Bestiary of the Vaults: Turboghouls

Turboghoul
No. Enc.:  - (2d6)   
Align:  Chaotic Noisy
Move:  240' (80'), special   
AC:  6
HD:  3
Att:  2 or 1 (2 claws, overrun or lasso)   
Dmg: 1d3/1d3 or special
Save:  F3   
Morale:  9
HC:  XXI (TT:B)

An experiment in thaumonetic augmentation gone horribly wrong, or fallen ophanim, or damned human remnants cursed to perpetual nomadism, or a reified manifestation of settled mans' fear of the predatory nomad, or the result of an unknown memestorm, or just some mad wizard's twisted joke; whatever their origin the people of the Wilds know and fear turboghouls as monstrous speed freaks from a surreal otherworld.

These hyperactive cannibals hoon about the Wilds on self-powered prosthetic wheels sowing chaos and fear. Their idea of a fun evening: tear into an isolated settlement under cover of night, capture the inhabitants, and gnaw off their legs. Those few who survive the agony and trauma of a turboghoul 'hazing' are turned into more turboghouls by methods obscene and obscure.

Being inherently nomadic (and understandably averse to stairs and ladders) these creatures are never encountered underground or in a fixed lair. They are undead and can be turned by clerics as 3HD creatures.

Thanks to the snarling howls of their engines and their constant excitable screaming turboghouls never enjoy surprise. Their assaults rely on crazy bravado, rudimentary hit-and-run tactics, and sheer speed.

Turboghouls attack with a charging overrun attack, with lassos, or with strikes from their wickedly sharp claws.

• Overrun: turboghoul moves at triple normal speed (howling like Halford all the while), causing 2d6 damage on impact.
• Lasso hits: no damage, save vs. paralysis or become entangled. Entangled targets of man-size or smaller will be dragged away at high speed by their whooping, screeching captor (this causes 0-3 (1d4-1) damage/round). The damage stops only when either the turboghoul or character dies. Rules for cutting a rope? Cause 1hp damage vs. AC1d6 (varies round to round).
• Claw attack: 1d3 damage + paralysis for 2d4 turns (save negates). Steal Momentum: turboghoul adds half the normal movement rate of a creature it has paralysed to its own movement for the duration of the paralysis effect.

Unlike their grave-robbing kin turboghouls have no bite attack. This is because they are all punctilious in wearing head protection when traveling at speed. Roll d30 for each pack of turboghouls encountered:

d30
1    sack w. eyeholes
2    bucket w. eyeholes
3    coalscuttle w. eyeholes
4    mask, clown
5    mask, fanged iron
6    mask, gimp
7    mask, guy fawkes
8    mask, gas-
9    mask, welding
10    mask, hockey
11    mask, tights
12    headscarf, flowery
13    headscarf, beduoin
14    hood, liripiped
15    hood, monastic
16    turban, elaborate
17    hat, sombrero
18    hat, stetson + bandanna
19    hat, fancy feathered
20    hat, wizard's pointy
21    helmet, monstrous skull
22    helmet, common
23    helmet, knightly
24    helmet, winged
25    helmet, pickelhaub
26    helmet, futuristic
27    helmet, football
28    helmet, extra-spiky chaotic
29    birdcage
30    goldfish bowl


Turboghouls have little respect for any being slower than themselves, and none at all for anyone who lacks respectable haberdashery. Those without hats will be lassoed and eaten first.

Known turboghoul variations:

Hoverghoul - Inhabit swamps. 180' move over water or flat land.
Jetghoul - Inhabit wide open plains. 240' flying move.
Tankghoul - punky-looking turboghouls on all-terrain tracks. AC4, 150' move.
Springhoul - *Boing* "Time for death!" 120' move, with non-magical blink effect at will.

And, for Djangos Gurnery

Turboghoul 
P/M/S: 10/6/12
Skills: Dodge(P) 6, Melee (P) 5, Crazy bike acrobatics (P) 4, Navigation (M) 3, Select cool hat (S) 2
Powers: Paralyzing touch, Turbo nutter superspeed (move up to 80mph in 5 second bursts)


Pic source: an unholy kludging together of existing art by actual artists Kev Walker and Dawn Breaker.

Djangos Gurnery

An uncannily accurate representation of my work process.

Further to a question posted in the comments by Kelvin Green ("Kelvin, a name derived from the old English word for 'shameless instigator and causer of trouble'."):

If you rewrote Mythus so that it said what it needed to say and nothing more -- and putting aside any attempt to make it fun and playable -- to how many pages, would you say, could a ruthless editor reduce it?

I initially thought the answer was 16 pages. It turns out that -- at least for Mythus Prime -- the answer is actually one single solitary page (plus about 1/4 page of setting material).

For those few who might be interested I hereby present the world's first super-condensed (and, AFAIK, only) Mythus retro-clone:

Django's Gurnery ver3

A one-page fantasy RPG

(inspired by Dangerous Journeys Mythus 

by Gary Gygax and Dave Newton)

And, for further delectation of the loyal, Mythus-loving readership:

Epic of *Narf* ver2

A one-page supplement of

GM pointers and setting material 

for Django's Gurnery

Thoughts? Opinions? Demands that I rein in my tendencies to grandiloquent verbosity at the expense of rules clarity?

Note: Last modified 28th March