An Adventure for Every Monster - Devil, Ice

Frequency   Uncommon
No. appearing 1 or 1-4
Armour class  -4
Move  11” 
Hit Dice  11
Percentage in lair 60%     
Treasure type Q, R
No. of attacks 4
Damage per attack  1-4/1-4/2-8/3-12    
Special attack  See below
Special defences  +2 or better weapon to hit
Magic Resistance 55%
Intelligence High
Alignment Lawful Evil
Size   L (10 ½ ‘ tall)
THAC0  10
XP value 4400 + 16/hp

The devil’s abilities include:

Fly
Wall of Ice
Detect Magic
Detect Invisible
Polymorph Self
Gate in 2 bone devils (70%) or another ice devil (30%) (60% chance of success)
Cause Ice Storm (once per day)
Charm Person
Suggestion
Illusion
Infravision
Teleportation (no error)
Know Alignment
Cause Fear
Animate Dead

The ice devils have been having a bit of trouble recently.  The city in which the adventure is set has recently come under the domination of a fire cult, whose clerics have been strengthening their power until they are on the verge of being able to wield fireball spells, a feat usually reserved for magic users. One particular cleric, a Priest Prince of the city, has been very effective at eliminating ice devils whenever they appear to try and restore the balance between fire and ice. This is also affecting the balance of power on the lower planes.

Hitherto, the ice devils have been using the manifest-fight-destroy model of operations but one particular ice devil, who is perhaps a little smarter than his fellows, has come up with a cunning plan that has resulted from a careful study of the opposition.

His plan revolves around the character of the Priest Prince, who is an arrogant and short-tempered man, handsome but violent. His shortcomings are tolerated because of his skills at devil slaying and his clerical powers. His looks have made him a hit with the ladies of the city, including one who has become perhaps slightly more obsessed with the Priest Prince than others might be. This is due in no short part to the efforts of the ice devil, who has used his Charm Person and Suggestion powers to convince the lady, through dreams, that she is destined to be the Priest Prince’s one true love. She is not particularly comely and, in reality, has no appeal for the Priest Prince. 

Now the ice devil has prepared his arrow, he merely needs to let it fly. The lady will begin to obsessively stalk the Priest Prince, who will brush her off brusquely, causing her to become even more determined. Eventually, he will lose his temper and either assault her or kill her to be rid of her. This will cause problems for him and the Fire Priests since the lady’s family is a powerful merchant clan who wield great influence in the city. Clashes between the spiritual and secular may well spill over into civil strife as there are many who resent the dominance of the Fire Priests.

The party will walk into this situation with little knowledge of the behind-the-scenes machinations.

There are several options for them to be dragged into this scenario.

1. They are hired by the Priest Prince to ‘deter’ the lady from making any further advances towards him. This can involve diverting her if one of the party has particularly high Charisma, ruining his image in her eyes by staging some sort of sham scandal, that sort of thing.

2. Maybe another party had tried option one before and had no luck. The Priest Prince does not need this sort of distraction at a time when he is due to lead a crusade against heretics in the northern wilds and so wants the lady out of the way – permanently. The party need to have her eliminated in a way that will not lead back to the Priest Prince and which will keep them out of prison as well.

3. The lady herself realises that on her own, she stands little chance of getting anywhere near the Priest Prince, so she approaches the party to see if their superior planning and intelligence can achieve what she has failed to do. The party need to come up with a way of getting the Priest Prince to see the lady’s obvious (to her) virtues and concluding a successful match.

4. The lady’s family are getting more than a little concerned about her infatuation and think that it’s for the best if she forgets about it. This is of course not going to happen whilst the ice devil is working his wicked plan. The party are hired to provide diversions aplenty (both social and personal) for the lady so that she has no chance to pine for her (clearly) unsuitable beau.

5. As with option four, but the family have already tried many different ways to break the lady’s infatuation and nothing has worked. Her father now suspects that something fishy is going on and wants the party to find out what. This will require the DM to devise the means by which the ice devil has managed to influence the lady’s mind. It will be no easy task to find and combat him, as he is a cunning and subtle fellow. 


If the ice devil thinks it has a chance, it may lure the party into the fire temple and somehow contrive for them to desecrate it (albeit unwittingly). This will enable the ice devil to gate in infernal support which will give the party a hard time.

Assuming they survive, the party may well become embroiled in the civil strife that follows any clash between the Fire Priests and the merchants. If the ice devils make a comeback following the weakening of the Fire Priests’ power, the party may well become a target for revenge attacks.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Demon, Type V

Frequency     Rare
No. appearing 1-3 or 1-6
Armour class  –7/-5
Move  12”
Hit Dice 7+7
Percentage in lair 10%    
Treasure type G
No. of attacks 7
Damage per attack 2-8 & 6 varying    
Special attack  See below
Special defences +1 or better weapon to hit
Magic Resistance 80%
Intelligence High
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Size  L (7’ tall)
THAC0  12
XP value 3000 + 12/hp

Abilities:

Cause Darkness, 10’ radius at will
Create illusion
Cause Fear
Levitate
Detect Magic
Read Languages
Dispel Magic
Polymorph Self
Telekinese 5000gp weight
Project Image
Use Symbol of Fear or Discord
Gate in a demon of Type I to IV (60% chance of success)
Infravision
Darkness
Teleportation


Demons, just like everybody else, dream. However, being demons, those dreams are typically demonic. Just how much trouble this can cause, we will now relate.

Our adventure takes place in an area of neglected countryside near a small town that is experiencing an influx of settlers, prospectors and, of course, adventurers. The town has its problems, as does any frontier town, but recently, those problems include three very grisly murders; all of young, handsome men who have been literally ripped to pieces. The town constable is perturbed to say the least, as are many of the menfolk of the town. In fact, the party may well find when they arrive that the streets are a lot quieter than they are used to and many males stay behind locked doors at night.

What could be causing this wave of consternation? The answer lies several miles outside town, in an old and almost forgotten temple, once the haunt of a cult of the Snake God, now however a lurking place for another (albeit similar) cult. This one worships Lazulari, a Type V demon who, as many of her kind tend to do, has required the regular sacrifice of strong warriors. Fortunately, there seems to be a regular supply of them in the town, where her cult members have been busy as of late. They’re not, however, the ones doing the horrific murders.

Lazulari is not the demon she once was. Until a few weeks ago, she gladly accepted the offerings made by her cultists; warriors would be brought to the temple, held till the day of the sacrifice and then slain on Lazulari’s altar. She would then channel the demonic energies to her cultists and everyone would go away happy.

That is, until her cultists brought her Jerrif, a fighter who was, shall we say, rather on the handsome side, ostensibly Chaotic Neutral but with a hidden tendency towards acts of badness. Lazulari sensed the evil within him but she also found his charisma and looks rather overwhelming. In short, she fell in love with him.

She commanded him imprisoned rather than sacrificed and spent many hours trying to turn him to evil. Jerrif, however, was having none of it and although frustrated and angry, Lazulari could not bring herself to kill him. Nor indeed did she wish to Charm him. That would be cheating. She wanted him to come to her of his own free will. The new feelings she was experiencing have started to manifest in ways that she could not have imagined; romantic dreams were only part of it. She was determined to woo him and set about discovering the strange world of human love.

On three occasions, she has assumed the shape of a young girl and gone into town to see if she can find out the way to a man’s heart and use that knowledge to seduce Jerrif. That plan went badly wrong when the men she chose, although handsome, turned out to be less than gallant and laughed at her attempts at romance. Angered, she assumed her real shape and slaughtered her mocker.

After three attempts, she gave up and set about obtaining, through demonic assistance, tomes and scrolls of a romantic nature to see if they could help in her plan.

Meanwhile, obsessed by dreams of romance, her ability to grant the wishes of her cultists is starting to go decidedly off track. The cult members are now getting rather impatient, if not irritated by her lack of demonic prowess and some are wondering if perhaps they might have better luck with another Type V demon. This is almost certainly the case and it is likely that other Type V demons are already eyeing up the potential.

And what of Jerrif? The poor chap can’t help but be a little nervous of what awaits him. He had heard stories of demon love and what might work for them certainly won’t leave him in very good shape. The human frame just isn’t robust enough. He’s desperate to escape before she gets kinky. 

The party have several opportunities to enter this adventure.

The town constable may hire them to investigate the murders. Clues may well lead them to a young girl present before each murder and her trail may lead back to the temple.

The cultists may well try to hire muscle to aid in their attempt to depose and dispose of Lazulari.

Jerrif’s friends and fellow adventurers aren’t convinced that he’s dead and seek help to track him down. A mischevious DM may plant the seeds in the party’s mind that Jerrif has gone over to the dark side during his imprisonment.

Lazulari herself may be seeking an exit strategy. Knowing that her position in the hierarchy of the Abyss is imperilled by her strange behaviour and suspecting her cult of treachery, she may try to cut a deal with the party if she can approach them in a manner that is not going to cause them immediately to attack. If the party agree to help her, she will not turn on them, provided that she and Jerrif are allowed to stay together. If the party interferes with her plan, she will turn on them.

She will use her treasure either to aid her in combat or to bribe the party to assist her.

12500 gold pieces
525 platinum pieces
4 gems
1 piece of jewellery

Magic items: Any 4 plus one scroll 35%

Given that Jerrif has been reluctant to reciprocate Lazulari’s feelings, it may be that if there is another fighter in the party with a similarly high Charisma (say 16+), then the demon may transfer her sentiments to him.

If the party help her and all goes well, they will have acquired an ally, albeit one that is, like most of her swords, double-edged. The attention of the Authorities of the Abyss will also become more focussed on them with all the bother that this entails.

Ironically, the outcome of this adventure will actually be quite negative for the nearby town if the cult survives and lazulari departs, either killed or into hiding.  A new Type V demon will arrive soon and with no romantic delusions to cloud her mind, will start to wreak havoc in the area. The cultists will also be able to warn her about the party and its abilities, so they will be less likely to be able to take the new demon by surprise.

Cheese of Evil

Fans of Terry Pratchett will recall in the Wee Free Men trilogy that there was a cheese called Lancre Blue which had to be nailed to the table to stop it attacking the other cheeses.  Lancre Blue is a lightweight when it comes to bad-tempered cheeses because I've found one that is positively evil by comparison.  

The cheese in question, my friends, is Casu Marzu. It's a cheese made from sheep's milk by the good people of Sardinia. It is not, however, something that you would be advised to select as a tasty end to your evening meal.

Why not?  Well, if you look closely (not to be advised as I'll discuss later), you can see that the cheese is in fact seething with thousands of maggots of the cheese fly;  their digestion of the fats in the cheese makes it very soft, in fact almost liquid in places. Don't think by the way that they are removed before eating; oh dearie me, no. Connoisseurs of Casu Marzu believe that to eat the cheese complete with larvae heightens the experience. They also consider it an aphrodisiac - makes sense of course because nothing says sexy as much as eating maggot-infested cheese. 

I mentioned earlier that it's not a good idea to look too closely at the cheese itself - this is because the maggots can in fact jump up to six inches if disturbed and slicing the cheese up to eat it counts as disturbing them.

So, you've taken a big mouthful of Casu Marzu, complete with little passengers. I bet you're saying to yourself "my stomach acid will kill the larvae". Guess again - they're usually still alive by the time they reach your intestines. With the tiny hooks in their mouth parts, they will often fasten onto the walls of the gut and start burrowing in.

Yes, cheese with hit points.

This is just the sort of thing that I could imagine being served up in goblin taverns - in fact, we could make this a little community project; cheeses with a little bite to them. Anybody got any suggestions? I'll count Casu Marzu as Entry no.1.