Inhuman Violence 2

As is the nature of horror media, it’s time for sequel.

Intro

I’ve been running a Delta Green campaign using Violence for a little while now, and I’ve run into an issue - the Endurance soak method of damage outlined in the original Inhuman Violence sucks. It’s just not fun in actual play - it reduces the monsters to feeling like big meat sacks you keep shooting til they fall down. In a horror game, the monsters are such a major focus that it feels silly to reduce them to this.

Rather than having a single unified way to model damage for the supernatural, each creature should have its own unique damage model. This increases the amount of work required, but should give much richer results - and due to the lower count of monsters in most horror games (as compared to fantasy) this shouldn’t be too much work. It also roots us once again in the fictional nature of the being - forcing us to consider how alien flesh might react to physical trauma.

Some general notes to think about when building out these blocks for your own beasties:

• Evasion is simply determining if you actually hit the thing - let the Harm bit determine whether the entity is harmed or not.
• Harm is meant to be a bit tricky to get right - try a few different things. Sometimes a creature is just immune to certain effects.

The Inhuman Violence

Impossible beings respond differently to Violence.

Evasion: Any modifiers to shooting attacks against the entity.
Shooting: The target number the entity uses to hit when shooting, and any modifiers to the Down roll.
Melee: How many dice the entity rolls in melee combat, and any notes about damage or restrictions.
Harm: A per-entity procedure on how to manage Injuries, Downs and Death.

Monsters

The Dead

Flesh borrowed or robbed from rightful rest. What festers within? An animus against the living carried all life long. Or an imposter that would puppet flesh with no concern for the mind that once dwelt within. Or simply the will of another killing the mind and hollowing the body to be worn as you might put on a suit.

Evasion: +3 (No evasive moves taken.)
Shooting: 20/per weapon.
Melee: 2d6. Always receives one Injury as it fights without self preservation. Adds +1d6 for each additional Dead assisting.
Harm: Whenever the Dead are Injured or Downed, roll 1d6 on the table below. Keep track of their Injuries.

Mi-Go

The fun-guys from Yuggoth. Ya boys. When using their heat-weapons, they simultaneously attack a target and suppress the area, counting as two people emptying their magazines. Such areas find any flammable materials igniting.

Evasion: -4 (Flight)
Shooting: 16+/ Causes 1d6 additional injuries on a hit.
Melee: 1d12+2.
Harm: Whenever a Mi-Go would be Injured or Downed, instead roll 1d20 and consult the chart below.

Black Hound

The Peril, The Warden’s Dogs, Vanguards.
A face shredded like a bouquet of flowers, wrapped in black plastic and left by the side of the road. Behind this disaster a long body of taut flesh over many-knuckled bones, flexing and moving independently. There are too many legs.

From ridges and tears in the real the hounds emerge, silent, ignoring any gravity or terrain. The unfortunate notice that each leg terminates in a human hand, some with rings.

They hunt those who survived initial breach events, marked for death. They are left as dust, all moisture driven from them. Electronic devices cannot perceive them, although they trigger moisture-sensitive systems.

To Hit: -4 (Speed)
Shooting: N/A
Melee: 2d8. Always causes 1 Injury regardless of result.
Harm: Black Hounds ignore Injured results from shooting. Downed results send them sprawling, but continue the hunt next round. In melee, they take Injuries and Down result normally. Any Injury or Down result from an explosive destroys them utterly.

2d6 Appearing. If killed, bodies rapidly liquefy, leaving only purified water.

The Teeming Augur

Stream-steeds, Dream Carriers, Graceful Mounts, Slow Angels.
In their thousands they buzz and dance, dwelling upon the shores of Time. They skitter across the surface freely, compound eyes drinking in all the sights offered, drinking deeply where some eddy in the flow gives their fanged proboscis purchase.

To the human eye they are each the size of ponies, scaled, built out with limbs too-slight to bear their weight. Wings of soap-bubble thin gossamer twitch frenetically from their back.

They can be ridden through time, although they will take a companion to incubate a brood of their eggs. They leave it up to those who would ride upon them to decide who bears this burden.

Mango Seed Wevil, Nikon Small World competion, Pia Scanlon

Proboscis of a house fly, Nikon Small World competition entry by Oliver Dum

To Hit: -1 (Speed)
Shooting: N/A
Melee: 2d10.
Harm: Whenever a Teeming Augur would be Injured or Downed, roll a d20 and consult the chart below.

Summoned, they appear in amount specified by the summoner. Upon the shores of the Lake of Seasons or beyond the conventional timestream, there are millions.

Entropy Survivors

The Black Worms, The Coils of Consumption, The Eels of Season.
When all energy spreads infinitely thin, something will survive as a concentration in the flat empty dark. These entities will seek one another, winnowing down their numbers to eke out some few millennia more of existence. Predators and basking sharks, immense coils of ribbed worm set behind mouths fit to extinguish suns. Within the Lake of Seasons, some echo of these final inheritors of existence lurk, preying instead upon those who come to the Lake too early. They are tiny in comparison - merely the size of underground trains. They are attracted to heat, light and movement. They consume electricity, radioactivity and light before resorting to living things.

To Hit: Automatic hits.
Shooting: N/A.
Melee: Those targeted must dodge or be consumed and destroyed utterly.
Harm: Whenever an Entropy Survivor would be Injured or Downed, roll a d20, adding +1 for each prior roll this engagement. On a 20+, it is driven away for d8 hours.

1d6-4 appearing. If more than one appear, they fight over prey.