Baratrón Pact
Level: 7, -1 for each HD of sacrifice at casting
This spell forms a pact between the caster and the mysterious subterranean entity Baratrón, who provides the former with a randomly determined obedient servant. The creature will follow the caster’s commands to the best of its abilities and serves for an indeterminate period of time. Once the creature is slain, banished from this world or magically removed from under the caster’s control, the caster must offer a second sacrifice of intelligent creatures, this one commensurate with the power of his former servant: a total of 1 HD for each of the creature’s plus the wizard’s HD (so a 4th level wizard who's just lost his Animated Statue must offer a sacrifice worth 7 Hit Dice - since normal humans do not advance to such levels, this means a number of victims). Should he fail to perform this within three days, he will permanently lose 2 points for each HD from random attributes.
- – Subterranean Man
- – Pit Victim
- – Earth Elemental
- – Living Statue
- – Pnakognomatic Artisan
- – Baratrian Smoke Demon
- – Clockwork Horror
- – Troglodyte
- – Eye of Stone
- – Ancient One Who Sleeps
Subterranean Man
A man with white or no hair, pale skin and milky eyes. He is like a normal fighting man (1st to 3rd level), but with the following exceptions:
- He is blind, and therefore immune to blinding effects such as sharp or stroboscopic lights as well as to purely visual illusions.
- His sharp hearing and preternatural senses are functionally equivalent to 90’ of vision in any light conditions.
- Due to Baratrón's blessing, he always understands his master’s commands, but can only speak his own unintelligible language.
- Accustomed to living in caverns: +2 to climbing and swimming rolls, +4 to moving silently in enclosed spaces characterised by hard surfaces.
Subterranean men are normally equipped with a metal club (1d6 damage), a small dagger and two dozen doses of blade poison (1d6-2 HP, -1d8/-1d8 DEX). They will not wear armour.
Pit Victim
A criminal thrown into the punishment pits of ancient and distant cities, reanimated by Baratrón's will. An undead creature with blackened and hardened skin, covered in long dark rags. Understands speech but cannot communicate. It automatically detects hostile intent towards its master and autonomously takes steps to cruelly dispose of the threat unless explicitly ordered otherwise. Either carries an ancient, badly rusted weapon or uses its long, disease-ridden claws.
1-3HD, AC10, dam. 1d6-1 or 1d6-2 + disease: 1d4 STR / 1d4 CON
Earth Elemental
A hulking, shape of rock and earth that can pull itself into a vaguely humaoid appearance. It can tear down walls and dig through rock easily. All worked stone in its vicinity - bricks, walls, flagstone, statues, etc. - will slowly revent into natural stone formations over a matter of months, weeks or days, depending on the elemental's level. When not in contact with stone or earth, or when at least partially submerged in water, it slowly disintegrates, losing 1 HP per round.
3-8 HD, AC18, dam. 1d6 (3-4 HD), 2d6 (5-6 HD) or 3d6 (7-8 HD).
Animated Statue
An exquisitely carved statue of stone, typically depicting a human or animal. Intelligent enough to follow complicated commands, but always remains very literal in their interpretation. When faced with a situations undefined by its instructions, it will try to follow the nearest match in its orders. Unless its master puts some thorough thinking into his instructions, this nearest match might well boil down to "protect me", which in turn might become "kill anything that come close." Animated statues can speak in a resonant voice, but usually only do that when isntructed to do so or when told to report some past event.
3 HD, AC17, dam. 1d6+2. Takes minimum damage from non-blunt weapons.
Pnakognomatic Artisan
In this dimension the creature appears as a hunched, lean, black-skinned, hairless dwarf. While it only has one Hit Die, it counts as a 5HD creature for the purposes of sacrifice as described in the Baratron Pact spell. It cannot wield weapons or wear armour, but has the ability to part and pefectly reseal earth, rock and minerals (the latter only in their natural state) with its comically oversized bare hands. Furthermore, when given the necessary materials, even in their raw state (such as a vein of iron ore instead an ingot), it can manufacture any non-magical metal or stone item in one hour without tools. It can communicate with its master, and anyone else the master declares is privy to such conversation, in a multitonal whisper that everyone perceives as his or her native language.
If the Pnakognomatic Artisan is killed, its full and proper form will momentarily intrude upon our dimension in its death throes. At the end of the round of its death, it will transform into a giant tentacled non-Eucledian monster and randomly lash out at nearby targets, attacking as a 10 HD creature. In this single destructive act it will lash out with 5 tentacles (1d6 damage); bite with its gaping mouth full of pointy teeth at the closest possible target (2d6+2 damage); and shoot a black eyebeam of death energy (save or die). Once the monster is still, it is sucked back into its native dimension, leaving no body behind.
Pnakognomatic Artisan: 1HD, AC11, dam. 1d6-1
Baratrian Smoke Demon
This intelligent, malevolent creature comprises tendrils of poisonous dark smoke and counts as a 4 HD monster for purposes of the Baratron Pact. It can fly and fit through the tiniest crack and is completely immune to non-magical weapons and most spell effects, some notable exceptions being wind, banishment or domination by arcane means. It attacks by engulfing its target: the victim can hold his breath by making a CON save with a cumulative -2 penalty for every round after the first, or try to outrun the smoke by an opposed DEX check (the demon is considered to have DEX 12, horndwarves take a -4, lizardmen a -2 penalty). A failure indicates that the demon’s poisons have penetrated the victim’s lungs, causing 1d6 points of damage to a randomly chosen attribute.
When located outside the Underworld, the Demon needs an unholy container, typically a clay or stone jar, to regularly retreat into and regain composure. If this jar is destroyed, the Smoke Demon will permanently disperse in a few days.
While the Baratrian Smoke Demon is capable of operating above grounds, it will only do so by the explicit command of its master, since it has problems navigating even a light breeze, and a stronger wind is pretty much lethal to it.
1HD, AC: 12 (only against magic weapons)
Clockwork Horror
All cogs, joints, axles, pincers and swirling blades, Clockwork Horrors are mechanical monsters that come in a great variety of sizes and (sometimes vaguely human- or animal-like) shapes. They only take minimum damage from piercing and slashing weapons (except heavy, two-handed swords and axes), and are immune to fire, poison and all other effects that would not affect a steel machine. Electricity causes them to stop amidst convulsions for 1d4 rounds, but after that they’ll be quickened, having twice the movement rate and twice the usual number of attacks for the same duration. The smallest ones with 1 Hit Dice can climb over all but the smoothest surfaces, even upside down, and 2 HD ones also retain some of this ability to a lesser extent.
| Roll | HD | AC | Attacks |
| 1-3 | 1 | 15 | 1d6-1 |
| 4-6 | 2 | 15 | 1d6/1d6-1 |
| 7-9 | 3 | 15 | 1d6/1d6/1d6-1 |
| 10-11 | 4 | 15 | 1d6+1/1d6/1d6/1d6-1 |
| 12 | 5 | 15 | 1d6+1/1d6+1/1d6/1d6/1d6-1 |
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