Cisthene, the Lusaun Forest Medusa

Here There Be Dragons I

Welcome to a new series of articles. I’m still working on my mapping articles as well but I work a 60 hour week in my day job so the people that actually kick in money to this series, and I love both of you, aren’t sufficient to bank credits in my pension. That’s a jab at the freeloaders.

This series is going to be about monsters I use in my games, especially the unique ones that I build. I’ll give a little breakdown on how I created them and at the end you’ll have a monster to steal to torment your characters with or you can just message me and tell me what a shit job of it I’ve done. It’ll be just like my regular job.

The Lusaun Forest is just to the north of the central stretch of the Meniri Mountains. Now this piece of forest is a problem. It’s been leaking monsters and Beastmen that have been raiding caravans, villages and generally doing what savage creatures do. That’s especially bad when that area is supposed to be a civilized area behind the protection of those Border forts. This forest has an especially bad reputation for being overgrown and leaking undead as well.

Now this is something I think is interesting and wondered what I could do with it but I set it aside for later. Well, I shouldn’t have wondered so hard because my tabletop groups characters hear the rumors about the forest and decided that they should take a break from the dungeon that they were clearing, fucking brilliant, and go somewhere that I had no plans or maps for.

Like any good GM of experience I prayed to the gods of Random Encounters and they heard my prayers generating a random forest encounter that bled out the rest of the session and bought me a week.

Now the Capital of the Borderlands book details a Sinkhole of Evil and a Zaharan Temple in the forest. Well, that explains the Undead but whose causing that problem. When I was getting coffee for the crew at work there was a guy in line in front of me with a really shitty cartoon Medusa so I took that as a good enough sign and I went with that.

I let the idea percolate for the rest of the day and I came up with the idea. A wandering young Medusa was looking for a home and a way to advance her standing. She found it in an abandoned, haunted Zaharan temple to Nasga, The Mistress of Pain and Pleasure. I picture it as an overgrown and half sunken mix of a whorehouse, a torture chamber and an Ohio Hot Topic.

So this Medusa, let’s name her after one of the places that they were said to have come from, Cisthene, finds this Nasga temple inhabited by Beastmen looking for a lair and somewhere out of the rain … the Sinkhole of Evil just made it feel homey. Cisthene moved in and promptly took over. Beastmen respecting strength and not wanting to turn into planters for moss growth.

Cisthene explores this temple and goes through the holy texts of Nasga. Now one of the holy symbols of Nasga is a Medusa’s head and you’ve got to think that Nasga and Medusas go iron fist in leather glove. These texts resonate with her and because the Princess of Roses isn’t without a sense of humor Cisthene becomes a sort of mix of Bladedancer, cause Nasga really hates her sister and her church, and Priestess of Nasga with spell-like abilities as a blessing.

So here she sits. Carefully pushing outwards and taking merchant caravans, recruiting the strongest of the tribes, and letting undead leak out of the Sinkhole that rests at the bottom of the temple while recruiting the strongest of those through her connection to Nasga.

Then my tabletop group show up, kick in the front door and kill a bunch of her Zombie Ogre servants before settling her entry hall on fire and running away with some of her candlesticks. Nice.

Cisthene cannot let this stand so she takes some of her strongest servants and heads out following the adventurers towards Turos Drav and her vengeance.

Now let’s look at how I built Cisthene under the ACKS II playtest rules. I started with the standard Medusa block.

Now we take a look at the Monster Creation rules that have been released in draft form under the ACKS Patreon. Which if you like this sort of material you really should kick in a couple of bucks and get access to the ACKS II playtest. It’s fucking excellent.

Under the monster creation rules there are rules for advancing monsters. Since Cisthene is exceptional lets start with her stats. The rules say that the average monster has a 9 in all of their stats. We’re going to up her Strength to 13, her Intelligence to 13, her Dexterity to 13, her Charisma to 16, and her Wisdom to a 16. Quite an exceptional creature. She’ll get an additional +1 to her damage, an additional spell, and an additional Proficiency plus a bump in her saves due to the Wisdom.

We want to give her some Special Abilities so we have to buy those off with Special Disabilities. We’re going to give her a hatred of Bladedancers and followers of Ianna to go along with Nasga’s hatred of her sister and her followers. The will reduce the HD of the creature down to 4** and we’re going to take the Spell-like ability which will bump her back up to 4***. In addition her particular Spell-like abilities will bump her up to 4****

Reflecting her exceptional quality and her achievements we’re going to bump her from 4**** HD up to 6**** HD and we’re going to give her some equipment. Consulting the charts in the ACKS II playtest documents to see what all these changes do to her Monster Block …

Cisthene, Medusa of Nasga

Any character that meets Cisthene’s petrifying gaze is required to make a saving throw versus Petrification or he turns to stone. Due to their inherently magical nature, Cisthene saves as a 10 Hit Dice monster despite only having 6 Hit Dice. Cisthene has the following spell-like abilities at once per day: Shimmer, Adjust Self, and Physical Protection. Cisthene has the following spell-like abilities at once per hour: Dominate Humanoid and Swift Sword, Sustained. Cisthene can also Control Undead as a Crusader equal to her HD.

Cisthene can be harvested with Animal Husbandry and/or Healing 3 (combined ranks) for a set of eyes (1 4/6 stone, 100gp, cone of paralysis, dominate humanoid, flesh to stone, hypnotic pattern, summon fantastic creature), hair-lock of snakes (5/6 stone, 50gp, swift sword, poison, neutralize poison, summon fantastic creature), skin (5/6 stone, 50gp, physical protection, stone to flesh, summon fantastic creature) and tongue (5/6 stone, 50gp, bless, bane, divine grace, summon fantastic creature).

When fighting her standard moves will be to use Shimmer and Swift Sword to improve her fighting ability and AC. She’ll use Physical Protection once she can observe what the most common damage type her opponents has. Dominate Humanoid she’ll use on what ever the most impressive combatant looks to be that would have the lowest saves, preferring Bladedancers and Fighters.