⛮{CRY ME A RIVER}⛮ (Morning Stars Dungeon)

This is a post of two purposes:

1. For Glåugust challenge 6, fulfilling the prompt "a dungeon with a river in it".

2. A trade of prompts--a dungeon duel, if you will--between the aforelinked Nothic's Eye and yours truly. He emerged from the peat to suggest "great and ancient mechanisms", to which I raise my foot-long Colt Dragoon revolver and respond with "trench raid". Your move, eelboy.

Ilya Zankovsky 

Secret History

A long time ago, this valley in the east was inhabited only by those exiled by the Sun Kings and their descendants. When the spring rains came, the river came roaring over its banks to scour people, animals, and buildings from the earth. Then, in the summer, the sun burned it all away, leaving only cracked mud and fish bones. It was terrible, but not so bad that everyone left; tyrants and raiders passed the village over in times of war, nothing worth taking.

So is it any surprise that someone made a deal with the devil? Saint DEVIL, the Never-Punished, does not take time to answer all calls, but he answered this one. Over the course of a week, the Saint of Sinners raised up a behemoth of stone to hold back the waters, calling on the bound souls of a hundred score debtors to lay down the ashlar when night fell. Every morning, the exiles awoke to see more stones stacked and mortared, laid there by unseen hands. They were in no position to question it, and learned to forget where the dam came from.

The Current Situation

Where that dam was built, there it remains four hundred years later. The village, the river, the dam, and now the lake all share a name: Merara Wiha, bitter water. One month ago, the dam sprung a leak- worrying news in stable times, made all the worse by recent upheavals out west.

A few days ago, five workmen volunteered to crack open the stone slab sealing the only known entrance to the dam, then look around inside. They did not come back. If you can get inside, see what happened, and ideally find the volunteers, you can keep whatever valuables you find plus 20 SP for every worker retrieved, dead or alive.

Rumors:

Not hard to find for anyone who asks.

Rivier, languid bohemian scholar, reclines on her chaise longue like an octopus pulled out of the water. "The dam isn't quite like Wizard-King architecture of the era- they tended to put their names and faces on these kinds of things. Really, it's more like the Great Wall of the Djinn. If they didn't make it..." She trails off with a shrug.

Local fisherman Bereket guts his catch without looking, hands too callused for him to care. "Wouldn't want to be out at the dam at night. I've seen giants standing on the rim, shadows ten feet tall that vanish come morning. And there's something in the channel that glows."

Priest and midwife Almaz is too busy with a difficult birth to help you for long. Catch her when she's taking a break to smoke her pipe, and she'll tell you "dark places like that are sinks for evil. If you can't get a priest, fire's the next best thing." 

With some convincing or assistance, any one of these people can supplement a small or skill-lacking party. They have stats as human commoners, 6 HP, and:

• Riviers can translate First text, has a skill of secret history, and can identify the function of magic items. Wants to understand the history of the dam.
• Bereket carries a medium kopis, wears a light gambeson, and has a +2 to hit. Wants to bring all the workmen back alive.
• Almaz has 1 MD and the spells Sunlight (conjure bright sunlight in a [dice]×10' radius for [sum] rounds) and Heal (with a touch, one target regains [sum] HP.) Wants to destroy any undead and re-seal the dam.

The Merara Wiha Dam

5' to a square. Ceilings are 10' high.

Level 1.

Level 2.

The slab sealing the entrance has been shattered and pulled aside, revealing stairs leading into darkness. There is no light inside, not even places to set torches or lamps. Rooms 9-13 are flooded up to thigh-height with murky lake water, impeding movement.

Random Encounters:

1. The Debtor, hanging silently on the ceiling.
2. Cruel, mocking laughter echoes from whatever room the PCs just left.
3. A moist wind blows through the dam like a sick man's breath.
4. The rumble of machinery from far below.
5. 1d6 Shades, whispering in the dark.
6. 1d2 Repha'im, shuffling around with a sound like dry paper on stone.
7. 4 Freeshooters, slings whirling.
8. The Debtor, sprinting up from behind, screaming through ragged lungs.

(NOTE: Morning Stars is a silver standard game. GP are Suns: smaller, thicker coins with central holes to be strung through. SP are Moons: larger, thinner coins engraved with a spoked wheel pattern so they can be easily cut into halves, quarters, and eighths. Ten Moons make one Sun. I'm putting this here as a placeholder until I can get out a full post on currency, language, and other setting gristle. Sometimes, you have to eat your vegetables.)

1. ENTRY

Signs of a struggle, disturbed dust on the floor and tracks leading WEST, then EAST- many human-sized, and a few quite a bit larger. A bronze lamp sits overturned on the ground, its wick extinguished, but enough oil remains inside for two hours of light.

2. SHRINE OF PRINCIPAL

Tracks continue from 1. ENTRY, passing through to 5. BARRICADE. The walls of the SOUTHERN chamber are thin but coated with plaster, and the inside is painted over with scenes of giant slaves toiling over impossible monuments. Each slave has had its face scraped or broken away with some kind of tool, marring the plaster. In the 2A alcove is a life-size statue of a sneering djinni in tarnished brass, one hand outstretched to be shaken and the other grasping a spiked chain, sitting atop a small furnace. Over it, written in the First language of the djinn, is the phrase TAKE ONE (1). Even non-First speakers will recognize the numeral.

If a fire is lit in the furnace and the hand is shaken, the arm ratchets the jaw open and it spits out a thin bronze card stamped with the shaker's face, still warm to the touch. If the hand is shaken more than once per person, the statue instead sprays burning steam directly into their face for 1d6 damage on a failed INIT test.

3. TOOLSHED

Huge, tarnished brass doors hinge both ways. If pushed open, they squeal horribly unless oiled. Inside, a Repha sorts through carved-out shelves of rusted tools endlessly until disturbed, at which point it attempts to violently force any trespassers out.

There are 2d6 random tools on the shelves: hammers, crowbar, picks, whatever the players ask for. Whatever the tool is, it breaks after use on any odd-numbered roll.

A pair of blood stains mark this room: a broad spray from a heavy impact on the wall, and a dried pool on the floor from a fallen body. Both have a trail of droplets leading WEST.

4. BUNKHOUSE

Reeks of decay. Collapsed beds, so old and rotten they've become moldering nests that the Repha'im curl up in when they're trying to rest. 1d4+1 of them are in here "sleeping" (lying very still and not thinking) at any given moment, lidless prune-wrinkled eyes covered by ragged sheets. There's a cumulative 2-in-6 chance per round that combat in 3. TOOLSHED will cause the Repha'im in this room to awaken and come to investigate. If a firearm goes off on this floor or the barricade in 5. BARRICADE is toppled, they will awaken.

The corpse of one of the five workmen, Seong-Jin, is in this room, nailed to the wall by a lead spike through the back of his skull. His limbs twitch in spite of days of rot; the Repha'im, recognizing his tools, tried to "recruit" him by imitating the ritual that bound them. It didn't work, and the corpse will do nothing but seize up until the spike is removed.

The Repha'im have a small stash of valuables hidden under one of the beds: 15 SP, 1 GP, and a masterwork hammer and chisel (+1 to all checks to use them, including attack rolls if you're that desperate) taken from the dead man.

Stairs lead down to 8. FLOODED STOREROOM.

5. BARRICADE

Huge brass doors like the ones in 3. TOOLSHED, only they've been blocked from the inside and can't be pushed inward. Forcing the door to push open takes a DC 14 MOVE test and knocks over the heap of office furniture braced against it, waking the Repha'im in 4. BUNKHOUSE or immediately incurring a roll on the Random Encounter table if they've already been dispatched. Pulling the doors open requires leverage from something like a crowbar and a few minutes to move the heap out of the way, but only takes a MOVE check if they're in a hurry.

Going through the furniture, or its shattered remains if the barricade was knocked over, turns up three thick golden rings in a desk drawer, each worth 1 GP. Written on each of them in tiny First script are the words THIS RING WAS VERIFIED TO BE EQUAL IN VALUE TO ONE (1) IMPERIAL GOLDEN SUN COIN OR TEN (10) IMPERIAL SILVER MOON COINS BY VICEROY SURYA-NASIR, VIZIER OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

Stairs lead down to 18. The dust has been disturbed by many footsteps.

6. KINGS OF THE DAYS

Mid-reliefs of the Kings of the Days, the God-cursed immortal rulers of the djinn are on the northern and southern walls of this room. Going clockwise, starting from the northwest corner: 

• Indolent Máni, who sought reincarnation, being encased in a torrent of molten silver.
• Vicious Dyaus, who tried to conquer the world, rebounding his tin sword uselessly against a cowering soldier.
• Cunning Wothanaz, who knew too much, weeping quicksilver tears into his cupped hands. This works thanks to a mechanism in the wall which drains the mercury from his palms and pumps it back through his eyes, though the flow is now barely a trickle.

Along the south wall:

• Furious Thunaraz, who shattered continents, impaled by iron spikes that protrude a foot from the wall.
• Kind Priya, who defied death, watching generations of her children grow old and die through a featureless copper mask.
• Emaciated Satre, who ate his own young, weighted with chains of lead at the bottom of a pit.
• Prideful Surya, who reached for the sun, falling from the sky burning with gold-leaf flames.

Most of the metals in here are thin plating or leaf, aside from the iron spikes and mercury. If someone were to take the time to scrape off the silver and gold leaf from Máni and Surya, it'd be worth 30 SP and 2 GP, respectively. There's enough mercury in Wothanaz's system to fill a slot worth of storage, which would be worth 1 GP to Wizards, alchemists, and hatters. Failing a HRTS check while collecting the quicksilver inflicts a point of damage and a loss of a point of INT from exposure to fumes. If ingested (because players love poisoning people) both of these losses are increased to a 1d6.

7. MOTHER AND FATHER

Bas-reliefs of Kerhos and Iš, the first two djinn to be created, line the eastern and southern walls. Kerhos, hirsute and crowned by a ring of horns, eats honey from a beehive with his bare hands as he strolls through an edenic forest. Iš, her form motion-blurred and indistinct save for two burning eyes, skewers a terrible lizard with a spear thrown from the bough of a tree.

Stairs lead down to 19. SON.

8. FLOODED STOREROOM

Stinks of mold and damp. Barrels and crates drift around and thump against each other, spilling out rot into the water. Something brushes against a leg: a fat, gormless catfish.

Searching through the accumulated muck at the bottom turns up a small clay jar sealed by beeswax, vaguely shaped like a man curled up into a ball. Written on its back in Eastern text are the words A LIFE'S WORK. Inside is a dose of mellified man, red-clouded syrup created by preserving a corpse in honey for a hundred years. Drinking a dose restores 1d6+3 HP, wounds weeping honey as the flesh knits together with candied scabs.

9. KITCHEN

A crocodile seems to bob in the water in the center of this room, hissing quietly- on closer inspection, a mold-ruined work of taxidermy. If struck with a weapon, the pissed-off Hooktooth Snake Swarm nesting inside the crocodile are liable to attack. 

There is a clay oven full of bare fish bones, food that the Shades pretended to cook so they could pretend to eat it. It's clear that a fire hasn't burned in it for decades.

10. SHADES

Once, this room displayed tapestries. Now, a trio of Shades use the ripped-up textiles as nets to catch fish going through the hole in this room's wall or in 14. CHANNEL. Well-fed on fish blood, these Shades are able and willing to talk; with their minds scattered by undeath, they speak in sequence, each one getting 1d6 words. They can recount the creation of the dam, the ways they lost their souls to Saint DEVIL (cards, dice, real estate fraud), and the true name of the Debtor: Prince Kwestantinos of Dahay, a lesser scion to one of the Sun Kingdoms of old who was disowned after a failed rebellion against the annexing Empire of the Sun and Moon. Exiled here, he called on a favor he could not hope to repay, and the DEVIL came to collect.

11. TROPHY HALL

A maze of water-ruined taxidermy: a sagging lion, a terrible lizard with its skin sloughing off, a moldy stag, and a pair of rusty-armored gorillas. Hanging from the stag's antlers, strung up by its elbows, is the corpse of one of the workmen, Dawit. The cause of death is clear: a slingstone to the eye socket. It's still there.

If not already encountered, the four Freeshooters are lurking in here below the water and among the animals, ready to hunt again.

12. SMOKING ROOM

Smells of tobacco, burnt pork, and stagnant water. A pair of mostly submerged stone slabs serve as couches, sitting beside a strange contraption on a low table: a green-gold hookah pipe with an enormous spike where the base should be, jammed right into the top of a bleached skull. Next to it is a little brass tray with four charcoal briquettes and a pile of mold that may have once been tobacco.

If inserted into the top of a head containing brain matter and smoked for an hour, the hookah pipe confers a sliver of the head's memory unto the smoker: a spell, an answer to 1d6 questions, or the like. Smoking off the same head more than once requires a SAVE; on a failure, gain 1d6 POSSESSION as your soul is overwritten by another. If POSSESSION is more than or equal to half your xharisma, make a SAVE whenever you fall asleep or are knocked unconscious; on a failure, your body is controlled by the people you smoked for a number of minutes equal to your POSSESSION score, or hours in the case of unconsciousness. If POSSESSION ever exceeds your XHA, you are no longer you. Roll a new character.

13. LIBRARY

A ruin. The stonework has cracked open, pouring water in from 14. CHANNEL, pushing bookshelves over. Clay tablets lay shattered and worn smooth, papyrus scrolls turned to moldy pulp in their cases. Digging through the mess turns up a rolled-up plate of tin inscribed with First text:

HE WHO WOULD BEAR ARMS AGAINST ME WILL HAVE THEM TWIST LIKE VIPERS IN HIS HANDS

This is a curse tablet, a spell scroll loaded with 1 MD and the spell Curse of Dyaus:

Curse of Dyaus

R: 100' T: [dice] armed people D: [sum]+[dice] rounds.

Targets lose all proficiencies and increase their fumble range by [dice] for the spell's duration. This effect is obviously unnatural- guns recoil before they fire, bowstrings coil around fingers, swords turn in their grip to strike the wrong target.

14. CHANNEL

Water courses through here at a depth of ten feet, rushing over a strange disturbance in the middle: a silver-glowing hemisphere about ten feet in diameter, refracting wavering light on the channel walls, surrounding the faint outline of a sword thrust into the floor. Reaching the sword requires no check; it's as simple as diving in from the NORTH bridge and letting the current carry you. 

WORLD ROLLS BY, a +1 medium kaskara of watered steel with a coiled wire grip, creates a 10' diameter spherical barrier which water cannot pass through when it is held in both hands and thrust into the ground. When it is removed, the barrier dissipates instantly. WORLD ROLLS BY does not speak; if held to an ear, it hums with the sound of distant choirs.

Whoever pulls the sword out must make two MOVE checks. If both succeed, they can swim to the NORTH bridge. If only one succeeds, they get swept to one end of the broken SOUTH bridge. If both fail, they get slammed against the bars, which have been sharpened into blades on one end, for 1d8+4 damage. At this point, you may want to break out the drowning rules.

15. GAME ROOM

An eight-by-four foot billiards table occupies the center of this room, carved hardwood still gleaming with varnish, though the baize is moth-eaten and could use a replacement. It's an obviously valuable piece- 300 SP, if you feel like hauling a thousand pound mass of hardwood and slate out of the dungeon.

Checking the pockets turns up more portable valuables: ten First-numbered ivory balls and a solid amber cue ball worth 1 SP each and 1 GP, respectively.

16. SHRINE OF INTEREST

The walls of this room are scrawled on in Eastern with dried blood and scratches: NOT HERE AS A KINDNESS, repeated over and over again. The work of the Debtor.

In 16A is the Brazen Devil, quietly whirring with unseen flywheels and gears. Make a reaction roll in secret, with a +1 bonus for each PC with a criminal background. No matter the roll, he offers a game: Even-Odd.

The rules are simple. The Brazen Devil coughs up a pair of six sided dice, rolls them, and slams his cupped hand down on the floor. The players place bets on whether the sum of the dice will be even or odd. The Devil lifts his hand; whoever guesses correctly wins, and collectively get to choose one prize off the list. He plays for three rounds before returning to his niche, smiling with vacant malice.

Roll the dice in secret, too. This is because he cheats on reaction rolls of 6 or lower. After the players make their bets, the Devil can choose one dice to reroll before revealing them. PCs with a background in gambling or sleight of hand, or those who specify checking to see if the Brazen Devil is cheating, get to make a SKLL test to catch him in the act glancing through his fingers and shifting dice with his thumb- this brass idol is not nearly as subtle as the real thing. If caught, the Devil concedes that round and stops cheating until it seems like he can get away with it again.

Of course, Saint DEVIL doesn't wager with mere money. Players can bet:

• A brass card from 2. SHRINE OF PRINCIPAL.
• A piece of your soul: -1 SAVE.
• An eye. Lose your ability to judge distances.
• A hand. 
• A permanent burden: the loss of two inventory slots.
• Vitality. Reroll your HD until you get a lower result than your current maximum.
• Get creative. If it hurts to lose, the Brazen Devil wants it.

The Brazen Devil offers:

• A set of ten obsidian claws. If implanted into a hand--surprisingly easy and unsurprisingly painful--that hand is treated as natural light weapon with a +2 to damage against unarmored targets. They never never stop bleeding.
• A signet ring, black-tarnished silver with thin gold inlays. By right, whoever wears this is the king of Dahay, a miniscule kingdom of about seven six-mile hexes not far from here. It has a ruin of a castle, a village of people who have lived happily without a monarch for a few centuries, and no shortage of problems for a king-to-be to solve. The Debtor will tirelessly hunt down whoever has this ring, even beyond the dam. It was his, once, the only thing of any value he managed to take before his exile.
• Just the right bullets. Seven plain projectiles for a weapon of choice, six that will unerringly strike the shooter's mark, and one that will unerringly strike the DEVIL's mark. This tale has been told before. Pride comes before a fall; make it tragic or horrifying, but make it happen.
• A funeral veil lined with ragged black feathers. While worn, you may speak to carrion animals, and they will regard you as a friend. Everyone else will see you as a walking corpse, freshly strangled to death.
• A case of six dried vipers, to be smoked like cigars. Bitter smoke pours down from the snake's mouth when lit, pooling on the floor and flowing towards things purposefully hidden. It does not distinguish between intentions; the smoke is as likely to show you to a secret door as it is to a landmine under the floorboards. Each snake burns for half an hour.
• A jet intaglio of Saint DEVIL, nude save for his wings and covered in hideous scars from his quartering. Burns with a pale, sooty flame when lit, never diminishing. When immersed in water, the intaglio slowly converts it into naptha at a rate of 4 ounces per day- coincidentally, enough for eight hours of light in a standard oil lamp. 

Material losses are retroactive, never possessed in the first place- the results of newly-remembered accidents and childhood injuries. Prizes won are much the same, appearing among the winners' items as if they had always been there, gifts from an old family friend: a cruel-eyed djinni in a long black coat, his smile all gold.

17. "TREASURY"

Heaps and heaps of silver coins and gold bars adorn stone pillars and bowls, untarnished, gleaming- to the careless eye, 4000 SP in fresh silver Moons and 200 GP of solid gold. One of the piles has been knocked over, scattered coinage facing EAST.

Even a second of consideration shows that these are sloppy counterfeits. The coins are made from brittle zinc and "engraved" by knife scratching, while the gold bars are bricks coated with brass leaf. The coins, at least, are worth 80 SP in total if you find someone willing to buy low-grade zinc in bulk. Far away, someone laughs at your misfortune.

 

18. GARDEN

A Repha digs through pots of soil, tending to plants that have long since died and turned to fungus in the darkness and damp. It alternates between fumbling with a hoe and a trowel, dropping one to pick up the other- trying to do two jobs at once and performing neither.

Dirt has been scattered all over the floor, making signs of passage obvious. Footsteps lead towards the EAST.

19. SON

A large mural lines the NORTH wall, depicting a djinni being quartered by four horsemen on a crossroads, cruelly sneering even as his body is torn apart. The paint used for his blood has darkened with age- it looks like black wings are sprouting from his wounds. The area around his face is covered in scratches, giving him a scraped-out halo- this is where the Debtor tried and failed to deface his hated master's icon.

If he hasn't been encountered already, the Debtor is here sitting in the corner with his head in his hands. If the PCs have made loud noises, such as in 5. BARRICADE, he's waiting around a doorway or by the stairs to grab someone by surprise, drag them into darkness, and drain them of their blood.

20. SANCTUARY

The doors to this room are barricaded from the inside, their brass plating heavily dented with knuckle-marks from when the Debtor tried to get in. Inside, the last three of the workmen hide and hope for rescue or escape. They've been snapping off pieces of the dry corpse of a Repha to burn them as candles and torches, hoping the fire will ward off the dead. They will eagerly let in in rescuers.

• Anxious Patience carries a pistol (1d10, -1 to hit for each 20' past the first, takes a minute to reload) and one more bullet. Her first shot was the one that killed the Repha, and she's certain that she doesn't have another shot like that in her. If left no other option, she fires with a +1 to hit.
• Young Albijn volunteered in spite of a lack of experience just for the thrill of it. If the PCs don't mess with something in a room, he will. If he sees a magic item, he will try to be the first to take it for himself.
• Wrinkled Iyosafit hates adventuring types and considers them a bunch of psychotic freebooters who would sell their own grandmother for a hit of opium, regardless of whether or not this is an accurate reflection of the PCs' conduct.

They are all commoners with 1d6 HP and tools that function as medium weapons. 

This room is, strangely enough, a church. All the wooden pews have been torn up to block the doors, but a straw effigy of Saint WHEEL with his limbs twisted around the spokes of a cart wheel hangs on the EAST wall. A growth of dark mold on the effigy's featureless head gives it a pareidolic expression of bliss. Even in this debased place, the Prester protects. The Debtor cannot enter this room no matter how he tries, and those that show respect to the effigy receive a vision: the Debtor's body being burned and the ashes being scattered into a bright noonday sky.

Aftermath

If the Debtor is not killed, he will leave the dam and lair in an abandoned barn outside of town, emerging by night to pick off livestock, then travelers, then whole families. As he feeds, he will grow more lucid, remember the kingdom he lost, and seek to recreate it with an army of the dead.

The dam will burst in a month's time if not repaired, completely destroying the town of Merara Wiha in a terrible flood. There is an 0-in-6 chance of it being repaired in time, modified by the following factors:

• +1 if all three surviving workmen are brought back alive.
• +1 if the masterwork hammer and chisel from 4. BUNKHOUSE is contributed.
• +1 if WORLD ROLLS BY from 14. CHANNEL is contributed.
• +1 if the PCs themselves assist in the effort.
• -2 if the Debtor isn't permanently killed.
• -1 if the Freeshooters haven't been killed.
• -1 if none of the workmen survive.

This is not an exhaustive list. Reward clever plans and allow blunders to punish themselves. If the PCs are inside when the roll fails, they will have to escape quickly or be turned to paste under thousands of pounds of water and brick. Those that have skipped town by the time the dam breaks will no doubt be blamed by any survivors- and sometimes, when somebody cries out for vengeance, the DEVIL answers.

Bestiary 

Brazen Devil

HD 5 (25 HP), AC as chain, 11 morale

A djinni in brass, whippet-thin and full of piss, vinegar, and high-tension wires. Exhales reeking steam with every false breath, laughing through a dead man's voicebox as it lashes out with a barbed chain.

Movement: Faster than a man. Can leap across a room in a single creaking bound.

Morality: Stereotypically evil but more interested in bargains and gambling than murder. Will make it hurt regardless.

Intelligence: Artificial. Able to spit out original responses, but clearly working off a limited pre-made pool of information.

Attacks: +5 to hit, one chain (15', 1d6+1.)

Brazen: The Brazen Devil is an inanimate object that can make SAVEs, with all that entails. Blades, fire, and other things that wouldn't harm a piece of metal do minimum damage.

Wrath: For each successful attack made against it in a round, the Brazen Devil gains an equal number of attacks for the duration of the next round.

Freeshooter

HD 2 (6 HP), AC as unarmored, 7 morale

Skeletal remains bound together with vellum and paste, contracts for skin. Each bears a wound from the slingstone that killed them- a cracked forehead, a dented temple, a punched-through eye socket. Their slings whir like insects in the dark.

Movement: As quick as a person, but with less inertia. Can move and shoot at the same time.

Morality: Trophy hunter. Will lose interest in killing you if it gets boring or frustrating.

Intelligence: Tactical, not talkative. What one Freeshooter sees, the rest encountered with it see.

Attacks: +3 to hit, one sling (1d6, -1 to hit per 20' after the first) or one misericorde (1d6).

The First One's Always Free: Along with their normal supply of sling bullets, every Freeshooter carries one Black Bullet, dark and gleaming in the wound that killed them. These bullets can be bounced off walls at a loss of 1 damage (minimum 1) per bounce and require no line of sight to attack, only knowledge of the target's position. These bullets never break, but will instead target the user on a fumble, regardless of proficiency. And yes, the PCs can use them too.

Undead: The Freeshooters do not sleep, breathe, eat, or drink; being animated skeletons, they take half damage from blades, spikes, and small projectiles. They must check morale to enter sunlight.

Hooktooth Snake Swarm

HD 2 (10 HP), AC as unarmored, 5 morale

A 10' mass of angry vipers. Thick in the head and the body, with a pale white mouth shown during threat displays. Dull coppery scales blend in well with mud. Swim with their heads held high up out of the water. Being honest, they're just cottonmouths.

Movement: Snakes.

Morality: Snakes.

Intelligence: Snakes.

Attacks: +1 to hit, one bite against everyone in melee range (1 damage, HRTS or take 1d8 damage.)

Swarm: The snakes take minimum damage from single-target attacks and maximum damage from area-of-effect attacks.

The Repha'im

HD 3 (18 HP), AC as leather, 8 morale

The wandering corpses of laboring giants, grey skin cracked and stretched over thick bones, red hair faded and coming out in patches. Their clothes are ragged, and their tools have rotted and rusted. Seven to eight feet tall, but much lighter--and quieter--than they look. Each one has something like a lead railroad spike hammered into the back of their head.

Movement: Drunken stumbling, but with a long enough stride length to catch up to a running man.

Morality: NO TRESPASSING. 

Intelligence: Demented. Unable to speak, but possess enough muscle memory to use tools.

Attacks: +3 to hit, one large tool (1d8+1, breaks on a minimum or maximum damage roll,) or two fists if disarmed (1d6.)

Debtor: If the lead spike is pulled from the back of a Repha's skull, it dies. This requires no check, but takes two hands and the repha must be prone or otherwise unable to move.

Dry: Repha'im take maximum damage from fire. Being burnt will cause them to immediately drop their tools and start swinging with their fists.

Undead: The Repha'im do not sleep, breathe, eat, or drink. They must test morale to enter sunlight.

Shade

HD 1 (4 HP), AC as unarmored, 6 morale

A shadow in the corner of your eye. It is known that there is no life after death. When the body dies, the soul disperses- or so it was intended, but the First and Last is not an infallible craftsman. With no body to record it, a lingering soul can become many terrible things, least of them all being the lowly and miserable Shade.

Movement: Flickering faster than the eye can see. Hard to lose, but quick to lose interest.

Morality: Miserable and prone to lashing out. Can be appeased with fresh blood, which they will lap up from the ground like cats.

Intelligence: Urges and instincts from a life nearly forgotten. They may speak, hoarsely, and beg for warmth and comfort from the cold grave. More lucid when freshly fed, enough to recall places and names, and to bargain.

Attacks: +0 to hit, one cold touch of death (1d4, ignores physical armor, heals the Shade for 1 HP,) or one thrown or pushed object (1d6, or more if it was a dresser or something getting tipped over on you.)

Shadowed: A Shade has an AC as chain and +2 to hit in dim light, and is all but impossible to hit and has +5 to hit in darkness. A Shade must check morale when exposed to bright light, and automatically fails this check when exposed to sunlight. Unless killed with fire or magic, a Shade will coalesce back into being at the next sunset.

Undead: Shades do not sleep, breathe, or eat. Drinking blood serves a psychological need for them, not a physical one.

The Debtor 

HD 7 (35 HP), AC as unarmored, 8 morale

A ruin of a man, dressed in wet rags; his skin, once dark, has turned pale and yellow like old fat. His teeth have all fallen out, but he doesn't need them anyways- from the back of his throat protrudes a spike of fuligin black, hard and sharp as steel. It was him that cried out to Saint DEVIL all those years ago, and whatever he promised, he could not pay. When the Never-Punished comes to collect, he does so with interest.

Movement: As an average man, but can climb on walls and ceilings like a spider.

Morality: Ashamed of what he has become, but not enough to keep himself from drinking your blood. Must test morale if he hears his true name.

Intelligence: Cunning like a predatory animal. Extinguishes lights, drags people into darkness where they can't fight back. Only talks after he's fed.

Attacks: +4 to hit, two fists (1d6+1) or one grapple (+4 MOVE, can automatically drain grappled targets for 2d6+2. The Debtor regains HP equal to the damage dealt. Those killed by this attack will rise as a Shade if their body is left in darkness for a day.)

Shadowed: The Debtor has AC as chain and +6 to hit in dim light, and is all but impossible to hit and has a +9 to hit in darkness. Unless his body is incinerated and the ashes are scattered in sunlight, the Debtor will return to his cursed un-life at the next sunset.

Undead: The Debtor does not sleep, breathe, or eat. Drinking blood is the only comfort he knows.