Then I recognized the full significance of those statures. It couldn’t be! It was impossible! But what other answer was there? We turned to head to the surface and just as we did so, I saw something coming up the tunnel toward us. Something that was a pallid white shape in the light of my flashlight. Something running on all fours and howling…”
– Robert Arthur, “The Black Door”, The Mysterious Traveler, 3-18-1952
The Moon Hounds are an alien race with some connection with Earth’s moon. Whether they evolved there or if it were just a colony is unknown. This half-remembered connection may have been responsible for legends of lycanthropy and full moons.
The Moon Hounds filtered down to Earth in the most ancient days of human civilization. With their superior knowledge of science and magic, the Moon Hounds pretended to be gods and enslaved humanity. Incapable of acclimating themselves to the planet’s atmosphere, after several centuries, the race began to weaken and falter. Those that remained fled to vast underground caverns that better resemble their home. Their human slaves rebelled, sealing the aliens within. Cults persisted, providing some supplies and human sacrifices, most of those died out millennia ago. Memories of the creatures faded, becoming legends of chthonic and funerary gods such as Anubis.
Entrances to their warrens may be found in buried temples in Central America, the Sahara, and Central Asia. These tunnels may be filled with wondrous technological and magical marvels, though the Moon Hounds are long incapable of using them.
In the millennia underground the species has only continued to degenerate. Gone are the regal beings that once commanded worship as gods. They have been replaced by base animals.
SPECIAL POWERS
Blind: Living and devolving underground, the Moon Hounds no longer have any use for sight. They can navigate the world just as well through hearing and smell.
Spells: A Moon Hound of high INT may be blessed with spells, but these individuals are rare. A Moon Hound with 55 INT or higher may know 1D4 spells, relating to the underground, funerary rites, death, and underworld gods and beings.
Moon Hounds, former gods
| char | roll | average |
| STR | (3D6+2) X 5 | 60 |
| CON | (3D6) X 5 | 50 |
| SIZ | (2D6 + 9) X 5 | 70 |
| DEX | (3D6) X 5 | 50 |
| INT | (2D6) X 5 | 35 |
| POW | (3D6) X 5 | 50 |
Average Hit Points: 10
Damage Bonus: +1D4
Build: 1
Magic Points: 10
Move: 8
ATTACKS
Attacks per round: 2 (claws and/or bite), or 1 (thrash)
A Moon Hound fights with tearing claws and gnashing teeth. They may make one attack per round with each.
Thrash: After a successful bite attack, a Moon Hound may hold an opponent in its jaws. In the next round, the Moon Hound violently throws its head back and forth, snapping bones and rending flesh. A victim of this attack loses 2D6 + damage bonus each round. The victim may escape with a successful STR roll.
Fighting: 45% (22/8), damage 1D6 + damage bonus
Thrash: (special, see above)
Dodge: 25%
Armor: None.
Skills: Listen 90%, Scent 90%.Sanity Loss: 1/1D8 to encounter a Moon Hound.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
