The Hellish Pacts with the Hollow Man (an extra for Doom of the Savage Kings)

While running Doom of the Savage Kings (one of my all-time favorite modules) to my first DCC RPG table, a few years ago, I added a few extras to the Sunken Fens. Because there is a Viking flavor to the entire thing, inspired in the legend of the huldre, I created the Hollow Man.

Just an old diviner...

The Hollow Man looks like an old hermit of the swamp, but on a closer inspection he is a hollowed husk-man-thing that carries flasks fulls of hands and eyes. While the party figured it out the illusion, they never interacted with the Hollow Man itself like I wanted (they actually ran away pretty fast!).

The Hollow Man collects hands and eyes and (or so say the legends) eventually traded them with devils. The idea is that the Hollow Man is a source of weird powers (i.e. magic items). Basically, you lose a hand and/or eye and get supernatural mojo.

Run for your lives!

Of course, the encounter was not that simple. The Hollow Man was a unique critter and only offered its services after a riddle contest (I placed rumors in Hirot mentioning that there is “an old diviner in the swamps” that helps people in exchange of riddles… it was a half-true rumor).

- If you give one of your hands to the Hollow Man, you literally get one of your hands (even if detached) in the Hells. The good news is that you can still kind of control that hand and the effect in the Material Plane is that, if spend 1 Action Die and no one is looking, you can move anything that you can see without touching it (if it weights less than 20 pounds/10 kg). So, you could use it (for example) to lift the keys to your cell from the sleeping guard and get away. The bad news is that you are one-handed (-1 Agility) and that one day a devil might show up with your hand, meaning that you own that devil one favour or you soul (your choice).

- If you give one of your eyes to the Hollow Man, you could use it see those that are already Damned. Mechanically, you suffer a -1 in Personality or Luck, but once every day (just after awakening) you can roll a d20. At any point during that same day you could change any other Action Die rolled in your presence by that d20. So, if you rolled a 3 at the beginning of the day, you could change an enemy’s attack roll of 17 against you with that 3. It does not work with your own Action Die rolls (i.e. you know that you are already Damned). The bad news? If you use this power and roll a natural 20, that means that you are doomed and, at some points during that day, the Judge can substitute any of your Action Die rolls for a Fumble (the Judge should go for maximum kill here, the idea is that the Hells want your character). So, if your PC rolls a natural 20 using this power, their best option is probably to stay holed up for the next 24 hours.

A classic!