Friday 16 March 2012

The monsters

I’ve so far avoided talking about the Hydes, the Servants, and the Baskerville Hounds.  That will change right now.

The Hydes are detailed in the D20 Past.   They have their intelligence unchanged, but are naturally odious and inspire onlookers to attack them in short order.  They are also impulsive and give free reign to their vices.   At the time the PCs are entering the house, the Hydes are already permanently changed, abandoned to their darker sides as Dr. Jekyll feared was happening to himself.   One slight change that I add to the cannon is cannibalism, as the Hydes sustain themselves on the victims that they have carted in from London. 
Powers: +6 bonus to Intimidate, Rage # of rounds = half con

Please see D20 Past page 63 for more information.

There should not be excessive numbers of Hydes in the mansion, probably 4, maybe 8 at the most.  They should unique and memorable dangers to the PCs, and 4 Hydes hunting them corridor to corridor and herding them towards either the Master’s trap or the guest quarters occupied by Richter (and the other in turn) should prove dangerous but not impossible for the PCs to overcome. 

The servants are another matter.  Formerly dedicated functionaries of Baron Larksley, they have become rather mindless, until struck.  The following is their monster profile:
 Medium Sized Dedicated Ordinary Human
Type becomes Humanoid
Use standard scores for Ordinary Humans
Max Int, Wis, Cha is reduced to 4.  Any attribute score over those maximums is removed.  For every two attribute scores lost in this way, the creature gains 3 hit points.  If there is one attribute point left over any maximum after this process, discard (creature gains no hit points).  

This process makes the creature, though alive, incapable of taking proper care of itself.  Hair grows in and becomes matted, nails grow and curl, new hair patches grow on palms of hands, disabling the creature from fine delicate manual work.  Creature gains the Monstrous Odour flaw.

While at peace, the creature will rest, looking to any inspection except close inspection as though dead.  It is incapable of higher level thought.  When it detects prey (prefers humans, cannot detect Hydes at all), it will move and stand, then start moving slowly towards the source of the food.  Creature has no extra senses, and very weak sense of smell.

If it captures prey, it will gorge itself, never full.  Its actions are in this order, grapple, bite, rend (with teeth).  It doesn’t have the presence of mind to change this, even when it isn’t working.

These apparent zombie characteristics change the instant the creature is wounded.  Sensing a danger, it will start making morale checks, gauging fight or flight and assessing the danger.  Like all living things, it will avoid harm, but cannot change its attack patterns.  If it chooses to fight, it will resume grappling the closest target, even if that target is not the source of the major damage.  Successful attacks of any kind cause it’s morale check to take cumulative -1 modifiers.  

If it decides to flee, it will flee, knowing nothing about where it is going.  It will find a space that seams removed from the threat, and curl up and hide.  It has no racial bonus to hide checks.  It has no den, and no instinct to protect a den.  If attacked again, it will make a new morale check to fight or flee.  Over the span of an hour, it will completely forget all previous encounters and start over from neutral morale.

As it is now a humanoid, it cannot be turned as though undead or animal (as Druids can).  Spells and spell-like abilities must target humanoids to target this creature.  It is no longer considered a person.  Changing the Servant back into a human is an impossible feat given what is known on entering the mansion, but there might be an adventure in it if the PCs are willing to quest far afield for it.  In any case, that’s another role playing supplement

As a thought, all of the NPCs in the house serving the Master are likely to be Dedicated Ordinaries.  Their -1 challenge rating will all be undone by their transformations.

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