Glaugust #3: Dracula!

 Vampires  are a perversion of the natural order, harmed by that which nourishes all life and able to manipulate their bodies in grotesque and unholy ways to pursue their goals. Created by activating specific sites in the brain or by conversion from a sire, some develop their body manipulation techniques into strange biological powers such as relaxing their muscles into long strands of supernaturally strong rope or superheating their body through fever.

"Dracula" is another creature entirely.

 

Impala the Pillar-Man, aka Dracula

HD: 30 (240 HP)

Appearance: extremely handsome and muscular 50 year old man in crimson platemail. Braided raven hair, auburn skin and piercing cold eyes, neat goatee.
Voice: thunderous and seductive simultaneously.
Wants: to restore his lost tribe, or otherwise cure his loneliness.
Morality: the shadowy remnants of nobility.
Intelligence: perhaps the smartest man alive, but learning modern sciences as they are introduced to him. A living time capsule.

Armor: Plate+Shield. Divides all damage received by 10, as he deals Megadamage.
Move: 2x normal
Morale: 12
Damage: see below 

Each round, Impala may use 1 of the following abilities.

1. Flurry of Blows
1d4 megadamage chop / 1d4 megadamage chop / 1d6 megadamage kick.

2. Drain Life
1d12 strike, sinking Impala's fingers into the target. This saps their vital fluids and restores Impala's HP by damage dealt.

Impala may use the following ability once per day. Out of some sense of honor, he will not use this ability on those he deems unworthy opponents or at the beginning of a fight.

Hell Division
Impala splits his body into quarters, scattering huge pools of dark viscera. These then regenerate their missing portions, creating 4 Impalas each with a quarter of his remaining HP.  

Impala predates history. He has taken many names throughout time, but his most famous was Vlad the III. 

Should you ever gain his ear, he will claim that he discovered the acupuncture that led to the creation of vampires, before a usurper created the stone masks and annihilated his species. Impala is mournful of the Tribe of Darkness, and everyday seeks a way to restore his people or somehow turn a vampire into a so-called "Pillar-Man." Impala longs for companionship, but mistrusts the motives of those who seek him out. Vampires in the party have an easier time gaining his trust, as they both must shelter from the sun.

Impala is often brooding in his remote castle, surrounded by mindless zombies and supplicant vampires. None are his intellectual equals, and he is thus starved for stimulation. News from the outside world will entertain and delight him, no matter what it is. He last had a companion who traveled outside his domain in the year 1924. He still mourns Lenin to this day.

Impala is a hopeless romantic, and values partners over platonic ones. He is pansexual and polyamorous, and his castle is kind of wild for this reason. It is filled with squirming pleasure-drunk vampires, enthralled humans who hope to be granted immortality for their service and zombie attendants with glasses of delicious liquors on silver platters. He has taken many lovers over the years, and has treated them all as respected equals. His most recent lovers were a wealthy husband and wife who sought him out to become immortal. He granted their request, and they brought him news from the outside world every few months. Impala can be paralyzed with grief for 2 rounds if the name of a dead lover is said to him.

Impala is still alive because he is still, after all these years, optimistic that he will find an equal or restore his people or otherwise find a community that lives on his level. Think Omniman with no Viltrum Empire to serve. 

Glaugust 2026 #2: Cave Monster Classes

My second prompt for Glaugust is "Classic Monsters as Classes," which excites me a lot! After some thought and discussion with my partners, I have decided to do two monsters; the intellect devourer and the bulette! They're a little less iconic and maybe therefore less classic, but IM in charge here and I get to pick!!! For these classes, I don't imagine you are literally playing as a monster, more that their abilities have been turned into a class for any humanoid to take. In order to play them as the quadruped beasties they typically are, add this feature to both classes' Template As.

 

Beast - You are a monster or animal. You cannot wear or use standard equipment, but can use things designed for a horse or similar creature. Your starting equipment is designed for your body. You are frightening to behold. Your party will need to do some serious convincing that you're tamed. Your claws rend for d6 damage.

 

Class: Intellect Devourer 

You were experimented on by mysterious cave dwelling aliens. Your brain and body have been psychically and surgically altered to become a watchdog for their pod, but something in your programming went wrong. You still have free will.

Skills (1d4): 1. Caves 2. Torture 3. Guarding 4. Interrogation

Starting Equipment: Starry vestments, rough rope bracelets with purple stone woven within, a vessel containing a living brain (4 Intelligence)

 

Templates

A. Thought Eater, Telepathy

B. Sense Intelligence 

C. Psychic Puppet

D. Possession

Thought Eater - You cannot consume normal food, you have a trained revulsion to eating sensations. Instead, you must devour 4 points of Intelligence per day to survive. You can drain Intelligence from a living creature standing motionless within 4 arms' lengths at a rate of 1 point per minute. They may make a save to resist, but you can try again after 2 combat rounds of recovering from the psychic feedback. The referee or targeted player character will describe a belief, thought or memory consumed for each point drained in this way.  

When a creature reaches 0 Intelligence, they suffer brain-death. If a creature is not drained to 0 Intelligence, they may regain points at a rate of 1 per day of therapy by a doctor. Thoughts consumed will not be recovered, however.

If a person is drained to 0 Intelligence, you gain 1d2 Intelligence permanently.

Telepathy - You can speak with willing creatures through their minds from within the same room. If you ever need a maximum limit, it is roughly 4 body lengths away. You can speak with unwilling creatures, but they get a save to shut you out after 4 words.

Sense Intelligence - You know the exact direction and location of all creatures that are as intelligent as a 5 year old human within the hex you occupy. If not using hexes, it is roughly 6 miles. You can locate a specific creature on a 2-in-6 chance, so long as you know what its face looks like. If you fail this check, you are wracked with loud thoughts and lay writhing in pain for 1d4 hours.

Psychic Puppet - When you drain a creature's intelligence to 0, you may choose to puppeteer their body before they die. Your own body becomes unconscious, and you now control the creature as if it were your character. The referee will detail their statistics and other relevant facts to you, and you can access any of their memories at will. You use your own mental statistics instead of the creature's. If your original body is harmed, you are shunted out of the puppet. The puppet immediately dies when you stop the puppet show. You must still consume intelligence to survive while inhabiting this body, but your puppet will not be sustained and will starve at the normal rate.

Possession - You may use your Psychic Puppet feature on living creatures, so long as their Intelligence is lower than yours.

 Class: Bulette

Your nails are hardened and curled for shoveling soil, your brow and nose are stony and your spine protrudes an unnatural length. No one knows why you became this way, but you do; to see the world beneath your feet! To revel with worms and hum with the heart of the planet, to taste the blood and smell the bones of Gaia's beautiful body!

Skills (1d4): 1. Caves 2. Eating 3. Minerals 4. Running

Starting Equipment: Thousands of thin white scars, clay caked all over, razor teeth (d8 damage)

 

Templates

A. Burrow, Darksight

B. Goring Leap, Tremorsense

C. Tunnel, Ferrophage

 

Burrow - You can bore through soft soil, sand and gravel. It is nearly instant and you can move up to your running speed while burrowing. The narrow tunnel you leave behind collapses after 5 minutes.

Darksight - You can see in total darkness, though edges are blurred and there is no color.

Goring Leap - You can leap 6x your body length in a single bound, and can attack for free at any point in your jump. You deal +d6 damage on melee attacks made as part of a Goring Leap.

Tremorsense - You can sense motion and weight in an area 6x your body length, so long as that motion or weight touches the ground. 

Tunnel -  You can bore through solid stone. You may also extrude a waxy substance through your palms that preserves your tunnel for 5 hours.

Ferrophage - You can consume a ration sized lump of metal or stone, though it does not sustain you.

Glaugust 2026 #1: Primates and The Awakening

 Excited to be doing Glaugust this year! It'll be my first, and I think it'll be a nice return to blogging for me. 

Here we goooooo

 

 Species: Gorilla |  Reroll STR+3 | You can lift and carry 10x a mere man | You cannot speak verbally 

 

“The Great Zoo of Galderad has opened today to startling news; the gorilla display has been vandalized! Someone 

broke inside of the display during off hours and wrote messages on the inside of the viewing windows in an attempt 

to frighten visitors. Scrying has yet to be used, as a prank of this sort is not believed to be very important by Her 

Defenders. Messages ranged from ‘Let me out’ to ‘I am thinking’...” Excerpt from Her Empire's Times

This article was distributed a few months before their awakening was undeniable. For that intervening period, many 

such “pranks” were reported at zoos, ecological sites, and exotic pet owners’ homes. In the background, secretive

 groups of wizards and many druid conclaves convened to diagnose what was happening. Was something possessing 

gorillas? Was a rogue spellcaster awakening them to a higher consciousness? Druids had long since believed human 

consciousness to be a mistake, so the cases of it being inflicted onto such noble beasts were seen as wildly cruel. 

Many accused high profile Wizard Eccentrics of the crime, but before battles could break out between the wizards 

and the druids an answer appeared.

A collective known simply as O (always depicted in green pigment) began destroying enclosures of gorillas and 

other primate species and setting the animals free. These releases were always preceded by anonymous 

correspondence to the owners urging them to release them as they were “children of the stars, same as any tallman 

or elf or orc.” After the request was inevitably ignored, O would free the captive animals and disappear with them, 

and it would later be learned that they were returning them to natural habitats.. Their calling card, a simple 

depiction of their name in splattered chloroplasts, made them quite a novelty in the news before their public debut.

O revealed themselves in a public demonstration at Her Empire's capital as a group of sympathetic peoples, 

druids, and newly conscious gorillas who believe that they were the star-wandering progenitors of the Tallman race.

 After near destruction in a great cosmic calamity, these space gorillas deployed an emergency cache of young to a 

distant and life-supporting planet (Ours) with minds wiped. The reason for this consciousness reset is unclear, but 

many O members believe the threat that nearly destroyed them was something that targeted the mind of sapients in 

ancient times. After reaching our planet, gorillas adapted to nature so well that sapience never reemerged. Gorillas 

eventually developed into the wide range of primates that can be found here, most notably Tallmen. Some O 

members don’t believe all of this, but this is the public line.

So, why now? What caused all gorillas in the wild and living in captivity to simultaneously develop minds? O is 

not sure, but theories range from a deity’s intervention to an implanted failsafe in the original spell that wiped their 

minds. Regardless of the reason, people have been reacting to the emergence of a new sapient species in many 

ways. Some are receptive, having been taught that anything thinking is an equal. They welcome the new people 

into the world with open arms. Others are reluctant to even acknowledge a new people, stuck inside the old 

separation between animal and person. Gorillas often challenge this division, seeing all animals as worthy of 

autonomy and respect that equals a person's. 

Gorillas are often strict vegans and nudists, believing that the natural world must be unaltered and to make as 

little an impact on the lives of other beings as possible. This is paradoxically not applied to other sapients, who they 

often gently try to convert. Many who live in community with other peoples “liberate” housepets from their 

owners. Gorillas have largely remained in the wilderness, however, still being familiar with the lifestyle of their 

predecessors. Though now it is common to see gorillas with carefully carved spears, nets woven of thick braided 

vines and roaring fires under scraps of abandoned metal now serving as cookware. They are hospitable, 

welcoming those who crave the mostly natural lifestyle and those who simply want a paper published about them 

with equal kindness.

 “We are not going to devolve into small, simpering babes unable to survive without this or that tool. Our bodies are 

our greatest gifts, and this world provides all we need. Yet, we feel now the pull of innovation and convenience just 

as you do. We will be tempered by our love for the planet, and will not indulge so much as to weaken ourselves or 

become reliant. A spear is one thing, but my fur will never be covered by a dress or woolen pants.” - Quote from 

Ong, Matriarch and Speaker for the Kikiro Wetland Forest

These tribes of gorillas have found much in common with those displaced by Her growing Empire, and those who 

live on the outskirts of charted land. Many have elected to be the muscle that protects these unspoiled spots of 

nature from colonization and exploitation. Those gorillas affiliated with O are often also trained in druidic arts, 

though they see the “question of thought” differently than most sects. Gorillas see their awakening as a gift, an 

ability to ascend higher than just meeting their baseline needs. They believe all animals will one day awaken to 

sapience. and on that day all will be in community with one another. Druids HATE this line of thinking, but are 

reluctant to rally against a gorilla druid clan as they are naturally gifted in the arts.

There are some gorillas who dwell in the denser parts of Her Empire, often originating from zoos. These gorillas 

tend to speak highly of industrialization and the expansionism of tallmen, believing that this is the legacy that their 

progenitors left for them: to one day reconquer the stars! They have often been taught or raised by scholars or 

wealthy owners who relished the novelty of a talking, thinking animal companion. They believe primates are the 

most superior of all animals, and often keep lemurs and monkeys as pets to further illustrate their greatness when 

they are set free from their family. These gorillas often integrate into businesses or groups as mascots, get into 

Tallmen religion, or strike out on their own as adventurers. The image these gorillas cultivate as “Tallman 

Supplicants” are dire and embarrassing to O.

The Gift of Revelation

Clerics are found in their childhood, often in distress. The Sight is not meant for ones so young, but the weight is what separates those who will be useful from those who buckle. The Gods do not choose to bestow The Sight, but they will always find uses for the Seers.

What is The Sight?

Its not seeing into the future so much as it is seeing into Heaven. The cleric's body is stiff and cold, their mind transported into their God's domain. It can last anywhere from minutes to hours, and it is more intense when the cleric is surrounded by symbols of their God. Candles, effigies, flames, storms, whatever the God presides over. The rank, the power, the command a cleric has here on Earth is based on how much they retain from their visions. The more clear and straightforwardly correct, the higher in their conclave they rise. The leaders under each God are said to have perfect recall and total clarity, but they are not often forthcoming with their knowledge.

How do I prove its The Sight?

Its common for Clerics to treat the mentally ill, so its also common for them to check visionary statements and claims of divine sight. There's no telling what God a given child will have sight unto, so in each country's cities there will be collectives of Clerics from across many domains who will corroborate symbols and evaluate predictions against their own. This is all to help sort out the sick from the seers, but there are many who fall through the cracks. Clerics are still human, and will sometimes be unable to see the truth. Young radicals claiming they have sight that contradicts the established order is where most conclaves got their start, but what order would admit that and move over for the new kids?

What is my vision?

Where you are standing...

1.	Empty	Temple
2.	Massive	Hall
3.	Silent	Bedchamber
4.	Broken	Forest
5.	Thrumming	Desert
6.	Choral	Courtyard
7.	Marble	Ocean
8.	Rainy	Town Square
9.	Mossy	Barracks
10.	Twilight	Tower
11	Burning	Ruin
12	Golden	Meadow
13	Silver	Clearing
14	Full	Shade of Tree
15	Midnight	Lake
16	Daybreak	Beach
17	Overgrown	Mountaintop
18	Flooded	Shrine
19	Ashen	Gate
20	Shimmering	Throne

You witness...

1.	Endless	Elephant
2.	Ancient	Battle
3.	Foggy	Light
4.	Weeping	Horde
5.	Singing	Choir
6.	Distant	Parade
7.	Near	War Band
8.	Your	Angel
9.	The	Beast
10.	Nostalgic	Father
11	Loving	Mother
12	Hateful	Infant
13	Glorious	Lion
14	Woeful	Bush
15	Stoic	Tree
16	Warm	Demon
17	Cold	Cornucopia
18	Ruined	Wall
19	Blackened	River
20	Pearly	Flame

The word on your lips when you come to...

1-2.       Weal

3-4.       Woe

5-6.       What

Gifts for the Adventurers in your life - Secret Santicorn 2024

Do your recently rescued villagers need ideas for what to do for the wanderers that just saved their lives? Is there a holiday coming up, and a patron is looking to be kind to their pet fighters? One, for shame, Two here is a rollable table. Depending on how magical your setting is these are more or less impressive, but none should be too overpowered or useful/

(Merry Santicorn, Anne of DIY&Dragons !)

The gifts below are all worth 50sp, assuming a silver is enough for a bed and meal for one night. There is also enough for every adventurer in the party, obviously!

1d12	Gifts for Adventurers
1.	Cosmetics Kit, steel cases enameled in bright colors. The pigments are varied and strong enough to conceal or invent wounds, function as decent disguises and of course beautify excellently. Can be used in adventuring 6 times, but could be used just for cosmetics indefinitely.
2.	Wok of Seasoning, glittering cast iron. Enchanted to season anything cooked inside to the chef’s desire. This makes  bags of salt for preservation obsolete, practically, but will be a major comfort on the road.
3.	Costume Jewelry. Beautiful, but obviously glass and pewter if examined closely. Given to “help class up their wardrobe without the temptation of selling!” Looks worth 100gp.
4.	Sword oils, whetstones, etc. When do you ever stop to clean and care for a thing?
5.	Matching sets of fine clothes, suits or gowns or what have you. A party logo has been inscribed on the lapels, wrists, or boldly emblazoned across the back. How.. nice?
6.	A lump of porous white.. soap? When added to a bath of any size, it is filled with frothing scented bubbles and its temperature is changed to a gentle boil. Extremely comfy, counts as a rest.
7.	Liar’s Lip Dye, rich purple. When a kiss mark is applied with this, the color will change depending on what the person marked just said. If it turns green, they are lying. If it stays purple, it was true to their knowledge.
8.	A carnivorous potted plant, highly trained. Eats vermin exclusively, good for camping.
9.	A homemade pie. What’s the party’s favorite flavor?
10.	Disgustingly brick-like fruit cake. Useful as an infinite bludgeon, will never crack or bend safe for unnatural or magical pressure.
11.	A nice portrait of the party, slightly misremembered to be more attractive and noble.
12.	Bottomless wallet, can contain any amount of coinage & summon them at a thought.