We return for the last (for now) installment of Monsters in the Machine, a series where I riff back and forth with GPT-3 and create monsters for Vaarn based on the stat blocks the AI spits out. Our previous episode saw the AI plant the seeds for several new additions to the bestiary. Now I’ve picked up my human editor’s pen and turned the AI-generated stat blocks into proper creatures.
Without further ado, let’s meet the beasts!
Prism Drone
Synthetic / Mineral
Level 3 / Armour 16 / Morale 7 / Appearing d3 (with Prism Strider)
Attacks: Prismatic Ray (d10 beam) / Repair Protocol (+d8 HP to Synthetic target)
Small tripedal servitors that accompany Prism Striders into battle, providing recon and repairs for the towering attack synths. Their repeater ray-emitters are used to aim and supercharge the beams fired from their parent unit.
Prism Strider
Synthetic / Mineral
Level 9 / Armour 18 / Morale 10 / Appearing 1 (with d3 Prism Drones)
Attacks: 3 x Trample (d8) / Prismatic Array (d10 beam, +3 to hit and +d6 damage per active Drone)
Colossal war machines from the Long Ago, built to incinerate entire armies from afar. A tripod of spindle-sharp legs supports a humming cradle of death-ray prisms. These war-synths travel with an entourage of smaller Drones, drawing additional accuracy and power from each servitor.
Comments: I elected to lean on the Half-Life 2 influence for this pair of creatures. The big Strider is supported by a group of drones, which boost its accuracy and damage as well as healing it. PCs will want to take out the Drones first, before destroying the Strider. For the full HL2 experience, have a group of Striders slowly approaching some valuable static target, and task the PCs with frantically driving around trying to stop them reaching the vulnerable asset.
I kind of hate the art for this one, but getting MidJourney to do a tripod is actually really challenging.
Scylla
Biological
Level 12 / Armour 18 / Morale 10 / Appearing 1
Attack: 8 x Tentacles (d8) / Ink Spray (Special)
A gigantic hybrid of woman and octopus, with eight writhing tentacles. One of the terrible Brides of Rahab, who luxuriate in the abyssal darks of Vaarn’s oceans and pray for the death of the sun.
Ink Spray: all opponents must DEX save. On failure, they are coated in cloying ink for d4 turns. While coated, they cannot regain HP, and suffer double damage from all sources.
Comments: the Brides of Rahab are a group we’ll see more of in a future zine issue. Scylla’s debuffs and multiple tentacle attacks make her a tough opponent, and suitable to pit against higher level PCs.
Lazarus Guard
Biological / Synthetic
Level 6 / Armour 14 / Morale Never Flees / Encountered d6
Attack: 2 x Claw (d6)
A desiccated human corpse, filled with necrotech implants that preserve a sort of life-in-death for the unlucky host. So-called ‘Lazarus Regiments’ were created from the corpses of criminals to guard the tombs of Autarchy nobles. Veins of black gallium pulse beneath parchment-like skin, and their despairing eyes resemble sable stones.
Resurrection: Lazarus Guards will resurrect after 3 combat rounds if slain, the black cyborg hearts within their breasts unwilling to let their hosts die. These hearts must be cut from the guard’s body and destroyed in order to stop the resurrection. Once the secret is known, players may wish to target the guard’s heart directly. The cyborg organ has 1 HP and Armour 20.
Comments: a creepy undead monster, found lurking in Autarchy tombs. Once the players know the trick, there’s some fun to be had in trying to destroy the heart as fast as possible.
Viridian Ooze
Fungal
Level 4 / Armour 12 / Morale 8 / Encountered 1
Attack: Engulf (Special)
Notes: an antic colony of green slime, like phlegm coughed from the throat of a ravenous god. The Ooze’s embrace marries digestion with cytokinesis, birthing heirs in seconds from the biomass consumed.
Engulf: an engulfed biological creature loses d3 CON per round. Each successful engulf attack creates a new Viridian Ooze, with a Level equal to the CON lost. STR save to break free.
Resistance: the Ooze takes half damage from kinetic attacks. It suffers 3d8 damage per round from exposure to extreme heat.
Comments: this was my take on the slime mold monster the GPT-3 gave us. It’s also an obvious homage to a classic monster from old D&D. This is a fight that could easily get out of hand if players don’t know the trick, and CON is a really nasty stat to lose. Also MidJourney really went to town on the illustration here, so disgusting.
Mycolossus
Fungal
Level 8 / Armour 16 / Morale 9 / Encountered 1
Attack: 2 x Claw (d8) + Body Slam (2d6) +
A towering amalgam of necrotic flesh and mycomorphic fungal tissue. Mycolossi are formed from up to a dozen humanoid corpses, crudely fused into a large, brutish mass. They are fast-moving, voracious, and completely insane. Choking clouds of spores portend the giant’s approach.
Spore Shroud: those in melee range of the Mycolossus take d6 automatic choking damage per round.
Sun-fearing: Mycolossi must make a Morale save to fight in sunlight.
Comments: we ended up with quite a few ‘boss fight’ creatures in this batch. The Mycolossus would make a suitable climax for a vault exploration, or perhaps be kept as a combatant in a gladiatorial arena. This creature is deadly at close range, so the PCs are going to want to kite it and keep their distance.
Thornthrower Cactus
Biological
Level 4 / Armour 12 / Morale 6 / Encountered d6
Attack: 2 x Thorn Fling (d4)
Ferocious ambulatory cactus, covered in hollow spines the size of daggers. Thornthrowers kill by firing spines into the soft tissue of the throat, before taking root in the corpse and draining it of fluid.
Spines: if an opponent misses a melee attack against the Thornthrower cactus, they take d4 damage from the long spines.
Comments: another creature you want to keep your distance from, although unlike the Mycolossus they can shoot back. These things aren’t too gimmick heavy but can round out an encounter table just fine, and it seemed amiss that we had no cactus monster before.
Golgothan Pilgrim
Biological / Synthetic
Level 3 / Armour 11 / Morale 7 / Encountered d8
Attack: 2 x Claw (d6) / Bite (Special)
Humanoid creatures, overtaken by a strange nanomachine infestation. Pilgrims have long arms and a hunched, prayer-like gait, weighed down by the mechanical spire that grows between their shoulders. They walk single-file, travelling towards Golgotha in the far north. They are compelled to make this journey by a signal received through their spire.
Bite: Pilgrims can transmit their affliction through their bite. Biological and synthetic characters bitten by a Pilgrim must CON save or contract a nanomachine infestation: Pilgrim’s Spire.
Pilgrim’s Spire
Malignant Cybernetic Implant [CON/PSY]
The malignant implant uses the CON and PSY ability slots. Cybernetic Implants that previously used these slots are rendered non-functional. The Spire infection progresses through three stages.
- Growth. A black spire of metal begins to protrude between the shoulder blades. It grows until it is roughly the length of a human forearm. Rigid body armour cannot be worn. This stage lasts 3 days.
- Activation. The spire begins to draw power from the body, occupying the CON and PSY ability slots. The infected individual begins to receive strange visions in their dreams, guiding them north. This phase lasts one week before progressing to Stage 3.
- Compulsion. The Pilgrim’s Spire is fully active. The bearer is obsessed with walking to Golgotha, and must travel north each day, as far as their feet will carry them. If they resist the urge to travel, they will begin to sleepwalk north instead unless physically restrained. Each day the infection remains untreated, they lose 1 point of EGO. At 0 EGO, the character becomes a Golgothan Pilgrim NPC.
Cure: the Pilgrim’s Spire can be removed by an experienced cybernetics surgeon, but the operation is not cheap.
Comments: When it came time to adapt the cursed ‘traveller’ creature the AI wrote for us, I was thinking of the pilgrims in Dark Souls 3, drawn towards Lothric and subjected to some kind of awful metamorposis. We don’t know much about Golgotha yet, just that it’s north of Vaarn’s mountains and is bad.
This is also the debut of the nanomachine infection/malignant cybernetics rules I’ve been cooking up. More of those to come.
VAULTS OF VAARN 