Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror: M is for Malevolent!

[Nathan of the FoS]

Maddening flea [Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, Adam’s Wrath]

There was once an asylum on the outskirts of Silbervas, as well, but it suffered a strange and grisly fate. It was, of course, a repository for the mad, but at length it became apparent that all who entered its gates were at risk of insanity, as if some contagion breathed from the very stones. The attendants, the doctors, even the military police sent to maintain order all succumbed.

At last the Kingfuhrer ordered the doors barred from without, and the asylum was burned to the ground. In this way the contagion was purged, although the ground where once the madhouse stood is no friendly place, and some claim still to hear the cries of the madmen on the night air.

History of the Asylum, Lars Lorenz

[cure]

MEDUSA

“What form! What classical beauty! Never have I seen a finer figure. Never have I seen a fouler face. A visage of reptilian repugnance and a crown of hissing, spitting, snapping asps! And the eyes, my lord, the eyes, antipodes each of that exotic, seductive voice! Had I been still cut of the weak stuff of mortals, the revulsion that seized me could well have left your worthy servant as mute and dusty as the five score of men, women and children who will furnish till the end of the world those twisted and accursed corridors.”

-Court Painter Octavian Marcus showing off the latest official portrait to Azalin Rex

[cure]

MOON RATS

“We had come prepared for trouble. But there was no sign of the giant rats or their even more terrible kin. Still our advance was shadowed by the plague of their mundane cousins. They twittered among themselves, some in front, some behind, some to the flanks, occasionally growing most excited, as we paused in, or met hurdles to, our advance. After much toil we reached the ruins and attained their pinnacle, free at last of the scurvied company. And there was the circle, inscribed upon a sheet of basalt, its lines glowing faintly in the moon light. It was ours but we were still far from the security of home. One by one we died. A rope broke. A hail of stone swept down the cliff. A horse reared and fell. Our food bore the touch of Death. The flashing tusks of enraged boars were anointed with our blood as saddle straps snapped and stirrups failed. It was my near immolation that proved, the Smiling One be thanked, my salvation. I hurdled myself into la Rivière des Sacrifices and was swept beyond the claws of the doom that stalked us.”

- Pierre Gauldamon accounting for his failed expedition into la Maison des Savants

[ChrisNichols]

Mohrg [Monster Manual]

Only after consulting the dusty, worm-eaten tome given to me by Mad Mikaal did I grasp the nature of the killings that gripped the city for the last four months. A murder once every five days, done with varying weapons - axe, spear, sword, flail, scythe, dagger, sickle, club. At every murder, three symbols smeared in blood. Every body marked with strange punctures.

The book, a ancient history of Bergovista, at first seemed a pointless distraction, written in an archaic form of Vaasi and so deteriorated that its title was lost to mildew. But in the midst of lists of long-dead officals and accounts of criminals hung, I found the clue Mikaal had meant for me to find. The three symbols from the crimes looked back at me from the page.

The faded script revealed that the symbols, reading 'Roh An Kaut' described a kind of spiritual belief - the details of which were over my head - subscribed to by a society or cult called the Circle of Roh An Kaut. The followers of Roh An Kaut plagued the city at some point in the past, killing once a fiveday. Each member of the Circle of Roh An Kaut weilded a specific weapon; an axe, a spear, and a flail were mentioned.

According to the record, the entire Circle was eventually trapped in their lair and the entire structure put to the torch. After the fire had done its work, the bodies of the killers were thrown into a deep pit beneath the city and the pit filled with stones.

At the end of this tale was a drawing, without caption or explanation. It showed a gape-jawed skull of malevolent aspect with a fat, clawed worm protruding from its jaws.

- report by Constable Hardan Harstin of Bergovista

[cure]

MIND FLAYER, VAMPERIC

The tableau was of a beautiful young woman, scantily clad, beset by two unclothed, cuttlefish-headed humanoids. The one had torn open her neck and was about to lap with its veined, purple tongue at the blood that flowed freely. The other had wrenched open her skull and with its tentacles was ripping her brain from its seat. This was a death unlike any I had witnessed. And if I dared reach out and touch the orb, I too could savour the experience .

“Chapter 26 - The Hall of Records,” Secrets of the Sith, unpublished work of the Kartakan dirgist Life’s Long Lament

[cure]

Alhoon is done? Did I miss it?

[ChrisNichols]

Alhoon is done? Did I miss it?

Way back in the A's.

Chris Nichols

[cure]

Could the mythical dragon of the Shadowborn Cluster actually be Mist Horrors? And if the Phantasmal Forest is indeed mutable, trackless, and a manifestation of the Mists, then could not the dragon appear most anywhere?
If this reasoning is sound, I will try to write up something along these lines.

[Mangrum]

Could the mythical dragon of the Shadowborn Cluster actually be Mist Horrors? And if the Phantasmal Forest is indeed mutable, trackless, and a manifestation of the Mists, then could not the dragon appear most anywhere?

Well, the thing is, the "dragon" of Nidala doesn't exist. Elena invented it to cover up her own massacres. I'm against introducing a "reaL" dragon because it detracts from this aspect of Nidala's character.

In this specific case, it doesn't really work because the Phantasmal Forest isn't particularly misty, so a Mist Horror is out of its element.

[cure]

MIST HORROR

The skald's frightful words of warning, whether intended for our good or his private amusement, proved to be well founded, or nearly so. The swamp that we sought, deep in the south, was as thick with dead trees as any of us had seen and was thicker still with mists. Our every step was laboured, we lost our way repeatedly, sound travelled oddly, the thing that we sought was elusive, and we could not shake the sense of impending doom. Then, as exhaustion set in, the atmosphere seemed to lighten a bit and we paused upon a solid and barren piece of ground. Perhaps we stayed too long. Whatever the case, our surprise was total when the blows of the dead tree, which had not been there when we arrived, fell about our heads. The thing was as massive, twisted, withered, monstrous and dreadful as Lukas had said. It preceded to rush forth, driving those of us that it did not manage to trample, into the fetid muck, where our disadvantage was complete. It had overlooked Ulrich however, who had dosed off and was ever slow to rouse himself. When he had at last collected his senses, his mind refused to credit the sight before his eyes, bard’s tale be damned. Apparently no tree in Lamordia ever mired men in mud and raked them with choking eldritch forces, or indeed anything of the sort. And so the tide began to turn.

-From the last journal entry of Hardian Wordsworth, the work being held in the private collection of Harkon Lukas

[cure]

MUMMIFIED CREATURE

What fools we were to let hope cloud judgement. Clearly Raoul’s mind had been unhinged by our time in the Amber Wastes. Our personable, unassuming, ever practical friend had become haughty, domineering, grandiose, and not just a little delusional. After he roast alive a flock of sheep, insisting that they were assassins sent against his august person, we at last broached with him the question of institutionalisation. He seemed saner afterwards, persuading us that he only needed bed rest and accepting that Annabel accompany him home. Two months later the enormity of our error came loping down his laneway. There to greet us was his beloved old wolf hound Luthia or rather an abomination of the loyal old gal. For between those creaking bones and within that drum tight skin there was no life.

-The Wreck of the Albatross, Juno Luteum, Darkonese adventurer

[cure]

MUMMY

Foreboding fired by silence brought us to his door. But not one of us had come prepared for the horror of having to hammer to dust the dried and withered shell of his wolf hound, a creature that in life was loved by all. Each of us knew a grimmer task, indeed grimmer tasks, lay within. It would probably not be the life but rather the soul of Annabel that we would have to save, or rather lay to rest. And as for Raoul, in life or in death, he and the secret knowledge he had acquired during our damnable visit to the great tomb of Anhktepot had to be purged from existence. We did not, however, proceed rashly. We had not forgotten the terrible strength of those accursed bones and the rotting touch of that leathery skin. We would confirm the fate of Annabel and, having laboured hard so that all was in readiness, burn the place to the ground.

-The Wreck of the Albatross, Juno Luteum, Darkonese adventurer

[cure]

MIDNIGHT CAT

"How thoughtful . . . a cold, dead rat from the local cesspool . . . . It is with slight difficulty that I imagine those abominable wanderers laying a curse upon you. But of this world we must put down the piddling and the petty. Rest. Sleep. By the dying darkness of the dawn, their shackles shall not trouble you, your soul shall be freed of their grasp."

-Midnight Black and The Barovians, calumnious Invidian folktale

or

"You and I know that this is no trifling curse of those abominable wanderers. There are Mist-threaded maledictions that no claw may shred."

-The Black Cat of Beltis receiving Lord Malocchio Aderre

[cure]

Mechanical serpent, the Shadow Serpent

"The scenes caught upon the tain of the mirrors hardly seemed to be of this world. Yet one indisputably was. A strange serpent had infiltrated the throne room and slithered with nigh impossible stealth and speed into reach of the ancient seat, being nowise deterred by the motionless and seemingly oblivious occupant. Its strike was little more than a blur yet a gauntleted hand swept down to catch and hold it in mid-air. The great bulk of the metal thing twisted and clattered about the mailed arm, neck and leg but to no avail. It tried to slip back into the shadows, winning but an instance's reprieve from the iron grasp. Its captor whispered a few words. The shape of the creature grew perfectly distinct and the thing crashed like thunder onto the floor where it lay still. A minute inspection of it followed, with particular attention falling upon its three pairs of retractable teeth and the poisons that they bore. It stirred back to life and no resistance was offered to it as it sought to pierce the blackened and scorched armour and lay the bearer low. After a flurry of strikes, it turned and left as it had come, its bearing somehow conveying dejection, frustration and rage."

-Tindal interviewed by Isolde

[cure]

STAMPEDE (MOB OF HORSES)

Upon the Thundering Plains there are many reasons to sleep in the saddle: diamondbacks, sidewinders, ironwhips, cobras and, of course, plain cats. But let me tell you another: stampedes. Rødbuge are more likely to run you down than to go around you. And Vindhåre, although less likely to trample you as you flee, are far quicker, often catching you where you lie. These earth shaking waves break about you all too often. Hestdrikkers get among the horses or, worse, hestskærere get into them. To say nothing of the stallions with hell-fire for blood. And of course a few of the animals are simply born misanthropic or mad.

-Gustov Petroff, hawksman and horse smuggler wanted for desertion from the Falkovnian army, recounting the dangers of his profession