Pesoglavi

 

Taken from Wikipedia, art by Nadezhda Antipova

 

The Psoglav (or Pesoglav as I write it, because it rolls off the tongue better) is a chimeric creature, having the head of a dog (with one eye), the body of a man and the legs of a horse. They also have very sharp teeth made of iron. 

Living in the deep and dark caverns of the underworld, where they hoard precious gems and are known to be man-eaters, digging and consuming the corpses of people, they make for ideal enemies in a dungeon, which is why I use them in mine. Below I present to you stats for using them in B/X and in Tunnels & Trolls. 

B/X or OSE Stats

Pesoglav Feral 

AC:  As Leather (7 DAC 12 AAC)

HD: 3+

Attacks:  2x Claws (1d4), Iron Bite (2d6)

To Hit: +3 

Saving Throws: As Fighter

Description: Feral Pesoglavi are little more than animals, running around naked and attacking anyone they are directed to in a deranged frenzy. They are used as shock troops by the other Pesoglavi, but can also sometimes be found serving as familiars and attack dogs for evil witches, sinister magicians or bankers. 

Pesoglav Warrior

AC:  As Chain+Shield (4 DAC 15 AAC)

HD: 5+

Attacks:  Weapon (1d8), Iron Bite (2d8)

To Hit: +4

Saving Throws: As Fighter

Description: Warriors dress in clothes and armor, often armed with spears, swords, axes and a shield. They too also attack in a deranged frenzy. They serve as the rank and file troops of the Great Wolf and utterly despise all beings that are not Pesoglav, the weak and small among them the most. They delight in torturing and devouring small folk like dwarves, halflings or gnomes.

Pesoglav Leader

AC:  As Plate (3 DAC 16 AAC)

HD: 6++

Attacks:  [Weapon (1d8+1), Iron Bite (2d8)] or Howl

To Hit: +7

Saving Throws: As Fighter

Description: Leaders and captains, often operating with ruthless violence (though they will also occasionally just attack in a deranged frenzy if the mood takes them). They are even more cruel and vicious than the warriors serving under them, but also possess a lot more cunning than the usual foot soldier. 

Special Abilities

Iron Bite: If this attack beats the enemy's Armor Class by 5 or more that enemy must immediately make a Save vs Death. On a failure the Pesoglav bites off one of their limbs (up to the referee to decide which one), destroying any armor the character is wearing and causing them to immediately go into shock and fall unconscious. That character will die within 1 turn if the wound is not closed and healed in some way. 

Howl:  The Pesoglav leader opens engagements they're in by emitting a loud, terrifying howl. All living things that are not Pesoglav within a 40ft radius must immediately make a Save vs Spell or freeze in terror, unable to act within the next 1d2 rounds of combat.

Tunnels & Trolls Stats 

Pesoglav generally have about 20 to 22 Monster Rating, with more powerful ones like warriors or leaders having 26 to 30 MR and have Armor 1 to 3. Leaders and their direct subordinates might also known spells.  Similarly to the above, all Pesoglavi have their Iron Bite, and leaders have their Howl.

Iron Bite:  Spite Damage from Pesoglav combatants permanently reduces the Armor of the enemy hit. For every 4+ Spite rolled in a single round of combat, a pesoglav tries to bite off the limb off a combatant. The person hit makes a Saving Roll on Luck (level as appropriate for the dungeon) to avoid it. If they fail they lose a limb, half of their maximum Constitution and immediately fall unconscious and will die within the next turn if not healed in some way. 

Howl:  Used at the beginning of a fight, the Pesoglav leader lets out a terrifying howl. Everyone who can hear it make a Saving Roll on Charisma. If failed they freeze in terror, unable to act in the next 1d2 rounds of combat.

 

The Sun God's Church in Mordavia

The Mordavian Church (full name: Church of Our Most Beloved Sun God of the Princedom of Mordavia) is the dominant religious sect of the Mordavia princedom. Though a deeply conservative-to-the-point-of-atavism branch of the Sun religion, a protracted (and shockingly bloody) 50 odd years long campaign within the church’s clerical structure has caused some major shake ups within it.

A much more egalitarian branch (The Sun-Encompassing Humano-totalists) has emerged through public debates, agitation among the Peasantry and Nobility (the Bourgeoisie being considered a lost cause) and multiple semi-spontaneous short and brutal wars. They now nominally hold control of the church hierarchy, with most the higher level positions filled by once disregarded priestesses of the Sun God, and with female clergy becoming much more prominent in various parts of the princedom.

Their only problem, however, is Supreme Patriarch Slunceslav the XVth, current head of the Mordavian Church and a veritable ancient at the, frankly absurd, age of 133. While the internal laws of the church have been amended to put in an alternating genders clause for the top seat, Slunceslav continues to squat on the hopefully soon-to-be-Matriarchal Throne like a bearded cross between a vulture and a sloth. 

Over just the past year there have been over a dozen attempts to assassinate him or in some way remove him from his position, but he continues to hold onto it with the sort of dogged stubbornness that can only come with being that old.

As such, most of the lower ranks of the church appear simply happy to sit and wait, while muttering potentially heretical prayers to the Sun God to please, for fuck’s sake, take his most blessed servant into his embrace already, thank you good day.





Their prayers yet stay unheard.

Talasumi

 The Talasum (Bulgarian: Таласъм) is a spirit in the folklore of my part of the world. In Bulgaria it is primarily described as an often invisible spirit of a person who was built (either physically, or just their shadow) into a house or bridge to keep the construction from collapsing. As the person dies their spirit turns into a talasum, and is either a protector or, more often, a malevolent presence that haunts the place they were built into. In more modern day parlance a talasum is usually described a furry monster of some kind, often mischievous but not necessarily evil. 

In my Greylands game, I don't really have goblins in the typical D&D sense of the word. So during my current house game set in that campaign, I have decided that the goblins the characters encounters are actually talasumi.

The Greylands Goblin -the Talasum

In some of the more remote parts of the Blessed Empire of Unity (say, like the Greylands) as well as neighboring territories like the small mountainous princedom of Mordavia, the ritual practice of building a living person into a construction is still fresh in the minds of the people living there.

While sages, scholars and other learned folk insist that the ritual hasn't been actually practiced in centuries, ever since the light of the Sun God has blessed those lands, old women in the villages tell a different story. Whenever a bridge keeps falling down, or a manor house needs an extra protective oomph to it, a young man or woman are chosen at random from the villages and made part of the building, burying them in the walls so that their spirit might keep the building safe.

Often times this is the end of it, but in areas with high levels of Chaos (again, like the Greylands) those buildings abandoned by their owners or inhabitants tend to get kind of..weird. 

Ruined manor houses or abandoned old castles with a person built into them tend to begin generating these small and hairy creatures the seem to simply appear out of the shadowy corners. These are the talasumi, Chaos-spawned echoes of the person trapped within the building's foundation. They are rather simple and basic construct - they mostly are concerned with eating, guarding their territory and sorting any household goods they might get their hairy hands on. 

Talasumi do not have a conception of name or age, and only the barest sense of individual self. If a talasum is taken out of the ruins that spawned it and away from others of its kind it can start to develop a sense of self, a vestigial trait of having a human soul as its parent. 

They are not innately hostile or friendly, their disposition often simply depending on the environment they are in and what mood strikes them at the time. 

Physical Traits

Talasumi are usually around 100 to 120 cm (so roughly between 3 and a half and 4 feet tall), and look like small men covered in thick black hair or fur, with wide faces and big, saucer-like eyes that seem to reflect light almost like a mirror. They usually do not wear clothes and do not appear to have any sexual organs. Often they are armed with anything from kitchen or farm tools to proper weapons, if they can get their mitts on them. 

There are also taller and much bulkier talasumi who seem to often have a rusty red hair and have large, pronounced noses. They seem to act as leaders to the smaller kind.

Stats

The smaller ones have stats as goblins in whatever system you are using. 

The big ones have the stats as hobgoblins. 

There are even bigger ones, potentially, but those are very rare. Give them stats as appropriate for something big and scary that goes bump in the night.

All Talasumi also have the ability to blend into the shadows of the building that birthed them (and only that one) and become invisible to anyone without magical sight. However doing so for long periods of time (anything over 10 minutes) or too often has the risk of the talasum simply melting back into the shadows that gave it birth and simply disappearing forever. As such they try and not use this ability if they can help it.

Slime Priests

Slime Priests are mortal followers of a Chaos Lord referred to as The Decomposition. 

They occupy a strange space in their Lord's army of followers, due to their blessing and curse of sentience. The Decomposition is partial to slimes, oozes, molds and other things as an expression of Chaos - as such it views sentience and intelligence as an unpleasant necessity in some of its followers.

The Slime Priests therefore tend to the various oozes, slimes and molds, helping them grow, feeding them and also creating new variants. 

Slime Priest

HD: 2; AC: 5; Movement Rate: 10; Alignment: Chaos

Attacks - As weapon 

Special Abilities: 
Slime Blast - The priest vomits a torrent a slime at 1d4 targets, which must Save vs paralysis or become paralyzed for 1d6 turns. This ability can only be used once per fight, as it takes a few days for a slime priest to build up enough slime in their guts to use it again. 

Treasure: Slime priests usually only carry a dagger, and 1d3 scrolls with spells on them.