great wings, and of a glimpse of shining eyes and
a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest trees but
I suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition.”
HP Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Hierophants, Greater Servitor Race
The Hierophants are a hybrid race, the result of a mating between Cthulhu’s Star-Spawn and something indigenous to the earth but long extinct. They appear much like the Star-Spawn, but are smaller in stature, though still titanic when compared to a human. Their forms are static, unable to mold and shape their bodies as Cthulhu can. Unlike the Star-Spawn, they are mortal-creatures, though their mortality is not as humans understand mortality to be. Though violence and disease may kill them, they may live for eons.
Anywhere the Cthulhu Cult is strong, the Hierophants may be found. During the time of the wars between the Star-Spawn, Mi-Go, Great Race and Elder Things, the Hierophants were the soldiers of Cthulhu. But, when R’yleh sank beneath the waves, the Hierophants did not fall into a state of undeath with Cthulhu and the Star-Spawn. As the first humans arose and heard Cthulhu in their dreams, the Hierophants sought them out, teaching them the proper ways to worship and praise the Great Old One. In the lonely and loathsome places of the earth the Hierophants live today, directing and ruling over the scattered individual cults.
The Hierophants care little for the humans they rule over in the cults. Rarely will they take any action to protect the cults in their charge from persecution. There will always be more humans to teach and corrupt, always more to help prepare for Cthulhu’s return. The Hierophants are almost a cowardly sort; only when they are directly threatened, and fleeing or hiding is not an option, will they take any action.
Many Hierophants are served by the Black Winged Things.
Special Effects and Attacks:
Flight: Though they seem to small and thin, a Hierophant’s wings can carry it over short distances, CON x 5 in yards.
Psychic: Each Hierophant is a powerful psychic, able to intrude the minds of any human within POW x 10 yards. A Hierophant can telepathically communicate with any human in range, the target is unable to resist. “Hearing” the Hierophant’s “voice” costs the target 1/1d10 Sanity. A Hierophant may bombard a target with mind-shattering images of the past, when Cthulhu strode the Earth, or signs of the future, when Cthulhu rises again. This costs the target 1d10/3d10 Sanity.
Attacks: In combat, a Hierophant may choose to attack with 1d4 tentacles, snatch up an investigator into its claws, or trample investigators. Pulled into a Hierophant’s tentacles, the investigator is pulled apart, resulting in 4d4 HP loss per round. In the grasp of a Hierophant’s claws, the investigator will either be feed to the monster’s tentacles, or crushed in its grip.
Hierophants, the High Priests of Cthulhu
Char. – rolls – avg.
STR – 4d6+30 – 44
CON – 3d6+16 – 26-27
SIZ – 4d6+30 – 44
INT – 5d6 – 17-18
POW – 5d6 – 21
DEX – 3d6 – 10-11
Mov 8/8 flying – HP 36
Av. Damage Bonus: +4d6
Weapons:
Tentacles 80%, damage grapple + 4d4 per round.
Claw 80%, damage grapple + crush, 1d6 + db.
Trample 50%, damage 2d6 + db
Armor: 5 points of hide and blubber; regenerations 2 HP per round.
Spells: Each Hierophant knows 1d4 spells, plus one for each INT point above 11.
Sanity Loss: 1d6/2d10 to see a Hierophant.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
