Monster Monday: Herne, the Wild Huntsman

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;

And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.

                 - William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Today's Monster Monday is Herne, king of the Wild Hunt.  This ethereal huntsman rides his trusty steed through the woods accompanied by a far-seeing owl and two noble hunting dogs.  His motives are a mystery, but tales of this lonesome rider who hunts across the realms of men and fey have spread far and wide.

The tale of Herne the Hunter is first attested in William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (quoted above) which tells of a ghostly huntsman who haunts a particular oak.  The story may originate in the execution of a poacher named Richard Horne during the time of King Henry VIII.  The legend of Herne was expanded upon in Harrison Ainsworth's 1843 novel Windsor Castle, whence comes the illustration below.

Illustration of Herne the Hunter by George Cruikshank, via Wikimedia

Therein, Herne is described as:

a wild spectral-looking object, possessing some slight resemblance to humanity, and habited, so far as it could be determined, in the skins of deer, strangely disposed about its gaunt and tawny-coloured limbs. On its head was seen a sort of helmet, formed of the skull of a stag, from which branched a large pair of antlers; from its left arm hung a heavy and rusty-looking chain, in the links of which burnt the phosphoric fire before mentioned; while on its right wrist was perched a large horned owl, with feathers erected, and red staring eyes.

Some have tried to find the origins of the Herne story in the Celtic god Cernunnos.  While both Cernunnos and Herne are antlered huntsman, it seems to me a bit of a stretch to assume that a story first attested in 1597 has its origins in a god not worshipped there for 1000 years.  Nevertheless, it makes for a pretty rad monster.

Herne is a whole combat encounter rolled into one monster, mostly because he is never without his two loyal hounds, his noble steed, and his enigmatic owl.  These ethereal beasts are treated in essentially the same way as a druid's animal companion; the herne is considered a 15th level druid for the purposes of his hunting companions, with those 15 levels divided up between the horse, dogs, and owl.  So when a party fights the herne, they are actually fighting five individual creatures.  Check out the dauntingly long stat block below.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Cinder Bat - Wings of Smoke and Fire

"It all started with a sheep, so they say."  The old man leaned close to the fire, the flickering orange light throwing his wrinkled visage into stark relief.  The children, sensing the beginning of a story, hushed their burbling conversations and turned to face the storyteller.  When all they could hear was the crackling of the pine branches in the campfire, the old man continued.  

"Farmer Agrup's prize ewe wandered on to Farmer Jenton's land and gave birth to a single little lamb.  When Farmer Agrup went a-searching for the ewe the next morning, he saw Jenton leading the ewe back, clutching the newborn lamb to his chest.  He said that the lamb rightfully belonged to him, since it was born on his land.  Now, this was just another in a long line of disputes between the two farmers.  As you may know, when two farmers have plots of land right next to each other, they can find all sorts o' things to fight about.  Farmer Agrup took his case to the shire-reeve but he found no justice there.  Agrup was known in town as a loner and a drunk - which he was - and a troublemaker - which he... well, he was a bit of that, too.  Farmer Jenton, though, had a big family, and was well-liked in town.  He often had the shire-reeve over for supper, and so the shire-reeve said that Jenton should keep the lamb.

"That night, Farmer Agrup got very drunk and worked himself into quite a rage.  He lit a torch, hopped over the fence, and threw it at Farmer Jenton's house."  The old man paused now to throw another log on the fire.  Smoke and cinders burst upwards to dance away into the black sky.  "When he passed out, it had caught the thatching all ablaze.  When he woke up hours later, the whole house was burnt up, Farmer Jenton and his family with it.  As he looked on, dumbfounded at what he had done, a charred beam fell into a pile of low embers.  It threw up twisting clouds of ash and flame that seemed to take the form of wings.  

"Cinder bats!  Creatures of smoke and fire, born of arson.  When Farmer Agrup cast his torch onto the house, he cast his rage with it.  That rage festered in the burning house and mingled with the rage of the dying Farmer Jenton and his family.  The ashes gave shape to that rage.  Four cinder bats flew across the night sky from the ruins of Farmer Jenton's house to roost in the eaves of Farmer Agrup's.  Agrup could only watch as his farm went up in flames.  Out of the ashes a dozen more cinder bats burst forth, some flying into the forest, others flying back towards town.  The shire-reeve's house.  Lucinda's.  The Korb family.  By morning, they had burnt up half the shire."

A little girl raised her hand to interject.  "So, do the cinder bats represent how violence begets violence?  Like, the dangers of holding on to anger instead of seeking peaceful conflict resolution?"

The old man shook his head, his eyes never leaving the campfire.  "No, my dear, no metaphors here.  The cinder bats are very real.  I saw them that night."

Today's Monster Monday is the cinder bat, an incorporeal cloud of ash and cinders in the shape of a bat.  It breathes fire and sets ablaze everything it touches.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

Monster Monday: Dust Mummy, Accursed Cloud of Decay

With one final roar, Abdul thrust the ancient spear into the attacking guardian's chest, bursting through the intricately detailed blue faience surface.  He gave it a twist, and the wings of the spear ripped at the crumbling clay.  The falcon-headed ushabti collapsed, now nothing more than a pile of ancient ceramics.  Hassan was over by the passageway, roasting the bodies of the two mummified cheetahs with vindictive glee, divine flame jetting from his outstretched silver holy symbol.  With the tomb's protectors defeated, Abdul and Hassan took out their blessed chisels and went to work on the walls, obliterating every instance of the priest-king's name and every image of his face, just as they had done in the previous rooms.

Hassan found the secret door.  He had always been better at that than Abdul.  "What do you think, brother - will this be the real burial chamber, or another false one?" Abdul asked as he chipped away at the plaster covering the door's seams.

Hassan continued to focus on the door, clutching his holy symbol with white knuckles.  There was a series of mechanical clicks from behind the door, and Hassan instantly relaxed.  "The traps are disarmed," he said in the calm, pleased tone of a butler presenting a particularly fine roasted peacock.

"The door was-?" Abdul dropped his crowbar and scurried back.  "Mound of Mu'at, man!  Why didn't you tell me?"

"I would have stopped you before you triggered them."  Hassan spread his hands wide.

"Alright, you open the door."

When the stone door fell to the dusty ground with a great crack, they stood face to face with a gilded sarcophagus.

"Entombed standing upright.  Typical Yuttub-worshiper."  Hassan spat at the mention of the hated god.

Abdul hefted his sledgehammer and swung it at the sneering golden face.  "This is for what you did to our people!  And this is for what you did to our homeland!  And this is for the thousand years of suffering that followed!"  With his last swing, the ruined face cracked, the sealant on the sarcophagus lid failed, and the whole stone edifice fell to join the door, narrowly missing Abdul's toes.

The desiccated corpse within was bound in strips of ancient bandage inscribed with arcane sigils, and what flesh was visible was covered in gold leaf.  The gaudy tyrant stood for only a split second before collapsing into a pile of sparkling dust and shards of bone.  Hassan let a rare shout of jubilation escape his lips, and the brothers exchanged triumphant smiles.  But the grave dust rose in a swirling cloud between them, scraps of spell-cloth whipping around as if caught in a dust devil.  Occasionally the dust would congeal into the vague shape of a hand or a leg.  A cruel face formed in the dust and uttered in a soul-rasping voice, "REMEMBER... MY... NAME."

Hassan recovered his composure before Abdul did.  Winged holy symbol raised before him, he invoked the name of the Goddess and three beams of brilliance ripped through the priest-king's temporary face.  With a scream, the mummy cloud spread out to fill the whole room with itself.  The dust blasted at their skin, causing it to crack and blister.  Abdul pulled his own holy symbol from the folds of his robes and held it aloft.  The flash of divine light sent visible waves through the dust cloud.  Hassan followed suit with an even more powerful burst, filling the room with crackling energy.

The cloud reformed into a vaguely humanoid shape for an instant, pressed its immaterial hands against Hassan's face, and disappeared into his mouth.  Hassan's eyes widened.  He fell to his knees, skin tightening against his bones.  With a belated cry, Abdul rushed to press his holy symbol to his brother's forehead, channeling a burst of healing magic through it, but it was not strong enough.  Hassan gasped, then with a sickening cracking sound he disintegrated.  The dead priest-king swirled up from between Hassan's dry bones, its face re-forming, one partial hand stretching out towards Abdul's throat.  "REMEMBER... MY... NAME!"

Abdul snatched up his brother's holy symbol, divine fire already blazing from between its silver wings, and thrust it into the discorporate face.  "NO ONE WILL!"

~ ~ ~

Today's Monster Monday is the dust mummy, a sentient undead cloud of dust formed from a disintegrated mummy, held together by rage at the living and a desire to be remembered after death.  Far more insidious than your typical mummy, these swirling collections of dust can easily spread their curse to all that they touch, and can even infest the lungs of their hapless victims, rotting them from within.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.