#invunche

"The dawn train lurches me toward London rolling a sick, millestone headache around the bowl of my skull. My heart twitches like a dying best, crawled into the rank burrow of my chest to breathe its last. I'm cold, chilled to the marrow. I daren't even shut my eyes for fear of sleep and dreams. I feel like an old soldier, attending one by one, the funerals of war comrades. Ritchie was the last of the Newcastle team. Benjamin got it first-- from the Invunche, and me. Then Gary Lester-- from Mnemoth, and me. Now Ritchie's incinerated by the Tongues of Fire-- and me. Christ, it's been ten years-- will I never stop paying for that debacle?

Yes! I wrote the caliban, so I should know. At least, I mostly wrote the caliban. It was an RPG Superstar entry I wrote, and then a lot of the content from that year ended up in Tears at Bitter Manor. The gorget of living whispers was mine too, and they ended up giving it to the final boss!

My original flavor text had nothing to do with hags. I wanted the calibans to be the children of parents who were "blessed" by Lamashtu. The inspiration was various hybrid cryptids from the mid-to-late 20th century, like the Lake Worth Monster, Honey Island Swamp Monster and the Goatman (hence the axe). In the original stat block, the caliban's share deformity ability could also affect mental ability scores (so you could have a scholarly caliban parasitizing his intellectual rivals, or one who wants to be beautiful stealing abilities from pretty faces). The third flavor change that Paizo made was making them all male; again, as a way of making them relate more to hags than Lamashtu.

The art is perfect, though. No notes.