Azurthite Bestiary: Manhound

Art by Jeremy Duncan

There are archfey that resent the so-called civilization of Man and desire the return to a more natural state. These beings sometimes gift their cultists with a ritual which can transform humans into a bestial form and brings their bloodlust to the fore.

The manhound looks human twisted into an approximation of a cannine shape, becoming only a little more hirsute in the process. The may be distinguished from lycanthropes in that they only have one form (a mostly quadrepal hybrid) and only vaguely resemble in specific species of animal. Their "curse" is not contagious nor are they gifted with any of the immunities or weaknesses of the lycanthrope.

MANHOUND
medium humanoid (shapechanger), chaotic or neutral evil
AC 10 in human form, 12 (natural armor) in hound form
Hit Points: 30 (7d6+6)
Speed: 30 ft.
STR 14(+2) DEX 13(+1) CON 12(+1) INT 10(+0) WIS 12(+1) CHA10(+0)
Skills: Perception +3
Senses passive Perception 13.
Languages Common (unable to speak in manhound form)

Animal-Like Hearing and Smell. Has an advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on hearing or smell.
Shapechanger. Under the influence of an ancient spell, normal humans are turned into humanoid quadrapeds for the duration of the spell (typically 2-8 hours). Their abilities scores remain unchanged in human form.

Actions:
Bite. +3 to hit, reach 5 ft.,one target. Hit: 4 (1d6+1) piercing damage. A creature must succeed on a DC 11 Strength check on be knocked prone.

Trouble in the Enchanted Wood

Rumors of poachers in the Enchanted Wood north of Castle Machine in the Country of Yanth have lured a band of adventurers (my 5e game's PCs) to investigate--and to hopefully gain some reward money. Hunting has been prohibited in the Wood since the time of King Smalt I, the Nigh Great, of Azurth, owing to the peculiarity of much of its plant and animal life having the capacity for speech. It is supposed that this is exactly the reason the current hunters are in the Wood: they are (or they serve) a cabal of jaded gourmands seeking to dine on meals they can converse with beforehand.

This strange property of the flora and fauna arises from the magical waters of the Babbling Brook that meanders through the wood and its source, the Spouting Spring. The brook itself (as the name suggests) is vocal, and even at its susurrating volume, it can impair the concentration of spellcasters and unnerve those who are around it for long periods. The spring is even worse. Its ceaseless chorus of nonsensical orations are taken as oracular glossolalia by some and tormenting, demonic cacophony by others.

The waters enhance the linguistic abilities of any who drink from it. For adults, the effect in temporary, lasting at most a day and most likely only a few hours, without repeated ingestion (1d4 x 1d6 hrs.). Immature creatures raised on it retain the enhancement indefinitely.

Few members of mannish races live in the Wood, though their may be a few hermits. Fulvus, the eremite whose teachings touched off the War of the Purpure and Or. lived near the brook. There is said to be a somewhat eccentric druid that makes his home somewhere in the forest, but if so he has been unable to stop the poachers.

Travelers and those living nearby report strange sounds coming from the wood at night. It is a sound all to exultant and cruel to be the baying of wild dogs, yet all too guttural and animalistic to be the laughter of men.

D&D in Stop Motion

I ran across the deviantart page of Richard "Loneanimator" Svenssen. He designs stopmotion models and has done some short films in the fantasy vein. Of particular interest to readers here are his D&D inspired models. Check out this fight with a beholder:

Here's multiple angles on an owlbear.

Makes you wish Harryhausen had done a D&D movie circa 1981, doesn't it?

Wednesday Comics: The Lion, The Witch & Her Wardrobe

"The Lion, The Witch & Her Wardrobe"

Artesia #5 (May 1999) Story & Art by Mark Smylie

Synopsis: Artesia is weary. Her army has been pushing forward without rest. Her crow (really the war-spirit Demidice) returns to show her visions of what transpires in the wider world: She sees the Thessid forces breaching falls and destroying the watchtowers. The Empire's armies are triumphant thanks a a traitor.

Then she sees what will transpire in the future:

She "dreams of the death of the world" and her "heart sings with joy."

She awakens, unsure of what she has seen, though her lieutenant Ferris recognizes the mark of the lionheaded goddess Hathnalla upon her. Coincidentally (or not) her bannerman Hueylin has returned from treatment by the surgeon's of Hathnalla's cult. Artesia instructs Hueylin and a group of men to stay behind to speak for her army--and make sure the food, supplies, and coin keep flowing to keep them in the field, whether King Bran joins them or not.

Two captains approach with word from Pavel, the emissary. Bran will not parley. The citadel is sealed and none enter or leave. Artesia had a bad feeling. She sends the two captains to watch Dara Dess and she rides out to a shrine to Djara.

She's joined at the shrine by a pale woman, Urgrayne, Witch-Queen of the Harath-Eduins. She knew Artesia's mother and what she could have been--what she could have made Artesia, instead of the soldier she has become. Now she goes to fight for the Middle Kingdom that turned her king against her--and killed her loved ones:

They were all murdered because they laughed at the Agallite's defeat at Artesia's hands. The Agallites had killed Lysia the night before, even though Bran wished her spared as his seer. The priests cursed them as they died so the death guides couldn't find them. At the urging of Lysia's spirit, Urgrayne searched and found these others as the Wild Hunt rode the night. Some were lost though.

Artesia thanks Urgrayne for saving them, but she has not:

Artesia must bind them, but she only knows how to do minor charms or make war spirits her servant. The ghost of Lysia says there are other ways, and she will show her. Artesia strips her armor and draws sigils on her skin. She performs the ritual and binds them to her body, makes them part of her.

Things to Notice:

• We see the goddess Hathnalla for the first time
• And the Isklids--more on them in later issues.

Commentary: 
The title is a bit jokey for the heaviness of the issue, but it's an accurate one.

Hathnalla, Ferris's leoncephalic goddess, was likely inspired by Sekhmet and equally leonine Egyptian goddess whose purview was also war and healing. Her name suggests both Anath (a Semitic war goddess) and Valhalla (the Hall of the Slain in Norse myth).

Djara as a goddess of crossroads, resembles the Greek goddess Hecate. Her idol is depicted as three faced, just like Hecate's. Urgrayne, who is (perhaps poetically, perhaps not) is a variant on Ygraine or Igraine, ultimately derived to Eigyr, the mother of King Arthur.

Grimmer Fairy Tales

So for oh, a century or so, genre writers have been trying to "rehabilitate" fairies and put the scary back in them. The fact that Guillermo del Toro has still got to talk about that on director's commentaries for films like Hellboy II and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark suggests Machen and Blackwood, et al. just didn't get through to the masses. So I'm not going to convince you fairies can or should be scary, I'm going to suggest some different campaigns you can use them in if they are.

Unseelie Apocalypse
Malign fairies associated with death stalk the world and humanity is in danger of extinction. I've pitched the Faerie Apocalypse before, but that version was more analogous to the alien invasion plot or perhaps something like Planet of the Apes. This is the Faerie Apocalypse as more akin to zombie apocalypse films. It's more Walking Dead than Falling Skies, which mostly comes down to tone and some small details. Get read of the shining courts and anyway to negotiate with the Folk and play up their relentless murderousness. Fairies have a connection with the dead--take a look at the slaugh--so they're already something like zombies.

Rock City is scary, but probably not scary enough

Goblin Market
Roadside Picnic isn't genre horror, but it has some horrific elements to it. What if, instead of aliens, the Visitation had been fairies. What if there were zones of fairies? Neil Gaiman's Stardust sort of depicts a Fairy Zone, as does the urban fantasy series Borderland. (Both of those were borders rather than circumscribed zones, true, but close enough!) Neither of them are particularly horrific, though. But if you played up the alien weirdness of the Fae Zones (think Wackyland except terrifying lethal and just plan hostile to human life), you can probably get there. This would play pretty close to the "dungeon as horror" thing except all the creatures would be of the Fae.

Four Flavors of Fantasy in Azurth

I've written a number of posts now about the Land of Azurth, my new 5e setting, but I've only done a couple where I "pull back the curtain" and discuss my thought process about the setting as a whole. So here goes.

My initial statement of influences was essentially sword & sorcery comics of the 70s, Oz, Scott Driver's Dwarf-Land, and Adventure Time. As happens, those have gotten refined a bit over time, and perhaps more focused in terms of what I'm taking from them. It occurred to me that the touchstone for Azurth are fairytales and the earliest works of fantasy literature.

I wanted Azurth to sort of resemble Oz--and so it does. A land divided into quadrants. In Oz, the different lands are pretty similar. There inhabitants vary, true, but they aren't as differentiated as say Aquilonia and Cimmeria in Conan's Hyborian Age or Darokin and the Minrothad Guilds in Mystara. Thinking of the Mystara Gazeteers in general got me thinking about each country as a mini-setting unto itself.

Unlike Mystara, though, I wanted the countries to work within the boundaries of "fairytales and earliest works of fantasy literature," and mostly, I think I was able to do that.  Here's what we've got:

Noxia; A farytale land where the Evil Queen has won and taken over.
Yanth: A Oz-like, fantasy Americana/American fairytale sort of land, in the main.
Sang: Planetary Romance/boy's fantasy adventure.
Virid: Girl's fantasy adventure. She-Ra or Golden Girl sort with a bit of Golden Age Wonder Woman and Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld and perhaps a little Disney Princess.

All of those have the common element of owing as much to fairytales as to Tolkien (indeed, the clearest antecedents of two of them are pre-Tolkien). All of them (from fairy tale kingdoms to Barsoom to She-Ra's Etheria) share the motif of a larger realm with odd wainscots within it. Most of them engage in quite of a number of hoary tropes/cliches that mainstream fantasy lit and most fantasy rpgs find too cheesy/twee/juvenile to engage in (so instead they engage in modern tropes/cliches far more overused currently, potentially making them boring and samey).

Conceptually, all the countries fit together, but it will be interesting to see how it works in the game. Noxia connects to Yanth by way of their fairy tale underpinnings and things like Wicked, but Yanth to Sang might be a little harder, though some 70s comic fantasy, and things like Lt. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation might prove informative. We'll see.

Campaign Rumors

I wanted to run my new Land of Azurth campaign as more of a sandbox than my Weird Adventurs campaign (which tended to be more "mission style" as it was mystery oriented). I still intend for their to be mysteries in the current campaign, but they be more of an "easter egg" variety, by which I mean something cool if the players figure it out, but probably never essential to an adventure.

To this end, I borrowed a technique from Chris Kutalik over at the Hill Cantons, who runs the best sandbox campaign I've had the pleasure to play in: use of rumors, both as an adventure menu for players and to provide a window into ongoing background events in the setting. (Chris has a lot of other useful and stealable ideas of running this sort of campaign. Just check out this recent post.)

Anyway, here's the first set of rumors I gave the players at the end of the first session. This establishes the existence of the Publick Observator, which can serve both an in-game and metagame purpose:

In games where I have the time, I like to have the characters meet. It gives them a chance to get warmed up for roleplaying (and shows me how much they want to roleplay--which has implications for how I handle later sessions) and it gives them a chance to make up some background material that may be good grist for future adventures. I had asked each player prior to the first session to come up with a reason (or what they would give to others as the reason) they might be coming to Rivertown to seek an audience with Clockwork Princess Viola. One of the players suggest her ranger was coming to discuss a poaching problem--dovetailing nicely with one of the rumors I had thought of but not yet told the PCs about, of course!


This gave the them a good reason to select what they wanted to do next session. Of course, the other goings-on they chose not to investigate may not just go away. Some will have longterm consequences or will show up again, maybe with more dire connotations, next week. Over time, of course, these pre-session rumors will compete with goals and plans completely generated by the players.