Bone Demons are tiny, vaguely anthropomorphic jumbles of bones from small animals or infants. Sorcerers create them as servants in a ritual that requires self mutilation and bloodletting. They are covered in decaying meat, held together with sinew, twine, wire, glistening with dried blood. Bone move in a jerking dance, bones rattling against each other as the creature moves. The monsters must be bathed in blood frequently to remain alive. Bone Demons work as assassins, guards, messengers, and assist in spellcasting. Some are even capable of casting spells on their own.
No one knows for sure what arcane force helps animate the beings, whether they are possessed by some minor spirit or contain the essence of some greater being. All that is known is that something beyond the sorcerer’s own will drives them.
Though created as servants, Bone Demons are not subservient. Though they cannot be considered intelligence, they possess a vicious cunning. They are disdainful of their masters, though they are not outright rebellious, keeping them under control is a constant struggle of wills for their masters. Those Bone Demons that escape from under their master’s will turn on them with murderous intent.
Bone Demons do not die when their masters die. Those that find themselves freed will concoct their own vile and inexplicable schemes.
Special Powers
Kept in the Red: Bone Demons must be bathed blood once a week. Without the blood, they will lose 1d10 POW a day. A zero POW, they will die. However they will regain all lost POW once they find blood.
Rebellious: Once a month, the Bone Demon and its creator must make a contested POW roll. If the Bone Demon wins the sorcerer will lose control of it.
Spells: 50% of Bone Demons will know 1d6 spells upon creation. Those of exceptional intelligence and power can learn others.
Bone Demons, Rebellious Homunculi
char. averages rolls
STR 20 1d3+2 x5
CON 35 2d6 x5
SIZ 05 05
DEX 70 3d6+3 x5
INT 50 3d6
POW 65 2d6+6 x5
HP: 4
Average Damage Bonus: -2
Average Build: -2
Average Magic Points: 11
Move: 10
Attacks
Attacks per round: 1
Fighting attacks: Bone Demons rake and rend with exposed bones sharpened to talons. They may also use any weapon they can clutch in their tiny hands.
Fighting 45% (22/9), damage 1d4 + damage bones
Dodge 35% (17/8)
Armor: None, but piercing and slashing weapons only due minimum damage. Spells and magical weapons do normal damage. Wet with blood they regenerate 2 HP per round. Reducing them to 0 hit points does not kill them. Only obliterating the bones, such as with fire or smashing them, destroys the monster.
Skills: Stealth 60%.
Sanity Loss: 1/1d4 to see a Bone Demon.
Create Bone Demon
Cost: 10 magic points; 5 POW, 1d3 CON; 1d4 Sanity
Casting Time: 1 day.
This spell creates a Bone Demon for a harrowing and gruesome cost. The bones must come from an animal or person that caster has killed. Then the caster must commit a bone from their own body, most often a toe or the end of a finger.
The ritual takes a full day to complete, during which the caster chants before the pile of bones. Blood fresh from the caster’s veins must be in a constant drip onto the bones.
If successful, the bones take a new life as a Bone Demon bound to the caster.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
