Monsters

Dweller in Shadow
Medium demon

Alignment Evil

Armor Class 13

Hit Points 66 (10d8 + 12)

Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft.

STR 10 (+0) DEX 17 (+3) CON 12 (+1) INT 14 (+2) WIS 13 (+1) CHA 14 (+2)

Saving Throws Dex +5, Cha +4

Skills Perception +7, Stealth +9, Intimidation +8

Damage vulnerabilities radiant

Damage Resistances acid, fire, necrotic, thunder; bludgeon-ing, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks

Damage Immunities cold, lightning, poison

Condition Immunities exhaustion, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained

Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 11

Languages Tsolyáni, telepathy unlimited in range.

Incorporeal Movement. The demon can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.

Light Sensitivity. While in bright light, the demon has disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the demon can take the Hide action as a bonus action.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) psychic damage or, if the demon had advantage on the attack roll, 17 (4d6 + 3) psychic damage.

If you have an other-planar mentor and they are Llyánmàkchi, the servant you gain is a Dweller in Shadow.

Ghosts
The generic Tsolyáni term for ghost is Ssudú. Types found in popular superstition include the Veveráta (the ghosts

of those slain on a battlefield), the Ktál (ancient spirits that haunt necropolises) and the Ngésja (women who died in childbirth).

Hlutrgú
Portrait of an Hlutrgú from the sketchbook of Ilánish Chárea, of the Crimson Sphere clan.

Illustration Copyright ©1999

The violently inimical little Hlutrgú are one of mankind’s most implacable foes, fighting with vicious fanaticism in battle and torturing any captives in ways too ghastly to describe. Although they prefer the isolation of their bogs, they occasionally venture forth to raid human villages or harass local shipping from small coracles of skin. Were it not for the terrible losses which an army would suffer and the difficulty of invading their tidal swamps, the Tsolyáni might have exterminated them all long ago.

Physical Attributes

Tough, rubbery, and totally hairless, the Hlutrgú have a rotund body, four limbs each equipped with a usable hand with six fingers, and a skull-like head, the mouth filled with needle-sharp fangs. They are mottled greenish, greyish or blackish in colour, and range from 1.23 to 1.71 m in height. They have three sexes: males (95 percent), female spawners (4 percent), and asexual ‘leaders’ (about 1 percent).

Enclaves

Isolated bogs in the Kaija Protectorate.

Hlüss
The insectoid Hlüss are indigenous to Tékumel. They are friendly to the Ssú and sometimes to the Shunned Ones, and neutral to the Hláka when the latter are not accompanied by humans. They love to set gems all over their bodies in intricate and beautiful patterns in a cement-like substance which they secrete. A mighty Hlüss warrior makes for a fearsome and magnificent spectacle indeed.

Though preferring to dwell on their lonely island, the Hlüss are inquisitive and greedy for magical devices and weapons, and occasionally sail forth in their hive-like ships (made of the same bodily secretion) to seek items of interest and food for their young. Each nest-ship and each settlement contain at least one of their huge breeder-females—the ‘Hluss-Mother’. The young are brought forth in sac-like eggs and are inserted into a paralyzed living host (who dies an agonising death), where they remain for about 125 days before emerging. The Hlüss can be detected at sea by their constant buzzing, humming sound, and on land their acidic, sweetish odour may be smelled at a distance of 30-40m. There are three sexes: the male fertilizers (5 percent), the female egg-layers (2 percent), and the neuter worker-fighters (93 percent).

Physical Attributes

The Hlüss possess a long, segmented, scorpion-like body, four high-arched legs, a prehensile tail fitted with a paralysing sting, two smaller forearms ending in three digits and a thumb, and a broad, flattish head with three eyes and a sharp proboscis above a set of razor-sharp mandibles. They are covered with a light, chitinous exoskeleton and are greenish blue to shiny black in colour. They normally remain on all fours, but may rear up and use their central pair of ‘hands’ as tearing weapons in battle, though they do not employ swords or other weapons with these limbs. They range from 1.22 to 1.62m high on four legs, gaining perhaps another metre when they rear up.

Enclaves

The island of Hlüssuyal.

Mihálli
“... some creature out of an ancient bestiary, furred all over, a snarling animal muzzle rimmed with up-curving fangs, pointed ears like those of a Renyu, two arms that were over-long, jointed in places where no human—or Pé Chói—had joints. Then the edges of the beast’s image sparkled, faded, and solidified into other features ...” - The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker, ©1984 DAW Books

The Mihálli are gifted with great sorcerous and interdimensional powers, and it is said that they may even exist on more than one plane at once. Their motives seem unintelligible, for at one moment they may be friendly and helpful, at the next they may be hostile, and at the next they may simply disappear. They are so rare as to have become almost mythological on Tékumel—in fact they prefer to remain aloof from human affairs.

Physical Attributes

The alien Mihálli are essentially man-like, though with five fingers and a thumb on each hand and six breasts, and the head is reminiscent of a great cat with up-pointed ears and large opalescent red eyes. They are slender, and range from dull green—the lower caste warriors—to reddish brown—the leaders. The Mihálli have the ability to change shape; adopting the appearance of another being of comparable size, though if the imitated being has more than four limbs (or a prehensile tail), these would appear to be paralysed. Moreover their eyes remain a gleaming red despite their disguise. It is the thought that the species is hermaphroditic, but their reproductive processes are largely unknown.

Enclaves

Unknown. This race is not to be confused with the modern human inhabitants of Mihállu, their ancient homeland.

Nyaggá
The Nyaggá are an aquatic race that remain aloof and generally do not bother human shipping, though they have been known to come ashore for infrequent and brief nocturnal raids. Dead specimens have shown that they are essentially mammalian, and there are rumours that the Nyaggá can interbreed with humans—as witness the vestigal gills and pallid appearance of the folk living around the cities of Ngaku and Prajnu. However they cannot—or do not—communicate with man and react hostilely to incursions into their watery domains.

Physical Attributes

The body of the Nyaggá is a long, tapering cylinder some 3m in length, without fins or scales, a sickly grey-white in colour, and ending in an eel-like tail. The head is round and bulbous, soft and segmented like a human brain. A central black-lipped mouth is surrounded by a ring of six great jet-black eyes. Six long retractable tentacles covered with tiny suckers and cilia, which serve for hands, emerge from a ring of muscle at the juncture of the body and the head. Totally extended, the Nyaggá is about 5m long. In water they swim with a sinuous quickness, while on land they pull themselves along with their tentacles in combination with a coiling of their bodies. Their reproductive processes are unknown.

Enclaves

Beneath the waters of Lake Parunal to the east of Yán Kór and Sa’á Allaqí.

Shunned Ones
Tsolyáni: Vleshgayal; Yán Koryáni: Blashagh)

These hideous, gangling beings are totally inimical to mankind and his allies; mighty sorcerors who in small parties search the ruins and labyrinths of ancient Tékumel for magical devices and equipment. Very little is known about their society, for their sealed domed cities keep in their own noxious atmosphere; a corrosive, yellowish gas that renders humans incapacitated after 30 minutes and kills within another 45 minutes at most.

Physical Attributes

The Shunned Ones are humanoid, very tall (from 1.85 to 2.33m), with extremely long, bony limbs. The face is puckered and wrinkled like rotting fruit and has only a pair of round, black, pupiless eyes for features. The mouth is hidden in a mass of wrinkles at the base of the throat. They wrap themselves in voluminous, flapping robes of dust-brown or night-black. Their worst feature, however, is their terrible and repellent stench, which can be detected at a range of as much as 60m! Specimens possess at least five types of organs which may be reproductive in function—these may represent different sexes, or they may be developmental stages in the life-cycle of one sex.

Enclaves

Sealed domed cities in the barren plains of Yán Kór.

Ssú
“Four wide-spraddled legs extended out from the twisted column of the torso ... The head was oval, the face only vaguely human; there were two eyes, round and black-gleaming, and nostril slits but no nose. The mouth consisted of a vertical ellipse. It was the thing’s skin that was the most repellent: it resembled mottled gray parchment peeling from a roll, the ends loose and ragged, very much like the winding sheet of a corpse long in the grave.”

-from Flamesong by M.A.R. Barker, ©1985 DAW Books

Portrait of a Black Ssú from the sketchbook of Ilánish Chárea, of the Crimson Sphere clan.

-Illustration Copyright ©1999

The ancient Ssú were once masters of the land masses of Tékumel, while their cousins the Hlüss ranged the coasts and the seas. They hate mankind for destroying the original form of their world. There are two sub-species: the Grey Ssú, and the larger Black Ssú. Both species are excellent magic-users, and they also possess a limited hypnotic ability which can immobilise human warriors or cause them to turn and fight their friends.

Physical Attributes

Though differing in height (the Grey Ssú are between 1.71 and 1.90m in height, the Black between 1.83 and 2.41m), both varieties of Ssú are similar in appearance: a central torso set upon a narrow abdomen from which extend four equidistant legs. There are two upper arms ending in three digited hands (the largest ‘finger’ functions as a thumb), but they sometimes rear up on their back legs to fight, using their middle limbs to hold a shield or another weapon. The head has two eyes, nostril slits, and a mouth shaped like a vertical oval. Their outer integument is wrapped around their limbs like paper on a roll, and the loose ends of this ‘skin’ keep pulling off in fragments, making the Ssú look like a tattered mummy. The Ssú smell rather like musty cinnamon, and their language sounds like a sweet, high chiming, rippling up and down the scale like a chorus of little bells. They have three sexes: males (15 percent), females (5 percent), and neuter worker-fighters (80 percent).

Enclaves

The Grey Ssú dwell just north of Salarvya and Pechano, while the Black Ssú are found on a biggish island far off in the western ocean. There are also enclaves on Tékumel's other continents. They yearn to retake their ancient stronghold of Ssúganar, now in Pecháno.

Urunén
The Urunén have only recently come into contact with the inhabitants of the northern continent; therefore not much is known about them. Their society is homogenous, complex, and inward-looking; they are good scholars and exhibit psychic talents on a par with those of mankind. The Urunén have shown an ability to dissemble and play at diplomacy, and is likely that their cleverness will make them difficult allies and dangerous foes.

Physical Attributes

A little taller than mankind (from 1.45 to 1.93m) and quite humanoid in appearance, the Urunén have a muscular body covered with brownish, velvet-like fur, and possess a long tail. The head is rather alien however; long-snouted, triangular, like a cross between a serpent and some bovine animal. The eyes are set wide apart on each side of the head. There are two sexes: males (35 percent), and females (65 percent).

Enclaves

The sub-polar regions around Tékumel’s south pole.

Names: Aiché, Arévi, Hú

Yéleth
Medium construct (perfectly resembles human female)

Alignment Neutral

Armor Class 20 (high-tech materials)

Hit Points 66 (8d8 + 24)

Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft.

STR 18 (+4) DEX 13 (+1) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 12 (+1)

Saving Throws Str +6, Con +5

Skills Insight +7, Perception +9, Stealth +8

Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't enchanted steel

Damage Immunities force, necrotic, poison

Condition Immunities blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, stunned

Senses blindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 14

Languages understands the languages of its master but can't speak

Magic Resistance. The Yéleth has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

Spell Immunity. The Yéleth is immune to three spells chosen by its creator. Typical immunities include fireball, heat metal, and lightning bolt.

Multiattack. The Yéleth makes two longsword attacks.

Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 4) slashing damage, or 9 (1d10 + 4) slashing damage if used with two hands.

If your mentor is Sarvodáya Di‛éla, the servant you gain is a powerful Yéleth.

The White Haired Woman
Medium Alien

Alignment Neutral Evil

Armor Class 15 (Natural Armor)

Hit Points 66 (12d8 + 12)

Speed 30ft., Fly 30ft.

STR 8 (- 1), DEX 17 (+3), CON 13 (+1), INT 15 (+2), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 20 (+5)

Saving Throws Dex +5, Cha +7

Skills Deception +9, Insight +7, Persuasion +8

Damage Resistances cold, fire, lightning, poison; bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical weapons

Senses Darkvision 60ft., Passive Perception 15

Languages Tsolyáni, Telepathy 60ft.

Telepathic Bond: No range restriction.

Shapechanger: The White Haired Woman can use its action to polymorph into a beautiful human female (see Succubus).

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.

Hit: 6 (1 d6 + 3) slashing damage.

Charm Person. The White Haired Woman will charm a target of her master’s choice as per the spell.

Lifedrain. The White Haired Woman will life drain a target of her master’s choice as per the spell.

Etherealness. The White Haired Woman uses magic to enter the space Between the Planes whenever she wishes.

If your mentor is The One Other, the servant you gain is The White Haired Woman.