Morlock

Blind, subterranean remnants of a heroic empire, changed by long centuries of darkness and intensive eugenics. The surface world was promised to them, and they will have it.

Lvl 2 Def none Spear 1d6+1

Dis *

Climbers - If anyone can climb it, they can climb it (albeit slowly). If they are forced to climb quickly, they merely get +4 to the Climb check.

Almost Blind - Can see light sources within 10’. Can see the sun. Pretty much everything else is invisible to them. However, their other senses are sharp enough that they are not impaired when fighting someone within 10’. Beyond that range, they get -4 to hit (same as normal blindness) although they still have excellent hearing. Because of how easy it is for a blind creature to trip (or fall in a pit), morlocks hardly ever run, and instead advance at a bow-legged march.

There are different types of “low” morlocks, plus a “race” of savage morlocks. All morlocks can speak, except grangers.

Troglodytes (savage morlocks)

Troglodytes are the morlocks who have become isolated from their civilization, and descended into intentional savagery. (If “civilization” is cruel, become uncivilized.) Troglodyte colonies are usually founded by either (1) the remnants of a failed attempt to conquer the surface world, or (2) morlocks who have fled the cruelty of their own civilization.

Without leadership from the higher clades, their bloodlines have mingled into a roughly homogenous population. Their disposition varies, but if encountered near their homes they will be motivated by food, security, and the desire to keep outsiders away from their homes. If encountered further away, they are most likely a hunting party, looking for easier prey than the party.

Trogs have not lost their spoken or written languages, and they still remember the civilization from which they came. They consider themselves free, and fear morlocks above all other things. They are terrified that their freedom will vanish under the willpower of a chelinausca. (They are correct.)

Troglodytes have no special abilities.

Killlian Morlocks

The most human-looking of the morlocks, killians tend to be stoop-shouldered, pale, and heavy-browed. Since killians are considered the “midpoint” of their race, they tend to be numerous, and most tools and armor are made for their bodily proportions.

Whenever there are 3 or more killians in a group, one of them will be an artifactor. If an artifactor is deprived of their artifact, they will do anything to recover it, although asking them to betray the other morlocks is pushing it and requires a Cha check. Artifactors carry lightning guns (pictured above).

Lightning guns take a full turn to charge up, during which they glow, vibrate, and make a high-pitched noise. The lightning bolt does 3d6 damage (Dex for half).

Artifactor weapons can be used 1d3 times (rolled secretly), after which they will blow up in your hands, dealing 1d6 damage to you. Morlocks can teach you how to determine how many charges are left, but they really don’t want to. You’ll have to study morlockery as a skill to really get a sense of how these things work.

Granger Morlocks

In the Underworld, the proto-morlocks realized that there were many foods that they could not digest, and much labor to be done. They greatly missed the horses and oxen of the surface world. And so, they bred some new ones.

Grangers are huge, muscular, and docile. They have the following traits.

Livestock - Maximum HP. High Strength. Animal-level intelligence. If the only morlocks remaining are granger morlocks, they become immediately docile, and will not even fight to defend themselves. Can digest molds, slimes, grasses, and cellulose. Different sub-breeds are used for meat, milk, pulling carts, and combat. The grangers in the last category are usually armed, with their distinctive helmets having blinders (so that they aren’t startled by objects in their periphery).

Tyrochian Morlock

Exposed brains. Faces obscured behind psychohaptic plates, but behind them blind eyes still roll. Tyrochian morlocks are focused on the abysso-pelagic pseudofauna of the World Behind the World. Most, but not all of them, are completely insane.

Tyrochian morlocks have the following traits.

Gift of Eyes - Tyrochian Morlocks can see everything within 10’. And I do mean everything. This combines darkvision, X-ray vision, and true sight. They can read the book in your pocket. They can count the polyps on your lungs. Among other things, this makes them excellent trackers, which is one of their most common uses. During combat they will run away and hide in the next room (usually). If you don’t find them and kill them, they will fetch a warband of morlocks and swiftly track you down in 1d6+2 exploration turns.

Majuscule Morlocks

Small as a child, but quick and strong. They can climb, leap, and hide. They are clever–perhaps the cleverest of the morlock breeds. They are covered with visible varicose veins, and most of them seem to have positions of authority over the other morlocks.

Although killian morlocks are almost always the representatives of their race, majuscule morlocks are the leaders as often as not. Majuscule morlocks have the following traits:

Evil Monkey - Climbs even better–as well as a monkey. Deals +1d6 damage whenever it attacks with a situational advantage. Can do yoda flips, giving it +8 Defense, but only against the first attack made against it each round. Their shortswords and blowguns are often poisoned.

Common Knowledge

Everyone knows that there are a bunch of weirdos who live underground and want to take over the surface world, even if they don’t know the word “morlock”. The blindness stuff is common knowledge.

Delvers can tell you that morlocks are great climbers, that they’re ruled by giant centipedes (false), and that there’s big ones and little ones, and the big ones will stop fighting if you kill all of the little ones.

Historians will tell you how Lassarac Boregal saved the world, and how everything does in fact technically belong to the morlocks. However, historians with more Wis than Int are aware that this piece of history tends to get them slapped in the mouth, so they’ll tread carefully.

Tactics

All morlocks are aware of their blindness, and will try to mitigate this disadvantage. On the surface, they attack only at night. Underground, they know that if they can disable the torchbearers, they have a huge advantage. (Remember that they can see light sources within 10’.)

Morlocks are intelligent foes, and they usually travel in bands. If you encounter hostile morlocks, they’ll often assume a defensive position, gather reinforcements, and then track you down with a tyrochian morlock. Even troglodytes know that their greatest strength is their clan.

Encounter Design

Assemble warbands from a group of killians. Small groups are killian-only. Medium sized groups will have 1 special troop type. And Large groups will have two special troop types.

I’d also recommend giving each troop of morlocks a mission:

Explore and map. Make friends–give gifts to people you meet.
Capture someone and bring them back, we need a translator.
Diplomatic mission. Make friends, get them to help us establish a secret base on the surface.
Diplomatic mission. We’re looking to hire someone with eyes for a secret task.
Fortifying this area. Killing dangerous animals, building traps, installing doors, digging a tunnel.
Scouting and foraging for the main army, half a day’s journey away. (This was a major task for real armies.)

Note that most of these goals will probably yield morlock warbands who are more interested in talking, than fighting. I would recommend creating 2-4 groups of morlocks and placing them in the dungeon, maybe having 1-2 of them as wandering groups, and 2-3 of them as fixed encounters. If morlocks run into trouble, they’ll run to the other groups for reinforcements.

Dungeon Design

Morlocks work well as a dungeon faction, or a centerpiece of the dungeon. Morlocks don’t keep any animals (they are the animals), so morlock factions usually don’t include any tame animals. Morlocks are diverse enough that you should be able to make interesting warbands using only morlocks. If you need more types of morlocks, consider giving more abilities to killian artifactors.

Morlocks are blind, so they are at a major disadvantage in large spaces where the party can shoot arrows at them from more than 30’ away. The morlocks don’t have an effective counter-tactic. Similarly, blind morlocks are vulnerable to tripwires and caltrops (especially since so many of them are barefoot).

Don’t take away these advantages from the players. If you want morlocks to be more challenging, just write encounters with more morlocks.

Definitely give players these environments (large chambers, tripwire opportunities) but also place environments that are advantageous to morlocks.

Anything that threatens to put the players into darkness is a major advantage for morlocks. Waterfalls, fog, wind, weird gases. Be sure to put some of those into the morlock dungeon, too.

History

Morlocks have attacked the surface world several times, with drill castles bursting up at random. Each of these assaults has been successfully repelled by the kingdoms of the surface (although to be fair, disease is a far more effective defender of the surface world).

Psychology

Morlock psychology is characterized by the love that the commoners have for their nobility. Loyalty has been bred into them. And if you watch a morlock noble interact with her subjects, you’ll see a lot of the same behaviors that you’ll see in dogs: looking for approval, protectiveness, deference.

Morlocks tend to operate in groups. They aren’t hyper-aggressive, and they cooperate well.

Culture

Morlocks care deeply about other morlocks, but they don’t mourn the way that we do. They believe that all morlocks go to heaven, so what is there to mourn? They are cannibals. Friends are honored with a feast in their honor. Enemies are ground into mash and fed to grangers.

Agreements are sealed by an exchanging of gifts. The best gift is a piece of one’s own flesh, to be eaten.

While their nobles can read books, regular morlocks write using cuneiform. They read their cuneiform by dragging a set of pins across the surface and feeling how the pins drop, or don’t.

Loot

Cold Smoke Grenades - Doesn’t bother the morlocks. Extinguishes torches.

Potion of Sight - Used to grant morlocks regular vision.

Potion of Disguise - Used to infiltrate human cities.

Water Compass - Points towards the nearest body of water. Invaluable in the Underworld.

Stone Cloak - Provides excellent camouflage against natural stone.

Marching Stone - Alleviates feelings of hunger when sucked. Provides no actual nutrition.

Alchemy & Gastrology

Vivisection Results Cooking Results ————————- ———————————————– ————————————— ★ Nothing. +2 to Climbing.

★★ Morlock Lobes. +4 vs pain. +2 to Initiative.

★★★ Agapalia. Ingredient for a love potion. Morlock Senses (including blindness). —————————————————————————————————————–

Discussion

Morlocks are my substitutes for the drow: a general race of underground weirdos.

A lot of the things that make morlocks feel unique aren’t their special abilities. It’s their tactics and their limitations that make them interesting. Grangers stop fighting as soon as all the killians are killed. Tyrochians must be tracked down swiftly.

And of course, the blindness permeates all of their encounters. Be sure to factor their blindness into all of their encounters. Let them trip over tripwires. Let them fawn over books. If the party can get them into a large, well-lit cavern, let them die swiftly under arrow fire.

Variants & Reskins

Some other weapons for killian artefactors:

1 - Ice Rod. Takes a full turn to charge up. Fires an ice ball that deals 1d6 damage to all creatures in a 20’ radius and freezes them to the floor. Str check 1/round as a free action to break free. Can also attack ice (standard action) to break free.

2 - Fire Rod. Takes a full turn to charge up. Fires a 2d6 fireball.

3 - Time Machine Bracelet. The morlock fiddles with the watch and then vanishes. They reappear a few seconds later and you remember now. You’ve seen them before in your childhood. They hurt you in some way. They broke your leg, or they poisoned you, or they got you expelled from school. One of your stats (chosen at random) is permanently reduced. It’s always been reduced. You don’t know why you ever thought you were better than this.

However, you do know that if you break the bracelet, you can undo what they’ve done to you. A time machine bracelet can be used 1/day.

Grangers can be armored, or they can just pull carts.

You can give majuscules different types of poisons in order to modulate their difficulty.

Deal more damage.
Paralysis + invisibility for 1d6 minutes.
Rage. If there are no enemies, attack allies.
Utter peace. Cannot make attack rolls.