Through the graveyard, frantic digging could be heard. The ground shifted. Dozens of headstones fell, many into the pits that opened where once lay burial plots. We saw the skulls, then shoulders bones and rib cages push their way out of the stinking mud. Something was wearing the bones of people. Long, segmented legs hung between rib cages. A curled abdomen curled where the pelvic bones and legs once were. From the back sprouted gossamer wings. The creature chittered and clicked to one another, then flew into the night.
Alternative names: Corpse Flies
The Ke’ken are parasitic alien invaders that travel throughout the universe via spore-infused comets, searching for new worlds to infest. When they come across a suitable world, the spores filter through the atmosphere and infest buried corpses. They prefer the fresh bodies of warm-blooded, vertebrate animals, or their analogs. They gestate in the corpses, becoming giant white grubs that feed on the decaying flesh and meat. When they reach sexual maturity, they emerge from underground wearing the skeleton of the bodies of the dead hosts. In their adult form, they have no need for sustenance. They live only to kill and reproduce.
The creatures reproduce asexually. When they emerge, they kill any living thing that can make a suitable host and infest them with new spores. Several planets have been overrun in this fashion. When they run out of suitable hosts, the Ke’ken conduct a mass ritual to summon Ubl’lia, Festerer Among Worlds, a form of Azathoth. Ubl’lia destroys the world, infusing the remains with Ke’ken spores. The remains of the world spill out into the universe to being the cycle again.
Ke’ken appearances on Earth have been fortunately rare. But millions could be biding their time in our cemeteries without us knowing until it is too late.
Ke’ken, feeders from afar
| char. | roll | average |
| STR | 3D6 x 6 | 80 |
| CON | 3D6 x 5 | 50 |
| SIZ | (2D6+4) | 45 |
| DEX | (2D6+6) x 5 | 65 |
| INT | 3D6 x 5 | 50 |
| POW | 3D6 x 5 | 50 |
Average Hit Points: 0
Average Damage Bonus: +1D4
Average Build: 1
Average Magic Points: 10
Move: 7
ATTACKS
Attacks per round: 2 (claws)
Ke’ken attack by swiping at opponents with chitinous claws.
| FightingDodge | 45% (30/13), damage 1D6 + damage bonus 35% (16/7) |
Armor: None. But wearing the skeletal remains of their hosts affords them 2 points of armor. After the remains have taken 10 points of damage, they disintegrate.
Spells: None, except for the Ubl’lia summoning ritual.
Sanity Loss: 1/1D6 to see a Ke’ken.
NOTE: In their grub form, Ke’ken are defenseless. Any attack on a grub will destroy it.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
