Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf Issue 21: The Enslaver

 Issue 21 One-Eye Canyon and the Enslaver

 

White Dwarf 21 contains another of Albie Fiore’s “mini scenario” style collections, and this one even comes with a rather swanky topographic map:

 

To the best of my knowledge, it’s the only one that does, except for an article up in the 60s or 70s for a fey race called the O Caber.

There are several adventure seeds for One-Eye Canyon, and of all of the Fiend Factory scenarios it’s probably the most robustly developed. Despite the main seed being to stop raids by cyclops (the climactic encounter), “One-Eye” Canyon is actually named after a wizard that used to live there long ago. There are tales of the wizard’s treasure, and of platinum from an abandoned dwarf mine to lure adventurers, as well as rumours of a missing adventurer.

All in all, plenty of hooks to draw in adventurers.

The first encounter takes place in the forest, where we meet the Brothers of the Pine, by Julian Lawrence. These are a kind of undead created by replacing the blood of an unfortunate victim with pine sap, and they come from one of Michael Moorcock’s Corum books (I forget which, but they’re definitely in the second series as servitors of the Fomorians).

I was originally going to stat these guys up, but mechanically speaking there isn’t a lot to them. Most of them have a random first level Druid spell, their leaders have 4 Hit Dice and act as 4^th level Druids, and the Jarl is a 6^th level Druid and, rather like the Night’s King from Game of Thrones, is the one who conducts the operation to convert new Brothers of the Pine. The concept is great, and somewhat creepy. I’ll leave the meat of the abilities below since most are just resistances and immunities of some kind:

I was also considering Colin Reynolds’ Chthon, partly because for once I really like Alan Hunter’s artwork.

However, it doesn’t really have any stats, as such. You could probably simply give it the physical attributes of a rocky object, with mental ability scores and innate spellcasting abilities to charm plants and animals. The chthon itself has no combat abilities, relying solely on its charmed guardians. Another marvellous concept, but not one that in the end really lent itself to a decent statistics.

(Something similar crops up in Lin Carter’s Warrior At World’s End series, where a stone circle of creatures like the chthon pose as gods, but are in the end powerless when our heroes upend them and roll them comically down the hill where they stand). See my review of the series here.

Inhabiting One-Eye’s ruins are the Micemen, by Stephen Norledge, created by an evil wizard, Maihatahn, who crossed orcs with brownies. (Presumably Albie has used Stephen’s creation, Maihatahn, as the wizard “One-Eye”, but it’s not clear. The brownies didn’t make it across to 5E (actually they seem to have languished in 1^st Edition). The micemen, however, don’t appear to have kept any of the magical abilities of the brownies, and in terms of their capabilities don’t seem to be vastly different to the jermlaine, snyads and mites (for whom I did the stats earlier), and so seem a bit redundant.

 

Tony Wilson (not, I assume, the 1990s music entrepreneur Anthony H Wilson) gives us the  Dragon Warriors, which are a neat idea, drawing on draconic folklore (and Ray Harryhausen movies). They are created from the canine teeth of a dragon, and released by crushing the tooth (hence, a maximum of four warriors per dragon). They are, effectively, humanoid constructs with immunity to the energy type of their “parent” dragon, and they only last a few rounds depending on the age of the dragon. They are seen to be clad in scale armour (not the full plate as pictured). A simple idea – again, nothing massively thrilling to turn into stats, but effective nonetheless.

Graham Head’s Grey Sqaargs are also constructs, a kind of guard golem created by dwarves, and this scenario still patrolling the long abandoned mines. They tend to try to use nonlethal means to move attackers away from their protective area.

The main feature of the sqaargs (other than, is it “skwarg” or “skaarg”?) is that they increase in strength the more enemies that they face. Which could vary from round to round, so would be very tricky to keep a handle on. I can see the reasoning, but I’m not sure Graham thought it through entirely, nor playtested, when he came up with the idea.

 

The final monsters are the Cyclops (and a bit cheeky, perhaps, of Albie Fiore to put his own creation at the heart of the adventure).

Now, the 5the Edition Monster Manual has Cyclops (although not the Creature From the Black Lagoon-looking types as drawn by Russ Nicholson). Albie’s Cyclops however, has a hypnotic gaze. They can also produce hybrids with the human females that they like to abduct, giving rise, perhaps, to the 5^th Edition Cyclops? Again, conceptually fine, mechanically uninspiring.

 

Which leaves the Enslaver, my first pick for Roger E Moore, who seems to be taking over from Roger Musson as the Fiend Factory’s favourite Roger. You know, for all that he writes good monsters, and provides content for many issues, I think this might be the only time I selected a Roger E Moore creature. Mostly because he usually shares an issue with King O' The Monsters, Phil Masters. I guess, for me, his creations were always just a little less interesting to convert to 5th Edition.

 

We haven’t yet had any “body-snatcher” kinds of creature, and there aren’t many official ones (I can only think of the Intellect Devourer offhand), so this is a nice addition, and relatively simple as well.

I think, largely, the conversion speaks for itself. It's quite a low challenge, but then, the save DCs are pretty low as well.

Enslaver

Tiny aberration, chaotic evil

Armour Class 12 (natural armour) Hit Points 18 (4d4 + 8) Speed 5 ft., climb 5 ft., swim 5ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 3 (-4) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 13 (+1)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4 Damage Immunities psychic Condition Immunities charmed, frightened, prone Senses blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 13

Languages understands and can speak the languages of its host

Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)

Enslaving Touch. Any creature that touches an enslaver with unprotected skin is automatically hit by its Enslave attack. Malleable Form. The enslaver is able to move through a space as narrow as 1 inch without squeezing. Stony Camouflage. The enslaver has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide amongst loose rocks or stones. ACTIONS

Enslave Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: The target must make DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or fall under the influence of the enslaver. Its personality is completely subsumed and the enslaver controls its body like a puppet. The enslaver hides itself somewhere on the target’s person, and can use all of the target’s skills and abilities as if they were its own. It can access any languages spoken by the target, speaking through the target, and gains some superficial memories of the target. An enslaved target is heedless of its own safety, and although it can be affected by most conditions and damage, it does not react to injury. The target gains the immunity to psychic damage, and immunity to the charmed and frightened conditions of the enslaver. An enslaver can be removed from a target with an action, although since the enslaver will use the target to defend itself, it will probably be necessary to subdue the target first. If an enslaver is killed or removed, the target must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or take 22 (5d8) psychic damage (and it now lacks the enslaver’s damage immunity). On a successful saving throw it takes no damage.