Being a big fan of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, I wanted to come up with some sort of monstrocity that my BattleLore warriors could fight. Conan certainly fought some nasty behemouths, and I love the idea of my little BattleLore knights and archers facing a large, monstrous miniature on the battlefield. Here's what I came up with:

It's called the Crawling Chaos (named after Lovecraft's infamous Nyarlathotep). I use a Descent: Journeys in the Dark pit fiend to represent this beast (though there are a variety of miniatures out there that could represent this monster on your BattleLore battlefield).Here are the rules and statistics I came up with for the Crawling Chaos:

Description: The Crawling Chaos is an infernal fiend that lurks between the shadowed realms of space and time. It is worshipped as a dark god by the orc and goblin clans. The Crawling Chaos is considered a red banner Creature unit, and all the rules that apply to Creatures apply to the Crawling Chaos. It is killed on a Critical Hit (see p. 42 of base rules). Like any red banner foot unit, it can move 1 hex and battle with 4d. The Crawling Chaos is Bold 2, meaning it must ignore 2 flags. Like any Creature, it must ignore these flags. If a third flag is rolled against it, it retreats as per the Creature rules, including Trampling (see p. 43 of base rules).

Blood Lust: The Crawling Chaos attacks with its flailing tentacles and stomping hooves. It rolls 4 damage dice, or 4d, for damage. The Crawling Chaos scores hits on all Sword on Shield rolls. Additionally, the Crawling Chaos may collect Lore tokens rolled, or it may immediately spend them during an attack to inflict additional causalities. Lore used in this manner against Hero, Dragon, or Creature units causes these units to make a Critical Hit or Casualty Check. This special ability of the Crawling Chaos is called the Blood Lust.

Madness: The Crawling Chaos is a fiend of such terrible evil and power that all combatants, friend and foe, are terrified by its presence. This special ability of the Crawling Chaos is called Madness. The Madness ability of the Crawling Chaos means that it never lends or receives support from any unit. The Crawling Chaos despises all forms of sentient life, and it seeks only to devour and destroy. Thus, it will never lend its aid to any living entity. Any living combatant, friend or foe, that is adjacent to the Crawling Chaos, cannot be Bold. Even if a unit is Bold 2 or more or is supported by other units, a unit directly adjacent to the Chaos cannot be Bold (this includes units that are Bold due to a terrain feature, such as a Rampart or Stronghold). Additionally, any unit attacked by a Crawling Chaos is Frightened and suffers from Panic Losses (p. 38 and 39 of base rules). This means any unit that is attacked by the Crawling Chaos and flags are rolled during the attack, the defending unit must retreat 2 hexes per flag rolled and check for Panic Losses (roll 1 dice per hex retreated through for Human, Dwarf, Creature, Dragon, or Hero units, or roll 2 dice per hex if the unit is a Goblinoid unit). The Crawling Chaos can receive support from terrain features (for example, it is considered Bold 3 when standing on a Rampart or Magic Pentacle). If a Crawling Chaos inhabits a hex with the Healing Pool, it immediately destroys the Pool. Also, a Crawling Chaos on a Graveyard or Witch’s Hut rolls 1 extra dice in battle.

Ritual of the Bloody Tongue and the Mask of Red Death: The dark magics surrounding the summoning of such a beast of the abyss are ancient and gruesome. To summon the Crawling Chaos, a war council must have a level 3 wizard. An order must be used from a Command Card for the section the Crawling Chaos will be summoned into. To summon the Crawling Chaos, 10 Lore must be spent, and an allied unit must be sacrificed from the section the Crawling Chaos will be placed (meaning the opposing player receives a flag). A Magic Pentacle is placed in the hex the sacrificed unit formerly occupied. As the unit disappears in a blast of blood and bones, a horrendous explosion and terrible scream is heard across the battlefield. Where the sacrificed unit once stood, the Crawling Chaos now stands, its tentacles flailing, its hooves stomping insanely, and its many mouths hurling blasphemies in a forgotten, infernal tongue. When the Crawling Chaos is placed on the battlefield, roll 1 dice for every unit within line of sight. If any of these units rolls a flag, they must retreat per the Madness rules (meaning they retreat two hexes and roll 1 dice for Panic Losses—or 2 dice for Panic Losses if they are a Goblinoid unit). The Crawling Chaos may battle the same round it is summoned, but it cannot move this same round. The Magic Pentacle remains in place per the Magic Pentacle rules (p. 66 of the base rules). Additionally, when the Crawling Chaos is summoned, the terrible magics and forbidden forces at work are unstable, and to bring such a blasphemy into the world of the living is dangerous beyond all comprehension. When the Crawling Chaos is first summoned, roll 1 battle dice. If a red helmet is rolled, this Mask of Red Death causes every unit adjacent to the Crawling Chaos to be completely eliminated.

Path of the Righteous: Any unit that eliminates a Crawling Chaos receives 3 Lore tokens for their brave deed. These Lore tokens are stacked next to the unit. The troop may spend these Lore tokens to move one additional hex when moving or retreating, battle with one additional dice, or ignore one flag. Only one token can be used per activation of the unit.

All in all I like it - do you see this as a green blue or red creature, because it seems very tough even for blue.

Also could the rules be pared down to bullet points (bunch the fluff together at the top and leave the crunch on its own)? my eyes skim fluff for crunch then goes back again to make sure they marry up, probably just me.

Rather than inflicting panic wounds give the creature an lore effect to cause units to fight neighbours for a round (spend an amount of lore equal to dice rolled by the unit)

Chris

Yeah, I actually made a card for this creature, summarizing it's effects without all the fluff. I also think it's a pretty tough red creature. However, notice that a lot of its negatives affect both armies. For example, it's pretty costly to deploy this if it costs you an entire unit and gives your opponent a flag. Also, it removes the Bold ability from anyone around it, friend or foe. I'm thinking its attack is a bit overpowered...it has a 50% chance of inflecting a kill on every roll of the dice. I'll probably re-work that. The Mask of Red Death, while rare, could end a game on the spot if enough units are wiped out by this. I kind of like that idea. It's dangerous to use. I'm also going to include that the Crawling Chaos can only be summoned once per game, and once it's defeated, it's gone for that game. Maybe as a nasty side effect, it could take the wizard on the war council with it...kind of a Dr. Faust scenario...if you're going to play with fire, you might get burned. That would also decrease the owners command card and lore cards for the rest of the game. While the Crawling Chaos is deployed, it's an ass kicker, but if your opponent can kill it, it puts you at a major disatvantage the rest of the game. I'll play test some of this and let you know how it turns out. Still, I think this is a pretty cool, but nasty, beast for the poor BattleLore warriors.

So the Crawling Chaos I came-up with initially was a bit overpowered. Here's the new, "slimmed down" Crawling Chaos. The data is broken-up into blocks to make it easier to understand.

Type: Red Banner Creature. All the creature rules apply to the Crawling Chaos unless stated otherwise in the rules for this creature. The Crawling Chaos can only be killed by a critical hit.

Movement: The Crawling Chaos can move 1 hex and battle.

Retreat: The Crawling Chaos is Bold 2 (meaning it ignores 2 flags). Like any creature, these flags must be ignored.

Special: The Crawling Chaos never gives or receives support, and any unit next to the Crawling Chaos (adjacent to it) cannot be Bold to any degree (whether from support, being Bold by design, being Bold due to being on a special terrain feature such as ramparts, etc.).

Weapons: Tentacles and hooves. The Crawling Chaos can melee only, and it does 4d damage.

Bonus Strike: Yes on sword on shield (SoS).

Special Abilities:

--Ritual of the Bloody Tongue: To place the Crawling Chaos, the owning player must have a level 3 wizard on his war council. He must then sacrifice an entire unit (one of his own units), giving the banner bearer to his opponent to put on his victory track. A magic pentacle must be placed in this vacated space, and the Crawling Chaos is then placed into the pentacle. The Crawling Chaos cannot move the same turn it was summoned, though it can attack this same turn (also receiving the benefit of the magic pentacle, making the Crawling Chaos Bold 3). The Crawling Chaos can also only be summoned at the expense of 10 Lore tokens.

--Mask of Red Death: When attacking a unit, the Crawling Chaos re-rolls all Lore symbols. Any red helmet causes an additional kill in the unit being attacked, AND in every unit adjacent to the Crawling Chaos, friend or foe. This effect continues as long as red helmets are rolled. For example: The Crawling Chaos attacks a group of blue arbaliestiers. The Crawling Chaos is adjacent to a friendly unit of regular, blue infantry. The Crawling Chaos rolls 4d, and rolls a green helmet, a blue helmet, and 2 Lore symbols. The unit being attacked takes a kill because of the blue helmet. The Crawling Chaos now re-rolls both Lore symbols and the result is 2 red helmets. The blue arbaliestiers take two additional kills, and the allied, blue infantry next to the Crawling Chaos also takes two kills. A red helmet rolled in this fashion against another creature, dragon, or hero, requires a critical hit or casualty check by that unit.

-- Madness: Any unit attacked by the Crawling Chaos is Frightened and they must check for Panic Losses. No unit next to the Crawling Chaos may be bold to any degree. For example: Iron Dwarf soldiers (Bold by default) are standing on a Rampart--making them Bold 2. These dwarves are attacked by the Crawling Chaos and one flag is rolled against them. They must retreat one hex and check for Panic Losses. Goblins attacked by the Crawling Chaos retreat as per the normal Goblin rules.

-- Path of the Righteous: Whenever the Crawling Chaos is killed, the unit that destroyed the fiend receives 2 Lore tokens. These tokens can be spent at any time to: re-roll one battle dice, move one extra hex, or ignore one flag. Additionally, when the Crawling Chaos is killed, the owning player must discard any Wizard Lore card in his hand, and he must empty his entire Lore pool.

Hi there, just a flying visit, so just going to comment one part of this - will be back for more.

The summoning ritual - First some questions:
Would the ritual give a second pentagram (you get one as standard for wizard three) or would you only deploy the pentagram when the ritual goes off?
Reason for asking is that a second pentagram would go some way to offsetting the cost of the summoning 10 lore and a unit is pretty high. Also a level three wizard is very restrictive (as monster will also take a level), perhaps make it a wizard of any level, and if you keep lore cost as well you could make the lore cost lower for a higher level wizard?

Would having the sacrificial unit having to get to the pentagram be a better way of running it?

A random thought has just leapt into my mind, in Alien movies the alien picks up the traits of the surrogate - perhaps you could have it so the fighting abilities of the chaos creature matches the unit sacrificed... As written this currently feels like a strong level one creature as the effects impact on friends and foes (a clever opponent could drive friends next to it..). Move and battle one is very slow which might make the creature easy to avoid especially if it takes a few rounds to generate the lore.

Oh here a bit longer ;-)

When attacking you re-roll Lore (does this mean it won't generate Lore? If so this will put it as a definite level one critter to me). The re-roll to see if you get red helmets, I'd be tempted to say if any Lore is rolled again (or black flags as its a fear effect)

Chris

Chris,

Thanks for the input...some really good thoughts. I'm still playtesting this creature. I think I'll re-work the damage system, but I like having it move one space and attack, like a red banner foot unit. I compared this to the Rock Elemental. The Crawling Chaos, like the Rock Elemental, is tough to summon. However, I've used the Rock Elemental to great effect by building up a lot of Lore and then summoning it later in a battle, after the enemy has massed some troops in a certain area. I then summon the Rock Elemental right smack in front of these troops, and he starts doing some serious damage. I had the same thought with the Crawling Chaos. It seems best to wait until mid or late battle and then summon him, right in front of a mass of advancing troops. If these troops are already battle damaged (down one or two dudes), then the Crawliong Chaos (like the Rock Elemental) can do some wicked damage and rack up some victory banners (maybe even clinching a total victory in the process).

I didn't think about how restrictive having a level 3 wizard would be. I think I'll re-work that a bit. Thanks again for the input.

I'd probably use the Gibbering Mouther from the D&D Minis line.