Community Resources: Non-Lovecraftian Horrors

Ghost

Ghosts are the spiritual remnant of deceased humans (usually) that manifest in the physical world. Ghosts may come into being due to evilness in life, particularly powerful emotions, or even sorcery. Ghosts are normally incorporeal and cannot be affected by normal weapons. Being incorporeal, ghosts move by floating and can pass through any solid objects without hindrance.

Ghosts generally only possess two statistics: INT and POW. These are derived from the characteristics of the individual whose death created the ghost (modified over the time that the ghost has been haunting).

The Sanity Loss to witness a ghostly apparition depends on the specifics of the unnatural manifestation. The Keeper should determine a reasonable penalty – only the most disturbing and horrific manifestations should warrant the maximum Sanity Point Loss of 1D8.

A Ghost attacks by enshrouding a victim in its spectral form. The target of the attack and the Ghost resolve an opposed test of POW vs POW. If the Ghost wins the opposed test, the target loses 1D3 points of permanent POW. If the victim wins the opposed test, the Ghost loses 1D3 POW. Particularly terrible or ancient Ghosts might inflict 1D6 POW on victims (but still only lose 1D3 if the test goes against them).

The only way to destroy a Ghost is by reducing its POW to 0.

Mummy

Mummies are the embalmed and preserved corpses of ancient people, commonly found in Egyptian tombs, Andean caves, and more heinous locales. Some mummies have been granted undeath and protect their tombs with unliving zeal.

Mummies usually attack with their fists but might also be armed with the ancient weapons of their culture. Mummies created from the corpses of kings, priests, or sorcerers may be much more powerful than those described here.

STR 21 CON 16 DEX 7   INT 10 POW 16
HP 19   WP 16

Size category: Medium to Large.

Movement: Mummies can move 8 meters/yards in a combat turn.

Armor:2 points of leathery skin. Immune to slashing and piercing weapons (including bullets) unless they sever a limb or decapitate the mummy.
vs Lethal Damage: RESILIENT — a successful Lethality roll does not kill a Mummy but inflicts normal Hit Point damage. Take the percentile roll made for Lethal Damage, treat each of the dice as a D10 and add them together, then subtract the creature’s normal armor. This is the amount of Hit Point damage inflicted.

Attacks:

Fist 70%, damage 2D6.
Grapple 25%, no damage but pinned.

Skills: Stealth 50%, Track 40%.

Vulnerability: Very susceptible to fire due to bitumen in wrappings; once alight, very difficult to extinguish.

SAN Loss: 1/1D8.

Skeleton

Skeletons are the horrific animated bones of dead creatures, created through dark magic. They are mindless, obeying the commands of their creator without wavering.

Inflicting damage to an animated Skeleton is different to attacking a normal foe, since the breaking of one or two bones which form sections of its bulk are unlikely to adversely affect it. Rather than tracking the Skeleton’s Hit Points, all attacks against a Skeleton are treated as Lethal Damage with a Lethality Rating equal to 4% × the amount of damage inflicted. If the roll against this Lethality is successful, the Skeleton is instantly killed and dispersed; if the roll fails, the Skeleton suffers no ill effect.

STR 11  CON N/A  DEX 10  INT 11 POW 1
HP 11   WP 1

Size category: Medium.

Movement: Skeletons can move 11 meters/yards in a combat turn.

Armor: N/A (see above).
vs Lethal Damage: ALL OR NOTHING – if a Lethal attack rolls under its Lethality Rating the Skeleton is destroyed; otherwise the attack is ineffective and yields no damage.

Attacks:

Hand-to-Hand Weapons 30%, damage by weapon type.

Sparse: Attacks against an animated Skeleton which rely on piercing or slashing (including firearm attacks) are at half chance due to the many gaps between bones.

SAN Loss: 0/1D6.

Vampire

Some of the most powerful of undead creatures, vampires are also one of the most ancient. Vampires can shape-change into a gaseous form or into a giant bat at will.

Vampires master the creatures of the night and can summon a horde of bats or wolves. A vampire may dominate living creatures with its gaze (see below).

Despite their power, vampires have some weaknesses. They can be killed by immersing them in running water, exposing them to sunlight, or driving a wooden stake through the heart and severing its head. They retreat from the smell of garlic, the sight of a mirror, or the sight of “good” holy symbols.

Vampires are hard to kill. When they are reduced to zero Hit Points, they usually transform into mist form and retreat to a location where they can use their Regeneration ability to restore themselves. Only if a Vampire is reduced to 0 HP at the end of a round and at least some of that damage was to the creature’s head, the Vampire falls to the ground. At this point, a stake driven through its heart will kill it forever.

STR 21 CON 13 DEX 11   INT 13 POW 13
HP 17   WP 13

Size category: Medium.

Movement: Vampires can move 13-14 meters/yards in a combat turn.

Armor: none but see REGENERATION, below.
vs Lethal Damage: LETHAL ROLL ALWAYS FAILS – regardless of the roll against the Lethality Rating, the Vampire will not be instantly killed but will take Hit Point damage as per the sum of the dice.

Attacks:

Bite 50%, damage 1D4 (first turn) + BLOOD DRAIN (see below).
Claw 50%, damage 2D4 + LEECH WILLPOWER (see below).
Gaze (see HYPNOTIZE, below).

Skills: Insight 60%, Follow Scent 75%.

Blood Drain: A victim who loses Hit Point damage due to a Vampire’s bite becomes instantly passive, uninterested in pulling free of the creature. For each subsequent round that the Vampire feeds on the victim’s blood, he or she loses 1D6 points of permanent STR. Whether these points are regained by rest is at the Keeper’s discretion.

Leech Willpower: The touch of a Vampire can drain Willpower Points from a victim. Make an opposed test comparing the victim’s current WP total to the Vampire’s WP. If the victim loses, 1D3 WPs are lost. These points are added to the Vampire’s WPs. These stolen points are only temporary: if not used by the creature they evaporate in a number of hours equal to the Vampire’s POW.

Hypnotize: The gaze from a Vampire can render a victim in a trance-like state. When a victim locks eyes with the beast, he or she makes an opposed POW vs POW roll with the fiend. If the target loses the opposed test, a hypnotic state quickly descends. Humans controlled in this way will always follow simple instructions. If the commands are inherently self-destructive or injurious to the controlled person, an INT×5 test can be attempted at the beginning of each round – success means the person snaps out of the trance.

Regeneration: While in its mist form, a Vampire can regenerate 1 Hit Point of damage per round, up to its original value. The same power can be used while the creature is in physical form but the regeneration is much slower – 1 Hit Point per hour.

SAN Loss:Being attacked by a Vampire causes 0/1D4 Sanity Points. Seeing a vampire transform from one state to another costs 1/1D3. Vampires who seem human cost no sanity to encounter.

Werewolf

Werewolves have haunted the world for eons and are mentioned in the earliest myths of man. Their relationship to the Mythos is unclear, but some scholars conjecture that lycanthropes of all kinds are the remaining members of an ancient race. Werewolves can shape-change from their normal human form to that of a wolf-man hybrid or to that of a large wolf at will. The statistics below describe the wolf form of a Werewolf.

Silver is poisonous to Werewolves (see below). Victims bitten by a werewolf are at risk of also contracting lycanthropy.

STR 21 CON 13 DEX 13   INT 4  POW 13
HP 17   WP 13

Size category: Medium (Large when in wolf form).

Movement: Werewolves can move 13-14 meters/yards in a combat turn; 16-17 meters/yards when in giant wolf form.

Armor:1 point of hide, plus REGENERATION (see below).
vs Lethal Damage: SUSCEPTIBLE TO SILVER – treat Lethal Damage dealt by firearms loaded with silver bullets as a special case. Such attacks have their Lethality Rating doubled. All other forms of Lethal Damage are treated as per normal for a human target.

Attacks:

Bite 30%, damage 1D8+2 + LYCANTHROPIC INFECTION (see below).

Skills: Hide 60%, Track 90%.

Lycanthropic Infection: If a Werewolf’s bite breaks a target’s skin, the victim must make a CON×5 test to avoid becoming a Werewolf at the next full moon.

Regeneration: Regenerates 1 HP per round after being wounded; if the creatures HP ever reach zero it is dead and will not regenerate.

Vulnerable to Silver: Whenever a Werewolf suffers Hit Point damage from an impaling or slashing weapon made of silver (including being shot with a silver bullet), the creature must make an opposed test comparing its CON×5 against (amount of hit points lost) ×5. If it does not win the opposed test, the Werewolf dies instantly. Otherwise the Werewolf takes half the rolled damage and cannot regenerate this Hit Point loss.

SAN Loss: Seeing a Werewolf causes a loss of 0/1D8 Sanity Points. Witnessing a transformation costs 0/1D3.

Zombie

Zombies are animated corpses created through foul necromancy, called up to perform the sorcerer’s commands. During the ritual to create a Zombie, a point of POW is sacrificed by the spellcaster – this is the lifeforce that drives the creature. A Zombie has no will of its own and follows the directions it was given by its creator.

There are “fast” and “slow” types of Zombies, as shown in movies and TV – which variety are encountered may depend on the method used to create them, blind luck, or any other factor the GM might like to invoke.

Note: These stats don’t imbue the Zombie’s bite as causing contagion leading to a victim becoming a zombie themselves. If you want to add such a power, something modelled on the werewolf’s Lycanthropic Infection would be appropriate, with the triggering event being the victim’s death through any natural means (although death through massive trauma might dismember the corpse sufficiently to render the foul reanimation ineffective, at the GM’s discretion).

STR 16 CON 16 DEX 7  INT 4  POW 1
HP 16   WP 1

Size category: Medium.

Movement: variable – “slow” zombies only move at 8 meters/yards per turn, while “fast” zombies can move up to 15 meters/yards in a turn..

Armor: none, but all weapons that work by piercing or slashing only yield 1 HP damage per successful attack. Firearms which do not deliver Lethal Damage, or which deliver Lethal Damage with a rating less than 40%, similarly only yield 1 HP damage. All other forms of non-magical attack yield half the normal amount.
vs Lethal Damage: see above for firearm attacks with Lethality < 40%; for firearm attacks with higher Lethality Ratings, the Zombie takes an amount of damage equal to the Lethality Rating. The same is true for Lethal Damage caused by explosions. Zombies take no damage from poisons.

Attacks:

Bite 30%, damage 1D3.
Improvised Weapon 25%, damage 1D8+2.

SAN Loss: 1/1D8.