Spherical Angels and the Gods They Serve

Angels are an enemy that my players have fought quite a few times over the years.

These angels are nakedly technological - basically Modrons with a slice of Evangelion - and they're sent down by the ASE-inspired orbital gods which orbit the planet.

Here are some facts about Angels.
- They are spherical with a single central eye, and roll around in ball form when they're not in combat mode. 
- They sing to each other in Angelic Binary so fighting them sounds like fighting a choir. 
- If you kill a higher-ranked angel, one of the lesser angels upgrades to replace them.

- A full choir of them numbers exactly 21, since they are arranged with a leader Ophanim who commands four Tacticians each of whom commands four Baseline angels.
- They are part of an ancient failsafe designed to prevent the end of the world, a task they only partially succeeded at back during the Apocalypse.
- The angels are ultimately controlled by whichever God is overhead that week, and each God has their own agenda and grants the angels a different special ability.

In gameplay terms they've got a fair few gimmicks, all ultimately predictable because Law is predictable.

Mostly they scare my players because they've got good armour, magic immunity, the ranged ones have armour piercing beam cannons, and killing the leader first is a bad idea because their minions just upgrade to take their place.
That plus they usually go for Chaotic characters first, so wizards feel very victimised.

Might as well start with the stats!

I have other drawings saved somewhere but can't find them so enjoy this quick scrawl!

Stats

Angels in General

Abilities
- Immunities: Immune to Chaotic magic and stasis weaponry.
- Patrol Mode: Roll around in spherical form, mostly used when on patrol or on standby.
- Flight Mode: Can transform into a ball with wings and fly around. Can't attack in this form.
- Scan: Detect Alignment at will.

Angel - Baseline

Baseline angels are the rank and file. Four Baselines are commanded by a single Tactician.
Baselines obey orders blindly, and have no executive function of their own.
They have little skinny legs and little skinny arms and little skinny wings and basically look just like a Modron.

Stats:

HD2. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed attack: 1d6.

Abilities:

- Weapon Swap: When commanded by their Tactician, they immediately generate any kind of melee weapon. (See "Weapon Types" in the house rules)
- Upgrade: When their commanding Tactician is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Baseline angels transforms into a Tactician. It gains +2 HD immediately.

Angel - Tactician

Tactician Angels are a real-time calculating node in the angel network. Four Tacticians are commanded by a single Ophanim. 
They have some tactical reasoning but these are strictly limited to the present moment, they have no ability for long term strategy. Mostly this is calculating stuff like "enemies are in heavy armour, use hammers" and telling their Baselines to swap to hammers.

Stats:

HD 4. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed ram attack: 1d6
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d6 each

Abilities:
- Switch Up: As an action, can order their Baseline minions to swap weapons.
- Upgrade: When their commanding Ophanim is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Tactician angels transforms into an Ophanim. It gains +4 HD immediately.

Angel - Ophanim

Ophanim angels are the commanders of their group. One Ophanim commands 4 Tacticians that each command 4 Baselines, for a total of 21 angels per Choir.
They have the capacity for longer term strategy and are hubs for the wider angel network.
They are ultimately overseen by the Seraphim dropship that hovers at the edge of the Stratosphere.
This plus they're a whirling array of metal and high-powered beam weapons that can encase a large area within an impenetrable stasis barrier.

Stats:

HD 8. AC Plate. Morale 12.

Whirling shard attack: Attack all in 10' for 1d6 damage.
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d12 each.

Abilities:
- Reactive Movement: If hit by an attack, may take a free move without triggering Opportunity Attacks.
- Stasis Shell: As an action, create a 50' diameter shell of frozen time impenetrable to almost all non-angels. Takes a round to spin up and lasts until the Ophanim stops maintaining it. Things can still move inside the barrier, but they can't cross out and any projectiles crossing the barrier get stuck. The Ophanim itself can't act while maintaining the field, so needs to rely on its minions to destroy anything that's in there with it.

One of my players rendered one of them!

Tactics

First off, Angels hate Chaos.
They'll always attack Chaotic entities first, and will abandon their other goals until they've chased down and destroyed Chaotic targets.
They attack Neutral entities if they get too close or get in the way of their goals, but won't chase too far.
Lawful entities are ignored unless they physically attack an Angel.

Secondly, Angels upgrade.
Each Ophanim controls 4 Tacticians.
Each Tactician controls 4 Baselines.
If an angel higher in the hierarchy dies, one of their underlings upgrades at the end of the round to take their place.

Thirdly, Angels don't care about firing into combat.
All angels are immune to Stasis Beam attacks, so they'll try to get the Baselines in to tie up foes, then blast the melee with beam-fire.

Fourthly, Ophanim can use their stasis bubble for offence and defense.
If it calculates that its Choir is unlikely to survive, it can put up its Stasis Shell to prevent further action. Angels can roll through Stasis zones unhindered, so they can roll back into the field until danger has passed.
On the other hand, if it can trap a lone foe inside the field and have the rest of the angels come murder it, so much the better! This is a potentially dangerous tactic since the Ophanim can't defend itself with the field up, but mobbing one poor fool with a bunch of angels is usually a winning technique.

Gods Above

A fun extra thing about Angels is that they have different abilities depending on which God is above that week.
I track this because I have a game calendar (so cool, I know) and each week the God closest to the zenith in the skies above influences the Angels below.

You could always roll a 1d9 if you don't care about calendars.

Name	Angel Mood	Angel Special
Dispater of the Subtle Knife	Elusive	All Angels gain a free move when hit. Baselines equip reach weapons.
Oberon of the Green Branch	Wary	Baselines can use 1d6 ranged bow
Minerva of the Burnished Shield	Defensive	Baselines equip shields
The Scorned of the Rusted Blade	Resolute	Tacticians can command a weapon swap as a free action
The Dead God of the Brittle Bone	Murderous	Mob individuals. 4 in 6 Backstab.
Alaunus of the Mailed Fist	Efficient	Target lowest HP first.
The Lady of the Silver Coin	Fickle	Immune to opportunity attacks, retarget foes every round.
The Allfather of the Filled Cup	Hard-hitting	Baselines deal +1 die size for damage.
Eris of the Spinning Wheel	Hateful	Reverse priorities - kill Lawful first.

God Lore

There are, or were, Nine High Gods orbiting the Earth.
Massive mechanical minds born from aeons-ancient ingenuity, long sent into space to allow them to grow beyond all earthly proportion.
Immortal, impossible space golems, each orbit another turn of the prayer wheel.

If the Gods need to affect the world they send forth their angels.
The Seraphim, huge brass spheres, descend from above and blossom forth, the lower hemisphere opening up into six huge wing-petals covered with eyes.
Each eye is an angel, deployed from the wings according to the unknowable yet fairly obvious tactics of the Gods.

One of the Nine, Eris, was shot down in an earlier age. This has the unfortunate effect of putting angels into their failsafe "scorched earth" mode when they detect no gods overhead.

Some Faiths claim that she lies below Dwimmermount even now. Some call her Queen Satan, others believe her a fallen God unjustly wrenched from the heavens, others still say she never entered heaven at all...

Titan-Scale Mass Combat

I threw this together to adjudicate the End War - the final battle to save the world.

It went fucking great.
Since it was a one-off (for now...?) I was intending to paper over any weirdness with the rules on the fly, but it ended up working pretty good on its own!

The actual scenario is very my-campaign-specific, but maybe it'll be useful if you need a one-off EPIC BATTLE or as a starting point for better mass combat rules.

Assumptions

When I say Titan-Scale I mean Titan-Scale.

You're not ordering around individual units, you're dealing with entire armies clashing. I'm going for adjudicating a Lord of the Rings clash of thousands rather than a more cerebral tactical battle where you counter cavalry with pikes or whatever.

This means that combat is necessarily abstract.

There are Horde-Scale units. These are units of hundreds, if not thousands, of troops.

There are Titan-Scale units. These are the size of mountains, truly titanic, unassailable by even the mightiest hero.

Combat at the standard encounter scale is ineffectual and fruitless. If the PCs wish to impact the battle directly it will be in the realm of surgical strikes, diplomacy, or perhaps classic PC bullshit.

The Battlefield

Distance

The Battlefield is a hex grid. Each hex is as big as you need it to be.
Here's what I had:

In this case, the hexes are approx 2-3 miles across.

Timescale

Each Turn is about 1 hour.

Titan-scale units lumber across the landscape, while the Horde-Scale units practically zip around underneath their feet.

The Basic System

Horde-Scale

Power:
A Horde's Power dictates the die they roll in combat. It's 1dX, where X is their Power.

eg. a Horde with Power 10 rolls 1d10 for combat, a Horde with Power 6 rolls 1d6.

Speed:
Slow Hordes (eg. zombies) move 1 Hex per Turn.
Standard Hordes (eg. human armies) travel at 2 Hexes per Turn.
Fast Hordes (eg. winged dragon-cultists) can move 3 Hexes per Turn.

Horde on Horde Combat:
Each side rolls their combat die.
The Loser loses 2 Power, dropping down a die size.
The Loser may retreat a hex, if able.

Killing a Horde:
If a Horde is at 4 power (ie. uses a base d4 for combat) and loses a combat, they are destroyed.
Survivors may flee, if possible, as a useless noncombatant unit.

Horde on Titan Combat:
Hordes cannot harm Titans.
The best a Horde can expect to do against a Titan is to slow it down so that their Titan can get involved.
Exception:
Some Hordes might have a special ability that allows them to harm a Titan-Scale Entity.
(eg. in my End War, the Tentacle Cult could summon forth a titan-scale Tendril if left unmolested)

Technically Wun Wun is Horde-Scale, despite being fairly big

Titan-Scale

Damage:
Titan-Scale damage uses Hit Locations.
Each Hit Location can be Unhurt, Hurt, or Maimed.

Here are some example hit locations for an Apocalypse Dragon, the walking city Battlefortress Fate, a big Prime Tentacle surrounded by 3 Sub-Tentacles, and an extremely huge humanoid.

If a Hit Location is Hurt it can't be used to attack. If a Hit Location is Maimed it has been mauled to pieces and cannot be used at all.
It's up to you to adjudicate what this means.

Speed:
Titan-Scale units all move at one hex per Turn.

Titan on Titan Combat:
Each Titan automatically hits and hurts the other - roll for a hit location to see what each hit.
If the Hit Location is Unhurt it becomes Hurt.
If it's Hurt it becomes Maimed.
If it's already Maimed, damage another Hit Location - attacking Titan controller's choice.

Killing a Titan:
Usually impossible, but you can Maim it enough that it's useless.
In my End War, there were enormous horse-sized Rot Grubs that would fuck up a wounded Titan. Luckily this never happened to the players' Titans!

Titan on Horde Combat:
The Titan wins automatically and takes no damage in the fighting.
The Horde loses 2 Power and may retreat if they wish.

Titan-Scale combat for sure

The Turn Order

Each Turn is an hour.

Each Turn goes like this:

1. PCs Give Orders
2. Horde Movement
3. Titan Movement
4. Horde Combat
5. Titan Combat
6. PCs Do Stuff

1. PCs Give Orders

Write down what the PCs want the entities under their control to do.

You can't really change your orders once they're given on this scale.

2. Horde Movement

Horde-Scale Entities move according to their Speed.
If there's any question of who goes first, fastest choose.

3. Titan Movement
Titan-Scale entities move.
If there's any question of who goes first, choose what's coolest.

4. Horde Combat
If two enemy Hordes are in the same hex, they fight!
Follow the Horde-Scale rules above.

5. Titan Combat
If a Titan is fighting a Titan, or has a Horde attacking them, they fight!
Follow the Titan-Scale rules above.

6. PCs Do Stuff
After everything's moved and rolled for and all the rest, it's the PCs turn to take independent action if they wish.
We had things like "fly to a dead city to try to raise an army of survivors", "dive into the Tentacult to destroy their leader" and "chug a bunch of wizard drugs and cast a Titan-scale Force of Forbidment".
It was good shit!

The End War

You can check out my original sheet for the End War here.

The goal was simple.
Kill Shub-Niggurath.

The PCs had, over the course of the apocalypse, united pretty much every other apocalyptic threat against this one true enemy.
They controlled the Apocalypse Dragon Ninhursag - the Earth Dragon - and had equipped it with the most virulent poison known to man. Any living organic matter that was touched by this noxious Omnipoison would be catalysed into more of the toxic gas.
If Shub-Niggurath was successful it would undergo planetary lysis, cracking the world like an egg and spreading itself far across the cosmos.

The plan:
1. Get Ninhursag to the largest closest tendril of Shub-Niggurath - the Prime Tentacle.
2. Blow a hole in the Prime Tentacle.
3. Send Ninhursag plunging down the hollow inside of the Prime Tentacle until it reaches the centre of the planet, then unleash the Omnipoison into Shub-Niggurath's frothing core.


My intention for the push-pull of this battle was it to go something like this:
- Titans get into battle.
- When a Titan is wounded, they are vulnerable to the Parasite Grub Hordes that want to dive into the wounds and eat them.
- Wounded Titans need to be protected from the Parasite Grubs by their Hordes.

Instead we also got some of the most metal shit that's ever happened in the campaign, including a PC becoming a Titan-Scale monster and throwing a fucking Apocalypse Dragon at the Moon.
It was rad as hell!




Titan-Scale Foes

The Prime Tentacle
- Immobile.
- Surrounded by 3 malformed ancillary tentacles which can also attack.
- Regenerates each Turn: Maimed > Hurt > Unhurt.

Apocalypse Dragon Ereshkigal
- Unknown agenda.
- Airborne, but wings are Maimed.
- Gravity well will, if not stopped, pull down the moon.

The Black Sun Ultrademon
- Coming in from the north, Black Sun between its horns.
- Trailed by a wave of impenetrable darkness.
- Surprise! It comes in peace. Wants to rescue its constituent demons by entering Fortress-City Fate and turning into obols.



Horde-Scale Foes

Tentacultists
Power 6. Speed 2.
- Protect the Prime Tentacle.
- Can summon a Titan-Scale tendril to damage Titans.
- Won't summon tendril if they're in battle with an enemy Horde.

Ereshkigal Drakencultists
Power 10. Speed 3.
- Defend their dragon at all costs.
- Can open Space Warp between two points anywhere on the battlefield.
- No clear agenda

Grubs
Power 6. Speed 1.
- 1d4 hordes spawn per Turn near random Titan.
- Spawn new 6 Power Horde in front of them if they win a battle. Insta-killed by Titan damage.
- If a Horde get to a Titan with a Maimed and undefended Hit Location - drill in, hitting another Hit Location (internally...) every Turn.



Titan-Scale Allies

Apocalypse Dragon Ninhursag
- Armoured in bone: each hit location starts off with armour that resists one hit.
- Carrying the Omnipoison around its neck.
- Obeys the mental commands of POWERLAD

Bone Dragon
- Currently Ninhursag's armour, could potentially become own entity again.
- Head contains Ossuary of All Bones, allowing control of all Undead. Could be damaged.
- Controlled by Galaxy RJ

Fortress-City Fate
- Walking City. No Titan-Scale melee capability.
- Every round choose: Fire Macrocannon to deal ranged Titan-Scale damage or raise Shields to resist one incoming Titan-Scale hit.
- Controlled by Styx

Orbital God
- Ranged Titan-Scale attack - can strike with impunity from above with god-beams.
- Distracted by urgent matters across the globe.
- Will listen to Styx and/or POWERLAD.



Horde-Scale Allies

Ninhursag Drakencult
Power 8. Speed 3.
- Defend Ninhursag at all costs.
- Overgrowth reduces speed of foes within 1 Hex.
- Obey POWERLAD

The Dead
Power 8. Speed 1.
- Defend Ninhursag at all costs.
- Gain +2 Power if they defeat a Horde with bones.
- Obey Galaxy RJ

The Army of Fate
Power 6. Speed 3.
- Mounted on Guber-brand hovercrafts
- Good at hit and run - bonus +2 to power if they didn't attack last Turn.
- Obey Styx

Angels
Power 8. Speed 2.
- Can be deployed at Styx's request.
- Can freeze a combat they're in - stalling it for one Turn.
- Obey Styx, via the Orbital God

my clearly v cool notes while i was working on this

Apocalypse Dragon Ninhursag

players pls don't read


--

NINHURSAG

Its Rune is Earth.
Its Breath is Poison.
Its Aspects are of Size, Plants, Crystal and Magma.
Its Plan is to destroy Shub-Niggurath by destroying all cellular life.

To worship Ninhursag is to worship the Dragon of Earth, of Poison, and of Secrets.



The Cults of Ninhursag

The Verdigrised Drakencult worship Ninhursag Undivided.
The Gogamogic Drakencult worship the Aspect of Size.
The Tangled Drakencult worship the Aspect of Plants.
The Fracted Drakencult worship the Aspect of Crystal.
The Magman Drakencult worship the Aspect of Magma.



The Taboos of Ninhursag

Never allow a curse or disease to be removed from somebody.
Never destroy a plant or fungus unless it is a threat to you or your allies.
Only ever allow yourself to heal by natural means.
Never advance the cause of another Dragon.

The Observances of Ninhursag

+1	Catching or infecting someone with a disease
+1	Being poisoned, including by narcotic substances
+1	Hitting 0HP and surviving
+1	Uncovering a secret that could damage someone or their reputation if known
+1	Allowing someone to live who you have at your mercy
+1	Destroying something that lives but does not breathe
-1	Revealing a secret
-1	Allowing a living creature to be killed that is no threat to your or your allies
-1	Attacking a fellow minion of Ninhursag, or thwarting their plans
-2	Harming yourself or, through inaction, allowing yourself to come to harm

The Boons of Ninhursag

2	Favour of Ninhursag -  Power any glyph containing the Earth rune with a single action
3	Eyes of Ninhursag -  at will hear strength and direction of beating hearts within 50', even through stone - if in field of view, see whole circulatory system and dark patches where disease lies in their body
4	Scales of Ninhursag -  +1 AC and +2 to saves, improve overnight heal rate by one step (Vagrant -> Comfortable -> Splendid -> Splendid+)
5	Heart of Ninhursag -  Choose the Aspect of Ninhursag you will worship; gain an ability based on that Aspect: Undivided - convert poison entering your body into any other type Size - increase size and power of muscles at will (+4 strength mod, rip tight clothing, grow a foot or so) Plants - exude soporific pollen at will (-2 to hit for those nearby, +1 Pain Poison if breathed for 10 minutes, you are immune) Crystal - encase self in crystal coccoon at will, you are immobile and take only 1 damage from non-smashy weapons, coccoon shatters if you take more than 5 points of damage in one blow. If smashed you are stunned until you pass a Save vs Stun to recover Magma - grow incredibly hot at will, glow orange, deal 1d6 fire damage to anyone touching your bare skin, take half damage from heat
6	Devotion of Ninhursag -  You gain influence over the effect of any glyph containing the Earth rune, allowing you to bend its power to your intent and control its manifestation. New effects must be at least somewhat plausible.
7	Breath of Ninhursag -  gain 30' breath weapon 1/day according to Aspect which deals your current HP as damage (Save vs Blast for half); Undivided - chlorine gas, blinds and chokes all affected until they pass a Save vs Stun (separate for each effect) Size - shrinks everything in radius to half its size for 10 minutes. Plants - Everything in AoE difficult terrain and everyone within entangled by grasping coat of vines until they can slice them off or Wrestle out of them Crystal - Jagged shards of crystal coat the area, creating difficult terrain and dealing 1d6 damage to anyone stepping or falling on it without suitable protection Magma - ball of magma rolls along at 20' per round, breaks into a 10' burning puddle of magma when it hits someone or an object. 1d6 damage/round to anyone standing in it. Rolls to hit vs unarmoured AC against things that could dodge out of the way.
8	Claws of Ninhursag -  Unleash the latent power of Ninhursag 1/day for 10 minutes, taking on shades of the Aspect chosen and granting you a 1d6 unarmed attack with an additional ability; Undivided - Extending claws grants immunity to poison and allows you to tear up rock and earth easily, throwing boulders for 1d6 damage or throwing up a cloud of choking dust that obscures normal vision Size - Extending claws makes you grow twice as big! Shreds anything you're wearing, double damage. Plants - Extending claws grants you 1d6 natural regeneration per round up to half max hp Crystal - Extending claws covers you in shimmering crystal and grants your claws brutally sharp crystal edges, 1d10 unarmed damage and you count as having a Shield which can be broken as normal (shattering your crystal shell) Magma - Extend claws and become immune to heat. Anyone dealing 4 or more points of damage to you in one hit causes magma to pour out of the wound and pool at your feet, anyone standing in it takes 1d6 damage per round.
9	Wings of Ninhursag -  grow dragon wings! Take on a bunch of cosmetic attributes based on your chosen Aspect. Fly at your normal movement speed and glide at double.
10	Apotheosis Protocol -  with a week of preparation, permanently transform into an Elemental Dragon of Aspect, control it until the end of the session at which point lose individuality but protect fellow drakencultists OR for Undivided worshippers become immune to all poisons and diseases and at will (or on death) explode into a cloud of chlorine gas of incredible toxicity
11	Apotheosis Acceleration - With a day of preparation, Apotheosise.
12	Apotheosis Ultimate - At will, Apotheosise as an action

The Elemental Dragons of Ninhursag

Base stats:

HD10 AC14 ML12
- Vision: No eyes, but have always-on Eyes of Ninhursag - see circulatory systems in line of sight and detect heartbeats within 50'

- Breath: HP as damage, Save vs Blast for half. Recharge on 5-6. - Claws: 1d10/1d10, pin to the ground or bat away to send enemy flying. - Bite: 3d10, pick up and swing around wildly on hit - Wrestle to escape - Tail: 1d10 sweep, those hit are sent flying back. Save vs Blast to avoid. - Death Throes: Triggered when the Dragon is destroyed.

Size:

Huge dragon carved of stone, spits enormous rocks, practically invulnerable
+ AC20 + Fucking enormous - three storeys tall + Bite picks up anyone within a 20' diameter (so like, anyone close to anyone else). Keeps you inside its cage of a mouth while smashing its head around. + Breath weapon is huge boulder that bounces and rolls like a cannonball + Death Throes: Collapses into rocks that collapse down into earth.

Anyone within 20' must Save vs Blast or take 2d20 damage from fallen chunks of dragon. Dust swirls up from the bursting rocks, sending up a great obscuring plume of dust and grit 50' wide

Plants:
Rocks and greenery swirling in vague dragon shape, regenerates, poisonous fumes
+ Regenerates 1d10 HP/round + Exudes soporific pollen in 30' radius - gain 1 Pain Poison every round you're in the cloud + Breath weapon is a tearing roil of vines and thorns and greenery + Death Throes: Soporific pollen cloud bursts out in a great 50' diameter cloud. Anyone inside must Save vs Stun or fall asleep. Plus take 1 Pain Poison per round breathed.

Crystal:

Crystal dragon growing around rocky core, real spiky, any spikes that break off become sharp minions whether it's hit or it just scrapes them off
+ Each hit by it or against it creates a swarm of crystal minions equal to damage. Pool into swarms of 10. + Breath a blast of piercing crystal shards. Getting hit grows heavy crystal on you and through you - +1 encumbrance tier per hit + Death Throes: Cracks and shatters into 2d10 swarms of 10 crystal minions that take immediate revenge

Magma:

Red-veined rock, a moving volcano, leaves devastation in its wake, sets forests alight and spits lava
+ Those in melee range catch alight at the start of their turn as if hit by an oil bomb. + Trails magma and fire dealing 1d10 to all who cross its trail. Constantly moving to spread more magma.

+ Breath a stream of magma that leaves 30' magma patch. Magma magma magma all day long. + Death Throes: Collapses into a pool of magma 50' diameter, frying everything nearby for 1d10 damage per round

Design Notes:

As with all the Apocalypse Dragons, Ninhursag is a synthesis of three things - the trad D&D chromatic dragon, one of the five Runes, and one of some shithead's Tiamat cults.

So Ninhursag is a mix of:
- The poisonous Green chromatic dragon

- The Earth rune and its related rune-combo Aspects

- The secretive knowledge-gathering Jade Fang of Tiamat

All fairly disparate elements, so I feel like together they form a pretty interesting and non-trad melange.
At the time I made this (and this is still broadly true) the only Dragons the players knew about were this big green boi and the black Gravity Dragon Ereshkigal, so there's also an element of making them two rival and contradictory worldviews. Ninhursag is about keeping things alive, Ereshkigal is about letting things die.

So, design notes on the different bits.


Observances and Taboos.

Ninhursag's cultists are intended to be based on spreading disease and keeping living things alive.
After all, if everyone's dead a disease won't spread.
This is also why, for instance, you get a bonus for killing non-living things. Automatons tend to be disease resistant. Even the undead, which you'd expect to be vectors of disease, can't catch a cold themselves.
When Ninhursag unleashes the final ur-poison that will wipe out all cellular life, it wants there to be as many vectors as possible to infect Shub-Niggurath.

There's also a little bit of secret-finding and secret-keeping to encourage some of the sneakier Jade Fang stuff. A little insidious bit of extra spice.



Boons

Dragon boons follow the same format from dragon to dragon. They're always real good.

Bond 2 is when you the Favour, the ability to fast-cast any glyph containing the associated Rune. In this case, the Earth rune.

Bond 3 is the Eyes. Since Ninhursag is all about life, you can detect heartbeats and see circulatory systems (and disease) in field of vision. Real good unless you're fighting zombies or golems or whatever, but that's why you have to kill them.

Bond 4 is the Scales. All dragons give a +1 to AC and +2 to Saves, but Ninhursag also improves overnight healing rates. You're not allowed to heal magically during the day, but as a counterbalance you do heal more quickly with rest.

Bond 5 is the Heart and where things get interesting - your choice of Aspect here is your choice forever and grants you an always-on or at-will passive ability. So far we've only had one PC reach the Heart and they went for Size, which is fitting for POWERLAD the Muscle Wizard superhero.

Bond 6 is the Devotion which upgrades your rune abilities again. Essentially this means players tell me what happens when they activate rune magic, rather than me telling them.
It's potent and near game-breaking, but it's the apocalypse so they need all the help they can get really!

Bond 7 is the when you get the Breath and shit gets real. Dragon breath! A big ticket item! And different kickers depending on Aspect too.
One of the real cool self-limiting things for dragon breath in old school D&D is that it deals the dragon's current HP as damage, so it's the same here. As you level up in your class you do more damage with your breath weapon. Mechanically elegant!
We have a Goblin player with a whole gaggle of Goblin minions, each of whom he (until recently) had managed to set up worshipping a different Dragon each. That way he'd get access to all the cool powers without paying the exp penalty for Dragon Bond! Clever...
Unfortunately since his Goblins only have 1d6 HP, they can only do a few points of damage with their breath weapon. And also they die(d) really easily.

Bond 8 is the Claws. Another Aspect-based power. Unsheathe your Claws 1/day to get an unarmed attack and some monstrous Aspect-related extra ability. This is the combat monster perk where you turn into a humanoid dragon and wreck shit.
You can dual wield both claws, naturally. Remember in my game dual wielding means you roll twice for damage and take the best, and deal double damage if you roll doubles. A d6 unarmed strike is pretty beast!

Bond 9 is the Wings and they are the same mechanically for everyone because you can fucking fly baby!
At-will flight is weird because it's one of those things you think will break the game, but it really doesn't. Overland encounters are way different because you can just fly over them, but normal dungeons aren't changed so much.

Bond 10 is the final ability - Apotheosis. The capstone ability that essentially means you sacrifice your character forever in order to control an overpowered Elemental Dragon for a session.
What a choice!

The Elemental Dragons are player-scale, by which I mean they're the size of a truck and thus the sort of dragon that players might actually be able to fight against and the sort of dragon that will be effective against player-scale threats.
This as opposed to the Apocalypse Dragons which are the size of mountains and will just destroy you and shrug off any wound your measly sword can inflict.
Elemental Dragons are huge compared to a man, but still small enough to have an HP pool.

Anyway, sacrifice your character in order to do something crazy awesome. Since it takes at least 10 sessions to get to Bond 10 (you can test Bond once per week max), at my weekly game you've gone at least a couple of months with your character before you can blow their Draconic Apotheosis.
That's a lot of work to get to this point, which means sacrificing your character is meaningful.
It should be a hard choice, but then you do get to be a 10HD insanely powerful dragon which should be a hell of a good time.

Unless you're an Undivided worshipper of course, in which case you get ultimate immunities to poison and disease - you'll be guaranteed to survive Ninhursag's world-ending plagues at the very least.
You should probably Apotheosise as soon as you get a chance if you're an Undivided cultist, it's a permanent perk.
Plus if you die you'll take every motherfucker in the room down with you. Let's hope your friends are also Undivided so they can turn that deadly poison into a nap...

Bond 11 and Bond 12 speed up the Apotheosis.
Bond 10 takes a whole week which means you need a lot of planning ahead. It's unlikely you'll be able to do this in response to a threat unless it's got a long lead time. Since I've got a ticking clock of the Apocalypse bearing down on my game, a week is actually quite a big time penalty too.
Bond 11 only takes a day, so you're more responsive. That demon threatened you? Come back the next day as a motherfucking DRAGON and show him who's boss.
Bond 12 is at-will apotheosis which is definitely OP. If you're fighting your ultimate enemy and they knock you down to near-death and you wipe the blood off your lips with your sleeve and gloat about how "this isn't even my final form!" and transform into an Elemental Dragon and bite off their head with your mighty jaws as they cower... you have truly used this ability correctly. I really hope this happens.

A Note on Aspects

You'll notice that the Aspect powers are fitting for the element they relate to, but the Undivided bonus is a bit of a curveball. Combining Earth-Earth creates Rock in the rune system after all, not Poison.

I justify this because the Undivided option is about bringing you closer to the powers of the Dragon Itself, not just its rune combo.
Ninhursag has a trad Green Dragon's poison breath and theme, so you get poison-related abilities.
The Undivided options for Ninhursag involve the Poison mechanics a bunch. Like the Heart lets you convert deadly Trauma Poison into less deadly Pain Poison, so you just pass out for a while rather than dying.

The other abilities mostly just fit the spec. Size makes you bigger and stronger, Magma makes you hotter and heat-resistant, etc etc.

There's another wrinkle in that Aspects are a combo of two Runes, so every Dragon Aspect is shared with one other Dragon. Size is an Earth-Mass combo, for instance, so both the Earth and Mass Dragons will have an Aspect of Size available.
To make these shared Aspects unique, the element is sort of flavoured by the Apocalypse Dragon you're worshipping.
The Earth Dragon makes its Size cultists get bigger and more muscular, while the Mass Dragon gives its Size cultists non-euclidean space-distorting abilities - changing the Size of distances.

This applies to the Elemental Dragons too. The Earth-flavoured Size Dragon is a huge stony beast that breathes huge boulders and crushes all before it, the Mass-flavoured Size Dragon is a roiling mass of darkness and spacial distortions whose breath smears you across space-time.

Elemental Dragons

I went into Elemental Dragons a bit under Apotheosis above.
Elemental Dragons are player-scale threats, in that they're a size that players could potentially interact with in a meaningful sense - the equivalent of Adult Dragons.
Yea they'll kill you, but they'll have to roll for it.

Elemental Dragons are on my encounter tables. Usually they roll around with a retinue of Aspect-aligned drakencultists who try to control it. Nobody's fought one yet, although they did have a very scary run-in with a Crystal Elemental Dragon. That was a stealth mission.

All Elemental Dragons share the same base stats and attacks, modified based on Aspect.
So stat wise these things are beasts. Big HD, a ton of attacks, a breath weapon, the works.
If you're clever and lucky only some of you will die.
And if you get to control one of these bad boys with Apotheosis, welcome to God Mode. This is your session now baby. The spotlight is for you!

The one little potential weakness - like their Apocalypse Dragon sire these guys don't have eyes and have to rely on heartbeat vision. Fighting creatures without heartbeats means you have to guess where they are, but that's why you have your fellow drakencultists around to help!
It's also why killing non-living creatures is encouraged by Ninhursag, see?

Really the only big and interesting idea here is Death Throes.
I swear I got the idea of these from someone's blog or maybe someone in the OSR Discord, but I can't remember for the life of me. If you know, let me know so I can attribute properly!
Anyway, rather than Lair Actions or having triggered responses to attacks, killing an Elemental Dragon triggers its Death Throes - in general these will fuck up whoever and whatever killed it. Fun!

Individually:
Size is massive and tough and eats multiple people at a time. The big stompy one that goes around stepping on people and shooting boulders from its stony mouth. Bonus points if it breathes its boulder while people are in its mouth already. Combo!
Plants regenerates while slowing melee attackers and putting them to sleep. Real annoying to fight I imagine. You can't do shit because the pollen makes you dopey, and the few hits you get in before falling asleep are regenerated quickly. What a bastard.
Crystal creates sharp splintery minions wherever it goes. Hitting it knocks off sharp minions. Getting hit knocks off sharp minions. You want to run? Oh but its breath loads you up with encumbering crystal, preventing escape and probably spellcasting. The sharp minions do Choppy damage which means more damage to less armoured characters too. Good luck.
Magma trails magma, breathes magma, sets melee attackers on fire with magma, endless fucking magma. A living terrain hazard. Good luck with this fucker too, especially if you're wearing flammable clothes or carrying explosives.


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More on the Apocalypse Dragons

Apocalypse Dragon Resources
Learn to Kneel
Ninhursag
Atrahasis
Ereshkigal
Shamash
Mardūk