Qlippoth

Cosmic Horrors. Qlippoth is a generic term for nightmarish aberrations of extraterrestrial origin. Such creatures come from dark places between the stars, worlds contaminated by alien influence, and far-flung realities beyond the known planes. Most of the bizarre stuff associated with the Cthulhu Mythos falls under this category. Due to their innate wrongness, it is proper to use the rules for sanity loss and madness liberally when introducing Qlippothic creatures as foes. 

Psionics. Most Qlippoth possess psychic powers. Those with civilization often develop sophisticated psionic technologies on par with humanoid magic, and bizarre bio-organic artifacts powered by mental energy. Telepathic Qlippoth also commonly possess powers of domination or mesmerism, making them highly frightening to humanoids. 

The Unknown. A dominant theme of most Qlippoth is that they represent fear of the unknown. Qlippoth do not fit into the natural world, and the distant realms they hail from are nightmarish places where the laws of nature are different. When narrating aberrations, it is important to avoid normalizing them. Focus instead on their alien appearance, behavior, and intelligence. 

Alien Biospheres. The blood of Qlippothic creatures is rife with alien spores, fungi, and parasites. When such a creature establishes a lair or hunts an area for too long bizarre insects appear, healthy plants fall prey to alien parasites, grasses become tentacle-like, slimy bulbs release ectoplasmic spores, and so forth. Druids are particularly hostile to Qlippothic creatures for this reason. When alien life begins to infect the world, druidic circles usually rally to purge the corruption with fire. 

Old Ones. Many Qlippothic species were created by alien divine beings to act as servitor races. These bizarre deities are collectively known as Old Ones. One duty of the gods is to prevent the Old Ones and their minions from encroaching upon civilizations under their patronage. Qlippothic creatures, in turn, consider these deities and their servants bitter enemies. 

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Aboleth. These androgynous amphibians are massive and fish-like, with four long tentacles and three ovular eyes. An average specimen measures 25 feet long and weighs nearly four tons. The tentacles and tail flukes of an Aboleth are potent reach weapons, and they are clumsy on land but fast and graceful in the water. All aboleth exude a cloud of mucus underwater, and if this mucus touches the airway of a terrestrial creature it gains the amphibious trait and the ability to breathe both air and water for one day. After this period the mucus must be reapplied, or the creature reverts to normal. Aboleth commonly use their mucus to keep air-breathing slaves in their underwater lairs. 

The aboleth are powerfully telepathic and possess the innate ability to dominate or induce hallucinations in nearby minds. They also have the psychic ability to physically enter the astral plane, using that realm as a medium to travel between the oceans of distant worlds. Within the astral sea an aboleth “swims” through the void like a fish in water, and “schools” of these immense shark-like creatures are a dire threat to astral travelers. Aboleth are nauseated by sunlight and build cyclopean cities in deep oceans and underground bodies of water, where they are served by thousands of slaves. 

Byakhee. These winged monsters look like a cross between a humanoid, a vulture, and an insect, with a chitinous exoskeleton and a curved beak and claws. Their limbs are stretched and thin but very tough, giving them a stork-like appearance. The average specimen is 7 feet tall and weighs around 200 lbs. All Byakhee possess a psychic ability known as probability travel, which allows them to move through the void of outer space without harm and travel between distant planets in a matter of months. They are nomadic hunters who will enter a region, devour all local prey for several weeks, and then move on. During this time the creatures lurk in dark hollows by day, hanging upside down from the ceiling like bats. When killing prey or establishing a roost, Byakhee always scratch the symbol of their creator god onto nearby surfaces. This glyph is known as the Yellow Sign. 

Within mystic circles, it is known that the Byakhee were once humanoids from a distant planet. These people were cursed by an evil alien deity who transformed them into a bloodthirsty servitor race, and speaking the deity's forbidden name aloud runs the risk of attracting a flock of Byakhee to slay the speaker. In dark occult circles, rituals exist to summon and bind Byakhee to serve as minions in exchange for 17 blood sacrifices offered up to their foul creator. Once bound, a Byakhee loyally serves its summoner for life. Some organizations have standing orders to kill any magician caught with a Byakhee minion because, in addition to the illegality of blood sacrifice, it is thought that keeping such a servant runs the risk of drawing its creator's attention. 

Dark Young. These massive horrors look like towering trees made of braided tentacles, with a large fleshy root bulb at the base covered in fanged maws and 3-5 hairy goat-like legs. The average specimen is 30 feet tall and weighs around 6-8 tons. All Dark Young exude an aura of fertility which causes local plant and animal life to mutate and grow large over days. The presence of such an alien also gives rise to chimeric monsters. Dark Young exudes a powerful otherworldly pheromone that can daze, disable, or induce powerful procreative impulses in breathing creatures within range. 

Dark Young are created by a protean fertility deity that embodies chaos, mutation, and wild growth known as Shub-Niggurath. In addition to its formidable size and bizarre aura, a Dark Young that consumes enough meat will spontaneously give “birth” to perfect clone copies of other creatures it has consumed in the past. These duplicates burst out of pustules that form on the creature’s trunk with 10-60% of the original victim’s memories, waking after the monster's departure with no memory of their true nature. Dark Spawnlings are in no way loyal to their original creator, but other Dark Young will ignore them unless attacked by them first. Because Dark Young appear on worlds randomly according to a primordial divine will, it is possible for these monsters to “seed” distant places with bizarre creatures or cloned copies of long-devoured people. Sentient clones that discover their true origins risk sanity loss. 

Worshippers of Shub-Niggurath can summon a Dark Young with blood sacrifice when the stars are in the correct alignment. Despite the horror and madness such a creature brings, its presence can restore health and fertility to blighted land. Groups of Dark Young sometimes also appear in dark primordial forests spontaneously, causing an explosion of horrific and dangerous life. Due to the sheer size and power of even a single Dark Young, the appearance of several such creatures in a populated region is an apocalyptic event. 

Destrachan. These bipedal reptilian creatures have powerful hind legs and forelimbs with sharp claws. The average specimen is 10 feet long and weighs two tons. Their eyeless heads are covered in bony plates, with a tubular fang-filled maw and sensitive membranous frills that detect vibrations and sound. Destrachans hunt in small packs, and they are blind. Their powerful legs allow them to leap great distances. They are also sadistic predators that hunt for pleasure as much as food. The creature's main weapon is an ultrasonic moan that can mimic the sounds of other creatures, deafen, stun, cause pain, induce vertigo, or deal damage based on the pitch the creature uses. 

A Destrachan uses sonar and echolocation to sense its surroundings, emitting shrieks and clicking sounds to communicate with its packmates. The sonar of a Destrachan is so powerful that the creature can map its surroundings out to extreme distances, much like a bat. This sonar is blocked by doors and other solid enclosures, but it extends through openings and allows the creature to perceive the local terrain out to a quarter-mile range. It is also extremely difficult to hide from a Destrachan because the creature can hear heartbeats. 

Destrachans were dreamed into being by a nameless elder god that takes the form of a vermillion star. This entity causes clutches of eggs to appear in cave complexes on remote worlds, almost as though placed there by some hidden foe. Destrachans are intelligent enough to hatch plans and think tactically, and possess an innate understanding of language. Despite their innate sadism, some learn to communicate and form alliances that allow them to hunt and kill other sentient creatures. 

Dimensional Shambler. These hulking gorilla-like omnivores are far more agile than their misshapen appearance suggests. The average specimen stands 8 feet tall and weighs roughly five hundred pounds, with a large fang-filled maw, 7-13 eyes, and massive forearms with clawed fingers. Dimensional shamblers are renowned for their psychic powers of dimensional movement. They can teleport any distance at will and/or move between planes roughly once per hour. The creature also possesses innate truesight, which it uses to navigate the many dangers of the universe. In addition to a craving for meat and fungal matter, the dimensional shambler is a thaumavore. The monster's bite drains mystical energy from its prey, and it prefers to attack targets with supernatural auras. 

These monsters may be found on any world or plane of existence, but because of their tremendous range they are rarely encountered by mortals. They sometimes develop a peculiar obsession with creatures or places, staying to watch over them harmlessly for days or weeks at a time before vanishing off to some distant realm. Other times they stalk and kill lone travelers or small groups for food. Shamblers enjoy eating sentient humanoids and are known to act with malice when attacking them. These creatures hunt alone or in small gangs of 2-5 individuals.

In mystic circles there is a prevailing theory that the race of dimensional shamblers was dreamed into being to act as living extensions of some distant imprisoned alien entity, and that this being can perceive the cosmos through their senses. Although they possess bestial cunning dimensional shamblers refuse to communicate with other creatures, even telepathically. It is unknown if or how they reproduce. 

Flying Polyp. These alien horrors resemble long snake-like masses of twisted fungal flesh and tentacles, covered with cancerous growths, bulging eyes, and fanged maws. The average specimen is approximately 30-40 feet long and weighs around a ton. Composed of both spirit and matter, portions of their bodies fade in and out of existence continuously as they levitate through the air. They hold incredible influence over elemental air and can create wind vortexes to damage foes or manipulate the world around them.

These monsters are hive-dwelling creatures with a culture too alien to comprehend. They form colonies in extremely remote environments with strong winds, and left to their own devices they build towering cities of featureless stone. These creatures have no discernable language, commerce, or hierarchy, and their chief ambition is to commit genocide against other races. They use their powers to travel to other worlds and purge all other sentient species they encounter.

Flying Polyps reproduce by constructing pits filled with fungal ooze and spiritual proto matter. These pits act as alien compost heaps, fed with the corpses of dead creatures. New flying polyps are born from these pits periodically. Despite their immense power, flying polyps reproduce slowly and take many years to germinate before they awaken. When their numbers grow large enough they sally forth to attack other races, but centuries can pass between such attacks. 

Formless Spawn. These amorphous protean creatures resemble large puddles of viscous black acidic tar. They are constantly in a state of flux and can take temporary forms such as tentacles, limbs, or fanged mouths to attack their victims in every conceivable way. They can also pass through tiny spaces and create bizarre sounds to communicate, though they do not speak any mortal language. Because they are amorphous, formless spawns are very hard to destroy. In combat formless spawns transform into violently flailing masses of tentacles and fanged mouths, or envelop creatures and attempt to dissolve them with acidic secretions. This elongated reach allows the creature to make any number of opportunity attacks against opponents that come within its reach. 

Formless spawns are all created the same way: they are regurgitated by a lazy toadlike alien god named Tsathoggua which slumbers in a deep chasm in a far distant dimension. Occasionally the spawns venture into other realms using their psionic ability to shadow-walk or are summoned and bound by magicians to serve as minions. The ritual to conjure and gain the services of a formless spawn requires a variable number of blood sacrifices, offered up to Tsathoggua. 

Moonbeast. These hulking gorilla-like creatures are a plague upon the universe. They have rubbery pallid skin, frog-like legs, powerful arms with clawed fingers, and cuttlefish-like heads devoid of eyes. They are also powerfully psychic and can telepathically enslave sentient creatures. Moonbeasts maraud the universe in flying Black Galleys that can traverse the astral plane. They get their name for their custom of establishing cult citadels of porous coral-like stone on the moons of the planets they raid, protecting these fortresses from lethal void exposure with powerful alien magic. 

Throughout several millennia the Moonbeasts have subjugated and bred numerous thrall races, psychically enslaving and experimenting on captives with dark occult science. The Moonbeast armada comprises an unknown number of Black Galleys used for both commerce and warfare. When they do decide to trade with terrestrial cultures, Moonbeasts send their thralls in to act as intermediaries and offer rubies in return for slaves and gold. While some slaves are used for labor, most are offered up as blood sacrifices to their foul creator deity Nyarlathotep. It is said that without these blood sacrifices, the moonbeasts cannot breed and will suffer ill fortune as a sign of their deity’s favor. 

Moonbeasts are capable of telepathic communication but do not speak to “lesser creatures” except to give orders unless it is truly necessary. The mind-voice of a moonbeast is always deep, sonorous, condescending, and evil. The physical difference between genders is mainly a matter of coloration, though the mind-voice of each moonbeast is also discernably masculine or feminine. Due to their natural ability to psychically dominate other creatures, moonbeasts view themselves as masters of all they survey. They find “mortals” with the power to stand up to them intriguing, and often go on hunts to acquire powerful mindslaves for the dangerous challenge it presents. 

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Render. These solitary bear-like predators have gray leathery skin and dense muscles and bones which make them strong as giants. Like bears they travel on four legs, rearing up on their hindquarters to attack. Their heads have six eyes and massive bony jaws filled with sharp teeth, and their beetle-black claws are immense. They have keen smell and eyesight but poor hearing, and track their prey like bloodhounds. 

All renders reproduce asexually, burying clutches of 1d3 stony eggs that resemble geodes until they hatch. For unknown reasons, renders sometimes imprint upon communities of people or herd animals and become their devoted protectors. An imprinted render always stays within a mile of its charge(s) and fights to defend them from aggression, bringing offerings of meat irregularly like a cat. The render will never harm its charge(s) and flees if they attack it, returning later. Despite their terrifying appearance and lethality, renders do not act out of malice and only attack others for food or to protect their imprinted charges.

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Tindalhound. These four legged pack predators are leathery and smooth, with glossy skin like dark-gray pearl. Each has a multitude of tentacles protruding from its back, and their eyeless boneless heads are split by a huge tripartite maw opening into a flesh-flower filled with hundreds of teeth. A prehensile tongue emerges from the creature’s throat to grab and drag prey into its maw, and it has a long whip-like tail covered in small barbs. Tindalhounds exist in a bizarre dimensional medium incomprehensible to mortals, traveling through the angles of space and time. This allows them to teleport to and emerge from physical surfaces enclosed by angles less than 120 degrees (such as a room with four walls).

Tindalhounds are infamous in mystic circles because they can sense the distortions created by dimensional movement, and relentlessly hunt such creatures. The chances of being detected are based on two variables: the distance traveled, and the age of the traveler. The longer a traveler’s personal timeline becomes, the easier it is to detect. Although few mystics have survived an encounter with one, there are plentiful drawings and descriptions. Arcane circles are filled with cautionary tales about practitioners who teleported vast distances too often, using magic to circumvent interaction with the real world until one day they simply vanish. 

Because they move through the angles of time, being hunted by a pack of Tindalhounds causes a target to suddenly “remember” a few past occasions when they felt uneasy or heard unseen creatures stalking them. This harrassment begins in the target’s youth, slowly becoming more and more current until the hounds “catch up” to the target in the present. This is not a hallucination: the Tindalhounds actually insert themselves into a victim's personal history. Because they cannot act until they catch up to their target in the present, it is impossible to affect them historically. Creatures that have frequent contact with the target may remember these occasions, creating a lifetime marred by visits from unseen predators that lurk but never strike. Tindalhounds are nauseated by sunlight and prefer to attack at night when a target is alone or sleeping. Given their method of travel, this often means coming out from under the bed. It is well-known in occult communities that Tindalhounds are physically deadly and extremely magic resistant, so every magician who has ever managed to survive did so by keeping powerful warriors as bodyguards to fight the creatures when they appear.

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Yrthak. These flying horrors look like eyeless pterodactyls with tough green skin and barbs of tough cartilage. The average creature is about 20 feet long and weighs nearly a ton, with a wingspan exceeding 40 feet. Its maw is filled with sharp yellow teeth, and it has a twisting horn of mottled bone protruding from a bony plate above its beak where its eyes should be. Yrthaks have powerful sonar and radar, allowing them to perceive and canvas their surroundings out to a range of about 500 meters. They hunt by projecting powerful lances of sonic energy from their horns, rupturing flesh and shattering solid matter (including wood or stone) with explosive force. 

Despite their bestial appearance, Yrthaks are intelligent and malicious. They are omnivores that typically eat tree bark, but prefer the taste of meat. They have basic human problem solving ability and can learn to understand language with surprising proficiency. By manipulating the sonic vibrations of its horn, a Yrthak can create screeching “speech” to communicate. Evil mystics sometimes persuade Yrthaks to serve as flying mounts in return for regular victims.