Sunday, March 18, 2012

Weekly 4e Homebrew: Fetus Beast

Every Sunday, I'll have a completely homebrewed Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition element that you can use in your games. I do take requests so you can either post a comment here, email me at thatrobedguy@hotmail.com with the subject "Homebrew Request", or send me a tweet on Twitter (@brannonhutchins) with the hashtag #weekly4e.

This is going to take a bit of explanation, isn't it?

Our current game consists of a modified version of Keep on the Shadowfell. We started with a small Level 0 adventure spanning from Nenlast to Fallcrest, and we picked up KotS at Level 1. During the first encounter of the module, two of the PCs were killed due to unfortunately stupid player tactics and low dice rolls.

The dead PCs were being taken to Winterhaven to be buried when the Star Pact Hexblade Warlock asked his master to raise his friends. The two dead PCs instantly sat up, freaking out the rest of the party, especially the one PC that used a Heal check to confirm they were dead previously. The first apparent side effect they discovered from the event was their ability to see the stars through the sky on a bright sunny day. The second side effect...well...

The two PCs that had died were lovers, and I'm talking about their characters, not the players. It was more of a young puppy love infatuation rather than a "true love" relationship, but nevertheless, they were prone to "doing the deed" (that means sex). When the player playing the female of the couple was forced to leave the game, we had to decide how the character was going to leave the party.

We started by having her scream and teleport away while no one else was present, giving us more time to decide exactly why her character was gone. With much discussion, we determined that it was related to the Hexblade's intervention of their death. In an effort to make things worse for the other player's character, we discussed the possibility of the female character being pregnant and how the Star Pact resurrection would affect the pregnancy. And HERE is the final outcome of that debate. I present to you: the Fetus Beast.

Fetus Beast
The festering remains of a giant fetus-like monstrosity cry out at you in an unnatural hunger as the body of its mother dangles lifelessly from beneath the tentacled mutant.

Seriously? You want me to describe this thing to you? It's the giant undead fetus of one of our Player Characters mutated by the arcane energies of the Far Realm. There are tentacles, psychic powers, the dangling remains of the monster's mother, and eventual character psychosis once this thing hits the table. It is probably the most F-ed up thing that will happen in any game I have ever had the opportunity to Dungeon Master.


Designer Notes: The image used is that of the Atropal, a legitimate fetus-type monster in Dungeons and Dragons. I feel less bad about planting this monster in the article knowing this abomination already exists.

The Fetus Beast was created using Power2ool for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition by Wizards of the Coast.

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