1d20 Random Ancient Encounters of the Damned & Forgotten of the Underworld Table

Grey hells, or hells aglow with hot and scarlet flowers;
White hells of light and clamor; hells the abomination
Of breathless, deep, sepulchral desolation
Oppresses ever—I have known them all, through hours
Tedious as dead eternity; where timeless powers,
Leagued in malign, omnipotent persuasion—
Wearing the guise of love, despair and aspiration,
For ever drove through ashen fields and burning bowers
My soul that found no sanctuary. . . . For Lucifer,
And all the weary, proud, imperious, baffled ones
Made in his image, hell is anywhere: the ice
Of hyperboreal deserts, or the blowing spice
In winds from off Sumatra, for each wanderer
Preserves the jealous flame of sad, infernal suns.

Inferno  (1918)  by Clark Ashton Smith

The old world passed into the Outer Darkness as the seas boiled, the sky cracked, and reality ran like hot wax. The Old Ones returned and the hidden things crawled from the lost corners of the world as Ice Land & Greenland were ripped from the oceans cast by forces beyond comprehension into the sky to orbit around Saturn. A new smaller sun illuminates Hyperborea to this day. But the old world did not go quietly and there are bits & pieces of the Old Earth sitting in the underworld. This is the world of old gods, ghosts, demons, & worse. The doorways skirting the edges of Hell itself sometimes can be seen here & there in the underworld.

Old demons, damned souls to foul to move on & even the relics of the old world as it was litter this place. The eddies & weird tires from the Outer Darkness play havoc with the reality of this underworld as alien fungus, strange half demonic alien life forms feed on the damned & any unlucky souls they find down here. But this is a place that attracts adventurers & outlaws by the score. There are rich pickings indeed here among the deadmen & the half forgotten half real world of the dead souls. Necromancers of Xinaián ply their craft on the unfortunate damned who are too dull & wicked to pass onto their final reward. This is also the realm of the lich kings who make their home among the bones of their past.

Half forgotten cities & temples via for the attentions of Gugs, ghouls, & ghasts who compete with a million other undead fiends & demons that parasite off of the energies of the Outer Darkness & the negative material planes that wash continually with the thousand forgotten heavens & hells that wash their dimensional tidal energies among the forgotten worlds. There are ancient horrors not seen in a million years here in the twisting ancient caverns & tunnels. For every hour spent down here there is a 30% chance of running into a half demon mercenary or utterly alien undead thing that crawls in the dust and darkness of this world.

There are dozen score of half forgotten Hell rooms & labryths here where the damned, deranged, & insane come to worship foul beings of blackest magickal power. There are Earth bound demons whose sole purposes in these twisting halls are all but forgotten but whose presence guards ancient treasures & relics beyond compare. Time & again the underworld attracts monsters, gods, demons, and far worse to feed & feed well on the souls of a world far gone and whose glory is fading from existence with each passing year.

For every six to nine hours spent down in this twisting world of the past there is a 20% chance of an encounter with a demonic warrior or some other undead horror from the last world. These encounters mean that the undead creature is hunger & highly dangerous.  These beings have a 20% chance of having some ancient relic or trinket from Old Earth to remind them of the world they've left behind and their former existence. There is a 4% chance that this might be some magickal relic or treasure.

1d20 Random Ancient Encounters 
of the Damned & Forgotten of the Underworld Table

1. 1d8 grey gargoyles armed with archaic blaster rifles on a scouting party for the sacrifice stone. There will be 1d4 ghoul servants in tow with various minor weapons or relics . 
2. A gug mercenary and slave hunter with 1d10 slaves in basket cages armed with electric spear that does 1d6 points of electrical and stunning damage. 
3. 1d10 ghoul knights on lizard bird back with laser pistols and short bows. They're after a magical relic. 
4. A very lost & terrified explorer from 1932 from the Ford Foundation expedition into South America. He's infected with an alien parasite that will burst forth in eighteen hours. 
5. Six serpent men mage kings on antigravity disks seeking a temple of Yig and looking for sacrifices for their gods. They are seventh level wizards of darkest aspect. 
6. An massive soul worm made up from the damned of WWI who are hunting for more souls to add to its bus sized bulk. Same stats as a purple worm of double hit points. 
7. 1d6 night gaunts looking for prey. 
8. A massive hunter shoggoth looking for prey and souls for its foul masters. 
9. A gang of 1d20 demonic goblin warriors looking for a group of humans for easy prey. 
10. A necromancer of  Xinaián on the back of a modified ghast of unusual aspect hunting for humans and armed with a blaster rifle. He's 9th level and very dangerous. 
11. A giant cave frog has been modified and fitted with a heavy laser. His master is a Hyperborean bounty hunter with foul demonic master of his own. He watches from the shadows. 
12. 1d10 series of dangerous Earth bound demon warriors armed with heavy laser crossbow weapons are looking for victims. 
13. 1d20 Giant mutated leeches with a horrid ringed sucker mouths are  after a church group that got trapped here through a dimensional warp.They will try to have you attend an all night prayer group to send them back to the world where they came from. There is a 10% chance that this might world. 
14. Six giant ghoul things are after your party for food, their souls, and their corpses. 
15. An avatar of the black pharaoh haunts this section of the undead tunnels looking for souls to feed on. 
16. 1d6 horrors from below these tunnels is hunting for souls and bodies to  eat. Your PC's are in the fair game as well. 
17. An alien underworld engineer is here checking out the area for exploitation purposes for his corporation who handles miners from elemental plane of Earth. 
18. 1d20 ghosts and phantoms from Old Earth are hunting for souls in the tunnels nearby. They are dangerous and hungry. 
19. A star spawn of Hastur has been loosened from his ages long sleep to hunt for prey. Guess whose on the menu. 
20. A foul lich king and his four succubus body guards are moving among the tunnels and are gathering souls to turn into larva for his demonic masters. You might make a good larva!
    
    I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,
    A mountain's utmost eminence of snow.
    Beholding ashen plains outflung below
    To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.
    Beneath the spectral sun's expiring light
    The world lay shrouded in a deathly glow;
    Its last fear-laden voice, a wind, came low;
    The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.
    
    I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
    In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
    And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
    Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
    Impended for a breath on wings of doom,
    And through the air fell like a falling sky.
    
    The Last Night  (1912)
    by Clark Ashton Smith

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