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Ashes to Ashes, Bling to Bling
It’s been a while since I posted anything here, but an image of this ring popped up in my feed and I just couldn’t resist.
It’s a mourning ring from 17th century England, now in the British Museum. In a fantasy game, though, what necromantic powers might it have?
Images copyright British Museum. Used without permission.
It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Bling
If you like this kind of post, you’ll also want to see these:
Armillary Rings: Handy for astronomers, astrologers, and navigators.
Compartment Rings: Hide your true allegiance, or carry a secret message.
Poison Rings: An old classic.
Gun Rings: Add more punch to your punch.
Eye Rings: Protection, divination, gaze weapons, and more.
Miscellany: No theme, but lots of possibilities.
Let us Bling: A Ring for Clerics that unfolds into a portable shrine.
Return of the Bling: Rings that look like buildings, and may have some of their properties.
Medusas – Three Old Citadel Miniatures
Citadel’s C18 Night Horrors miniatures were issued between 1984 and 1986. Most of them never received game stats for Warhammer or WFRP, and I have covered a few of them in earlier posts in this series.
The Stuff of Legends site has a complete listing of the range here, but for this post, I’ll concentrate on the Medusas.
There were three figures in total. One was a snake-haired hag, another had a snake body like the version of Medusa in the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans, and the third was armoured and dressed in a flowing robe (actually a simple head-swapped variant on an armoured wight figure from the same range).
To the best of my knowledge, Medusas (or Gorgons, as I prefer to call them, since in Greek myth Medusa was one of three sisters by that name) have never received rules or stats in any official WFRP publication, though a comment below shares some links to previous Warhammer incarnations. I’ve based my stats and rules more on the miniatures than these past versions, though. Needless to say, what follows is in no way official and should be considered a fan work. No challenge is intended to copyrights or trademarks held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else.
Medusas
These fearsome but reclusive creatures inhabit the remotest mountains of the southern Old World, from the Border Princes to eastern Tilea. They appear in several legends from Classical times, but their origins are unclear. While they are clearly creatures of Chaos, they appear not to be aligned with any one of the Ruinous powers, although a Medusa will occasionally ally with a Champions of Chaos or other warlord for the right price.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 4 | 35 | 45 | 35 | 45 | 45 | 25 | 35 | 45 | 45 | 20 | 15 |
Traits: Fear 1, Mental Corruption (Hateful Impulses), Mutation (Snake Hair – see below), Night Vision, Petrifying Gaze, Weapon +5
Optional: Armor 2, Champion, Mental Corruption (Unending Malice), Mutation (Snake Body), Ranged +9 (150)
Snake Hair: A Medusa’s hair gives her a +5 attack at Personal range, with Venom. This cannot be used in the same round as any other attack.
Snake Body: Movement -1, Tail +5 attack
The Monsters so Far:
Doomstones 5 – What might have been
Hogshead’s 2001 title Heart of Chaos by Robin D. Laws was not the first attempt to wrap up the Doomstones campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and solve the problem of what to do with the Player Characters now that they have all four Crystals of Power. When the campaign was adventures originally written for D&D, a concluding episode had gone unpublished.
While I was working on the WFRP adaptations at Flame publications, I started working on an outline for a fifth instalment that would tie things up nicely. I left it behind at Flame when I quit Games Workshop in 1990, and I had assumed that, like so many other things, it had vanished in the mists of time. But I was wrong.
A copy of my outline somehow survived in the archives of Marc Gascoigne, and recently made its way to me. I have no idea whether or not Robin Laws saw it while he was working on Heart of Chaos. There are some clear parallels between my outline and Robin’s final work (take that as a spoiler warning, if you will), but the similarities could be put down to the fact that some events and characters are obvious must-haves in a fifth and final Doomstones adventure.
Apart from saving the original Word file as a PDF, I haven’t done anything to it at all. It is just as I wrote it (though someone – probably Mike Brunton – turned it into a Word file from my original ProText file for Amstrad PCW and formatted it using Flame’s style of the time), so its integrity as a historical document is as good as it can be, for those to whom such things matter. Added later: But see the comment below about an earleir version on Gideon’s Awesome Lies blog.
Anyway, take it for what it is, make of it what you will, and I hope you find it interesting. Like everything else WFRP on this blog, this is completely unofficial and no challenge is intended to copyrights held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else. Anyway, here it is.
Doomlord – Greater Daemon of Malal
As I said in my previous post on the Lesser Daemon of Malal, the Renegade God was cut from Warhammer canon before Realm of Chaos was published. Two excellent posts from Awesome Lies and Realm of Chaos 80s give a fuller account. During my time on the project, I developed Lesser and Greater Daemons for him, based on existing art by Tony Ackland.
Before the decision was taken to cut Malal, I worked to include the Renegade God in my draft of Realm of Chaos. This included describing two Daemons for him: one greater and one lesser. By following my blog, Warhammer fans voted for both these creatures to receive stats for WFRP 1st and 4th editions. As always, what follows is to be regarded as a fan work and no challenge is intended to copyrights held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else.
The mighty Doomlords are the most powerful servants of the Renegade God Malal. Massive creatures with hooves, horns, and tails, they fight the forces of Chaos with massive weapons and soul-sucking magic.
WFRP 4th Edition
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 6 | 110 | 95 | 90 | 90 | 100 | 70 | 40 | 85 | 85 | 85 | 280 |
Traits: Armour 4, Belligerent, Bite +10, Champion, Corruption (Major), Daemonic 7+, Frenzy, Hatred (creatures and followers of Chaos), Horns +7, Painless, Size (Monstrous), Soul Drain (new), Tail +6, Terror 3, Unstable, 2 x Weapon +16
Optional: Fast, Elite, Hardy
New Trait: Soul Drain
When the Doomlord’s tail attack scores a critical on any creature without the Undead or Daemonic Traits, do not roll as normal. Instead, the tail-barbs seize the victim and the human-looking head on the tip of the tail bites deeply into the victim’s flesh, draining their soul in an instant and leaving their body a shriveled, dead husk.
Half of the victim’s Wounds (at the time the critical was scored) go to Malal as a soul sacrifice. The other half are added to the Doomlord’s own Wounds score, for the next round of combat only. If the Doomlord is wounded during the round, these additional Wounds points are used first.
This attack counts as magical.
WFRP 1st Edition
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Dex | Ld | Int | Cl | WP | Fel |
| 6 | 90 | 93 | 7 | 7 | 39 | 100 | 10 | 89 | 89 | 89 | 89 | 89 | 20 |
Special Rules: 2 armour points on all locations. Subject to hatred against creatures and followers of Chaos (except Malal). Cause terror in all living creatures under 10 feet tall. Subject to instability. Immune to psychological effects except those caused by gods. Cannot be forced to leave combat except by such beings.
The Monsters so Far:
Doombringer – Lesser Daemon of Malal
The history of Malal is well known. Created for the Kaleb Daark comic, he was cut from Warhammer canon over ownership issues. Two excellent posts from Awesome Lies and Realm of Chaos 80s give a fuller account.
Before the decision was taken to cut Malal, I worked to include the Renegade God in my draft of Realm of Chaos. This included describing two Daemons for him: one greater and one lesser.
No one had drawn or sculpted and Daemons for Malal, so I turned to the vast body of art that had been created for Realm of Chaos since the project was first begun several years earlier. The image above, with its birdlike skull, reminded me of Kaleb Daark’s weapon Dreadaxe, so I chose it for the Lesser Daemon.
Malal was cut, Mike Brunton wrestled Realm of Chaos over the finish line where so many others had failed, and this image was never used, so far as I know. The Daemons for each of the Ruinous Powers were set in particular forms, leaving this and many other Daemon images redundant and forgotten. So it was for more than 30 years.
Then last week, some Polish WFRP fans started to lobby for a treatment of this little beauty. As part of their fan project to bring the Old World to the Genesys system, they added Malal back into the lore and created a new treatment of the Lesser Daemon, naming it the Malignancy after the title of the Awesome Lies post. They asked me for stats, and provided enough blog follows and comments to unlock a new monster according to my promise of a little while ago – so here it is. I prefer the name Doombringer, but you can call it whatever you like in your own games. Trevor, for example.
As always, this post is to be regarded as a fan work and no challenge is intended to any copyrights held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else.
After the warriors known as the Doomed Ones, Doombringers are the most numerous servants of the renegade Chaos God Malal. They may be summoned by his followers to help fight the creatures and servants of the Ruinous Powers.
Doombringers are a semi-skeletal mixture of bird and beast, with hoofed legs, a head something like a bird’s skull, and arms that end in long, curving blades of razor-sharp bone. Their beaks are armed with sharp teeth. Their skin is pitch-black, contrasting with the gleaming white of their hooves, skulls, and blades in the favored colors of Malal: black and white.
They are fast and agile fighters, leaping and slashing with uncanny speed.
WFRP 4th Edition
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 6 | 60 | – | 45 | 35 | 60 | 60 | – | 25 | 70 | 15 | 17 |
Traits: Armour 4, Belligerent, Bite 5+, Champion, Corruption (Moderate), Daemonic 8+, Fear 3, Frenzy, Hatred (creatures and followers of Chaos), Painless, Unstable, 2 x Weapon +9
Optional: Fast, Elite, Hardy
WFRP 1st Edition
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Dex | Ld | Int | Cl | WP | Fel |
| 6 | 55 | – | 4 | 4 | 6 | 60 | 3 | 60* | 89 | 89 | 89 | 89 | 15 |
Special Rules: 1 armour point on all locations. Subject to hatred against creatures and followers of Chaos (except Malal). Cause fear in all living creatures under 10 feet tall. Subject to instability. Immune to psychological effects except those caused by Greater Daemons or gods. Cannot be forced to leave combat except by such beings.
The Monsters so Far:
Giant Bats and Fell Bats for WFRP 4
I just noticed an omission in the adventure “The Return of the Gravelord” in The Horned Rat Companion. Stats were not provided for the Fell Bats in Gräber’s retinue. Fell Bats first appeared in the Vampire Counts army books for Warhammer, and to the best of my knowledge they have never received official stats for any edition of WFRP. Similar, though not as frightening, are the Giant Bats which were first described in the WFRP 1st edition rulebook. So here are stats for both.
As always, everything here is to be regarded as a fan work, and no challenge is intended to any copyrights held by Games Workshop, Cubicle 7, or anyone else.
Oh, and I’ll be adding another monster when the blog hits 350 followers. So if you haven’t followed yet, do it! And if you have, thanks – now, tell your friends!
Giant Bat
A Giant Bat measures almost four feet from nose to tail, and is covered with jet-black fur. The head resembles that of a dog, and the mouth is equipped with long, sharp teeth. These nocturnal creatures are capable of attacking and killing an animal the size of a Human. They are also cunning scavengers, feeding off the carcasses of larger creatures. According to legend, some Sylvanian Vampires have the ability to transform into Giant Bats.
The Move score given on the profile is for ground movement. When flying, a Giant Bat gains a + 10% bonus to Initiative in the first round of combat, unless attacking in illumination equivalent to daylight.
The natural ‘sonar’ of a Giant Bat allows it to ‘see’ up to 20 yards in total darkness. There is a 35% chance that the bite of a Giant Bat may cause Infected wounds.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 1 | 33 | – | 20 | 20 | 30 | 45 | 15 | 14 | 24 | – | 5 |
Traits: Bestial, Bite+4, Dark Vision (echolocation), Flight 60, Size (Small), Skittish, Wallcrawler
Optional: Fast, Infected, Infestation
Fell Bat
The Giant Bats of Sylvania grow to monstrous proportions, with bodies as long as a human is tall and wingspans of fifteen feet or more.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | I | Ag | Dex | Int | WP | Fel | W |
| 1 | 33 | – | 30 | 30 | 30 | 45 | 15 | 14 | 24 | – | 22 |
Traits: Bestial, Bite+6, Dark Vision (echolocation), Fear 1, Flight 60, Size (Large), Undead, Wallcrawler
Optional: Fast, Infected, Infestation
The Monsters so Far:
All I Want for Christmas
Compliments of the season, whatever you celebrate at this time of year.
It’s been a good year for me: the final volumes in The Enemy Within Director’s Cut have been published, at least in electronic form, and just a few days ago the Kickstarter campaign for the Vaesen Britain and Ireland Sourcebook topped $700,000, making almost 65 times its funding goal.
Another thing I’m proud of this year is my involvement with Rookery Publications. For those who haven’t heard, this is a new indie tabletop RPG studio that I have co-founded along with Andy Law, Mark Gibbons, Lindsay Law, and Andy Leask. We are completely self-funded so this is a spare-time venture for most of us, but we confidently expect to release the first few system-agnostic* fantasy roleplaying supplements in our Coiled Crown product line early in 2022.
*That’s right. We are designing everything so that it can be used with any rules system. It sounds like a tall order, but playtest results have been very positive. In fact, some testers successfully adapted our first adventure for various SF and horror games, as well as a wide range of fantasy roleplaying games.
While we were working on those plans, we also started doing a regular weekly stream called Inside the Rookery, where we chat with guests from all across the industry about all manner of things. We’ve had a fantastic array of guests so far, and we plan to keep on going in 2022. We also have an occasional series called Beside the Rookery, which takes a deeper look at a specific topic. You can find past streams on our YouTube channel.
The streams are supported by a Patreon campaign, which you can find here. Starting at just GBP 1.50 (USD 2.00 or EUR 1.77 at the time of posting), you can become a Rook and enjoy Patreon-exclusive blog posts as well as monthly masterclasses on various aspects of RPG design. So far I’ve shown how to create multi-plot adventures like those in the Rough Nights and Hard Days collection for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Andy Law has shared some of the secrets of his multiple award-winning cartography.
So if you want to give us a gift this holiday season, please check out the Rookery’s Patreon page. It’s a gift to yourself, as well.
Wights in D&D 3.5
In Dragon #348 (October 2006), I wrote “Ecology of the Wight”. A lot of my original material was cut from the published version, so here it is. I hope you find it useful, or at least interesting.
I was hoping to include a link so you could buy the magazine online, but it doesn’t seem to be available on DriveThru or the DMs’ Guild. If anyone knows of a place where non-pirated copies can be obtained, please drop a link in the comments below. Thanks!
Advanced Wights: Non-Core Sources
This article [the one in Dragon] assumes that the DM is only using the three core rulebooks, but DMs who have access to additional rulebooks and supplements will find more options for producing advanced wight characters.
Libris Mortis
In addition to general notes on undead characters and NPCs, this sourcebook contains much that will be useful to a DM planning a wight-centered adventure or campaign. The evolved undead template allows the creation of ancient and powerful individuals with spell-like abilities. Feats like Improved Energy Drain, Spell Drain, and Life Drain increase the power of the energy drain ability that wights share with many other undead creatures. Monstrous prestige classes include the lurking terror with its enhanced stealth abilities, and the tomb warden (only available to a wight who has already advanced by other means) which confers many useful abilities within the confines of a particular tomb complex. New undead creatures include the slaughter wight, which could make a good leader or champion, and several other monsters that might be found alongside wights in a barrow-field or necropolis.
Monster Manual II
Of most interest is the spellstitched template (page 215), which confers spellcasting ability on an undead creature. With their high Wisdom, wights gain access to first through third level spells by spellstitching – and gain some useful save bonuses – while only increasing their CR by one.
Savage Species
The emancipated spawn prestige class (page 75) is available to creatures and characters who became the spawn of an undead creature such as a wight, and who regain their independence after their creator has been destroyed. As they advance in this prestige class, emancipated spawn gradually remember the skills and class features that they had while living. The wight template (page 136) can be used to create variant wights based upon any humanoid creature.
Wight Lairs
Unless they are under the command of a necromancer or some other master, wights normally lair in tombs. As their full name of barrow-wights suggests, they are often found in earthen burial mounds, but they can make their lairs in any kind of tomb complex or necropolis. A wight lair will usually be the original burial-place of the oldest wight in the pack (sometimes called the master wight); younger wights are usually the spawn of that first individual.
Wight lairs are usually cramped, dark places. Narrow passages and low ceilings hamper weapon-using intruders and favor unarmed wights. They use their knowledge of their lair’s layout, along with secret doors and passages, to spring close-quarters attacks without having to advance under fire from spellcasters and ranged weapons. Labyrinths of short passages allow a pack of wights to surround intruders and attack from all sides; their Hide and Move Silently skills give them a good chance of gaining surprise. Shifting walls and other devices are sometimes used to confuse and disorient outsiders.
Wights’ acute senses and stealth skills make them skilled and dangerous ambushers. When faced with a strong party, their usual tactic is to try to pick off enemies one by one, draining their life energy at leisure and turning them against their former comrades as wight spawn.
A Sample Wight Lair
The map shows a typical barrow where wights might be found. Built millennia ago to house the honored dead of a long-forgotten people, it is built of stone, filled in with dirt and rubble between the walls. Its front is dominated by a curved façade of monumental stones.
Inside, a narrow passage leads past a number of empty tombs (which might hold minor encounters such as rat or spider swarms) to an apparent dead end. The rubble is a decoy, though, intended to distract intruders while 4-5 wights use the secret passages to get behind them. They will not attack right away, but will follow stealthily until the adventurers are busy fighting the rest of the wights in the narrow confines of the two pillar rooms. Then they will mount a surprise attack, surrounding the trespassers and using their energy drain and create spawn abilities.
The four rooms at the far end of the barrow belong to the king and queen, who may be more powerful than the others (see Advanced Wights above). The treasury contains a little treasure (note that wights normally have none). The king’s tomb is hidden by a secret door in the back of his stone throne, and may contain some magical treasures or other special items.
Finding Wights
Wights are not only found in dark barrows on lonely, mist-wrapped moors. Here are a few ideas for placing them in other locations.
The Dead Below
From their headquarters in an abandoned catacomb beneath a city’s oldest cemetery, a powerful band of wights can use sewers, thieves’ tunnels, and other underground passages to reach almost anywhere. Moving mainly by night, they remain unseen and unheard as much as possible, ambushing unwary victims returning home from the city’s hostelries and other unfortunates who are outside after dark. Their ultimate goal may simply be to survive undetected, or they may have come to the city in search of an ancient treasure that was stolen from their leader by grave-robbers, and which now rests in the vaults of the thieves’ guild, or the academy of magic.
Fortress of Nightmares
The wights’ stronghold is heavily defended, both above and below ground, with multiple entry and exit points through small tombs and mausolea nearby. In addition, the wights may have control of swarms of vermin, rats, and the like, as well as alliances with other undead creatures – especially lawful evil undead – that make their home in the cemetery. These undead allies may not fight alongside the wights, but they might inform them of adventurers headed their way, or mount surprise hit-and-run attacks on living trespassers who are already engaged in fighting the wights.
The Forbidden Island
A remote island also makes a suitable home for a pack of wights, especially if it is dotted with the remnants of a lost civilization. If no living souls have set foot on the island for a long time, the wights’ hunger for life energy will make them particularly aggressive. Their first act will probably be to disable any watercraft or other means of escape from the island, and then pick off stragglers or scouts to reduce the visitors’ numbers before mounting an all-out attack by night. They may set traps in the thick jungle of the islands, or among the rubble-choked ruins.
Not Just Mummies
Desert tomb complexes – with or without pyramids – also make good homes for wights. Adventurers will probably expect to find mummies in such locations, and wights will take them by surprise, at least initially. If the wights are dressed in scraps of bandage, the confusion over their true nature may last beyond the first encounter – and nothing worries adventurers more than not knowing what they are up against. True mummies can act as leaders or elite fighters, and spellcasting mummy lords can make up for their comrades’ lack of magic.
My Complete and Utter D&D Bibliography
Everything I have published for various editions, starting in 1982. Includes links to some free downloads.
Click Here.
Graeme Davis 