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Greetings, children. It’s been a while, but the Mime has
been busy building his fallout shelter for the end of the Mayan calendar, and
it’s taken a surprisingly long time to gather my supplies for an end of the
world casaba.
Who knew that purchasing Peeps en masse would turn out to be
such a difficult task?
Peeps. Those little balls of sugar and love. They make great snacks, because they melt in
your mouth. They make great gags, because a handful of them take a while to
melt in your mouth. They also make great drinking buddies, because they stay
out of your rum.
Peeps. If you repeat the word Peep too many times, it steals
away the connotation, of either a small, usually annoying noise, or a squishy
bit o’ sugar.
Yip. That’s another one of those words, when repeated too
often, blend into an odd sound that seems to echo in your skull long after you
stop speaking.
Yip. Back in our AD&D days, that was the war cry of a
kobold. Yip. Like a small dog, the kobolds of yore were yipping comic relief,
something akin to a court jester, without all the dignity.
Even the art, with the spindly beastie, dangling a scorpion
from a stick and string, made them out to be the footstools of the d&d
world, along with the flumph. Don’t get me started on the correlation between
the flumph and the flying spaghetti monster.
Back to the kobolds, and their yipping war cry. No one
feared the wee dragonbloods, seeing them as whipping boys, pincushions, or
worse. They were the d&d equivalent of salvation army bell ringers, the
raggedy things you didn’t want to openly acknowledge, and that made you afraid
to eat the tootsie roll after hastily dumping change into the container.
I, being the champion of the underdog, wanted to take that
yip, and make it a roar. On an aside, I had never touched modules or boxed
adventures ever, always relying on my own homebrew written adventures to
torture my players. Dragon Mountain? Never heard of it. But I will hunt it
down, and see how awesome the kobolds are.
There has always been a special place for kobolds in my
heart. And when we started the Infamous Adversaries line, the first one I
kicked out for perusal was Raxath’Viz, The Creeping Rot. He was significantly
weaker, having only completed the first two boons for his Goddess, Maramaga.
Few of the original bits from his Hero Lab file are still around, which isn’t
necessarily a bad thing. He was still a sneaky bastard, but not to the depths
of this.
He got delegated to the back burner for a while, while other
products came forward. The other IA’s, the Tomb, and other top-secret projects
came and went, but still that nasty little kobold simmered in our minds.
He got a facelift and power boost by the collective, and his
“yip” became deeper, more of a post-pubescent growl. Again on the backburner,
until Necro sent me a missive asking for the file.
And before my eyes, the “yip” became a “Yawp” that echoed
across the blighted land, sending shivers of terror into the Catagonians.
The combined brainpower of all of us at TPK turned this little
draconic humanoid of a race sneered at and looked down upon into a paragon of
his breed.
He is more than the Harbinger of Maramaga.
Maramaga is more than just the Queen of Rot.
The story of Raxath’Viz grew, the depravity of his goddess
formed, and the beautiful horror of his companions blossomed. The rebirth of
Maramaga. The otyugh oracle. The crib. The Deadwood Order. I hesitate to expand on these items, because
I don’t want to steal the eye melting joy and awesomeness that will come when
you read about it for the first time. Everyone involved threw themselves into
this project. Our visions fell into line, and projected out into a complete
villain, with more than just motives and magic items. He had soul. A black,
rotten soul, but a soul nonetheless.
Raxath’Viz is a horrible opponent. He takes the
misconceptions of kobolds being nothing more than walking footballs for PC’s to
kick, and shoves it down your throat until you vomit. He sneaks into your room
and poisons your body, mind and soul, then steals your life.
Raxath’Viz has the letters BMF engraved on his money pouch.
For the brave game masters out there, loose this villain
upon your world, show them what a monster can do, and wreak havoc. For you
unlucky adventurers who think about taking on The Creeping Rot, you best build
your fallout shelter, and stock it with Peeps of your own.
With The Rot, comes disease, but not like the itch you got
from that trip to Cancun, but one that eats the mind and soul.
Best of luck to ye, brave adventurer.
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