Sunday, 14 April 2019

The Harry Clark project

Emmy Allen has proposed a community-sourced bestiary based on the artwork of Harry Clark.  Clark's artwork is perfect for this.  It's surreal and symbolic and in many cases you have to project your own meaning on it.

The image I chose is probably a bit more straightforward than that, it's a Madonna with child.  But she's black-robed and standing next to a black-flamed candle and there's an eye in the floor observing her.  I decided to write the image up as a dark reflection of religious iconography, sucking the light and the sanity out of the room.

Anti-Madonna

Armour Class: as unarmoured. Immune to non-magical attacks.
Hit Dice: 1
Move: as human unless new light is introduced (see specials)
Attacks: Impious aura
No. Appearing: 1
Morale: 9
Treasure: 1D6 shards of curse-glass
Alignment: Chaotic

Magicians are a perverse lot, always tampering with the natural order. A wizard's mirror which has held the reflection of a saint has a chance to produce an anti-Madonna, a profane likeness of a holy figure. The image moves as if alive and whispers a constant monologue of baffling blasphemy, but is immaterial and non-intelligent. More like an independent illusion. It desires worship in the form of sacrifice and can be temporarily appeased by destroying an item of personal value. It has the following powers:

Anti-light: When an anti-Madonna appears, all natural light sources become sources of darkness and change to suck light out of the surrounding area. Magical sources will be dimmed as though appearing through a thick gloom.

Speed of dark: If new light is introduced, the anti-Madonna can instantly jump to any space the light touches. It will become a dark source at the end of the round in which it is lit.

Litany of ignorance: Intelligent creatures close enough to hear its whispered words must save vs paralysis. Clerics who fail to save lose a prepared spell.

The creature can be dispelled like an illusion or destroyed with any kind of magical attack. It is immune to fear and mind-control effects and cannot be turned. Turn attempts at a high enough level to destroy it outright work as normal.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PDF version here.  There's a Reddit thread for the project here.

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