Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf Issue 18: Mandrake People/Phung

Issue 18 Mandrake People/Phung

Two, yes two, count ‘em, Monsters of the Week this issue. But more on that later.

In Issue 18, the mantle of editing the Fiend Factory passes from Don Turnbull to Albie Fiore, with little comment except a mention at the end that he has “stepped down from the post of editing this section due to the pressures of work”. I think Don takes on a larger role at TSR UK for a while, and has a role in Imagine magazine – although I note that this issue is April/May 1980 and Issue 1 of Imagine is April 1983, so evidently Don didn’t just swap one magazine for another.

And so we enter the Albie Fiore era, which to my mind has some of the best Fiend Factory creations. And this issue also features Albie Fiore’s excellent scenario The Halls of Tizun Thane, for 1^st/2^nd level characters, but with the unusual-sounding concept of 3-6 players with 6-12 characters. Did people regularly run 2 characters each back in 1980? I think we did on occasion, but not as the norm.

There are only four monsters in the Fiend Factory, so I’m going to look at the new monsters in the scenario as well (which I will do in the future when these crop up). I haven’t chosen, over this whole series, any Monster of the Week from any source other than the Fiend Factory, but I don’t think this was due to notions of thematic purity, more just the way things panned out.

I won’t go into details about the scenario, except that it has a very Dying Earth feel to it, with a sprawling mansion that once belonged to the great wizard Tizun Thane. Now his two brothers are trying to take over his legacy, but are being thwarted by Tizun’s old bodyguard, an insane Gu’en-Deeko. Featured in the adventure are audacious set-pieces such as a chamber of 22 berbalangs, some supremely tough supernatural creatures called the Shadow Dancers, and a room full of mirror portals that makes a great stepping-off point for other adventures.

Also present is a colony of Nandies, which are carnivorous apes. There are up to 80 of these creatures in the encounter area, which seems an insane number for a 1^st level adventure. They’re not, however, really meant as a combat encounter unless the players are really gung-ho, but they do present an interesting obstacle for trying to traverse the adventure site via the roof.

The nandies are led by a Nandie Bear, a tougher and more intelligent sub-species. My old chemistry teacher used to use “nandie-bears” as a generic example of enumerating things – “If you wanted to know, say, how many nandie-bears would fit in a bucket”. Guessing that it was therefore a known folklore creature, I checked, and the “Nandi Bear” is a Kenyan cryptobeast. Given my chemistry teacher’s heritage, I’d always assumed it was Indian, but there we go.

There’s nothing to these creatures that mean you couldn’t just use the Baboon stats for Nandies, and Ape (or Bear) stats for the Nandie-Bear.

It took me about 20 years or more before I realised that the Gu-en-Deeko is basically a Wendigo with a variant spelling. Statistic wise, it’s kind of equivalent to an Ogre; the main ability that sets it apart is the ability to gain knowledge from consuming brains, something that Fiore uses as a central to his plot for the scanerio.

Right, onto the Factory proper, which as I mentioned before contains just four creatures, all of which are derived from works of fiction.

The Hound of Kerenos by Graham Staplehurst come from Michael Moorcock’s Corum series (I think The Bull and the Spear is part of the second Corum series which borrows heavily from Celtic mythology with Corum pitched against Balor of the Evil Eye and the Fomorians.

The Hound of Kerenos is yet another dog-like monster for the list, but all you’d need to do really is take a Hellhound and swap the word “fire” for “cold” throughout.

The Couerl from Phil Masters (yes, he’s already Phil) is an interesting concept, if a little bit of a hodge-podge. It apparently comes from AE van Vogt’s Black Destroyer, of which I have never heard. It’s got a vague displacer beast feel to it, looking like a panther with a “mane” made up of tiny tentacles capable of fine manipulation, and it is also able to manipulate electricity and other forces. It’s immune to lightning, magic missile and fireballs, and also dampens the flaming ability of flaming swords. Finally, they’re naturally immortal creatures that drain vital fluids from humanoids.

This one, I think, would work better in a kind of magic/tech setting, affecting electronic devices. Fiore mentions it controlling a portcullis, but I don’t think that’s what the Phil means by the creature “anaylising and controlling technological devices”. It seems more appropriate to imagine it fiddling with an iPhone or something like that, especially as it can manipulate electricity. Although, sorry, this issue came out in April 1980, so it wouldn’t be an ipHone, it’d be.. erm, a Commodore PET? An Atari 400?

Before getting to the two, yes two creatures that I’m going to stat, the article finishes with the results of the Top Ten and Bottom Five creatures poll from prior editions. I don’t think that the results are that surprising, and kind of bear out comments that I’ve made at the time about these creatures. 

I note that I statted up the Gold and Silver positions for this very series, and that numbers 4-7 are in the 5^th Edition already. I also did the Volt for the Book of Lost Monsters. Svarts, as I mentioned at the time, bring little to the table that the goblin doesn’t already provide, and the Urchin is okay but nothing massively inspiring. And, yeah, not many people like gimmick monsters, although it’s interesting that the Dahdi is both 10^th best and 2^nd worst.

Anyway. Monster number one for this issue are Glen Godard’s Mandrake People. There’s actually not much mechanically complicated about this entry – where they really excel is in the associated lore.

Although the size of the mandrake people isn’t mentioned, for a long time I thought that they’d be small, but they must be human-sized given that female mandrake people can be swapped as a changeling and become a human-like mandrake-vampire.

So the main lore with the mandrakes is that they give birth to a bantling which is acorn-like at first and then is planted to gestate “under mistletoe” in an oak or ash tree. This presents a bit of a problem since mistletoe is an epiphyte that grows on high branches, whereas the bantling grows underground like a root. So, perhaps, an oak or ash tree that has mistletoe, as a compromise?

Already we can see clear ties to Druidic symbolism, though. The bantling root can be dug up and used as an aphrodisiac, and obviously the mandrakes are not particularly happy about people killing their unborn children for fun and profit, leading to a made-for-scenario conflict between humans and mandrakes. The fact that mandrakes will happily eat intelligent creatures adds a little moral wrinkle to the whole conflict.

A lot of the lengthy description in the mandrake article is about how different character classes would interact with them (with the memorable line “a thief wouldn’t give a toot, but would seek out the root”), but I prefer such reactions to be mandated by the players themselves.

The final element to the mandrake people is that a female mandrake aged 0-5 years can pass as a human (I assume this is once the bantling has emerged from the soil), and are sometimes swapped as changelings (to give them access to an easier life). The changeling, or mandrake-vampire, must absorb a small amount of blood daily which it can do through the skin via its lips – a kiss, or a suckling infant, will do this. The effect is mild enough to go un-noticed but according to the description has a 5% chance of causing blood poisoning.

The only mechanical effects, really, are an attack with claws or club, and a couple of scream attacks. One minor one when wounded, and a major one when killed which, as per the mandrake of legend, will kill anyone that hears it. This bumps the mandrake up massively in terms of danger. I’ve given give this to an uprooted bantling (as this is the most famous reputed ability of mandrake root) but significantly watered it down for the adults.

Mandrake

Medium plant neutral

Armour Class 13 (natural armour) Hit Points 5 (1d8 + 1) Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 10 (+0) 12 (+1) 13 (+1) 9 (-1) 11 (+0) 11 (+0)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Senses passive Perception 10

Languages Common, Druidic

Challenge 1/4 (50 XP)

Death Throes. If the mandrake is killed, its scream is more piercing and dangerous. All creatures within 30 feet that can hear and are not mandrakes must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw or take 5 (1d10) thunder damage, or half that on a successful saving throw. Creatures with the Keen Hearing trait have disadvantage on the saving throw. ACTIONS

Club. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d8) bludgeoning damage. Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) slashing damage. REACTIONS

Scream. If the mandrake is wounded, it lets out a scream that causes 2 (1d4) thunder damage to all non-mandrake creatures within 20 feet that can hear. A successful DC 11 Constitution saving throw avoids this damage.

Death Throes (Bantling). If the mandrake is killed (which for a bantling occurs by simply uprooting it), its scream is much more piercing and dangerous. All creatures within 30 feet that can hear and are not mandrakes must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw or immediately fall to 0 hit points and become dying. On a successful saving throw the hearer takes 5 (1d10) thunder damage. Creatures with the Keen Hearing trait have disadvantage on the saving throw.

Mandrake-Vampire. Female mandrakes can maintain a human form if they are able to consume a tiny amount of human blood per day. They can draw this through touch contact with their lips. If they fail to do so for seven consecutive days they revert to their original mandrake form over the course of 48 hours. This process can be reversed through the consumption of more blood but this has a 5% chance of infecting the donor with the same disease carried by giant rats.

A mandrake-vampire has all of the attributes of a human, but also has the Scream and Death Throes traits.

The Phung, by Simon Tilbrook, likewise, is not particularly complicated in terms of mechanics (although I’ve taken a few liberties with the concept to expand on what’s there), but what I’ve always like about it are both the concept, and Polly Wilson’s illustration – the phung is quite clearly saying “muahahahaa!” or “Excellent” in a Mr Burn’s voice.

I’ve taken a few liberties with this creature. There’s not a lot to it in the original statistics apart from it having Dex 18 and the abilities of a “thief or monk” at a level three times its Hit Dice. Which is either level 9 or 12, and in 1^st Edition a 12^th level Thief is pretty much as high as you can go, so it’s quite powerful.

But what does it mean to have the abilities of a 9^th (or 12^th) level “thief or monk”? A 9^th level thief has: Backstab. Pick pockets 70%, Open Locks 62%, Find/Remove Traps 60%, Move Silently 70%, Hide in Shadows 56%, Hear Noise 30%, Climb Walls 98% and Read Languages 45%.

Meanwhile, monks also share some thief skills: Open Locks, Find/Remove Traps, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Hear Noise and Climb Walls. They’ll also have the monk-specific abilities such as slow fall, open hand attacks, fast move, armour class increases and a range of mental abilities including various immunities to mind-affecting effects.

The question is, did Simon Tilbrook only intend for the phung to have the thievish percentage skills shared by both thieves or monks? Which is pretty simple, since most of these fold into other skill proficiencies in 5E, mainly Stealth and Perception.

I liked, however, that the phung are described as “adept at the plebeian skills of combat”, to which end I gave them a mix of (mainly defensive) abilities from both rogue and monk from 5E. This makes them hard to damage, and also surprisingly dangerous should they actually resort to combat. Somehow it seemed fitting.

I gave them a couple of phung-specific abilities as well. They are described as “insane by human standards”, so why not convert this into a mental defence? In this case, making it impossible to read their mind. I also felt that there ought to be some mechanical effect to their desire to cause fear, and so the phung can either draw inspiration from the fear of another, or absorb it completely and heal itself. My sense is that the phung can also absorb (non-mechanical) fear and get a simple buzz from it; their drug of choice, so that they would still have some motivation to create victims that were nervous, but had not necessarily gained the “frightened” condition mechanically.

Phung

Medium humanoid (phung), chaotic neutral

Armour Class 15 (unarmoured defence) Hit Points 32 (6d8 +6) Speed 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 10 (+0) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 12 (+1) 13 (+1) 10 (+0)

Proficiency Bonus +3 Saving Throws Dex +7, Int +4 Skills Athletics +3, Perception +7, Sleight of Hand +7, Stealth +10 Tool Proficiencies thieves’ tools Senses passive Perception 17

Languages Phung. Understands Common but cannot speak it

Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)

Consume Fear. If the phung starts its turn within 10 feet of a creature with the frightened condition, it can choose either to gain advantage on one attack, saving throw or ability check that it performs that round, or it can end the frightened condition on the creature and restore 8 (1d8 +4) hit points to itself. Cunning Action. The phung can use its bonus action to perform the Dash, Disengage or Hide actions. Expertise. The phung uses double its proficiency bonus for Perception and Stealth checks. Insanity. The phung is immune to any attempts to read its mind or detect its thoughts. Sneak Attack. The phung inflicts an extra 17 (5d6) damage to any opponent against which it has advantage, or if another enemy is within 5 feet of it, or incapacitated, and the phung doesn’t have disadvantage. ACTIONS

Extra Attack. The phung may make two attack actions on its turn, and if it attacks with a quarterstaff or unarmed strike, it may use its bonus action make an extra unarmed strike. Unarmed Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage. Quarterstaff. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage or 8 (1d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage if wielding two-handed. REACTIONS

Deflect Missiles. If the phung is hit with a ranged attack it can reduces the damage by 18 (1d10 + 13). If this reduces the damage to 0, and the missile is small enough to hold in one hand, and the phung has one hand free, it can catch the missile. Evasion. If the phung is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to avoid damage, it takes no damage on a successful save, and half damage on a failed save. Slow Fall. The phung can reduce any falling damage by 45 points. Uncanny Dodge. The phung can use its reaction to halve the damage from an attacker that it can see.