Khju Again

Khju looks at people the way people look at vegetables.


Khju: God of Subjugation

Symbol: None
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: Fly 60’ (20’)
Armor Class: 0
Hit Points (Hit Dice): 24 (184hp)
Attacks: Spells
Damage: By Spell
Save: M24
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: nil
XP: 14750

Khju hulks comatose in an abominable tarry cyst in the bowels of the earth. He appears as a huge (50' high) chitinous tentacled thing. He is known to become active for short periods of time only after inactive periods of centuries or millennia and only when the world is wracked by catastrophic vulcanism. Khju seems to require boiling mud, poisonous fumes and a sky dimmed by ash to endure the atmosphere of the upper world. At such times, however, he will arise in horrific majesty to wreak destruction on the surface.

The worship of Khju is associated with slaves and outcasts who yearn for a great catastrophe to bring about the collapse of civilisation. The exact nature of the god is rarely completely comprehended by the worshippers as his manifestations are shrouded by chaos and a web of deadly sorcery which few survive. His practice is to parasitise populations, using magic to draw in as many living beings as possible to be consumed before Khju must descend again to his prison.

In any given year there is a 0.1% chance (rolled on d1000%) that sufficient vulcanism will occur to allow Khju to awaken and pass out of his prison and into the upper world. He will arise for 3d10 days and immediately begin to weave a web of magic to draw in and enslave all intelligent beings.

Khju has the inherent capacity to cast any 8th-level magic spell at will once per round. These are;

Antipathy/Sympathy
Clenched Fist (Coiled Tentacle)
Clone
Glass Like Steel
Incendiary Cloud
Irresistible Dance
Mass Charm
Maze
Mind Blank
Polymorph Any Object
Symbol
Trap the Soul


Immediately upon his manifestation Khju will begin to weave sorceries to draw in victims. He will Mass Charm as many sentient beings as possible then bid them bring in more victims. Ultimately, his intent is to trap as many souls as possible (using Trap the Soul) for consumption. He will busily float about erecting menhirs enchanted with Sympathy or Antipathy and inscribing Symbols of despair, fear and insanity across the landscape, creating a web of powerful magic to ensnare his prey. Khju will also, somewhat inscrutably, Polymorph animals, plants and other objects into weird living sculptures, destroying anything he does not change with Incendiary Clouds. Within a day the landscape for a mile around Khju will be a smoking wasteland filled with the mewling aberrations where sooty thralls jog about on missions to bring in more followers.

Khju is a being of an entirely different order of reality, as such; his relationship with sentient beings is entirely instrumental. He has no capacity for sympathy or understanding. To Khju, living things are resources to be utilised. His actions are bent on organising a means of harvesting as many souls as possible within his brief sojourn on the surface world.

Reaction Table 1d4

1. Khju consumes the character immediately
2-3. Khju Charms the character and instructs it to go forth and gather followers
4. Khju Polymorphs the character into something unspeakable.

Khju

Chulg

Whoops, real life and non-rpg projects swallowed me whole for five months. James from Grognardia recently inspired me with a nice juxtaposition of words: Petty Gods. I like that. You can put together two words from opposite ends of the glory spectrum (e.g. feculent angel, diffident Christ, pristine carnality) and something new and beautiful occurs.

Recent investigations have delved perhaps too deeply into the abject and the irrelevant to be of interest to members of this community but it is possible I might dip my foot back in here from time to time.

Name: Chulg
Symbol: Neusis construction diagram of the interior angles of a regular heptagon
Alignment: Lawful
Movement: 30’ (10’)
Armor Class: -3
Hit Points (Hit Dice): 7 (56hp)
Attacks: See Below
Damage: See Below
Save: C7
Morale: 12
Hoard Class: nil
XP: 1100

If certain ancient malachite funerary ornaments are disturbed when the moon is gibbous there is a 4% chance that Chulg will descend through a cartilaginous rift from seven-dimensional pseudo-space, arriving in 1d4 rounds. Upon arrival Chulg will recite a series of charges against the offender with a hideous voice that sublimates reality, causing the air to burn within 60’ and causing 2d8 damage per round to anyone within that radius. The recitation will last 3d4 rounds upon which time Chulg will return to its place of origin for 3d100 years.

Chulg’s visage is so utterly loathsome as to cause fear (as a 7th-level magic-user) to anyone that looks upon it.

Chulg is immune to non-magical weapons and all spells of less than third level.

The propitiation of Chulg was undertaken by worshippers whose origins are lost in deep time. Its manifestation seems to be associated, to a lesser extent, with the breaching of certain taboos regarding heptagonal objects. Since few understand the specific conditions that will incur Chulg’s attention, judicious avoidance of heptagons is often held to be the best policy.

Reaction Table for Heptagonal Blasphemies (roll 2d12)

2-5 Chulg merely peers through a vortex from the Gulches of Schlaem. Explosive decompression ensues, all characters within 20’ must save vs. petrification or be sucked into the vortex to their deaths.

6-7 Chulg manifests as a flickering 2-dimensional image tottering on the edge of reality, invulnerable to attack. In this form it causes fear as normal but does nothing else until it flickers out of existence after 1d3 rounds.

8-13 Chulg partially manifests inside the body of an offending character in order to remove part of their bile duct before disappearing again. This causes 2d10 damage.

13-20 Chulg appears and sings the Green Lullaby, causing voice damage as above for one round and acting as a hold person cast by a 7th-level Magic-user. Chulg then confiscates any heptagons and returns to its place of origin.

21-24 For some reason Chulg exudes a buttery green substance that renders anyone who rubs it on their body invisible (as cast by M-U7). 1d3 smearings of this substance are left. In such cases Chulg appears, exudes and leaves within 2 rounds.