The Blessings of the Flesh from the Cult of the Pit (an extra for People of the Pit)

 

I remember the first time I faced draconians from the AD&D 2^nd Dragonlance Campaign Setting. I was instantly in love with the monster design (never have facing a critter with death throes before) You never knew what would happen when a new type of draconian showed up. Would the monster blow up as you killed it? Turn to acid? Go berserker? It was awesome.

I am not sure why but when I read People of the Pit module, I get a “draconian” vibe from the Cult of Pit. When you kill a cultist, a pulped-tentacled-mess-thing (a.k.a. octo-mass) bursts forth from the corpse and attacks you. That is nice… the first time. Then I noticed that it becomes common place rather quickly. So, I decided to create a table and generate variant octo-mass for my run of the adventure.

Every time a cultist dies, roll a 1d8, and let the chaos begin!

1 – The body starts shaking and gory tentacles emerge from mouth, eyes and ears… it is gross but one round later the cultist just drops dead. You lucky bastard.

2 – Same as above, but one round later an octo-mass bursts forth and ATTACK!

3 – The cultist explodes in gory trash movie fashion. Everyone in melee range must roll a Luck check. If they fail with an even roll they are blinded for 1 round, if they fail with a odd roll they slip and fall in the blood. Oh, and there is a octo-mass SOMEWHERE preparing a sneak attack at the possible worst moment.

4 – The octo-mass jumps some 10 ft. from the cultist’s corpse and attaches itself to a ceiling or wall… from where it promptly starts casting (or helping at the cast of) arms of Palimdybis. This “jumpy” octo-mass has AC 12.

5 – The octo-mass bursts from the cultist as a projectile. One character in range (a 30 ft. line) must succeed at a Ref save DC 12. Failing with an even roll means the octo-mass grabs his face (the PC is blind, cannot speak and is suffocating). Failing with an odd roll means the octo-mass grabbed his torso and the PC cannot use his arms, besides having his movement limited to 5 ft. per round. During the chaos of melee, any normal attack against a grappling octo-mass has 50% of hitting the grappled PC. (but Mighty Deed of Arms to avoid that are in order!) Consider that an octo-mass has a Str 10 when rolling opposed checks to free the PC.

6 – The octo-mass bursts from the cultist as a projectile. One character in range (a 30 ft. line) must succeed at a Will save DC 12 or becomes controlled as the octo-mass’ tentacles get inside his ears and nose. A new Will save can be attempted every round with a +2 cumulative bonus. (No Judge would dare use this tactic to control the party's wizard or elf... imagine if start casting spells? Oh Heavens...)

7 – Dire octo-mass! This critter has 8 hit points and inflicts 1d6 damage! The first time it is hit by slashing damage it suffers no damage but divides in two octo-mass (then in three). After the first slashing, damage is 1d4, after the second the normal damage. A third slashing attack deals damage normally.

8 – Octo-mass swarm!!! Roll twice on this table. (If the Judge believes this is too much, only use this result for Crimson and Yellow Robe Cultists).

Yeah, this tables makes the Cultist considerably more dangerous and unpredictable, but that is the idea. I run People of the Pit with a 5 players’ party who used lots of hirelings and the adventure was devilish fun!

Octo-mass time!