Doug's Art and Games Blog

Monster of the Week, March 31, 2020 The last monster of March. The Arbiter Looking like a black-skinned human with crow-like feet, a huge crow skull for a head, and dapper clothing, the Arbiter is a demon summoned by sorcerers to make a deal with the powers of entropy to serve their masters' desires. The Arbiter's deals are focused on arcane lore. The Arbiter will teach spells and rituals, help the sorcerer lear true names, secrets, and lore. But the Arbiter's goals are furthering chaos, destruction, corruption, and death. So the secrets it unveils usually demand a price from the life of the sorcerer or those around them. Often the magic it teaches is powerful but uncontrollable. The Arbiter is quiet, calm, even obsequious. It offers only to serve and does not fight its opponents, though it loves to watch the chaos it unleashes and cackles at the results of its action. It does not fight hard to prevent its work from being undone but may use trickery, misdir...

Monster of the Week, March 24, 2020 This week's monster. Psychic Hound Psychic Hounds are called from the Far Realm, and take the form of a skeletal wolf with yellow-gold flames as flesh. They move with the grace and precision of a hunting wolf but are able to move through walls and doors freely since they lack a material body. Instead, they seem to be made somehow of embodied emotions and thoughts, knitted into a fearful form. They only exist in this form to serve a purpose -- to guard an object or kill a target -- and usually, it is for the latter purpose. Once summoned, they use their psychic abilities to hunt enemies. They can see without eyes and don't seem affected by invisibility or stealth. They move faster than humans, travel through barriers, and attack with bites that destroy their target's mind without leaving visible wounds. If no one sees the attack, the victim appears to have fallen dead of a heart attack.

Monster of the Week, March 17, 2020 I'd say that this offering is somehow connected to Saint Patrick, but it really isn't. Screaming Hunters Nocturnal pack hunters, Screaming Hunters dwell on the edges of human lands, inhabiting ruins, abandoned cities, old sewers, and deep forests long abandoned by humans. They are ruthless predators but seem particularly attracted to hunting humans, often with relish and cruelty that is shocking and particular. What is know about them is that they are naked, hairy humanoids with long talon-like hands and feet, toothy maws, tiny eyes, and long, questing tongues. Their long, hunched, and loping gait allows them to run faster than humans, and their endurance reflects their tirelessness in hunting prey. They rend prey with tooth and claw, allowing prey to bleed and suffer after a strike until other members of the pack can strike and wear down their prey. Sages who have studied the few documented cases of their attacks on humanity spec...

Monster of the Week, March 10, 2020 Same stuff as last week, only different. The Smiling Men The Smiling Men are devotees of the King in Yellow, creatures who served in his court as courtiers and advisors. He has also sent them out to other worlds as his heralds and messengers. The Smiling Men are silent and faceless except for their great, smiling mouths. They dress in formal clothing appropriate to the place where they are found. Their flesh is pale, moist, and waxy, like fat worms in a corpse. Their teeth are huge, white, and square. Their bodies are thin and tall, with long limbs, short torsos, and long fingers ending in thick, sharp, brown sails. Where necessary, they use their physical prowess to hunt and destroy the King's enemies. Their claws and teeth inflict terrible wounds while their flesh survives all but the most terrible wounds. Their unnatural appearance strikes fear in most mortals The Smiling Men bear texts to help open the way for the coming ...

Monster of the Week: Tuesday, March 3 Hopefully, you know the drill by now. Sorrow Worm Trauma leaves its mark on the world, not just in the physical and social planes, but also in the supernatural world parallel to the mundane. Pain, loneliness, suffering, brutality, and neglect haunt the spaces where trauma is enacted. Hurt and brutality seep into the weave of reality; adversity, poverty, and hopelessness become tangible. When the trauma is deep enough, when it has endured enough, or it has happened to many people, a Sorrow Worm can materialize to feed suffering and to feed on it. Sorrow Worms can manifest in tenements, slums, and asylums as easily as they can be found in prisons and the palaces of the corrupt. Once manifest, they dwell in silent darkness, allowing their spirits to spread out like a net. Their influence feeds anger, resentment, cruelty, hunger, dissatisfaction, and powerlessness. They make abusers more abusive, and victims less able to resist. Those who d...