Children of the Black Sky

Discussion of existing creatures, and original ones you create. Natural or fantastical, all are welcome to go under the microscope for science.
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Tore
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Children of the Black Sky

Post by Tore » Wed Dec 09, 2015 8:51 pm

Children of the Black Sky

This is a critter I made for the Silent Legions rpg. It's a monster from an M.R. James story which I've supplied with a rudimentary scifi/horror background. I've given it CoC stats to get some routine with the new edition.

At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned King with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy.
M.R. James – Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book

In one obscure text these creatures are referred to as children of the black sky, and details how they arrive on earth in a ball of fire that lights up the night sky. How their eyes are bottomless darkness, and how they drag people off to hell.
Several dark tomes mention this creature, and some offer magick to bind it to one's will. One such is Harleian MS. 5596, a manuscript which may be the oldest version of the Clavicula Solomonis, but there are several others.
All rituals require human blood, human flesh, or even a human life. The creatures are generally described as being hateful and animalistic demons, and weak of mind. They are often used to spy on a foe, to abduct a person, or to kill.

However, the children are not demons. They are a species of hunters and workers, sent to Earth as resource extractors. The resource they are sent to extract is human tissue. It is very likely that the children themselves do not know the purpose of this work, but they prove exceedingly adept at it. The humans they abduct are de-boned and ground into an undifferentiated mass. This mass has some semblance of life, so that it is easier to move simply by herding them through the children's facilities.

The children are much as James describes them, except that the hair is closer to black spines, that they have brutal chewing mandibles, and an acrid smell. They walk on all fours but are able to stand upright, much like a gorilla does.
Their voices are sweet and human-like. They are not capable of speech, but can parrot speech-sounds.
The children are ferocious, and appear to have a particular loathing for things which humans find beautiful. Objects are crushed and bodies are broken for no other reason than that they are there. The very few who know enough about the children to have an opinion on this, put forth the theory that this is a manufactured trait to keep this slave-species from building a civilization of their own.

The ritual performed to enthrall a child of the black sky is a simple pattern of alien sounds and gestures, which their masters used to control them. Add to this the bribe of human flesh or blood and the child is a willing slave, albeit a blood-thirsty one. Most sorcerers do not know why the magick works, nor are they aware of the children's true nature.

Somewhere in the void of space, the children's true masters wait, and their nature is not recorded in any grimoire.

A Child

Str: 70 Con: 70 Siz: 50 Dex: 80 Int: 40 Pow: 40
HP: 12 DB: 0 MP: 8 Move: 9 Build: 0
Attacks: 2
Fighting 55% (27/11) Damage: 1d8
Dodge: 40% (20/8)

Armor: 2 points of fur and chitin.

Special: The children can move on solid surfaces in defiance of gravity.

SAN loss: 1/1d8

Raw material
A slow-moving mass of grey-pink human matter. For a specimen created from moire people, simply increase Siz, Build and HP.

Str: 30 Con: 100 Siz: 100 Dex: 25 Int: N/A Pow: 20
HP: 20 DB: +1d4 MP: 2 Move: 3
Attacks: 1 Build: 1
Fighting 25% (13/7) Damage: Equal to DB
Dodge: 13% (7/3)

Armor: None, but all physical attacks do minimum damage.

Note: Raw material is mindless and has no pain receptors. They roll along slowly, oblivious to their surroundings.

Image
Where Yig doth tread no man treads tomorrow.
Reeking death, harvest of humans in hatred.
Suck on the shitbag of what you created, what we created.
Yig now incoming, Yig now is here.
Yig he makes everything impossibly queer.

Keeper Jon
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Re: Children of the Black Sky

Post by Keeper Jon » Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:42 pm

Oh. My. God.

I effing love this!! I love the noted source material, I love the concept and description, and I love the illustration!!

This is a win on all levels! I will find a way to use this! Holy cow!!!

:fhtagn:
Mmmm... tasty.

Tore
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Re: Children of the Black Sky

Post by Tore » Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:57 pm

Thank you! I can't take credit for the art. I just found it. :)
Where Yig doth tread no man treads tomorrow.
Reeking death, harvest of humans in hatred.
Suck on the shitbag of what you created, what we created.
Yig now incoming, Yig now is here.
Yig he makes everything impossibly queer.

Bootlegger
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Re: Children of the Black Sky

Post by Bootlegger » Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:35 pm

Very cool! Thanks for posting!

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