FLESH FOR FALLEN ANGELS

cw: body horror

So I've been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon of late and it inspired me to write... this. Do you need some rampaging, demonic foes to infest deep dungeons and loathsome coves?

ON FIENDISH TROTTERS

Demons summoned into swine flesh. Demons can be summoned into animals more easily than people, less ego to interfere, and summoning into flesh is easier than crossing over. Devil Swine are violence and chaos made piggy flesh. They burn, pillage, and destroy without cease. Eventually they will create a Swine King, who leads and directs them, and can speed the creation of new Swine.

THEIR CORRUPTION CAN BE SEEN IN THEIR

ADJECTIVE 1                ADJECTIVE 2 BODY PART

1 distended                 weeping         belly

2 drooping                 oozing         face

3 swollen         pustuled                 jaw

4 skeletal                 insectoid                 eyes

5 ruptured                 torn                 limbs

6 engorged                 wheezing                 feet

7 inverted                 infested                 head

8 triple         foul                 back

9 fanged         many-eyed         hindquarters

10 heaving         bifurcated         hands

11 scabrous                 faceted         skin

12 scaled         bony         head

13 slimy         spined

14 horned         double-jointed

15 smoking         toxic

16 leathery                 infected

17 cracked         sulfurous

18 hooked         trypophobian

19 stalked         cracked

20 rippling                 roiling

THEIR BODY PLAN IS

1-5 Humanoid

6 Quadruped

7 Inverted Quadruped

8 Slithering

9 Centipede

10 Bat

THEY REPRODUCE THROUGH

1 Mitosis

2 Infection

3 Implantation

4 Eggs

5 Spores

6 Regeneration

WANT DO THEY WANT

1 Accumulate biomass to create a Swine King

2 CHASE KILL EAT CHASE KILL EAT CHASE KILL EAT

3 Use entrails to create a hellish sigil a mile wide

4 Burn it. Burn it all down.

5 Collect gold and loot to attract greed demons and greedy adventures - who will be excellent hosts

6 Unearth a buried temple of ETH-KN-YAATU, the Eighty-Tusked Swine Lord of Greed

PRIDE OF HELL

Lions are born evil, you can see it as they eat their own young. If a lion tastes the flesh of a man, it changes. Eat enough, it will walk on two legs and spread its vile taint to other lions. These dordaives (darkness-walkers) invade villages when the moon has waned to slaughter and kill and drag away the dying. These they feed to other lions who in turn are entered by demons. Soon they number an army that sweeps across the plains, red-jawed and golden-crowned, to devour whole nations.

KNOW THEM BY THEIR

ADJECTIVE NOUN

1 Flaming Manes

2 Metallic         Claws

3 Blood-soaked Jaws

4 Venomed Hides

5 Many-horned Coats

6 Serrated         Eyes

7 Shadowy Hands

8 Scaled Tails

9 Gaunt

10 Painted

11 Spined

12 Crystalline

WITHIN THE PRIDE YOU WILL FIND

1 Despicable, degenerate human cultists

2 Starved berserkers, maddened with hunger

3 Bloated womb-mothers, with a dozen birth-sacs

4 Insane ghosts, swept along by death

5 Shambling undead, resurrected by hatred

6 A great hell-palanquin, bearing the stacked skulls of the dead

7 A powerful lion-sorceror, possessed by a demon of magicks

8 A rolling shrine of LAARTU-NA-YEK, Sin-Queen of Pride and Conquest

FOR VIOLENCE THEY CARRY

1 Tools of iron, looted from burned farms

2 Weapons of bronze, dug from ancient graves

3 Fresh steel, still smelling of the hell-forges

4 Jagged bone and stone, bound with human sinew

5 The looted gear of a slaughtered army

6 Gnashing teeth and rending claws

SO LONG AND THANKS FOR YOUR SOUL

The land lubber, new to sea, fears the shark. The old salt knows better. Fear of sharks is like fear of storms, or time, or hidden reefs - they are inexorable, unfeeling, impersonal. There is no cruelty in them, just a perfection of form and purpose that will outlive us all. The old salt, the experienced deck hand knows instead to fear, and to loathe, the dolphin. They torture and they kill and they frolic in blood-flecked waters. They are like us and like us the hounds of hell are drawn to their wickedness, may enter them. Coastal villages vanish in the night to the sound of songs in the water.

THESE HORRID FISH-MEN, THEY LOOK LIKE

1 Grey-fleshed humans with needle-snouts, they speak in damnable clicking

2 They crawl about on dozens of shorts arms, clawed hands gripping and tearing

3 Dolphins with over-muscled arms and legs sprouting from the wrong places, and human teeth in their long jaws

4 Ordinary folk, with vestigial flippers and fins hidden beneath their stinking rags, their eyes are dead and unthinking

5 Motley hybrids, human limbs and faces and wails emerging from slick dolphin bodies

6 Gaunt, skeletal, famine-thin, coral-growths for limbs and weapons

THIS POD SPAWNS FROM

1 A sunken prison-hulk, angry spirits have bound themselves to porpoise and come back for revenge

2 A hell-gate beneath the waves. Demons reach through, steal willing hosts for themselves

3 A warlock, burned. His foul children run amok.

4 A sea-nymph's tomb has been looted, her spirit calls for her bones.

5 Flaccid cultists of YAAN-MEK-THOON, Hell Duke of Torture and Cruelty, spill murdered flesh into the sea

6 A lich sank her reliquary beneath the waves to hide. The evi is leaching out.

AFTER THEY MASSACRE THEY

1 Arrange the corpses in perfect symmetry

2 Frolic in blood-soaked surf

3 Burn everything, leave no trace

4 Kill one of their own to sit enthroned before the gore

5 Build rafts of the bones, to float to distant shores

6 Remain, feasting on flesh and ambushing passers-by

IF THEY ARE NOT STOPPED THEY WILL

1 Spread their corruption to whales

2 Tear open a hell-rift

3 Evolve through rapid generations until they are almost human

4 Grow to an army

5 Wake Leviathan

6 Poison the seas, drive away the fish, corrupt the shores

Baron Generator

Hey guess what I wrote some more randoms tables. I really like making random tables, okay???

I also made a perchance generator to (mostly) automate this one.

Okay so I'm populating a kingdom, and that means metric shit-load of horrible Barons that need detailing, so I build a generator for them.

BARON GENERATOR

Relationship with peers

Roll for all neighbours

3-in-6 for all non-neighbouring

d6 + d3

1 Allies (marriage, related, faction)

2 Rivals (childhood, family, ambition)

3 Enemies (feud, personal, political)

4 Friends (childhood, interests, political)

5 Related, roll again with d4

6 Roll twice with d4, first is apparent, second is one-way real

Relationship to Liege

1 Extremely loyal

2 Obedient

3 Selfish

4 Disloyal/Fractious

5 Treacherous

6 Roll twice, first is apparent, second is real

Factions

Each baron has a 3-in-6 chance of being in a faction

1 Autonomy

2 Successor

3 War

4 Religious

If there is already one of these factions in play, 1-in-6 to start new faction

Reputation

1 Warrior

2 Lordling

3 Hunter

4 God-Botherer

5 Eccentric

6 Tax Collector

7 Layabout

8 Builder

9 Weakling

10 Debaucher

Religion

What religion are they:

1-2 Heliopapist

3-4 Pagan

5 The White Prince (roll again, high for known, low for whispered)

6 Other

How devout are they:

1-2 Devout

3-4 Practicing

5 Impious

6 Appears Practicing, but roll another religion and d4 on this

Age

(d6 * 10) + d10. 

Revist this after rolling for family. It's entirely possible to roll a 13 year old with four kids from three marriages. >_<

Family

d6-3 acknowledged bastards

3-in-6 of one remaining parent

d6-2 unlanded aunts/uncles, each with d3-1 kids

Marriage and Children

1 Unmarried

2-4 Married, d6-2 children, 2-in-6 of widow(er)

d6-3 previous marriages, +d4-2 children from each

5-6 Poly. d3+1 spouses, d3-1 children from each

If rolling for an arch(bishop/priest/cleric/druid) only roll for bastards. Instead do another roll on Relationship to Liege and Faction to determine relationship to parent church.

Note that these tables dgaf about gender. I assume adoption is a thing, as is magic.

Other Details

1 Old Dynasty

2 New Dynasty

3 Regency

4 Hard times

5 Sudden wealth

6 Internal conflict

7 Bad rumours

8 Hiring adventurers

9 Seeking <thing>

10 Ill

11 Absent

12 Family member missing

13 Succession issues

14 War/conflict

15 Religious crisis/conversion

16-20 Roll on What Troubles This Place, Old Man?

What Troubles This Place, Old Man?

These are ongoing events that affect the barony and are visible to players, but do not require them to engage with.  If you want to spread these out across many baronies, check them off as you use them. Then for each new barony roll and only use the result if it’s not yet been used. Or make up new ones as you go.

Roll d66

11 - Raids. Violent raiders are crossing into the realm’s territory and causing damage and stealing property. The raids may be cattle raids more focused on acquisition and notoriety than violence. Or they may be more sinister. The culprits might be from a neighbouring realm, a rival cultural or family group, or the work of monsters.

12 - Power struggles between powerful groups spill out onto the streets. These might be between legitimate power groups, criminal organizations, feuding families, rival military factions, or even sport supporters.

13 - Crime is rampant and the authorities are nearly helpless to stop it. Corruption, ineffectual leadership, unprecedented violence, or simple indifference may have led to this.

14 - Alien abductions and livestock mutilation terrorize the countryside. People are going missing and coming back strange, cattle are found turned inside-out, and there are strange lights in the sky at night.

15 - Plague of animals. Huge numbers of some small creature that normally avoids urban areas, like bats or snakes or foxes or owls or horses, are mobbing the towns and cities and nobody knows why.

16 - All the pets are missing and nobody knows why. Perhaps all the dogs ran off into the woods, or the cats were simply gone one morning, or the cows never came back from pasture, or the goats climbed up things until they vanished into the clouds.

21 - Large crystal obelisks float in the sky. They simply appeared there one morning, or drifted in from sea. Some have claimed to have seen a small humanoid figure trapped in the amethyst obelisk…

22 - A change in government is coming and everyone is on edge as fears grow of possible upheaval and violence.  A viciously contested election, a brewing succession crisis.

23 - Power has recently changed hands and things are still unsettled in the aftermath. Perhaps institutions are being restructured, or authority figures are resisting being replaced by the new leadership’s appointees, or there is widespread resentment of the change.

24 - Bizarre changes or supernatural things are happening to local livestock. Pigs flying, cows dancing, goats talking, horses eating only hay and not flesh…

25 - Famine, now or soon. Crops may have failed, or trade dried up suddenly, food stores stolen or gone bad. The people of this realm are headed for lean and hungry and sharp times.

26 - A terrifying supernatural event has begun. A permanent eclipse but only in the borders of this realm, the moon turning red as blood or disappearing entirely, bizarre and impossible weather, rivers turning green, etc.

31 - Imminent War. The realm is on the brink of war. Levies are being raised, warbands trained, material gathered, supplies hoarded. Roll to see if the war is offensive or defensive, and make an Opinion Roll to see how public opinion sees it.

32 - Revolution! Revolution is in the air as the realm heads to the brink. Depending on the ruling government, it might be the common people are rising for liberty and justice, or monarchists are seeking to restore an ancient regime. Daily clashes are likely to happen between the sides, and it may often be difficult to even tell factions apart.

33 - Crackdown. The government, or a part of it, is engaging in a reign of terror. This may be widespread, or localized to a given part of the realm. A fascistic magistrate, a corrupt duke, or a counter-revolutionary governor.

34 - Them! Gigantic ants have begun burrowing up through the surface, carrying off herds of cattle, clearing forests, and devastating farmland as they construct enormous anthills across the countryside.

35 - Strikes. The common workers and labourers have organized against corrupt and exploitative working conditions. Industry and commerce have ground to a halt across the realm. Any outsiders who try to do business will quickly fall afoul of the strikers, and any who show solidarity will become a target for the scabs and strike-breakers working for the wealthy.

36 - Panem et circenses. The rulers of this realm are throwing elaborate, expensive, and long-running entertainments that border on the decadent and obscene. While the people are ecstatic for now, the realm will suffer for the costs in the long run. And there’s the question of what, exactly, the entertainments are a distraction from...

41 - Dragon Be Here. A dragon, or similarly powerful and terrifying beast, has taken up residence in a prominent and important location. It hasn’t done anything more hostile than scare away the original inhabitants of its new lair, but that can’t last… right?

42 - The Latest Craze. A new fashion craze is sweeping the realm, and everyone is obsessed with keeping up. Commerce, industry, learning, all are affected by the masses’ drive to acquire and show off this new fashion. Who originated it, and why has it gained such a grip?

43 - Plague. A virulent and deadly plague has appeared, and it’s only a matter of time before it sweeps across the entire realm.

44 - Butterflies. Vast swarms of butterflies have appeared, blanketed the realm in millions of rustling, brightly coloured wings. Where they came from, and why, and what they want is a mystery…

46 - Lost Princess. A long-lost scion of the royal family, celebrity, or other beloved child has reappeared after being thought lost forever. Lavish festivals of thanksgiving are being planned in the capital and across the realm, whether they can be afforded or not.

51 - Floating Castle. A huge castle has appeared in the sky, a long-forgotten relic or newly-arrived power. It inspires awe, terror, and avarice wherever it floats.

52 - He is Risen. A heretical but nonviolent cult has arisen in the realm, centred on a messanaic figure who promises to make all equal and free. This has provoked a storm of dissension and sectarian conflict.

53 - Beside Whom There is None. The rulers have introduced a new, radically different religion and made it the state cult, banning all others. Polytheism has become monolatry, tolerance has become forbiddance, and the head of state is now the head of religion.

54 - Day Without End. Within the borders of this realm the sun never sets. This is a boon to crops and gardens, but light-induced insomnia is taking its toll on the mental health of the entire realm.

55 - Miscarriage of Justice. The realm is gripped by riots, demonstrations, and class conflict after the justice system has been shown to favour the privileged over the common folk.

56 - The Bastille. The people have risen up and torn down an edifice or institution associated with oppression. The whole realm waits to see if the revolution will continue, or crackdowns and reprisals will come, or change can be affected peacefully.

61 - Bees and the Born King. A commoner child is being followed about by huge swarms of bees. They buzz about the child, bring them flowers, and ward off danger. This news is a sensation in the realm, with many saying the child is the reincarnation of an ancient hero-king come to set the realm right.

62 - Conquering Hero. After a glorious campaign a general is being feted across the realm. Many are on edge, believing the general will soon make a play for power. Lines of allegiance are being drawn and conflict is already sparking.

63 - Mutinous Riot. The realm’s soldiery, disgrunted at bad pay, poor conditions, incompetent officers, or an unpopular war, have mutinied. They have left the realm defenceless to drink and loot and terrorize and the government is scrambling to get them under control.

64 - It Came From Space. A glowing green rock the size of a wagon fell from space and landed in the capital’s market square. Rumours abound that the most skilled mages and engineers have failed to find a way to remove the thing, that it emits strange spores that warps the bodies of all who breathe them, or that it sings to the stars at night.

65 - One Day More. A small group of intellectuals and poor folk have seized a portion of the capital and declared a revolution. It remains to be seen whether others will rise with them, or if the government’s crackdown will topple their barricades...

66 - In the Dark Bowers. Terrible portents grip the realm. Goat-men have been seen prowling the forests, children are born with stigmata of hell, and all the oracles cry out that the book has been read from.

What are the locals doing about it?

What they’re doing about the above troubles.

Roll 1d10

1 - Blaming: Roll d10 1 - Those in power (correctly). 2 - Each other. 3 - The lower class (incorrectly). 4 - Outsiders. 5 - Historical enemies. 6 - Necromancers. 7 - Adventurers. 8 - Snake people. 9 - Divine meddling. 10 - Fiendish meddling.

2 - Preparing for War. Roll on the Blaming subchart above to see who against.

3 - Denying or suppressing knowledge. Will respond with hostility to outsiders bringing it up.

4 - Denial. Will act increasingly confused and upset if questioned or confronted with evidence, culminating in panic and catatonia.

5 - Hiring adventurers/mercenaries to confront the trouble directly.

6 - Protests/demonstrations to provoke government action.

7 - Preparing for the worst by hoarding and stockpiling.

8 - Moving or Fleeing.

9 - Mass religious hysteria. Lots of over the top rites, practices, ceremonies, sacrifices, praying, etc.

10 - Creepily happy about it. Like, fits of ecstasy and devotion, loss of self-preservation.

A Pocket Wavecrawl

So I grabbed these cool pocket notebooks from Melsonia and decided I wanted to make them into a pseudo-Aegean wavecrawl, with each notebook being an island. As an extra challenge, I wanted to see if I could come up with rules for stocking them that fit entirely into the notebook. Here's the result so far, with the first draft of the procedure, and one filled sub-hex.

Once I've gone through a few more sub-hexes and refined the numbers, I'll type up the procedure properly and post it. The hex stocking tables from The Black Hack were my initial inspiration, plus some from Agon, combined with my own nonsense.