The Blood that I shed do I devote to serve within the eternal Train of Souls.

The Eyes of Flesh do I sacrifice for the gift of that immortal Eye which shall view all destruction.

The Mortal Soul do I forsake to the void which shall be filled.

My voice I raise until it shall be heard in the Paean of Destruction. My deeds shall become those of the Titan. My life shall become One Aspect of the Thousand Eyes.

The scroll describes a series of defiling rites which prepare the faithful soul of an acolyte to perform a human sacrifice (also described in precise detail) which will bind them to a greater force of chaos, becoming an Aspect of the Many Eyes and housing a “shard of the sleeping titan” in their soul.

During this final ritual and oath-taking, the acolyte cuts out their own eyes. If their faith is rewarded, a third eye opens upon their forehead from which the power of the Destroyer can be made manifest.

The brothers of the Divided Eye believe that this Third Eye of the Destroyer binds them to the Eyes of Legion, and that when the “murder of craven eyes” has been “restored through mortal flesh” the “Many-Eyed Prelate of the Blooded Death shall awake”.

THE THIRD EYE OF THE DESTROYER

(Feat)

Prerequisite: Must sacrifice both eyes and perform the Oath of the Divided Eye.

Benefit: You a gain a third eye which gifts you with darkvision 60 ft. Once per day, you can open the inner eye of the destroyer allowing you to use chaos hammer, as per the spell.

Special: This feat can be taken more than once. Each time you take the feat, double the range of your darkvision and you daily uses of chaos hammer.

Some material on this page is covered by the Open Gaming License.

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B. asks:

I just finished the first session of a new campaign. One of my players pitched a character who was “very strange, but in a charming way.” In the first scene she told the chief of police that his eyes reminded her of her dead mother, then she ran in circles around another NPC, sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him, and asked what his favorite color was.

Both NPCs reacted poorly. Not hostile. But definitely “I don’t want to talk to this nutjob.” My player then reminded me that, while her character is strange, other people are supposed to find the strangeness charming.

I’m not sure what to do. This PC is a stranger in town and she basically just accosted these people. I had the NPCs react the way that I thought they would naturally react to someone behaving like this.

What should I do? Should I just have NPCs find her antics charming, even if I don’t?

I suspect your player is aiming for what I think of as the “feral weirdo” or “hyper-kooky” archetype, often seen in anime. Examples off the top of my head include:

• Edward from Cowboy Bebop
• Mako from Kill la Kill
• Naruto from Naruto (particularly in the first couple arcs, then he socializes a bit)
• Anya from Spy x Family

Non-anime examples include Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter.

There’s a wide range to these characters and the types of stories they can exist in, but the less comical the tone, the more delicate the balance is.

Assuming that this is what your player is aiming for:

If you don’t think this is an archetype you can support at the table, then you need to have a frank discussion with the player. Try to avoid being judgmental. I don’t think this player did anything wrong by aiming for this archetype, but the tonal mismatch between what you’re running and the character they want to play is going to make for a frustrating experience.

If, understanding the archetype, you want to support the player, I think you’ll still need to have a frank discussion with them: Yes, there are people who will find the feral hyper-weirdo charming. But there will also be people (often lots of people) who don’t. Often even people who end up being the hyper-weirdo’s best friends will initially be, “WTF?”

This is a two-way contract: The player needs to make sure that their antics do, in fact, have a charming, whimsical quality to them. The player also needs to accept that not everyone will like them — Luna Lovegood has to interact with Draco Malfoy; Mako with Nanon and Nui; etc. On the other hand, you’ll be promising that there will be characters who DO accept them and find them charming. If you can’t do that, then circle back to, “I can’t support this archetype in this game.”

The more general tip here is, if you don’t understand a character concept or the actions that a player is taking in your game, it can be very useful to cut straight to the point and ask them what their goal is. Using analogies to characters from other mediums isn’t the only way to figure things out, but it can be a very effective way of quickly understanding what the player is aiming for and the types of responses and outcomes they expect their actions to have.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #1

This long scroll of human skin has been stitched into a moebius strip. It speaks of dark and blasphemous rites:

In the days before the Slumber, the One Who is of Many Doors came unto those who saw the truth of annihilation. And they who drank of the Truth of Blood reached through the Mouth of the Void and grasped the Worm of Which There is One and Many, and drew it forth from that place unto this. And in that birth-death of separation-completion, the arc of wisdom leapt.

These cultists – referred to as the Followers of the Forgotten Worm – would graft the worms taken from the Mouth of the Void onto themselves and others. “And those who were touched by wisdom were one with wisdom and one with the Mouth. Their hearts were as the hearts of demons.” The cult grew strong and the scroll speaks of a time when entire cities were “enthralled to wisdom”.

Then comes the time of “the Slumber”, after which it apparently became more difficult to gain access to the Mouth of the Void. Long passages are given over to the care and breeding of the Worms that remained, but these were apparently difficult or even impossible efforts. The power of the cult was broken and their cities were overthrown.

The cult apparently now exists in small sects, perhaps prospering among the jungle isles of the southern Teeth of Light. And although the Mouth has withdrawn from this plane of existence, contact with him does not seem wholly impossible: “As he is beyond time, beyond beginning, beyond ending – so like a fractured mirror which is yet whole can he be seen beyond the borders of the possible.” References are made to a rite referred to as the “Shadow Harbinging”, although the details are not to be found here.

So he serves as the stalking herald of the Shadow That Never Passes. And those who are touched by his wisdom are blessed by that which is seldom seen in the light of darkened  days.

The end of the scroll transitions from concerns of the present into vague prophecies of a dark and terrible future culminating in “the time of greatest congregation which shall become the communion of worlds”.

So shall it be when the corona of the obscured sun shall reveal the stars which are never seen. Such shall presage the end of all slumbers.

And then, through the twisting of the scroll, the end becomes the beginning and the “time of greatest congregation” becomes the “days before the Slumber” and the scroll begins again.

DESIGN NOTES

This cult worships Dhar Rhyth (Chaositech, p. 97). I’m fairly certain that I came up with the epithet Worm of the Void and the name Followers of the Forgotten Worm, and this is another example of a chaos cult not currently active in Ptolus. (Or, at least, not connected to Wuntad’s activities.)

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A great third-party Monster Manual for D20. Minions is a little pricy for its content, but the quality is high. Recommended.

Review Originally Published March 13th, 2002

CONTENT

Minions: The Fearsome Foes is a third-party monster manual from Bastion Press. It’s a softcover featuring full-color printing on glossy pages, and weighs in at 96 pages. It’s not entirely clear why the product is named Minions: There doesn’t seem to be any particular theme to the monsters found here. (In fact, the Puppetmaster is described as the “ultimate voice of evil in the multiverse” with the possible exception of “the deities themselves”… which would be the exact opposite of a minion in my book.)

GOOD STUFF

But whether the book is called Minions or Grandpa Fred’s Cookbook, it’s the content that matters, and that’s where Minions delivers: 92 monsters, including templates, are squeezed between the covers – and most of them are good. Very good. A few samples:

Amberjuron. An enigma of the forest. The amberjuron is indistinguishable from a snowy owl, save for the gleam of intelligence in its eye. Amberjurons live for a thousand years, and their insatiable curiousity and fascination leads them to acquire a wide range of rare knowledge and magic. They can serve as sources of information and rare items, but only if the PCs know how to approach them diplomatically.

Am-Ren. An am-ren is a demon which steals the names of its victims. Those who have their names stolen literally lose their identity.

Blessed Ring. A blessed ring is similar to the fairy rings of folklore: Simple rings of common toadstools found in the wilderness. With a twist: Those who lie within a blessed ring for five rounds will find themselves surrounded by an impenetrable dome. Those who are pure of heart may rest within the blessed ring for as long as they want, protected from threat by the powerful acidic attacks of the ring. Those who are evil, however, will be digested by the blessed ring.

Cacogen. Stealthy undead, crafted from the remains of lepers, hunchbacks, or other deformed humans. They are essentially undead assassins.

Ebant. A well-executed dark treant.

Hearth Horror. Why is the evil temple in the middle of the wilderness always being rebuilt? Possibly because the ruins have spawned a hearth horror: A powerful undead which compels its mortal servants into restoring its original form.

Mirror Fiend. A powerful golem which lives within (and can emerge from) a mirror. When it returns to its mirror it can regenerate from its wounds; but it can also be destroyed by destroying its mirror.

Quickener. A powerful CR 20 creature which absorbs every spell cast at it – enabling it to cast the same spells at its targets. Unpredictable, quick, and deadly, high-level characters will need to exercise their minds as well as their brawn if they expect to defeat a quickener.

Slather. A huge magical beast which disguises itself as the entrances to buildings, dungeons, etc. – swallowing any who pass through its “doors”.

Sync. I really like this race of humanoids. Syncs have featureless faces, but when they enter combat they slowly assume the features of their chosen target. As they do so they become more adept at adapting to their target’s tactics – they become faster, stronger, quicker. PCs who don’t destroy a sync quickly will rapidly find themselves completely outclassed. There is a quality of the doppleganger here, but the concept is very original and can serve to totally panic your PCs.

In general, Minions succeeds at giving you a wide range of high quality monsters. This isn’t just another rehash of concepts you’ve seen a thousand times before: There are some truly fresh, original ideas which will send you scrabbling to take notes for your next game session.

One particularly nice touch in Minions is the inclusion of a “Campaign” section with each monster entry. This entry gives you adventure seeds, campaign ideas, and other notes for incorporating the monster into your game in an effective, compelling fashion.

CRITIQUES

I think the first strike Minions has against it is the title: When I saw the book on the shelf of my local game store I assumed it was a generic NPC collection and passed it over with little more than a quick glance. This is compounded by the cover design, which seems to be place where Bastion Press has been consistently weak to date (although the forthcoming Oathbound looks like its going to completely reverse this trend).

In short, you’re likely to overlook or underestimate Minions at first glance. Don’t. This is a great product, which suffers from only a couple of flaws:

First, some of the creatures in Minions have been given rather cheesy names. For example, the cavernivore. What? Does it eat caverns? The cavernivore is actually a solid creature (just in need of a name change), but there are a couple of others that just left me scratching my head: The chortler, for example, is a hyena-like creature that attacks with a deadly cloud of dandruff.

That’s right. Dandruff.

Minions also features a few too many humanoids for my tastes. This is just my personal taste, though: There’s only so many “they’re just like goblins, but they have the head of a dog!” that I can squeeze into a campaign world before I begin feeling a little ridiculous. And even with my strong tastes in this matter, this is still little more than a quibble for me.

I would have also liked to see stronger art in Minions. I like being able to hold up a book like this, point to a picture, and say: “This is what you see.” There are less than a half dozen pictures in Minions that I would actually do that with. I do appreciate that every monster (with the exception of one) has a picture associated with it. And the illustrations do not actively detract from the book – they simply don’t add much to it.

CONCLUSION

The only reservation I have in recommending Minions is the price: $24.95 is a hard pill for me to swallow for a 96 page soft cover, even in full color. If this book was priced at $20, I wouldn’t hesitate to push you out the door on the way to the game store. At it is, you should give it a good solid ponder to make sure you have a good use for it before you pick it up. Things would probably be slightly different if the artwork were of a higher quality (which would help justify the full-color).

Nonetheless:

Minions gets the job done. There are a lot of really clever, compelling ideas here: Monsters that make you sit up and want to use them in a game. Monsters that will add freshness and variety to your campaign. Monsters that will send shivers of terror down the spines of your players (and their characters).

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Greg Dent (Lead Designer)
Publisher: Bastion Press, Inc.
Line: D20
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0-9714392-1-4
Product Code: BAS1000
Pages: 96

I got quite a bit of use out of Minions for a couple of years after writing this review, but then I took a short break from D&D and it fell out of the rotation.

A good monster manual, in my opinion, is one that you end up using at least a couple dozen monsters from. A great monster manual, on the other hand, is one that inspires you to create whole adventures. By that metric, Minions veers closer to greatness than not. Unfortunately for most people reading this, it’s never received an update for D&D 5E. (Fortunately for me, I still run D&D 3E campaigns.)

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

On the cover of this book, written in blood, is the symbol of a coil. On the first page is an oath:

“I pledge my body, soul, and purpose to the furtherance of chaos. We shall act as one. We shall breathe as one. We shall think as one. And in our crimson coils we shall choke out the death of those who would us bring death. We shall choke out the order which stifles life. We shall choke out the civilization which crushes liberty.”

The rest of the book teaches the ways of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Coil. The cult acts like a virus – their faces hidden; their identities submerged into the Coil itself. The members of the cult do not mix in normal society, preferring to remain cloistered in remote temples or hidden demesnes. The only time the cultists make an appearance is to carry out a Purging. During a Purging the cultists appear en masse to carry out some act of terrible destruction.

The cult chooses a target, seemingly at random, and then show up to burn down a building; set fire to a field; slaughter a family; or deface a monument. They are neither subtle nor gentle. They show neither mercy nor fear. Usually, their raids come so suddenly and unexpectedly that they meet little resistance. They usually appear in numbers so great, they simply cannot be stopped—a hundred cultists to burn down a single house, a dozen to murder a merchant  walking down the street. They disappear quickly, often using spells to cover their escape.

DESIGN NOTES

The Crimson Coil is actually a defunct chaos cult: They were destroyed many years ago by one of the Orders of Knighthood in Ptolus. So whereas the other chaos cult lorebooks are describing the current state of affairs, this one is delving into the history of the chaos cults: Where did they come from? What is their legacy?

There are, I suppose, many such cults that could be described. Unless they become relevant for the narrative, however, it generally only takes one or two such details the evoke the possibilities of this vast abyss.

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