Amazing Adventures is a d20 game of modern adventure. Amazing Adventures uses familiar old school rules but keeps the roll high vision of later editions. This month continues building a 1930s world of player characters armed with guns and fists facing off against the cultists and monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos. Basic foes are covered including the Byakhee and Mi-Go and their ongoing interstellar war that has come to Earth. Each alien race has a terrifying plan to enslave humans and only the PCs can stop them.
Alien War on Earth
The Mi-Go serve Yog-Sothoth and oppose Hastur and his servants, the Byakhee. These two alien races fight throughout the solar system and on Earth. For a more Yog-Sothohry feel, the aliens can be replaced in the adventure Day of the Worm from the module Shadows of the Red God. The grays become the Byakhee, and the people of the worm become Mi-Go.
These two races fight over a Gate (the artifact described in the adventure) that can be pointed toward either Yuggoth (home to the Mi-Go) or Shaggai (a base used by the Byakhee) and opened, allowing either alien race to send an army to Earth along with alien technology too big to easily fly through space. This alien tech in particular can terraform Earth into something more pleasing to the conquering aliens. The Mi-Go would keep some human brains around for study and other humans for medical experiments if they win. The Byakhee, if victorious, would use some captured humans to record their reactions and likely demise as they are starflown to various hellish planets hidden in the dark corners of the cosmos.
Of course, this plan by either alien race is likely to be opposed by the PCs.
BYAKHEE
NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1d8
SANITY: 1/1d8
SIZE: Large
SAVES: P
HD: 4d8 (18 hp)
INT: High
MOVE: 20 ft. (fly 60 ft. and starflight; special, see below)
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
AC: 16
TYPE: Monstrous Humanoid
ATTACKS: 2 Claws (2d4 each; see Rend below) and 1 Bite (1d6), Shaggai nerve whip (1d10; special, see below)
XP: 80+18
SPECIAL: Carafe of Space Mead, Rend, Shaggai Nerve Whip, Starflight
They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membranous wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the cowled figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one along the reaches of that unlighted river, into pits and galleries of panic where poison springs feed frightful and undiscoverable cataracts.”
– Description of Byakhee by Lovecraft
CARAFE OF SPACE MEAD: Some Byakhee carry this drink and the brewing recipe can be found in occult books. If drunk on a planet, the drinker can summon a Byakhee with a simple occult phrase to carry them into space if a deal can be struck. After drinking, if the drinker enters the vacuum of space (by being carried by a Byakhee for example) the drinker enters a stupor while in space and does not require additional protection from the vacuum of space.
REND: If both claw attacks hit, rend for an additional 2d4 damage and a missed bite attack counts as a hit instead.
SHAGGAI NERVE WHIP: 20’ line, Constitution save or paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.
STARFLIGHT: Byakhee can fly through space without protective gear. It takes at least a day of starflight to move from one planet to another and at least a week of starflight to move between solar systems.
MI-GO
NO. ENCOUNTERED: 1d12
SANITY: 1/1d8
SIZE: Medium
SAVES: M
HD: 2d10 (11 hp)
INT: High
MOVE: 20 ft. (fly 40 ft. and starflight; special, see below)
ALIGNMENT: Neutral Evil
AC: 16 (living armor)
TYPE: Monstrous Plant (Fungus)
ATTACKS: 2 Nippers (1d6 each), Ice Projector (3d6; special, see below), Lightning Gun (3d6; special, see below), Stunner Weapon (1d10; special, see below)
XP: 30+11
SPECIAL: Disguise, Ice Projector, Lightning Gun, Starflight, Surgery
They were pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membranous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would ordinarily be…. As it was, nearly all the rumors had several points in common; averring that the creatures were a sort of huge, light-red crab with many pairs of legs and with two great bat-like wings in the middle of their back…”
– Lovecraft describing the Mi-Go
COMBAT: The Mi-Go can slash with nippers usually used for surgery. Most also go armed with ice projectors or lightning guns for a more effective attack and fungal living armor for defense. When seeking patients for brain removal surgery, Mi-Go employ Stunner Weapons.
DISGUISE: Mi-Go can enter and take over a human in 2d4 rounds once the brain has been removed using Surgery. While physically the body is the same, the Mi-Go has to attempt to mimic the person taken so the more time it can spend studying the host brain the better the disguise.
ICE PROJECTOR: 60’ cone, Constitution save for half damage.
LIGHTNING GUN: 120’ line, Dexterity save for half damage.
STARFLIGHT: Mi-Go can fly through space without protective gear. It takes at least a year of starflight to move from one planet to another and at least a decade of starflight to move between solar systems.
STUNNER WEAPON: 20’ line, Constitution save or paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.
SURGERY: Mi-Go can remove the brains of humans in 1d4 rounds and place them in a Brain Cylinder for eternal study. The human has to be restrained, paralyzed, or unconscious for the surgery to take place.
Further Alien Visitations
These aliens can be the main villains in Shadows of the Red God. But even if the PCs stop either alien race from opening the Gate, the creatures will continue to visit Earth and bring horror and insanity in their wake. Truly crazy PCs may start hatching plans to try to strike back against either or both races of alien in future adventures….
Picture credit: Pixabay
