Gidday folks, today Im designing a Blightsoul and I’ve gone pretty dark on it, maybe too dark. This terrifying chap is known as the Hungering Dark.
What is a Blightsoul?
They are a group of varied mini bosses found in various places in the Swamp of Souls, spreading terror and misery in unique ways. They will be set up so you can either use one as a short adventure - sort of a monster hunter type of thing with Roost acting as a hub for the monster hunters - or as random encounters as you push further in to the old swamp and unlock hexes as you explore and try unravel the whole mystery of what's going on in that twisted corrupted hell hole.
So how are these Blightsouls made?
Some one (Or something!) has been building them (roughly constructed from bone, stone and debris found in the swamp). The creator then takes a powerful spirit that the heavy misery of the swamp has captured, like a depressing numbing spiders web, and put it in a magical prison jar etched with runes of madness and torture. Over time this spirit is driven mad and becomes twisted and feral.
That soul jar is then fused into the Blightsouls constructed body and brings it to life, much like my totems, but instead of being willing souls looking to become part of the physical world, the Blightsouls are forced into life and driven into a frenzy through the dark runes of the soul jar.
Which brings us to the Hungering Dark who seems to hold a particular malice towards the Heran Folk and is the only Blightsoul that leaves the old swamp and hunts across the wetlands at night, looking to ambush fisher folk that have ventured too far.
The Hungering Dark hunts only at night, often playing with its prey, stalking them in the dark while letting the tortured souls of Heran Folk it has captured plead for their release. It seems to take great delight in tormenting those it hunts with the pain of its victims.
This is because this Blightsoul is driven by the tortured and twisted soul of Whispering Winds sister, driven mad by the corrupting swamp. The two sisters always had an underlying sibling rivalry, and this has been intensified by the madness of tortured soul, who wants to dominate Whispering Wind and break her like she has been broken.
So it hunts monks, destroying many of of Whispering Winds students and holding their souls in its shadowy embrace. Worse, when the party sees the thing up front they will realize that the spear heads, and the fused teeth are in fact Heran Folk skulls. And now the task of defeating takes on a personal tone, not only to stop its reign of terror, but free the poor souls it has captured, and finally return the soul of Winds sister back to her and the monastery, for the long rehab process the monks provide.
Game mechanic wise, this Blightsoul is going to be very fast, zipping around the battlefield like a flying snake, dealing big hits with a vicious bite and unleashing legendary actions with releasing volleys of deadly spears, those close to it will also have to battle the soul sucking necromancy of its shadowy embrace. Its also going to vanish into the bordering areas of darkness and re-emerge, hitting the party at all sorts of dangerous angles, those squishy casters better be well protected!
So that's an introduction to the first of the Blightsouls called The Hungering Dark, you’ll also see I'm working on another, each designed to provide unique challenges to the party and deepen the story of the swamp.
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