Digressions of the Devouring Dead

Cruel and bloody tables and missions for Four Against Darkness, for characters of any

Written and laid out by Erick N. Bouchard Four Against Darkness game by Andrea Sfiligoi Additional material by Andrea Sfiligoi, Jeffery Baker, Adam Bouchard, Ulysse Bouchard, Cassandre Bouchard, Victor Jarmusz & John A. McDonnell Proofreading by John A. McDonnell & Graham A. Wilson Playtested by Steve Blackett, Wesley Harmon, Chris Kitterman, Edward May, Mike Nadeau, Mike Redenbaugh Sr. & Michael Redenbaugh Jr., Aaron Sibley and Jay Villanueva Cover by Andrea Sfiligoi, back cover by Cassandre Bouchard Art by Andrea Sfiligoi, Ignazio Corrao, Ulysse Bouchard, W.H. Auden, John Austen, Ferdinand Barth, Hannes Bok, Margaret Brundage, Harry Clarke, Luke Clennel, Boris Dolgov, Alexander Emshwiller, Virgil Finlay, Sergius Hruby, Käthe Kollwitz, Giovanni Normand Lindsay, Battista Piranesi, Antonio Rodríguez Luna, Louis Raemaekers, Antonio Rodriguez, Wallace Smith, Angela Sprecher (CCASA 3.0), Amazing Stories, Avon, Fantastic Adventures, Horror Stories, IF magazine, Infinity Science Fiction, Men’s Magazine, Planet Stories, Spicy Mysteries, Unknown, Weird Tales and other public domain magazines Map of the Keep of Mystery by David Edwin Dedicated to the late Gary Gygax For more information about Norindaal, the official setting for Four Against Darkness: https://sites.google.com/site/norindaal/

Warning : This book features nude art, horror, gore, body Samplemutilations, torture and other mature subject matter. file Reader discretion is advised. Contents Resting 22 Returning Roamers 22 Introduction 6 Sorcery 23 About this Frightful Book 6 Vindictive Vermin 23 Thematic Dungeons 7 Wooing and Milking 24 Acronyms 7 Abyss & Netherworld Rules 25 Acknowledgements and ‘Appendix N’ 8 Blasphemous Ones 25 New Rules 10 Dark Plague 26 Bribes 10 Madness 26 Leveling Encounters 10 Soul Cubes 27 Complex Traps 11 Necromantic Floor Tiles 27 New Gear 12 Fighting on Lower Levels 31 Neurosis 14 Flying Monsters 31 Searching Rooms 15

Unique Dungeons 15 New Classes 32 Atrocity 33 Hardcore Dungeons 16 Death Leper 35 Optional Rules for the Brave 16 Mutant 37 Benefits of Hardcore Mode 17 Necromancer 39 Design Your Party Carefully 18 Sentient Golems 41 The Loathsome Four 18 Clerics & Gods 45 The Tinkerers 18 Akerbeltz 45 The Glass Cannons 19 Darim 46 The Debutantes (Easy Mode) 20 Ter Za Necht 46 PsYcHo MoDe! (Optional) 20

New Expert Skills 47 Special Rules 20 Built-In Weapons 47 ContemptSample for Clerics 20 file Chaos Missile 47 Deadly Doors 21 Campsite Cooking 47 Extenuating Experience 21 First Aid 48 How Many Rooms? 21

4 Ghoulish Familiar 48 Necromantic Scroll table 91 Lamplighter 48 Necromantic Basic Spell table 91 Leprous Cleansing 49 Necromantic Expert Spell table 92 Locksmith 49 Necromantic Unique Artifact table 94 Monstrous Mount 49 Disgustingly Gruesome Stuff table 95 Petrifying Gaze 49 Gruesome Stuff table 95 Poisonous 49 At Least As Gruesome Stuff table 97 Ropecraft 49 Necromantic Traps table 98 Scavenger 50 Necromantic Special Features table 99 Soul Furnace 50 The Infamous Amputation table 100 Talons 50 Necromantic Quests table 102 Wings 50 New Necromantic Vermin table 103 Necromantic Vermin table 103 The Dead are Digressing 53 Known Necromantic Vermin table 105 Ter Za Necht’s Undead Heresy 53 New Necromantic Minions table 106 Missions 53 Necromantic Minions table 106 Mission 1 54 Known Necromantic Minions table 108 Mission 2 55 New Weird Undead table 109 Mission 3 59 Necromantic Weird Monsters 109 Mission 4 61 Known Weird Undead table 112 Mission 5 64 Necromantic table 114 Mission 6 68 New Necromantic Boss table 114 Necromantic Spells 72 Known Necromantic Boss table 117 Necromantic Secrets 72 Thralls of the Lich King table 120 Evil Monster Upgrade Qualificative 121 Nether City Rulership 76 Frightening Boss Name table 122 Necromantic Entrance Room table 81 Necromantic Special Events table 123 NecromanticSample Room Type table 82 file Necromantic Room Contents table 87 Secret Notes to Tables 127 Necromantic Treasure table 88 Necromantic Magic Treasure table 89 Perplexingly Obscure table 89

5 This is no walk in the park. Seriously. I Introduction wrote this book after reading players boasting that the corebook’s dungeons About this Frightful Book were “too easy”. This book is my reply. You think Peter Jackson's Brain Dead Necromantic dungeons are not safe movie was better than his Lord of the spaces for snowflakes. They are gritty Rings? You applauded Sam Raimi’s Evil places for tough girls and guys who Dead as a piece of genius? You cradle have the guts to go through the worst. in the sweet melodies of Gwar before Your cherished characters risk going to sleep? Then DIGRESSIONS OF dismemberment, decapitation, level THE DEVOURING DEAD IS FOR YOU! drains or worse. The challenge levels Necromantic dungeons are meant for are set high and survival rates the true, hardcore, old-school revival accordingly low. Many adventurers will players who eat gremlins for lunch and die in these pages, joining their kin in scornfully laugh at medusas. the dreadful Netherworld that awaits them. And yet, the rewards herein Rooted proudly in the tradition set by do match the dangers - unholy Gary Gygax in his infamous relics, magic bone hands, spell Tomb of Horrors adventure scrolls to raise the dead, (1975), back when I was still harquebuses, soul cubes. a toddler, and the "Fourthcore” philosophy of By the time your first the Old School party survives the Renaissance movement, necromantic dungeons these dungeons are of Ter Za Necht, the designed on purpose to lich-dragon god, provide you with a tough, your bragging rights challenging experience will be undisputed from which your before those who characters will survive only thought the if you make use of strategy, Netherworld was wit, and luck, and probably not hard. This is far worse. with all their limbs intact. As a playtester summarized: "Don’t get Shamelessly ripe with shocking horror, attached to your characters. They’re DigressionsSample of the Devouring Dead is Four probably not going to filemake it out alive.” Against Darkness’ homage to total- Prepare for your hardest dungeon party-kill dungeons and slasher horror challenge yet. Prepare for the worst. movies, where hordes are Prepare for the devouring dead. devastated by whirling blades and -powered chainsaws. – Erick N. Bouchard

6 Thematic Dungeons treasure, special features and even spells found on scrolls and magic items This supplement is part of a series of change with the dungeon theme. thematic dungeons inhabited by specific types of creatures. The book The mechanics of the game (searching offers tables for vermin, minions, empty rooms, using character abilities, Bosses, Weird Monsters and treasure combat, spellcasting, clues, etc.) appropriate to the enemy type. There remain the same, unless the book says are a few different missions possible otherwise. in each of these supplements. In most You may use any Secret detailed in cases, with a little bit of common sense, other Four Against Darkness books you can mix and match the mission appropriate to your characters’ level. from one book (such as Caverns of Chaos) with the enemies described in Acronyms another book. Only the Four Against Darkness core Thematic dungeons are generated book (4AD) is required to play using the room shapes in Four Against Digressions of the Devouring Dead Darkness. Roll for room contents on the (DDD). However, options are provided tables provided in this book. Traps, to allow you to create synergies with other books, such as Four Against the Abyss or Four Against the Netherworld, making for a richer playing experience. The following acronyms refer to other books in the 4AD line: Four Against the Abyss (4AA), Caves of the Kobold Slave- Masters (CKSM), Dark Waters (DW), Three Rings (TR), Knight of Destiny (KoD), Fiendish Foes (FF), Treasure Hunters of Charlemagne (THOC), Buried Secrets (BS), Caverns of Chaos (CoC), Man-Eater! (ME), Four Against the Netherworld (4ATN), The Courtship of the Flower Demons (TCOTFD), Crucible of Classic Critters (CCC), Concise Collection of Classes Sample(CoCoC), Breachers offile the Bone Belfry (BBB), The North Beyond the World (TNBTW), Seven Sisters (7S), Yoke of the Yogic Yetis (YYY), More Mountainous Mayhem (MMM), Swamps of the Slithering Snakemen (SSS), Journeys in

7 Ter Za Necht portrayed in its aspect of the Grieving Mother of Despair the Jaguar Jungle (JJJ), Treacheries of the (“Death Frost Doom” and “Green Devil Troublesome Towns (TTT), Seafarers of Face”), Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Secluded Shores (SoSS), Offerings of Petersén (“Kult: Death is only the Œcumenical Occupations (OOO), Poetic beginning”), New Big Dragon Games Platitudes of the Potato People (PoPlPoP), Unlimited (“Petty Gods”), Giovanni Heart of the Lizard (HotL), Amalgam of Battista Piranesi's ("Carceri”), Clark Anthropomorphic Adventurers (AAA), Ashton Smith (“The Empire of the Entreaties of the Enigmatic Elves (EEE), Necromancers”), Howard Philip Lovecraft Isles of the Incandescent Idols (III), Fens (“The Festival”, “The Silver Key”), Red Hook of the Fightin’ Fungi (FFF) and Revenge of (“Darkest Dungeon”), Steve Jackson the Ravenous Ratmen (RRR). Some of (”Braindead”), Sam Raimi (”Evil Dead”), these supplements have not been System of a Down (“Chop Suey”), published yet at the moment of Manowar, Iron Maiden and The Black sending the present book to print. Dahlia Murder for inspiration. Players wishing for colorful tables to Acknowledgements and "fluff out” their necromantic dungeons ‘Appendix N’ with macabre imagery are encouraged ErickSample N. Bouchard © 2019. The author to download the excellentfile "Fourthcore thanks Andrea Sfiligoi (“Four Against Alphabet” universal supplement by Darkness”), Lantz Witha Z (“Uncanny Sersa Victory, available for free here: Against Darkness”), Gary Gygax (“Tomb http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2 of Horrors”), Sersa Victory (“Fourthcore 00069/Fourthcore-Alphabet Alphabet”), James Edward Raggi IV 8