Whenever enough new folks join the Dreamland RPG Facebook group or Discord server, I’m going to be posting new Dreamland material (the FB and/or Discord folks get to vote on what it is). In celebration of the Facebook reaching 400 folks, here is a brief post on gugs (from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”.
Gugs
Hairy and monstrous, gugs once dwelt on the surface of Dreamland, but were banished to the underworld by the Great Ones. Physically, they are giants (twenty to thirty feet tall), with giant bodies covered in black fur, and two clawed forearms connected to each elbow. Their eyes protrude from the sides of their heads on bony stalks, and their mouths open vertically instead of horizontally, with great yellow fangs. They walk both upright and on all six paws.
Gugs dwell in great stone cities in the underworld, from which they venture to farm fungus and hunt for prey. One of their cities, but perhaps not the only one, sits beneath the Enchanted Wood, to which it is connected by a great spiral staircase in the Tower of Koth. Due to the Great Ones’ curse, gugs cannot open the trapdoor at the top of the stairs or otherwise enter the surface world. They have religion, and perform sacrifices and rituals to Nightmare gods, including the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep.
Gugs like to eat dreamers; dreamers were their favorite food even before they were forced underground. They can tell dreamers from ordinary Dreamlanders by smell, and they know someone is a dreamer even if that person does not. The horrific sensation of being gobbled by a gug is particularly traumatizing, and many dreamers die of the shock upon waking.
Gugs have excellent hearing and move quietly for creatures of their size.
FGT 12+1D6 (deadly) SPD 1+1D6 PER 4+1D6 STB 4+1D6
- Stealth. Gugs can sneak as if they had Stealth 1D6.
- Overwhelming. Hordes, groups and armies (except of other overwhelming creatures) have 1/2 FGT against them.
- Loathsome. Gugs are creatures of Loathing. A dreamer cannot get a better reaction from them than indifferent unless they have at least one Loathing Memory. If they lose their last Loathing Memory, any nearby gugs become indifferent, unfriendly or hostile. At the DM’s discretion, a dreamer who learns the language of gugs but has no Loathing Memories may have the option to replace one of their existing Memories with a new Loathing Memory they have suddenly recalled.
- Smell Dreams. Whenever a dreamer creates something using a half-Memory or Role power, all gugs within one mile or in the same site (whichever area is greater) become aware of the dreamer’s exact location.
- Thorough Devouring. When a gug kills a dreamer, that dreamer has an additional –2 on their Waking roll. In addition, the dreamer must roll an additional 1D10; if they roll 1–3, the dreamer loses three half-Memories for dying instead of two.
Rumors about Gugs
(All Dreamland beasts and monsters have a rumors table, which lists possible truths about that beast in your campaign. By default, pick three of these rumors which are true.)
- Gugs are the dream-form of crabs and other crustaceans. If you get close, their bodies are crablike, with a heavy exoskeleton covered with hair.
- Gugs are parthenogenetic females and are the daughters of a fertility goddess once worshipped in the waking world in the Paleolithic Era. They still respect their goddess’s symbols.
- Gugs are embodiments of hunger and famine. A gug is born whenever a famine strikes part of the waking world.
- Gugs were once Great Ones. They were transformed into their current hideous form as punishment when they were banished to the underworld.
- Despite their silence, man-eating nature, and frightening appearance, gugs have tender emotions. They care for one another and for their offspring, and bury their dead with solemn rituals.
- Gugs fear ghouls and will not go near them.
- Gugs are the children of Y’golonac, a monstrous god whose body slumbers underground behind a wall of giant bricks, tended by cloaked gug priests.
- Gugs crawl faster than they walk on two legs. While crawling, they can also squeeze through tiny spaces, much smaller than would appear possible.
- Gugs embody the fear of our own guts—of the interior of the human body. Whenever surgeries take place or corpses are flayed open, a gug is born in Dreamland. Gugs are surgeons themselves and subject their prisoners to horrible vivisections.
- Gugs are creations of an idiot god, who tried to make creatures but placed their heads on sideways and put their limbs in the wrong places.