Meadhall of the Comitatus

Taint, the poster boy for TPK Disease (Total Party Killed)

Writing: Robin D. Laws, Teeuwynn Woodruff (a veteran RPG writer and a name not easily forgotten), Greg Gorden, Sam Witt, Allen Varney, Chris McCubbin, Caroline Spector, Fraser Cain

Additional Writing: Louis J. Prosperi, Rob Cruz, Diane Piron-Gelman, Andrew Raglan, Rich Warren (whew!)

“Furthermore, the tome itself we heavily warded. Even so, several individuals disappeared and two young persons died during the making of this book, for no apparent reason. It is always dangerous to dwell overlong on thoughts of the Horrors, for they appear able to sense attention directed at them. It is also highly inadvisable to speak a Horror’s name aloud, as the chance of attracting the creature’s attention grows much greater with every utterance.” –Adesian Skoln, nethermancer adept

“Foolish Name-Givers! Did the terror of the Scourge teach you nothing of the dangers of the Horrors?…I must tell you frankly that you have all committed an act of sheer idiocy. A work such as this one, dedicated to unearthing knowledge about the Horrors that should best remain buried, should never have been compiled. To study the Horrors is to grant them entry to your minds and hearts, to lead them to the very core of your beings.” –Vasdenjas (a dragon), Master of the Secrets

Hating player characters as much as I do, I was in search of a RPG supplement in case I ever actually got a game of my own going. I seemed to remember a particular title in the Earthdawn RPG as being particularly hateful and punishing, and soon found myself buying it for $30 on Amazon. Now an entire fantasy world pays the price. Horrors, an Earthdawn Sourcebook (FASA Corporation, 1995), just happens to be the scariest RPG book I’ve ever read, and is chock full of loathsome flavor as well as terrifying monsters. Having bought it for use in a projected d20 Modern survival horror game, I definitely recommend this little grimoire to discerning DMs and all horror afficionados.

Premise: 5/5

Horrors was designed as a major supplement to its mother campaign, FASA’s Earthdawn, so it’s naturally a great tie-in to the latter’s setting and often grim themes. However lethal the game you’re playing in at the moment may be, I want you to picture a realm so unforgiving that its entire population was forced to hide underground in massive shelters (called kaers) for 400 years during a period called the Scourge. What caused this puss-out of epic proportions? A legion of monsters from the Astral Plane visit the world every few eons, when the ever-shifting magic level is high enough for them to survive in the world your characters know…these demons are known as the Horrors. Nightmare incarnate, the Horrors appear in wide diversity but share one defining trait: they feed on pain, fear, corruption, and mortal lives. The wards and seals of the kaers strained to keep them out as they ravaged the land above, physically and spiritually despoiling much of the surface world. Many Name-givers (the fantasy races, who give reality and power to the world by Naming its creatures and objects) were slain or worse as the Horrors began breaching the shelters, but in time the magic levels waned from their apex and the world could no longer support the Horrors, who vanished in their hordes. As the Name-Givers of Barsaive (the adventuring realm) braved the surface for the first time in four centuries, they began to realize the extent of the damage the Horrors had done, as well as the unsettling fact that some of them had remained…

As you can imagine, Horrors is largely focused on its description of individual (“Named”) major Horrors, 15 to be exact, providing a generous amount of introductory narrative excerpts, campaign notes, and statblocks on each. Every single one of them poses a dire threat to Barsaive, and as a rule, only the most experienced parties stand a chance of even surviving an encounter with a Named Horror. And that’s as it should be, because these things are just dripping with dark magics, frightening abilities, and pointy teeth. The proof is in the link, this one quoting from the entry describing “Chantrel’s Horror”: http://www.arcallis.speedycheetah.com/text/chantrel.html. I’ll wait.

In fact, the Horrors are so goddamned evil and perfectly malefic that I was compelled to compare them to the heretofore evillest motherfuckers in any fantasy material ever. The results:

• The Cenobites (Hellraiser): These guys usually top any such list as they are complete rotters, but their danger is essentially passive, waiting for the damned to genuflect before them, only THEN dragging them into Hell. They show a connoisseur’s appreciation for suffering, but can’t be said to feed on it. The feeding is key–Horrors are both dealer and junkie for that sweet sweet evil.
• The Dark Eldar (Warhammer 40,000): A more depraved race of hellions cannot be imagined; pirates and marauders all, these dark elves have turned to demon-worship and soul-devouring just to sustain their own doomed, wretched existences. However, they’re still mortal, and fall under their own blades just as often as not, while all along their god Slaanesh drains their lives bit by bit. In the end, servants of Darkness, not Darkness itself, even if you can’t live on the difference.
• The Slarecians (The Scarred Lands RPG, Sword&Sorcery Studios): An eldritch race as cryptic as it is menacing, the Slarecians were on the verge of ruling their world right up until the gods and titans had to band together to virtually exterminate them. Their faintest remnant still terrifies and baffles any party dungeon-diving deep enough. Cthonically badass as they are, though, they’ve got that giant “L” on their foreheads while the Horrors still prey on Name-Givers everywhere.
• Fu Schnickens: I dunno, he’s furry and scary and all, and we haven’t kicked him out of our Meadhall yet, but Fu doesn’t really dominate the vagina like Horrors do.
• D&D Fiends: Bitch PLEASE.
• The Legions of Chaos (Warhammer 40k again): Yeah, Chaos rocks Evil about as hard as they can, but they need the pure cheesy grace of the four Chaos Gods to maintain. There’ve been 13 Black Crusades against the good guys, too, and Chaos has yet to whizz all over the holy bastions of Terra. A scrub is a brotha don’t get no love from Evil.

So yeah, the Horrors really are the best of the worst.