An Enemy in the Shadows

[Gandalf970]

I am looking for a race and enemy for my new campaign.  I don't want it to be something my group has seen before.  I want to create something and get some help from all you devious GM's.  So far the race is using demons for power and can summon them.  I have the Old One's in my campaign, thus a little Cthulu thrown in.  The groups overall plan is to bring about destruction upon the world through driving a star into the planet.  This star is from a demonic plane and thus brings much needed chaos energy to the world.

 

Obviously very intelligent, but chaotic enough to leave openings for the players.  Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.  A picture would be cool as well.  Thank you.

[Lord Liaden]

Hero Games contributing author, and our forum colleague, Dean Shomshak, created a supernatural "multiverse" for Hero's house settings, originally for the Champions line, but having been adapted to their fantasy and sci-fi lines. It's inspired by the Sephirothic Tree of Life, cosmology from Kabbalah. Dean also adapted another concept from Kabbalah, the Qliphoth, worlds which God created and discarded before He created our own. In Dean's interpretation the Qliphoth are like a distorted reflection or shadow of the Sephiroth, universes so ancient and decayed that they've become antithetical to life, matter, energy from our own. Yet these universes have also spawned their own forms of very alien "anti-life." Across Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Edition books, we have game stats and descriptions for a score of these creatures, some intelligent in their own incomprehensible way. These are explicitly inspired by the creations of H.P. Lovecraft and his imitators, even up to analogues to his Great Old Ones, the "Kings of Edom." I guarantee that most of them will be unlike anything your players have ever encountered before. Most would be usable for fantasy games just by adjusting their numbers or modifying their stats a bit.

 

However, for the kind of large-scale supernatural destruction you want, from that collection I recommend the Ravens of Dispersion (Harab Serapel in Hebrew), sometimes called "Ravens of Death." Here's an excerpt from their write-up in The Super Mage Bestiary for Fourth Edition:

 

Thousands of universes ago, mighty Lords of Artifice crafted Times for mortals to live in, faceting each moment with care and stringing them into necklaces of hours, days, years, and ages. But with passage of eons, even conceptual entities can die. The Harab Serapel are ghosts of ghosts.

By rights the Harab Serapel and their dimension, the Pale Cathedral, should have fallen to oblivion eons ago. The Ravens of Death, however, learned how to stave off that final plunge by stealing energy from other planes, pulling the other dimension a little closer to destruction in the process. Stealing small amounts of energy is easy, but each theft only sustains the Pale Cathedral for a short time. To gain whole ages of extra time, the Harab Serapel must pull entire worlds into oblivion — which they do. They have lost the power to create anything, so instead they create Nothing.

 

Although the Harab Serapel have great power, even they cannot destroy an entire world all by themselves. They can, however, achieve such a feat with the help of other beings. Lesser qliphothic entities are the least of their pawns. Naïve inhabitants of the worlds that the Harab Serapel wish to destroy serve the Raven’s plans much better – or perhaps they simply appeal to some tiny remnant of a sense of humor. The Ravens of Death mentally search the Multiverse for sorcerers who are corrupt, insane, or foolish enough to call on the powers of the qliphothic planes. They teach such wizards through dreams and visions, increasing their power and madness until the mage can open a Gate to the Final Abyss. Unless such a Gate is closed quickly, it can expand out of control as the world’s energies pour away. The Harab Serapel make sure that the Gate does not close.

A Harab Serapel looks like a human skeleton topped with a bird’s skull. Their obsidian wings wrap around them like the husks of dead, dried-out beetles. They mutter and squawk to themselves in querulous voices as they shuffle about the Pale Cathedral and conduct their deadly rituals.

 

There's more about the Ravens in TSMB, including a full 4E character sheet, as well as about the Pale Cathedral. I'll attach their image from the book below, which includes a drawing of another creature from the Qliphoth, a Space-Eater. Should you wish it I can direct you to where game stats for the other creatures can be found, and/or summarize them here. There are also descriptions of two other dimensions of the Qliphoth besides the Pale Cathedral, should you wish your PCs to do a bit of dimension-hopping.
 

[archer]

When I was first DMing, I tried to do Scum Men.

 

They were literally made up of the moldy scum that was all over the floors and walls of the dungeon the players were going through.

 

In Champions terms, the Scum Men could teleport to any location in range as long as there was a continuous layer of scum connecting the two locations. And the Scum Men could avoid damage while concentrating so the players weren't guaranteed of doing damage. That could be done a number of ways including Desolidification.

 

They were very difficult to deal with when in their element. But not nearly as much of a threat when away from their element or if their scum was dried out or frozen. 

 

I could see such a group being resentful enough of their limitations, and how other view them, to want to radically transform the world.

[Gandalf970]

13 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Hero Games contributing author, and our forum colleague, Dean Shomshak, created a supernatural "multiverse" for Hero's house settings, originally for the Champions line, but having been adapted to their fantasy and sci-fi lines. It's inspired by the Sephirothic Tree of Life, cosmology from Kabbalah. Dean also adapted another concept from Kabbalah, the Qliphoth, worlds which God created and discarded before He created our own. In Dean's interpretation the Qliphoth are like a distorted reflection or shadow of the Sephiroth, universes so ancient and decayed that they've become antithetical to life, matter, energy from our own. Yet these universes have also spawned their own forms of very alien "anti-life." Across Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Edition books, we have game stats and descriptions for a score of these creatures, some intelligent in their own incomprehensible way. These are explicitly inspired by the creations of H.P. Lovecraft and his imitators, even up to analogues to his Great Old Ones, the "Kings of Edom." I guarantee that most of them will be unlike anything your players have ever encountered before. Most would be usable for fantasy games just by adjusting their numbers or modifying their stats a bit.

 

However, for the kind of large-scale supernatural destruction you want, from that collection I recommend the Ravens of Dispersion (Harab Serapel in Hebrew), sometimes called "Ravens of Death." Here's an excerpt from their write-up in The Super Mage Bestiary for Fourth Edition:

 

Thousands of universes ago, mighty Lords of Artifice crafted Times for mortals to live in, faceting each moment with care and stringing them into necklaces of hours, days, years, and ages. But with passage of eons, even conceptual entities can die. The Harab Serapel are ghosts of ghosts.

By rights the Harab Serapel and their dimension, the Pale Cathedral, should have fallen to oblivion eons ago. The Ravens of Death, however, learned how to stave off that final plunge by stealing energy from other planes, pulling the other dimension a little closer to destruction in the process. Stealing small amounts of energy is easy, but each theft only sustains the Pale Cathedral for a short time. To gain whole ages of extra time, the Harab Serapel must pull entire worlds into oblivion — which they do. They have lost the power to create anything, so instead they create Nothing.

 

Although the Harab Serapel have great power, even they cannot destroy an entire world all by themselves. They can, however, achieve such a feat with the help of other beings. Lesser qliphothic entities are the least of their pawns. Naïve inhabitants of the worlds that the Harab Serapel wish to destroy serve the Raven’s plans much better – or perhaps they simply appeal to some tiny remnant of a sense of humor. The Ravens of Death mentally search the Multiverse for sorcerers who are corrupt, insane, or foolish enough to call on the powers of the qliphothic planes. They teach such wizards through dreams and visions, increasing their power and madness until the mage can open a Gate to the Final Abyss. Unless such a Gate is closed quickly, it can expand out of control as the world’s energies pour away. The Harab Serapel make sure that the Gate does not close.

A Harab Serapel looks like a human skeleton topped with a bird’s skull. Their obsidian wings wrap around them like the husks of dead, dried-out beetles. They mutter and squawk to themselves in querulous voices as they shuffle about the Pale Cathedral and conduct their deadly rituals.

 

There's more about the Ravens in TSMB, including a full 4E character sheet, as well as about the Pale Cathedral. I'll attach their image from the book below, which includes a drawing of another creature from the Qliphoth, a Space-Eater. Should you wish it I can direct you to where game stats for the other creatures can be found, and/or summarize them here. There are also descriptions of two other dimensions of the Qliphoth besides the Pale Cathedral, should you wish your PCs to do a bit of dimension-hopping.
 

Thank Lord Liaden, that my be the ticket.

[Lord Liaden]

Cool. Let me know if you would like guidance to additional resources.   Here's where you can purchase and download the Super Mage Bestiary:

The chapter in the book with the Ravens writes up two other spirits from the Qliphoth, and the section, "Edomite Monsters," contains four of the servants of the Kings of Edom. That will give you a sense of what the rest of these things are like.

[Duke Bushido]

I have no idea how to paste up pictures, but I've got a couple of insect-based races.  The first one is appropriate for underground anywhere; the second-- well, swamps, tropical forests, anywhere with high and low hunting areas, really.  

 

Feel free to invent culture as is appropriate for your needs:

 

https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D12672052/

 

https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D12450988/

 

 

No; I'm not an insectoid junkie or anything like that, but I have found that few GMs do them, making them "new-ish" to most anyone, and hey-- you just can't beat the creep-out factor of insects. 

 

 

It takes just a minute for Hero Forge to load on a phone or tablet, I've found, but you get a nice click-and-drag 360 look around at the critter.

 

I love tools like this because I _cannot_ draw, period.

 

The first one: that's a shell, yes; but not a turtle shell (that's the only shell option available unless you want the wings spread).  It should be more a beetle-shell with a split down the center, etc-- but....  Hey, if you can't draw, you can't complain, I guess.  😕