Dreams in the Witch House
Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting Foursaken Feature, where we bring you new fourth edition content each and every week. This week I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft's old short stories, and I read one that I hadn't read before entitled Dreams in the Witch House, first published in Weird Tales (Vol. 22, No. 1, pages 86-111) way back in 1933. Despite the negative critical reaction, I was quite delighted with the story and would highly recommend the read; you can find it for free here. While the plot itself wouldn’t really make a very sound D&D adventure, the story provided me with a number of rather fantastic ideas for use in my own game. It is this hodgepodge of ideas that I bring you today, adapted for fourth edition.
New Monster - Brown Jenkin
Brown Jenkin is the nickname given to the horrific familiar of the Salem-era witch Keziah Mason. He resembles a large dirty rat, but with the face of a hideously ugly human man, with large fangs suitable for causing damaging puncture wounds. Where a rat would have paws, Brown Jenkin instead has human hands. He feeds off blood and speaks all languages. Like all familiars, he can confer knowledge of realms beyond mortal standing to those he serves. He seems to demand blood in exchange for his knowledge. As an individual, he is described as horrifying, cruel, and quite menacing. He has the ability to appear seemingly from nowhere; however, I would point out that in the story it is entirely possible he has no special ability to appear suddenly on his own power, though he does seem capable of a strange pseudo-fourth dimensional travel when aided.
I would recommend pairing Brown Jenkin with a witch or similar foul entity. In the story he is allied with the black man (a strange, pure black apparent human with European features and implied cloven feet – Lovecraft has an unfortunate tendency for unapologetic racism; I, for the record, do not share his views) who is a sort of evil scholar the main character meets during his “dreams,” and who serves as a sort of courier or wicked guide between the sane mortal world and the disturbingly alien hidden and terrifying universe. The old crone Keziah Mason, who is a mortal witch, is the mistress of Brown Jenkin in the story, and a practitioner of strange magics which may be related to advanced mathematics.
New Feats
SECRET NAME
Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana.
Benefit: You have signed in blood the sacred book of Azathoth, in the keeping of the Black Man, Nyarlathotep, or a similar entity. Because of your innate connection to the maddening hidden nature of reality, you gain a bonus equal to your level on all Arcana checks made while performing a ritual with the arcane keyword.
INNITIATED
Prerequisites: Int 18, trained in Arcana.
Benefit: Having read fragments from a dread tome such as Abdul Alhazred's Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon, or the fabled Pnakotic Manuscripts, you understand that high magic is not based on ritual or spiritual components, but is, in fact, based on a quantifiable mathematic formula. As a result, you can learn and perform any ritual with the arcane keyword, regardless of level. You must still pay any cost associated with said ritual. Any time you learn a ritual or perform from a scroll a ritual which is of a level higher than your current ritual caster level, your Wisdom and Charisma scores are each permanently reduced by 1.
Special: When you first take this feat, you open yourself to a maddening reality, which damages your ability to interact with the normal world. Whenever you make an Arcana check you become dazed (save ends).
DREAMER
Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana.
Benefit: You are open to unseen and horrible worlds while you slumber. At the beginning of each new day, roll a d20. If the result is less than 10, nothing happens, but if the result is 11 or higher, you receive an uncanny insight into the working of this maddening universe. On a result of 11 or higher, you are stunned for one round at the beginning of every encounter and automatically treat all Arcana rolls as a 15 for the day.