Let’s Convert the Fiend Folio: Assassin Bug and Astral Searcher

The Fiend Folio might well be known as the book of monsters that want to lay eggs in you! The Monster Manual came out in 1977, and the Fiend Folio in 1981, but smack dab between them in 1979, Alien made its first appearance on the big screen. And late 1979 was when the Fiend Folio was first slated to come out. Of course, this might be coincidence, and the monsters were selected from the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf, but it is hard to imagine that Alien had no effect, if not on the creatures themselves, then on their selection.

In effect, it is as though Gary Gygax said, “This dungeon delving is serious stuff! It could kill you!” Then Don Turnbull came along and said, “If you’re lucky!” There is a certain lesson in cruelty here, taking different forms with different monsters, but always reminding the participants that monsters can target more than your hit points. More even than your hard-won experience points and levels. Dying a clean death is not every unsuccessful adventurer’s fate.

If you wonder whether or not I learned this lesson, take a look at Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror, Mermaids from Yuggoth, or The Imperishable Sorceress. If you ever wonder where I learned the lesson, crack open the original Fiend Folio. It wasn’t the last place I learned from, and I had started devising my own monsters going back to Holmes Basic, but it was the first lesson in just how far the judge could go.

 

Assassin Bug

Assassin Bug: Init +3; Atk bite +1 melee (1d4 plus paralysis) or implant eggs; AC 14; HD 1d8+1; MV 20’ or fly 50’; Act 1d20; SP: Paralysis (Fort DC 12, 1d3 turns), implant eggs; SV Fort +2; Ref +5; Will +0; AL N.

Resembling nothing so much as humanoid bluebottle flies standing no more than two feet high, these creatures are predominantly scavengers which avoid larger beings, including humans. While either gender can deliver a powerful bite in extremis, they are only truly dangerous during their mating season, when the females become gravid with eggs (roughly one day in every two months). During this time, males develop a paralyzing saliva (Fort DC 12 or paralysis for 1d3 turns), and mated pairs fly in search of a host for their offspring.

Males always attack first, attacking until destroyed. As soon as a victim is paralyzed, the female (detecting the scent of the activated male saliva) attacks the affected area, implanting 1d6+6 eggs if successful. The female dies as soon as her eggs are implanted.

Eggs hatch 1d12+12 hours after they are implanted, and the newly-hatched larvae cause 1 hp damage per hour per larvae as the consume the host’s internal organs. After two weeks, the larvae leave the host, burrowing out through the area where the eggs were originally implanted. If the host still survives, this causes 1d4+4 damage. The larvae are then fully formed assassin bugs, although they are small and have only 2 hp each.

Nothing short of Divine Aid or similar magic can remove the eggs once implanted, without killing the victim, but 1d6 hatched larvae can be killed per HD with a successful clerical Lay on Hands for this purpose. Unfortunately, assassin bug eggs are regarded as great delicacies by trolls, troglodytes, and bugbears, all of which can smell them up to 200 feet away, and none of which are at all troubled by killing the victim to get at them.

 

Astral Searcher

Astral Searcher: Init +0; Atk Special (2d5); AC 10; HD 2d6; MV fly 30’; Act 1d20; SP Ignore armor, illusory damage, possession, magic resistance (50%); SV Fort +0; Ref +0; Will +0; AL Varies.

Mindless shells of nebulous humanoid shape, astral searchers are created by concentrated human thoughts, trauma, violent death, and travelers involved in violence or lost upon the astral plane. Some people, whether through magic, psionics, or training, can learn to leave their bodies so that their souls can travel on the astral plane; it something happens to their bodies, they may become astral searchers. Driven by their past connection with material beings, astral searchers seek material bodies with complete singleness of purpose, seeking weak points in the fabric of the planes, and clustering at such points, waiting for stresses to create enough of a tear that they can pass from the astral into the material plane.

Astral searchers attacks ignore all protection from armor. They inflict illusory damage, which faded in 3d4 rounds once the astral searchers' attack ends. A victim reduced to 0 hp has its mind and personality destroyed. The astral searcher possesses the body, acquiring the victim's physical abilities and hit points (with all damage from the astral searcher's attack disappearing immediately). The alignment, personality, and purpose of the now-embodied searcher depends upon how the astral searcher was first created, as determined by the judge. If desired, the judge may even allow the original player to play the new character, but most astral searchers become mindless embodiments of rage, grief, or violence, even when they have managed to possess another.

Astral searchers can be ejected from a body with a successful exorcise spell but the original victim must succeed in a Luck check, or its psyche was completely destroyed and cannot be restored. The empty corpus will then be an open invitation to possession by a demon or other similar creature (at the discretion of the judge) .

The strange nature of astral searchers means that spells and similar magics are 50% likely to ignore them entirely, as though the creatures did not exist.