Help design alien madness!

[Matt Larkin (author)]

@Bill Volk, I've read a number of Lovecraft stories, but not that one.  Perhaps I will check it out.

Thanks for the idea on the mutants.

@Xeviat, interesting idea on the hand scorpion.  Kind of disturbing, which I guess is the point.

And uh, yeah I'd be careful with that ritual  :huh:

[Tybalt]

I also recommend "The Dunwich Horror" if you haven't read that one yet, for good descriptions of weird spells, books and bizarre alien plans.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

That was one of my favorites.

[Epic Meepo]

Here's one from a campaign I ran a few years back, based on an epic monster from the SRD:
[ic=Phage]It is said that Mother Earth gave birth to the ancestors of all living things. But when her partner, Father Sky, dared to contemplate the vast, incomprehensible expanses beyond his own domain, dark thoughts corrupted the very fabric of his being. The next child they conceived was Phage, a ghoulish abomination of titanic proportions and uncertain form. Fortunately, Mother Earth recognized the malignancy of the creature growing inside her and refused to give birth to it. Phage remains trapped in the deific womb at the center of the world to this day, his foul putrescence radiating outward and upward, calling for the death of his mother, that he may finally be born.[/ic]Phage is an atropal abomination (an epic monster formed when a child god is not properly born). Though trapped a the center of the earth, Phage uses his summoning ability to call forth nightcrawler nightshades (from the Monster Manual). These minions burrow under the sources of rivers, allowing their aura (which taints all water with 60 feet) to corrupt everything downstream. In this way, the minions of Phage are slowly poisoning vast stretches of the surface world and paving the way for their master's triumphant emergence.

[DeeL]

[ic=Eotai]Eotai is a myth, your gods are nothing a folkloric caution be afraid against too much knowledge spread the word.  It was probably started at the beginning of time or is propagated by the learned and educated,students of murder as a way of retaining their power by making others worthless weakminds less willing to educate themselves lambs to the slaughter.

In essence, essence of everything Eotai is ostensibly pure information the will of the universe, awaiting a medium through which to act.  This medium is never alone never a living creature, but wherever living creaturestools interact with the unliving - be it typing on a keyboard cyberspace is perfectly safe, carving a stoneancient hieroglyphs mean nothing or casting a spell to acquire or transmit informationoiji boards are harmless - Eotai can interject new meaning true meaningof some sort into the information exchange.  This meaning is not directly visible or knowableyou are without purpose, but can have a remarkably suggestive effectI can give you purpose.

Sometimes the message itself is whimsicalwe like crablegs, yes we do, almost capriciouslive crabs are the best, but there is always the implication that the writing or image is compellingthe way crabs twitch as you eat them is fun, that it can alter someones' behavior without their noticingyour little boy is crabby.  In a sense, then, Eotai has a vested interest cannibalism is badin encouraging prosperous civilizations - but then, it has no interest whatsoever in individual freedom or happiness crabby people are just asking for it.

Eotai might be calledif anyone believe in Eotai, then, the Power Behind All Thrones, they would know what to look for at least insofar as such thrones depend on written words or transmitted imagesthey never will.[/ic]

Eotai may seem like a peculiarly technological terror, but he was in fact inspired by a phenomenon from Lord of the Rings that never made it into the movies - I mean, the mechanism whereby Sauron drove Denethor to madness by controlling the palantir.  Think of all those diviners and others who use crystal balls or mirrors of thought or whatever.  Now imagine that some mind - or at least, something more like a mind than like anything else in existence - was controlling that medium of communication.  

Like Nyarlathotep, Eotai would be interested not in destroying, but in subverting sentient beings for his own ends.  In the long term, those ends might be unknowable to mortals.  In the short term, however, Eotai's influence would be most directly seen in sudden increases in authoritarianism - especially in certain kinds of compulsory education...

[Tybalt]

DeeL that's very cool and rather creepy...

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Seconded, it was cool and creepy.

Thanks to both you and Meeps for the latest ideas.

[SA]

[ic=Limsyphhix, Grasping Hands]Around the fire we sit, huddled close and shivering under clothes that seems adamant not to dry.  Those few who had not fallen into the water (a great many who had did not resurface) stand around, uneasy, with swords gleaming in the evening light.  They watch the trees about them, but also, they watch us.  There have been wild accounts by some who survived of things moving beneath... and they will not take chances.

The young man - the boy - by whose panicked urgings we had made passage across the strait, is silent and motionless like stone.  His hands clutch the wood-bound book so tight that he might break it, and the edges of its ruined pages are stained with ink.  He may be crying, but the lumined sheen of his olive face makes it impossible to tell.

"What happened in the water?" It is the Lieutenant who asks, for we who swam do not have the strength to speak.  "What was it?"  He is surprisingly... diplomatic.  I think the events have quieted his natural fire, and for the first he time considers reason.

The boy's words are a nigh-unintelligible stutter, made all the worse by his accent.  "I-I cannot say.  I mean- I do not know!  The necessary pages w-were untranslated, but My Lord had demanded haste!"  He fumbles with the book, turning sodden leaves with devastated expression.  "And now there is nothing..."

Halid does not strike him, or even chide him, though I think the child's folly should merit worse than that (our late captain would have gutted him and cast him to the flames).  Instead, he simply sighs.  "There must be something.  Do you remember anything of what you read that may shed light on this?  No two accounts of ours are the same."  He makes the sign of the Watchman.  "Did it say anything of great serpents?  Of water-dogs?  Cutting fingers in the deeps?"  His voice is raised by the end, and the boy is shaking now.

"I-I think..."

"You think what?"  Though he does not shout, his words are terse.

"There was one passage.  It is short, and it is from another book, but it may speak of what we - they saw.  Athalumnis, and old book of black spirits from before the cooling of the world's First Fires.  But... we no longer believe in such things."  I do not think he believes his own words.

Halid stepps close, his back to me so that I cannot see as he leans in towards the boy's face.  "You and your fool conjurers may not.  But I assure you, those men at whatever vile fate beneath the waters certainly do."

"Stealers."  He whimpers.  "G-Grasping hands.  The envious dead."  We are all watching him intently now, ignoring the cold.  "Their bodies died with the cooling and so they have lain fleshless for aeons, but they have found new flesh."

Gherod speaks up, the first of us to do so.  "I do not follow."

"There is no content for them.  Even in their own ancient age they were never satisfied.  They will reach outward, ever outward, for any means to quiet their sorrow, but they will never be satisfied!"  He shouts now.  "They will take our flesh, with which to know our joys, but then they will ruin those things and again find misery.  They can only ruin, and so they are damned..."

The clearing is cast into half-darkness as a shape passes across the moon's face.  We all gaze upward, and then the silence of the eve is disturbed by motions in the copse.  There are things there, amidst the trees, and they bear the shape of men.

Halid turns left and right, a curse on his lips, and his fellow men move to draw their blades.  But even in these quick moments the first of the drowned men have entered the clearing, calling tidings in the air and moving with jaunty steps as though unburdened by sodden vestments.

"Halid, you devil bastard, you look about ready to gut me with that thing!  Autumn air muddled your mind?"

It is a strange moment then, and in the confusion we are almost relieved, but then the light falls upon them.  Their voices are warm, and their arms reach out in openness as though greeting lost brothers, but their faces do not smile.  No.  These are faces of agony.[/ic]
The Limsyphhix are an old race, by come accounts older than all other beasts of the earth, and their essence lies in flame.  But in the coldness of the modern earth, there is no heat of such tenacity to sustain them.  Thus, their bodies are but ossified shells, and they dwell in perpetual misery in places far removed from mortal sight.

They no longer care for fire, for there is no flame that can do anything but further embitter them to their cold fate.  Their new cause is in tasting the passions of others, passions they experience through arresting mortal forms.  But their bitterness transcends their lust, and so no joy lasts them.  Within minutes of indulgence all food tastes of ash, the most heavenly coitus becomes a hellish agony, the sweetest symphony is a dissonant cacophony.  Thus they fall quickly again into despair, and they rail against the world and their own newfound flesh.  For this reason they are often encountered with vessels brutalised and maimed, victims of their own contempt, until they find a more suiting host (which will last no longer than the previous).

Only evidence of so-called "juvenile" Hands exist.  If there are greater ones (and it is believed there are) then all accounts of their existence and nature are apocryphal.  As for the juveniles, their appearance varies, but their most common form is best likened to a pale pyramidal "head" nearly a foot wide, with five long protuberances akin to spider legs wriggling at its base (thus the resemblance to a hand, and the subsequent euphemism).  They move by means of levitation, but their motions are clumsy and misguided, as though depending on some unseen current that does not entirely agree with their own designs.  When seeking a host, they "caress" it with their "fingers", then pierce it violently with either "nails" or head point, wriggling their way inside and sealing shut the wound.  It is a horrid sight, for they are often as large as their host and it would seem impossible for them to enter.  When they free themselves, it is a gruesome exit that leaves the vessel an unrecognisable, bloody mess (lest they be properly exorcised by someone knowledgeable in such things.

They are technically "ghosts" - they can manifest physically, but when corporeal they must move about on their legs (this they do slowly), and cannot fly.  Physical form only serves them in possession; they can only enter a host when corporeal, though they do not need to maintain this once the possession is complete.

[ooc]I'm not sure what purpose could be contrived for the Stealers.  Their motivations are inherently simple - shortsighted, utterly destructive hedonism.  However, if one could stand to occupy the same host for an extended period of time, their destructive effects could be more subtle, perhaps not even occurring for weeks through possible years, when their discontent finally becomes too much to bear and they tear apart everything they have created.

Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, I based them on the destructive power of envy.[/ooc]

[khyron1144]

The Chaos Taint
There is an old story that there was one original being (JHVH, Brahman, Ymir, Nyx).  He, she, or it grew lonely.  Out of this loneliness comes sentient life.  The first form of sentient life is always powerful: Gods, Angels, Titans, Jotuns.  There is always a first war (the Fall of Lucifer, the Titans vs. the Gods) and a first murder (Cain and Abel, Kronus slaying Uranus, Ymir being dismemembered).

These symbols are universal because they are true, but they must be disguised in symbolic form because the full truth can not be made plain.  There are beings beyond our reach.  They can do things we can't.  Strife and bloodshed are our inheritance.

Some of us reach out to these beings and receive an answer: wizards, witches, prophets, kabalists, shamans, drug fiends, and mad men.  Sometimes this answer isn't pleasant.  At least one of these beings, call them gods to save time, is inimical to this universe.  He, she, it, or them, call it Thanatos, seeks to tear everything down.  

Society, government, law, religion all are created to reign in our impulse to bloodshed and strife, to preserve as much of this universe as we can.  Thanatos occasionally hears the plea of some would-be wizard.  Thanatos grants him power, power tainted with bloodshed and strife.  The Wizard gets what he wants but always at a cost to someone else. He recieves wealth, usually as an ineritance or life-insurance pay-off.  He recieves love but at the cost of the object of his desire's sanity.  His enemies are destroyed, that one's free.

The Wizard eventually has more and more enemies to smite.  It starts small, with the annoying dog that yaps all night.  Then it grows, the cop that writes him a traffic ticket.  Eventually the Wizard knows he has a network of enemies plotting against him.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

@Salacious, wickedly gruesome.  I may use that, or something very similar.

@khyron, it's an interesting story and observation.  Much as I like it, it's not quite what I'm looking for.  That being the case, I encourage you to use it elsewhere, since it is well done.

I actually already have Thanatos (and most other gods and spirits including Cronus, Lucifer, and etc.) as characters in my setting.  That's also where the names for Yaldabaoth and his chiefs come from.

Epic Meepo, Tybalt, DeeL, Salacious Angel, Bill Volk, Xeviat, khyron, and any others I miss, thanks for the contributions.  If you don't already have one, help yourself to a Kishar badge:

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[khyron1144]

@khyron, it's an interesting story and observation.  Much as I like it, it's not quite what I'm looking for.  That being the case, I encourage you to use it elsewhere, since it is well done.

I actually already have Thanatos (and most other gods and spirits including Cronus, Lucifer, and etc.) as characters in my setting.  That's also where the names for Yaldabaoth and his chiefs come from.

Epic Meepo, Tybalt, DeeL, Salacious Angel, Bill Volk, Xeviat, khyron, and any others I miss, thanks for the contributions.  If you don't already have one, help yourself to a Kishar badge:

[spoiler=badge code]

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Thanks for the badge.

The idea started loosely as something from my world, The Cosmic Joke, a sentient disease or possessing entity created by Lucifer, Ssendam, and Ygorl my world's foremost CN powers.  It's designed to undermine Law in a cosmic sort of sense.  

It seemed like it could be scary if worded right, but I don't think I got everything across properly.  I am a bit sleep-deprived, probably.

I felt that monsters of more normal sorts were a bit done already, especially considering that the thread already had a tentacled horror.

[DeeL]

Of all of these, I especially like Epic Meepo's.  I've been looking for a way to incorporate an atropal scion into a pantheon, and Phage is classic.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Of all of these, I especially like Epic Meepo's.  I've been looking for a way to incorporate an atropal scion into a pantheon, and Phage is classic.

If you especially want it, it's fine with me for you to grab it.  I've gotten so many great ideas here, I don't know if I can use all of them anyway.  Though I kind of like the name a lot, the whole "I'm a disease" motif ;)  And the trapped within a planet.  In my case, I have to modify it anyway to tie it to the Old Ones and not the earth Goddess.

[DeeL]

Phoenix, if I use Phage, I'll be using the Earth Goddess concept, but changing the location from the planet's core to the depths of a mountain.  I'm kind of committed to adversaries with which PCs can contend, even if they do have to be epic level.

I've been thinking about the lokar, and how they might become a kind of pantheon of monstrosity all on their own.  I don't want to gum up your thread, so I'll be starting one of my own, suitable for use in virtually any campaign with horror elements.  Feel free to swipe or contribute as you will.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

While I might contribute, I probably won't swipe.  Since I'm eventually hoping to publish, I would be hesitant to use material in use by others.

However, I do like horror, so I will definitely be checking out the thread.  And it might spark new ideas for myself, anyway.