CATS, RATS, AND HOODED MEN

In Gatopolis no-one may harm a cat or allow a cat to be harmed. The cats are sacred. They are also a pain. They keep the rats away, people say, and indeed there are few rats to be seen. But the truly deseperate, clawing struggle that goes on when humans aren't looking is known to few.

THE CATS

Each neighbourhood has its own cat congress, and each congress is headed by a queen who rules for however long she feels like and is chosen by being whichever cat wants to do it. Queens and congresses cooperate on matters that affect the entire city.

Cat Queen Titles (3d8)

All cat queens can speak with humans. Nobody knows if becoming queen instills this, if only cats with this ability become queen, or if (as some believe) all cats can but only some choose to.

Cat Queen Powers (d8)

1. Vorpal Claws
2. Can cast a random 1st level spell
3. Has eighteen lives
4. Can shadow-teleport
5. True sight
6. Urine wards off demons
7. Detects lies
8. Is actually a Cat Lord from the Violet City

Each congress is more or less independent, though individual cats have only vague notions of boundary lines. The cats go everywhere, see everything, are omnipresent.

WHEN YOU LOOK AROUND YOU SEE (d12)

Befriending a congress can be a great benefit, and angering one equally fraught. In either case, the relation is likely to prove fleeting unless the humans prove themselves true allies (or staunch foes).

THIS CONGRESS (3d8)

THIS CAT IS (3d8)

THIS CAT (2d8)

All cats have a 2-in-6 chance to speak, unless the Ref feels that they should in which case they do. All cats have d8 lives remaining. If a cat is reduced to 0 HP, it loses one remaining life and returns the next morning.

THE RATS

Most of the rats just want to be left alone, to feast on the riches humans throw away and scuttle and breed and live down in the dark. But the city is old, and the things that have leaked down to its roots - demonic tissue, discarded magics, potions gone wrong, and all the detritus of humanity - have changed many of the rats turning mischiefs into malevolences. To most, there is no difference between the rats and The Rats.

IN THE DARK, THEY GNAW

THESE RATS (6d6)

Even as warped as they are, The Rats are little more intelligent than monkeys. There is a controlling force that guides each malevolence.

THIS FELL INTELLIGENCE (3d8)

WHEN YOU SEE THEM THEY ARE (d6)

1-3  Ambushing you! Skreee!

4     Eating someone

5     Carrying loot

6     Fleeing from something

THE HOODED MEN

It's said they are seen at night, lonely figures tall and broad, cloaked in dark brown or green. When they are seen, people disappear. Children, elders, the sick, those who live alone. They are never seen again. Beware the Hooded Men. They live below.

The Hooded Men are cockroaches, grown tall as a man and shifted strange by eons below the city until they can walk the streets and hunt. Below, they take anything they can find, eating flesh or dragging it back to their eggs for the next foul generation.

HOODED MAN - HD 4

Ambush Hunter. Players have disadvantage on Initiative rolls in the first round of combat.

Jagged Mandibles - STR (1 Close) 5 dmg

• Toxins! If a creature rolls 16+ to Defend they must pass a CON Test or be Paralyzed.

Stabbing Limbs - STR (1 Close) 3 dmg

• Grabbed! The target is Stuck until they pass a STR Test or the Hooded Man is killed.

WHEN YOU SEE IT, IT IS (d6)

1. Standing, watching
2. Eating someone
3. Stalking someone
4. Cleaning its mandibles
5. Dragging someone to its lair
6. Fighting someone

WITH

1. Mass of eggs
2. Shredded corpse
3. Eerie silence
4. Regurgitation with loot in
5. Another Hooded Man nearby
6. A shrieking victim

THINGS YOU MIGHT FIND ON A HOODED MAN

1d4 loose coins per HD, shreds of clothing, undigested loot, pile of bones, freshly laid eggs, embedded weapon