Lost Kids part 1

All children grow up and the way Wendy knew this was that adults are inconsiderate of children and talk about mortality in front of toddlers. 

Some children avoid growing up by remaining forever children, though, perhaps not, technically speaking, human.

It is a well known fact that a small percentage of children walking down lonely footpaths in wild woods or unkempt fields of shoulder-high wild flowers, that little boys and girls hiding in wardrobes among the tall smooth and buttoned coats that hang like vines in a jungle, that those hiding behind curtains or under beds or in bushes so large they have a space by the root which is almost like an inverted nest, the bare and brittle limbs like a poky cradle, have hid so well that they have hid from the eye of reality, slipped beneath the skin of perception and fallen or perhaps climbed or else woken up in some place very different but in many strange ways quite the same. Search parties find nothing, or rarely anything. Occasionally a missing shoe or a torn pair of pants, none of which are very convincing to anyone but the police who, it should be noted, would very much like to be convinced and then out of the cold and back in the station around an electric heater.

STARS AND TREES
Birds, we learn on the radio, migrate from one place to another, very distant place because of something to do with their skulls and bones and magnets making them sensitive to occult energies.

Children of ages 8 to even as old as 16 are possessed of skeletons whose proportional characteristics render them susceptible to similar effects and fields as our migratory birds.

For example: a child now lost in a strange and difficult land may be able to navigate their way to a safe place by following the stars (second from the right, straight on til morning) or by testing the moss growing on trees for any clever, well-read child knows that moss and other wet, dark green things hide from the sun.

Children lost and wandering in this manner usually find themselves at one of several places: the Fort in the Woods; the Castle in the Caves; the Ship on the Island. On the way there or once they've arrived, they find themselves a bit changed. Perhaps a bit grey or scaly and possessed of eyes larger than normal and teeth which are certainly sharper than they used to be. The change isn't dramatic, just enough that they might appear like-themselves-but-not-themselves should an adult compare their photos to a registry of missing children.

GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE
These lost children have the same stats as goblins, though they have greater variety and many of them are missing a shoe or a pair of pants or are wearing a magical scarf and use kludged weapons and wooden swords to attack (doing damage as normal).

More on variations, each of the places the children live, and on Wendy, Peter and terrible elves in another post (or two).

attributions: Nintendo, Berserk

Nimrod in the Universal Encyclopedia (D&D/Planescape)

NIMROD
An ancient dwarf whose toenails and beard have reached prodigious length, he wears purple robes of Bebelith Silk and gold torcs and his crown the metals of which have fused to his flesh after eons of slow nuclear leak, he is Nimrod.

He guards the entrance and exit to the Universal Encyclopedia.

He can remember very little and nothing about himself and spends most of his time shuffling around or sleeping in a chair. 

Nothing pleases him more than visitors.

Nothing angers him more than thieves, which, for his purposes means anyone trying to take something out of the Encyclopedia without permission.

He assumes anyone sneaking around is a thief.

His memory is held in a certain prison on the Happy Hunting Grounds.

He is, in fact, a muscle lich and is still quite muscular. His phylactery is what was once his favorite book (a book on flowers, long ruined by all the flowers and plants pressed into it). He will be overjoyed and weep if the book is given to him, but he isn't sure why. He hasn't bothered to memorize spells in ages and the spells he once memorized have been horribly jumbled such that he can neither really cast nor memorize spells (can't free up slots).

Nimrod

medium muscle lich, chaotic neutral

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AC 14 (Natural Armor)

HP 345 (30d8+210)

Spd 30'

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STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

22(+6) 18(+4) 25(+7) 10(+0) 12(+1) 20(+5)

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Skills Perception+10, Bows +8

Senses truesight 60’, pass per 20

Languages all

Res. spells effect with disadvantage

Immunities non-magical damage

Challenge CR 13 (10,000 XP)

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Legendary Resistances (d4/day). After failing a Saving Throw, may succeed instead.

Multiattack. May Punch/Headbutt twice (see Legendary Action)

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Punch/Headbutt. melee attack +10 to hit, reach 5’, one target hit  10 (d6+7) bludgeoning damage. Treat as magic weapon.

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Legendary Action
Can take 3 Legendary actions on any turn and always uses one of the random effects during his own:

1. Move
2. Punch/Headbutt
3. Grapple anyone he thinks is stealing a book or trying to sneak away
4. Investigate/look

The following effects occur (roll d8 each turn), assume it effects everything within a 60' radius of the Tender but for the Tender, unless otherwise noted. Spell-like effects that have a save use DC of 23:

1. I Forget. Everyone, including Nimrod stop what they were doing/loses a turn and can't remember the turn. Whatever happened at that point had still happened, just no one remembers it. Any spells being cast fizzle. Nimrod forgets why he was angry and looks around at all this mess, tutting.

2. Where Are My Glasses? One target has to spend his next/current turn moving at speed away from Nimrod, looking for its glasses (he doesn't wear any and is only supernaturally-sighted, having long since lost his natural vision. This is deeply confusing for him. If you give him glasses, though, treat subsequent rolls of this as a 1 until such time as Nimrod forgets about the glasses).

3. EONS of Papercuts. Tiny wounds appear on the body causing 27 (5d10) damage, making anything you do with your body done at a disadvantage and causing and dealing another 10 (d6+7) damage.

4. Hush. No speaking or communication of any kind this turn. This nullifies 6 and 8, but only for this turn.

5. SPELLLS. Casts Power Word Stun on one target (150 hp or less targets are stunned and must make a Con Save each turn or remain stunned), Teleport one target into a room at least 120' feet away, and Magic Missile (for 29 d4+1 darts)

6. Wait, What? Casts magic mouth-type effect on all within radius, including Nimrod. Now whenever someone speaks, it sounds as if a different affected person is speaking (who is speaking for who changes each time someone stops talking/someone else starts talking). This will confuse Nimrod for a turn, after which time it no longer cares and continues being angry. Lasts until Nimrod no longer angry.

7. Hide and Seek. Casts a variant of Magic Jar such that one target's soul is dispossessed of their corporeal tether for d4 turns (after which time they can return to their body). They can "possess" another item and move it about and try to possess another sentient creature (which kicks out their soul) (all Cha saves to resist posession). 

8. Wait, WHATTTT? The associative links between intent and physical action on the one hand and speaking and narration/description on the other are crossed:

            i. if a character tries to do something, they only say what they are trying to do (this includes saying, "I am going to try and sneak past Nimrod" out loud instead of actually sneaking). this doesn't count as an action.

            ii. if a character tries to say something that they could attempt to do, they instead attempt to do that thing. If they try to say, "I think we should sneak around Nimrod next time" they instead just think about sneaking around the Tender. If they try to say, "let's not attack Nimrod any more" then they get "stuck" and can do nothing else that turn because their action-grammar is funky (they can't think-act for other people. If they had instead tried to say, "I don't attack Nimrod" then they'd be fine.). To speak x you have to say that you are trying to say x.
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Lair
Nimrod lives in the only regular entrance into or out of the Universal Encyclopedia. He sleeps in long chairs or in his old chariot or on or under old wooden desks amid seemingly endless stacks of books, scrolls, papyri, skins, wax boards, slates, and every other writing surface ever used. He doesn't eat but can't remember why. Is shocked if you suggest he is a lich.

When reduced to half his health or less (the first time) Nimrod immediately stamps his feet in frustration and books and scrolls and tablets, etc fly from their cubbies and nooks and buffet the room (Nimrod is struck, but unaffected), dealing 7 (2d6) damage and knocking everyone prone (DC 23 Dex Save to avoid the knockdown).

Whenever reduced to 0 hp (but not killed because phylactery) Nimrod collapses, exhaling grandly. This breath blows like a gale and unsettles Dust of Tongues (see bottom of blog entry) in the area, filling the room with a cloud of Dust of Tongues (totally obscuring regular vision, requiring a DC 20 Wis Save or else fall victim to the Dust's deleterious effect.

attribution: Francois Fleming