People who try to leave the
Wicked City against the wishes of its government find him waiting for
them, pale and silent, standing in the middle of the road. He looks
ordinary enough from a distance, but a closer look reveals otherwise:
his skin is sheened with frost, and instead of eyes he has two grey
frozen pebbles, crusted with ice, which rattle loosely in his empty
sockets. He shivers constantly, his teeth chattering uncontrollably
as he warns them to return to their homes as soon as possible. The
wise ones obey.
Anyone
who tries to evade him soon learns that he is almost impossible to
escape: he can move instantaneously to any location within his line
of sight, the very air between his position and his destination
seeming to shiver as he ripples through space. The air around him is
so cold that anyone who approaches within 5' of him must make a FORT
save or be incapacitated by the intense chill; a new save is
permitted each round to break the effect. Any kind of physical
contact with him – even a mere brush of his fingertips - causes 1
HP of cold damage every round: simply grabbing someone by the hand
and holding on for a minute or two is enough to leave them frozen
solid, turning their blood to red ice in their veins. These abilities
alone are quite sufficient for him to deter most would-be emigrants;
but for those who attempt to fight him, or persist in defying his
warnings, he has other horrors in store. He will lunge forwards, his
jaws distending impossibly, yawning open two, three, or even four
feet wide: then his teeth will snap shut, slicing through flesh and
bone as easily as a man might bite through soft cheese, leaving the
severed flesh flash-frozen in the process. After watching him bite
the arms and faces off anyone who tries to push past him, all but the
very bravest are likely to flee back to the Wicked City as fast as
possible.
The
Man With Stones For Eyes has a reputation as being unavoidable, but this
isn't actually true: he can only be in one place at once, and the
city's government can only set him on people if they know roughly
when and where they'll be leaving the city, whether due to Secret
Police spying, statue network observation, or ordinary surveillance
by their minions, guards, and spies. Once he's onto you, however,
defeating him in battle is extremely
unlikely:
his frozen flesh is as hard as iron, and knits back together almost
as fast as it can be damaged. His only weak points are the stones in
his eyes, which can be dislodged by any attack that specifically aims
for them and succeeds in hitting an AC of 20: one hit is needed to
dislodge each pebble. With one knocked out, he can no longer see in
three dimensions, preventing him from teleporting until he has picked
it up and replaced it; with both knocked out he is completely blind,
and can do nothing except scrabble about on the ground for his eyes
whilst wailing about the unfairness of his life. Running off with
them is not a good idea – they are so cold that anyone carrying
one, even in a backpack, takes 1 HP of cold damage per pebble per
round – but if thrown far away, it'll be hours before he's able to
find them, providing plenty of time for his vanquishers to escape.
The
Man With Stones For Eyes does not consider himself to be a monster.
Unlike the Men Without Faces, who communicate entirely through
violence, he is articulate, even loquacious; and when his victims beg
him for mercy, he will express his sincere regret at the fact that
his duties leave him with no choice but to carry out his orders.
(Then he'll bite their legs off.) If given half a chance he will
happily launch into lengthy, self-pitying speeches about how
wearisome he finds his role as the city's guardian, and how, in
truth, he
is
the real victim here: he will do this even if his latest victims are
currently crawling around on the flash-frozen stumps of what were
once their limbs, apparently with no sense of irony whatsoever. He
can actually be quite friendly towards anyone who's willing to sit
and listen sympathetically to him for long enough, but he still won't
let them pass: the one thing that could tempt him to abandon his post
would be the chance to feel warm again, but no fire, no matter how
large or intense, seems able to dispel the chill that clings to his
bones. He believes that the one thing which could truly warm him
would be the loving embrace of one of the Children of the Sun, and
claims to be patiently waiting for the one who will 'save' him,
seemingly without realising that the last thing that most of the
Sun's Children would have any desire to do is bring any kind of
comfort to a monster of unrighteousness such as himself.
- The Man With Stones For Eyes: AC 18 (speed and iron-hard skin), 10 HD, AB +6, bite (2d6 damage + mutilation - see below), FORT 4, REF 4, WILL 5, morale 9. Regenerate 3 HP per round until fully healed unless reduced to -10 HP or below.
When the Man With Stones For Eyes bites someone, his jaw extends several feet wide, allowing him to
bite off whole limbs at a time. (The severed extremeties simply
vanish down his jaw, regardless of how impossible this should be.)
Any time he rolls a double on his 2d6 damage roll, he bites off a
whole chunk of his victim. Roll 1d6 to find out what is lost: 1 =
right arm, 2 = left arm, 3 = right leg, 4 = left leg, 5 = face, 6 =
chunk of torso – lose 1 point permanently from each of STR and CON.
These wounds are flash-frozen, so at least the victim doesn't need to
worry about bleeding to death...
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