyone else is present to see it, but its raucous noise can be heard by others--and is almost invariably attributed to the home owner. It can be appeased and moved to silence by placing an opened can of dog food made from horse meat beneath it on the night of the new moon.

Voluptua Lilies: Lascivious plants that seek to seduce the receiver (generally a woman) into heedless pleasure. Those failing a saving throw are enthralled (as per spell) by the delicate caress of the flowers. Victims have, on rare occasions, been so enraptured that they allowed themselves to die of dehydration rather than give up the lilies' embrace.

Moonface: Scholars disagree on whether this fiend actually inhabits the moon (or its image) or merely the mind of the victim perceiving it. In any case, a mostly grinning, perhaps inebriated-appearing face appears on the moon (or it’s image.or in the perceiver’s mind). In a vague but definitely foreign accent the moon rambles on almost incoherently, yet the victim will be convinced the monologue is a mocking commentary on his or her actions. Men have been driven to desperate acts including suicide and murder under the moonface’s unforgiving glare.