Wherein your humble scribe presents an antagonist for use with Labyrinth Lord and the brand new Realms of Crawling Chaos. Three appropriately Lovecraftian artifacts are included below. Each is the result of rolling on the Random Artifact Tables contained within RoCC, which I believe is OGC.
Once a devout priest called Simon Aldurn, the man now known as Othoghu, The Knife Of Shub-Niggurath, willingly fell from grace at the urgings of Stelaugha, an uncommonly alluring Young of Shub-Niggurath. Othoghu makes his home in Canton-on-Imisk, where he serves the Black Goat of the Woods as a spy.
Othoghu longs for the day when Shub-Niggurath chooses him as a mate and will stop at nothing to please the Old One. Any who pass through Canton-on-Imisk with ill intentions towards the Black Goat of the Woods or who are in possession of items her cult might desire are certain to be subject to Othoghu’s evil.
Othoghu is currently in possession of three eldritch artifacts that he will employ as needed in his efforts to please and serve Shub-Niggurath. These are detailed below.
Othoghu / Human Cleric/Assassin 4/5 Neutral Evil
STR 14 INT 12 WIS 18 DEX 13 CON 10 CHR 13
HP 36 AC 5 Gold 3,571
+2 Mace, Bracers of Armor (AC 6), Silver Holy Symbol, The Key Of Haathoa, Idol Of Mmnao, The Eye Of Eiculura
Cleric Spells:
1st Level (5) Command, Darkness, Detect Magic, Fear, Sanctuary
2nd Level (4) Hold Person, Silence 15′ Radius, Snake Charm, Spiritual Weapon
The Key Of Haathoa
Carved from a bizarre, ancient stone, in which fossils of creatures never seen by human eyes are occasionally exposed, this key is able to summon a Night Beast to serve the possessor. The Night Beast will faithfully obey every command for 3d12 turns before returning whence it came. The Key of Haathoa can only be used once per day. Additional attempts to use it will result in the appearance of 2d4 hostile, hungry Night Beasts that will seek out the holder of the key.
Idol Of Mmnao
Crafted from a strange green soapstone in the image of a sitting siamese cat, this statue marks its owner as a friend of cats. Any felines who interact with the owner of the Idol of Mmnao are subject to a −2 reaction modifier and will only willingly attack the Idol’s holder in self-defense or to protect their young.
The Eye Of Eiculura
This large gem, which has been heavily etched with tentacle-, or perhaps root-like patterns, can be used to animate 1d3 nearby trees, which will uproot themselves to serve the Eye Of Eiculura’s owner. Treat these animated trees as chaotic treants that do not possess the ability to animate additional trees. Trees found in and near graveyards become particularly fearsome when affected by the magic of this artifact due to their roots having fed on fetid corpses over the ages. Such trees receive a +2 bonus to their Hit Dice. The Eye Of Eiculura can only be used 10 times before it crumbles into dust.
I really like the moniker “The Knife of Shub-Niggurath.” It sure beats “Shub-Niggurath’s Right Psuedopod” or something similar.
Looking at the creepily-themed magic items makes me wonder if artifacts like these would be a good basis for Lovecraftian fantasy sorcerors: instead of having access to typical spell lists, they have d4 magic items of an individualistic nature, with their own built-in drawbacks, and then maybe a couple powerful ceremonial spells (like summoning). It fits the genre well.
Ah, yes. “The Hindmost Teat of The Black Goat of the Woods” is a title to avoid as well 🙂
I think you may be on to something there, G-Man. A Cultist class that begins play with magic in the form of artifacts. Perhaps some of them could be usable more than once per day to make up for the lack of changeability in the powers the class has access to? Hmm. If I were to decide to pursue Nogoloth using LL/etc. that would definitely be a thing to consider. I might have to write one up regardless. The tables for artifact generation would be fun in-and-of themselves 🙂
Minor confession time: I’ve never actually created a class from scratch before. Weird but true. I think it’s mostly because I was playing TFT and Hero for the bulk of my geek career, so the need wasn’t there. This could get interesting. 🙂