It Came From A Cold Hell - The Ecology of the Xill in the Fiend Folio & Beyond

 The following is based partially on my conversation with DM Raj yesterday & his experiences with the Xill in all of their alien glory in his own games. Make no mistake he makes his player's PC's fight for every inch of space dungeon & salvaged treasure from the depths of his Spelljammer campaign. There are sprinkles & seeds from other OGL sources as we'll see. And the horrors of the Xill have been visited upon the Castles & Crusades game as well.. 

So let's get back to the Fiend Folio for a New York minute & my continuing writing for a Godbound rpg campaign. I've been quietly watching & reading of a number of bloggers since 2017 when the Kevin Crawford game came out who have converted Games Workshop 40K material.  But why?! The Fiend Folio already has an otherworldly quisi devil like creature that may or maynot have a chaos cult dedicated to their cause. That cause is the implantation, propegation, & continuation of this invasive planar species straight outta of the Fiend Folio. Yeah, I'm speaking of the Xill.



Hailing straight outta of the Ethreal & into menacing your PC's. The Xill are supposedly ripe to make a comeback in my games! They excellent proto devils just waiting to spread their madness on others as they implant an eggs & spread the infection of their race. A xill stands 4 to 5 feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds. Xills speak Infernal. Make no mistake about it these things are utterly alien & they represent entities from before even the time of gods or Hell itself.  The Xill grapples you and then parazlysis the hapless victim.
Those bitten by the xill must save vs paralyisis or be suffer paralyisis for 1d4 hours.  An xill can lay eggs inside a paralyzed creature. The young emerge about 90 days later, literally devouring the host from inside. A remove disease spell rids a victim of the egg.

The Xill are in the OGL & here we get even more info on them, they have dark vision up to  60 ft. Meaning that these bastards are from a dark environment.They can plane walk but its not at will according to their OGL entry;"

"These planar travelers like to slip between the folds of space to attack enemies as though from thin air. They can cross from the Ethereal Plane with a move action but take 2 rounds to cross back, during which time they are immobile. As a xill fades away, it becomes harder to hit: Opponents have a 20% miss chance in the first round and a 50% miss chance in the second. A xill can planewalk with a willing or helpless creature."

If the Xill sound like an alien entity straight from the Alien 1977 playbook you might not be too far off. Pathfinder in 2015 introduced the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary. This gave us the  xill matriarch. This monsterous queen's big advantage over her minions is two fold one is the speed she can implant her eggs & the cult she can create around herself; "a xill matriarch can lay 4d6 eggs in a helpless creature. These eggs hatch in 24 hours, at which point the young consume the host from within, dealing 1 point of Constitution damage per hour per young until the host dies. The young then emerge and planewalk to the Ethereal Plane, if possible."

"Xill matriarchs can take mental control of creatures in which they have implanted eggs as a full-round action. This functions as dominate monster (CL 13th) and works at any distance, even between the Ethereal Plane and Material Plane. The host takes a –4 penalty on the saving throw to resist the matriarch's control. While dominated, the victim is immune to xills' paralysis ability. The matriarch can use greater scrying on the dominated victim at will (no saving throw). A matriarch can maintain one such link at a time; if she wants to use dominate monster or greater scrying on a different creature implanted with her eggs, she must end the effects on her current victim (though she can switch back later)."
It doesn't take much to translate this into an OSR game system & so Xill matriarchs can easily be brought over into the OSR with little fan fare. These alien menaces from the coldest hells around dead stars are exactly the sort of things that the gods would be battling straight out of a Jack Kirby comic book. 


The Apotheosis of the Medici: Cosimo III sat central between his two sons and his brother below him, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
It doesn't take much to thinking that a group of Xill will come outta of the Ethreal pick on some isloted country village & begin using the place whole cloth as an incubation vessel for their young. The adventurers are part of a strike force of the gods brought in to cleanse the land of this infection when they run into an Xill matriarchs and then things get complicated. The Xill are completly alien & it doesn't matter to these alien things if your PC's are gods,demigods, or adventurers its all a matter of the survival of the species. In many ways this reflects the mind set of H.P. Lovecraft while paying homage to the uncaring nature of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. 

There are many reasons why the Xill work in campaigns: 

1. The Xill can pop up literally anywhere making them an alien menace of epic proporations. 
2. These bastards have a very dark infernal component to their make up making them easily mentionable as a race in  blasphemous tome. This means that they might easily summoned to the plane Prime ala the summoning spell from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. 
3. Ghosts & other undead resulting from an infection by the Xill might be an early warning for these monsters. 
4. Gods don't like them because they cause havoc among the psychic landscape of worshipers offerin the DM an opportunity to add them to a campaign as a possible side quest. 
5. Xill are excellent 40K stand in menaces that can act as a dangerous one shot or as a possible on going chaos cult within campaigns. 
6. Royals who have an infestation of Xill are going to be under tremedous pressure to deal with them giving opportunity for treasure or more importantly influence. 
7. Crashed space craft, ruined temple complex, deep in the dungeon there are million ways to bring Xill into your campaigns. 
8. Xill infestations could easily disrupt the flow of divine engeries in a campaign bringing to bare the full weight of the gods upon adventurers as their clerics get screwed as the holy warriors of the gods. 
9.  Xill matriarchs are part of a vast array of an alien ecology that the PC's are only beginning to grasp. 
10. The Xill fit nicely into the insanity of many of the megadungeons that populate the OSR & old school landscape giving them a two fold purpose within games. Destroying the campaign from within & taking away valuable populations without for their own reproduction. 

Dragons On the Fringes of Space - More Hostile Rpg Commentary

 “The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ”

― H.P. Lovecraft

 So we've been pitcing around a bit about the Hostile rpg campaign that we've run in the past year or so aka 'The New England Boi's'. And one of the things that's come up is the fact that the player's PC's haven't come up against Xeno's and my answer was .. yet. 


Now why is that?! Because of the fact that space is big and I mean really big! The odds of the PC's encountering the Xeno's are very rare. But the fact that the corporations have been searching for them indicates that there has been contact in the past. And its this contact that we see forming the basis for the player's future interactions and this especially true if we look at the reviews such as Shawn's from Drivethrurpg; "The book details a variety of "evolved" xenomorphs, that is, they have new features that make them a little different then the stock aliens. This includes some which breathe fire, other which create spores, or others which are puppeteers. Each one has a full explanation of their lifecycle and the game stats you need to terorrize your unsuspecting adventurers. It also includes a small 40-50 person mining colony which is being terorrized by the aliens. It has full maps and stats for the colony and colonists. " 
The evolved xenomorphs is very important here.These are xenomorphs with unconventional abilities & special characteristics. The players even if their familiar with the perfect organism from a certain multi million dollar franchise isn't going to expect them do some of the abilities that the 'evolved' have. The player's PC's even less so. 

PC's can stumble into the middle of the Xenomorphs at anytime because of the misdeeds of the corporations. The fact is that illict cargos, weird missions, and explority mishaps could create the perfect adventure fodder. But when combined with motive & player opportunity then its the perfect combination for trouble. 
The boring & routine can easily sucker the players into a trap take the ubitious Pioneer station. They in every star base, the appear almost at every fuel station & fill up point, and on every interstellar job site. But they are also the perfect resource &  trap; "The Pioneer Stations. The 600-ton Leyland-Okuda Pioneer is a general purpose industrial operations platform, a five-man space station designed to serve as an operations center, drone control, fuel store or supply dump". A multimillion dollar disaster or coffin waiting in space. 

At some point a cargo of eggs or xeno's is going to make to a Pioneer station & then let the mayhem begin. But could the xeno's be even more dangerous then the player's PC's  have ever encountered?! Are they more of a danger then the Earth has encountered?! If the forms of the aliens are only one plot point on their evolutionary graph and the PC's are food, sex, or simply storage is there more going on here?! 
These are the questions that you as the dungeon master have  to ask & keep asking. Because if the xenomorphs are changing & evolving between each encounter then they could be learning. Learning to become indifferent to mankind and its tricks. There is no place warmer in space to hide then mankind. But where that leave us in a hostile univere?! 

OSR Commentary - 'A Very Different Ecology For 'The Troll' In Dungeons & Dragons & Retroclone Games'

 

If there is one monster that I love to use as a cross point in my games its trolls from Dungeons & Dragons, this goes all the way back to original Dungeons & Dragons. For me 'the troll' as monster are the perfect cross point  between the Arthurian legends or the  Swords & Sorcery style games.




Maybe because I read Three Hearts & Three Lions at an early age along with many of the Arthurian romances plus  C.L. Lewis's Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. Couple this with a huge swath of Robert Howard's Conan, classic era Marvel comic books & other sundry Sword & Sorcery paperbacks. The one constant in many of these sources was the appearance of the troll.  The troll as a monster was well established in OD&D thanks to Paul Anderson's Three Hearts & Three Lions.

"In Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, trolls are depicted as eight-feet tall creatures, man-eating creatures which are almost impossible to kill, since their bodies immediately re-knit and repair any damage, however severe. Even beheading a troll is of no avail - he would simply pick up his head and place it back on his neck and within a moment be "as good as new". A troll's only vulnerabilty is to fire - the only way to kill one is to cut him to pieces and burn each and every one of them before they had a chance to re-knit."
That quote is from the Wiki entry on trolls in popular culture we get a pretty consistent view of them in popular culture from Three Billy Goats Gruff, right on through the comedy series Ugly Americans.
Trolls are ugly, very dangerous, & seem to be classified with giants from Scandinavian legend & mythology.
"A troll is a class of being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human beings.

Later, in Scandinavian folklore, trolls became beings in their own right, where they live far from human habitation, are not Christianized, and are considered dangerous to human beings. Depending on the source, their appearance varies greatly; trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them."
So how does this relate to the popular monster of Dungeons & Dragons? I've noticed, there are tons of  species of troll based around various elements, geologies, & planar conditions; "In Dungeons & Dragons, the Trolls are depicted as tall skinny humanoids with long noses, rubbery skin, a regenerating ability, and a weakness to fire. Other types of Trolls include the Black Trolls, Blood Trolls, Cave Trolls, Crystalline Trolls, Desert Trolls, Fell Trolls, Fire Trolls, Forest Trolls, Giant Trolls (which is a crossbreed between a troll and a Hill Giant), Giant Two-Headed Trolls (which is a crossbreed between a troll and an Ettin), Gray Trolls, Ice Trolls, Mountain Trolls, Rock Trolls, Scrags, Slime Trolls, Spirit Trolls, Stone Trolls, Tree Trolls, War Trolls, and Wasteland Trolls. In addition, they keep the canine-like Trollhounds as pets in their tribes."
Trolls have three things going for them,the ability to adapt to any conditions they're put in, the ability to regenerate from any damage, and an almost artificial violence & ferocity toward others.

Many of the giants & trolls of Arthurian legend are far closer to the classic Giant Troll from the Fiend Folio Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. A giant troll is a cross between a troll and a hill giant, resulting in a troll over 10 feet tall. Once again we've got a species of monster whose close but not quite human living & mating with other monsters to produce another species. This can't be simply random chance, I'll postulate that perhaps the classic troll species  is a product of an ancient experiment going wrong. Sure I'm not the first to say this but there's a bit more to it. The mythological weakness to 'sunlight turning trolls to stone' & fire is troubling but we'll get to that.



Erol Otus from the AD&D Fiend Folio a classic piece of artwork.

I think that the answer for the origin point for the modern  troll species might actually be found in the original Three Hearts & Three Lions book by Paul Anderson.
"This world is divided between the forces of Chaos, inhabiting the "Middle World" (which includes Faerie), and the forces of Law based in the human world, which is in turn divided between the Holy Roman Empire and the Saracens."
This arrangement of the planes is definitely artificial as we see reading through the novel. But its important to note that Faerie plays a central role in the Paul Anderson novel in terms of both secondary characters & the antagonist's forces. The forces of Faerie are fickle at the best of times towards mankind & downright malevolent at the worst of times.

Looking into the legendary background of  classic mythological Faerie nature spirits & Elves  I came across tid bit on Wiki ;"Another belief is that the fairies were an intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels.^[37] In alchemy in particular they were regarded as elementals, such as gnomes and sylphs, as described by Paracelsus.^[38] This is uncommon in folklore, but accounts describing the fairies as "spirits of the air" have been found.^[39] The belief in their angelic nature was common in Theosophist circles"



If we look deep into classic mythology primal Chaos was one of the first things to exist; "In Greek mythology, Chaos (Greek: Χάος, "Chasm")^[1] was the first thing to exist: "at first Chaos came to be" (or was)^[2] "but next" (possibly out of Chaos) came Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros (elsewhere the son of Aphrodite).^[3] Unambiguously born "from Chaos" were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night)" its also a powerful force of occult energy. The troll species is always associated with giants, or humanoid kind along with humans. We even  find this connection  in J.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series; "In The Lord of the Rings franchise, there were different types of trolls ranging from Stone Trolls (which turn to stone when exposed to sunlight), Two-Headed Trolls, Hill Trolls, Cave Trolls, Mountain Trolls, Snow Trolls, and the Olog-Hai (the type of Trolls that can withstand sunlight)."

Once again we've got that elemental adaption connection, the artificial species connection, & the presence of spirits creating new possibly human connected species powered by primal chaos; "The Olog-hai were a fierce race of Trolls. They only spoke Sauron's Black Speech, and it is possible they only existed because Sauron's evil will empowered them. They were bred by Sauron from an unknown stock, though it's suggested that they could be corruptions of some primitive human types." There are lots of varying opinions when it comes to the Olog-hai.
As a dungeon master I stay away from Tolkien because of these varying opinions & because gamers feel so strongly about the Middle Earth material.


Trolls make excellent Sword & Sorcery monsters especially when their origin crosses human, giant kind, & something else. We would need a race of highly advanced masters of the biological & engineering arts who had been here since Earth's origin & were capable of planar creations & demi planes (Faerie). Oh wait we already have all of those in HP Lovecraft's at the Mountains of Madness Elder Things.

 Toward the end of their reign on Earth when mankind was first emerging the Elder Things were looking for a replacement for the rebellious shoggoths. A breed of easily adaptable workers, army,etc. They began to experiment & some of their first creations could not exist in sunlight & were vulnerable to flame.
The latter half of the Elder Thing's empire was fading fast & it was already too late. 'The Shoggoth Rebellion' destroyed millions of years research. The first & secondary Ice Age Floods did the rest. There are qualities  that trolls have in common with shoggoths from regeneration to a pastiche for adaptability.



The laboratories in Troughburn, in Northumberland, England, were erased from existence originally Trolhop, Norse for "troll valley" is now only a dim racial memory of a place far to horrid to have existed. The troll species is regarded today as toxic waste spread across planes. How did this come to pass? We & other species found the nearly immortal proto trolls & wizards finished the work of the Elder Things. The Elder Things' city is identified with the Plateau of Leng  which has been the site for pilgrimages by necromancers, wizards, & occultists for centuries.  It has been speculated among certain circles of gamers over the years that the knowledge of the creation of trolls was spread by Nyarlathotep  through "The High Priest Not to Be Described. "

I have yet to run one game that does not feature trolls so players beware for they are a hidden menace!

OSR Thoughts on YOG·SOTHOTH (the key and guardian of the gate) From Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition's Dieties & Demigod By Robert J. Kuntz & James M. Ward

 "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread."

The Dunwich Horror  By H.P. Lovecraft 


The other night we DM's got together for a beer & to discuss another leg of our upcoming campaign. And Kuntz & Ward's Dieties & Demigods especially the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's version of YOG·SOTHOTH (the key and guardian of the gate) avitar. This blog entry picks right up from here. 

Hyperborea has it's own version of the children of YOG·SOTHOTH. We went back and looked at the old AD&D classic version. That version of the Outer God is nasty; "Greater god ARMOR CLASS: -2 MOVE: 18" HIT POINTS: 400 NO. OF ATTACKS: 12 DAMAGE/AnACK: 1-8 SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to charm MAGIC RESISTANCE: 50% SIZE: L ( 50' diameter) ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: Chaotic evil SYMBOL: Y rune PLANE: Astral Plane CLERIC/DRUID: Nil FIGHTER: As 16+ HD monster MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: 15th level magic-user THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil MONK/BARD: Nil PSIONIC ABILITY: S:25(+7,+14) 1:25 W:23 D:20 C:25 CH:-7" 

Classic Erol Otis artwork of a child of Yog Shoggoth
  from Dieties & Demigods Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 

The description of the Greater God Yog Shoggoth is mind bending; "Yog-Sothoth exists on the astral plane. He has the ability to enter the universe at any point in space and any point in time. His astral shape appear  as a congeries of iridescent globes like giant soap bubbles. When he takes shape on the Prime Material Plane he is partly material and partly astral and appears as a gigantic mass of feelers, legs, and stalked organs. In this shape he will mate with human beings, producing the Spawn of YogSothoth (see "The Dunwich Horror", by H. P. Lovecraft). He is highly intelligent and extremely chaotic and unpredictable. He can gate in and out of time and space any of the Spawn or subject races of the Old Ones, one per melee round. Yog-Sothoth is not subject to the laws of space and time and can, for example, appear at vorious parts of the universe simultaneously" 

According to various sources including the  The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana Yog Shoggoth is one of the main Greater Gods of the Mythos. Which means that he has diminion over the Lovecraftian entities & greater races then at first it appears. It also means that it ( the greater god) could theoritically be encountered anywhere. Talk about a random encounter. 

According to our discussions there are very few if anyplaces within the planes where you could theoritically get away from this version of YOG·SOTHOTH (the key and guardian of the gate) From Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition's Dieties & Demigod By Robert J. Kuntz & James M. Ward! 
Digging in deeper according to the H.P. Lovecraft wiki all of those irdescient globes have names & perhaps meaning; "He is composed of iridescent globes (HPL: "The Horror in the Museum", AWD: "The Lurker at the Threshold") of which there are thirteen (EXP: Hay Necronomicon):

1. Gomory
2. Zagan
3. Sytry
4. Eligor
5. Durson
6. Vual
7. Scor
8. Algor
9. Sefon
10. Partas
11. Gamor
12. Umbra
13. Anaboth

Deeper that one peers into the madness & occult insanity  of YOG·SOTHOTH the more one sees why dark wizards would entreat with such an entity. Please bare in mind that all of this is fiction created by a writer from Providence, Rhode Island. 

From Civilized To Alien Barbarians - The Best of Dragon magazine volume # V & James Mishler's Demi god Class

"Even the gods took fright at the Deluge,
they left and went up to the heaven of Anu,
lying like dogs curled up in the open."

Anonymous, Epic of Gilgamesh, The Flood, Tablet VI, Third Dynasty of Ur ( c. 2100 BCE).

 So last night whist looking over the Best of Dragon magazine volume # V. there was an article that jumped out at me at about 3 A.M. & this was Katherine Kerr's 'The Real Barbarians', "History offers a different picture from literature. (Issue 72, Apr 83)". Basically the article goes into how history's barbarians are completely different from from Sword & Sorcery literature. For a kid this was ground breaking stuff but for an adult looking over the article it was a 'duh' moment last night. Or was it ?! 

According to the 'Real Barbarians' article by Katherine Kerr ; "All these disparate peoples do have certain traits in common, enough so to justify talking about a “barbarian way of life.” In general, barbarian cultures are more or less successful social adaptations to living conditions in wild forest, scrub land, veldts, or jungle edges — land that’s unsuitable for sedentary, intensive farming as the Greeks, the Romans, and later the Europeans practiced it. Though many barbarians do farm, they obtain the bulk of their food supply from animals, either livestock, wild game, or both. A population that doesn’t rely on agriculture to feed itself must meet two requirements: The people need a lot of open land in proportion to the population being fed, and the people need to be mobile. Barbarians rarely have cities or towns, merely villages and camps, if they have any permanent settlements at all"

And this has me thinking about star faring civilizations & how this same lifestyle could be applied to the stars. Now over the past couple of days I was looking into creating a group of puesdo space marines as a faction. And I needed to do it quickly for an upcoming post apocalytic game. What if the ancient gods decided to take full advantage of the circumstances by creating their own ancient semi divine warriors. Warriors who could take back what was 'rightfully theirs'. So started looking at the  Mesopotamian god Anu & his incarnations.  So if we go with the idea of the Nephilim being powerful semi divine beings & Anu & his incarnations being a part of this equation. Then it's easy to see these beings emulating at least in the beginning some of the traits explained in the 'Real Barbarians' article by Katherine Kerr. What would warriors sent down to a post apopalyptic world look like?! Well that's easy James Mishler did a perfect PC or NPC class to emulate this in the form of the Demi God race. 

If these entities follow the barbarian then civilized model within their life cycles then it's possible that they also have singers & shaman among the former galactic empires; "Singers, such as the Celtic bard or German scop, are far more than entertainers. They are the oral historians and guardians of the traditional wisdom lore for their tribes. In their memories, in the form of poetry, are the genealogies of important families, tales of past battles and events, and a kind of lore called gnomic, which is part good advice and part primitive science. Using poetic stanzas, gnomic lore preserves wisdom such as “a faithful wife is better than a fine horse” and “dark clouds, yellow leaves — winter is coming.” Among Low barbarians, each camp or village has its own part-time singer. Among High barbarians and nomads, most singers have a place in a noble lord’s retinue, but some wander from group to group within their tribal territory. Whenever they appear, these wandering singers are fed, sheltered and treated with respect by those they visit." 

The 'gods' are coming back to the post apocalyptic wasteland & their shamans or singers are announcing their coming. They enslave and once again begin the practice of city building among humanity. This is the barest of outlines right at the moment but there's other thoughts thundering their ways through my head right now. The idea here is that these alien semi divine beings go from roaming barbarians, conquer, & then begin building city states for a few million years then move on. They roam the stars using their vat grown  children as conquerors. These are simply some ideas scratched out. 

Gods of Hell & Murder - Thoughts on the Ecology Of The Devil King Thasaidon 'ruler of the Seven Hells' & 'Lord of All Turpitudes' Updated

 "Thasaidon, lord of seven hells

Wherein the single Serpent dwells,
With volumes drawn from pit to pit
Through fire and darkness infinite —
Thasaidon, sun of nether skies,
Thine ancient evil never dies,
For aye thy somber fulgors flame
On sunken worlds that have no name,
Man's heart enthrones thee, still supreme,
Though the false sorcerers blaspheme.
-- The Song of Xeethra"
'The Dark Eidolon' (1935) by Clark Ashton Smith


Persia Parade shield sipar

Deep within the forsaken deserts of Zothique lay abandoned cities & half forgotten temple complexes to Thasaidon one of the last devil kings of Hell. The bloated red sun of Earth holds sway over all Zothique,  Thasaidon holds court with the souls of black magicians & wizards from Aramoan to  Zul-Bha-Sair. But where did this devil king come from?! The cold Outer Blackness or is he something far more sinister & familiar. He figures most prominently in 'The Dark Eidolon' (1935) by Clark Ashton Smith. Thasaidon is a devil king  of business & black magick. He's in the business of the souls of mankind especially magicians & on Zothique business is very good. In  'The Dark Eidolon' we are given the internal view point between Namirrha Thasidon's pet arch wizard & the Devil King;

"Before the black-armored image there hung seven silver lamps, wrought in the form of horses' skulls, with flames issuing changeably in blue and purple and crimson from their eye-sockets. Wild and lurid was their light, and the face of the demon, peering from under his crested helmet, was filled with malign, equivocal shadows that shifted and changed eternally. And sitting in his serpent-carven chair, Namirrha regarded the statue grimly, with a deep-furrowed frown between his eyes: for he had asked a certain thing of Thasaidon, and the fiend, replying through the statue, had refused him. And rebellion was in the heart of Namirrha, grown mad with pride, and deeming himself the lord of all sorcerers and a ruler by his own right among the princes of devildom. So, after long pondering, he repeated his request in a bold and haughty voice, like one who addresses an equal rather than the all-formidable suzerain to whom he had sworn a fatal fealty.

"I have helped you heretofore in all things," said the image, with stony and sonorous accents that were echoed metallically in the seven silver lamps. "Yea, the undying worms of fire and darkness have come forth like an army at your summons, and the wings of nether genii have risen to occlude the sun when you called them. But, verily, I will not aid you in this vengeance you have planned: for the emperor Zotulla has done me no wrong and has served me well though unwittingly; and the people of Xylac, by reason of their turpitudes, are not the least of my terrestial worshippers. Therefore, Namirrha, it were well for you to live in peace with Zotulla, and well to forget this olden wrong that was done to the beggar-boy Narthos. For the ways of destiny are strange, and the workings of its laws sometimes hidden; and truly, if the hooves of Zotulla's palfrey had not spurned you and trodden you under, your life had been otherwise, and the name and renown of Namirrha had still slept in oblivion as a dream undreamed. Yea, you would tarry still as a beggar in Ummaos, content with a beggar's guerdon, and would never have fared forth to become the pupil of the wise and learned Ouphaloc; and I, Thasaidon, would have lost the lordliest of all necromancers who have accepted my service and my bond. Think well, Namirrha, and ponder these matters: for both of us, it would seem, are indebted to Zotulla in all gratitude for the trampling he gave you.""

Let's look at the ramifications of this conversation for a moment. Thasaidon is considered the 'Lord of All Turpitudes' among his royal titles of Hell. He's telling one of the most powerful black magicians of his generation  to give up his revenge against the king  Zotulla. One of the most powerful lawful evil devil kings is telling his summoner to give up this fool's errand. That's the gravity of the situation in  'The Dark Eidolon' . But who is Thasaidon himself? His identity is tied up in his titles Thasaidon is the 'ruler of the Seven Hells' & 'Lord of All Turpitudes'
Terpitudes is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary; 

"The word is often heard in the phrase "moral turpitude," an expression used in law to designate an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community. A criminal offense that involves "moral turpitude" is considered wrong or evil by moral standards. "
In Dungeons & Dragons there are the Nine Hells but sometime millions of years in the far future world of Zothique two of those planes are destroyed. Asmodeus is not only defeated but absorbed by Thasaidon. He emerges from the Chaos of this war to take his rightful place as one of the patron gods of Zothique. 

How do I know this because Thasaidon is the 'Prince of All Moral Turpitude' & ruler of the Seven Hells. These are the planes of Hell  that emerge at the end of Revelation & after the Horsemen have been released on Earth. 

"Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

— Revelation 6:1-2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)"

One by one the armies of Hell consume themselves & each other after the Fall of Man. Two of the planes of Hell burn away into the Outer Darkness. Asmodeus is the last to fall in battle & from his ashes will emerge Thasaidon. Each of Hell's sins is taken over by Thasaidon & he literally takes on the titles & reignments of Hell. 


This war makes the Blood War look like 'Sunny Brook' farm & the struggle is epic. The souls of all mankind across the planes are at stake. And what's left is a very different landscape of Hell. The devil king of Zothique is a very different beast from Asmodeus & after the reforging of Asmodeus's ruby staff into the iron mace Hell becomes a very different place. This has happened many times in the past & the cycle will continue. The cults of  Thasaidon have begun to spread among the outer fringes of the world today because of the prophecies that have been revealed among certain esoteric seers. These cults are violent & very dangerous. They should only be tackled by the most experienced of adventurers. There cliques of these cults that have emerged on Hyperborea as well but many consider these to be ancient relics of a bygone age today. 

Blood & Webs - An Alternative Ecology For The Ettercap For Dungeons & Dragons

 I'm an unapologetic AD&D first edition Fiend Folio fan & user of all of the insane monsters within that incredible game book. The monsters in the Fiend Folio have served me very well & perhaps a bit too well. I've used all them from the first time I got the book & thumbed through it again & again for hours on end.

Among my absolute favorite Fiend Folio monsters is the Ettercap created from the life blood verse of Tolkein's Bilbo Baggins Hobbit. The Ettercap is a humanoid spider monster with the features of an insane man & the abilities of a spider. They are expert poisoners, web & trap builders, & very sneaky as well as stealthy in the extreme.
Wiki lists them as; "An ettercap is a race of bestial spider-men aberrations in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game" But there's some very interesting fiddly bits & pieces about the Ettercap. First they are found in temperate locations such as forests, swamps, etc. & they are a nightmare in their home environment. Imagine making camp under the large noses of something like this.


They have an AC of six & there's a thirty percent chance of encountering them in their lairs which are going to be an obstacle course of webbed booby traps, dead falls, trip wires, & possibly even webbed poison walls. They attack like ninja using the natural terrain to their advantage & they keep loyal pet spiders. Even though their intelligence is low they are very cagey & cunning using pack tactics to take down larger groups of adventurers.
Adventurers don't actually stand a chance against these things because of the traps they lay & the fact that their senses are so keen. Ettercaps are going to strike at night & we can draw several conclusions from Russ Nicholson's Fiend Folio artwork.

First there are the eyes which seem to indicate binocular vision on these humanoid spiderlike beings & that huge nose. So we've got a monster with low light vision & a keen sense of smell. The claws are massive & look razor sharp along with the claws on the feet perfect for climbing trees & maneuvering through their forest environment.
But where did the Ettercap come from to begin with? There are several theories in mythology over the years strongly connected with much of the lore of Dungeons & Dragon's later editions. But I've got my own campaign origin for these monsters for they are the spawn of  Arachne the spider goddess  of Greek mythology even though her origin goes back much further. The most popular story of Arachne comes from the poet Ovid;
"

One version appears in the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid.

In this version, Arachne was a shepherd's daughter who began weaving at an early age. She became a great weaver, boasted that her skill was greater than that of Athena, and refused to acknowledge that her skill came, in part at least, from the goddess. Athena took offense and set up a contest between them. Presenting herself as an old lady, she approached the boasting girl and warned: "You can never compare to any of the gods. Plead for forgiveness and Athena might spare your soul."

"Ha! I only speak the truth and if Athena thinks otherwise then let her come down and challenge me herself," Arachne replied. Athena removed her disguise and appeared in shimmering glory, clad in a sparkling white chiton. The two began weaving straight away. Athena's weaving represented four separate contests between mortals and the gods in which the gods punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods. Arachne's weaving depicted ways that the gods had misled and abused mortals, particularly Zeus, tricking and seducing many women. When Athena saw that Arachne had not only insulted the gods but done so with a work far more beautiful than Athena's own, she was enraged. She ripped Arachne's work to shreds and hit her on the head three times. Terrified and ashamed, Arachne hanged herself. Then Athena said, "Live on then, and yet hang, condemned one, but, lest you are careless in future, this same condition is declared, in punishment, against your descendants, to the last generation!" After saying this she sprinkled her with the juice of Hecate's herb, and immediately at the touch of this dark poison, Arachne's hair fell out. With it went her nose and ears, her head shrank to the smallest size, and her whole body became tiny. Her slender fingers stuck to her sides as legs, the rest is belly, from which she still spins a thread, and, as a spider, weaves her ancient web."^[4] This showed how goddesses punished mortals who dared to insult them."

There is mythological evidence that the goddess had prophetic abilities & the abilities to divine the affairs of the gods. Her children inherited her bitterness toward the gods & their chosen heroes. She was consigned to the underworld. Rumors abound of  Arachne being consulted by numerous dark gods, arch devils, demon lords, & many lower world powers some escaping her wrath barely. Many others  gaining knowledge only to be consumed by her crazed lust & insane hunger for the supernatural blood of the gods.




Her children were consigned to the furthest reaches of the planes & outer dimensions . The Ettercaps were   locked away from humanity for a time but they made war upon humanity. The bitterness of the Ettercap tribes knows no bounds even today. They still lurk on the outer fringes of the wildernesses & wastelands of many lands even to this day. Ettercap mercenaries & assassins were renowned in supernatural circles for their violence & ferocity in military operations of sabotage.


Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley from 1894 edition of Lucian's True History of a battle between the People of the Moon and the People of the Earth using giant spiders.


The Ettercap tribes have deep ties with the spiders of Leng in Earth's far future Dreamlands & with the spider creatures of Zothique. The Ettercap have a strong but murky tie with the spider goddess Atlach-Nacha as she is served by several tribes of the monsters. These worshipers are of slightly more dangerous variety of the Ettercap  as they share the hatred of being disturbed from their devotion to their spider goddess. Her divine work of bridging the waking world & the Dreamlands is seen as all consuming. The Ettercaps of
Atlach-Nacha are some of the best trap makers & engineers in existence. They may be summoned by a monster summoning spell but must be paid with a live student of the arts & an offering of at least 780 gems worth of treasure before they will entertain a temporary assignment.
Don't cross the servants of Atlach-Nacha or they will not only eat the summoner but everyone else within a house or block. Only their webs left behind with odd & disturbing designs that no mortal should see. 



Image from https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/1c/cf/c834b870cad7e7bc145a6ca5bf38.jpg Gallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0050571.html

These creatures are sometimes employed by certain forbidden cults to create divine traps & divine dead falls in the name of their forbidden gods. Some divine dungeons & strange ruins taken over by these horrid cults often have supernaturally consigned dungeon engineers who built & maintain the tricks & traps.
These Ettrcap live for the day when the Earth will be cleared of humanity & they can once again take their rightful place under a blotted red sun.