If anyone has a handy set of deathlands monsters/denizens they’ve drawn up and are willing to share, that would be awesome. Looking for some material for when my players venture out beyond the fences :). Thanks!
my game hasnt gone into the deathlands, but i use this pinterest board for inspiration for creatures
https://www.pinterest.com/frm5993/animalia/
2 Likes
No, but it is an interesting question as this is a game with very much human monsters. And demons I suppose. And elder gods. Ok deathlands monsters are not so weird I suppose.
1 Like
And Horrors. Very sad Horrors who feel socially rejected because everyone forget them 
@paulgsilva According to the established lore, the deathlands are infested by ghosts, demons and Horrors (the elctroplasmic and alien established lore creatures). Demons can be almost everything as long as they are material beings, and Horrors are your alien and electroplasmic something (their description is very lucking).
3 Likes
Didn’t use them for anything but flavor but I’ve included Hounds of Misery, which are mangy wild dogs, halfway between maned wolves and coyotes with upside-down heads. They have a laughing call which sounds unnatural due to their windpipes forking to go around their spine.
4 Likes
I haven’t had a chance to try it in a game but I’m looking forward to taking inspiration from the Stand Still. Stay Silent webcomic. The comic makes it less about the creatures themselves but how they’re presented: the creatures themselves are rarely seen but their presence is always felt through the chilling debris or damage left behind. The fear of an attack is always present. The characters only catch mortifying glimpses of the creatures before they’re forced to run in fear against a force they can’t comprehend.
The mystery and hidden threat adds so much to the what the characters (and the reader!) feels and I think it’d create a compelling atmosphere for Blades too.
Disclaimers about the comic: it’s probably 100-200 pages before you’d experience what I’m talking about first hand. Also, the story starts with a pandemic so maybe pass on reading if that could be uncomfortable for you.
6 Likes
@OpenAbyss is so right here! Horrors are quite underestimated, while they offer very nice and powerfully climatic options. I personally love to use them. Not quite in the Deathlands but also in the city, as in my version of the game they dwell in the deepest layers of the ghost field, where the memories of the city are most fractured and corrupted. So fragments merge, sometimes producing semi-conscious entities which are like fusions of creatures and buildings. My whisper tried to compel one of those conglomerates once, and the Spirit wardens had to seal off Charterhall district, while the whisper spent a month in a trance-like state. That was epic, even if the player had to run another character while the whisper was recovering.
In that case it was something like a giant Flickerwhisp (cfr. MTG card), quite an alien form to behold.
Have fun friends!
2 Likes
Thanks @Arlevein! Since making the original post I put together a random table of ideas I found elsewhere and some of my own. I hope they can be helpful to you and others: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHunmcDV5-_1lFPJAAdWDrXX2csSXT8DvjIRrJt0VqY/edit
4 Likes
In my home-game the scoundrels accidently allowed a horror of shadows to swallow Six Towers in its darkness, an event which has proven troublesome to the Spirit Wardens and sparked an useful occult pact between the crew and it: they used it to manipulate the minds of their targets and builde empire without exposing themselves to the street-lights.
3 Likes
I based a lot of the deathlands on Alex Konstad’s artstation… and the stories of fairies etc
https://www.artstation.com/alexkonstad
3 Likes
I’m very interested to hear how GMs have depicted Horrors in their games.
At the start of our second season, my crew of Shadows have allied with the Circle of Flame - going up against the Silver Nails and are about to go exploring the Lost District.
I really like the idea of presenting Horrors firstly by the devastation they leave behind, or perhaps the terror they evoke when they pass close by, but how they’ll manifest in the end is very much to be decided - possibly at the time!
Inspiration about how you present Horrors or how they have featured in your games would be really great :B
1 Like
I have 1 or two horrors in the revised Deathlands Score Kit, so not a ton of delving into them :(. https://roezmv.itch.io/deathlands-score-kit
1 Like