no� enC� 1d4 (1d8+1) MoveMent 20’
arMor ClaSS 6 hit DiCe 3
attaCKS +5/+5 claws DaMage 1d6/1d6
Save 14+
Morale 8 SKill BonuS +2
Deep in the forest, these waist-high little men are a mortal threat both to unwary hunters and any woman unfortunate enough to cross their paths. The Eloko have a marrow-deep hatred for hu-manity, and especially love to devour the flesh of women. They ring little chimes that daze and deaden the mind of their enemies, acting as a Nkisi of the Deadened Mind upon the victim, save that they will make no resistance as the eloko devours them alive. A tar-get who resists the peal of the bells will be immune to their effect for a day afterwards. When discovered, the eloko appear much like little men, save that grass grows from their heads instead of hair, and they wear mantles of leaves instead of clothing. Their fingers are long and nailed with sharp, hooked talons.
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ternalDreaMer noBle lorD
no� enC� 1d4 (3d6) 1 (1d4) 1
MoveMent 30’ 30’ 30’
arMor ClaSS 7/by armor 7/by armor 7/by armor hit DiCe 1 7 10
attaCKS +2/weapon +6/weapon +11/weapon DaMage By weapon Weapon+2 Weapon+4
Save 15+ 12+ 10+
Morale 9 10 11
SKill BonuS +1 +2 +3
The Eternal come in several different varieties depending on the nature of the rites used to animate them. Those who receive only the simplest and most cursory rituals rise as dreamers, men and women locked into a half-dreaming existence that leaves them only dimly aware of their surroundings. They instinctively at-tempt to labor and act as they did in life, but can be dragooned into other service by more powerful varieties of Eternal. Like all Eternal, they have a profound disgust of all living creatures and running water, though this loathing can be reined in by an atten-tive master. Dreamers usually have sufficient intelligence to carry out their duties or respond to unexpected events, but they lack cunning or the ability to make long-term plans.
Those who receive better rites become nobles, reborn with their full intellect and a clear understanding of their new estate. These nobles can exert control over lesser Eternal. If no rival intervenes, they can dominate an unlimited number of inferiors, but most nobles find themselves balked by other Eternal who have no in-tention of allowing a rival to seize control of all available servants.
If two Eternal dispute control over an inferior, both make skill checks and the highest roll wins mastery for at least the next week.
Nobles can easily discern whether or not an inferior is obedient to their will. Eternal nobles retain all the skills they possessed in life, and many acquire the talents of a nganga or marabout in the long dark years of their reign.
Those who receive the finest and most glorious rituals of transla-tion will rise as lords, mighty beyond the dreams of ordinary men and gifted with great sorcerous powers. All lords are at least fifth-level ngangas or marabouts of the Gods Below, and many are more skilled still. They may command nobles just as nobles command Sleepers.
All Eternal gradually desiccate without the restoring nourishment of human flesh and blood, and they cannot heal injuries without such food. An adult human male will provide enough sustenance to heal any amount of injury, and will keep an Eternal perfectly lifelike in seeming for three months. Nobles and lords often de-mand such food, but few dreamers are allowed the luxury of such regular meals. The rituals of their creation require at least 1,000 si worth of obscene icons and hideous ritual tools, but once these implements are at hand any number of dreamers may be created with only fifteen minutes’ work each by someone with at least Oc-cult-1 skill and training in the rituals. Creating a noble requires 10,000 si worth of expended ingredients, while the revivification
of a lord demands ritual implements worth 25,000 si and ingre-dients worth 50,000 more. Very rarely, a ritual meant to create a lesser Eternal will somehow result in the creation of a greater vari-ety, either through blind luck or the natural strength of will pos-sessed by the victim. Eternal may be created by humans, but the new-made immortal is under no obligation to obey their creator, and will likely despise them for their hateful liveliness.
Eternal always take minimum damage from piercing weapons, as their unliving frames bleed only at their will and feel little pain.
They are immune to all diseases and poisons as well, for their blood does not pump within their veins unless they will it so.
Eternal are found most often in small cells of a noble leading a col-lection of dreamers, or a lost band of dreamers pantomiming their old existence in some long-forgotten tomb-house. Their strongest citadel in the west is in the Silent City, where a half-dozen Eternal lords duel each other for control of its crumbling spires and the use of the human prisoners they seize from nearby villages.
Eternal are not inevitably condemned to evil, but it is extremely difficult for them to fight their new nature. Their instinctive ha-tred and disgust for living creatures can be tamed by nobles and lords, but it remains a gnawing presence in their mind. Their hun-ger for human flesh is harder to avoid, but some Eternals eat only those already dead, or resign themselves to appearing like withered corpses without the nourishment of fresh blood. The vast majority succumb to the impulses of their new life, however, and become the cannibalistic monsters that legend would make of them.
f
angeDa
peno� enC� 1d6 (3d6) MoveMent 40’
arMor ClaSS 7 hit DiCe 3
attaCKS +4/bite, smash, or weapon DaMage 1d6 bite/smash or by weapon
Save 14+
Morale 8 SKill BonuS +1
The gorillas of the deep jungle are peaceful creatures, but the dreaded fanged ape is a different breed of primate. These hulking creatures live alone or in small bands, possessing an intelligence almost like that of a human. Some use crude clubs as weapons, and all can hurl stones with more force than a veteran slinger.
They are aggressive, vicious creatures by nature and love to hunt men; at times they creep into villages to snatch away children to devour. They are found most often in the Lokossan jungles, but some troupes have been found in the forests of Nyala, and there is a mountain-dwelling breed infamous for its rockfalls and am-bushes in the high passes of Kirsi.
g
hoSt DaMage 1d8 plus level drainSave 13+
Morale 12 SKill BonuS +2
Both spirit and undead, the ghost is the disembodied shade of some poor, ill-buried wretch, or a victim so tied to the world by grief or need that they cannot pass on to the land of the spirits.
They linger near their place of death, often becoming hateful and maddened by their vain desperation.
Ghosts cannot be harmed by non-magical weapons, as ordinary substance passes through their intangible forms. Their touch is icy, inflicting a killing chill and draining one experience level from the victim. If dispersed by violence or satisfied in their need, their souls are freed to attempt the long journey to the world beyond.
Ghosts are usually tethered to a limited area, and are usually re-stricted to an area no more than a few hundred feet from their place of death. Most are also unable to manifest in the daylight, with the cleansing radiance of the sun dispersing them harmlessly for a time. Some ghosts are more resilient, however, and can actu-ally animate dead flesh or inanimate matter to form a physical body fit for punishing those who incur its unquenchable rage.
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iantno� enC� 1 (1d6) MoveMent 50’
arMor ClaSS 6 or by armor hit DiCe 10
attaCKS +11/fist or by weapon
DaMage 1d8 fist or double normal weapon damage Save 10+
Morale 11 SKill BonuS +4
The towering lords of the Mountains of the Sun are figures of myth in Nyala. Every child knows the tales of the Old Kings and the pacts they made with the giants at the dawn of the empire, of the secrets the great ones taught to Nyala’s first kings. These arts of exquisite smithing and superlative masonry helped Nyala’s last Mai become Nyala’s first emperor. Giantish craftsages dwelled in the cities of men, and even took concubines and consorts from among their human allies. But in time the alliance was broken, and the giants retreated to their great fastnesses amid the cold mountain peaks, leaving their human children behind. They no longer welcome the company of men, and those who go among their mountains do so at peril of their lives.
Giants have the look of massive humans, perfectly proportioned at heights ranging from nine to twelve feet. Their flesh is dark as polished basalt, but their eyes are colored in jewel-bright hues.
Their hair is the color of fire, shades ranging from the incandes-cent white of a furnace to the smoky crimson of dying embers.
Their features vary as they do in the kingdoms of men, though they are invariably handsome and well-proportioned in all ways.
They dress in spectacularly elaborate robes, decadent lacings of jewelry, or fantastical armor of steel and stranger alloys. Plainness and simplicity are contemptible to them.
Sages say that the giants were fashioned in the dawn of the world, before the spirits devised the race of men. Every giant was an indi-vidual creation and a singular creature of its own kind, each made as an experiment by the gods as they sought to agree on the proper shape for humanity. The gods made many such models before they decided to make mankind a more fragile, transient thing, and hid away the sleeping giants within the mountains of the north. The flames of the mountain-hearts warmed them as they slept, how-ever, and they began to wake and fashion houses amid the icy peaks. Even now, it is said that many giants lie sleeping beneath the mountains, awaiting the coming of a sufficient fire.
Giants do not grow old, nor do they hunger, nor are they harmed by frost or flame. They may give or bear children by humans, but the offspring are human rather than giantish, though they are of-ten marked by hair or eyes like those of their giant parent. No new giants have been made since the dawn of the world, and their numbers inevitably dwindle as the ages progress. They are few in the mountains now, and some suppose that there can be no more than a few thousand remaining in all the north.
Giants are all remarkably talented at matters of war and artisan-ship, having inherited a deeper awareness of the substance of things as a consequence of their own divine construction. It is not uncommon for some of them to have mastered the arts of the nganga, and to have devised strange and terrible enchantments over their long years of life. Their bitterness toward the gods pre-vents them from ever gaining the blessings granted to a marabout.
Because each giant is its own species of creation, they are incor-rigibly proud and willful beings. No giant will bow to another or accept anything more than a peace of convenience. Those that waken from the same mountain will sometimes deign to live to-gether in their fortress-palaces, but even then they deal with each other as if they were a council of rival princes rather than kindred.
Giants sometimes gather together a retinue of lesser beings as ser-vitors and guards, and a simple fear of loneliness often drives them to tolerate company that their pride might otherwise scorn. Those human interlopers that they do not slay, they take as slaves. They are unable to reproduce with their own kind, but with these slaves they conceive overseers and lieutenants for their minions, though they treat these scions hardly more kindly than other servants.
Most giants are cruel, brooding, bitter creatures. They hate the gods for discarding them and despise humans as unworthy heirs.
Boredom and loneliness can drive them to strange excesses and exotic madness, and their fortress-palaces can become baroque lairs of terrible danger. Even when a giant is slain by his minions or perishes in battle with another of his kind, his empty house can remain perilous for intruders. In Nyala, there yet remain long-abandoned giant-palaces that take the lives of looters. High in the Mountains of the Sun, even grander lairs can be found.
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orSeno� enC� 3d20 herd if found in the wild MoveMent 80’
arMor ClaSS 7
hit DiCe 2, 3 for hill barbs, 4 for Imperial zebras attaCKS +3, +4 for hill barbs, +5 for Imperial zebras DaMage 1d8 kick
Save 14+, 13+ for Imperial zebras Morale 7, or 9 for war-trained horses SKill BonuS +2
While the southern lands of Lokossa and Meru are home to in-sect-borne diseases that cripple breeding stock, the more northern lands make great use of horsemen. Nyala has its heavy Imperial zebra cavalry and Sokone its tireless merchant-scouts, but Kirsi has the greatest fame for the quality of its horseflesh and the skill of its riders. The Kirsi lancers are renowned in song and story, and their tough hill-steeds are relentless in their sure-footed speed.
From this tradition of horsemanship, several different breeds of horses can be had in the Three Lands. While largely identical in game statistics, each breed has certain traits worth noting. Some of the breeds below are always trained for war, an education that doubles the cost of a horse. Untrained steeds will panic in the roil of battle and will flee unless their rider has the Ride-2 skill or better, while veteran warhorses can use their natural kick attacks alongside the blows of their rider.
Most horses can carry about two hundred pounds of weight with-out difficulty, or roughly a rider and his normal encumbrance.
Riders do not usually travel much faster than foot traffic, given the need to rest horses and spend time tending them if they are to remain healthy. A rider who drives his horse can increase overland movement by 50%, but must make a Wis/Ride skill check at dif-ficulty 9. On a failure, roll 1d8 and subtract the rider’s Ride skill to find out how many days the horse is incapacitated. On 6+, the horse dies.
Common horses have no special virtues, and cost 100 si in the markets. Most horses are of this variety, particularly in the plaguey southern lands. Hill Barbs aren’t unusually large or muscular, but they are remarkably sure-footed and tough, rolling twice for hit points and taking the better total, while also allowing their riders to ignore the movement speed penalty when crossing hill terrain.
A good Barb fetches 250 si, or twice as much outside of Kirsi. Pit ponies are bred for work in the mines, standing no more than four feet at the shoulder. They do not panic underground and are remarkably nimble, able to go wherever a human can go. Even in combat, untrained ponies will freeze rather than fleeing. They cost 150 si, and few are ever trained for combat. Imperial zebras are the product of a half-successful breeding experiment conducted by the Nyalan Empire several centuries ago. The horses that re-sulted are zebra-striped, vicious, and powerful; all are natively war-trained and gain +2 hit points per hit die, and a +2 bonus to their attack rolls. They cost 1,000 si and more outside of Nyala.
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uManBanDit MerChant noBle
no� enC� 2d4 (4d10) 1d4 (2d6) 1 (1d4+1)
MoveMent 30’ 30’ 30’
arMor ClaSS By armor By armor By armor
hit DiCe 1 2 4
attaCKS +1/weapon +2/weapon +5/weapon DaMage By weapon By weapon By weapon
Save 15+ 14+ 13+
Morale 7 8 9
SKill BonuS +1 +2 +2
CoMMoner SolDier elite SolDier
no� enC� 1d8 (4d20) 1d6+1 (4d10) 1d6+1 (2d10)
MoveMent 30’ 30’ 30’
arMor ClaSS By armor By armor By armor
hit DiCe 1 1 2
attaCKS +0/weapon +2/weapon +3/weapon DaMage By weapon By weapon By weapon
Save 15+ 15+ 14+
Morale 6 8 10
SKill BonuS +1 +1 +2
The men and women of the Three Lands come in all descriptions.
The statistics provided here merely cover some of the people most likely to be of interest to a band of adventurers. Most denizens of the Five Kingdoms are simply normal humans, with no special talents and an adequate proficiency in their chosen profession.
Bandits represent the ordinary rabble that lurk between outposts of civilization. Ill-equipped, ill-disciplined, but still a danger to unwary travelers. Soldiers are usually better-equipped and given to more discipline in battle, while elite soldiers are often leaders of their less experienced brethren or guards of some important figure.
Nobles include both the oba of a market town and the lofty court-iers of a great king’s court. They usually have a certain amount of martial training as part of their upbringing, but most leave the fighting to their minions. Merchants are often encountered by ad-venturers, and these statistics represent an intrepid caravan-master leading his train of porters through dangerous terrain.
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yenanorMal Dire
no� enC� 2d6 (2d6) 1d3+1 (1d3+1)
MoveMent 60’ 50’
arMor ClaSS 8 7 hit DiCe 1 4 attaCKS +2/bite +5/bite
DaMage 1d6 2d6
Save 15+ 13+
Morale 7 9
SKill BonuS +1 +2
Relentless scavengers, hyena packs are known to steal kills from other large predators, particularly lions. Such behavior marks them as rebels against the natural order, and the sight of a hyena pack is counted an ill-omen by travelers. Dire hyenas are spirit-beasts with an unholy intellect, intentionally preferring the flesh of leaders and nobles and capable of luring them with subterfuges.