Paper Monsters From Tekumel

Image taken from The Genie's Lamp.

Last Planet Algol game involved many creatures (and some eyes...) from Empire Of The Petal Throne. While doing some follow-up research, I was gratified to come across this page at the Genie's Lamp website, which has PDFs of color paper minatures of Tekumel creatures. I certainly could have used these last game; they would have been great for:

• when a N'grutha was sucking out the soft insides of Dude Earthman
• the incredibly anticlimactic battle with a band of Hluss
• when the party fled in terror after Euphorbus the Cactus Man fell to the swords of the Ssu

However, although this is a great free resource, I am disappointed the N'grutha doesn't have the creepy man-like face of the original DCS illustration (one of my favorite "Adventurers dying horribly" works by the artist).

Settlements, Strongholds and Ruins of the Iridium Plateau

The following references the Iridium Plateau hexmap visible here.

0308, 0407,0508: THE MELTED CITY

A vast sprawl of the melted stumps of massive ancient buildings surrounded by a lumpy yet flattish plain of cracked glass. The city that once stood here appears to have been build of vividly colored glass as the melted remnants are brightly colored violet, red, indigo, dark green and other shades, although some sages say the terrible weapons that created the Prismatic Wastes also colored the ruins of the people they destroyed. Over the eons many of the ruins have shattered leaving jagged blades, and piles of colorful fragmented glass sand lie in corners and dunes about the city. Some say that the subterranean regions of the Melted City survived the devastation that destroyed it, and that there are many tunnels and chambers beneath it where Ancient relics could be salvaged.

0412: DUST

Also known as Gully Town, this town serves as a last stop for caravans heading into the Western Badlands. Prospectors go into the Prismatic Salt Wastes looking deposits of valuable mineral salts, and hunters seek Zorses and Orniths in the Lands of Purple Grasses to capture, tame and sell.

0613: FORTRESS COBALT

A towering edifice of dark indigo glassy plasticrete blocks, Fortress Cobalt controls access to the western pass leading up to Iridium Plateau.

1009: PIT

A rambling shambles of rusted shack, foundries, workshops and warehouses, all suffused with rust, surrounding a vast bottomless shaft. The bottomless shaft that the town is named after serves as access to many veins of minerals, making the town a prosperous, but excessively rough, mining community. The local miners are a vile lot, fond of gin, inhalants, and tormenting Mnors from the surrounding foothills with torches and tridents as a callous entertainment.

1013: CANYX

Another mining town, founded to exploit the mineral wealth exposed by the canyon that gashes through the plateau southwards.

1111: AGOG CITY

One of the oldest continually inhabited cities on Algol, Agog is also one of the most technologically advanced, being built upon and within massive constructions from the Aeon of the Ancients. Although most of the technology has long since broken down, or the knowledge to operate has been lost, the Technocrats of Agog have great stockpiles of Ancient artifacts and know much in the arts of science, engineering and medicine. A being known as The Controller, an immortal demigod, is the absolute ruler of Agog. The native people of Agog, called Agogites or Pink Men, have pale pink skin, ranging in tone from that of an infant to a rosy nacre. The latter tone is much more common among those of a pampered disposition. They are generally bald, in both sexes, the hair of the few that possess it being lank, fine and like that of a albino in pigmentation. The upper class Agogites dress in simple metallic or iridescent togas and robes, ornate helmets made of transparent crystal or precious metal, and high-strapped metallic sandals. Those of the middle class wear overalls, usually in neutral gray or metallic tones, simple brass helmets, and sock-like footwear. Lower class Agogites are clad in overalls, usually in drab colors such a lead, dun or khaki (and usually patched and stained as well), battered lead helmets, and lead clogs. Agog is divided in several districts.
See also the Tenement Canyon of Agog City.

1210-1410: THE GREAT SPAN

A massive bridge of solid white plasticrete, 10 miles in length, that spans the Rift Canyon providing a route from Agog City to the regions eastwards.

1405: THE BRONZE DOME OF THE DESERT

A huge, tarnished bronze dome, it's rim graven with massive glyphs, the home of powerful, reclusive wizard who is centuries old. Some say that the glyphs are encoded with the incantations and formulae for a terrible ritual from the time of the Elder Races.

1408: JAKAY

A squat desert town, the home base of scavengers that search the Rust Desert for artifacts of the Ancients. The eastward trade route from Agog detours here to avoid the monsters and raiders that lurk in the wilds of the Rust Desert.

1410: FORTRESS ADAMANT

Formed from a massive, solid, single mass of black metal, Fortress Adamant guards access to the Great Span.

1807: FORTRESS SCARLET

This red, glassy stone fortress is home to The Red Lady, an immortal sorceress and demigoddess renowned for her beauty and infamous for her vanity and jealousy. The officers of her guard are her lovers, and fanatically serve their mistress.

2209: ADOMAZ

A small caravan town, some miners exploit the mineral wealth of the canyon west of town that provides accesss to the Iridium Plateau. A population of Cactoids dwell in the lands around Adomaz, coming into town to trade.

2314: KHARHEM

Built on the cyclopean ruins of a city of the Ancients, Kharhem is a thriving market city that serves the trade routes to Agog, the Red Sands, the Southern Gash and Sangkalla in the Jungles of Venom in the south.

Geographic Features of the Iridium Plateau

THE BORNITE MOUNTAINS

A heap of rugged stone slabs and peaks, of an iridescent coppery blueish-purple due to it's high bornite content. This range is rich in mineral wealth but most mining in restricted to the tunneling into the foothills in order to avoid attracting the attention of the inhabitants of the Forbidden Mist Valleys.

THE FORBIDDEN MIST VALLEYS

Choked with dense, cold, wet white mist, these verdant hilly valleys are avoided by sane explorers as they are reputed to be home to horrific beings of hostile intent and great potency.

THE GLOW STAIN

A charred wasteland of ash and cinders interrupted by twisted, blackened, half-melted formations and pools of softly burbling green ooze. This region is permeated with radiation and at night ghastly displays of shifting green, blue and violet hues glow in the sky above as a result.

THE IRIDIUM PLATEAU

A massive plateau of steely gray rock, rich in metallic ores.

THE LAKE OF IRIDESCENT SALTS

A large lake of hot, oily, salty, iridescent water. Lacy spires of colorful salt formations thrust out of the water and the shores are caked with crusts of prismatic salts. Located where the Primatic Salt Wastes meet the western escarpment of the Iridium Plateau.

THE LANDS OF PURPLE GRASS

A tough, sharp purple grass, partially metallic in composition, grows out of the steely gray soil of these lands, as well as twisted black briers bearing coppery thorns. This grassland extends up onto the southwestern Iridium Plateau, were it becomes a scrubland with twisted black thorn trees and baroque branching cacti at the southern edge.

THE MOSS STEPPES

Gently rolling misty steppes covered with a thick cushion of rich green moss. Occasional groves of moss-trees spot the land.

THE PRISMATIC SALT WASTES

A desert composed of dunes of brightly-pigmented salts.

THE PRISMATIC WASTES

A rocky region of bizarre colorful stone formations, some areas are permeated with radiations similar to the ones of the Glow Wastes.

THE RED SANDS

A massive sea of scarlet sand stretching to the east.

THE RIFT CANYON

A massive gorge, miles deep, filled with white fog pouring down from the Forbidden Mist Valley. The land at the bottom is a morass of mud, vegetation, hot springs and tar pits, and is very hot due to geographical activity.

THE RUST DESERT

The eastern portion of the Iridium Plateau, it appears to be a desert of red sand, but the dunes are actually a thick layer of dust. In ages long past this area was said to be a region of massive iron engines that decayed into a desert of rust over the eons. Huge ruined structures, rust-decayed stumps of the ancient machinery, dot the landscape.

THE SLIME LANDS

The mud and ooze of the rift canyon, as well as the clouds of wet mist, pour out into this region. The borders of this area seem to be normal swampy jungle, but it soon becomes a vast expanse of slimy mud, filled with algae, vegetation, mud-dwelling predators, and gigantic protozoa. Further south the land becomes the slightly drier Jungles of Venom.

THE SOUTHERN GASH

A long, jagged inlet from the oceans to the south. An important trade route to the lands southwards.

In Seventies England Orcs Were Cyclopean...

At the Dragonsfoot forum, the poster ifearyeti shared some artwork from the Games Workshop version of Holmes Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the following two are my favorites:

Chapter 3, Part 3: "The Rewards of Virtue..."

Part I Here, Part II Here.

The party awakens in the dim, low-ceiling Chamber of Cushions of the Lamia's Breath Intoxicating Vapour Lounge, their heads screaming with the chemical fumes of gin and inhalants. Clumsily they stumble into the main lounge where the slightly less dim lighting, courtesy of the thick, dark indigo windows, stabs glass knives through their eyes into their forebrains.

Fortunately the lounge has a gas available that redacts the effects of alcohol and vapour abuse and soon the companions are functional again although Dickie Dee's ocular apparatus persists in occasional bouts of fractal x-ray vision, a phenomenon the bone man finds jarring.

After breaking their fast at Slygar's the Sausage Skewer Seller's Stand with sausage skewers and fortifying tumblers of gin and tea they retrieve their zorses from the stables and set out north-west along the foothills of the Bornite Mountains. After a brief journey they arrive at Pit, a rambling shambles of rusted shack, foundries, workshops and warehouses all suffused with rust surrounding a vast bottomless shaft. The dust is rust, the clumpy red-brown creepers on the walls of buildings are a lichenous rust-plant, their mouths tang of rust from the air. The bottomless shaft that the town is named after serves as access to many veins of minerals, the town is a prosperous but excessively rough mining community

They seek out a salon, the Lead Cup, the supposed lair of their quarry, the intoxicant distributor and wrestler, Mozug. The party had come up with a scheme where they pose as sellers of a large quantity of Gamma Orichalcum and thus gain an audience with Mozug, facilitating a tidy and convenient assassination.

Some gap-toothed layouts lounging outside the Lead Cup whom display the obvious physical symptoms of long-term intoxicant abuse are hailed and an inquiry is made regarding who should the party contact in order to sell a large quantity of Gamma Orichalcum.

One of the layabouts proclaims that he has a interested patron and asks them to wait while he inform the potential customer of the offer. The party agrees, shortly he returns and tells them to come with him. They follow him into a neighborhood of decrepit abandoned warehouses and the entrance to one is indicated. Dickie Dee is unimpressed with the interior lighting so he ignites his lamp and shines it inside the large dark chamber.

He is rewarded for his efforts by two crossbow quarrels impaling his transparent flesh and he falls unconscious. Soon the party is involved in melee with a small gang of intoxicant addicts who aim to take the nonexistent Gamma Orichalcum by force. In the resulting fray, taking place both outside the entrance to the warehouse and inside the large split-level chamber strewn with abandoned machinery, Monster Monagin leaps off a ramp upon one of the scoundrels that punctured Dickie Dee and while grappling with the villain is struck in the head by an ancient, rusted chunk of engine knocked off the mezzanine above by the murderous scrambling of Dude Earthman who is rapidly slaying many of the intoxicant addicts with the needle-like blade of Gan-ron's magic silver bastard sword. Meanwhile Nigel Nightbreaker stoutly hacks away at the villains with his halberd.

The knock to the head fractured Monster Monagin's cranium, rendering him comatose. His foe, however, is less fortunate and the battle soon ends with the party victorious, although two members are severely injured and helpless...

Part I Here, Part II Here.

Monsters - Ape-Man, Cactoid and Wasteland Mutant

APE-MAN

• NO. ENCOUNTERED: 2-8, 20-30 in lair
• SIZE: Medium
• HD: 3
• MOVE: 12”, climb 6”
• AC: 7
• ATTACKS: club (1d6), claw (1d4) and bite (1d4)
• SPECIAL: None
• INT: Low
• ALIGNMENT: Neutral (evil)
• TREASURE: 50% standard

These powerful humanoids resemble shaggy, primitive humans with the features of an ape. They are very aggressive omnivores that prefer meat, killing and eating anything they can catch. Ape-men are capable of tracking their prey by scent.

An Ape-man often precedes an attack with a display of aggression before charging its foe and bashing it with its club and mauling it with its claws and fangs.

Ape-men are thought to be the product of union between either cavemen or extremely degenerate tribes of humans and species of carnivorous apes. Some sages hold that ape-men are the result of foul ritual practices of certain ape cults.

The coloration of ape-men depends on the species of ape they are descended from, but most have brown skin, black hair and brown eyes They have a broad, powerful build and are usually five and a half feet tall and will weight around 250 pounds.

Ape-men speak their own language and can communicate with apes and ape-like creatures, although their vocabulary is limited due to their low intelligence.

Ape-men lairs will have either a chief with 8 hit dice or a shaman of 5^th-7^th level (25% chance of both).

CACTOID

• NO. ENCOUNTERED: 3-18
• SIZE: Medium
• AC: 7(6 with shield)
• MOVE: 12”
• HD: 2
• ATTACKS: By weapon
  
• SPECIAL: Spines, +4 to saves versus poison, half damage from piercing attacks.
• INT: Average
• ALIGNMENT: Neutral
• TREASURE: As a 2nd level NPC
  

Cactoids, also known as Cactus Men, are a race of plant humanoid, that appear human aside for their tough, hairless, spiny green skin. These spines will inflict 1 point of damage to creatures that grab or bite them, or 1-2 points of damage/round if grappled, constricted, etc. by a creature with an armor class greater than 6. If the cactoid is being held in the mouth or stomach armor class will not prevent damage. Due to their vegetable body structure cactoids have a +4 on saving throws versus poison, and also take half damage from piercing weapons such as arrows, spears, picks, stingers, etc. Cactoids usually carry javelins or spears and a battle axe or falchion, and half use shields.

Cactoids live as nomads in arid regions. They eat the same foods as humans as well as snacking on sandy soil, they need only small amounts of water but also require sunlight for photosynthesis. They wear leather harnesses to bear their arms and gear. They have their own language.

WASTELAND MUTANT

• NO. ENCOUNTERED: 3-18, 6-36 in smaller lairs, 30-120 in larger settlements
• SIZE: Medium
• AC: 7
• MOVE: 9”
• HD: 1+1
• ATTACKS: By weapon
• SPECIAL: Immune to radiation, +4 on saves vs. poison
• INT: Low-average
• ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
• TREASURE: 2-12 copper, 1-6 silver, 1-8 gold per individual

Wasteland mutants are the descendants of men whose bloodlines have been poisoned and degenerated by the radiations and toxins of the wastelands of Algol. They are malformed and lumpy with scabrous, mottled gray skin, featureless dull black eyes and rudimentary features. Their greasy, lank hair grows in random patches on their oversize, deformed heads.

Bands of wasteland mutants are lead by chieftains with 5+5 hit dice who inflict +1 damage with melee and thrown weapons, and 3-12 elite warriors who have 2+2 hit dice and also the +1 damage with melee and thrown weapons. Their sorcerers are magic-users of up to the 4^th level, and they have assassins of up to the 4^th level.

Most wasteland mutants wear studded leather, those of higher status wear chain or banded. They rarely use shields. Even when unarmored they move at a rate of 9” due to their twisted limbs and paw-like feet. Their usual weapon breakdown is as follows, leader types having the better armaments:

• morningstar and javelins 10%
• morningstar and hand axes 10%
• battle axe and javelins 10%
• battle axe and light crossbow 10%
• spear, dagger 10%
• club, dagger 20%
• falchion, dagger and javelins 10%
• falchion, hand axe and light crossbow 10%
• falchion, hand axe and shortbow 10%

Chapter 3, Part 2: "The Trials of Friendship..."

New Players in this Drama:

NIGEL NIGHTBRINGER - Earth Man Fighting-Man

Part I Here, Part III Here.

As Grubb Grizzler sneaks through the caravan grounds he is stealthily hailed by a figure lurking in the shadows around the slumbering triceratops. A caravan guard had seen the two sorcerers enter the carriage in the morning and, misapprehending the actions of the party and believing that they are attempting to steal Gan-ron's magic silver sword, attempts to solicit Grubb for a generous gratuity in exchange for his silence.

Grubb maintains his innocence, and in an attempt to turn the tables, asks instead to be taken to the caravan master, Harkam, insisting that if he is under suspicion then the carvan master should be appraised of the situation. The guard agrees, and leads Grubb through the dark streets until coming to an even darker, narrow alley entrance. Assuring Grubb that the alleyway is a shortcut to the tavern that where Harrkam is carousing, the guard suggests that Grubb enters first so that the the guard will be able to protect Grubb's back from cutthroats.

Grubb declines, and offers to guard the guard's back instead. Both parties are equally insistent, and, sensing that his bluff is up, the guard draws his sword. Grubb immediately lunges at him and the two are struggling, taking wounds from the other's blade, migrating into the alleyway as they desperately grapple and stab, both weak from blood-loss. The guard drops his sword and draws a dagger, driving it into Grubb's body, who collapses.

The two sorcerers lurking in the iron carriage tire of waiting for Grubb to show up and exchange the cadaver in the brass trunk with the synthetic prostitute, loot the body of it's wealth, including the magic silver sword and silver embossed banded mail, heave up the weighty the trunk and exiti the carriage, awkwardly bearing their burden with a nonchalant stumbling gait away from the caravan ground, seeking an inn as far away from the sordid scene as possible.

By fortunate coincidence, they chose to lodge in The Red Beak, coming across their companions in the common lounge at the same moment as their friend Nigel Nightbringer comes upon them, having concluded his business in Agog City.

Nigel Nightbringer is filled in on the party's current doings, and in return expresses grave concern for the well being of Grubb Grizzler on account of failing to reconnoiter with either the sorcerers or the inn. His companions respond phlegmatically to his concerns and Nigel spends several hours wandering the dark streets looking for his good friend.

The next morning Nigel continues the search and finds the stabbed body of Grubb Grizzler, throat slit and stripped of valuables. This turn of events outrages him and after finding an undertaker to store the body he takes his grievances to the local constabulary who respond with unconcern that further outrages the hot-tempered Earth Man.

Next Niels seeks a sorcerer in order to speak with the shade of his deceased companion to find out the identity of the agent of his demise. The local sorcerer reveals the fees associated with such a service and they are beyond Nigel's present monetary circumstances. The sorcerer offers to waive his fee in exchange for the poison gland of a "zorse sized scorpion" from the Prismatic Wastes northwest of town.

Although Nigel finds the arrangement acceptable, the rest of the party do not share his enthusiasm. At this point Dickie Dee realizes that the synthetic prostitute locked in the brass trunk at their inn has been without any sustenance for over a day.

After again visiting the undertaker and paying a modest fee for the disposal of Grubb's remains, the party returns to their room at the inn where they disinter their captive and find her pale and weak but alive. After providing water and nourishment, the very simple synthetic being regains her color and inquires about the whereabouts of her husband. However, the genetic programming of the vat-grown prostitute overwhelm her and she begins soliciting the party, who respond to her advances by binding her and wrapping her in a carpet from their room.

Next they travel to a stable where they purchase several zorses. Nigel mulls naming his zorse Grubb, but is offended when Dude Earthman also names his zorse Grubb, and the idea is quickly taken up by the rest of the party who, also name their respective zorses Grubb. Fuming, Nigel decides to name his mount Grizzler instead.

With the rug-wrapped synthetic prostitute draped across the back of one of the zorses, they set back towards Agog City. However Fortress Cobalt guards the summit of the cliff-side trail back up to the Iridium Plateau and Agog City, and soon the party finds themselves being questioned regarding the disposition of the contents within the rolled-up carpet.

Nigel responds with a falsehood, claiming that it is the body of his deceased friend. The guards become agitated and lecture the party about the dire consequences of importing diseases, parasites or undead beings into Agog City before insisting on inspecting the body. When the synthetic prostitute in revealed the guard's tension is replaced with lusty chuckling and the party is informed of a thirty gold credit duty on their cargo.

A quick thinking member of the party offers an alternative method of payment which the six guard find anticipated and agreeable. After the guards indulge in a storage room Nigel decides to avail himself of the situation but the inquiries regarding the whereabouts of Gan-ron the Silver Man afterward sour the experience.

At this point Dickie Dee begins to have misgivings about the party's callous treatment of the prostitute, synthetic being or not, and allows her to continue the journey back to Agog City seated on zorseback instead of being bundled in carpeting and slung across the mount's back.

As the fleet zorses travel the road across the purple grasslands of the southwestern Iridium Plateau the party spies a small group of travelers on foot, shrouded in gray robes, coming their way on the roadway. The traveler's demeanor makes an unfavorable impression upon the party who take a wide semicircular detour off the road in order to provide a wide berth.

The companions soon arrive at Agog City, the trip being much faster on zorseback as opposed to trailing alongside a plodding triceratops drawing a train of iron carriages, and again attempt deceit with the guards regarding the identity of their cargo, who are neither deceived nor concerned.

Immediately they arrive at the Lamia's Breath Intoxicating Vapour Lounge and present their captive. The proprietress calls for the cubes of Gamma Orichalcum, which had been dipped in lead as a preservative measure. Realizing that his friend Grubb Grizzler had expired in the pursuit of a mission for which the reward was cubes of recreational stimulant hallucinogenic metal (toxic, radioactive recreational stimulant hallucinogenic metal at that), Nigel Nightbringer again unfurls his outrage, and insists that the party accept their payment in gold credits instead, a proposal that is found acceptable by the other concerned parties.

The Bone Man Dickie Dee does decide to dabble, and soon a Xorn (their silacious composition renders them capable of comfortably handling many hazardous substances) is placing a sliver of the fuming, soft, yellowing isotope within a glass-and-brass device. Taking a lungful of the vapour from a mouthpiece, the rest of the party see the ordinarily completely transparent lungs and respiratory tract of the bone man outlined in noxious yellow smoke. Dickie Dee finds the experience gratifying, but afterward expresses concern that his teeth are soft.

Soon the rest of the party are indulging, albeit with tamer substances such as gin, and they find themselves agreeing to a proposal by the Proprietress to slay Mozug, a wrestler and representative of the Lounge's concerns in the mining town Pit, located in the foothills of the Bornite Mountains northwest of Agog City, who had accepted a large quantity of merchandise and afterward failed to pay for it. The party comes up with a scheme, and has an ordinary brick dipped in lead before retiring into the dark, low-ceiling Chamber of Cushions...

Part I Here, Part III Here.