The serpent-snail of Gascony.
This entity is thought to be a modern invention, but is in fact a regional memory so far removed as to be thought of as harmless. In the early 1900s the world started hearing the warning to young girls: “Watch out or Lou Carolh will catch you.” This warning has been whispered to children of the region for centuries.
The local hill has been dubbed the snail, and rumors of Spanish treasure being buried there are only partially false. In 1558 Captain Tomé Nuñez of the Spanish nao La Vizcaína was tasked with transporting a strange item pulled from the seabed by fishermen in the Spanish Netherlands. The fishermen saw a falling star and a great crash in the ocean next to their position. When they first came to the scene they saw the water smoking and a quickly dimming, glowing orb in the shallow coastal waters. The fishermen managed to retrieve the object, which appeared to be some sort of strange metal that iron could not mar. It was the size of a small cart and weighed around a ton. When news of the item reached the Stadtholder, he sensed its strange nature, for it resembled a giant iron snail shell with flat panels at its base, and had a ship captain called to run the French waters and bring it to the royal court.
This is how Captain Tomé Nuñez found himself pulling the shell from his sinking ship and running south through France in a stolen ox cart, as everyone near the thing lost sleep to strange dreams and lost vitality daily. Arriving in Gascony with most of his men too weak to haul and the oxen dying of an unknown malady, the captain chose to bury the shell behind the home of a local farmer sympathetic to the Spanish crown. He intended to deliver his report, get new men, and return in a fortnight. He and his men would die before ever delivering their secret tale to the Spanish crown.
As the years went on, locals would swear the hill in Hastingues was growing. The family nearest to it said “the snail was growing.” The town took up the nickname, and the tales of the snail and the Spanish treasure separated in their telling. Over the years, brave lads heard talking of finding the Spanish treasure would disappear in the night. As the town grew and the sewers expanded, tales of men getting waylaid by prostitutes and young women running off with handsome men became common. Families started noticing young people disappearing when alone, and others said that the missing had been seen beckoning them into pipes and caves with promises of love.
The Hunter of Chthonians
In fact, the Lou Carolh is the only known predator of Chthonians. They are a hyper-advanced form of slime mold with a shell made of the same indestructible metal, which other species use after mining it from dead examples. These beings lay out a web of slime that acts as a sensory net. When a target prey item is detected, a tentacle covered in color-shifting chromatophores and hairlike podia drops onto the creature and affixes itself to the nervous system. Once affixed, the Lou Carolh uses the creature’s own system to break down local nourishment, and is able to use any knowledge or skills of the affixed. The thin tendril will hang off the back of this puppet until such time as it passes, at which point it is dragged to the mouth near the shell to be ground into a paste by the radula and consumed.
The tendrils look very much like hairy, muddy green serpents when not camouflaged. The external structures can be harmed, though they are tough and rubbery. Once severed, they lose cohesion and fall as a liquid instantly, and the wounded end is retracted. Though described as a snail, it is a sealable shell with a mouth on both ends, and can have any number of tendrils and eye stalks protruding from it. Waste is embedded in the sensory slime, giving it a sickly-sweet smell which brings in smaller prey items like rats.
As it feeds it grows. When large enough, it thrums a rhythm to call a Chthonian. When the beast comes near, the tendrils embed themselves in its flesh, and the indestructible shell rides it until the end of the world. In the planet’s death throes it is spun out into the black void of space, spewing seed shells to find other worlds. The main body can move, as the radula can cut through stone, carving new caverns.
Weakness
The true weakness of the Lou Carolh is UV radiation, which is fatal. Any such light does damage: 1D4 for a small flashlight, 1D6 for a regular flashlight, 1D10 for a large light, and 4D10 for a floodlight.
Puppets
The puppets have the stats of the person they were, with all skills and abilities intact, but die just as easily and can only go as far as their tendril reaches, 200 yards at most. If the tendril is severed, the remaining alien slime mold inside the person acts as a disease. The incubation is 1D4 days. On a Regular or Hard CON roll it is suppressed for 24 hours; on two Extreme successes the body has fought off the infection. On a failure the victim takes 1D4 STR and CON damage as they are digested internally, and this damage is permanent. Upon death the body bursts, spilling slime, but the slime mold can’t live without the hive shell.
Lou Carolh, the Serpent Snail of Gascony
| Characteristic | Value |
|---|---|
| STR | 210 |
| CON | 180 |
| SIZ | 260 |
| DEX | 45 |
| INT | 65 |
| POW | 110 |
Hit Points: 44 per body, 22 per limb, 11 per eye stalk, 10 per tendril. Damage Bonus: +5D6. Build: 6. Magic Points: 22. Move: 6 slithering / 2 climbing.
Attacks
Attacks per round: 1 bite or limb smash, OR up to 3 tendril grabs.
- Bite 65%, damage 3D10 + DB
- Limb smash 65%, damage 2D6 + DB
- Dodge 22%
- Tendril grab 70%. Success means the target is held (an Extreme STR or DEX roll is required to escape). On the second round after being held, the investigator must win a POW vs. POW opposed roll. If they win two, they are rejected, released, and never targeted by a new tendril for being difficult. If they fail, they become a puppet with full skills and abilities until the tendril is severed or they are killed.
Armor: 4 for thick rubbery flesh. The shell is indestructible.
Skills: Stealth 70%, Spot Hidden 60%, Listen 60%, plus any skills held by its puppets.
Sanity Loss: 1D6/2D10 to see the Lou Carolh.
Created by Mark J. Wicker.
