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A Qliphothic Bestiary

bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
Quite a bit of discussion has been held on these forums as to how the depiction of the Qliphoth in Champions Online -- as being essentially the Champions Universe equivalent to Hell, and its natives as being like popular fictional demons -- is not true to how these elements "really" are in books for the Champions tabletop game, the inspiration for the MMO. I have no intention or desire to start that discussion again here. ;)

I'm a believer in "don't say if you can show," so I decided to illustrate Qliphothic lore in a form players of adventure games seem to find among the most interesting and useful: a selection of unique and colorful opponents to fight. They can be worked into stories and background histories in a variety of ways, as will be illustrated later on this thread. And who knows, perhaps one of the CO developers will read about them, and be inspired. :)

Various Champions source books have presented a fair-sized variety of denizens of the Qliphoth. They bear only a passing resemblance to what's been shown in CO to date. Rather than resembling demons from any real-world mythology or folklore, Qliphothics are strongly inspired by the horror and fantasy fiction of renowned pulp-era author H.P. Lovecraft, creator of Cthulhu and its hideous kin; as Champions PnP writers readily acknowledge. They offer a different experience from more familiar, myth-based supernatural foes.

Following are descriptions of a score of horrors which either hale from various Qliphothic universes, or were warped by contact with those universes. The list doesn't include unique, godlike monsters such as the Kings of Edom, unless a particular type of creature is closely identified with one; nor any of the individual humans who have been altered by the touch of Qliphothic forces. Those could support discussion threads of their own.

The creature entries were culled from several Champions PnP source books. For the most part I avoid referring to beasties which have appeared in Champions Online, because most CO players will be familiar with them by now, and because of the depiction issues previously noted. The main in-print source for Qliphothic creatures -- with detailed descriptions, Fifth Edition Hero System character sheets, and illustrations -- is Arcane Adversaries, by Dean Shomshak. Dean created much of the magic cosmology for the Champions Universe, including the Qliphoth. Most of the current material was transcribed verbatim from two earlier (Fourth Edition) Champions books by Dean, The Ultimate Super Mage and The Super Mage Bestiary. Those books offered an even wider selection of monsters from the Qliphoth, and since the lore from the two editions matches so closely, I feel justified in adding the descriptions of the ones which weren't reprinted. Other creatures were taken from the Hero System Bestiary; from Tatterdemalion Terrors which describes monsters associated with that particular dimension of the Qliphoth; from Book Of The Empress which deals with other dimensions in the CU "multiverse"; and from a book for the sci-fi future of the official Champions Universe timeline, Scourges Of The Galaxy.

Let me quickly outline salient features of Qliphothics in general, before launching into specific monsters. The Qliphothic planes are the dimensions of negative energy. Some of these deathly, decrepit dimensions have brought forth their own weird forms of anti-life and anti-spirit. Qliphothic creatures are entirely inimical; they are entropy incarnate. When a Qliphothic creature enters a normal cosmos, it disrupts its surroundings as it feeds on positive energy; and the more it feeds, the hungrier it gets. Some Qliphothic entities live by destroying matter or energy. Some feed on magic. Some affect space-time itself. Qliphothics are not even made of matter in any normal sense, although some varieties can wrap themselves in warped, transmuted matter, producing perverse mockeries of life.

These beings aren't evil in the manner of demons of human imagination, which represent human concepts of evil; they're totally alien in mentality. They share little in the way of recognizable motivations with humans, aside from hunger, the instinct to survive, and the desire to dominate. Humans can communicate with them only on the most basic level. (Speechifying "avatars" of the Kings of Edom, such as we see in Champions Online, don't really fit with the lore.) Some beings who commune telepathically with them believe they receive instinctive, intuitive impressions of what they want. (As their sanity is affected by such contact, the accuracy of their perceptions is suspect.) Sometimes the more powerful and intelligent Qliphothics communicate through metaphorical dreams and visions.

All of these creatures are deeply disturbing and terrifying for beings from "positive" universes to behold. It's not just that they're grotesque and horrible by our standards; there's a profound unnaturalness about them that affects people on an instinctual level.

While some of the Kings of Edom have slave creatures specifically devoted to them, other Qliphothic monsters serve all the Kings generally. These are referred to collectively as Edomites. But many inhabitants of the Qliphoth appear to be free-willed, or may choose to follow other masters.

Traditionally Qliphothic monsters have appeared in "positive" universes through magical means, either deliberately summoned by spell-casters, or when a spell has gone awry and opened a rift to the Qliphoth. Luther Black, the founder and leader of DEMON, long promoted the tearing of dimensional barriers, allowing forces and things from the Qliphoth to leak into Champions Earth, in order to corrupt it in support of his apotheosis ritual.

But in the technological era, other forces which violently twist the fabric of reality -- particle accelerators, malfunctioning warp drives, sophisticated computer programs, even the thoughts of brilliant mathematicians -- may bridge the gap between dimensions, briefly or persistently; or simply attract the attention of Qliphothics who can travel the planes on their own.
Post edited by bulgarex on

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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2022
    Angler: Anglers are one of the strangest servants of the Kings of Edom. They appear as tangles of zigzagging, shimmering lines extending in more than three dimensions. They are completely colorless. At any given moment, an angler will have 3-6 “legs” of interlacing, crooked lines extending from its body. This is the closest they have to recognizable limbs or organs. Unlike most Edomites, the Anglers are not grotesquely hideous — just incomprehensible.

    Although anglers fill a volume of space equal to a man or large dog, their open structure makes them very hard to hit and almost massless. An angler’s one-dimensional body cuts through anything made of matter, sliding between the very atoms.

    Anglers can walk on any flat or angled surface regardless of gravity, but cannot cross a curved line or surface. If an angler stands at an angled surface (such as the corner of a room) it can instantly travel to any other angle within 30 meters. The angler seems to stretch out like lazy-tongs and re-compress at the other angle in a split second. Finally, anglers can move between dimensions: they can go to any dimension in which anglers already exist. If one does not destroy or exorcise an angler quickly, other anglers may appear on their own.


    Brain Beast: A cunning predator with psionic abilities, the brain beast resembles a massive grey bulldog whose head has been replaced with a huge human brain. This "brain" opens vertically to reveal a mouth filled with razor-sharp, needle-like black teeth. Though it lacks any visible sensory apparatus, a brain beast can see, hear, and smell using alien senses beyond science's comprehension.

    When not actively moving from one place to another, a brain beast clings to a wall or ceiling using its long, black claws. It then merges into the substance it's adhering to, becoming effectively invisible as long as it doesn't move. An incredibly patient hunter, it can remain motionless for weeks at a time while it waits for prey.

    When a target finally presents itself, the brain beast unleashes a powerful "cerebral stun" that usually leaves its victim unconscious, or at least dazed and unable to move quickly. It then pounces with incredible accuracy, knocking its prey to the ground where it can rend and devour its flesh at leisure.


    Carrionite: Carrionites are semi-undead, roughly humanoid creatures whose appearance is something of a “patchwork”; a strange, mystical melding of a living being and an undead being whose form possesses attributes of both but is never entirely fixed. Their melding of living and unliving flesh frequently shifts, changing the creature’s size, rough shape, color, and other attributes. A carrionite’s unusual body also makes it difficult to hurt, allows it to heal with great speed, and lets it walk on walls by molding its flesh to the surface.

    A carrionite looks something like a hairless, paleskinned, sharp-toothed humanoid — most of the time. Its body frequently shifts shape in disturbing ways, making it taller, shorter, huskier, longer-limbed, differently colored, or the like. Most disturbingly, it grows and then loses various natural weapons such as fangs, claws, horns, and spikes on its body. Just looking at one is enough to make most humans faintly nauseated.


    Claynull: The claynull is one of the more powerful and dangerous Qliphothic monsters. Its touch drains away the energies which hold matter together. That is how it feeds. Anything it touches is reduced to a heavy, frictionless fluid—the atoms have lost their ability to combine in molecules or interact with anything else. It isn’t even really matter in the normal sense anymore.

    While a claynull can feed off any matter, it is especially attracted to energy rich forms such as radioactives, explosives and corrosive chemicals. This may include superbeings with energy manipulation powers. It will pursue such matter even into harmful situations, although it will then try to grab the matter and retreat to safety as it eats.

    This creature is nothing but a big flowing blob of clear, pale silvery ooze, with no internal structure. Actually, the creature itself is invisible, but it's covered with a very thin layer of transmuted air. It forms pseudopods with which to attack. Anything touched by it starts dissolving. The claynull is highly resistant to nearly all forms of damage and wounds seal up almost instantly.


    Darque: Darques are strange creatures from the Qliphothic plane called The Shining Darkness. (CO lore often refers to all the Qliphoth by this name, but it properly belongs only to one cosmos among the Qliphothic universes.) They appear as large knots of shimmering black streamers floating in the air. They feel ice cold and filmy.

    Darques attack by wrapping around victims and absorbing their life force, leaving the victim weak. They can also project an aura of darkness around themselves. They can see through this darkness just fine, and so can people they’ve wrapped around. Such a person will also see the world as darques see it: dark areas seem lit with silvery radiance, while well illuminated areas seem dark. Light sources are cores of blackness radiating obscurity.

    Being insubstantial, darques are unusually resistant to normal sorts of damage, but bright light shocks and evaporates their substance. Naturally they try to stay in dark surroundings as much as possible.


    Foul-Skinned Man: A Foul-Skinned Man is a humanoid being whose body, mind, and soul have been warped by its time and experiences in the Qliphoth, the touch of one of its kind when it was still normal, or some combination of the two. It “eats” by corrupting other humanoids — or, in a pinch, consuming raw flesh. Its very touch corrupts an ordinary humanoid both physically and spiritually. It emits a digusting stench that may weaken its foes.

    A Foul-Skinned Man is horrifying to look at or be near. Its flesh looks something like that of a dead, rotting body, though when touched it’s as firm and strong as living tissue. A sickly, dark green light shines in its eyes, signalling its evil and hunger.


    Hand of Deizzhorath: Among the mightiest and most alien of the Kings of Edom, Deizzhorath is also called "the Dissolver" because its touch utterly annihilates all matter, and it appears to desire to do so. The Dissolver isn't made of matter even in the Qliphothic sense, but of energy and mathematics; but when it was defeated its essence was spread across space and time, so it can't focus its consciousness on any one point.

    Some servants of the Kings of Edom use magic to conjure small bits of the Dissolver to attack their enemies. These "Hands of Deizzhorath" look like a swirling globe of colorless filigree fronds erupting from a bright point hanging in space. A Hand exists in more than three spatial dimensions, and is intangible without extraordinary means; but anything touched by one of its fronds dissolves into inert golden flakes which eventually vanish into nothingness.

    Hands of Deizzhorath sometimes take seemingly random actions, despite what a summoner wants them to do: pursue a random person, trace elaborate geometric designs in the street, demolish a building, anything. An attack which actually harms a Hand has a good chance of causing it to try to kill the attacker.


    Mind Thief: Mind Thieves are one of the most insidious of the Edomite horrors. A mind thief looks a bit like a very large spider and a bit like a crab, but with the addition of a huge, fanged mouth. A mind thief is physically weak, but has the ability to desolidify, crawl into a victim’s brain, and take control of him. A mind thief can call on all its victim’s skills, knowledge, and powers, although because of its alien mentality it isn't very good at pretending to be a human being.

    Ultraviolet light, X-rays, and other forms of energetic radiation are the greatest weakness of mind thieves. A mind thief can take damage from irradiation despite hiding in a victim’s skull. Even the ultraviolet light in sunlight irritates a mind thief, although it cannot cause actual harm. Intense UV light or radiation can drive a mind thief out of its victim’s brain. The treatment had better be quick, strong, and a complete and terrifying surprise to the mind thief. If a mind thief has the time before it leaves, it will eat the victim’s brain completely, leaving a corpse with no external sign of damage.


    Necheshiron: The necheshiron (Hebrew, “Snaky”) are hardly the most powerful of Qliphothic entities, but they are among the most feared and hated by magicians. Necheshiron “eat” magic, either gulping down spells aimed at them or siphoning away the enchantment from magic items and continuous spells. When necheshiron feed, they make more necheshiron, who go looking for more magic. An out-of-control population of necheshiron can strip an entire world of magic.

    Necheshiron are not very intelligent, but they do follow some simple pack tactics. Some will guard the others by interposing themselves and deflecting spells cast at their fellows. Others try to grab and squeeze any opponent who has found some way to hurt them. A few might wait to bite grabbed opponents, but would prefer a chance to eat spells.

    Necheshiron are absolutely black. From every angle, a necheshiron looks like a flat silhouette of a huge snake with a spiny crest on its head that runs down its back. They radiate invisible waves of negative energy and sense their surroundings from the reflections.


    Oron: Orons are invisible to most senses, but to those who can perceive them they seem to be composed almost entirely of fanged mouths, although their bodies are dotted with many eyes allowing them to see in all directions at once. Their bodies are semi-corporeal, part matter and part something else, making them very resistant to damage. They move by some form of levitation.

    Orons tend to be solitary, but as they're very intelligent, they sometimes join forces in groups of up to a dozen to accomplish a common objective, which could be hunting for food, or some inscrutable grander purpose. Their preferred food is the flesh of sapient beings, but if necessary they’ll eat any sort of meat.


    Pthaarkin: The King of Edom named Pthaar is also called "the Phantast" due to its great facility at projecting mind-warping illusions, even up to materialzing quasi-solid minions out of psychic force. These "Pthaarkin" normally look like a fusion of snake and toad, with batlike wings and a nest of tentacles around the mouth, suggesting this may reflect Pthaar's true appearance; but the Phantast can project avatars that look like anything.

    Pthaar was imprisoned at the core of a planet, now called Sinnuris, in a dimension much like Earth's. The Sinnurians, a sapient race not too different from Humanity, worship Pthaar, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of their fellows to it every year. They construct weirdly-shaped stone fanes whose non-Euclidean geometry allow the Phantast to materialize Pthaarkin outside its prison.

    It's conceivable some of Pthaar's followers might travel to a world or dimension potentially holding a key to freeing their god from its confinement -- Earth, for instance.


    Qliphothic Hound: So called because it's usually conjured to track down and slay someone, a qliphothic hound is a man-sized, vaguely dodecahedral-shaped being, but on which none of the sides are quite the same size or shape. It has no apparent eyes or sensory organs, but is somehow able to "see" in all directions around it at once, including in spectra not visible to humans. Four flattened tentacles with sharp, bony ridges on the tips project from its body at odd angles, able to reach up to four meters. It moves by a form of levitation faster than most humans can run.

    The ecology of these creatures is a mystery. No one knows what they eat, or even how, as they lack any external orifices. Their behavior demonstrates high intelligence, but their motivations are inscrutable to humans.

    Thanks to its heightened senses (including the ability to track victims by sight or smell), a qliphothic hound is a superb hunter and scout. Once it catches up to its prey it swoops in to attack with its bone-edged tentacles. If badly injured it flees, but may return to attack again after it heals, weeks or even months later. A summoned qliphothic hound will remain until it performs all the services required of it by the summoning spell.


    Qliphothic Hunter: The true appearance of these creatures is unknown. They're always invisible; in fact they cannot be perceived by any commonly-available means, even magical ones. Even when they die and their invisibility fades, all that can be seen is a mass of rapidly deliquescing greenish-yellow slime with no limbs or features of any sort. They do appear to have some form of "claws" with which to attack, strong enough to rend most sorts of protective armor.

    Evil spellcasters summon qliphothic hunters to serve them as assassins. Once unleashed against a victim, a qliphothic hunter pursues him without stopping until the victim dies, it dies, or someone banishes it back to the Qliphothic planes. It's anyone's guess what they might do if they entered this universe on their own.


    Raven of Dispersion: The Harab Serapel (Hebrew for “Ravens of Dispersion” or “Ravens of Death”) are among the more powerful and mysterious of the Qliphothic entities. Their dimension, the Pale Cathedral, is the last stop for aging, decaying universes before the final abyss and total annihilation. The Ravens are older than anyone can imagine. They know from whence the Kings of Edom came, for they were already ancient when the home dimensions of the Kings were born.

    By rights the Pale Cathedral should have fallen to oblivion eons ago. The Ravens of Dispersion, however, learned how to stave off that final plunge by stealing energy from other planes, pulling the other dimension a little closer to destruction in the process. Stealing small amounts of energy is easy, but each theft only sustains the Pale Cathedral for a short time. To gain whole ages of extra time, the Ravens must pull entire worlds into oblivion — which they do.

    Although the Harab Serapel have great power, even they cannot destroy an entire world all by themselves. They can, however, achieve such a feat with the help of other beings. The Ravens of Death mentally search the Multiverse for sorcerers who are corrupt, insane, or foolish enough to call on the powers of the Qliphothic planes. They teach such wizards through dreams and visions, increasing their power and madness until the mage can open a Gate to the Final Abyss. Unless such a Gate is closed quickly, it can expand out of control as the world’s energies pour away.

    A Raven of Dispersion looks like a human skeleton topped with a bird’s skull. Their obsidian wings wrap around them like the husks of dead, dried-out beetles. They mutter and squawk to themselves in querulous voices as they shuffle about the Pale Cathedral and conduct their deadly rituals.

    Interestingly, the most ancient occult lore names the Ravens as part of the alliance of great powers which defeated and imprisoned the Kings of Edom. Why they chose to do so is unknown; perhaps they simply didn't want the world-destroying competition.


    Skeinripper: Skeinrippers are strange humanoid beings of unknown origin; some scholars speculate that they’re the creation of a powerful mystic entity, but no one’s found any proof of this. They feed on the destinies of sentient beings, sucking away the beneficial aspects of fate for them, leaving them to live miserable lives.

    Skeinrippers look like emaciated humanoids with ochre-colored skin (though their forms tend to fill out, and even become plump, after they “feed” enough). Their arms and legs are long and have two main joints. Oddly mis-shapen claws tip the ends of their long fingers. Their eyes are large, black, and pupilless; they have no external nasal structure; and their mouths seem far too large for their heads (but they have no teeth).


    Space-Eater: These Qliphothic creatures feed on the integrity of space itself. Their mere presence in an area causes space to warp until it rips, opening spontaneous wormholes to other dimensions. The space-eaters themselves are not especially dangerous, but their wormholes can cause terrible harm. Even if no horrible things come through from the other side, a wormhole might open to an environment that is poisonous, superheated, in vacuum (sucking away a world’s air), or worse.

    These irritable creatures cannot do a great deal of damage all at once to an opponent in combat, but they always do at least a little damage when they hit. Their claws cut space itself. They only fear fire: even if they are getting massacred by some other form of attack, space-eaters will not retreat.

    Space-Eaters look something like large crabs or spiders made of shards and tendrils of black and silver mirrors, shimmering as they scuttle along the floor, walls, or ceiling. They have no visible eyes, but quite visible claws. Slender spines jut from their bodies. Space-Eater bodies are about a foot across, not counting their spindly legs.


    Spawn of Vulshoth: Also known as "the Eye of the Void," Vulshoth is one of the more powerful and infamous Kings of Edom. It appears as a globular mass of hundreds of slimy, greenish-black tentacles over four hundred feet across. Five huge ruby-red eyes surround an enormous parrot-like beak.

    Vulshoth can create smaller copies of itself (six to ten feet in diameter) to further its interests. These Spawn of Vulshoth are physically powerful, have formidable mind-affecting abilities, and their touch can drain the life-force of beings from positive universes. They move by levitation in disregard for gravity. A Spawn's tentacles can extend over great distances to seize prey, by reaching through holes in space.

    The Void's Eye can guide its worshipers to build special non-Euclidian structures to amplify its power so it can materialize a Spawn of Vulshoth. Alternatively, a dozen or more worshipers of Vulshoth who willingly surrender their will to it can be merged and transformed into a Spawn.


    Spined Horror: This Edomite monstrosity looks a little bit like a gigantic, spiky crab, only it has no claws, or eyes, or even a front or back. It does have eleven legs scattered around the rim of its carapace, and a huge, constantly chewing, three-lobed mouth set in its bottom shell. Its chitinous armor bends into countless rigid spines over the creature’s entire body. It is possible to punch the creature, but if the attacker isn’t careful he or she will hit a spine. Anyone who strikes the creature with their entire body will surely impale themselves on several spikes.

    A spined horror normally attacks by stabbing with its pointed legs. If it can maneuver so it stands over an opponent, it will squat and bite; it will certainly try to do this to a knocked down opponent.

    Spined Horrors have two main uses. One is as a simple juggernaut of destruction. The other is as an assassin: a spined horror can track designated victims both by mundane clues and by mental emissions. There are few places it cannot go, and few barriers it cannot smash down, given time.


    Squrm: This oozing horror looks like a huge squid flying on slimy, membranous wings. Squrms are black, streaked with putrid yellow, green, and brown. They have a single, twin-pupiled eye. Despite a squrm’s bulk, their constant looping, twitching, twirling movement means they are no easier to hit. Squrms never move in straight lines in any way.

    Squrms are one of the more intelligent sorts of Edomite. They have formidable quasi-psychic powers. By waving their tentacles in complex designs, squrms can move objects through space, make solid matter crumble, create entangling webs from thin air, or hypnotize unfortunate humans. They can also simply grab at people — several at a time — and bite with a parrotlike beak nestled amid the tentacles.

    Since squrms have no legs, on the ground they can only wriggle. They have an entirely rational fear and hatred of anything that can keep them from flying. They also stay away from wide, smooth, flat surfaces such as glass-sheathed skyscrapers or flat, level roads and parking lots; touching such surfaces causes a squrm pain and can eventually kill it.


    Zodiac Beast: Zodiac beasts are predators said to be made of the stuff between constellations, who inhabit dark places (including, legend has it, “the darkness between the stars”). They have animal intelligence and motivations, but with a sinister tinge. They seem to yearn to spread their darkness into the minds, eyes, and hearts of sapient beings, who sometimes seem to become a little like them after their attacks.

    A zodiac beast looks approximately like some sort of predatory animal (most often an ursine or feline one) made of blue-black shadow, with lines of blue-white light inside its body like a skeleton and “stars” of the same light at the joints and other important places — almost as if it were a living, sinister, constellation from an artistic astrology book. Their claws, fangs, and eyes are the same blue-white color. When they move they can run through the air as easily as over the ground.

    Zodiac beasts hunt alone or in packs, using their weird “constellation eyes” to follow the auric traces left by living beings (particularly sapients, their preferred prey). When they find a victim they prefer to torment them with their darkness powers, sometimes even letting them go after that. But usually when they’re done enjoying themselves they rip the hapless being apart with their claws and fangs, in the process devouring their auric essence.
    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2022
    Since I described the appearance of some of the better-known Kings of Edom in the post above, I might as well transcribe the descriptions of the others provided in the PnP book, Arcane Adversaries:


    Esleggua: This lesser King, described as "the Fear-Eater," looks like a huge pillar of fanged mouths and slimy tentacles. Its howl numbs all emotion in the hearer, especially fear. Repeated or long exposure permanently destroys the capacity for both fear and empathy, turning a person into a sociopathic worshiper of the Kings of Edom.

    Mgatrraor, another lesser King, appears as a cone of blue-black jelly with a single huge eye ringed by long, slender tentacles. Mgatrraor can extrude tentacles from its base with maws full of stone or metal teeth. This King of Edom uses atomic-scale psychokinesis to transmute and reshape matter at will.

    Orogtha: Scriptures of Edomite worshipers call this being "the Great Spawner," one of the most powerful Kings of Edom. It can mutate and reshape living creatures; some mystic tomes claim Orogtha buds Edomite monsters from its own body. Another Champions PnP book describes Orogtha's body as "squid-like."


    Note that none of the above are the same Kings of Edom as the ones Luther Black, leader of DEMON, sought to liberate.
    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2022
    Having mentioned a couple of the dimensions of the Qliphoth in my bestiary list, it probably behooves me to explain a bit about what the Qliphoth "really" is in Champions lore, and provide a few sample dimensions written up for it.


    The Qliphoth is the opposite of the Sephirothic Tree of Life (adapted from Kabbalah), which is the organizational plan for the entire Champions Multiverse; like its shadow or distorted reflection. It isn't one dimension, or even one universe. It's a host of universes, so ancient and decayed that they've become antithetical and inimical to life, matter, even energy from our familiar universe. That's not to say they're all instantly lethal to anything that enters them. Humans can survive in some Qliphothic realms for a limited time at least, although they may require protection and have to take precautions.

    Life-forms from the Qliphoth aren't "life" as we define it. Their processes don't function according to the same principles. The most advanced ones don't even think the same way we do -- they aren't good or evil, they're totally alien. Their motivations are almost incomprehensible to us, aside from hunger, survival, and desire to dominate. (Speechifying "avatars" of the Kings of Edom is a departure from the tabletop game's lore.) Being corrupted by the influence of the Qliphoth typically causes insanity, which often manifests as what we would call "evil."

    My first example of a Qliphothic universe is the aforementioned Pale Cathedral. This description is taken from an older Champions source book, the Ultimate Super Mage Bestiary.


    The dimension of the Pale Cathedral looks like an endless blank plane of white. No horizon divides the flat white ground from the blank white sky. There’s nothing to see but the Harab Serapel’s home, the Pale Cathedral itself. From a distance, the Pale Cathedral is a pointed, pale yellowish blot. One can never go more than a few miles from the Pale Cathedral. Space itself twists so that no matter how far or how fast one travels, the Cathedral never seems to get much further away. If one moves toward the Cathedral, however, space compresses to speed one’s journey. A good thing, too: for every minute spent out in the white void, one suffers a [HERO System game-mechanical cumulative detrimental effect]. There is NO defense against this. None at all. Only the interior of the Cathedral resists this pull from the Void — as long as the Ravens of Death will it to be so.

    The Pale Cathedral is well named. It really does look like a huge, Gothic cathedral...only it is made entirely of bleached bones fitted together into walls and spires and arching buttresses. No doors block one from entering the pointed archways. The same sourceless white light present outside fills the interior. The center of the Cathedral holds a well surrounded by a low wall of birdlike skulls and tiled vertebrae. Look down it and one can see Quemetiel, the Devourer of All, twitching and churning in the final abyss. It is the last sight one will see as a sane being.



    Next up is the Shining Darkness. In CO this term is often used to describe the Qliphoth in general, but it properly belongs only to this universe. The following quotation is from the Hero Games book which first described the Qliphoth for Champions, The Ultimate Super Mage. Most of it was reprinted in The Mystic World, currently available from Hero Games (and actually remarkably cheap).


    Nearly everything in this mystical cosmos is black, in a multitude of shades and hues. Darkness itself is a form of radiation in this dimension. Human eyes are not happy viewing the Shining Darkness. This is the home plane of the darques, and many other sorts of Qliphothic entities live here as well.

    In the Shining Darkness, huge, angular masses rise from vast, warped planes in utter disregard for gravity. Indistinct things flop and writhe between them. Every few kilometers is a loose cluster of humanoid statues, like huge, sitting fetuses made of compacted gray ash. Darques and necheshiron nest in the empty eye sockets of their oversized heads.

    Humans and other organic beings face danger just from being on this plane. The darkness slowly leaches away life-energy and replaces it with the plane’s own mysterious energies.... As the Transform proceeds, skin darkens. When the Transform is 3/4 complete, the being’s body is completely black and starts to glow with the Shining Darkness’ radiance. When the Transform is complete, the being’s body crumbles and the victim becomes a darque...

    It’s virtually impossible to bring a steady source of normal light into the Shining Darkness. Mundane light sources such as flashlights or matches explode the moment they are activated, as the dimension rips out their stored energy.



    Finally, we have the dimension of Tatterdemalion, the description of which appears in Book Of The Empress, and whose inhabitants are written up in Tatterdemalion Terrors.


    This Qliphothic dimension might be better described as an agglomeration of leftover dimensions. As planes of reality decay or corrode and become Qliphothic, sometimes they tear apart or shrink. By a process not even mystics understand, dozens of these “dimensional fragments” have become attracted to one another by some gravity-like extradimensional force and coalesced to form a patchwork reality.

    In Tatterdemalion, the landscape can change entirely over just a few miles as a traveler crosses from a fragment of one dimension to a fragment of another. Where the two fragments were previously similar or have knitted together well, this change may be gradual and subtle, but in most cases it’s as abrupt as a cliff ’s edge. And since they’re rotten pieces of ancient dimensions, none of the “zones” of Tatterdemalion are in any way pleasant.

    The creatures and beings who once inhabited the various component realms of Tatterdemalion have mingled and interbred throughout the eons, creating things monstrous and strange even by Qliphothic standards.


    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited September 2015
    That is a really good question. I wish I had a really good answer. :/

    The description of Tatterdemalion I quoted above is literally all the published information about its nature. Generally speaking, the innate qualities of Qliphothic dimensions are negative and harmful to life from universes like ours, at least over the long term. Between such effects and the hostile nature of most of their inhabitants, survival prospects would not be good.

    However, precedents suggest that what you propose is not impossible. First, the "zones" of Tatterdemalion are implicitly different from each other to some extent, so it may be that some are less hostile than others.

    Second, the Pale Cathedral, home dimension of the Ravens of Dispersion, is a featureless white void which slowly drains the life-force from any "normal" being; but the Ravens' eponymous abode, an enormous cathedral-like structure made entirely of bones, is shielded from that effect by the Ravens' will.

    Third, the Champions Earth villain Matachin wields a sword charged with Qliphothic energies, which is normally lethal even to touch; but Matachin was the recipient of special spells which allow him to handle it without direct harm, although they have their own negative side effects.

    Then there's the fact that most of the Tatterdemalion creatures described in Steve Long's recent PDF feed on more "normal" beings, particularly sentients, in one fashion or another. Logically they couldn't all survive just on visitors, or by counting on leaving Tatterdemalion for another dimension; that seems to argue that at least some less-corrupted beings still inhabit it.

    I have to admit, I find the notion of a small community of survivors from the pre-Qliphothic era of their universe, surrounded by nightmares kept at bay by (possibly failing?) magic, to be quite compelling, in a tragic way. I have visions of M. Night Shyamalan's movie, The Village.

    I think I'll run this question by Steve, see if he has an opinion on it. But I'm pretty sure his answer will include, "If it works for what you want to do, go for it." :)
    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Nice! B)

    FWIW I received Steve Long's response to your question:

    Good question! I wish I could respond directly, but due to some sort of password nonsense (relating to various corporate buy-outs, no doubt) I can't access those boards anymore, so I appreciate your taking point. ;)

    It's entirely possible for small communities of survivors of the dead/decaying dimensions that form Tatterdemalion to continue to live in Tatterdemalion -- at least for a time. After all, there are too many great story possibilities involved in that sort of thing to think otherwise! ;) That's where monstrous beings like the ones in Tatterdemalion Terrors come from: they didn't necessarily start out that way, they "evolved" into such horrifying forms.

    There are a couple of factors to keep in mind. First, what would the "survivor" of the death/decay/corruption of a dimension look like? Even with superhuman attributes, he might already have become just as "rotted" or "weakened" as the dimension he's a native of. Second, no matter how powerful a survivor might be, the nature of Tatterdemalion is inherently "corruptive." If you remain there, sooner or later it will affect you, eventually turning you into something monstrous. In the case of large groups/races, they'll slowly "evolve" towards evil forms/existences; with an individual the process may differ or be particularly strange or unusual. That could be the whole basis of a campaign -- trying to resist the corruption long enough to accomplish something "meaningful" in Tatterdemalion (perhaps "removing" a piece of the patchwork and trying to restore it to the status of a healthy dimension).
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    BTW I'm participating in a discussion of Tatterdemalion over on the Hero Games website forums. Would you mind if I transcribed your proposed character origin there? I think it would be of interest and inspiration. :)
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User

    Feel free, and let me know what comes up!

    I think that's a pretty darn cool character concept!

    But now I also think we need to design a villain called the Bluegrass Beast.




  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    I love it when players use Champions lore as a springboard for new character concepts and story plot lines. That's what it was created for, after all. :)
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User

    Oh, and re: Bluegrass Beast: A descendant of druids and Celtic Kings and Native shamans, when Takofanes stomped through Kentucky in 1987 the spirits of those lands empowered the young child to be a defender of them against such threats. Wielding mystical might and command over beasts and the land itself, as the Beast grew older he grew more intolerant of those he saw as 'threats' to 'his people' and the land itself - coal barons exploiting workers, politicians exploiting poverty, hatemongers exploiting religion. He'd almost be a hero - if he weren't so ruthless and increasingly xenophobic and intolerant of what he views as hindrances to "Appalachia's" survival and ascendancy.

    And here I was thinking the Bluegrass Beast has a magic mandolin he uses to pummel his foes into submission. ;)

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