Friday, April 12, 2019

[Monster] The Bulbous Ones, for the Harry Clarke Project

This is an offering for Emmy Allen / Cavegirl's Harry Clarke Bestiary Project.




THE BULBOUS ONES
Fletcher / Gambi / Radish
No. Appearing: Unique trio of entities
Armor Class: as Leather / as Unarmored / as Leather
HD: 4 / 6 / 4
Move: half human / one quarter of human / human
Attacks: 1 blades of grass (d6) / 1 primal scream (d8) / 1 soft whisper (d4)
Save as: Specialist 4 / Cleric 6 / Elf 4
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: None
Alignment: Lawful

Here they are, the Bulbous Ones: Fletcher, Gambi and Radish. Leeches born from the primordial soup, three minutes after Creation, everyone’s younger siblings and servants. They speak the Ur-Language, consume the darkest secrets, and spew forth even darker ones.

Go out at night to the swamp, inhale the stench, dig a hole, and whisper a dark secret into it. Then the Bulbous Ones appear, and serve their summoner for 3 nights in a row. At the end of each night, the summoner must dismiss one of the three by giving it its coveted object. At the end of the last night, the summoner must appease the last one with the blood of an ox before dismissing it with the final gift.

Fletcher was three, then two, then one. Sinuous bodies coiled together. Can see through walls and into other dimensions. Fletcher’s coveted object is twelve twigs, eleven plums, ten ice shards, nine grains of rice, eight breaths of fresh air, seven kisses; all crushed in a mortar and fed to a pig.

Gambi smiles and bubbles. The smile is the smile of knowledge, as Gambi remembers all the secrets that were ever whispered to summon the Bulbous Ones. Gambi’s coveted object is an ivory chair with five legs.

Radish moves through the air with peculiar grace, in a dance akin to the flow of water. Traces magical resonance. Once traced, the resonance can be manipulated, replicated, consumed. Radish’s coveted object is a crystal that grows under your molars.


Art by Harry Clarke, text by Tamás Kisbali


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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2 comments:

  1. So weird and good. I wrote a spell for the project over on my blog.

    ReplyDelete